It was only the garden-variety espers who needed trips to the psiless worlds, Davison thought. Telekinetics and pyrotics, and others whose simple, unspecialized powers lulled them into false security.
A new thought was entering Davison’s mind as he crossed the field, with Janey’s distracting legs flashing at his side. A normal man needed some sort of sexual release; long-enforced continence required a special kind of mind, and most men simply folded from the sustained tension.
How about a normal esper? Could he keep his power bottled up like this for five years? He was feeling the strain already, and it was just a couple of days.
Just a couple of days, Davison thought. He’d been hiding his psi only that long. Then he stopped to think how many days there were in five years, and he began to perspire afresh.
Two more days in the field toughened him to the point where each picking-session was no longer a nightmare. His body was a healthy one, and his muscles adapted without too much protest to their new regime. He could hold his own in the field now, and he felt a gratifying broadening of muscle and increase of vigor, a development of mere physical power which somehow pleased him mightily.
“Look at him eat,” Ma Rinehart commented one night at supper. “He puts it away like it’s the last meal he’s ever going to see.”
Davison grinned and shovelled down another mouthful of food. It was true; he was eating as he had never eaten before. His entire life on Earth seemed peculiarly pale and cloistered, next to this ground-hugging job on Mondarran IV. He was rounding into fine shape, physically.
But what was happening to his mind was starting to worry him.
He had the tk well under control, he thought, despite the fairly constant temptation to use it. It hurt, but he went right on living without making use of his paranormal powers. But there was a drawback developing.
Early on the fifth morning of his stay on Mondarran IV, he came awake in an instant, sitting up in bed and staring around. His brain seemed to be on fire; he blinked, driving the spots away, and climbed out of bed.
He stood there uneasily for a moment or two, wondering what had happened to him, listening to the pounding of his heart. Then he reached out, found the trousers draped over a chair, and slipped into them. He walked to the window and looked out.
It was still long before dawn. The sun was not yet gleaming on the horizon, and, high above, the twin moons moved in stately procession through the sky. They cast a glittering, icy light on the fields. Outside, it was terribly quiet.
Davison knew what had happened. It was the reaction of his tortured, repressed mind, jolting him out of sleep to scream its protest at the treatment it was receiving. You couldn’t just stop teeking, just like that. You had to taper off. That was it, thought Davison. Taper off.
He made his way down the stairs, sucking in his breath in fear every time they creaked, and left the farmhouse by the side door. He trotted lightly over the ground to the small barn that stood at the edge of the field, brimming over with picked bean pods.
Quickly, in the pre-dawn silence, he hoisted himself up the ladder and into the bam. The warm, slightly musty odor of masses of pods drifted up at him. He dropped from the ladder, landed hip-deep in pods.
Then, cautiously, he brought his tk into use. A flood of relief came over him as he teeked. He reached out, lifted a solitary pod, flipped it a few feet in the air, and let it fall back. Then another; then, two at a time. It continued for almost fifteen minutes. He revelled in the use of his power, throwing the pods merrily about.
One thing alarmed him, though. He didn’t seem to have his old facility. There was a definite effort involved in the telekinesis now, and he sensed a faint fatigue after a few moments of activity. This had never happened to him before.
The ominous thought struck him: suppose abstinence hurt his ability? Suppose five solid years of abstinence—assuming he could hold out that long—were to rob him of his power forever?
It didn’t seem likely. After all, others had gone on these five-year exiles and returned with their powers unimpaired. They had abstained—or had they? Had they been forced into some expedient such as this, forced to rise in the small hours and go behind someone’s bam to teek or to set fires?
Davison had no answers. Grimly, he teeked a few more pods into the air, and then, feeling refreshed, he climbed back out the window and down the long ladder.
Buster Rinehart was standing on the ground, looking up curiously at him.
He caught his breath sharply and continued descending.
“Hey there,” Buster said. “What you doin’ in there, Ry? Why ain’t you asleep?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Davison said, determined to bluff it out. His hands were shaking. What if Buster had spied on him, watched him using his power? Would they take a small boy’s word on so serious a charge? Probably they would, on a psiless, witch-hysterical world like this. “What are you doing out of bed, Buster? Your mother would whale you if she knew you were up and around at this hour.”
“She don’t mind,” the boy said. He held out a bucket that slopped over with greasy-looking pale worms. “I was out gettin’ fishbait. It’s the only time you can dig it, in the middle of the night with the moons shining.” He grinned confidentially up at Davison. “Now what’s your story?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I just went for a walk,” Davison said nervously, hating the necessity of defending himself in front of this boy. “That’s all.”
“That’s what I thought. Having sleepin’ troubles, eh?” Buster asked. “I know what’s the matter with you, Ry. You’re out mooning after my sister. She’s got you so crazy for her you can’t sleep. Right?”
Davison nodded immediately. “But don’t tell her, will you?” He reached in a pocket and drew out a small coin, and slipped it into the boy’s palm. Instantly the stubby fingers closed around it, and the coin vanished. “I don’t want her to know anything about the way I feel till I’ve been here a while longer,” Davison said.
“I’ll keep shut,” said the boy. His eyes sparkled in the light of the twin moons. He grasped the can of worms more tightly. He was in possession of a precious secret now, and it excited him.
“What say we go back to bed?” Davison suggested.
“I need couple of more worms. You can go, if you want to.”
“See you in the morning,” Davison said. He turned and headed back to the farmhouse, grinning wryly. The net was getting tighter, he thought. He was at the point where he had to invent imaginary romances with long-legged farm-girls in order to save his skin.
It had worked, this once. But he couldn’t risk getting out there a second time. His private teeking in the barn would have to stop. He’d need to find an outlet somewhere else.
Puzzled, he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers down tight. A few minutes later, he drifted into a troubled sleep.
When morning finally came, Davison went downstairs and confronted old Rinehart.
“Morning, Ry. What’s on your mind, son?”
“Can you spare me for today, sir? I’d like to have some free time, if it’s all right with you.”
The farmer frowned and scratched the back of one ear. “Free time? At harvest? Is it really necessary, boy? We’d like to get everything picked before season’s out. It’s going to be planting-time again soon enough, you know.”