Charles L. Harness

“ John Follansbee—Pickerel's father, incidentally—established years ago that sleep was merely a symptom of boredom induced and accentuated by an excess of waste products, chiefly lactic acid, in the blood stream. If we remove our lactic-acid-laden blood and replace it with glycogen-charged blood, we kill fatigue, and there remains only the psychological inducements to sleep—boredom, habit, and the escape complex that plagues us all. A determined mind can overcome these phantom obstacles."
"I see. You have, then, once a day a free hour—when you are changing blood," insisted Blanchard. ”

“ Toring continued quietly. "Rachs believes that you are now in subconscious communication with your own mind at the moment of death—a unique interweaving of chronopathy and telekinesis. He thinks that you might, under proper stimulation, touch other minds in the future in the same way that you have touched your own."
Follansbee was not listening. "Even if it's true I'm going to die, I don't like to think about it. Disturbs my work."
"Are you still working on Maillon's carcinoma?"
"Yes. Blaine, my eldest son, and I are spending twenty-three hours a day on it." He shook his head sadly. ”

“ Follansbee," replied the preceptor evasively. "Your own remarkable premonitions are ample raw material for a Freudian musician. And Maillon is particularly acute at sensing your moods. As a Freudian associate, it is her duty to help you understand yourself."
"Don't preach to me of Freudian duties," rumbled Follansbee. "I laid the cornerstone to this Lodge before either of you children were born. My youngest son is a Freudian analyst—somewhere."
Toring paled, then laughed uneasily. "All right, I won't preach. ”

“ Follansbee?"
Toring's cheeks were gray marble, but his nostrils were painfully dilated over trembling lips. At this moment he felt he had lost forever his right to the society of decent human beings, and he swore silently that if he now failed to extract the secret of psychokinesis from his father he would kill himself painfully. If he were successful, he would die too, of course, but there would be no element of self-punishment involved, and that death need not be painful.
"You must do nothing," stammered the patron. "The Freudians are not policemen." ”

“ The Freudian sighed wearily. "Just an idea that didn't quite click. It doesn't matter, now. How about you? Do you really believe Blanchard will make the trustees appoint you the new director of Follansbee Institute?"
"Why do you think I married his daughter?"
"Of course." Toring fingered the tele-encephalograph tapes thoughtfully. "Tell me, Follansbee, have you seen Naida lately? Your wife's sister?"
The other laughed harshly. "That stupid little mutt! I scared the devil out of her two weeks ago. Haven't seen her since. She scares easy," he added with a reminiscent grin. ”

“ Softly, Blaine put the tube aside and stood up.
"One more, eh, Piggy?" he laughed. "You've got to be sure, this time. Do you know why you've got to be sure? Because there's a trick catch on the door. We're locked in, and I've got the key." He was ordinarily a poor liar, but he knew it would sound logical to his brother.
Piggy peered toward the desk and took a tentative step, needler pointing generally at Blaine, who immediately tiptoed around to the other side.
"Piggy, few people learn as much in the last minute of their lives as you're about to learn. You ought to feel grateful. ”

“ The conviction that you are indirectly responsible for two deaths in your immediate family should have left your mind as limp as a rag."
"You aren't far wrong, Rachs"—Toring leaned over the desk with almost impersonal curiosity—"has my biostat stopped?"
The jet eyes blinked, then narrowed sharply. For a long moment each man searched the soul of the other. Then Rachs rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked down.
"Your statement conceals tremendous implications, some of them rather paradoxical. Presumably you contemplate suicide to atone for the deaths of your father and brother. ”

“ From bugs, rose oil!"
"Exactly!" agreed Blanchard. "Blaine, you've just made a billionaire out of a poor little millionaire corporation. What they used to sell for thirty-five a quart is now worth thirty-five an ounce, wholesale. Why every woman in the country can buy a drop of this culture at the dime store within a few months and grow her own rose perfume."
"You're wrong there, Father," laughed Maillon. "If it's going to be that common, no self-respecting female will ever use it again. What do you think, Blaine?" ”

“ Rather idly, Blanchard blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling fluor. In moments of greatest stress he was always cool—and thinking.
"You are a celibate, of course, Toring. But you must have a family you'd like to benefit. Parents? The senior Torings? Brothers and sisters?"
"Theoretically, Mr. Blanchard, a Freudian has no family. I had a father and two brothers living when I entered the Lodges, but now I have no ties at all. My father knows only that his youngest son is a Freudian, somewhere. He couldn't possibly recognize me if he saw me. Anyway they are all independently wealthy. ”

“ Telekinesis applied to another mind is psychokinesis. You'll be able to cure a psychotic in an hour instead of the months and months of daily sittings now required. Boy, think! This will revolutionize Freudian technique. It will mean we can give a normal, healthy mental life to the millions we have to turn away every year."
The face in the screen suddenly relaxed and smiled—a benevolent Mephistopheles.
"How about it?"
Toring, his hands behind his gray robes, was pacing the room slowly. He stopped and looked with troubled eyes at the older man. ”

“ Toring's eyes were half shut in a profound reverie. "If I undertake this thing, it will be because I hope to develop something that will destroy it for all time.... Tell me, Rachs, have you tried the biostats on twins?"
"Twins?" Rachs looked surprised. "Well, yes. At birth their minds give the same encephalographic pattern. One biostat stays tuned to both minds, even though they diverge greatly as they mature." ”

“ With all that soul-searching and brain-scratching, your mind now ought to be sufficiently elastic and sensitive to attempt a general reorganization of a deranged cerebral cortex—psychokinesis—the goal you've been working toward. ”

“ I'm ready for psychokinesis."
Rachs couldn't conceal his disappointment. "Perhaps your mind is still too stiff—too clumsy. I thought that putting you through the emotional wringer of killing your father would give you the necessary mental elasticity. It may yet. Keep trying."
"I shall," replied Toring evenly.
A thrill of mingled delight and despair surged through Maillon as she examined the dark glasses and the patches of surgical tape that hid the man's face.
Blaine smiled grimly. "If you're thinking that blind men lead a life of leisure and can visit pretty ladies by the hour, you're wrong. ”

“ With immaterial differences, your mind is—my own. I reproduced on your cerebral cortex my every neuron, every synapse, every neural path. For the present, the mental entity that inhabits the skull of Naida Blanchard is actually myself, but it is superimposed upon the original child-mind.
"So there are now two minds attuned to my biostat. One mind dies, but the other lives and continues to activate the 'stat." He laughed sardonically. "Poor Rachs!" ”

“ The Freudian glanced absently at Blanchard. Considering the strange and terrible thing that would happen soon to Naida he should feel pity for the man. He felt nothing.
"Has the D.A. released Blaine Follansbee yet?" he asked.
"He's holding him for further evidence. There weren't any fingerprints on the gun, and he wants to make sure Blaine didn't use it against Piggy instead of vice versa. If we could prove that Piggy was a dangerous character, then Blaine would have a good case of self-defense. Blaine thinks Piggy killed his father, and tried to kill Maillon. ”

“ The specialized tele-encephalographic analyzers you'll need to focus on him have been shipped on the Trans-At jet, and they'll be in Washington port any minute. You inherited the Follansbee mind, and despite the limitations of your classical education, you would be best able to grasp and apply the telekinetic principles involved. But that's just the beginning. Extra-temporal communication—the ability to impinge a thought pattern on a mind over time—is merely a specialized form of psychokinesis. ”

“ From now on, we'll help big industry exclusively. The little firms just can't pay the percentages the big ones can. I know where the money is, and I'm going to get it."
"None of the preferred clients are going to give the new director a bonus, are they?" asked Blaine innocently.
Piggy was not embarrassed.
"I'm out for everything I can get. Father could have been one of the wealthiest men in the country if he had played this game sensibly. Instead, he turned his business over to a bunch of visionary trustees." ”

“ Maillon sat in her bed, hunched in thought. "I suppose an infra-red world is better than none."
"Ho! Don't underestimate me! I'm really reverting to something like the old orthicon. I won't limit myself to the hundred thousand Angstrom range of infra-red. I'll modify the caesium screen between the glass objective and the electron lenses, and I'll have a spectrum extending from the deep infra-red into the visible." ”

“ Blanchard strode nervously up and down behind his desk.
"Further discussion of this will get us nowhere," he said to his son-in-law. "You're out as director and Blaine is in. The trustees met again just fifteen minutes ago and it's all over now. I might add that you would never have been elected director in the first place, despite Maillon's insistence, if I had known that you planned on adopting such a mercenary policy. The gap between you and the man who cured my daughter is simply abysmal. ”

“ Oh, Piggy—or Pickerel, as his dead mother named him—keeps busy." Follansbee cleared his throat apologetically. "Of course his talents lie in a different direction. He handles some of the administrative details of the floor polish section, but he could never work up much interest in the technical phases of the work. Fine boy, even so," he added staunchly. "Very anxious about his wife, though I'm afraid they haven't got on very well since Maillon became a Freudian associate and started composing for the non-sleepers. In some ways, there's a big gap in their outlook on things." ”

“ With a heavy hand Toring pushed the tele-encephalograph tapes to one side and looked at the fat man behind the gun.
"It's all over. Why don't you shoot?"
"One of your nurses is in the hall. I'd prefer she didn't see me leave." Pickerel Follansbee's red eyes studied the preceptor curiously. "Did you think I could let you live after you gave me the fulminate?" ”

“ Dr. Follansbee suddenly felt weak. For a moment he grasped the stair railing, breathing heavily. But he must delay his sinister appointment no longer. He walked rapidly up the remaining stairs, down the hall, and opened the lab door. He flicked the fluors on, and then, as he was reaching for the u.v. switch for the microscope condenser, he heard the lower entrance door open again.
That must be Blaine. Yes, there were his steps on the stairs. He must warn Blaine to stay away tonight. Tonight, he must work alone. ”

“ Employed briefly during the pre-Toring era. When the death of a citizen of interest to the Lodges was predicted by his biostat (q.v.) , the Council arranged secretly for the demise to occur under the circumstances considered most beneficial to the world. After the personality factors of all principals concerned had been integrated and the death plan (or agathon) determined, it was carried out by the local preceptor. ”

“ He had been in the biostat rooms. He had even seen his own 'stat, scratching away slowly at the unknown days remaining to him. That scraping stylus had blended with a hundred thousand others into a sinister fate-whisper. It must be terrible to know when one was going to die.
Rachs' eyes disappeared abruptly and the scene shifted to a large transparent plastic cabinet containing a complex potpourri of small black spheres connected together intricately with insulated wiring. On the front of the cabinet was a kymograph. The stylus was dead, unmoving.
Toring read the legend:
No. ”

“ Her cheek bones and nose were sharply defined even under the soft radiance of her bed fluor.
Blaine grinned at her suddenly. "A pure multiple echo, really. Same type of harmony you find in a tone poem. I, the experienced solver of chess problems, look through the echoes and see the musician." He removed the needles from his arms and rang the bell for an attendant. ”

“ Right after Father's funeral we started repairing the lab, and I've set the staff back to work on that rose oil derivative."
"I'm glad, Blaine. You aren't happy unless you're working, and I want you to be happy. ”

“ As for the ink-well, that was simply a matter of separating, telekinetically, the faster water molecules from the slower and concentrating them at the surface of the ink until their vapor pressure per unit area reached about seven hundred and sixty millimeters of mercury. It might astonish you to learn that billions of molecules are controlled so easily. ”

“ Blanchard stared at him.
Toring smiled wryly. "This 'free' hour I devote to rush cases, such as your daughter's, and determine whether the patient should be given preferential treatment."
"Twenty-four hours a day, for ten years," murmured Blanchard.
A buzzer sounded on the desk. "Yes?" asked Toring.
"Budapest calling," intoned a woman's voice.
"All right. And, Registrar, can you give J.T. Blanchard's daughter Naida an appointment in four months? Indeed? Then you've got to postpone a start for somebody. No, keep that boy on the list—he's a chronic suicide. Mrs. K.? ”