Barenburg sighed. "We've no choice, Ted. Kincaid called in his final order not thirty seconds ago; a medical team's already on its way to the cubicle. I'm sorry."
Forester felt his jaw muscles tighten. "So you're just going to give up?"
"Kincaid gave the order."
"So? You're the medical man on the scene—you can insist on in situ tests if you want them."
"What would that accomplish? He's going to die anyway."
"That's a rotten attitude for a doctor," Forester snapped. "And for a scientist. Don't you care what's causing this problem?"
"I'm sure the autopsy will reveal that," Barenburg muttered.
"Great. Just great. And in the process you may be tossing away a shot at medical history."
Barenburg threw him a sideways glance. "What are you talking about?"
"Suppose you were right earlier—suppose Twenty-Seven really is being distracted." Forester chose his words carefully; he'd hoped this approach would stir Barenburg's interest. It seemed to be working, at least a little. "That might mean that, against all odds, he's actually getting smarter. Maybe not much, but even a few IQ points would be a significant change. If he became aware of his surroundings in any real way—"
"Of course he's aware of his surroundings. Why else would Kincaid want him off the line so fast?"
Forester's mental processes skidded to a halt. "What?"
Barenburg spun his chair around, his eyes wide with guilt. "Oh, hell. Forget I said that, Ted—please. And don't tell Kincaid—"
"Doc, what is it I'm not supposed to know?" Forester interrupted sharply. Something was terribly wrong here. "You've got to give me all of it now."
Barenburg sagged in his chair, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "That damned bourbon," he said tiredly. "Hell. Look, Ted, Red Staley won the Smithsonian Triple-P for his telekinetic ability, right? But he was also an 80 percent-accurate telepath. You probably didn't know that; he didn't publicize it much."
"No, I heard a rumor about it once. But I didn't know it was that accurate."
"It was. So now we have forty-nine active Spoonbenders with genetically enhanced telekinesis. If the chromosome mapping is at all the way we think it is... then they've got enhanced telepathy, too. Enhanced a lot."
The words hit Forester like an icy shower. Groping blindly, he found a chair and swiveled it to face Barenburg. His eyes still on the doctor's face, he sank into it. "Do you mean to say they could have been reading our minds all this time?" The very thought gave him an itchy feeling between his shoulder blades.
Barenburg signed. "I'm sure they have been, though probably on a subconscious level. But you're missing my point. Their real problem is lack of long-range intracerebral communication, right? But with a functioning telepathic center they don't need the neural connectors. They can shunt everything major directly through that center, leaving the neurons to handle more localized operations and storage. It'd take a lot of adaptation, but the human brain's good at that sort of thing."
"God in heaven," Forester whispered. He threw an involuntary glance at Twenty-Seven's monitor. "Then they could have completely normal IQs!"
Barenburg snorted. "They could be geniuses, for all we know."
"But if it's not their brain chemistry, then what's kept them... like they are?"
"You mean semiconscious?" Barenburg smiled bitterly. "The oldest trick in the book: their oxygen level's been kept deliberately low. Not low enough to put them to sleep, really, but low enough to keep metabolic activity down." He shrugged. "At least it used to work that way. But the oxygen flow to Twenty-Seven still reads normal. I have no idea what could have woken him up."
Forester's brain was struggling out from under the numbness Barenburg's bombshell had produced. "Have you told Kincaid or the board about this?"
"Who do you think ordered the low oxygen flow? Of course they know."
"But—" Forester broke off as the door opened and Kincaid walked into the control room.
The project director was sharp, all right. He was no more than two steps into the room when he apparently read from the others' faces what had happened. His stride faltered a bit, and his own expression grew thunderous. "Damn it, Barenburg. I ought to slap you in Leavenworth for this."
The doctor muttered something and dropped his eyes.
Forester stood up, fists clenched at his sides. "It was bad enough when you were going to kill a human vegetable," he grated. "But you're about to destroy a perfectly intelligent, rational child. You can't do it!"
"Please keep your voice down, Ted," Kincaid said in a low voice, glancing nervously across the room at the three operators. "Look, I don't do this lightly; the only reason I could give the order so quickly is that we've agonized for months about what we'd do if this happened. But we've got to get him off the line before he starts influencing any of the other Spoonbenders—and if he's really poking around with telepathy and TK he's bound to do something like that eventually."
"Why would that be so bad?"
"Because even if he's intelligent he may not be at all sane. Remember, the extra nucleic material in his cells has thrown his hormone levels and brain chemistry to hell and halfway back. He could be schizophrenic, manic-depressive, paranoid, or something we haven't even got a name for yet. We simply can't take the chance that he might destabilize any of the others. They're too valuable to risk. The Project's too valuable to risk."
"The greatest good for the greatest number," Forester said bitterly. "Is that it?"
"Yes, I guess so," Kincaid admitted. "With the 'greatest number' being in this case the entire country. I'm sorry." He turned to the control board and picked up the phone.
A feeling of defeat seeped into Forester without relieving any of the tension within him. Perhaps it was better this way, he told himself bleakly. Perhaps death would be preferable to slavery—or to the half-dead twilight the rest of the Spoonbenders lived in.
But he knew better. Even the most oppressed slave has at least a chance of eventual freedom. Death, though, is irrevocable.
And Forester was helpless to stop it.
Kincaid finished his conversation and replaced the phone in its cradle. "All right," he instructed Barenburg, "you can start shutting him down."
And, almost too late, a stray fact popped out of nowhere to settle into just the right niche in Forester's desperation. "Hold it a second!" he snapped. "I've got an idea!"
The others turned to face him, Barenburg with his hand poised over the proper knob. "What is it?" the doctor asked.
"Suppose I could get Twenty-Seven back down into his original state," Forester said. "There'd be no reason to kill him then, would there?"
Kincaid frowned. "But we don't know how he changed in the first place."
"Maybe we do." Forester pointed to the gauge set in the panel over the oxygen control. "This oxygen reading is taken right at the point where the gasses for his air mixture are combined. That point is outside the cubicle itself, for some technical reason, so the air has to go a meter or so past the sensor before it gets to him. Now, if there's a leak somewhere in that meter of tubing you'll get room air mixed in, which the doc tells me is richer in oxygen. It could be enough to make a difference."
"Pretty far-fetched," Kincaid growled, nevertheless looking thoughtful. "What would cause a leak like that?"
"I don't know, but I could check it out in fifteen minutes."
"A slow leak might explain why this has happened so often with this one," Barenburg murmured.
"If I'm right it might save you the cost of a new Spoonbender," Forester pointed out.
Kincaid hesitated, then nodded. "It's worth the risk. Get going."
Grabbing the proper repair kit from the wall rack, Forester hurried from the room.