Randall Garrett

“ He couldn't close it because Lasser's and Pederson's inert forms blocked the doorway, but at least it afforded protection against Houston's stun gun.
His thought came through to Houston: So the stupid Normals have a Controller working for them! Traitor!
You're the traitor, Houston thought coldly. You and your megalomaniac friends. It's madmen like you who have made telepaths hated and feared by the Normals.
And so they should hate and fear us, came the snarling mental answer. Within a few generations, we will have supplanted them. We will control Earth—not they. ”

“ Sonali had been there longer than the others—for three days, there had been no one but herself out there in the loneliness of space.
But now, even physical discomfort meant little; it was easy to forget the body when the mind was free.
"What of the others?" Dorrine asked. "Where are the ones who were sentenced before us?"
Houston thought of Robert Harris. What had happened to the young Englishman?
"Space is big," said Juan Pedro. "Perhaps they are too far away for our thoughts to reach them—or perhaps they are already dead."
"Let's not talk of death." Sonali Siddhartha's thought was soft. ”

“ A Controller's trial is a farce. Knock him out with a stun gun and then pump him full of comatol. How can he defend himself if he's unconscious all through the trial?
Houston knew what the average man's answer to that would be: "If a Controller were allowed to remain conscious, he'd take over the judge's mind and get himself freed." ”

“ Spread, as they were, all over the planet, it was rare that one Controller ever met another. The intelligent ones didn't use their power; they remained concealed, even from each other.
But someone, somewhere, was finding them and betraying them to the Psychodeviant Police.
As more and more data came in on the Lasser case, Houston began to get an idea. If there were a really clever, highly intelligent, megalomaniac Controller, wouldn't it be part of his psychological pattern to attempt to get rid of the majority of Controllers, those who simply wanted to lead normal lives? ”

“ Did you ever hear of Lasser & Sons?"
"Sure," said Houston. "They're in the import-export business, with a few fingers in shipping and air transport."
"That's them," said Reinhardt. "Someone in that company, presumably someone at the top, is a Controller. And he's a very subtle, very dangerous man. Unlike the others, there is nothing hasty or overt in his plans. But within a few years, if this goes on, he will have more power than the others ever dreamed of." ”

“ Houston wanted to know. "What happens in the long run?"
"In a way," said Reinhardt, "your friend Sager was right. The Controllers will eventually become the rulers of Earth. But not by force or trickery. We must just bide our time. More and more of us are being born all the time; the Normals are becoming fewer and fewer. Within a century, we will outnumber them—we will be the Normals, not they. ”

“ The little, personal things that made a human being a living personality were kept hidden behind heavy mental walls. The suppression worked subconsciously, even when they actually wanted to communicate with another Controller.
But out here, there was nothing to fear on that score. Why should they, who were already facing death, be afraid of anything now?
So they opened up—wide. And they knew each other as no group of human beings had ever known each other. Every human being has little faults and foibles that he may be ashamed of, that he wants to keep hidden from others. ”

“ As she left for the first-aid cabinet, Houston thought bleakly to himself: Harris was framed. Possibly others have been, too. But by whom? And why?
He could see why a Normal might do such a thing. But why would a Controller do it?
There was only one answer. Somewhere, there was a Controller, or a group of Controllers who were megalomaniacs par excellence. If that were so, he—or they—could make the late "Blackjack" Donnely look like a meek, harmless, little mouse. ”

“ The Normals had long since discovered that the only way to overcome a Controller was by force of numbers. A Controller could only hold one Normal mind at a time. That was why a mob could easily kill a single Controller; that was why the Psychodeviant Police had evolved the "net" system for arresting a telepath.
Harris, then, had been framed. Or could it be called a frame-up when Harris was really guilty of the actual crime? Because the crime he had really been accused of was not that of controlling Sir Lewis, but the crime of being a telepath. ”

“ Robert Harris was not the first Controller to be captured, nor, Houston knew, would he be the last. The first one had shown up more than sixteen years before, in Dallas, Texas, USA.
Houston grinned as he thought of it. Projective telepathy had only been a crackpot's idea back then. In spite of the work of many intelligent, sane men, who had shown that mental powers above and beyond the ordinary did exist, the average man simply laughed off such nonsense. ”

“ Donnely, rumors had spread all over the world. There were supposed to be men who could levitate—fly through the air at will. Others could walk through walls, and still others could make themselves invisible. The horrible monsters that were supposed to be walking the Earth were legion.
Actually, only one type of supernormal psychodeviant had been found—the telepath, the mindreader who could probe into the mental processes of others. Worse than that, the telepath could project his own thoughts into the mind of another, so that the victim supposed that the thoughts were his own. ”

“ When Dorrine had come back for her short stay, Houston had met with them and tried to get them to help him trace down the megalomaniac Controller who was doing so much damage, but they'd balked at the idea. Their job, they claimed, was to get enough members so that they could protect themselves from arrest by the Normals, and then just let things ride.
"After all," Dorrine had said, "things will work themselves out, darling; they always do."
"Not unless somebody helps them, they don't," Houston had snapped back. "Someone has to do something." ”

“ Houston sipped at his drink. No. An unknown, like the others. I wonder if he's even a telepath.
What? Her thought carried astonishment. Why, Dave—he'd have to be! How else could he have controlled this Sir Lewis—whatsisname—Huntley?
Well—I've got a funny idea, Houston replied. Look at it this way: So far as we know, there are two Groups of telepaths. There's our own Group. All we want is to be left alone. We don't read a Normal's mind unless we have to, and we don't try to control one unless our lives are threatened. We stay under cover, out of everyone's way.
Then there are the megalomaniacs. ”

“ Besides, his position made him an obvious suspect; naturally, the majority stockholder of the firm would profit most by the increased power of the company. And, equally obviously, a Controller wouldn't want to put himself in such an exposed position.
Which made Lasser, in Houston's mind, a hell of a good suspect. If anything happened, Lasser could cover by claiming that he, too, had been controlled, and the chances were that he could get away with it. A Controller never did anything directly; their dirty work was done by someone else—a puppet under their mental control. ”

“ A man in a spacesuit could easily be chained to one of them. With him was a small, sun-powered engine and tanks of liquified food concentrates and oxygen. Kept under the influence of hibernene, and kept cool by the chill of space, a man could spend the rest of his life there—unmoving, unknowing, uncaring, dead as far as he and the rest of Mankind were concerned—his slight bodily needs tended automatically by machine. ”

“ Soon it would be time to test that theory—but the time had not yet come.
"Stand by and wait for orders, Houston," said the speaker in Houston's ear. "We've got men inside the building."
Sir Lewis Huntley opened the sparkling, translucent door of Number 37 Upper Berkeley Mews and went inside.
Arthmore pulled the cab over to the curb a few yards from the entrance and the two men waited in silence. All around them were other men, some in private cars, some walking slowly along the street. All of them were part of the net that had gathered to catch one man. ”

“ In the middle of the seventh week, a Controller in Manchester, England, was mobbed and torn to bits by an irate crowd before the PD Police could get to him. There was no doubt in Houston's mind that this one was a real megalomaniac; he had taken over another man's brain and forced him to commit suicide. ”

“ David Houston wasn't watching the sunrise-in-reverse; he was sitting quietly in his seat, still trying to puzzle out his queer recall to New York. When Hamilton had told him about it over the phone, he'd assumed that New York, having been notified that Harris had been captured, had decided to send for Houston, now that his job was over. ”

“ Normally it was impossible for a Controller to take over the mind of another Controller, but these were abnormal circumstances; the half-conscious man, whoever he was, was weakened mentally by some kind of enforced unconsciousness—either a drug or a stun gun. Houston took over his mind smoothly and easily. ”

“ The resultant of the energy was shocking to Houston, but it was infinitely worse for Sager and Pederson, since neither of them had been expecting it. Pederson, who had already been slightly distracted, got the major brunt of the force. He managed to jerk his gun free, but his brain was already lapsing into unconsciousness.
Houston's fingers tightened on his own weapon. It fired once at Lasser, who was trying to lift himself from the floor. Then it swept up and coughed again, dropping Pederson. ”

“ Houston obediently reached up and scratched his left ear.
"Okay," said HQ. "Bogart's spotted you, but he hasn't spotted Sir Lewis. Bogart's across the street."
"He can't miss Sir Lewis," whispered Houston. "Conservatively dressed—matching coat and trousers of orange nylon tweed—royal blue half-brim bowler—carrying a blue brief case."
There was a pause, then: "Yeah. Bogart's spotted him, and so has MacGruder. Mac's on your side, a few yards ahead."
"Check. How about the rest of the net?"
"Coming, coming. Be patient, old man."
"I am patient," growled Houston. ”

“ Reinhardt said pedantically, "no Controller can do a perfect job of controlling a normal person. No matter how much he may want to make John Smith act naturally, some of the personality of the Controller will show up in the actions of John Smith. ”

“ They will themselves to die when the going gets too tough."
"Searching for recruits? Then the Group that Dorrine was working for was—"
Reinhardt shook his head. "No. They were going about it the wrong way, just as you thought. We picked up the whole lot of them last week; they're occupying the asteroids now."
"What do you do with the insane catatonics?"
"Put them under hibernene and keep them alive. We hope, someday, to figure out a method of restoring their sanity. Until then, let them sleep."
Houston narrowed his eyes. "How long have you known I was a Controller, Reinhardt?" ”

“ He pointed east, along 45th Street, toward Long Island. Far in the distance was a rapidly rising vapor trail, pointing vertically toward the sky, the unmistakable sign of a spaceship takeoff. They didn't leave often, and it was still an unusual sight.
Houston said nothing as he climbed out and paid the driver, tossing in an extra tip.
"Thanks, buddy," said the driver. "Watch out for them kids."
Houston didn't answer. He was still watching the vapor trail as the cab pulled away.
There goes Harris, he was thinking. An innocent man, guilty of nothing more than being born different. ”

“ But that wasn't Donnely's style.
"None of this namby-pamby stuff," he had once been quoted as saying; "if you got enemies, don't tease 'em—show 'em who's running things. Blackjack 'em, if you have to."
And that's exactly what "Blackjack" Donnely had done. The trial was a farce from beginning to end; each witness gave his evidence from the stand, and then Donnely took control of their minds and made them refute every bit of it, publicly and tearfully apologizing to the "wonderful Mr. Donnely" for saying such unkind things about him. ”

“ Houston allowed a feeling of startled surprise to bridge the gap between their minds. How'd you know that? He hadn't told her, and she couldn't have forced the knowledge from his mind. A telepath can open the mind of a Normal as simply as he might open the pages of a book, but the mind of another Controller is far stronger. One telepath couldn't force anything from the mind of another ”

“ I seemed like a Normal to you.
"I kept you on because I knew you'd be useful in cracking Lasser and his gang when the time came. No one else could have done what you did that night."
"Thanks," Houston said sincerely. "What's going to happen now? After I get well, I mean."
"You'll do what the others have done. A little plastic surgery to change your face a trifle, a little record-juggling to give you a new identity, and you'll be ready to go back to work for the PD Police.
"If anyone recognizes you, it's easy to take over their minds just long enough to make them forget. ”