Chapter 2

Fred had his grin going. "Couldn't get the drift for a minute, Gyp," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. "Nice work! Now I know why I get such a kick out of working for you!" He whirled on Maude Tinker. "And you, you foolish old biddy! How far do you think you would get with an act like this against another telepath?"

She spat a curse at him in Romany. "So smart!" she sneered. "There isn't another telepath in the city of Washington!"

That was a laugh. For its own safety the F.B.I. has its own gang of tame TP's--they are all, of course, exceptionally short-range telepaths, and we practically keep them under lock and key to make sure some important thoughts don't leak in and out of their diseased minds.

"Send in Freeda Sayer," I said, leaning down to press the intercommute. Freeda is a thick-ankled, thick-headed telepath. But stupid or not, she is telepathic, and _is_ an acid test in these cases.

"Is this woman a telepath?" I asked Freeda, when she stumped in.

Freeda looked at Maude Tinker, her mouth hanging a little open. She snuffled and walked quite close to the gypsy woman. "Yeah," she said. "She knows I'm thinking her hem is torn." She turned her head with that low-thyroid slowness to me. "Is that all, Mr. Tinker?" she asked.

Fred answered. "Swell, Freeda. That's all."

Freeda wandered out.

Fred said: "O.K., Gyp. What'll I do with her?"

"Sit down, Mrs. ... it is Mrs., isn't it? ... Mrs. Tinker, won't you please?" I said in answer to his question. She took the chair Anita had been using when Tony was pretending to be me, and I sat down in my swivel across the desk from her.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Tinker," I said. "It's bad enough that you have deliberately stayed in the District after all telepaths were most stringently warned to register with us so that we could move them to less sensitive areas. But I take it quite hard that you have tried to embarrass me."

"That would take a little doing," she said. "You've got a heart like a piece of flint. Let me see your palm!" she demanded, reaching imperatively across my desk. Fred started to protest, but I passed my hand across to her, leaning forward so that she could reach it.

Maude Tinker smoothed out my palm, rubbing her thumb over it as if to clear away a veil of mystery, and bent close over it, her dark face intense. She traced a line or two with her fingernail, and dropped my hand to the walnut. "You have no mercy," she said. "You will use the excuse that I tried to hinder the work of your department as a reason to punish me severely--and your real reason is that you feel I might have damaged you personally."

Fred was moving around the desk. He spoke softly in my ear while I kept my eye on the gypsy. That was silly. He can't close his mind the way I can. She could read his thoughts just as well as if he were screaming them out loud.

"That's a charge she may repeat, Gyp," he said. "Nobody could blame you, if you disqualified yourself from this decision. I think we could get the newscasts to see it as impeccable public behavior. We'll paint you as the administrator so devoted to pure justice that even potential resentment will be a barrier to your personal decision. How's that sound to you, Gyp?"

"The day you have to start painting a picture for them, I've had it, Fred," I said. I felt sure Anita had overheard his soft words in my ear, but to be sure, I added, "I think it would be suicide to disqualify myself from this case. That's just the first step to disqualifying myself from the job. If there's any hint of telepathic heredity in my case, ducking this decision would be a public admission that I'm sensitive in that area. No. I'll handle it."

Anita nodded slowly to me. Well, she had called it. Maybe she _was_ right about Fred. "Tell you what," I said. "Several things about this case interest me. If we are to believe her, this woman has had absolutely no contact with any other telepath in Washington--she thought she was the only one who had escaped our dragnet. Why don't all of you shoo--I want to do a little survey in depth here--a little motivational work. I think I can get more frankness out of her if there are no witnesses. Beat it, kids."

Anita left with Fred. Maude Tinker and I were alone in my office. I looked at her with a smile.

* * * * *

"Hello, Joe," she said.

"Hello, Mother," I said. "You look just wonderful."

Mother smiled at me and reached across the desk again to take both my hands. "_Yosip_," she said in Romany. "What a wonderful long way you have come since you ran away. A lawyer, and now a big man, a _very_ big man, in Washington. I am a very proud gypsy."

What I might have said to her was interrupted by a racket outside my office. Voices were raised. I thought I heard what could only be Anita yelling. That's another thing that had never happened before.

Fred burst back into the office, with Anita right on his heels. His face was livid. Mother turned in her chair and looked coldly at him. A gypsy woman can give you the snootiest look in the world, right down her aquiline nose, when she feels like it. It stopped Fred Plaice in his tracks.

"Yes, Fred?" I said quietly.

"If you don't mind, Tinker," he said brusquely. "I'd like to be present for this interview."

"Tinker?"

"I'm sorry, Gyp," he said. "I'm ... I'm upset."

"I'll bet you are, you sneak," Anita said. "Chief," she told me. "He was fit to be tied when you chased us out. The first thing he wanted to know was whatever had made you decide to get Tony Carlucci in here to trick his gypsy snake. I was so mad that I flipped and told him it was _my_ idea."

"Is that why you're back?" I asked him.

"Get this calf-eyed girl Friday of yours off my back," he said stonily. "Our security certainly doesn't permit your confidential assistant to be in love with you. We're supposed to be checking each other constantly."

I hardly knew which of his two ideas to blast the hardest. I looked at Anita first. She simply raised her head and looked me straight in the eye. It could mean almost anything.

I tried Fred: "And you consider it's your job to check on me?"

"Of course. Goes without saying," he said. I shrugged. "At any rate," he added, calming down. "I'm staying. Nothing outside of a direct order, which I will protest to George Kelly, will get me to leave." The last thing I wanted was trouble with the Director.

"Stay, Fred," I said. "But we'll have some things to settle afterwards."

"Maybe," he smiled. "It will depend. Right now I'd like to get a load of this motivational research you've got cooked up."

"Don't bother," Mother said. "I've got more sense than to tie the rope around my own neck. I'm not saying a word." She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair with a granitic finality.

"So much the quicker," Fred said. "You can sentence her right now, Gyp!"

"Sure," I said. "Sure I can." I wish I could say that my mind raced to a quick decision. No--I _couldn't_ think. Or almost couldn't. One idea percolated through. Mother had made no "mistake" in calling Tony by my name. She had read Fred's mind in the 'copter on the way from the jail, and Anita's as she was ushered in. Her "mistake" could only mean one thing--_Fred Plaice was not sure she was my mother_.

This much thought took time. Fred knew I was stalling. "Come on," he snapped in a tone he had never dared to use to me before. "Let's have the sentence!"

He was right in one thing. He had me over a barrel. I squeezed my eyelids shut and did something I hadn't done since that day twenty years before when I had run away from home. I opened my mind to my mother.

* * * * *

Unless you have had the experience, you can't imagine what it is like to live with a telepath. It is disquieting in the extreme. One of the concomitants of consciousness is that it is _private_ consciousness. And when this isn't true, when someone, even a loved one, can creep into your mind and know what you think, your insides writhe. Caterpillars course around under your skin. And you resent. Sooner or later you will hate. I ran away from home because I couldn't stand Mother in my mind, and couldn't bear the thought of hating her.

But now I _had_ to know what I should do to her. I let her into my thoughts. _Give me some sign_, I thought, as I waved a hand at Fred for quiet. _Mother, tell me what to do!_

_Poor Joe_, she thought. _He loves me in spite of it all. He can't bear to do what he has to do. Joe!_ her mind shrieked at me. _You read my mind!_

I snapped upright in my chair and grabbed its arms until I could hear my knuckles crack. My mind snapped shut with an almost audible crack. _I was a damned snake!_

I could dimly hear Fred yammering at me. With a sick fear I slowly opened my mind again. His thoughts surged into it. Well, Anita had been right. And Anita!

_Yes_, Mother thought. _She does love you, Joe. A lovely girl. You lucky man._

Fred had me by the shoulder, yelling at me, shaking me, trying to get me to speak. He was almost slavering in his greed. I paid him no heed. _All right_, I thought. _What's to be done, Mother?_

_Throw the book at me_, Mother thought.

"Shut up, Fred. And sit down." He kept his tight grip on my shoulder. "Sit down!" I yelled at him. "Three strikes and out, Fred. This is the third order you've resisted today!"

"Now hear this," I said. "Under the powers vested in me ..." I sentenced Mother to indefinite detention in Oklahoma. I threatened her with worse--face it, the only worse thing was death--if she were found in a restricted area again.

"Take her out, Fred," I said. He hadn't counted on my being able to do it, and it left him without a plan. "Four times?" I asked him.

"No. No, Gyp. On my way," he said, taking Mother by the arm.

Anita started to follow him. I stopped her and waited until the door had closed behind Fred and Mother.

"You were right about Fred, Anita," I said. "Thank you for saving my life."

"Oh, Gyp," she said, tears trying to brim over her eyelids. "He's such a cutthroat!"

"Sure," I said. "But now we know it. Get me an appointment with George Kelly, will you, Anita?"

She compressed her lips. "That's more like it!" she said angrily. "Get Fred kicked clear out of the Bureau. George Kelly is a great Director, Gyp, and he'll do it if you insist."

"Maybe," I said. I stewed over what to tell the boss until Anita came back in.

"Mr. Kelly can see you now, Mr. Tinker," she said, all calmed down again.

I got up and came around the desk and took her by the elbow, standing at my door. "Just in case," I said, leaning down to kiss her lightly on the lips. "I love you, too."

"Too?" she said.

I froze. It was the kind of slip that sooner or later trips up every snake. My grin was a sick one. I walked out without another word.

* * * * *

The Director's office is on the fourth floor, I climbed the single flight, and his girl let me in. George affects long slim cigars. I say affects. He seldom lights them, but he waves them like batons, conducting some kind of a symphony of words and ideas all day.

"Welcome, stranger," he said, calling on the fiddles for a little pizzicato. "What's up, Gyp?"

I sat down across from him at his desk and tried to put a smile on my face. "I want to submit my resignation, George," I said. "Effective immediately."

"Not accepted," he said, without a second thought. Then his face grew solemn. "What's this about?" he demanded. "I can't lose _you_, Gyp. My right bower!"

"One favor," I said, not answering him. "Don't move Fred Plaice up to my old spot. Any of the other Section Chiefs, but not Fred."

"Well, well," George said, whipping up the brasses with his cigar. "This begins to sound like cause and effect." He hushed the whole orchestra to a whisper. "I thought Fred was your fair-haired boy, Gyp. You two get in a hassle?"

I shook my head. "Not directly, George," I told him. "I want you to know two things. They'll explain why I'm quitting. My mother is a telepath. We arrested her early this morning, here in the District. I just sentenced her to transportation and detention in Oklahoma."

"Good heavens," he gasped. "Your own mother! Gyp, no wonder you're upset. Didn't you know she was a snake?"

My smile was a little tired. "Of course I knew," I told him. "I ran away from home at thirteen to get away from having her inside my head all the time. That's how I learned to close my mind--closing her out as much as I could. The power got stronger as I grew older."

"It's embarrassing," George said, turning away from me to look out the window. "To have you, of all people, Gyp, with telepathic heredity. Still, if no one knows, and since you've never had the slightest manifestation of psi powers yourself, there may be some way we can preserve your usefulness."

"Today, within the last half hour, George, my latent telepathic ability became manifest. George, I'm a snake."

His face froze. Then the batonlike cigar stopped its movement. He was like a statue. The pose broke, and he pressed a button.

"Send Carol Lundgren in," he ordered. I knew Carol, another short-range telepath that George used as his private lie-detector.

Carol was at my elbow in a moment or so. George wasted no words. "Carol, is there a telepath in this room?" he asked.

Carol grinned. "Yep," he said to the enforced silence. "There is." George Kelly's face fell. "His name is Carol Lundgren," the kid went on. "Next question?"

George looked as though he could have brained him. "All right, you Philadelphia lawyer," he grumbled. "Besides yourself, Carol, is there a telepath in this room?"

"No, Mr. Kelly, there is not."

"Get out, and don't scare me like that again." George told him.

I didn't get it. I said so: "George, I don't get it. I read my mother's thoughts, and for that matter, Fred Plaice's thoughts, too. That's why I asked you not to give him my job. I swear to you I can read thoughts."

"So?"

"If I _know_ I'm a telepath, Carol should be able to read the thought that I know it," I protested.

"You're like me," George Kelly said. "You automatically close your mind in the presence of a telepath. It's pure reflex now. Carol couldn't read a thing because you clammed your thoughts the instant he walked in."

"That was _then_!" I yelled at him. "_Before_ my psi powers became manifest. You know that a telepath can't close his mind! Why couldn't Carol read my thoughts?"

_Well_, George thought, _he couldn't read mine either, could he?_

_No_, I thought. _He couldn't. He ... George!_ my mind shrieked at him.

Somebody kicked the props out from under my world. _George Kelly was a snake!_

_Don't be silly_, he thought. _I'm no more a snake than you are, Gyp._

_But you're a telepath!_

_So are you, Gyp_, he thought. _The only kind of telepath that really counts. You can read minds, but others can't read yours._

I fell back on words, closing my mind--it was rattling so I didn't want George to read my thoughts: "But a telepath _can't_ close his mind!" I protested.

"I hope the Russians are as sure of that as you are, Gyp," George grinned. "The only agents we have in Russia are closed-mind telepaths--telepaths who don't automatically give themselves away. Now _that_ kind of a telepath really _is_ a usable espionage agent or a safe link in a communications net."

"How long has this been going on?"

"About three years, Gyp. When we discovered that certain training could make some telepaths closed-mind operators, we got the President to promulgate the Executive Orders that Congress later made into law. We got all ordinary telepaths out of circulation and put to work those that we could train to closed-mind operation. Now you know why I won't take your resignation."

I sputtered. "George, how can I conscientiously crack down on these poor people, if I'm a TP myself?"

He grinned. "You won't. You'll still be doing just what you've always been doing, except now you'll _know_ that you're doing it. You'll be recruiting telepaths for us. Where do you think we train them?"

"Oklahoma? The Detention area?"

"Sure. Where else? Now relax. But for heaven's sake, don't ever leak this. We feel sure the Russians haven't discovered this business of closed-mind telepaths yet. Some day, I suppose, they will. It may take a long time. The self-realized closed-mind telepath like you, Gyp, is a rarity. Mostly we have to train people rigorously for it. It took your mother over two years to learn it."

"My mother!"

"Sure. Why did you think she was in Washington? She's part of the Sevastopol, Teheran and Cairo communications network."

"George," I insisted. "Something is shaky. If she's on the inside, how did she ever get picked up?"

He laughed. "Just part of her cover. Fred Plaice got too close. We know what he is, Gyp. But we didn't dare to have him guess what your mother was. She's on her way to a nice California vacation. New assignment after that. Maybe middle Europe. After all, she _is_ a gypsy. Ought to go well, say, in Bulgaria!"

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _Analog_ July 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.