Eventually, despite the noises, my own fatigue caught up with me, and as I drifted to sleep I wondered distantly if perhaps I might be getting a little too paranoid.
I was not, in fact, paranoid enough. By noon tomorrow it was far too late.
It was nine-thirty the next morning, and I was still trying to persuade Colleen of the necessity of running, when the knock came on the front door.
For a frozen moment we just stared at each other. The knock came again; rising from the kitchen table, I moved quietly to the door. "Who is it?" I called.
The voice that answered was urbane and calm and educated. And very sure of itself. "The fact that you have to ask that question, Mr. Ravenhall," he said, "tells me all I need to know. Please open the door."
I heard a footstep as Colleen came up behind me. "Dale?-what is it?"
"Trouble," I hissed back. For a moment I hesitated; but there really wasn't anything to be gained by keeping him out. Mind scrabbling hard to come up with a new story to spin, I undid the locks and opened the door.
There were two men standing there. One, obviously the man who'd spoken, was balding and late-middle-aged, heavily wrapped up in an expensive coat and an almost visible air of authority. The second, standing a pace behind him, was much younger, with a coolness to his eyes that made me shiver.
"I think you have me confused with someone else-" I began; but practically before I'd started into my spiel the middle-aged man pulled open the storm door and walked calmly in past me, the other right behind him. So much for that approach.
"Miss Isaac." The spokesman nodded to Colleen. "Please-both of you-sit down."
"Perhaps you'd like to state your business first," I said in my best imitation of hauteur.
Silently, I stepped to Colleen's side and sat us down on the couch. My first hope, that we were dealing with overeager reporters, was gone now without a trace. Our visitor chose a chair facing us and eased himself smoothly into it, his younger companion remaining standing behind him. "Now, then," he said briskly, looking back and forth between Colleen and me. "I expect it'll save time and histrionics all around if I begin by telling you what I know. First: I know that you, Miss Isaac, are pregnant; possibly by Mr.
Ravenhall here, though I'm not absolutely certain of that. Second: the child is itself telepathic-or perhaps potentially telepathic would be a better term; it certainly isn't doing any real mind-reading at this stage of its development. Third: the only way you and the fetus can stand being this close together is because you have a device plugged into the wall back there that somehow temporarily damps out your telepathic power, which is of course also the only reason Mr. Ravenhall can be here in this room with you. Now, does that pretty well cover it?"
I felt cold all over, the lie I was struggling to create dying still-born. Or most of it, anyway. "Pretty well," I said calmly. "Except that the machine's effects aren't temporary. They're permanent."
He smiled indulgently. "Really. And you'd like me to also believe that your powers of persuasion are such that you could simply talk a killer like John Talbot Myers into giving himself up."
I glanced at the man standing silently over him, the taste of defeat in my mouth. "So it was you I was following?" He nodded once, still silent, and I shifted my eyes back to the other. "How did you arrange for Myers to be there?"
He smiled again. "I'd like to claim credit for that, but in fact it was pure happenstance. Alex here-" he gestured minutely toward the man standing over him-" was really only trying to get you out of the way for awhile so that another of my people could examine the device he saw you bring inside after your long day at the hospital."
"I hope he got a good look before the phone call scared him away," I said coldly.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Your anger is understandable, Mr. Ravenhall, but totally unnecessary. He had explicit instructions not to tamper with the device. After all-" he shrugged-"I'd hardly go to all this trouble only to lose my child."
Beside me, Colleen stiffened. "What do you mean, your child?" I demanded.
"I mean," he said softly, "that when the baby is born I'll be taking charge of it."
"Like hell you will," I said, a flash of anger hazing my vision with red. "It's Colleen's baby, and whatever arrangements are made will be up to her."
"And her sponsors?" he asked pointedly.
I frowned. "What do her sponsors have to do with it?"
He looked at Colleen. "Your monthly stipend, Miss Isaac; the money without which you would have little or no way of surviving. It comes from the University of Regina, Regina General Hospital, and the Canadian Psychiatric Institute, correct?" or no way of surviving. It comes from the University of Regina, Regina General Hospital, and the Canadian Psychiatric Institute, correct?"
His eyes came back to me. "And your funding, Mr. Ravenhall, comes from the Draper Fund for Basic Medical Research and the Iowa State University of Science and Technology. Correct?"
"You're well informed," I told him. "What's the point?"
His face hardened, just a little. "The point is that all of that money-all of it-comes from me. Not from some kindly bureaucracy or generous charity or the U.S. and Canadian taxpayers: from me. And not just yours, but all of your fellow telepaths' as well."
"What are you saying, then?" Colleen asked quietly. "That you own us?"
For a long moment he gazed thoughtfully at her. "I wanted to own you," he said at last. "And if I'd succeeded it wouldn't have been because I had to fight off the competition. Even before all the initial hype and media attention had died down, all of the hard-headed realists of this world had already come to the conclusion that your talent was far too limited to be useful. You could really only transmit words, which cut out any possibility of sending technical data or drawings cross-country; you had to get within thirty feet of your target before you could do any direct spying; and with the liberals in the legal system screaming about the Fifth Amendment you were reasonably useless for solving crimes." He smiled at me.
"At least officially. I daresay John Talbot Myers is still trying to figure out what exactly happened to him."
He sobered again. "But the most telling point of all against you was that, at least at the beginning, you were literally internationally known figures. Even now, while that recognition has slipped enough for you, Mr. Ravenhall, to walk anonymously into a night club in Regina, all the truly important people in the world would recognize you in an instant."
And at last it hit me. "And that's why you want Colleen's baby, isn't it?" I said. "Because if you can keep his existence a secret..."
"He'll be the Unknown Telepath," he finished for me. "And brought up to be totally loyal to me."
Dimly, I was aware that Colleen was pressing close to me; but at that moment all I wanted to do was wrap my hands around that neck and squeeze the satisfied look off his face. Without even thinking about it I surged to my feet
"Sit down, Mr. Ravenhall," the man told me, his voice calm but abruptly icy cold. "I don't especially need you, you know."
I broke off in mid-stride, enough of my brain functioning again through my rage to see that his stooge Alex had his right hand inside his opened jacket. Just about where the business end of a shoulder holster would be....
And then Colleen's hand darted up to grip mine in an iron vise, and my last thought of resistance evaporated. For now, at least. Taking a deep breath, I sat down again. "You'll never get away with it, you know," I told him. "Colleen and I can't just disappear without someone noticing."
He shrugged, all affability again. "There's no reason why either of you should have to disappear. Miss Isaac can stay here, certainly until her condition begins to show, after which she can take a vacation for a few months and then return. You, of course, will have to eventually head back to Des Moines."