"What is it you want?"
"An electronic telepath," I told her. "And he apparently wants us to sit around and watch him make one."
"I wish it were that easy," Green said. "But it's not. I figure I'll need at least ten kernels to make it, and even then it'll only be a one-way mind reading device-I can't get the damn kernels to transmit anything to speak of."
In spite of the danger, I felt a wolfish smile crease my face. "Ten kernels, huh? And you've only got four left-you left three in the shield in my basement. So you're licked even before you start."
"No!" His exclamation was so unexpected I jumped, nearly swerving out of my lane. "I can figure it out-could have figured it out. But you weren't going to let me." He paused, and in the mirror I could see him fighting for self-control... and it was then that I suddenly realized he was as scared as I was. He'd clearly been spinning some high-flying hopes for this particular rainbow, and my adamant opposition had apparently goaded him into an act of desperation that he wasn't really ready for. Now, he was beginning to see just how deep the hole was he was digging himself into.
Colleen must have sensed that, too. "Ted, you don't have to do this," she said. "Let Dale take me back to my motel and then leave him with the shield, and it'll be over. There won't be any charges or other repercussions, I promise."
"What about my mind reader?"
Colleen hesitated. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid we can't permit Amos's invention to be used in that way."
"Then forget it."
"Green-" I began.
"Shut up," he said. "I have to think."
His ruminations took the better part of an hour, during which time he had me change roads twice. I kept my eye on him in the mirror, hoping he would fall asleep. But he remained almost preternarurally alert the whole time.
Finally, he seemed to come to a conclusion. "Ravenhall, 63 ought to be coming up pretty soon," he said.
"Take it norm."
"Where are you taking us?" Colleen asked.
"Back to Iowa. I know a little resort near Rathbun Lake where you can rent cabins. We can stay there for a while."
"Taking us across a state line is a federal offense," I pointed out to him.
I didn't bother to reply.
What with the circuitous route Green made me drive we didn't arrive at the resort until after eight in the morning. My secret hope, that the place might be closed until spring, was quickly dashed; either the warmest October in thirty years had induced them to stay open past their usual closing date or else they catered to the kind of hikers and fishermen who ignore the weather anyway. Green left us alone in the car while he went in the office to register. I tried to think of a plan-any plan-while he was gone. But it was no use. I'd been driving all night, much of it at the edge of nervous prostration, and my mind was simply too fatigued to function. Even as I drove up the gravel road to our cabin I felt my consciousness beginning to waver, and I just barely remember staggering through the front door with Colleen holding tightly onto my arm. Somehow, I assume, she got me to the bed.
I came up out of the darkness slowly and unwillingly, glad to escape the nightmares that had harassed my sleep out dimly aware that something worse was waiting for me in the real world. I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, and even before Colleen spoke it had all come back.
"How are you feeling?"
I turned my head. She was sitting in a chair next to the bed, light from the window behind her filtering through her hair in a half halo effect. "Groggy," I told her. "How long did I sleep?"
"Almost ten hours. I didn't see any point in waking you."
I looked at my watch. Six-oh-five. My stomach growled a reminder that I'd missed a couple of meals.
"Did you sleep at all? And where's Green?
"Yes, I took a couple of short naps. Your friend's out in the living room."
"He's no friend of mine." I turned my head the other way and realized for the first time that the cabin wasn't the simple one-room design I'd expected. Colleen and I were in a small bedroom that took up maybe a third of the cabin's total floor space. The door that sat between us and Green looked solid enough, but it opened inward and had no lock that I could see. I wondered how Green thought he could keep us in here.
"Don't try the door," Colleen said, as if she'd somehow penetrated the shield and had heard my unspoken question. "He has the switch on his telepath shield fastened to it with a piece of string. He sealed the window, too."
I hesitated halfway through the act of rolling out of bed, then continued the motion and got to my feet.
Walking around the end of the bed, I went to the window behind Colleen. He'd sealed it, all right; a dozen nails and screws had been driven through the wooden sash and into the frame.
Behind me Colleen's chair creaked, and a moment later her hand tentatively touched my arm. "Dale...
what does he want with us?"
There was no point studying the window any further; it was clear that without a screwdriver and claw hammer I would never get the thing open. Turning around, I faced Colleen, taking her hands in mine.
"You heard him-he wants a mechanical mind reader. I gather he thinks we can help him make one." hammer I would never get the thing open. Turning around, I faced Colleen, taking her hands in mine.
"You heard him-he wants a mechanical mind reader. I gather he thinks we can help him make one."
I shook my head. "I don't know." It was odd, a disconnected part of my brain thought, how small a part of its target a camera could really capture. I had hundreds of photos and videotapes of Colleen, but not a single one of them had done her justice. Even tired, hungry, and with a horrible death crouching like a leopard over her shoulder, there was a vivaciousness about her that the films had never really showed. I'd known her energetic joy of life through her thoughts, of course; but to see it reflected in her face was an entirely new and delightful experience. If we died now, I would have had at least that much.
If we died now. The thought short-circuited my rising romantic mood and brought me back to Earth.
There were a dozen questions that urgently needed answering. Giving Colleen's hands a squeeze, I let go and walked back around to the door. "Green?" I called through the panel. "You awake out there?"
"Come on out," was the immediate response. "The door's safe to use."
I opened it and stepped into the main part of the cabin, noting in passing that Green's booby-trap string was not tied to the doorknob but to another nail driven into the door at knee level. Green was sitting on a small couch across the room, a glowing lamp at his shoulder. On his lap, the switch close to hand, was the telepath shield.
"I thought you weren't ever going to wake up," Green commented. "There're some hamburgers in the sack on the table-you can heat them up in that one-quart oven over there. Cokes are in the fridge."
I was too hungry to bother with the oven. Colleen, with a lower tolerance for American fast food, took her burgers and headed for the cabin's tiny kitchen. Green waited until we were settled at the table before speaking again. "I've been making a list of the equipment I figure I'm going to need," he told us, holding up a piece of paper clearly torn from a second hamburger bag. "I figure that with a small x-ray machine I can figure out how everything is put together inside one of these kernels. If not, there are a couple of other things I can try. A good computer would be helpful in designing the mind reader's circuitry, and since I'll probably need one anyway to interpret the telepathic signals we might as well get that, too."