"Why?" he said, as evenly as possible.
"Because I don't like you."
"And why's that?" he said, not retreating either physically or psychologically.
"Because you're able to play The Game and I'm not," Patricia said. "And because you have a wife, a new one, and yet you're here, not there. I don't like your treatment of her."
"Being a telepath is quite a help," Pete said, "when it comes to making evaluations of other people's vices and weaknesses."
"It is."
"Can I help it," Pete said, "if I'm attracted to you and not to Carol?"
"You can't help what you feel, but you could avoid doing what you're doing; I'm perfectly aware of your reason for being here, Mr. Garden. But don't forget I'm married, too. And I take my marriage seriously, which you do not. But
of course you don't; you have a new wife every few weeks or so. Every time there's a severe set-back at The Game." Her disgust was manifest; her lips were tightly compressed and her black eyes flashed.
He wondered what she had been like before discovery of her Psionic talent had barred her from The Game.
"Much like I am now," Patricia said.
"I doubt that," he said. He thought about her daughter. I wonder if she'll be this way in time, he speculated. I suppose it depends on whether she has her mother's telepathic talent or not, and if so—
"Mary Anne doesn't have it," Patricia said. "None of the children do; we've looked into it already."
Then she won't wind up like you have, he thought.
"Perhaps not," Patricia said, soberly. All at once she said, "I won't let you stay here, Mr. Garden, but you can drive me into San Francisco if you wish. I have shopping to do there. And we can stop at a restaurant and have breakfast, if you care to."
He started to agree and then he remembered Joe Schilling. "I can't. Because of business."
"Strategy talks about The Game."
"Yes." Obviously, he couldn't deny it.
"You put that first, before anything else. Even with your so-called 'deep feelings' toward me."
"I asked Joe Schilling to come here. I have to be around to greet him." That seemed self-evident to him. Apparently it did not seem so to her, however, but there was nothing he could do about that. Her cynicism was too deeply embedded for him to affect it in any way.
"Don't judge me," Patricia McClain said. "You may be right, but—" She moved away from him, holding her hand up to her forehead, as if physically suffering. "I still can't stand it, Mr. Garden."
"Sorry," he said. "I'll leave, Pat."
"I tell you what," she said. "I'll meet you this afternoon at one-thirty, in downtown San Francisco. At Market and Third. We can have lunch together. Do you think you can slip away from your wife and your Game-playing friend for that?"
"Yes," he said.
"Then it's agreed," Patricia said. And she went on dust-mopping.
Pete said, "Tell me why you changed your mind about seeing me. What did you pick up in my mind? It must have been fairly important."
"I'd rather not say," Patricia answered.
"Please."
"The telepathic faculty has one basic drawback. You may not know this. It tends to pick up too much; it's too sensitive to marginal or merely latent thoughts in people, what the old psychologists called the 'unconscious mind.' There's a relationship between the telepathic faculty and paranoia; the latter is the involuntary reception of other people's suppressed hostile and aggressive thoughts."
"What did you read in my unconscious, Pat?"
"I—read a syndrome of potential action. If I were a pre-cog I could tell you more. You may do it; you may not. But—" She glanced up at him. "It's a violent act, and it has to do with death."
"Death," he echoed.
"Perhaps," Patricia said, "you'll attempt suicide. I don't know; it's inchoate, still. It has to do with death—and with Jerome Luckman."
"And it's so bad that it would make you reverse yourself in your decision not to have anything to do with me."
Patricia said, "It would be wrong of me, after picking up such a syndrome, to simply abandon you."
"Thanks," he said, tartly.
"I don't want it on my conscience. I'd hate to hear on Nats Katz' program tomorrow or the day after that you'd taken that overdose of Emphytal that you're obsessively preoccupied with." She smiled at him, but it was a colorless smile, devoid of joy.
"I'll see you at one-thirty," Pete said. "At Third and Market." Unless, he thought, the inchoate syndrome having to do with violence and death and Jerome Luckman becomes actual before then.
"It may," Patricia said somberly. "That's another quality of the unconscious, it stands outside of time. You can't tell,
in reading it, whether you're picking up something minutes away from actualization or days away or even years. It's all blurred together."
Wordlessly, Pete turned and strode out of the apartment, away from her.
The next he knew he was riding in his car, high over the desert.
He knew, instantly, that it was much later.
Snapping on the radio transmitter he said, "Give me a time signal."
The mechanical voice from the speaker said, "Six P.M. Mountain Standard Time, Mr. Garden."
Where am I? he asked himself. "Where is this?" he said to the car. "Nevada?" It looked like Nevada, barren and empty.
The car said, "Eastern Utah."
"When did I leave the Coast?"
"Two hours ago, Mr. Garden."
"What have I done during the last five hours?"
The car said, "At nine-thirty you drove from Marin County, California to Carmel, to the Game Room in the Carmel condominium apartment building."
"Whom did I seer
"I don't know."
"Continue," he said, breathing shallowly.
"You stayed there one hour. Then you came out and took off for Berkeley."
"Berkeley!" he said.
"You landed at the Claremont Hotel. You stayed there only a short time, only a few minutes. Then you took off for San Francisco. You landed at San Francisco State College and went into the administration building."
"You don't know what I did there, do you?"
"No, Mr. Garden. You were there an hour. Then you came out and took off once more. This time you landed at a parking lot in downtown San Francisco, at Fourth and Market; you parked me there and set out on foot"
"Going which way?"
"I didn't notice."
"Go ahead."
"You returned at two-fifteen, got back in, and directed me to fly in an East course. I have done so ever since."
"And we didn't land anywhere since San Francisco?"
"No, Mr. Garden. And by the way, I'm very short of fuel. We should come down at Salt Lake City, if possible."
"All right," he said. "Head that way."
"Thank you, Mr. Garden," the car said, and altered its course.
Pete sat for a time and then he switched on the transmitter and vidphoned his apartment in San Rafael.
On the small screen Carol Holt Garden's face appeared. "Oh hello," she said. "Where are you? Bill Calumine called; he's getting the group together early this evening to discuss strategy. He wants to be sure both you and I are there."
"Did Joe Schilling show up?"
"Yes. What do you mean? You came back to the apartment early this morning and sat out in your car talking to him; you talked out there so I wouldn't hear."