“Which might be exactly right.”
“Rather withdrawn. Doesn't make friends easily. Rather a loner.”
Nadine said, excitedly. “Exactly right. Any early evidence of telepathic ability would frighten, upset, and antagonize people. A youngster lacking judgement would innocently expose the motives of others in his group and be beaten up for his pains. Naturally, he would withdraw into himself.”
Data was gathered for a long time, thereafter, and Basil said, finally. “Nothing! There's nothing known about him; no reports, not one, that indicates anything that can be twisted into a sign of telepathy. There's not even any comment to the effect that he's ‘peculiar.’ He's almost disregarded.”
“Absolutely right. The reaction of others forced him, early on, to hide all telepathic ability, and that same telepathic ability guided his behavior so as to avoid all unfavorable notice. It's remarkable how it fits.”
Basil stared at her with disfavor. “You can twist anything into supporting your romantic view of this. Look! He's fifteen and that's too old. Let's suppose he was born with a certain amount of telepathic ability and that he learned early not to display it. Surely the talent would have atrophied and be entirely gone by now. That has to be so for if he remained a full telepath, he couldn't possibly have avoided displaying it now and then, and that would have attracted attention.”
“No, Basil. At school, he's by himself and does as little work as possible-”
“He's not scapegoated, as he would be if he were a telepathic little wise-guy.”
“I told you! He knows when he would be and avoids it. Summers he works as a gardener's assistant and, again, doesn't encounter the public.”
“He encounters the gardener, and yet he keeps the job. It's his third summer there right now, and if he were a telepath, the gardener would get rid of him. No, it's close-but no cigar. It's too late. What we need is a new-born child with that same genetic pattern. Then we might have something-maybe.”
Nadine rumpled her fading blonde hair and looked exasperated. “You're deliberately trying to avoid tackling the problem by denying it exists. Why don't we interview the gardener? If you're willing to go to Iowa-I tell you what, I'll pay for the plane fare, and you won't have to charge it to the project, if that's what's bothering you.”
Basil held up his hand. “No, no, the project will bear it, but I tell you what. If we find no signs of telepathic ability, and we won't, you'll owe me one fancy dinner at a restaurant of my choice.”
“Done,” said Nadine, eagerly, “and you can even bring your wife.”
“You'll lose.”
“I don't care. Just so we don't abandon the matter too soon.”
The gardener was by no means enthusiastically cooperative. He viewed the two as government officials and did not approve of them for that reason. When they identified themselves as scientists, that was no better ground for approval. And when they asked after Roland, he neared the point of outright hostility.
“What do you want to know about Roland for? Done anything?”
“No, no,” said Nadine, as winningly as she might. “He might qualify for special schooling, that's all.”
“What kind of schooling? Gardening?”
“We're not sure.”
“Gardening's all he's good for, but he's good at that. Best I've ever had. He doesn't need no schooling in gardening.”
Nadine looked about appreciatively at the greenhouse and at the neat rows of plants outside as well. “He does all that?”
“Have to admit it,” said the gardener. “Never this good without him. But it's all he's good for.”
Basil said, “Why is that all he's good for, sir?”
“He's not very bright. But he's got this talent. He'll make anything grow.”
“Is he odd in any way?”
“What do you mean, odd?”
“Funny? Peculiar? Strange?”
“Being that good a gardener is strange, but I don't complain.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. What are you looking for, mister?”
Basil said, “I really don't know.”
That evening, Nadine said, “We've got to study the boy.”
“Why? What have you heard that gives you any hope?”
“Suppose you're right. Suppose it's all atrophied. Still, we might find a trace of the ability.”
“What would we do with a trace? Small effects would not be convincing. We have had a full century of experience with that, from Rhine onward.”
“Even if we don't get anything that would prove anything to the world, so what? What about ourselves? The important thing is that we'd satisfy ourselves that when Multivac says a particular genetic pattern has the potential for telepathy, it's right. And if it's right, that would mean your theoretical analysis-and my programming, too-was right. Don't you want to put your theories to the test and find confirmatory evidence? Or are you afraid you won't.”
“I'm not afraid of that. I am afraid of wasting time.”
“One test is all I ask. Look, we ought to see his parents anyway, for whatever they can tell us. After all, they knew him when he was a baby and had, in full, whatever telepathic powers he might have had to begin with-and then we'll get permission to have him match random numbers. If he fails that, we go no further. We waste no more time.”
Roland's parents were stolid and totally non-informative. They seemed as slow as Roland was reported to be, and as self-contained.
There had been nothing odd about their son as a baby, they said. They repeated that without guilty over-emphasis. Strong and healthy, they said, and a hard-working boy who earned good money over the summer and went to high-school the rest of the year. Never in any trouble with the law or in any other way.