John Berryman

“ The lift was as clean as I've ever managed. Anger, fear, any strong emotion, is a big help. They came up all together, staying in a stack, and I could perceive that they hung in the air behind me, a good foot clear of the bar, and about twenty feet from the door to the casino. In a smug show of control, I dealt the cartwheels off the top of the stack, one at a time, and fired them hard. Each one snapped away from the hovering stack, like a thrown discus. ”

“ With the cabin light on I went as far as possible in dismounting both our tanks. After a couple rehearsals to make sure that at least one of us would always have a glove on a handhold, we both climbed out the hatch and I made the switch. Just as Sid suspected, we spilled a few drops. They vaporized, and again as we had feared, combined in what would have been an explosion in a confined space. The soundless flash, dim but real, said we had released quite a little energy uniformly all around us. I never felt a thing except a faint warmth from infrared through my helmet. ”

“ I figure you could take one of our men from my laboratory, who knows how to test the gate, and a man who is handy enough with miniature components to cut out the one that failed and replace it, and teach him how to get around in a spacesuit. That would surer than hell be quicker than taking one of these hot-shot astronauts and teaching him solid-state physics. ”

“ I taunted him. "Proof positive that you're small potatoes in Stigma circles. Well, get set for a shock: I represent an organization of Psis—an organization devoted to protecting Stigma cases from Normal society, an organization devoted to establishing discipline among Psis so that our conflicts with Normals are kept to a reasonable minimum."
"And you call this a Lodge?" Mary Hall said. "What's its full name?"
"No other," I said. "It's ... well, it's a sort of benevolent and protective order. It's as secret as Psis can make anything—a select group." ”

“ Maragon was resting quietly, and didn't have a word to say as Pheola ran her hands carefully over his chest. It was the only time I could remember when the old goat hadn't had some sharp word for me.
Pheola opened her eyes and led us out into the corridor. "The smaller bump is gone," she said. "The other one feels very soft. It sort of sways every time his heart beats."
"Absolute quiet," was Doc Swartz's answer. "There's a chance that clot will dwindle, erode, and harden up. ”

“ Wally said. "She'll never forgive you for having precognition. That's why she made the study of psi her life-work. She's wanted PC for herself, and was sure she was pure enough of heart to deserve to have the power. Well, she doesn't have it, and she'll hate you for having what she thinks she deserves. Forget her."
Talk about your cup brimming over! Well, if I had to get used to being cut off from the human race, perhaps Shari was the place to start. That's what happens to superhumans! ”

“ The gamblers were urging the dice with the same old calls, and the stick-men were chanting: "Coming out!" "Five's the point!" "And seven! The dice pass!" and all the rest. The ivories had a way to go before they reached us. I gave Pheola a stack of ten-buck chips and let her bet, without making any effort to tip the dice. She still had it. She moved the chips back and forth from "Pass" to "Don't Pass" and won at every roll. I could see Fowler Smythe begin to scowl as she let her winnings ride, building up a real stack. ”

“ The man who stood there was faintly familiar—but it was the gun in his fist that got most of my attention.
"Maragon?" he asked softly.
I spread my feet a little. "I knew I was making enemies pretty fast," I said to him. "But I didn't know how strongly. Listen," I snapped, "I'll bet one thing never occurred to you."
He was taken back. You're not supposed to snarl at a guy who pokes a gun at you. In theory it gives him the edge of any conversation. "Huh?" he said.
"The only thing that lousy pop-gun of yours is good for is shooting people. ”

“ We were farther out in space so that the dark bulk of the satellite was silhouetted against the crescent light of Earth. I turned off the spot and switched on the floodlight.
"Here goes nothing, Sid," I said, and undid the dogs that held the canopy above our heads.
My earphone spoke to me: "This is Cleary. Do you read me, Mike?"
I fumbled around to find the right jack and plugged myself into the radio. "Yes, Paul. Loud and clear."
"Watch yourself. Think first. You've got all the time in the world."
"Sure."
"Sylvia would miss you," he added. ”

“ None."
"Would you consider a person fortunate to possess the power of precognition?" Wally asked her.
Shari's head came up. "If there were such a thing," she said, much more quietly. "Yes. I should imagine that precognition would be a powerful talent."
"If you have no emotional bias against psi as such," he went on smoothly, "you'd be happy for Tex if he were a PC."
Her eyebrows drew together. She looked at me, veiling her violet eyes as if to hide her thoughts from us. "I would consider Tex quite fortunate. But only if you could show that such a thing really existed," she said more loudly. ”

“ Maragon had made his point. I might have reached the thirty-third degree, but I wasn't quite as big a shot as I thought I was. I could feel that rattler on my arm all the way to Lake Tahoe.
Like any gambling house, the Sky Hi Club was a trap. Peno had tried to kid the public with a classy decor. It was a darned good copy of a nineteenth century ranch house. At the gambling tables everything was free—the liquor, the hors d'oeuvres, the entertainment. Everything, that is, but the gambling and the women. The casino was taking its cut. And the women—or should I be so sure? ”

“ The "apparatus" in any Psi lab is no more complicated than a folding screen, some playing cards, perhaps a deck of Rhine ESP cards and a slide rule. This place went so far as to sport a laboratory bench and a number of lab stools, on which Lindstrom, Mary Hall and I perched. My egghead Psi expert was barely able to restrain himself—he had some bitter things to tell me.
I beat him to it. "Take that injured glower off your puss," I snapped. "Your business is testing people for their Psi powers. Why shouldn't I call on you for help? What are friends for?" ”

“ I made a few other calls around the building to catch up on what had been going on while I was in Nevada. Our formal organization is lousy, because Maragon is a one-man show. You just have to rely on gossip, what the CV's pick up and what leaks by telepathy, to know all the internal politics of the Lodge. I wouldn't want you to think that Psi's are more devious or Machiavellian than normals, but sometimes they act it.
By the time I reached up to tap on Pheola's door, it opened in front of me, and a stylishly dressed young lady came out, smiling, with Pheola standing in the doorway behind her. ”

“ I reminded her. "TK is just a power, one more ability in life. It doesn't make you God. Once in a while it gives you a little more vigorish than the other guy has, that's all. And sometimes it's not enough."
"But you had enough vigorish to catch them," she pointed out.
"In a way," I said. "I told them TK wasn't enough—that it would take precognition. And I don't have PC. I had to bring a PC with me. You, Pheola. That's why I'm alive. Smythe would have killed me with that dart gun of his. You were my vigorish!" ”

“ He leaned back against his desk and started talking to me, like they say, straight from the shoulder:
"I'll give it to you straight, Mike. We've tried every legal way to wash you out of this mission. There isn't a one of us here at the Cape that wants any part of taking an armchair theorist and slapping him into space—into the kind of a mission you've cooked up. Somebody's going to get hurt out there, because you aren't fit for the job. Now, physically, yes, you have the capacity. But emotionally and environmentally, you simply don't add up. ”

“ But precognition is hard to prove, and if we are going to get you into the Lodge, I think we had better stick to Maragon's advice and work on your healing powers. It's Maragon you'll have to convince. He's the last word."
"I know," she said, wriggling her skinny knees against me. "And it scares me."
"Maybe it should," I said, trying to draw away a bit. "Your life won't be your own once your have been admitted to one of the degrees. But life in a Psi society has its compensations. ”

“ I said dismally. "I do have a little edge on the cards!"
"As a statistician, you'll make a great biochemist," Shari said, putting the deck away. "That would only be true if I hadn't let you see your hits and misses as each deal proceeded. You made succeeding guesses in the knowledge of what had already been dealt. Actually, your score was below average for trained observers without psi powers." ”

“ As an attorney, you're an officer of the Court, and I guess I have the right to make her your responsibility. I certainly don't want it getting out that I'm playing footsie with an organization of Psis—this is an elective office, after all."
"After all," I agreed. "But I am glad to hear you sounding like a politician again."
"We'll have to keep our dealings off the record," Passarelli insisted. "But if I thought I could call on you when we get one of these sticky Psi cases before the Courts...."
You'd recruit for the Lodge, I thought to myself. "You've got yourself a deal, Your Honor!" ”

“ When I won it, I pulled my chips off the table, which Sniffles didn't resist. She used the lull to grab a handful of sandwiches from another waiter's tray. A gambler at the far end of the table came out, calling loudly to the dice. The cubes made the length of the table, bounced off the rail and came to a stop dead center, between me and the three stick-men in the black aprons. That's the instant when every eye is on the dice, trying to read the spots. And that's when the dice jumped straight up off the baize, a good six-inch hop into the air, and came down Snake Eyes, the old signal. ”

“ There were so many forms of circuit-breakers and self-protectors in the machine that the whole gate had been switched off as long as the short was in existence. No wonder telemetry hadn't told us anything.
As I prepared to fix the trouble, I switched on my radio and had Sid connect me with the ground. "Canaveral Control," one of those emotionless voices said. He could afford to be. He was on the ground.
"Get me Cleary," I ordered.
"Cleary here, Mike. What have you found, boy?" He sure was anxious about that solenoid.
"Not much, Paul. Just that Fred Stone is a fathead, too. ”

“ I could feel Pheola stiffen. I guess no woman, no matter how plain, likes to be reminded of it.
"Same place you dig up those twitchy CV types you have spooking up your outer office," I snapped. "There's nothing the matter with Pheola that three square meals won't cure in a month!"
Maragon grunted. "And just what wonderful power do you have, young woman, that makes it worth while for the Lodge to fatten you up?" ”

“ I don't see how my assignment to turn Mary Hall over to your political opponents will stop me from representing her in a lawsuit, do you?"
He shook his head, straightening up. "I don't see how," he agreed. "I hope you do defend her, Maragon. The Courts have had to be pretty tough on these pathetic people. If they had reputable representatives, I for one would be a lot more ready to suspend sentences and find other ways to help them out of the jams their weird powers get them into." ”

“ He pointed a gnarled finger at Lefty. "Wally Bupp stacked a deck of cards on you tonight," he said gruffly. "What you don't know is that he stacked them with telekinesis. He's a TK."
"A snake!" I gasped.
"Watch your lip!" Maragon croaked. "Everybody in this room is a psi. 'Snake' is a dirty word around here, Mr. Robertson. Mr. Bupp has a special aversion to it."
"What's the purpose...?" I began hotly.
"Hah!" Maragon barked. "A good word!" He cackled a laugh at me. "Purpose. Exactly, Mr. Robertson. Well, the Lodge has a purpose, and you'll act a lot more sensibly if you know it." ”

“ Every time there's a run of luck on a crap table, somebody yells 'TK!' And I suppose there's a number of TK's who aren't in the Lodge, and who figure to make a killing here and a killing there by tipping the dice. But any decent TK, even a Fowler Smythe, can spot them.
"There was TK in this, but not tipping dice. Smythe is a skunk. He's no Twenty-fifth, or he wouldn't have any need to go crooked. He saw a chance to make a killing. He suggested it to Rose, who fell for it and went along. Rose decided to steal Simonetti's half of the business from his partner with Smythe's help. ”

“ One of the bonuses America got from its poor rocket booster performance, as compared with the Russians, was a forced-draft course in miniaturization. Our engineers have learned how to make almost anything about one-tenth the size you'd think it ought to be, and still work. To get all these tiny parts into a total system, they are assembled in racks. In the Telstar each of these long skinny sticks of perforated magnesium alloy is hinged to the main framework so that it can be swung out for testing or for replacement of parts, which is why the engineers call each component a "gate." ”

“ The dizzy blur of red and green running lights from air-borne traffic at levels above and below us, the shapes of 'copters silhouetted beneath us against the lambent glow of the city's well-lit streets, all wove into a numbing pattern. ”

“ We had a plastic model of a heart there, about four times life size, that was built in demountable layers for lecture and demonstration purposes. By the end of the second week, Pheola was able to work her sense of perception around inside my heart, based on what she had learned from the model, in surprisingly good shape.
"I guess you are in good health, Lefty," she told me late one night in her apartment. "Your valves feel just like the model, and your arteries are clear and good. I'm so glad for you."
"Clean living," I assured her. ”

“ On the draw I got one card that claimed to be the fourteen of eagles and one on which there was a message reading: "These hallucinations are sent to you with the courtesy of the Manhattan Chapter of the Lodge. Are you finding it practical?"
I threw the hand in and stood up, shaking. "Since when don't you bet a full house?" my kibitzer demanded, after the hand was won. He picked up what I had thrown in. The fourteen of eagles turned out to be a nine, and the card with the hallucination message the other ace.
"Got to confuse the other bettors," I said. "One of the fundamentals of poker." ”

“ The tray lurched in the waiter's hand, throwing glasses to the floor. Most of them shattered when they struck the real wood planks, splashing whisky and mix on our legs.
I looked across the table and grinned at Fowler Smythe. His scowl had an awful lot of forehead to work on. "What the devil!" I could read his lips say over the racket. But Barney, the stick-man who'd felt my Blackout, caught on a lot quicker.
I was about to freeze him with a clamp on his thyroid. It's just as effective as wrapping your fingers around the throat. But Pheola upset the apple cart. ”

“ In the meantime I got a daily phone call from Paul Cleary. That I could have snarled off, but Sylvia always came on the line first, and there was a minute or so of chit-chat before she cut her boss in on the line. I'm sure she listened to all the calls. But her first words were deadly. For example:
"Mike! Hi, Mike. Mr. Cleary wants to see how you're doing."
"Good. Put him on."
"In a minute. I think it's so wonderful you passed the final physical, Mike. You're really so deceptive. I never had imagined you had such a steely physique."
"Clean living," I said. "No girls." ”

“ And whether you like it or not, Tex, you've got some psi powers. Normals resent, fear and hate us. We can't afford to have you make a killing at a poker table and then get exposed as a 'snake.' We psis are a tiny minority. We all get blamed for things any one of us does. ”

“ I grinned at him. "Know any attorneys with the Stigma?" I demanded. "I know darned well you don't. The Bar Association screens every would-be lawyer from the moment he enters law school. No, sir. The Lodge had no choice. They picked on me as an attorney sympathetic with Stigma Troubles, and trustworthy."
"You make it sound good," Keys admitted. "But then I know you are a liar." He looked over at Mary Hall. "Although you can prove different if you're able."
I raised an eyebrow at him.
"Tell me how you knew Mary hadn't used sleight of hand in Lindstrom's laboratory," he demanded. ”

“ She was one of those twitchy hyper-thyroid clairvoyants that he likes to test.
"Don't tell me," the receptionist twitched proudly as we came in. "I know!" She got up from behind her desk and led us to the Grand Master's private office.
I intended to make her guess whom I had with me, but that didn't bother her. "Dr. Walter Bupp and Pheola Rountree," she announced smugly. Clairvoyants live in a condition of perpetual thrill with their powers.
Maragon's penthouse office has glass walls on two sides. ”

“ She wasn't tipping dice, exactly, but she sure was calling the turn. She was tall, as well as skinny, and our eyes weren't far apart. "Billy Joe," she whispered above the racket of the gambler in the casino, putting her mouth close to my ear. "I told you, sugar. And now you lost. You lost!" Her perfume was cheap, but generous, and pretty well covered up her need for a bath.
"There's some left," I told her. "Show me how." She hugged my arm to her skinniness. That's all any of the hustlers ever want—to get their hands on your chips. They figure some of them will stick to their fingers. ”

“ While the crash trucks were still kicking up a dust trail tearing out to get us, there were guys on the radio with those cool voices, and Sid was tiredly saying "Roger," to all their questions. And we didn't do any moving about. You'd be surprised how weighing four hundred pounds makes you willing to wait for the crane to lift you from your seat. All at once I almost wanted to be back in space again, where I didn't weigh anything at all. Almost.
They flew us back to Canaveral for the de-briefing, both asleep. The whole mob was there to greet us, Paul Cleary, Fred Stone, and even Sylvia. ”

“ And truth is a defense against a claim of libel. But to get back to purpose. Our second purpose tonight is to get it through your thick head, Mr. Robertson, that the Lodge insists on its right to control your actions insofar as they involve the use of your psi powers. We mean business, Mr. Robertson, and before you are through with our heartless Mr. Bupp tonight, you'll know it. ”

“ I waved a hand at him and walked over to sit on one of the lab stools. He went to the sorter and pulled cards from the bins, joggling them up into one solid stack that he put back in the hopper. But he did not press the "start" button.
"You know, Maragon," I told him. "This girl is hot, and then she's cold. But there is so much accuracy when she's right that I think there's some future to training her. What I want out of you is a measurement of how great her accuracy is."
Norty snorted. "When Maragon doesn't believe it?" he said. "No thanks." ”

“ Fowler Smythe squeezed his trigger and the tiny dart leaped unseen across the crap layout. My lift had been way off—it should have thrown the stick toward the ceiling, where no one would have been hurt. Instead it merely twitched the crap-stick, and the dart struck Pheola in the left hand. She screeched a little and grabbed at the needle-prick with her fingernails.
You never know how much power there is in Psi until you use it without restraint. I threw the crowd back away from us with a lift that nearly blacked me out, and had Pheola on the wet boards of the floor before she could blink. ”