“You know,” he said as he came around and sat on the edge of the bed, “it would be a shame to waste you.” His gaze roved her body again. “You could be very entertaining.”
Jo propped herself into a sitting position and laughed in his face.
“Don’t be so smug, my dear!” he flared. “You’re talking to Cando Proska and he can do unheard of things with his mind! I discovered as a child that I could kill with thought and it terrified me. But after years of being pushed about by people with power and money and being treated like any other worthless slob, I decided I’d had enough. I began experimenting with my powers and I learned, I learned. A fair number of people are dead or worse because of those experiments but I finally knew my capabilities.”
He glared at her, ego blazing in his eyes. “So do not laugh at a threat from Cando Proska! I could take your mind and purge it of all cognitive ability. That no doubt would make you quite entertaining for a while-completely mindless, of course, but quite responsive! It’s no idle boast … I’ve done it before.”
A thought suddenly struck him and he glanced at Easly.
“Come to think of it, that’s probably what your detective discovered.
Ipurged’-that’s my own little name for it-an off-worlder some years ago in Danzer. His name was Finch; you might have heard of him.”
Jo’s body froze with shock and rage. She managed to speak with only the greatest effort of will. “I’d heard he was murdered.”
“Oh, he was. But not by me. You see, Finch’s success at integrating the town of Danzer was threatening to kill a bill on which Elson deBloise had staked his political future. I merely went to deBloise and told him I could help him if he’d meet me in my apartment. He was desperate by then so he came and I offered to stop Finch cold without the slightest use of force, or violence … for certain considerations, of course. He had learned that Finch was on the verge of success so he agreed. I merely went to Danzer and relieved Finch of all his cognitive abilities. He was a drooling vegetable when I left him in that alley.”
“But the knife,” Jo said.
Proska nodded. “One of his Vanek friends came along and saw his condition. He conferred with other Vaneks and they decided to kill him. They practically worshiped Finch and felt he would prefer to be dead than allowed to live on as a mindless blob of flesh. It all worked out rather well, actually. The Integration Bill passed with an impressive majority and I’ve been bleeding deBloise dry ever since.” He smiled at Jo’s questioning glance. “That’s right. I made a recording of our little ‘business conference’ in which he promised to pay me for stopping Finch. And if I should happen to die in a manner that is in anyway suspicious, a copy of that recording will go directly to the Federation Ethics Council and deBloise’s political career will be finished.
“And anytime I want to put pressure on him, I threaten him with Finch’s fate. It’s a perfect setup: he’s scared to death of me and yet he doesn’t dare do a thing to get rid of me. He’ll do just about anything I tell him to … it’s amazing how some people fear being a vegetable more than they fear dying.” He turned his gaze on Jo. “And now it’s your turn.”
“The shield!” she warned, hoping to deter him.
“That’s no problem. I know it’s hidden in this room and after you’re unconscious I’ll find it and disconnect it.”
As Jo struggled to her feet, Proska fixed his eyes upon her and she felt the vertigo and nausea again.
But this time she was ready for it and resisted.
“You’re strong,” Proska commented. “Finch was strong, too, but eventually he was defeated.”
Jo’s knees suddenly buckled and she fell to the floor but kept resisting. “It must run in the family,” she said.
Proska must have been somewhat surprised, or puzzled, by this statement for the indescribable pressure on Jo’s consciousness lessened momentarily. She took advantage of the lapse.
“He was my father!” she screamed.
Not being psionic, Jo could never know, understand or explain what happened then. Proska recoiled-mentally and physically-at this revelation and at the intensity with which it was uttered. And in doing so he left open a channel between himself and the girl. Something flashed across that gulf, all the concentrated hatred, rage and disgust that had collected while Jo had listened to this horrid little monster of a man cold-bloodedly recount the murder of her father, the fury, resentment and repressed self-pity that had waited fifteen years for an object found one and channeled along the waiting path.
Proska twisted in agony and clawed at his eyes. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came forth. Unconscious, he crumbled to the floor.
Relief and reaction flooded Jo and she felt her own consciousness dimming. But before everything went black, she thought she saw the door to the room open and a hooded blue-gray face poke itself inside.
She was brought back to consciousness by the night nurse. “Feeling better now?” the woman asked.
“I think you’d better take to a bed, Miss; you look awfully tired. You might have been on the floor for hours more if I hadn’t got the buzz.”
Jo was fully alert now and looked around the room for Proska. “Buzz?” she asked.
The nurse beamed. “Yes. Mr. Easly snapped out of his coma a few moments ago, saw you on the floor and rang for me.”
“Larry!” Jo cried, leaping to her feet. He lay there in the bed, smiling and looking perfectly healthy.
“Hi, Jo,” he said. The nurse quietly slipped out.
“Where’s Proska?” Jo said with no little agitation once they were alone.
Easly was surprised. “You know about Proska?”
“He came here tonight to finish you off, Larry. Wasn’t he here when you came to?”
“No,” Easly said, totally bewildered. “What are you talking about? And what were you doing passed out on the floor when I woke up? The nurse explained what she knew about what happened to me, but what happened to you?”
Jo placed a call to Old Pete and then proceeded to tell Larry all she knew. When she told him what Proska had said, he nodded.
“That’s what I found out from that Vanek in Danzer,” he said. He shook his head. “They consider him the most dangerous man in the universe but were just sitting around waiting for the Great Wheel to bring him his due. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me to know he’s running around loose!”
Old Pete arrived then and Jo re lated the events of the night again. “Did you say his name was Proska?” Old Pete asked.
Jo and Larry nodded in unison.
“Well, then, you have nothing further to worry about. As I came in I found the hospital in an uproar over the body that had been found outside the city. He had been wearing an orderly’s uniform but his name was Proska and no Proska had ever been employed by the hospital. I would have ignored the whole story except for the bizarre way the man had been killed.”
“You mean he’s been murdered?” Jo asked.
“Yes, almost ritualistically. It seems some person or persons nailed him to a tree, sawed off the top of his head, scooped out his brain and smashed it at his feet.”
“The Vanek!” Jo said.
“Not a chance,” Old Pete declared. “The Vaneks never take any decisive action on their own behalf, or on behalf of anyone else.”
“Maybe they’ve learned something,” Larry mused. “Maybe Junior Finch taught them that a little initiative is better than waiting for the Great Wheel. Maybe they didn’t want the daughter of their honored Junior to go the same way as her father and decided to do something.”