Albert Teichner

“ Connor exploded. "It got rid of me awfully easily."
His wife tried to calm him. "Listen, dear, then decide."
"You're surviving as a pariah, Mr. Newman, aren't you? Your wife tells me you've even started to study robot controls, valuable knowledge for the future and personally satisfying now. Millions of people do survive as outsiders, as do the planetary colonists who only have limited access so far to social telepathy. The System has built into it defenses against Subscribers who lack confidence in it—if it didn't it would collapse. But people in the System are not forced to remain there. ”

“ Connor was dazed by it all. "What's going to be the upshot, I mean, how is it going to break down?"
Newbridge threw up his hands. "I don't know—it's probably a long way off anyway. I guess the most likely thing is that more and more errors will accumulate and plenty of people will be Suspended just because Central is developing irrational quirks. Maybe the critical social mass for change will exist only when more are outside the System than inside. I suspect when that happens we'll be able to return to direct telepathic contact. As things are, our projection attempts are always blocked." ”

“ All were Suspendeds.
At first Crane did not want to let the trio in but when he recognized Newbridge's nurse he unlocked the heavily-bolted door. He was a massively-built man with dark eyes set deeply beneath a jutting brow and the eyes did not blink as Miss Richards told him what had happened. "We'll miss him," he said, then turned abruptly on Connor. "Have you any skills?"
"Robotics," he answered.
The great head nodded as Connor told of his experience at work and on Max. "Good, we're going to need people like you for rebuilding." ”

“ For the past century and a half it had neatly routed telepathic transmissions with an efficiency that made ancient telephone exchanges look like Stone Age toys. A mind could instantly exchange information with any other Subscribing mind and still shut itself off through the Central machine if and when it needed privacy. Except, he shuddered once more, if Central put that Urgent rating on a call. Now only Rhoda could get a job to keep them from the inner slumlands.
He turned into his garden and watched Max, the robot, spading in the petunia bed. ”

“ But he just watched for the next hour as Max kept returning to the far end of the bed and working his way up to the window, nodding mindlessly with each neat twist of his spade attachment.
Rhoda came back downstairs and said, "It's six-thirty. The first time since the boys left that they didn't call us at six." He thought of Ted on Mars and Phil on Venus and sighed. "By now," she went on, "they know what's happened. Usually colonial children just refuse to have anything more to do with parents like us. And they're right—they have their own futures to consider." ”

“ The paraNormals will want to reduce our numbers if more breakdowns take place. I'll have to go into hiding soon."
"But why you of all people?" Connor protested.
"Because I and a few thousand others like me represent not only an alternative way of life—all Suspendeds do that—but we possess more intensive knowledge for rehabilitating society after Central's collapse. That collapse may come much sooner than we've been expecting. When it does we're going to have enormous hordes of paras milling around, helplessly waiting to learn how to think for themselves again. ”

“ Some jumping from buildings but most pouring toward the sea, a kind of oceanic urge to escape completely from themselves, to bury themselves in something infinitely bigger than their separate hollow beings. Before they were more like contented robots. Now they're more like suicidal lemmings because they can't exist without this common brain to which they've given so little and from which they've taken so much."
Connor squared his shoulders. "We'll have our work cut out for us. Dr. Newbridge saw it all coming, you did too." ”

“ The man behind the desk there was a Suspended, too, and showed himself to be sympathetically understanding as soon as he studied the application form. "ParaNormal until a few months ago," he nodded. "Tough change to make, I guess."
Connor managed a little grin. "Maybe I'll be grateful it happened some day."
"A curious thought, to say the least." He glanced down the application again. "Always some kind of work available although there do seem to be more Suspendeds all the time. Robot repair—that's good! Always a shortage there." ”

“ Just from studying Max he knew he could devise such workable communication systems. But all that was idle daydreaming—it wouldn't be in his lifetime.
The next morning Rhoda insisted they go back into the city to try once more to persuade Newbridge to leave. When they arrived at the Harker Building it seemed strangely quiet. The few people who were about kept avoiding each others' glances and they found themselves alone in the elevator to the 96th level. But Miss Richards, the doctor's nurse-secretary, was standing in the corridor as they got out. ”

“ Most people outside the System are there because they've been Suspended for supposed infractions, or they've been put out through guilt by association, or because they were born into a family already in that condition. ”

“ Rhoda, would you mind going home alone? I think I'll find a job right away."
"Mind?" she laughed. "It's wonderful news!"
After he left her he wandered around the city awhile. In his paraNormal days he had never noticed them but it certainly was true that there were a lot of Suspendeds about. He studied some of them as he went along, trying to fathom their likes and dislikes by the way they moved and their expressions. But, unlike the paraNormals, each was different and it was impossible to see deeply into them. ”

“ Connor leaned forward and set the cab for top speed as they rounded into the straight-away of another uptown street. Occasionally they caught glimpses of frightened faces, clumped in lobby entrances, and once two bodies came flying out of a window far ahead. "They're killing our people everywhere," moaned the nurse.
As they approached the crushed forms, Connor slowed down a little. "They're dressed too well—what's left of them. They're paraNormals!" ”

“ Now the central mind was showing signs of decay
... and men went mad.
Illustrated by BIRMINGHAM
The trouble began in a seemingly trivial way. Connor had wanted to speak to Rhoda, his wife, wished himself onto a trunk line and then waited. "Dallas Shipping here, Mars and points Jupiterward, at your service," said a business-is-business, unwifely voice in his mind. ”

“ Since you insist—I was thinking how lucky Sheila Williams always is. Ten years ago the government authorized twins for her while I haven't had a child in thirty years, and now our disaster forewarns her. She'll never get caught off guard on a paraNormal line. ”