Amos, you're coming too close; it's beginning to hurt.
I can't stop, Nelson. My plane's been hijacked.
You have to stop. You have to! It hurts, it hurts.
You're going to let her die, aren't you, Dale? She's going to die, just like Amos did.
No! I shouted, and even as I stood in the middle of it I felt the vision quiver. This wasn't the usual pattern... and with sudden clarity I saw that Nelson's death-wish within me had overreached itself. These were Nelson's memories, not mine, given to me in distorted form during our close approach five months ago. They had no basis of reality in my own mind to draw strength from. Illusions only... and with all the force I could gather I hit them with the strongest reality I had.
I AM DALE RAVENHALL! I screamed to Nelson's ghost.
I'd apparently been gone only a second or two, because the tableau was just as I'd left it. Running footsteps were audible outside, and Green half turned toward the door, his face contorted with indecision. His hand twitched-and I moved.
With my left hand I slapped Colleen's right elbow forward, knocking the knife point away from her body, and with my right I plucked the weapon from her loosened grip. Green looked back at the motion-and with a yelp ducked as I hurled the knife toward him with all my strength.
It bounced butt-end first off his shoulder, throwing him off-balance for a second. But it wasn't enough, and I wasn't more than a third of the way to him when his scrambling hand got to the switch. He froze for a single heartbeat, panic etched across his white face... and then he flipped it.
And nothing happened.
My charge ground to a halt as confusion slowed my muscles. The agony I'd expected-the red haze of pain as two minds crashed together-it simply wasn't there. I looked around, half afraid I was the only one unaffected, that I would see Colleen stretched on the floor in death; but she, too, merely looked bewildered. I turned back to Green, and as I did so the footsteps outside ceased and the door was unceremoniously slammed open. Two men charged in: Rob Peterson and a big blond man I'd never seen before... or rather, never seen except in photos.
"Are you two all right?" Gordy asked anxiously, looking back and forth between Colleen and me.
And finally I understood.
"It was plain dumb luck that we spotted you leaving that restaurant back in Moravia, or whatever that town was named," Gordy said, shaking his head. "We'd figured you to be a good five miles farther west, and when we cut through the edge of your shield I thought you'd passed us, heading for points unknown, and that we were going to have to start all over again. It's a good thing Rob recognized Green's car."
I nodded, feeling the tension drain slowly out through my arms as I held Colleen tightly to my side, and let my gaze wander. Green was sitting on the ground by Gordy's rented van; in the dim light streaming from the cabin's windows he looked like someone who'd just been condemned to purgatory. Rob, sitting cross-legged inside the van to take maximum advantage of the dome light, was doing a quick check of the wiring in Green's stolen telepath shield and fitting it with fresh batteries. And behind him, tied down securely in the van's cargo area, was the bulky shield Green had first demonstrated for me down in my basement. Chugging quietly beside it was the gasoline generator that supplied its power.
"Only two days," Colleen murmured. "It seemed much longer, somehow."
"To us, too," Gordy agreed. "If I never see another field of corn stubble I'll be perfectly happy."
I sighed. "Okay, I give up. You didn't just quarter the whole state until you found us, and I don't see anything that could possibly be a telepath shield locater in here. So how'd you do it?"
"With the best locaters you could possibly use for the job: two telepaths." Gordy glanced down at Green with what looked like rather cold satisfaction. "Green here made the mistake of telling Calvin that his gadget had a half-mile range, and once I got to Des Moines a little experimentation with the model he'd left behind showed us that the shield absorbs all telepathic signals trying to pass through it, whether or not the sender is actually within the field. By then Scott was in Chillicothe, so we had him stay put while Rob and I drove a hundred-mile-radius circle around him. We were just lucky that you'd gone to ground inside that range-we would have had to start all over again with a new circle otherwise." with what looked like rather cold satisfaction. "Green here made the mistake of telling Calvin that his gadget had a half-mile range, and once I got to Des Moines a little experimentation with the model he'd left behind showed us that the shield absorbs all telepathic signals trying to pass through it, whether or not the sender is actually within the field. By then Scott was in Chillicothe, so we had him stay put while Rob and I drove a hundred-mile-radius circle around him. We were just lucky that you'd gone to ground inside that range-we would have had to start all over again with a new circle otherwise."
Gingerly, I took it. "What now?"
Gordy answered immediately; clearly, he'd already thought this through. "Rob and I will take Green away in his car while you drive Colleen back to Chillicothe in the van-you'll have both shields that way. I'll call Scott as soon as I'm clear here, so he'll be out of the way by the time you get there. After you drop her off, you can bring the van and shields back to Des Moines. I guess Rob or somebody will have to go retrieve your car later."
"Where will you be?" I asked him.
He hesitated, glancing at Green. "I'll be in the Dubuque area for a couple of days, I think," he said softly.
"Even without access to Amos's devices Green knows too much about telepath shields. I don't think we should take the chance."
Beside me, I felt Colleen shiver. It had been done before, I knew; Nelson had used cult-style brainwashing techniques to condition the men who'd hijacked Amos's plane. With the insights and feedback telepathic contact permitted, the process wouldn't take Gordy more than three or four days.
Looking at Green's grim expression, I realized that he'd already figured out what we would have to do. I almost felt sorry for him, but decided to save my sympathy for Gordy instead. "I suppose you're right," I said. "Do whatever you have to."
The three of them left a few minutes later. Standing together by the van, Colleen and I watched their tail-lights disappear among the trees. The sound of crunching gravel had been swallowed up by the rustling of leaves before she spoke. "We realty don't have to leave here right away, you know," she pointed out. "Now that Green's gone, perhaps we could stay here for a few days."
"And try to repair the damage that's been done to my dreams?" I shook my head. "No. It's too late for that."
"I'm sorry." Her murmur was barely audible.
"Don't be," I said quickly. "It wasn't your fault. It's just that... we were like two cardboard cutouts in there. All of what makes you you was missing."
The words were hopelessly inadequate, and I knew it; but even as I groped for better ones I felt her nod.
"I know," she said, and there was no mistaking the note of relief in her voice. "Your telepath shield made us normal people for two days... but we can't be normal people; not really. Maybe with enough time and effort we could learn some of the techniques, but it wouldn't be the same. I think perhaps we've been spoiled by our ability, even while taking it for granted. Even if the machines could somehow be made foolproof..." She shook her head.
"I understand." I sighed. "I'm sorry, Colleen-sorry for everything. It seems sometimes like everything I've done the past five months has gone wrong."
"I understand." I sighed. "I'm sorry, Colleen-sorry for everything. It seems sometimes like everything I've done the past five months has gone wrong."
I snorted. "Even there I didn't have any choice. I couldn't let you die like that. It was how Amos died...
how Nelson killed him."