"Surprisingly little," said the Secretary with easy confidence. "I would like to ask what evidence exists for supporting the accusation?"
"Your Excellency," said Arvardan with snapping patience, "I have already told you that the man admitted it in every detail at the time of our imprisonment day before yesterday."
"Perhaps," said the Secretary, "you choose to credit that, Your Excellency, but it is simply an additional unsupported statement. Actually the only facts to which outsiders can bear witness to are that I was the one violently taken prisoner, not they; that it was my life that was in peril, not theirs. Now I would like my accuser to explain how he could find all this out in the nine weeks that he has been on the planet, when you, the Procurator, in years of service here, have found nothing to my disadvantage?"
"There is reason in what the Brother says," admitted Ennius heavily. "How do you know?"
Arvardan replied stiffly, "Prior to the accused's confession I was informed of the conspiracy by Dr. Shekt."
"Is that so, Dr. Shekt?" The Procurator's glance shifted to the physicist.
"That is so, Your Excellency."
"And how did you find out?"
Shekt said, "Dr. Arvardan was admirably thorough and accurate in his description of the use to which the Synapsifier was put and in his remarks concerning the dying statements of the bacteriologist, F. Smitko. This Smitko was a member of the conspiracy. His remarks were recorded and the recording is available."
"But, Dr. Shekt, the dying statements of a man known to be in delirium-if what Dr. Arvardan said is true-cannot be of very great weight. You have nothing else?"
Arvardan interrupted by striking his fist on the arm of his chair and roaring, "Is this a law court? Has someone been guilty of violating a traffic ordinance? We have no time to weigh evidence on an analytical balance or measure it with micrometers. I tell you we have till six in the morning, five and a half hours, in other words, to wipe out this enormous threat…You knew Dr. Shekt previous to this time, Your Excellency. Have you known him to be a liar?"
The Secretary interposed instantly, "No one accused Dr. Shekt of deliberately lying, Your Excellency. It is only that the good doctor is aging and has, of late, been greatly concerned over his approaching sixtieth birthday. I am afraid that a combination of age and fear have induced slight paranoiac tendencies, common enough here on Earth… Look at him! Does he seem to you quite normal?"
He did not, of course. He was drawn and tense, shattered by what had passed and what was to come.
Yet Shekt forced his voice into normal tones, even into calmness. He said, "I might say that for the last two months I have been under the continual watch of the Ancients; that my letters have been opened and my answers censored. But it is obvious that all such complaints would be attributed to the paranoia spoken of. However, I have here Joseph Schwartz, the man who volunteered as a subject for the Synapsifier one day when you were visiting me at the Institute."
"I remember." There was a feeble gratitude in Ennius's mind that the subject had, for the moment, veered. "Is that the man?"
"Yes."
"He looks none the worse for the experience."
"He is far the better. The exposure to the Synapsifier was uncommonly successful, since he had a photographic memory to begin with, a fact I did not know at the time. At any rate, he now has a mind which is sensitive to the thoughts of others."
Ennius leaned far forward in his chair and cried in a shocked amazement, "What? Are you telling me he reads minds?"
"That can be demonstrated, Your Excellency. But I think the Brother will confirm the statement." The Secretary darted a quick look of hatred at Schwartz, boiling in its intensity and lightninglike in its passage across his face. He said, with but the most imperceptible quiver in his voice, "It is quite true, Your Excellency. This man they have here has certain hypnotic faculties, though whether that is due to the Synapsifier or not I don't know. I might add that this man's subjection to the Synapsifier was not recorded, a matter which you'll agree is highly suspicious."
"It was not recorded," said Shekt quietly, "in accordance with my standing orders from the High Minister." But the Secretary merely shrugged his shoulders at that.
Ennius said peremptorily, "Let us get on with the matter and avoid this petty bickering…What about this Schwartz? What have his mind-reading powers, or hypnotic talents, or whatever they are, to do with the case?"
"Shekt intends to say," put in the Secretary, "that Schwartz can read my mind."
"Is that it? Well, and what is he thinking?" asked the Procurator, speaking to Schwartz for the first time.
"He's thinking," said Schwartz, "that we have no way of convincing you of the truth of our side of what you call the case."
"Quite true," scoffed the Secretary, "though that deduction scarcely calls for much mental power."
"And also," Schwartz went on, "that you are a poor fool, afraid to act, desiring only peace, hoping by your justice and impartiality to win over the men of Earth, and all the more a fool for so hoping."
The Secretary reddened. '.1 deny all that. It is an obvious attempt to prejudice you, Your Excellency."
But Ennius said, "I am not so easily prejudiced." And then, to Schwartz, " And what am 1 thinking?"
Schwartz replied, "That even if I could see clearly within a man's skull, I need not necessarily tell the truth about what I see."
The Procurator's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You are correct, quite correct. Do you maintain the truth of the claims put forward by Drs. Arvardan and Shekt?"
"Every word of it?"
"So! Yet unless a second such as you can be found, one who is not involved in the matter, your evidence would not be valid in law even if we could obtain general belief in you as a telepath."
"But it is not a question of the law," cried Arvardan, "but of the safety of the Galaxy.",
"Your Excellency"-the Secretary rose in his seat-"I have a request to make. I would like to have this Joseph Schwartz removed from the room."
"Why so?"
"This man, in addition to reading minds, has certain powers of mental force. I was captured by means of a paralysis induced by this Schwartz. It is my fear that he may attempt something of the sort now against me, or even against you, Your Excellency, that forces me to the request."
Arvardan rose to his feet, but the Secretary overshouted him to say, "No hearing can be fair if a man is present who might subtly influence the mind of the judge by means of admitted mental gifts."
Ennius made his decision quickly. An orderly entered, and Joseph Schwartz, offering no resistance, nor showing the slightest sign of perturbation on his moonlike face, was led away.
To Arvardan it was the final blow.
As for the Secretary, he rose now and for the moment stood there-a squat, grim figure in green; strong in his self-confidence.
He began, in serious, formal style, "Your Excellency, all of Dr. Arvardan's beliefs and statements rest upon the testimony of Dr. Shekt. In turn, Dr. Shekt's beliefs rest upon the dying delirium of one man. And all this, Your Excellency, all this, somehow never reached the surface until after Joseph Schwartz was submitted to the Synapsifier.
"Who, then, is Joseph Schwartz? Until Joseph Schwartz appeared on the scene, Dr. Shekt was a normal, untroubled man. You yourself, Your Excellency, spent an afternoon with him the day Schwartz was brought in for treatment. Was he abnormal then? Did he inform you of treason against the Empire? Of certain babblings on the part of a dying biochemist? Did he seem even troubled? Or suspicious? He says now that he was instructed by the High Minister to falsify the results of the Synapsifier tests, not to record the names of those treated. Did he tell you that then? Or only now, after that day on which Schwartz appeared?
"Again, who is Joseph Schwartz? He spoke no known language at the time he was brought in. So much we found out for ourselves later, when we first began to suspect the stability of Dr. Shekt's reason. He was brought in by a farmer who knew nothing of his identity, or, indeed, any facts about him at all. Nor have any since been discovered.