"What do you think?" Sharp asked pathetically. "Can you help me?"
"I'll try," Humphrys answered, not able to look directly at him. "But it goes very deep."
"It's been a long time growing," Sharp admitted humbly. Standing by the chair, he seemed small and forlorn; not an important official but only one isolated, unprotected individual. "I'd sure appreciate your help. If this phobia keeps up, no telling where it'll end."
Humphrys asked suddenly, "Would you consider changing your mind and granting Giller's demands?"
"I can't," Sharp said. "It's bad policy. I'm opposed to special pleading, and that's what it is."
"Even if you come from the area? Even if the people are friends and former neighbors of yours?"
"It's my job," Sharp said. "I have to do it without regard for my feelings or anybody else's."
"You're not a bad fellow," Humphrys said involuntarily. "I'm sorry -" He broke off.
"Sorry what?" Sharp moved mechanically toward the exit door. "I've taken enough of your time. I realize how busy you analysts are. When shall I come back. Can I come back?"
"Tomorrow." Humphrys guided him outside and into the corridor. "About this same time, if it's convenient."
"Thanks a lot," Sharp said, with relief. "I really appreciate it."
As soon as he was alone in his office, Humphrys closed the door and strode back to his desk. Reaching down, he grabbed the telephone and unsteadily dialed.
"Give me somebody on your medical staff," he ordered curtly when he had been connected with the Special Talents Agency.
"This is Kirby," a professional-sounding voice came presently. "Medical research."
Humphrys briefly identified himself. "I have a patient here," he said, "who seems to be a latent precog."
Kirby was interested. "What area does he come from?"
"Petaluma. Sonoma County, north of San Francisco Bay. It's east of -"
"We're familiar with the area. A number of precogs have showed up there. That's been a gold mine for us."
"Then I was right," Humphrys said.
"What's the date of the patient's birth?"
"He was six years old when the war began."
"Well," Kirby said, disappointed, "then he didn't really get enough of a dose. He'll never develop a full precog talent, such as we work with here."
"In other words, you won't help?"
"Latents – people with a touch of it – outnumber the real carriers. We don't have time to fool with them. You'll probably run into dozens like your patient, if you stir around. When it's imperfect, the talent isn't valuable; it's going to be a nuisance for the man, probably nothing else."
"Yes, it's a nuisance," Humphrys agreed caustically. "The man is only months away from a violent death. Since he was a child, he's been getting advanced phobic warnings. As the event gets closer, the reactions intensify."
"He's not conscious of the future material?"
"It operates strictly on a subrational level."
"Under the circumstances," Kirby said thoughtfully, "maybe it's just as well. These things appear to be fixed. If he knew about it, he still couldn't change it."
Dr. Charles Bamberg, consulting psychiatrist, was just leaving his office when he noticed a man sitting in the waiting room.
Odd, Bamberg thought. I have no patients left for today.
Opening the door, he stepped into the waiting room. "Did you wish to see me?"
The man sitting on the chair was tall and thin. He wore a wrinkled tan raincoat, and, as Bamberg appeared, he began tensely stubbing out a cigar.
"Yes," he said, getting clumsily to his feet.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No appointment." The man gazed at him in appeal. "I picked you -" He laughed with confusion. "Well, you're on the top floor."
"The top floor?" Bamberg was intrigued. "What's that got to do with it?"
"I – well, Doc, I feel much more comfortable when I'm up high."
"I see," Bamberg said. A compulsion, he thought to himself. Fascinating. "And," he said aloud, "when you're up high, how do you feel? Better?"
"Not better," the man answered. "Can I come in? Do you have a second to spare me?"
Bamberg looked at his watch. "All right," he agreed, admitting the man. "Sit down and tell me about it."
Gratefully, Giller seated himself. "It interferes with my life," he said rapidly, jerkily. "Every time I see a flight of stairs, I have an irresistible compulsion to go up it. And plane flight – I'm always flying around. I have my own ship; I can't afford it, but I've got to have it."
"I see," Bamberg said. "Well," he continued genially, "that's not really so bad. After all, it isn't exactly a fatal compulsion."
Helplessly, Giller replied: "When I'm up there -" He swallowed wretchedly, his dark eyes gleaming. "Doctor, when I'm up high, in an office building, or in my plane – I feel another compulsion."
"What is it?"
"I -" Giller shuddered. "I have an irresistible urge to push people."
"To push people?"
"Toward windows. Out." Giller made a gesture. "What am I going to do, Doc? I'm afraid I'll kill somebody. There was a little shrimp of a guy I pushed once – and one day a girl was standing ahead of me on an escalator – I shoved her. She was injured."
"I see," Bamberg said, nodding. Repressed hostility, he thought to himself. Interwoven with sex. Not unusual.
He reached for his lamp.
The Unreconstructed M
I
The machine was a foot wide and two feet long; it looked like an oversized box of crackers. Silently, with great caution, it climbed the side of a concrete building; it had lowered two rubberized rollers and was now beginning the first phase of its job.
From its rear, a flake of blue enamel was exuded. The machine pressed the flake firmly against the rough concrete and then continued on. Its upward path carried it from vertical concrete to vertical steeclass="underline" it had reached a window. The machine paused and produced a microscopic fragment of cloth fabric. The cloth, with great care, was embedded in the fitting of the steel window frame.
In the chill darkness, the machine was virtually invisible. The glow of a distant tangle of traffic briefly touched it, illuminated its polished hull, and departed. The machine resumed its work.
It projected a plastic pseudopodium and incinerated the pane of window glass. There was no response from within the gloomy apartment: nobody was home. The machine, now dulled with particles of glass-dust, crept over the steel frame and raised an inquisitive receptor.
While it received, it exerted precisely two hundred pounds pressure on the steel window frame; the frame obediently bent. Satisfied, the machine descended the inside of the wall to the moderately thick carpet. There it began the second phase of its job.
One single human hair – follicle and speck of scalp included – was deposited on the hardwood floor by the lamp. Not far from the piano, two dried grains of tobacco were ceremoniously laid out. The machine waited an interval of ten seconds and then, as an internal section of magnetic tape clicked into place, it suddenly said, "Ugh! Damn it…"
Curiously, its voice was husky and masculine.
The machine made its way to the closet door, which was locked. Climbing the wood surface, the machine reached the lock mechanism, and, inserting a thin section of itself, caressed the tumblers back. Behind the row of coats was a small mound of batteries and wires: a self-powered video recorder. The machine destroyed the reservoir of film – which was vital – and then, as it left the closet, expelled a drop of blood on the jagged tangle that had been the lens-scanner. The drop of blood was even more vital.