"Neither the ship nor the car matters very much. It's those three rampaging—"
"We are after those as well," Conway interrupted. "All police, military and ancillary organizations have been, or soon will be, alerted. Photographs, fingerprint formulae, and other necessary information is being distributed as fast as we can produce. The capture is being given top priority, all other criminological investigations to be dropped pending its achievement. Unfortunately, at this stage, we cannot warn the public as a whole without creating widespread alarm and consequences that may get out of control."
"Good enough," approved Harper. "So this is where I go out."
"On the contrary, this is where you stay in. We have you, and we intend to keep you. There's a war on, and you're drafted."
"Then I apply for indeterminate leave forthwith."
"Permission denied," snapped Conway, too concerned even to smile. He walked around the table, sat down behind it, let' his fingers tap restlessly on its surface. "The air forces are out in full strength scouting for that ship. Every civilian plane that can be mustered is under orders to assist. We have confiscated the bodies of that girl and the trooper, and handed them over to scientists for special examination. Everything that can be done has been or soon will be done. The issue of the moment is that of how to deal with you."
"Me?"
"Yes. There are a lot of questions that must he answered. Have you any explanation of your telepathic power? Can you say how it originated?"
"No."
"It just happened?"
"So far as I can recall, I was born that way."
"H'm!" Conway was dissatisfied. "We are making exhaustive search into the backgrounds of your parents and grandparents. If possible, we must discover the reason why you are what you are."
"Personally," remarked Harper, "I couldn't care less about the reason. It has never interested me."
"It interests us. We must determine, as soon as we can, whether any more of your kind may be hanging around and, if so, in what number. Also, whether there is any positive method of finding them and conscripting them until this crisis is over."
"After which, they in turn will be treated from the crisis viewpoint," thrust Harper. "And your big problem will be how to put them out of hum's way until such time as they may be needed again."
"Now see here—"
"I know what you're thinking, and you cannot conceal it from me. I know that authority is squatting on the horns of a large and sharp-pointed dilemma. A telepath is a menace to those in power, but a protection against foes such as we are facing right now. You cannot destroy the menace without depriving yourselves of the protection. You cannot ensure mental privacy except at the prospective price of mental slavery. You're in a first-class jam that doesn't really exist because it's purely imaginary, and born of the conditioning of non-telepathic minds."
Conway made no attempt to dispute this vigorous revealing of his thoughts. He sat in silence, his cold attention on Harper, and spoke only when he had finished.
"And what makes you say that there is no such quandary?"
"Because all the irrational bigots swarming on this cockeyed world invariably jump to the conclusion that anyone radically different from themselves must be bad. It inflates badly shrivelled egos to look at things that way. Every man his own paragon of virtue and goodness." He glowered at General Conway and said with ire, "A telepath has a code of ethics fully as good as anyone else's, and perhaps a damn-sight better because he has to beat off more temptation. I don't listen unless circumstances make it necessary. I don't hear unless I'm shouted at."
The other was blunt enough to appreciate straight talk; he was openly impressed. Leaning back in his chair, Conway surveyed Harper afresh.
"We've done a great deal of checking on you already. You heard Trooper Alderson from a distance of approximately six hundred yards. Without listening, I presume?"
"I heard his death-cry. On the neural band, it's as effective as a scream; I couldn't help hearing."
"You have helped nail a number of wanted criminals, and it is now obvious how you did it. But you never listen?"
"Guilt yells across the street. Fear bellows like an angry bull."
"Is there anything that broadcasts on a level sufficiently muted to escape your attention?"
"Yes — ordinary, everyday, innocent thoughts."
"You do not listen to those?"
"Why on earth should I bother? Do you try to sort out every spoken word from the continual hum of conversation around you in a restaurant? Does a busy telephone operator take time off to absorb the babble going through her switchboard? If I went around trying to pick up everything that's going on, I'd have qualified for a straitjacket ten years ago. Continual, ceaseless mental yap can torture a telepath unless he closes his mind to it."
By now, Conway was three-quarters convinced. His mind had made considerable readjustment. He resumed his table-tapping, cast an inquiring glance at Benfield and Jameson. They immediately put on the blank expressions of impartial onlookers, not qualified to make decisions.
"I understand," continued Conway, "that to date you have not encountered another telepath?"
"No," agreed Harper regretfully.
"But if two of you passed by.without listening, neither of you would become aware of the other's existence?"
"I suppose so; but I couldn't swear to it. If we radiate more powerfully than the average human—"
"Yes, but your lack of contact is no proof of your uniqueness? For all we know to the contrary there may be fifty or a hundred telepaths in this very city?"
"I think it most unlikely, but wouldn't define it as impossible."
"What is your effective range?" asked Conway.
"About eight hundred yards. It varies from time to time. On rare occasions, I have received at three times that distance. Other times it drops to a hundred or less."
"Do you know the cause of such variation? Is it due to the nature of surroundings, blanking by big buildings, or anything similar?"
"I could not say for sure, not having subjected the matter to systematic test. Surroundings make no difference and that's all I'm certain about."
"But you have a theory?" Conway pressed.
"Yes," admitted Harper. "I suspect that on any given occasion, my range is determined by the amplitude of the other person's radiations. The more powerfully he broadcasts, the greater the distance over which I can pick him up. The weaker, the less distance. As I've said, it would require scientific tests to establish the truth or falsity of that notion."
"Are you willing to undergo such tests?"
"I am not," declared Harper.
"Why not?"
"The immediate problem is not that of what to do about telepaths; it's what to do about invading Venusians. Nobody is going to use me for a guinea pig."
"Don't view it in that light, Mr. Harper," Conway soothed. "We appreciate to the full the excellent part you have played. The trouble is that we're not satisfied. We want more of you. We want all you can give. In fact, we need it so badly that we demand it as of right."
"What do you require of me?"
"All the information we can get out of you now, and perhaps some action later."
"Go ahead. Let no man say Wade Harper was unable to suffer."
Conway signed to Benfield. "Switch on that tape-recorder." He returned his attention to Harper. "This one is of the utmost importance; I want you to answer it with the greatest clarity you can command. What impelled you to shoot Jocelyn Whittingham?"
"That's a tough question," Harper replied. "I cannot translate it into terms you understand; it's like trying to describe a rose to a man blind from birth."
"Never mind. Do your best."
"All right. It was somewhat like this: you're in your wife's bedroom. You notice a new and pretty jewel box on her dressing table. Full of curiosity, you open it. The thing contains a live whip snake. The snake sees you the same instant. It leaps out. Despite the shock, you act fast. You swipe it in mid-air, knock it to the floor, crush it under heel. That's how it was."