It was not easy. In fact, it was impossible. One of the Toppers found himself cornered by two stagehands and dashed triumphantly across that sacrosanct space, the area in a camera's field of vision. He raced behind Linda Beach, then smiling pleasantly and talking at the top of her voice to cover the noise behind her. The Topper snatched as he went by. Linda Beach staggered, and her necklace broke, and this particular juvenile delinquent plunged into the crowd by the doorway and wormed his way through to lose himself in the crush outside.
But now the cops from the squad-cars were at work.
The lobby began to be partially cleared. Fugitives from panic came down into the street where they were commanded to get moving and keep moving. They did.
And Soames arrived at the studio. He'd fought his way there with a sort of white-hot passion, because Gail was where this lunatic mob might trample her. He raged, and then he saw her standing with precarious composure out of the way of everything.
Fran dragged fiercely at his arm. His eyes burned. He thrust something upon Soames and frantically repeated the one word of his scanty English vocabulary which seemed to fit. The word was, "Try! Try! Try!" He reached around Soames' waist and linked a belt about him.
Soames had the abrupt conviction that he was going mad. He stood, himself, in the studio where the tumult was now almost ended. But he looked up at himself from the level of his own breast. Also he was down in the lobby of the Communications Building, mingling with the thinning mob there, allowing himself to be shepherded out into the street. There he was surrounded by people taller than himself. That part of his awareness reached the open air and moved swiftly westward. That part of him put his hand in his pocket—but Soames had nothing to do with the action—and felt things there. There was a chain with sharp-edged, faceted things on it. There was a belt with shaped metallic objects fastened to it....
"Try!" cried Fran desperately. "Try!"
And suddenly Soames realized. He heard the street-sounds through someone else's ears. He saw the street through someone else's eyes. Simultaneously he saw himself in the studio through someone else's eyes, Fran's. And this explained the behavior of the children with puppies and English lessons and items of information which all of them seemed to know when one knew. The children were not telepathic. They could not read each other's minds. But someone or all of the decorative squares and circles on their belts enabled them to share each other's sense-impressions. They were both broadcasters and receivers of sensory impressions. And therefore it was because Soames had Mal's belt about him that he could see what Fran saw, and hear what Fran heard, and also he saw and heard and felt what an oily-haired member of the Toppers saw and heard and felt with Hod's belt in his pocket beside Linda Beach's necklace, snatched from her neck even before the camera.
But there was no sign that the oily-haired person saw or heard or felt what Soames did. Perhaps because he was not wearing the belt, but only had it crumpled together in his pocket.
"Right!" said Soames harshly. "I'll get it back!"
He plunged toward the studio door. There had been Secret Service men assigned to guard the children. Soames caught one of them by the shoulder.
"The kids have been robbed," he snapped in the Secret Service man's ear. "Secret device! We've got to get it back! I can do it! Come along!"
The Secret Service man instantly followed him. And Soames tore through the scared people still aimlessly wandering about. He plunged down the stairs. A squad-car cop moved to check his rush, and the Secret Service man panted an identification and a need. The cop abandoned all other matters and followed, too.
Soames needed to close his eyes to see what the Topper saw. He blinked them shut while he ran three paces. The Topper walked, now. He'd been joined by two friends. Soames heard his voice, he even felt the motions of his lips and tongue in speech. He boasted that he'd snatched the beads off Linda Beach's neck, and got a fancy belt one of those funny-dressed kids was wearing.
Half a block. Two more of the Toppers joined the bragging snatcher. They also heard of his grand achievement. The Topper drew his loot partly from his pocket to prove his boast. They looked, and swaggered, and whooped to others of their fellowship.
Soames pelted around a corner, turning it without warning. The Secret Service man and the cop lost a dozen paces. Soames raced ahead. There was a cluster of late-teen-age boys on the sidewalk of Eighth Avenue. They wanted to see the loot.
Soames plunged into them. Without a word, he tackled and bore to the ground the one in whose pocket Hod's belt and Linda Beach's necklace still reposed.
Their reaction was instant. The Toppers were in a close group. Soames hit it and fell to the ground atop one of their number. The others instantly attacked him as if by reflex action. They stamped and kicked viciously.
But there was a cop and a Secret Service man on the way. They struck. The Toppers turned to fight and fled instead at the sight of two adults already administering punishment to those within reach and coming on to reach others.
The two officers pulled Soames to his feet. In seconds he'd been badly battered. He pulled Hod's belt out from the pocket of the snarling, now-pallid member of the Toppers, who was half-strangled and shaken. He got the necklace. Numbly, he felt again and found a stray stone or two.
"All right," he said thickly. "I got it. I'll get back to the kids with it."
The cop took the Topper. Soames and the Secret Service man got back to the studio. The show was still on. Soames exhaustedly handed Hod his belt, and stripped off the other belt that Fran had put on him. He gave it back to Fran. Fran's eyes still burned, but he regarded Soames with definite respect. Perhaps there was even liking. And Soames held up the recovered necklace for Linda Beach to see, though she was then still before the camera.
She was a seasoned performer. Without blinking an eye she changed what she was saying, called on Gail to have the children demonstrate the devices they'd brought from the wrecked ship, and came to Soames. She counted the stones swiftly, and asked questions.
He told her. It would come out, necessarily. The children had, built into their belts, devices which produced an effect on the order of telepathy. But it was not telepathy. Undoubtedly the devices could be turned on or off. Turned on, they linked together the senses of those who wore them, not the minds, but the senses. Each saw what the others saw, and heard what the others heard, and felt with the rest. But thoughts were not shared. Such a device would not be confusing if one were used to it, and two men working together could co-operate with a thousand times the effectiveness of men without them. Children playing together could have a degree of companionship otherwise impossible. And four children upon a desperate voyage, without adults to reassure them, would need this close linkage with their fellows. It would give them courage. They could be more resolute.
Linda Beach went back to camera-position and waited until the demonstration of the pocket metal-cutting device, by Fran, was ended. Then she signalled for her own camera and definitely put on the charm. She showed the necklace. She said it had been stolen. She said that the children were telepaths, and by the reading of the criminal's mind he had been tracked down through the crowded streets outside the studio, and her necklace recovered.
It is always better to say something that is not quite the truth but is perfectly understandable than something which is true but bewildering. This is a cardinal rule in television. Never bewilder your audience! So Linda Beach did not bewilder her audience by accurate statement. She told them something they would understand. It made the children convincingly more than merely ordinary children.