Brain Twister

by Randall Garrett

hurt.

  "Not at all," Dr. O'Connor said, returning the smile with one of hisown special quick-frozen brand. "I realize how important FBI work isto all of us, Mr. Malone. What can I do to help you?"

  Malone shifted his feet. "I'm afraid I wasn't very specific on thephone last night," he said. "It wasn't anything I wanted to discussover a line that might have been tapped. You see, I'm on the telepathycase."

  Dr. O'Connor's eyes widened the merest trifle. "I see," he said."Well, I'll certainly do everything I can to help you."

  "Fine," Malone said. "Let's get right down to business, then. Thefirst thing I want to ask you about is this detector of yours. Iunderstand it's too big to carry around--but how about making asmaller model?"

  "Smaller?" Dr. O'Connor permitted himself a ghostly chuckle. "I'mafraid that isn't possible, Mr. Malone. I would be happy to let youhave a small model of the machine if we had one available--more thanhappy. I would like to see such a machine myself, as a matter of fact.Unfortunately, Mr. Malone--"

  "There just isn't one, right?" Malone said.

  "Correct," Dr. O'Connor said. "And there are a few other factors. Inthe first place, the person being analyzed has to be in a speciallyshielded room, such as is used in encephalographic analysis.Otherwise, the mental activity of the other persons around him wouldinterfere with the analysis." He frowned a little. "I could wish thatwe knew a bit more about psionic machines. The trouble with thepresent device, frankly, is that it is partly psionic and partlyelectronic, and we can't be entirely sure where one part leaves offand the other begins. Very trying. Very trying indeed."

  "I'll bet it is," Malone said sympathetically, wishing he understoodwhat Dr. O'Connor was talking about.

  The telepathy expert sighed. "However," he said, "we keep working atit." Then he looked at Malone expectantly.

  Malone shrugged. "Well, if I can't carry the thing around, I guessthat's that," he said. "But here's the next question: do you happen toknow the maximum range of a telepath? I mean: how far away can he getfrom another person and still read his mind?"

  Dr. O'Connor frowned again. "We don't have definite information onthat, I'm afraid," he said. "Poor little Charlie was rather difficultto work with. He was mentally incapable of cooperating in any way, yousee."

  "Little Charlie?"

  "Charles O'Neill was the name of the telepath we worked with," Dr.O'Connor explained.

  "I remember," Malone said. The name had been on one of the tapes, buthe just hadn't associated "Charles O'Neill" with "Little Charlie." Hefelt as if he'd been caught with his homework undone. "How did youmanage to find him, anyway?" he said. Maybe, if he knew howWestinghouse had found their imbecile-telepath, he'd have some kind ofclue that would enable him to find one, too. Anyhow, it was worth atry.

  "It wasn't difficult in Charlie's case," Dr. O'Connor said. He smiled."The child babbled all the time, you see."

  "You mean he talked about being a telepath?"

  Dr. O'Connor shook his head impatiently. "No," he said. "Not at all. Imean that he babbled. Literally. Here: I've got a sample recording inmy files." He got up from his chair and went to the tall gray filingcabinet that hid in a far corner of the pine-paneled room. From adrawer he extracted a spool of common audio tape, and returned to hisdesk.

  "I'm sorry we didn't get full video on this," he said, "but we didn'tfeel it was necessary." He opened a panel in the upper surface of thedesk, and slipped the spool in. "If you like, there are other tapes--"

  "Maybe later," Malone said.

  Dr. O'Connor nodded and pressed the playback switch at the side of thegreat desk. For a second the room was silent.

  Then there was the hiss of empty tape, and a brisk masculine voicethat overrode it:

  "Westinghouse Laboratories," it said, "sixteen April nineteen-seventy.Dr. Walker speaking. The voice you are about to hear belongs toCharles O'Neill: chronological age fourteen years, three months;mental age, approximately five years. Further data on this case willbe found in the file _O'Neill_."

  There was a slight pause, filled with more tape hiss.

  Then the voice began.

  "... push the switch for record ... in the park last Wednesday ... andperhaps a different set of ... poor kid never makes any sense in ...trees and leaves all sunny with the ... electronic components of thereducing stage might be ... not as predictable when others are aroundbut ... to go with Sally some night in the...."

  It was a childish, alto voice, gabbling in a monotone. A phrase wouldbe spoken, the voice would hesitate for just an instant, and thenanother, totally disconnected phrase would come. The enunciation andpronunciation would vary from phrase to phrase, but the tone remainedessentially the same, drained of all emotional content.

  "... in receiving psychocerebral impulses there isn't any ...nonsense and nothing but nonsense all the ... tomorrow or maybeSaturday with the girl ... tube might be replaceable only if . . .something ought to be done for the . . . Saturday would be a good timefor ... work on the schematics tonight if...."

  There was a click as the tape was turned off, and Dr. O'Connor lookedup.

  "It doesn't make much sense," Malone said. "But the kid sure has ahell of a vocabulary for an imbecile."

  "Vocabulary?" Dr. O'Connor said softly.

  "That's right," Malone said. "Where'd an imbecile get words like'psychocerebral?' I don't think I know what that means, myself."

  "Ah," Dr. O'Connor said. "But that's not _his_ vocabulary, you see.What Charlie is doing is simply repeating the thoughts of those aroundhim. He jumps from mind to mind, simply repeating whatever hereceives." His face assumed the expression of a man remembering a badtaste in his mouth. "That's how we found him out, Mr. Malone," hesaid. "It's rather startling to look at a blithering idiot and havehim suddenly repeat the very thought that's in your mind."

  Malone nodded unhappily. It didn't seem as if O'Connor's informationwas going to be a lot of help as far as catching a telepath wasconcerned. An imbecile, apparently, would give himself away if he werea telepath. But nobody else seemed to be likely to do that. Andimbeciles didn't look like very good material for catching spies with.Then he brightened. "Doctor, is it possible that the spy we're lookingfor really isn't a spy?"

  "Eh?"

  "I mean, suppose he's an imbecile, too? I doubt whether an imbecilewould really be a spy, if you see what I mean."

  Dr. O'Connor appeared to consider the notion. After a little while hesaid: "It is, I suppose, possible. But the readings on the machinedon't give us the same timing as they did in Charlie's case--or eventhe same sort of timing."

  "I don't quite follow you," Malone said.

  Truthfully, he felt about three miles behind. But perhaps everythingwould clear up soon. He hoped so. On top of everything else, his feetwere now hurting a lot more.

  "Perhaps if I describe one of the tests we ran," Dr. O'Connor said,"things will be somewhat clearer." He leaned back in his chair. Maloneshifted his feet again and transferred his hat from his right to hisleft hand.

  "We put one of our test subjects in the insulated room," Dr. O'Connorsaid, "and connected him to the detector. He was to read from a book--a book that was not too common. This was, of course, to obviate thechance that some other person nearby might be reading it, or mighthave read it in the past. We picked _The Blood is the Death_ byHieronymus Melanchthon, which, as you may know, is a very rare bookindeed."

  "Sure," Malone said. He had never heard of the book, but he was, afterall, willing to take Dr. O'Connor's word for it.

  The telepathy expert went on: "Our test subject read it carefully,scanning rather than skimming. Cameras recorded the movements of hiseyes in order for us to tell just what he was reading at any givenmoment, in order to correlate what was going on in his mind with thereactions of the machine's indicators, if you follow me."

  Malone nodded helplessly.

  "At the same time," Dr. O'Connor continued blithely, "we had Charliein a nearby room, recording his babblings. Every so often, he wouldcome out with quotati
ons from _The Blood is the Death_, and thesequotations corresponded exactly with what our test subject was readingat the time, and also corresponded with the abnormal fluctuations ofthe detector."

  Dr. O'Connor paused. Something, Malone realized, was expected of