“It is a power of the mind,” the Vanek said, putting a finger to his forehead.
Now we’re getting somewhere, Easly thought with mental relish.
It was fully an hour later when Easly returned to his flitter and took to the air. Even with the help of the gas it had been hard work to pull any concrete information out of the beggar. The Vanek think in such a circumspect manner that you almost have to start thinking like them in order to get the answers you want. But Easly had his answers now and he wasn’t even going to stop at his hotel. First stop was the spaceport.
His expression was grim as he flew through the night. The mystery of Joe’s death and Proska’s diabolical talent had been cleared up. He shuddered at the thought of running into Proska now. The little man couldn’t kill with his mind as Easly had originally suspected. No, what Proska could do was much worse.
At the spaceport, Easly dropped the flitter off at the rental area and headed directly for the shuttle desk. He couldn’t afford to wait for a direct route to the sector in which Ragna was located. His immediate concern was to get off Jebinose; he could worry about getting to Ragna later.
On the way to the shuttle area he passed the subspace communication area and thought it might be a good idea to get a message off to Jo … just in case something happened to him. He entered one of the large, glass-enclosed booths, closed the door behind him and seated himself at the console. The information computer informed him that it was midday in Calmer City on Ragna. That would mean there was a good chance of catching Jo in her office. Easly put his identifying card in the slot and gave the desired destination of his call. A staggering price flashed on the screen but he pressed the “Accept”
button immediately. This would go on the expense account.
Jo was surprised when she learned that she had a subspace call from Larry Easly. He would make such a call only under emergency conditions so he must have something important to say. Yet in all the time she had known him, Easly had never said anything important unless it was face to face. She started to smile as his face appeared on the screen and then remembered that he could neither see nor hear her-subspace calls were strictly one-way affairs.
“Jo?” he said. “I hope that’s you on the other end. The indicator says it is, but I can’t be sure so please excuse the cryptic nature of what I’m about to say. First of all, as to your father’s end, there’s more here than meets the eye. The man you sent me here to investigate may well be involved, but there’s a new factor: a psi talent who … who-”
As Easly’s voice faltered, Jo noticed his face go slack. He swayed in front of the screen, seemingly engaged in a battle to keep his balance. Utterly helpless, Jo had to sit and watch in horror as his eyes rolled up into his head and he sank from view.
Picture transmission was not interrupted, however, and Jo anxiously watched the passers-by, hoping one of them would glance in and realize that something was wrong with Easly. One man did stop and look in the glass. He was small, sallow and balding. His hard little eyes seemed to rest on the spot where Easly had fallen, but he registered no surprise, made no move to help.
He merely smiled and turned away.
V
Jo arrived on Jebinose the next day with Old Pete. She would have liked to have confronted deBloise but he was well on his way to Fed Central for a meeting. She made a call, then hired a flittercab to take them to the offices of the company that leased the subspace phones to the spaceport.
“Aren’t you going to the hospital first?” Old Pete asked.
“Not yet. I just called them and he’s still in a coma.” Larry was in good hands. As soon as Jo had been sure that he would not be getting up off the floor of the call booth, she had placed a call of her own to the local hospital to have Larry placed in an intensive care unit immediately. Every possible thing that could be done for him was to be done and all bills would be paid by the sector account number she gave them.
They arrived at the offices of the booth leasers. A tall, hawkish man greeted them.
“May I help you?”
“Yes,” Jo said. “I’d like to speak to someone about the call booths you lease.”
The hawkish man’s face brightened. “Ah! You wish to lease some?”
“No. I just want some information.”
“Oh,” the man said with sudden sullenness. He handed Jo a brochure. “All the information you need is in here.”
Jo flipped the brochure back in his face. “Listen, you!” she said. “One of my employees, who happens to be in perfect health, went into a coma in one of your booths and whether or not you find yourself up to your ears in a lawsuit depends on the answers I get from you right now!”
The man was suddenly quite agreeable. “You must mean the unfortunate incident last night. I assure you, our booth had nothing to do with that. Every piece of equipment is of the finest quality and everything is insulated and shielded. Why, we even have a psi shield around each and every-”
“Psi shield?” Jo said with heightened interest. “Why a psi shield?”
“Well, as you know, a telepath can’t read a nontelepath … unless the nontelepath is speaking; and then he can only read what’s being verbalized, so it’s not very useful. Unless you want to know what is being said in a soundproof booth.”
“Such as one of your call booths,” Jo added with a nod.
“Correct. So we fit each booth with a psi shield which sort of dampens all psi transmissions.”
“In either direction?” Jo asked. The man paused and considered this. “Yes, come to think of it, it acts as a wall and so interference would be met in either direction.”
“Thank you,” Jo said. “That’s all I want to know.” She wheeled and stalked out to the street. A bewildered Peter J. Paxton followed.
“What was that all about?” he asked as they regained their seats in the flittercab.
“Larry mentioned something about a psi talent before he collapsed. I’m just wondering if maybe Larry was supposed to die in that booth but the shield somehow dulled the effect.”
“You mean a psi killer?” Old Pete scoffed. “That’s a fairy tale!”
Jo was pensive. “Wouldn’t all the psi killers in the galaxy like you to think so? I mean, there’s no way you can prove that a man has been killed by a psionic thrust, and surely no one’s going to admit that he has such an ability because there’s only one way he could know about it: murder.”
“I see your point, Jo, but it’s pretty farfetched. It’s clear that Larry stumbled onto something and deBloise tried to silence him. But I doubt that he’s the victim of a psi killer. I wish he were conscious so we knew what deBloise is up to.”
“I already know deBloise’s plan,” Jo said. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.”
“What do you think it is?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you this much: “I made an all-out effort to obtain the Rako II Leason crystals for Fairgood and the hassa rust for Opsal and it paid off. Both contracts have been landed although the operatives took some steep risks to get them.”
“I can see what a natural supply of Leason crystals will do for Fairgood and I congratulate you for helping them get it-they’ll leave the competition behind in no time. But I’m not familiar with this hassa rust.”
“Hassa is a grain that grows on Lentem; it’s commonly afflicted by a peculiar rust that has turned out to be the pharmacological find of the century. Every known kind of bacterium becomes addicted to the hassa rust should enough of it be ingested by the host; and if you remove the rust from the host’s diet, the bacteria die.”