The faculty was feeble, in people like Paul. He could not read minds. He could not sort and integrate the confused tendrils of conscious and unconscious thought that broke like an endless stream from a human mind; he could not separate the reality of here-and-now thinking from the strands of fantasy and memory and supposition and frustration and desire and half-understanding and confusion that lay beneath the surface of those minds. He could detect falsehood and he could feel suspicion; he could sense love as he had never felt it before, and he could feel himself gripped in the helpless frustration of pity; he could savor excitement with a thousand tingling nerves, and he could sense the blackest depths of despair, but he could not sort them out into a coherent picture of the thoughts streaming from a human mind. It took a long hard training for a Psi-High mind to do that, and no shortcut had ever been found. Paul Faircloth could not do these things, and he knew he could not.
But Jean Sanders could. That was why she was waiting in the room with him when the alien struck.
She was walking across the room when it happened. She stopped suddenly, with a gasp. Even Paul caught the wave of fear and revulsion that swept from her mind. She stared for a moment, terrified, and then sank to the floor, gripping her head with her hands. Paul watched helplessly as she tried to fight back the powerful invasion, in spite of herself. “Please,” she gasped, white-faced. “Get me a pillow. Then- then listen—”
“Don’t fight him,” Paul whispered. “Let him in. Let him clear in. And then—jump on him. For all you’re worth, dig, dig deep.”
Her eyes became huge, like the eyes of an animal frightened beyond hope, cornered, attacked and helpless to fight back. Her neck strained back, and her teeth clenched. The blood drained from her face as she began moaning. “I can’t, Paul—” she cried. “I—I can’t get in—”
“You’ve got to—” Frantically, Paul tried to thrust out with his mind, tried to dig through the mind-staggering wall of power he felt in the room. The alien was close, very close, and. the presence of his mind was almost overwhelming. Paul tried to break through. . Suddenly, he felt a pang of white heat sear through his brain, driving him back, a sharp, savage stroke that doubled him up, clasping his hands helplessly to his ears. Suddenly it was gone, as swiftly as it had come. He stood panting for a moment. Then he managed to stumble over to Jean. She was not responding; he listened, heard the slow pounding of her heart. He shook her, gently; her eyes flickered open, her face filled with horror and loathing.
“Oh, Paul, I got—I got so little—”
“What did you get?”
“Nothing—a picture or two, nothing more. Oh, he was so strong, I couldn’t make a dent—”
“What pictures?”
She sat up, panting. “Nothing—definite. Ben Towne—yes, there was something about him—just the flash of a mental picture, no rationale connected with it. And some papers, some sort of file—” She clasped her hands to her head. “He- he stripped me clean! I can’t—”
“Jeannie! There must have been something eke.” She looked up at him, a strange light in her eyes. “I don’t understand it,” she whispered. “He seemed to be trying to tell me something. There was a picture of a farm—yes, a farm. And a dog—And blood on a pair of pants—”
Paul sat back, staring at her stupidly. All at once, something flashed in his mind, an idea so incredible that he hardly dared to think of it. An instant later he was on his feet, staring at the girl.
“He was trying to tell you this?”
“Yes. Something.”
“And no mistaking the picture?”
“Never. It was clear as crystal.”
He began throwing clothes into a bag as the girl sat there, watching him in growing alarm. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
“Paul—where—”
“It’s my show, now, Jeannie. You wait here, you’ll be all right. Rest, and say a prayer or two. Because I think I’ve got this alien pinned down for sure, this time.”
It was an incredibly dangerous move, but it was utterly necessary. Paul found a visiphone booth in the rear of a station with no people around, and quickly threw an adapter across the lens of the pickup and spun a roll of tape info it. The tape started when the party at the other end flipped on the switch, and the conversation was brief. Paul gave the address of a roof garden apartment in Central Washington, and then disconnected. After removing the film, he dialed a number he had given Roberts a few hours before. Ted Marino’s face appeared, and Paul heaved a sigh of relief. “Sorry, Ted, but I’m afraid you’re back in the game. How many men do you have?”
“Two.”
“Both Psi-High?”
“Certainly.”
Paul nodded. “All right, we’re beyond the law from now on. If you or the others want out, take off.”
Marino’s dark eyes sparked. “Roberts said this was the kill.”
“It’s not the kill you think. But it’s a kill, all right. Take the men to this address.” He gave the roof garden number. “Have a jet scooter there, and see that nobody spots it. Use Federal Security insignia. Sound off loud and clear if anything goes wrong. I’ll meet you there.”
He rang off, and soon was rising high above the city in his own jet scooter. In ten minutes he had reached the roof garden, and set the little ship gently down. He walked inside, and sat down in the darkness, and waited.
Moments later another jet scooter landed. Marino walked in with two men whom Paul remembered vaguely. He nodded to them, and they also sat down. Paul fingered the shocker in his pocket, his nerves screaming a thousand warnings in his ears.
The guard robot on the ground floor bleeped sharply. Paul reached for the lock release switch, and heard the elevator start to whine. He unlocked the door and left it ajar, then motioned to one of the men. “Cover the hallway, and back them up when they come. Don’t be worried about who it is.”
The man disappeared down the hall. Paul sat quietly; he heard the elevator open. There were footsteps, and tapping sounds. The footsteps stopped at the door.
“Come on in,” Paul called out. “Bob’ll be here in just a minute.”
The door swung open, and Secretary Benjamin Towne walked into the room, followed by two tight-faced men. One of the men had a hand in his jacket pocket. Towne blinked at Faircloth, and his grin began to fade into alarm. “Who in hell are you?”
“One of Roberts’ men.”
“Roberts said you had the alien here,” Towne snarled. His green eyes peered around the room.
Marino swung on the man to the right, bringing him down with one short blow. Paul slapped Towne’s cane to the floor, and pounced on the other guard like a cat. The secretary staggered against the door jamb, cursing a steady stream. Moments later the bodyguards were helpless, and Paul and Marino were dragging Towne out to the middle of the room. “The files,” Paul said sharply. “Where do you keep them?”
“What files?”
“The private files you’ve been keeping, Mr. Secretary. The blackmail files, the personal dossiers you’ve compiled or every registered Psi-High in existence. Your backstop, Mr Secretary—the files you planned to use to personally break every Psi-High on the wheel if for some reason you couldn’t beat them down legally. All right, I want those files. Now.”
Towne’s eyes were deadly; his breath came heavily. “You freaks will never get away with this.”
“The files, Mr. Secretary.”
Towne’s eyes went around the room fearfully. “The boys know where they are,” he said finally, his voice so low it was hardly audible.