Mekkis considered himself a gambler. But he liked to stack the deck.
Later, after he had rested, Admininistrator Mekkis had the Terran brought to his office; he confronted Percy X alone, without the annoying presence of Marshal Koli.
‘‘What do you want out of me?’’ Percy demanded, not seating himself.
“Understanding,” Mekkis said. “You are a telepath. If any human can bridge the gap between our
two races a telepath should be able to do it.
“I mean specifically,” Percy said tautly. “What do you want me to do?”
The worm made what might have been a shrug, then said, “Join us.”
Percy caught a glimpse, in the worm’s mind, of himself, Percy X. Percy X, the hunted and hated Neeg-part, as Emperor of the whole bale of Tennessee. There he sat, ruling over all the whites, even over some of the lower caste Gany medians.
It would have been impossible to offer Percy anything that more exactly fitted his own ambitions.
“I see that you understand,” Mekkis said with just the right shade of eagerness in his voice. “What is your decision? Remember that you need not make up your mind in haste; you may take days to think it over. Weeks, in fact. I, personally, have plenty of time. But while you wait our forces will have no choice but to continue their police action against your people in the hills. Every day that you delay will mean the unavoidable loss of more lives plus the—” Without warning Percy X leaped.
Mekkis jerked sideways, trying to escape, but it was no use; the great black Terran landed on him with his full weight, almost knocking him unconscious, then Mekkis felt powerful fingers close over his windpipe and squeeze, squeeze the life out of him. A moment before he blacked out the creeches descended in a howling, squealing horde on the Earth- man’s back and dragged him off.
“Kill him! Kill him!” the creeches screamed hysterically, but Mekkis gasped out, “No, just hold him down. It’s all right. He is just a little high-spirited, that’s all.” Though he felt badly bruised by the struggle Mekkis managed to retain his composure and slipped back into his niche behind the desk.
“I regret having to do this,” Mekkis said to Percy, his voice shaking only slightly, “but I’m afraid that before we can continue this discussion you will need a little psychotherapy to discourage these violent tendencies. However, you will be happy to learn that you will be treated by a man often regarded by Ter- rans and Ganymedians alike as the greatest analyst of our time, Dr. Rudolph Balkani.”'
For just a fraction of a second Percy X dropped his scramble pattern; Mekkis was able to glimpse a swift flash of terror in the Neeg-part’s mind.
What a pleasant surprise, Mekkis thought with satisfaction. I had begun to believe this brute was afraid of nothing.
In the hushed silence of Paul Rivers’ seedy hotel room Dr. Newkom slowly, carefully lifted the telepathic amplifier from Paul’s head. “Did you get through to Percy X?” Newkom asked.
“Yes.” Paul Rivers nodded. “But only to listen; I made no attempt to contact him. That excitement a little while back—creeches brought him in to the Gany military.”
“Too bad,” Newkom said. “We should have started getting to him sooner.”
“This gadget of yours is still too highly selective and directional,” Paul said. “I don’t know why I expected to achieve contact at the first crack.” And now we’ve had it, he thought. If anyone can break a man, it’s Balkani. Rudolph Balkani belongs to a school of therapy I wouldn’t touch with a ten-mile pole, hut I have to admit he gets results. It’s always easier and more impressive to tear things down rather than to build them up or even to sustain them. A human being takes a long time to grow, to mature, but it only takes a moment to damage and destroy him.
And, he thought, a wik Percy will be even worse than a skinned one. When the savior sells out—
“You can’t win them all,” Newkom said. He shut off the power supply of the amplifier and prepared to leave.
“I’m not finished yet,” Paul said.
“But they’ve got Percy.”
Paul said, “Want to go to Norway with me?” Without waiting for an answer he began quickly and efficiently packing his suitcase.
VII
Coming in out of the bright sunlight into the dark hallway Joan Hiashi could hardly see where she was going.
The guard said, “This way, Miss Hiashi, and opened a door for her. The room she entered through this door seemed even darker than the hallway had been, but she could make out the figure of a bearded, slightly overweight and balding man who walked up to her and thrust out his hand.
“Balkani is my name, Miss Hiashi, he said in a businesslike way. “Dr. Rudolph Balkani. The depth analyst.” They shook hands and Balkani offered her a chair. It turned out to be a psychiatrist’s couch, but she did not lie down; she sat watching the dim shape of the psychiatrist with suspicion. “What is your religion, Miss Hiashi?” he asked as he casually filled his pipe.
“Neeg-part, she said defiantly. “If I wasn’t Neeg-part I wouldn’t be here.”
“But on all the forms you have ever filled out before now you’ve listed your religion as Buddhism. Have you abandoned Buddhism?”
“There were no Ganys on Earth when Buddha
lived,” Joan answered. “Now a person is either a Neeg-part or nothing.”
“I tend to take a different view, Miss Hiashi.” He paused to light his pipe, “I don’t regard Neeg- partism as a religion at all, but rather as a mental disease, a subtle form of psychic masochism.” “And you intend to cure me of it, is that right?” “With your cooperation.”
“I’m sorry,” Joan said, “but cooperation is one thing you’re not going to get.”
Balkani raised his eyebrows. “How hostile you are, Miss Hiashi. You have nothing to fear from me; after all, I’m a doctor.” He allowed a stream of fragrant smoke to drift from his mouth. “Do you feel guilty, Miss Hiashi?”
“No,” she said. “Not particularly. Do you?” “Yes.” He nodded. “For being alive. We should all be dead, every man, woman and child on this planet; we should have given our lives down to the last person rather than surrendering to the Ganys. Don’t you think that’s true, Miss Hiashi?”
She had not expected to hear something of this sort from a wik psychiatrist. For a moment it occurred to her that this man might be her friend, might really be someone she could trust.
“We’ve been bad, Miss Hiashi,” Balkani continued. “And so of course we should be punished. We yearn for punishment; we need it; we can’t in fact live without it. Right, Miss Hiashi? So we turn to a futile cause like Neeg-partism and that fills this deep and fundamental need in us all, the need for punishment. But there is, in us, an even deeper need. It’s for oblivion, Miss Hiashi. Each of my patients, each in his own way—they all want to cease to be. They all want to lose themselves.
“And how is that possible, Miss Hiashi? It’s impossible, except in death. It’s an infinitely receding goal. And that is why it produces addiction. The seeker'after oblivion is promised by drugs, by drink, by insanity, by role-playing, the fulfillment of his dream of nonbeing . but the promise is never kept. Only a little taste of oblivion is permitted; only enough to rouse the appetite for more. Participation in a lost cause, such as the Neeg-part movement, is only one more, slightly more subtle, form of this universal lemming-like drive for oblivion.”
At the end of his tirade Dr. Balkani had become panting and sweating; his face shone with unnatural redness.