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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Penal Cluster, by
+Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Penal Cluster
+
+Author: Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)
+
+Release Date: April 12, 2008 [EBook #25061]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENAL CLUSTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Their combined thought-force hit him like a
+thunderbolt.]
+
+
+             THE
+            PENAL
+           CLUSTER
+
+      By IVAR JORGENSEN
+
+
+ _Tomorrow's technocracy will
+ produce more and more things
+ for better living. It will
+ produce other things, also;
+ among them, criminals too
+ despicable to live on this
+ earth. Too abominable to
+ breathe our free air._
+
+
+The clipped British voice said, in David Houston's ear, _I'm quite sure
+he's one. He's cashing a check for a thousand pounds. Keep him under
+surveillance._
+
+Houston didn't look up immediately. He simply stood there in the lobby
+of the big London bank, filling out a deposit slip at one of the long,
+high desks. When he had finished, he picked up the slip and headed
+towards the teller's cage.
+
+Ahead of him, standing at the window, was a tall, impeccably dressed,
+aristocratic-looking man with graying hair.
+
+"The man in the tweeds?" Houston whispered. His voice was so low that it
+was inaudible a foot away, and his lips scarcely moved. But the
+sensitive microphone in his collar picked up the voice and relayed it to
+the man behind the teller's wicket.
+
+_That's him_, said the tiny speaker hidden in Houston's ear. _The
+fine-looking chap in the tweeds and bowler._
+
+"Got him," whispered Houston.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He didn't go anywhere near the man in the bowler and tweeds; instead, he
+went to a window several feet away.
+
+"Deposit," he said, handing the slip to the man on the other side of the
+partition. While the teller went through the motions of putting the
+deposit through the robot accounting machine, David Houston kept his
+ears open.
+
+"How did you want the thousand, sir?" asked the teller in the next
+wicket.
+
+"Ten pound notes, if you please," said the graying man. "I think a
+hundred notes will go into my brief case easily enough." He chuckled, as
+though he'd made a clever witticism.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the clerk, smiling.
+
+Houston whispered into his microphone again. "Who is the guy?"
+
+On the other side of the partition, George Meredith, a small,
+unimposing-looking man, sat at a desk marked: MR. MEREDITH--ACCOUNTING
+DEPT. He looked as though he were paying no attention whatever to
+anything going on at the various windows, but he, too, had a microphone
+at his throat and a hidden pickup in his ear.
+
+At Houston's question, he whispered: "That's Sir Lewis Huntley. The
+check's good, of course. Poor fellow."
+
+"Yeah," whispered Houston, "if he is what we think he is."
+
+"I'm fairly certain," Meredith replied. "Sir Lewis isn't the type of
+fellow to draw that much in cash. At the present rate of exchange,
+that's worth three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars American.
+Sir Lewis might carry a hundred pounds as pocket-money, but never a
+thousand."
+
+Houston and Meredith were a good thirty feet from each other, and
+neither looked at the other. Unless a bystander had equipment to tune in
+on the special scrambled wavelength they were using, that bystander
+would never know they were holding a conversation.
+
+"... nine-fifty, nine-sixty, nine-seventy, nine-eighty, nine-ninety, a
+thousand pounds," said the clerk who was taking care of Sir Lewis's
+check. "Would you count that to make sure, sir?"
+
+"Certainly. Ten, twenty, thirty, ..."
+
+While the baronet was double-checking the amount, David Houston glanced
+at him. Sir Lewis looked perfectly calm and unhurried, as though he were
+doing something perfectly legal--which, in a way, he was. And, in
+another way, he most definitely was not, if George Meredith's suspicions
+were correct.
+
+"Your receipt, sir." It was the teller at Houston's own window.
+
+Houston took the receipt, thanked the teller, and walked toward the
+broad front doors of the bank.
+
+"George," he whispered into the throat mike, "has Sir Lewis noticed me?"
+
+"Hasn't so much as looked at you," Meredith answered. "Good hunting."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Houston stepped outside the bank, he casually dropped one hand into a
+coat pocket and turned a small knob on his radio control box. "Houston
+to HQ," he whispered.
+
+"London HQ; what is it, Houston?" asked the earpiece.
+
+"Leadenhall Street Post. Meredith thinks he's spotted one. Sir Lewis
+Huntley."
+
+"Righto. We've got men in that part of the city now. We'll have a
+network posted within five minutes. Can you hold onto him that long?"
+
+Houston looked around. Leadenhall Street was full of people, and the
+visibility was low. "I'll have to tail him pretty closely," Houston
+said. "Your damned English fogs don't give a man much chance to see
+anything."
+
+There was a chuckle from the earphone. "Cheer up, Yank; you should have
+seen it back before 1968. When atomic power replaced coal and oil, our
+fogs became a devil of a lot cleaner."
+
+The voice was quite clear; at the London headquarters of the UN
+Psychodeviant Police, there was no need to wear a throat mike, which had
+a tendency to make the voice sound muffled in spite of the Statistical
+Information-Bit Samplers which were supposed to clarify the speech
+coming through them.
+
+"What do you know about 1968?" Houston asked sardonically. "Your mother
+was still pushing you around in a baby-carriage then."
+
+"In a pram," corrected the Headquarters operator. "That is true, but my
+dear Aunt Jennifer told me all about it. She was--"
+
+"The hell with your Aunt Jennifer," Houston interrupted suddenly. "Here
+comes Sir Lewis. Get me cover--fast!"
+
+"Right. Keep us posted."
+
+Sir Lewis Huntley stepped out of the broad door of the bank and turned
+left. He took a couple of steps and stopped. He didn't look around; he
+simply took a cigarette out of a silver case, put it in his mouth, and
+lit it. The glow of the lighter shone yellowly on the brass plate near
+the door which said: _An Affiliate of Westminster Bank, Ltd._
+
+Sir Lewis snapped the light out, drew on the cigarette, and strode on
+down the street, swinging a blue plastex brief case which contained a
+thousand pounds in United Nations Bank of England notes.
+
+Houston decided the baronet had not been looking for a tail; he wished
+he could probe the man's mind to make sure, but he knew that would be
+fatal. He'd have to play the game and hope for the best.
+
+"He's heading east," Houston whispered. "Doesn't look as if he's going
+to get a cab."
+
+"Check," said the earphone.
+
+Sir Lewis seemed in no great hurry, but he walked briskly, as though he
+had a definite destination in mind.
+
+After a little way, he crossed to the south side of Leadenhall Street
+and kept going east. Houston stayed far enough behind to be above
+suspicion, but not so far that he ran a chance of losing his man.
+
+"He's turning south on Fenchurch," Houston said a little later. "I
+wonder where he's going."
+
+"Keep after him," said Headquarters. "Our net men haven't spotted either
+of you yet. They can hardly see across the street in this damned fog."
+
+Houston kept going.
+
+"What the hell?" he whispered a few minutes later. "He's still following
+Fenchurch Street! He's doubling back!"
+
+Leadenhall Street, the banking center of the City of London, runs almost
+due east-and-west; Fenchurch Street makes a forty-five degree angle with
+it at the western end, running southwest for a bit and then curving
+toward the west, toward Lombard.
+
+"Houston," said HQ, "touch your left ear."
+
+Houston obediently reached up and scratched his left ear.
+
+"Okay," said HQ. "Bogart's spotted you, but he hasn't spotted Sir Lewis.
+Bogart's across the street."
+
+"He can't miss Sir Lewis," whispered Houston. "Conservatively
+dressed--matching coat and trousers of orange nylon tweed--royal blue
+half-brim bowler--carrying a blue brief case."
+
+There was a pause, then: "Yeah. Bogart's spotted him, and so has
+MacGruder. Mac's on your side, a few yards ahead."
+
+"Check. How about the rest of the net?"
+
+"Coming, coming. Be patient, old man."
+
+"I _am_ patient," growled Houston. _I have to be_, he thought to
+himself, _otherwise I'd never stay alive_.
+
+"We've got him bracketed now," HQ said. "If we lose him now, he's a
+magician."
+
+Sir Lewis walked on, seemingly oblivious to the group of men who had
+surrounded him. He came to the end of Fenchurch Street and looked to his
+left, towards London Bridge. Then he glanced to his right.
+
+"I think he's looking for a cab," Houston whispered.
+
+"That's what MacGruder says," came the reply. "We've got Arthmore in a
+cab behind you; he'll pick you up. MacGruder will get another cab, and
+we have a private car for Bogart."
+
+Sir Lewis flagged a cab, climbed in, and gave an address to the driver.
+Houston didn't hear it, but MacGruder, a heavy-set, short, balding man,
+was standing near enough to get the instructions Sir Lewis had given to
+the driver.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A cab pulled up to the curb near Houston, and he got in.
+
+Arthmore, the driver, was a thin, tall, hawknosed individual who could
+have played Sherlock Holmes on TV. Once he got into character for a
+part, he never got out of it unless absolutely necessary. Right now, he
+was a Cockney cab-driver, and he would play the part to the hilt.
+
+"Where to, guv'nor?" he asked innocently.
+
+"Buckingham Palace," said Houston. "I've got a poker appointment with
+Prince Charles."
+
+"Blimey, guv'nor," said Arthmore. "You _are_ movin' in 'igh circles!
+'Ow's 'Er Majesty these days?"
+
+The turboelectric motor hummed, and the cab shot off into traffic.
+"According to the report I get on the blinkin' wireless," he continued,
+"a chap named MacGruder claims that the eminent Sir Lewis 'Untley is
+'eaded for Number 37 Upper Berkeley Mews."
+
+"One of these days," said Houston, "all those _H_'s you drop is going to
+bounce back and hit you in the face."
+
+"Beg pardon, Mr. Yewston?" Arthmore asked blankly.
+
+Houston grinned. "Nothing, cabbie; it's just that you remind me of a
+cultured, intelligent fellow named Jack Arthmore. The only difference is
+that Jack speaks the Queen's English."
+
+"Crikey!" said Arthmore. "Wot a coincidence!" He paused, then: "The
+Queen's English, you say? She _'as_ to be, don't she?"
+
+"Shut up," said Houston conversationally. "And give me a cigarette," he
+added.
+
+"There's a package of Players in my shirt pocket," Arthmore said,
+keeping his hands on the wheel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston fished out a cigarette, lit it, and returned the pack.
+
+Apropos of nothing, Arthmore said: "Reminds me of the time I was workin'
+for a printer, see? We 'ad to print up a bunch of 'andbills advertisin'
+a church charity bazaar. Down at the bottom was supposed to be printed
+'Under the auspices of St. Bede's-on-Thames.' So I--"
+
+He went on with a long, rambling tale about making a mistake in printing
+the handbill. Houston paid little attention. He smoked in silence,
+keeping his eyes on the red glow of the taillight ahead of them.
+
+Neither man mentioned the approaching climax of the chase. Even hardened
+veterans of the Psychodeviant Police don't look forward to the
+possibility of having their minds taken over, controlled by some outside
+force.
+
+It had never happened to Houston, but he knew that Arthmore had been
+through the experience once. It evidently wasn't pleasant.
+
+"--and the boss was 'oppin' mad," Arthmore was saying, "but, crikey, 'ow
+was I to know that _auspice_ was spelled A-U-S-P-I-C-E?"
+
+Houston grinned. "Yeah, sure. How're we doing with Sir Lewis?"
+
+"Seems to be headed in the right direction," Arthmore said, suddenly
+dropping the Cockney accent. "This is the route I'd take if I were
+headed for Upper Berkeley Mews. He probably hasn't told the driver to
+change addresses--maybe he won't."
+
+"The victims never do," Houston said. "He probably is actually headed
+toward Number 37 Upper Berkeley Mews."
+
+"Yeah. Nobody's perfect," said Arthmore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Forty-five minutes of steady progress through the streets of Greater
+London brought Sir Lewis Huntley to Upper Berkeley and to the short
+dead-end street which constituted the Mews. By the time the dapper
+baronet stepped out of the machine and paid his driver, the whole area
+was surrounded by and filled with the well-armed, silent, and careful
+agents of the Psychodeviant Police.
+
+Number 37 was an old concrete-and-steel structure of the George VI
+period, faced with a veneer of red brick. It had obviously been
+remodeled at least once to make the facade more modern and more
+fashionable; the red-violet anodized aluminum was relatively fresh and
+unstained. It wouldn't have taken vast wealth to rent a flat in the
+building, but neither would an average income have been quite enough.
+
+Houston looked out of the window of Arthmore's cab and glanced at the
+tiers of windows in the building. Presumably, the man they were looking
+for was up there--somewhere.
+
+_So you occupy a station in the upper middle-class_, thought Houston. It
+checked. Every bit of evidence that came his way seemed to check
+perfectly and fit neatly into the hypothesis which he had formed. Soon
+it would be time to test that theory--but the time had not yet come.
+
+"Stand by and wait for orders, Houston," said the speaker in Houston's
+ear. "We've got men inside the building."
+
+Sir Lewis Huntley opened the sparkling, translucent door of Number 37
+Upper Berkeley Mews and went inside.
+
+Arthmore pulled the cab over to the curb a few yards from the entrance
+and the two men waited in silence. All around them were other men, some
+in private cars, some walking slowly along the street. All of them were
+part of the net that had gathered to catch one man.
+
+_Poor fish_, Houston thought wryly.
+
+There was no noise, no excitement. Five minutes after Sir Lewis had
+entered the front door, it opened again. A man whom Houston had never
+seen before stepped out and gestured with one hand. At the same time,
+Houston's speaker said: "They've got him. Hit him with a stun gun when
+he tried to get out through the fire exit."
+
+An ambulance which had been waiting at the entrance of the Mews pulled
+up in front of Number 37, and a minute or so later a little clot of men
+came out bearing a stretcher, which was loaded into the ambulance.
+Immediately after them came another man who had a firm, but polite grip
+on the arm of Sir Lewis Huntley.
+
+Houston sighed and leaned back in his seat. That was that. It was all
+over. Simple. Nothing to it.
+
+Another Controller had been apprehended by the Psychodeviant Police.
+Another deviant, already tried and found guilty, was ready to be exiled
+from Earth and imprisoned on one of the Penal Asteroids. All in the
+day's work.
+
+_There's just one thing I'd like to know_, Houston thought blackly.
+_What in the hell's going on?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In his hotel room near Piccadilly Circus, several hours later, David
+Houston sat alone, drink in hand, and put that same question to himself
+again.
+
+"What's going on?"
+
+On the face of it, it was simple. On the face of it, the answer was
+right in front of him, printed in black and white on the front page of
+the evening _Times_.
+
+Houston lifted the paper off the bed and looked at it. The banner line
+said: _Controller Captured in Lambeth!_
+
+Beneath that, in smaller type, the headline added: Robert Harris Accused
+of Taking Control of Barrister Sir Lewis Huntley.
+
+The column itself told the whole story. Mr. Robert Harris, of No. 37
+Upper Berkeley Mews, had, by means of mental control, taken over the
+mind of Sir Lewis and compelled him to draw one thousand pounds out of
+his bank. While Sir Lewis was returning to Harris with the money, the
+United Nations Psychodeviant Police had laid a trap. Sir Lewis, upon
+recovering his senses when Harris was rendered unconscious by a stun
+gun, had given evidence to the PD Police and to officials at New
+Scotland Yard.
+
+Houston looked at the full-color photo of Harris that was printed
+alongside the column. Nice-looking chap; late twenties or early
+thirties, Houston guessed. Blond-red hair, blue eyes. All-in-all, a
+very pleasant, but ordinary sort of man.
+
+There had been evidence that a Controller had been at work in London for
+some weeks now. Twelve days before, several men, following an impulse,
+had mailed twenty pounds to a "Richard Hempstead," General Delivery,
+Waterloo Station. By the time the matter had come to the authorities'
+attention, the envelopes had been called for and the Controller had
+escaped.
+
+Robert Harris was not the first Controller to be captured, nor, Houston
+knew, would he be the last. The first one had shown up more than sixteen
+years before, in Dallas, Texas, USA.
+
+Houston grinned as he thought of it. Projective telepathy had only been
+a crackpot's idea back then. In spite of the work of many intelligent,
+sane men, who had shown that mental powers above and beyond the ordinary
+did exist, the average man simply laughed off such nonsense. It was
+mysticism; it was magic; it was foolish superstition. It was anything
+but true.
+
+But ever since "Blackjack" Donnely had practically taken control of the
+whole city of Dallas, the average man had changed his mind. It was still
+mysterious; it was still magic; but now the weird machinations of the
+supernormal mind were something to be feared.
+
+In the sixteen years that had ensued since the discovery of the abnormal
+mental powers of "Blackjack" Donnely, rumors had spread all over the
+world. There were supposed to be men who could levitate--fly through the
+air at will. Others could walk through walls, and still others could
+make themselves invisible. The horrible monsters that were supposed to
+be walking the Earth were legion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Actually, only one type of supernormal psychodeviant had been found--the
+telepath, the mindreader who could probe into the mental processes of
+others. Worse than that, the telepath could project his own thoughts
+into the mind of another, so that the victim supposed that the thoughts
+were his own. Actually, it was a high-powered form of hypnotism; the
+victim could be made to do anything the projective telepath wanted him
+to.
+
+"Blackjack" Donnely had made that clear in his trial in Texas.
+
+Donnely had been a big man--big physically, and important in city
+politics. He had also been as arrogant as the Devil himself.
+
+It was the arrogance that had finally tripped up Donnely. He had thought
+himself impregnable. Haled into court on charges of misappropriation of
+public funds, he had just sat and smirked while several witnesses for
+the State admitted that they had aided Donnely, but they claimed he had
+"hypnotized" them. Donnely didn't try to interfere with the
+evidence--that's where he made his mistake. And that's where his
+arrogance tripped him up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If he'd used telepathic projection to influence the State Attorney or
+the witnesses or the judge or the Grand Jury _before_ the trial, he
+might never have been discovered as the first of the Controllers. But
+that wasn't Donnely's style.
+
+"None of this namby-pamby stuff," he had once been quoted as saying; "if
+you got enemies, don't tease 'em--show 'em who's running things.
+Blackjack 'em, if you have to."
+
+And that's exactly what "Blackjack" Donnely had done. The trial was a
+farce from beginning to end; each witness gave his evidence from the
+stand, and then Donnely took control of their minds and made them refute
+every bit of it, publicly and tearfully apologizing to the "wonderful
+Mr. Donnely" for saying such unkind things about him.
+
+The judge and the jury knew something funny was going on, but they had
+no evidence, one way or another. The case, even at that point, might
+have ended with an acquittal or a hung jury, but Donnely wasn't through
+using his blackjack.
+
+He took over the mind of the foreman of the jury. The foreman claimed
+later that the jury had decided that they could reach no decision. Other
+jurors claimed that they had decided Donnely was guilty, but that was
+probably an _ex post facto_ switch. It didn't matter, anyway; when the
+foreman came out, he pronounced Donnely innocent. That should have ended
+it.
+
+The other jurors began to protest, but by that time, Donnely had gained
+control of the judge's mind. Rapidly, the judge silenced the jurors,
+declared Donnely to be free, and then publicly apologized for ever
+daring to doubt Mr. Donnely.
+
+The State's Attorney was equally verbose in his apology; he was almost
+in tears because of his "deep contrition at having cast aspersions on
+the spotless character of so great a man."
+
+Donnely was released.
+
+The next evening, "Blackjack" Donnely was shot down at the front door of
+his own home. There were fifteen bullets in his body; three from a .32,
+five from a .38, and seven from a .45.
+
+The police investigation was far from thorough; any evidence that may
+have turned up somehow got lost. It was labelled as "homicide committed
+by person or persons unknown," and it stayed that way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Donnely was only the first. In the next two years, four more showed up.
+Everyone of them, in one way or another, had attempted to gain power or
+money by mental projection. Everyone of them was a twisted megalomaniac.
+
+Houston looked again at Harris's picture on the front page of the
+_Times_. Here was one Controller who neither looked nor acted like a
+megalomaniac. That wouldn't make much difference to the PD Police; as
+far as the officials were concerned, the ability to project
+telepathically and the taint of delusions of grandeur went hand in hand.
+Controllers were power-mad and criminal by definition.
+
+Fear still ruled the emotional reactions against Controllers, in spite
+of the protection of the Psychodeviant Police.
+
+But David Houston knew damned good and well that all telepaths were not
+necessarily insane.
+
+He should know. He was a Controller, himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Brrrring!_
+
+David Houston tossed the paper on the bed and walked over to the phone.
+He cut in the circuit, and waited for the phone's TV screen to show the
+face of his caller. But the screen remained blank.
+
+"Who is it?" Houston asked.
+
+"Is this CHAring Cross 7-8161?" It was a woman's voice, soft and
+well-modulated.
+
+"No, this is CHElsea 7-8161," Houston said. "You must have dialed C-H-E
+instead of C-H-A."
+
+"Oh. I'm very sorry. Excuse me." There was a click, and she hung up.
+
+Houston walked back over to the bed and picked up his paper. He looked
+at it, but he didn't read it. It no longer interested him.
+
+So Dorrine was finally in London, eh? He'd recognized her voice
+instantly; even years of training couldn't smother the midwestern
+American of Chicago completely beneath the precise British of the
+well-educated English girl.
+
+The signal had been agreed upon, just in case his phone was tapped. Even
+the Psychodeviant Police could be suspected of harboring a
+Controller--although Houston didn't think it too likely. Nevertheless,
+he wasn't one to take too many chances.
+
+He glanced at his watch. He had an hour yet. He'd wait five minutes
+before he phoned headquarters.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He sat down in his chair again and forced himself to relax, smoke a
+cigarette, and read the paper--the sports section. Perusing the records
+of the season's cricket matches kept his mind off that picture on the
+front page. At least, he hoped they would. Let's see, now--Benton was
+being rated as the finest googly bowler on the Staffordshire Club ...
+
+Everything went fine until he came across a reference to a John Harris,
+a top-flight batsman for Hambledon; that reminded him of Robert Harris.
+Houston threw down the paper in disgust and walked over to the phone.
+
+The number was TROwbridge 5-4321, but no one ever bothered to remember
+it. Simply dial 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, and every time a voice at the other end
+would answer--
+
+"Hamilton speaking."
+
+"Houston here; will I be needed in the next hour or so?"
+
+"Mmmm. Just a second; I'll check the roster. No; your evidence won't be
+needed personally. You've filed an affidavit. No, I don't think--wait a
+minute! Yes, there's a return here for you; reservation on the six A.M.
+jet to New York. Your job here is done, Houston, so you can take the
+rest of the evening off and relax. Going anywhere in particular?"
+
+"I thought I'd get a bite to eat and take in a movie, maybe, but if I'm
+due out at six, I'll forego the cinematic diversion. When's the trial?"
+
+"It's scheduled for eleven-thirty this evening. Going to come?"
+
+Houston shook his head. "Not if I'm not needed to give evidence. Those
+Controllers always give me the creeps."
+
+"They do everybody," said Hamilton. "Well, you caught him; there's no
+need for you to stick around for the windup. Have a good time."
+
+"Thanks," said Houston shortly, and hung up.
+
+_The windup_, Houston thought. _Sure. That's all it will be. A
+Controller's trial is a farce. Knock him out with a stun gun and then
+pump him full of comatol. How can he defend himself if he's unconscious
+all through the trial?_
+
+Houston knew what the average man's answer to that would be: "If a
+Controller were allowed to remain conscious, he'd take over the judge's
+mind and get himself freed."
+
+Houston said an obscene word under his breath, jammed his hat on his
+head, put on his coat, and left his apartment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+With the coming of darkness, the heavy fog had become still denser. The
+yellow beams of the sodium vapor lamps were simply golden spots hanging
+in an all-enveloping blackness. Walking the street was a process of
+moving from one little golden island of light to another, crossing seas
+of blankness between. The monochromatic yellow shone on the human faces
+that passed beneath the lamps, robbing them of all color, giving them a
+dead, grayish appearance beneath the yellow itself.
+
+David Houston walked purposefully along the pavement, his hand jammed
+deep in his overcoat pockets. One hand held the control box for the
+little earpiece he wore. He kept moving the band selector, listening for
+any sign that the Psychodeviant Police were suspicious of a Controller
+in their midst.
+
+If they were following him, of course, they would use a different
+scrambler circuit than the one which was plugged into his own unit, but
+he would be able to hear the gabble of voices, even if he couldn't
+understand what they were saying.
+
+So far, there hadn't been a sound; if he was being followed, his tailers
+weren't using the personal intercom units.
+
+He didn't try to elude anyone who might be following. That, in itself,
+would be a giveaway. Let them watch, if they _were_ watching. They
+wouldn't see anything but a man going to get himself a bit of dinner.
+
+The _Charles II Inn_, on Regent Street, near Piccadilly Circus, was a
+haven of brightness in an otherwise Stygian London. It was one of those
+"old-fashioned" places--Restoration style of decoration, carried out in
+modern plastics. The oak panelling looked authentic enough, but it was
+just a little too glossy to be real.
+
+Houston pushed open the door, stepped inside, removed his hat and coat
+and shook the dampness from them. As he handed them to the checker, he
+looked casually around. Dorrine was nowhere in sight, but he hadn't
+expected her to be. There would be no point in their meeting physically;
+it might even be downright dangerous.
+
+The headwaiter, clad in the long waistcoat and full trunk-hose of the
+late Seventeenth Century, bowed punctiliously.
+
+"You're alone, sir?"
+
+"Alone, yes," Houston said. "I'll just be wanting a light supper and a
+drink or two."
+
+"This way, sir."
+
+Houston followed the man to a small table in the rear of the huge dining
+room. It was set for two, but the other place was quickly cleared away.
+Houston ordered an Irish-and-soda from a waiter who was only slightly
+less elaborately dressed than the headwaiter, and then settled himself
+down to wait. If he knew Dorrine, she would be on time to the minute.
+
+She came while the waiter was setting the drink on Houston's table. She
+stepped in through the door, her unmistakable hair glowing a rich red in
+the illumination of the pseudo-candlelight.
+
+She didn't bother to look around; she knew he would be there.
+
+After a single glance, Houston averted his eyes from her and looked back
+at his drink.
+
+And in that same instant, their minds touched.
+
+_Dave, darling! I knew you'd be early!_
+
+_Dorrine!_
+
+And then their minds meshed for an instant.
+
+_I_--_(we)_--_you_--LOVE--_you_--(each other)--me!--us!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston looked complacently at his drink while the headwaiter led
+Dorrine to a table on the far side of the room. She sat down gracefully,
+smiled at the waiter, and ordered a cocktail. Then she took a magazine
+from her handbag and began--presumably--to read.
+
+Her thought came: _Who is this Richard Harris? He's not one of our
+Group._
+
+Houston sipped at his drink. _No. An unknown, like the others. I wonder
+if he's even a telepath._
+
+_What?_ Her thought carried astonishment. _Why, Dave--he'd_ have _to be!
+How else could he have controlled this Sir Lewis--whatsisname--Huntley?_
+
+_Well--I've got a funny idea_, Houston replied. _Look at it this way: So
+far as we know, there are two Groups of telepaths. There's our own
+Group. All we want is to be left alone. We don't read a Normal's mind
+unless we have to, and we don't try to control one unless our lives are
+threatened. We stay under cover, out of everyone's way._
+
+_Then there are the megalomaniacs. They try, presumably, to gain wealth
+and power by controlling Normals. And they get caught with monotonous
+regularity. Right?_
+
+The girl caught an odd note in that thought. _What do you mean,
+"monotonous regularity"?_ she asked.
+
+_I mean_, Houston thought savagely, _why is it they're all so bloody
+stupid? Look at this Harris guy; he is supposed to have taken over Sir
+Lewis's mind in order to get a thousand pounds. So what did he have Sir
+Lewis do? Parade all around the city to pick up a PD Police net, and
+then give his address to a cabman in a loud voice and lead the whole
+net right to Harris! How stupid can a man get?_
+
+_It does look pretty silly_, Dorrine agreed. _Have you got an
+explanation?_
+
+_Several_, Houston told her. _And I don't know which one is correct._
+
+_Let's have them_, the girl thought.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston gave them to her. None of them, he knew, was completely
+satisfactory, but they all made more sense that the theory that Harris
+had done what the PD Police claimed he'd done.
+
+Theory Number One: The real megalomaniac Controller had taken over Sir
+Lewis's mind and made him draw out the thousand pounds and head west on
+Leadenhall Street. Somehow, the Controller had found out that Sir Lewis
+was being followed, and had steered him away from the original
+destination, heading him toward the innocent Robert Harris. That implied
+that the Controller had been within a few dozen yards of the net men
+that afternoon. A Controller can't control a mind directly from a
+distance, although orders can be implanted which will cause a man to
+carry out a plan of action, even though he may be miles from the
+Controller. But in order to change those plans, the Controller would
+have to be within projection range.
+
+Theory Two: Robert Harris actually was a megalomaniac Controller; with a
+long record of success behind him, who had finally grown careless.
+
+At that point, Dorrine interjected a thought: _Isn't it possible that he
+wanted to be caught?_
+
+Houston mulled it over for a minute. _A guilt-punishment reaction? He
+wanted to be punished for his crimes? I suppose that might account for
+part of it, yes. But if he'd been so successful, what did he do with all
+his money?_
+
+Dorrine gave a mental shrug. _Who knows? What's Theory Number Three?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Number Three was the screwiest one of all, yet it made a weird kind of
+sense. Suppose that Sir Lewis himself had had a grudge against Harris?
+The whole thing would have been ridiculously easy; all he'd have to do
+would be to act just as he had acted and then give evidence against
+Harris.
+
+The thing that made it odd wasn't the actual frame-up (if that's what it
+was); these days, every crime was blamed on a Controller. A man accused
+of murder simply looked virtuous and said that he would never have done
+such a thing if he hadn't been under the power of a Controller. Ditto
+for robbery, rape, and any other felony you'd care to name.
+
+An aura of fear hung over the whole Earth; each man half suspected
+everyone with whom he came in contact of being a Controller.
+
+So it wasn't that the frame-up in itself was peculiar in this case; it
+was simply that it wasn't Sir Lewis Huntley's style. If Sir Lewis had
+wanted to get Harris, he'd have done it legally, without any underhanded
+frame-ups. Still, the theory remained as a possibility.
+
+_I suppose it does_, Dorrine agreed, _but how does that tie in with our
+own Group? What about Jackson and Marcy? What happened to them?_
+
+_I don't know_, Houston admitted, _I just don't know_.
+
+Jackson and Marcy had been members of the Group of telepaths who had
+banded together for companionship and mutual protection. Both of them
+had been trapped by the PD Police in exactly the same way that Harris
+had been trapped. They were now where Harris would be in a matter of
+hours--in the Penal Cluster.
+
+Their arrests didn't make sense, either; they had been accused of taking
+over someone's mind for the purpose of gaining money illegally--illegal,
+that is, according to the new UN laws that had been passed to supersede
+the various national laws that had previously been in effect.
+
+But Houston had known both men well, and neither of them was the kind of
+man who would pull such a stunt, much less do it in such a stupid
+manner.
+
+Dorrine thought: _Well, Dave, this Harris case is out of our hands now;
+we've got to concentrate on getting others into the Group--we've got to
+find the other sane ones._
+
+_You're ready to take over here, then?_ he asked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the table, several yards away from where Houston was sitting,
+Dorrine, still looking at the book, smiled faintly.
+
+_I'll have to; you're being transferred back to New York at six in the
+morning._
+
+Houston allowed a feeling of startled surprise to bridge the gap between
+their minds. _How'd you know that?_ He hadn't told her, and she couldn't
+have forced the knowledge from his mind. A telepath can open the mind
+of a Normal as simply as he might open the pages of a book, but the mind
+of another Controller is far stronger. One telepath couldn't force
+anything from the mind of another; all thoughts had to be exchanged
+voluntarily.
+
+She was still smiling. _We've got a few spies in the UN now_, she told
+him. _I got the information before you did._
+
+_You knew before you left New York?_ he asked incredulously.
+
+_That's right_, she thought. _The decision was made last night. Why?_
+
+_Nothing_, he told her. _I was just surprised, that's all._ But deep
+behind the telepathic barrier he had erected against her probing mind,
+he was thinking something else. He had been assigned to London to
+capture the Controller--then unknown--who was said to be active in
+England. But his recall order had been decided upon _before_ Harris was
+caught--or even suspected. Someone in the UN Psychodeviant Police
+Supreme Headquarters in New York must have known that Harris would be
+caught that day!
+
+_Something's bothering you_, Dorrine stated flatly.
+
+_I was thinking about leaving London_, he replied evasively. _I haven't
+seen you for six months, and now I have to leave again._
+
+_I'll be back in New York within three weeks_, the girl thought warmly.
+_I'll be--_
+
+Her thoughts were cut off suddenly by a strident voice in Houston's ear.
+"Attention; all-band notice. Robert Bentley Harris, arraigned this
+evening on a charge of illegal use of psychodeviant powers for the
+purpose of compounding a felony, has been found guilty as charged. He
+was therefore sentenced by the Lord Justice of Her Majesty's Court of
+Star Chamber to be banished from Earth forever, such banishment to be
+carried out by the United Nations Penology Service at the Queen's
+pleasure."
+
+The words that were running through Houston's brain, had been
+transmitted easily to Dorrine. For a moment, neither of them made any
+comment. Then Houston glanced at his watch.
+
+_Twenty-one minutes_, he thought bitterly. _What took them so long?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High in the thin ionosphere, seventy miles above the surface of the
+Earth, a fifteen-hundred-mile-an-hour rocket airliner winged its way
+westward across the Atlantic, pushing herself forward on the thin,
+whispering, white-hot jets of her atomic engine. Behind her, the
+outdistanced sun sank slowly below the eastern horizon.
+
+David Houston wasn't watching the sunrise-in-reverse; he was sitting
+quietly in his seat, still trying to puzzle out his queer recall to New
+York. When Hamilton had told him about it over the phone, he'd assumed
+that New York, having been notified that Harris had been captured, had
+decided to send for Houston, now that his job was over.
+
+But now he knew that the order had come through nearly twenty-four hours
+before Harris was captured.
+
+Did someone at UN Headquarters know that Harris was going to be
+captured? Or did someone there suspect that there was something odd
+about Police Operative David Houston?
+
+Or both?
+
+Whatever it was, Houston would have to take his chances; to act
+suspiciously would be a deadly mistake.
+
+A stewardess, clad in the chic BOAC uniform, moved down the aisle,
+quietly informing the passengers that they could have coffee served at
+their seats or take breakfast in the lounge. The atmosphere of the
+plane's interior was filled with the low murmur of a hundred
+conversations against the background of the susurrant mutter of the
+mighty engines.
+
+_Uhhh--uh--uh--dizzy--head hurts--uh--uh--_
+
+The sounds in the plane altered subtly as the faint thought insinuated
+itself on every brain inside the aircraft. None of the Normal passengers
+recognized it for what it was; it was too gentle, too weak, to be
+recognized directly by their minds.
+
+But David Houston recognized it instantly for what it was.
+
+Somewhere on the plane, a Controller had been unconscious. _Had_ been.
+For now, his powerful mind was trying to swim up from the black depths
+of nothingness.
+
+_Uh--uhhhh--uhh--_
+
+The Normal passengers became uneasy, not knowing why they were
+disturbed. To them, it was like a vaguely unpleasant but totally
+unrecognizable nudge from their own subconscious, like some
+long-forgotten and deeply buried memory that had been forced down into
+oblivion and was now trying to obtrude itself on the conscious mind.
+
+_Uhhh--Oooohh--where?--what happened?--_
+
+A fully conscious telepath could project his thoughts along a narrow
+locus, focusing them on a single brain, leaving all other brains
+oblivious to his thoughts. Like a TV broadcasting station, he could
+choose his wavelength and stick to it.
+
+But a half-conscious Controller sprayed his thoughts at random, creating
+mental disturbances in his vicinity. Like a thunderstorm creating radio
+static, there was no selectivity.
+
+Savagely, David Houston did what he had to do. It might be a trap, but
+he had to avoid the carnage that might follow if this went on. He hurled
+a beam of thought, hard-held, at the offending mind of the awakening
+telepath.
+
+_DON'T THINK! RELAX!_
+
+Normally it was impossible for a Controller to take over the mind of
+another Controller, but these were abnormal circumstances; the
+half-conscious man, whoever he was, was weakened mentally by some kind
+of enforced unconsciousness--either a drug or a stun gun. Houston took
+over his mind smoothly and easily.
+
+_Robert Harris!_
+
+Houston recognized the mind as soon as he held it.
+
+He didn't try to force anything on Harris's mind; he simply held it,
+cradling it, helping Harris to regain consciousness easily, bringing him
+up from the darkness gently.
+
+In normal sleep, everyone's mind retains a certain amount of
+self-control and awareness of environment. If it didn't, noise and
+bright lights wouldn't awaken a sleeping person.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In normal sleep, a telepath retained enough control to keep his thoughts
+to himself, even when waking up.
+
+But total anaesthesia brought on a mental blackout from which the victim
+recovered only with effort. And during that time, a Controller's mind
+was violently disturbing to the Normal minds around him, who mistook his
+disordered thoughts for their own.
+
+Like pouring heavy oil on choppy waters, Houston soothed the
+disturbances of Harris's mind, focusing the random broadcasts on his own
+brain.
+
+And while he did that, he probed gently into the weakened mind of the
+prisoner for information.
+
+Harris was a Controller, all right; there was no doubt about that. But
+nowhere in his mind was there any trace of any knowledge of what had
+happened to Sir Lewis Huntley. If Sir Lewis had actually been
+controlled, it hadn't been done by Robert Harris.
+
+Houston wished he'd been able to probe Sir Lewis's mind; he'd have been
+able to get a lot more information out of it than he had in his
+possession now. But that would have been dangerous; if Sir Lewis was a
+Controller himself, and had been acting a part, Houston would have given
+himself away the instant he attempted to touch the baronet's mind. If,
+on the other hand, Sir Lewis had actually been under the control of
+another telepath, any probing into the mind of the puppet would have
+betrayed Houston to the real Controller.
+
+Harris knew nothing. He wasn't acquainted with any other Controllers,
+and had kept his nose clean ever since he'd discovered his latent
+powers. He knew that megalomaniac Controllers were either captured or
+mobbed, and he had no wish to experience either.
+
+The Normals had long since discovered that the only way to overcome a
+Controller was by force of numbers. A Controller could only hold one
+Normal mind at a time. That was why a mob could easily kill a single
+Controller; that was why the Psychodeviant Police had evolved the "net"
+system for arresting a telepath.
+
+Harris, then, had been framed. Or could it be called a frame-up when
+Harris was really guilty of the actual crime? Because the crime he had
+really been accused of was not that of controlling Sir Lewis, but the
+crime of being a telepath. That, and that alone, damned him in the eyes
+of the Normals; the crime of taking over a mind for gain was incidental.
+The stigma lies in what he _was_, not what he did.
+
+Harris himself was in the bottom of the plane, in the baggage section
+near the landing gear. After his trial, still drugged, he had been
+secretly put aboard, to be taken to the Long Island Spaceport in New
+York. It had had to be secret; no Normal would knowingly ride on an
+aircraft which carried a Controller, even if he were drugged into total
+unconsciousness.
+
+With Harris were two PD Police guards. Their low conversation impinged
+on Harris's ears, and was transmitted to Houston's mind.
+
+Suddenly, one of them said: "Hey! He's moving!"
+
+"Better give him another shot, Harry;" said the other, "when those guys
+wake up, they drive you crazy."
+
+Houston could almost feel the sting of the needle as it was inserted
+into the arm of the helpless prisoner.
+
+Slowly, Harris's thoughts, which had begun to become fully coherent,
+again became chaotic, finally sliding off into silence and darkness.
+
+"Are you all right, sir?"
+
+Houston looked up from his intense concentration. The stewardess was
+standing by his seat. He realized that there was a film of perspiration
+on his brow, and that he probably had looked dazed while he was
+concentrating on Harris's mind.
+
+"Sure," he said quickly, "I'm all right. I'm just a little tired. Had to
+get up too early to catch this plane." He rubbed his forehead. "I do
+have a little headache; would you happen to have any aspirin aboard?"
+
+She smiled professionally. "Certainly, sir. I'll get a couple of
+tablets."
+
+As she left for the first-aid cabinet, Houston thought bleakly to
+himself: _Harris was framed. Possibly others have been, too. But by
+whom? And why?_
+
+He could see why a Normal might do such a thing. But why would a
+Controller do it?
+
+There was only one answer. Somewhere, there was a Controller, or a group
+of Controllers who were megalomaniacs _par excellence_. If that were so,
+he--or they--could make the late "Blackjack" Donnely look like a meek,
+harmless, little mouse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The one part of Continental U.S.A. over which the American Government
+had no jurisdiction was small, areawise, in comparison with its power.
+The District of the United Nations occupied the small area of Manhattan
+Island which ran from 38th Street on the south to 49th Street on the
+north; its western border was Third Avenue, its eastern, the East River.
+From here, the UN ruled Earth.
+
+There were no walls or fences around it; only by looking at street signs
+could anyone tell that they had crossed an international border.
+Crossing Third Avenue from west to east, one found that 45th Street had
+suddenly become Deutschland Strasse; 40th Street became Rue de France;
+47th was the Via Italiano. 43rd Street's sign was painted in Cyrillic
+characters, but beneath it, in English, were the words "Avenue of Mother
+Russia."
+
+Third Avenue was technically One World Drive. Second Avenue was labelled
+as Planetary Peace Drive, and First was United Nations Drive.
+
+But New Yorkers are, and always have been, diehards. Just as The Avenue
+of the Americas had forever remained Sixth Avenue, no matter what the
+maps called it, so had the other streets retained their old names in
+conversation.
+
+Even the International Post Office, after years of wrangling, had given
+up, and letters addressed to _Supreme Headquarters, United Nations
+Police, 45th Street at Second Avenue_, were delivered without comment,
+even though the IPO still firmly held that they were technically
+misaddressed. And, privately, even the IPO officials admitted that the
+numbers were easier to say and remember than the polyglot street names
+that had been tagged on by the General Assembly.
+
+So when David Houston signalled a taxi at Grand Central Station and
+said, "Forty-fifth and Second," the driver simply set his automatic
+controls, leaned back in his seat, and said, "Goin' to see the cops,
+huh?"
+
+When no answer was forthcoming, the driver turned around and took a good
+look at his passenger. "Maybe you're a UN cop yourself, huh?"
+
+Houston shook his head. "Nope. Some kids have been scribbling dirty
+words on my sidewalk, and I'm going to report it to the authorities."
+
+The driver turned back around and looked ahead again. "Jeez! That's
+serious. Hadn't you better take it up with the Secretary General? I
+wouldn't be satisfied with no underlings in a case like that."
+
+"I'm thinking of taking it up with the Atomic Energy Control Board,"
+Houston told him. "I think those kids are using radioactive chalk."
+
+"That's one way for 'em to get blue jeans," said the driver cryptically.
+
+There was silence for a moment as the taxi braked smoothly to a halt,
+guided and controlled by the automatic machinery in the hood.
+
+Then, suddenly, the driver said: "Ship up!" He pointed east, along 45th
+Street, toward Long Island. Far in the distance was a rapidly rising
+vapor trail, pointing vertically toward the sky, the unmistakable sign
+of a spaceship takeoff. They didn't leave often, and it was still an
+unusual sight.
+
+Houston said nothing as he climbed out and paid the driver, tossing in
+an extra tip.
+
+"Thanks, buddy," said the driver. "Watch out for them kids."
+
+Houston didn't answer. He was still watching the vapor trail as the cab
+pulled away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_There goes Harris_, he was thinking. _An innocent man, guilty of
+nothing more than being born different. And because of that, he's
+labelled as an inhuman monster, not even worthy of being executed.
+Instead, he's taken into space, filled full of hibernene, and chained to
+a floating piece of rock for the rest of his life._
+
+Such was humanity's "humane" way of taking care of the bogey of
+Controllers. Capital punishment had been outlawed all over Earth; it had
+long since been proved that legalized murder, execution by the State,
+solved nothing, helped no one, prevented no crimes, and did infinitely
+more harm than good in the long run.
+
+With the coming of the Controllers, a movement had arisen to bring back
+the old evil of judicial murder, but it had been quickly put down when
+the Penal Cluster plan had been put forth as a more "humane" method.
+
+Hibernene was a drug that had been evolved from the study of animals
+like the bear, which spent its winters in an almost death-like sleep. A
+human being, given a proper dosage of the drug, lapsed into a deep coma.
+The bodily processes were slowed down; the heart throbbed sluggishly,
+once every few minutes; thought ceased. It was the ideal prison for a
+mental offender that ordinary prisons could not hold.
+
+But it wasn't quite enough for the bloodthirsty desire for vengeance
+that the Normals held for the Controllers. There had to be more.
+
+Following Earth in its orbit around the sun, trailing it by some
+ninety-three million miles, were a group of tiny asteroids, occupying
+what is known as the Trojan position. They were invisible from Earth,
+being made of dark rock and none of them being more than fifteen feet in
+diameter. But they had been a source of trouble in some of the early
+expeditions to Mars, and had been carefully charted by the Space
+Commission.
+
+Now a use had been found for them. A man in a spacesuit could easily be
+chained to one of them. With him was a small, sun-powered engine and
+tanks of liquified food concentrates and oxygen. Kept under the
+influence of hibernene, and kept cool by the chill of space, a man could
+spend the rest of his life there--unmoving, unknowing, uncaring, dead as
+far as he and the rest of Mankind were concerned--his slight bodily
+needs tended automatically by machine.
+
+It was a punishment that satisfied both sides of the life-or-death
+argument.
+
+Houston shook off the bleak, black feeling of terrible chill that had
+crept over him and pushed his way into the UN Police building.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The thirteenth floor housed the Psychodeviant Division. As he stood in
+the rising elevator, Houston wondered wryly if the number 13 was good
+luck or bad in this case.
+
+He stepped out of the elevator and headed for the Division Chief's
+office.
+
+Division Chief Reinhardt was a heavy-set, balding man, built like a
+professional wrestler. His cold blue eyes gleamed from beneath shaggy,
+overhanging brows, and his face was almost expressionless except for a
+faint scowl that crossed it from time to time. In spite of the fact that
+a Canadian education had wiped out all but the barest trace of German
+accent, his Prussian training, of the old Junkers school, was still
+evident. He demanded--and got--precision and obedience from his
+subordinates, although he had no use for the strictly military viewpoint
+of obsequiousness towards one's superiors.
+
+He was sitting behind his desk, scowling slightly at some papers on it
+when Houston stepped in.
+
+"You wanted me to report straight to you, Mr. Reinhardt?"
+
+Reinhardt looked up, his heavy face becoming expressionless. "Ah,
+Houston. Yes; sit down. You did a fine job on that London affair; that's
+what I call coming through at the last moment."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Your orders to return," he said, "were cut before you found your man.
+We have a much more important case for you than some petty pilfering
+Controller. We are after much more dangerous game."
+
+Houston nodded. "I see." Inwardly, he wondered. It was almost as if
+Reinhardt knew that Houston had found out that the recall had come
+early. Houston would have given his right arm at that moment to be able
+to probe Reinhardt's mind. But he held himself back. He had, in the
+past, sent tentative probes toward the Division Chief and found nothing,
+but he didn't know whether it would be safe now or not. It would be
+better to wait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reinhardt stood up, walked to the wall, and turned on a display screen.
+He twisted a knob to a certain setting, and a map of Manhattan Island
+sprang onto the screen in glowing color.
+
+"As you know," Reinhardt said pedantically, "no Controller can do a
+perfect job of controlling a normal person. No matter how much he may
+want to make John Smith act naturally, some of the personality of the
+Controller will show up in the actions of John Smith. Am I correct?"
+
+Houston nodded without saying anything. The question was purely
+rhetorical, and the statement was perfectly correct.
+
+"Very well, then," Reinhardt continued, "by means of these
+peculiarities, our psychologists have found that there is widespread,
+but very subtle controlling going on right in the UN General Assembly
+itself! The amazing thing is that they all bear the--shall we
+say--trademark of the same Controller. Whoever he is, he seems to have a
+long-range plan in mind; he wants to change, ever so slightly, certain
+international laws so that he will profit by them. Do you follow?"
+
+"I follow," said Houston.
+
+"Good. It has taken painstaking research and a great deal of
+psychological statistical analysis, but we have found that one
+company--and one company only--benefits by these legal changes. Did you
+ever hear of Lasser & Sons?"
+
+"Sure," said Houston. "They're in the import-export business, with a few
+fingers in shipping and air transport."
+
+"That's them," said Reinhardt. "Someone in that company, presumably
+someone at the top, is a Controller. And he's a very subtle, very
+dangerous man. Unlike the others, there is nothing hasty or overt in his
+plans. But within a few years, if this goes on, he will have more power
+than the others ever dreamed of."
+
+"And my job is to get him?" Houston asked.
+
+Reinhardt nodded. "That's it. Get him. One way or another. You're in
+charge; I don't care how you do it, but this one Controller is more
+dangerous than any other we've come across, so get him."
+
+Houston nodded slowly. "Okay. Can you give me all the data you have so
+far?"
+
+Reinhardt patted a heavy folder on his desk. "It's all here." Then he
+tapped the projected map on the screen. "That's the Lasser
+Building--Church Street at Worth. Somewhere in there is the man we're
+looking for."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+David Houston spent the next six weeks gathering facts, trying to
+determine the identity of the mysterious Controller at Lasser & Sons.
+Slowly, the evidence began to pile up.
+
+At the same time, he worried over his own problem. Who was betraying
+non-criminal Controllers to the PD Police?
+
+In that six-week period, two more men and a woman were arrested--one in
+Spain, one in India, and one in Hawaii.
+
+There weren't very many Controllers on Earth, percentagewise. Of the
+three and a half billion people on Earth, less than an estimated
+one-thousandth of one percent were telepathic. But that made a grand
+total of some thirty-five thousand people.
+
+Spread, as they were, all over the planet, it was rare that one
+Controller ever met another. The intelligent ones didn't use their
+power; they remained concealed, even from each other.
+
+But _someone_, somewhere, was finding them and betraying them to the
+Psychodeviant Police.
+
+As more and more data came in on the Lasser case, Houston began to get
+an idea. If there were a really clever, highly intelligent, megalomaniac
+Controller, wouldn't it be part of his psychological pattern to attempt
+to get rid of the majority of Controllers, those who simply wanted to
+lead normal lives?
+
+And, if so, wasn't it possible that both his cases--the official and the
+unofficial--might lead to the same place: Lasser & Sons?
+
+It began to look as though Houston could kill both his birds at once, if
+he could just figure out when, how, and in what direction to throw the
+stone.
+
+In the middle of the seventh week, a Controller in Manchester, England,
+was mobbed and torn to bits by an irate crowd before the PD Police
+could get to him. There was no doubt in Houston's mind that this one was
+a real megalomaniac; he had taken over another man's brain and forced
+him to commit suicide. The controlled man had taken a Webley automatic,
+put it to his temple, and blown his brains out.
+
+The Controller's mistake was in not realizing what the sudden shock of
+that bullet, transmitted to him telepathically, could do to his own
+mind. In the mental disorder that followed, he was spotted and killed
+easily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was still no word from Dorrine. She had flown back to the States a
+week after Houston had returned, but she had had to get back to England
+after three days. Since then, he had had three letters, nothing more.
+And letters are a damned unsatisfactory way for a telepath to conduct a
+love affair.
+
+The one other factor that entered in was The Group, the small band of
+sane, reasonable telepaths who had begun to build themselves into an
+organization--a sort of Mutual Protective Association.
+
+Personally, Houston didn't think much of the idea; the Group didn't have
+any real organization, and they refused to put one together. It was
+supposed to be democratic, but it sometimes bordered on the anarchic.
+
+He stayed with them more for companionship than any other reason. When
+Dorrine had come back for her short stay, Houston had met with them and
+tried to get them to help him trace down the megalomaniac Controller who
+was doing so much damage, but they'd balked at the idea. Their job, they
+claimed, was to get enough members so that they could protect themselves
+from arrest by the Normals, and then just let things ride.
+
+"After all," Dorrine had said, "things will work themselves out,
+darling; they always do."
+
+"Not unless somebody helps them, they don't," Houston had snapped back.
+"Someone has to do something."
+
+"But, Dave, darling--we _are_ doing something! Don't you see?"
+
+He didn't, but there was no convincing either the Group or Dorrine. She
+was passionately interested in the recruiting work she was doing, and
+she thought that the Group was the answer to every Controller's
+troubles.
+
+And then she had rushed back to England. "I'll be back soon, Dave,"
+she'd said. "I think I have a lead on a girl in Liverpool."
+
+So far, the girl hadn't been found. Controllers didn't like to give
+themselves away to anyone, so they kept a tight screen up most of the
+time.
+
+It seemed as though everyone on Earth was in deadly fear all the time.
+The Normals feared losing their identities to Controllers, and the
+Controllers feared death at the hands of the Normals.
+
+And death or the Penal Cluster were their only choices if they were
+discovered.
+
+Houston worried about the risks Dorrine was taking, but there was
+nothing he could do. She was doing what she thought was right, just as
+he was; how could he argue with that?
+
+Houston went on with his job, putting together facts and rumors and
+statistical data analysis, searching out his quarry.
+
+And, at the end of the eighth week, everything blew high, wide, and
+hellish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late evening. A cool wind blew over New York, bringing with it a
+hint of the rain to come. Church Street, in lower Manhattan, was not
+crowded, as it had been in the late afternoon, but neither was it
+entirely deserted. The cafes and bars did a lively business, but the
+tall, many-colored office buildings gaped at the street with blind and
+darkened eyes. Only a few of the windows glowed whitely with fluorescent
+illumination.
+
+In one of the small coffee shops, David Houston sat, smoking a cigarette
+and stirring idly at a cup of cooling coffee.
+
+Across the street was the Lasser Building; high up on the sixtieth
+floor, a whole suite of offices was brightly lit. The rest of the
+building was clothed in blackness.
+
+Who was up there in that suite? Houston wasn't quite sure. He had
+narrowed his list of suspects down to three men: John Sager, Loris
+Pederson, and Norcross Lasser, three top officials in the company. Sager
+and Pederson were both vice-presidents of the firm; Sager was in charge
+of the Foreign Exports department, while Pederson handled the actual
+shipping. Lasser, by virtue of being the grandson of the man who had
+founded the firm, was president of Lasser & Sons, Inc.
+
+Lasser seemed like a poor choice as chief villain of the outfit; he was
+a mild, bland man, quiet and friendly. Besides, his position made him
+an obvious suspect; naturally, the majority stockholder of the firm
+would profit most by the increased power of the company. And, equally
+obviously, a Controller wouldn't want to put himself in such an exposed
+position.
+
+Which made Lasser, in Houston's mind, a hell of a good suspect. If
+anything happened, Lasser could cover by claiming that he, too, had been
+controlled, and the chances were that he could get away with it. A
+Controller never did anything directly; their dirty work was done by
+someone else--a puppet under their mental control. At least, so ran the
+popular misconception. If Lasser were the man, he stood a good chance of
+getting away with it, even if he were caught, provided he played his
+cards right.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That reasoning still didn't eliminate Sager or Pederson. Either of them
+could be the Controller. And there still remained the possibility that
+some unknown, unsuspected fourth person had the company of Lasser & Sons
+under his thumb.
+
+That was what Houston intended to find out tonight.
+
+He took a sip of his coffee, found it still reasonably hot.
+
+Damn the megalomaniacs, anyway! Houston subconsciously tightened his
+fists. He, personally, had more to fear from the Normals than from
+another Controller. Normals could kill or imprison him, while a
+Controller would have a hard time doing either, directly.
+
+But Houston could understand the Normal man; he could see how fear of a
+Controller could drive a man without the ability into a frenzied panic.
+He could understand, even forgive their actions, born and bred in
+ignorance and fear.
+
+No, the ones he hated were the ones who had conceived and fostered that
+fear--the psychologically unstable megalomaniac Controllers. There were
+only a handful of them--probably not more than a few hundred or a
+thousand. But because of them, every telepath on Earth found his life in
+danger, and every Normal found his life a hell of terror.
+
+Let Dorrine and her do-nothing friends run around the globe recruiting
+members for their precious Group; that was all right for them.
+Meanwhile, David Houston would be doing something on a more basic action
+level.
+
+He glanced at his watch. Almost time.
+
+"How's the deployment?" he whispered in his throat.
+
+"We've got the building surrounded now," said the voice in his ear. "You
+can go in anytime."
+
+"How about the roof?"
+
+"That's taken care of, sir; we've got 'copter that can be on the top of
+the Lasser Building at any time you call. They can land within thirty
+seconds of your signal."
+
+"Okay," Houston said; "I'm going in now. Remember--no matter what I say
+or do, no one is to leave that building if they're conscious. And keep
+your eyes on me; if I act in the least peculiar, handcuff me--but don't
+knock me out.
+
+"And if I'm not back on time, come in anyway."
+
+"Right."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston finished his coffee, dropped a coin on the counter, and headed
+for the other side of the street.
+
+The big problem was getting into the building itself. It was ringed with
+alarms; Lasser & Sons didn't want just anybody wandering in and out of
+their building.
+
+So Houston had arranged a roundabout way. The building next to the
+Lasser Building was a good deal smaller, only forty-five stories high. A
+week before, Houston had rented an office on the eighteenth floor of
+the building; on the door, he had already had a sign engraved: Ajax
+Enterprises.
+
+It was a shame the office would never be used.
+
+Houston walked straight to the next-door building and opened the front
+door with his key. Inside, a night watchman lounged behind a desk,
+smoking a blackened briar. He looked up, smiled, and nodded.
+
+"Evening, Mr. Griswold; working late tonight?"
+
+Houston forced a smile he did not feel. "Just doing a little paper
+work," he said.
+
+He took the automatic elevator to the eighteenth floor. He didn't relish
+the idea of walking up to the roof, but taking the elevator would make
+the nightwatchman suspicious.
+
+He didn't bother going to the office; he headed directly for the
+stairway and began his long climb--twenty-seven floors to the roof.
+
+All through it, he kept up a running comment through his throat mike. "I
+wish I weighed about fifty pounds less; carrying two hundred and twenty
+pounds of blubber up these stairs isn't easy."
+
+"Blubber, hooey!" the earphone interrupted. "Any man who's
+six-feet-three has a right to carry that much weight. Actually, you're
+a skinny-looking sort of goop."
+
+Both men were exaggerating; Houston wasn't fat, but his broad, powerful
+frame couldn't be called skinny, either.
+
+When he finally reached the roof, he paused and surveyed the wall of the
+Lasser Building, which towered high above him, spearing an additional
+thirty stories in the air. Up there, the lights on the sixtieth floor
+gleamed in the night.
+
+The air was growing cooler, and the beginnings of a mist were forming.
+Houston hoped it wouldn't start to rain before he got inside.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The forty-sixth floor of the Lasser Building had no windows on this
+side, but there were plenty on the forty-seventh.
+
+Leading up to them was an inviting looking fire escape, but Houston knew
+he didn't dare take that. By law, every fire escape was rigged with a
+fire alarm, in addition to the regular burglar alarm. He'd have to use
+another way.
+
+The Lasser Building was a steel structure, shelled over with a bright
+blue anodized aluminum sheath. Only the day before, Houston, wearing the
+gray coverall of a power-line workman, had checked the wall to find the
+big steel beams beneath the aluminum. He had also installed certain
+other equipment; now he was going to make use of it.
+
+Concealed in the louvres of the air-conditioner intake of the lower
+building was a specially constructed suit and several hundred feet of
+power line which was connected to the main line of the building.
+
+In the darkness, Houston slipped on the suit. It was constructed
+somewhat like a light diving suit or a spacesuit, but without the
+helmet. In the toes, knees, and hands, were powerful electromagnets
+controlled by switches in the fingers of the gloves and powered by the
+current in the long line.
+
+Houston stepped over to the blue aluminum wall, reached out a hand, and
+lowered one finger. Instantly, the powerful magnet anchored his hand to
+the wall, held by the dense magnetic field to the steel beam beneath the
+aluminum sheath. That one magnet alone could support his full body
+weight, and he had six magnets to work with.
+
+Slowly, carefully, David Houston began to crawl up the wall.
+
+Turn on a magnet in the right hand; lift up the left hand and anchor it
+higher; turn on the right hand and lift it even with the left, then
+anchor it again; do the same with both legs; then begin the process all
+over again, turning the magnets off and on in rotation.
+
+Up and up he went. Past the forty-sixth floor, past the forty-seventh,
+the forty-eighth, and the forty-ninth. Not until he reached the fiftieth
+floor did he attempt to open one of the windows.
+
+There was a magnetic lock inside the window, but Houston had taken that,
+too, into account. The powerful magnet in his right glove slid it aside
+easily. Houston lifted the window and stepped inside.
+
+He had ten more floors to go.
+
+He took off the suit and rolled it up into a tight package, then dropped
+it out the window. It landed with a barely audible thump. Houston took a
+deep breath, drew his stun gun, and headed for the stairway.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the landing of the sixtieth floor of the Lasser Building, David
+Houston paused for a moment.
+
+"Sounds like you're out of breath," said the voice in his ear.
+
+"You try climbing all that way sometime," Houston whispered. "I'm no
+superman, you know."
+
+"Shucks," said the voice, "you've disillusioned me. What now?"
+
+"I'm going to try to get a little information," Houston told him. "Hold
+on."
+
+On the other side of the door, he could hear faint sound, as if someone
+were moving around, but he could hear no voices.
+
+Carefully, he sent out a probing thought, trying to see if he could
+attune his mind with that of someone inside without betraying himself.
+
+He couldn't detect anything. The sixtieth floor covered a lot of space;
+if whoever was inside was too far away, their thoughts would be too
+faint to pick up unless Houston stepped up his own power, and he didn't
+want to do that.
+
+Cautiously, he reached out a hand and eased open the door.
+
+The hallway was brightly lit, but there was no one in sight. The
+unaccustomed light made Houston blink for a moment before his eyes
+adjusted to it; the hallways and landings below had been pitch dark,
+forcing him to use a penlight to find his way up.
+
+He stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
+
+Now he could hear voices. He stopped to listen. The conversation was
+coming from an office down the hall--if it could be called a
+conversation.
+
+There would be long periods of silence, then a word or two: "But not
+that way." "Until tomorrow." "Vacillates."
+
+There were three different voices.
+
+Houston moved on down the hall, his stun gun ready. A few yards from the
+door, he stopped again, and, very gently, he sent out another
+thought-probe, searching for the minds of those within, carefully
+forging his way.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And, at that crucial instant, a voice spoke in his ear.
+
+"Houston! What's going on? You haven't said a thing for two full
+minutes!"
+
+"I'm all right!" Houston snapped. Only the force of long training and
+habit kept him from shouting the words aloud instead of keeping them to
+a subvocal whisper.
+
+"All right or not," said the other, "we're coming in in seven minutes,
+as ordered. Meanwhile, there's a news bulletin for you; the British
+division has picked up another Controller--a woman named Dorrine Kent.
+Two in one night ought to be a pretty good bag."
+
+For a moment, Houston's mind was a meaningless blur.
+
+_Dorrine!_
+
+And then another voice broke through his shock.
+
+"Dear me, sir! Calm yourself! You're positively fizzing!"
+
+Houston jerked. Standing in the doorway of the office was Norcross
+Lasser, with a benign smile on his face and a deadly-looking .38
+automatic in his hand. Behind him stood John Sager and Loris Pederson,
+their faces wary.
+
+"Please drop that stun gun, Mr. Cop."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In those few moments, Houston had regained control of himself. He
+realized what had happened. The interruption of his thought-probe had
+startled him just a little, but that little had been enough to warn the
+Controller.
+
+He wondered which of the three men was the actual Controller.
+
+He began to lower his weapon, then, suddenly, with all the force and
+hatred he could muster, he sent a blistering, shocking thought toward
+the man with the gun.
+
+Lasser staggered as though he'd been struck. His gun wavered, and
+Houston fired quickly with his stun gun. At the same time, Lasser's
+automatic went off.
+
+The bullet went wild, and the stun beam didn't do much better. It struck
+Lasser's hand, paralyzing it, but it didn't knock out Lasser.
+
+The mental battle that ensued only took a half second, but at the speed
+of thought, a lot of things can happen in a half second.
+
+Houston realized almost instantaneously that he had made a vast mistake.
+He had badly underestimated the enemy.
+
+There was no need to worry, now, about which one of the men was a
+Controller--_all three of them were!_
+
+As soon as Sager and Pederson realized what had happened, they
+leaped--mentally--into the battle. Lasser, already weakened by the
+unexpected mental blow from Houston, lost consciousness when the others
+let loose their blasts because his mind was still linked with Houston's,
+and he absorbed a great deal of the mental energy meant for Houston's
+brain.
+
+Houston, fully warned by now, held up a denial wall which screened his
+mind from the worst that Sager and Pederson could put out, but he knew
+he couldn't hold out for long.
+
+"Come in--_now!_" he said hoarsely into the microphone.
+
+"Stupid swine!" Sager susurrated sibilantly.
+
+Pederson said nothing aloud, but his brain was blazing with fear and
+hatred. His gun hand jerked towards a holster under his arm. Lasser was
+still crumpling towards the floor.
+
+The entire action had taken less than a second.
+
+Houston tried to fire again with his stun gun, but it required every bit
+of concentration he could sum up to hold off the combined mental
+assaults of Sager and Pederson.
+
+But they, too, were at somewhat of a disadvantage. In order to keep all
+their efforts concentrated on the PD policeman, both Controllers had to
+refrain from putting too much attention on their bodily motions.
+Pederson was still fumbling for his gun, and Sager hadn't yet started
+for his.
+
+Lasser barely touched the floor before his consciousness began to
+return. The resulting fraction of a second of mental static afforded
+Houston a brief respite; it disturbed Pederson just as he was getting
+his fingers on the butt of his weapon.
+
+Both Controllers were focusing their mental energies on Houston's brain,
+and during the brief respite, Houston made one vital mental adjustment.
+He allowed both thought-probes to fuse in a small part of his
+consciousness. They went _through_ him and lashed back at the two
+Controllers.
+
+Both of them had had their minds tuned to Houston's, and in that instant
+they found they, were also attuned to each other.
+
+The resultant of the energy was shocking to Houston, but it was
+infinitely worse for Sager and Pederson, since neither of them had been
+expecting it. Pederson, who had already been slightly distracted, got
+the major brunt of the force. He managed to jerk his gun free, but his
+brain was already lapsing into unconsciousness.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston's fingers tightened on his own weapon. It fired once at Lasser,
+who was trying to lift himself from the floor. Then it swept up and
+coughed again, dropping Pederson. His pistol barked once, sending a
+singing ricochet along the hall.
+
+Sager, who had staggered to one side when he and Pederson had
+short-circuited each other, had time to get behind the protection of
+the office door. He couldn't close it because Lasser's and Pederson's
+inert forms blocked the doorway, but at least it afforded protection
+against Houston's stun gun.
+
+His thought came through to Houston: _So the stupid Normals have a
+Controller working for them! Traitor!_
+
+_You're the traitor_, Houston thought coldly. _You and your megalomaniac
+friends. It's madmen like you who have made telepaths hated and feared
+by the Normals._
+
+_And so they should hate and fear us_, came the snarling mental answer.
+_Within a few generations, we will have supplanted them. We will control
+Earth--not they._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The exchange had only taken a fraction of a second. Houston was already
+charging toward the open door, hoping to get inside before Sager could
+reach a weapon.
+
+_You call me a traitor_, Houston thought, _but you have been framing
+innocent Controllers, putting them into the hands of the PD Police_.
+
+_That's a lie!_ the reply came hotly. _We would never betray another
+telepath to the stupid Normals! If a telepath were so bullheaded as to
+get in our way, we'd dispose of him. But it would be Controller
+justice; we wouldn't turn him over to animals!_
+
+In one blazing moment, Houston realized that the Controller was telling
+the truth!
+
+No mental communication can be expressed properly in words. In, behind,
+and around each statement, other, dimmer nuances of thought gleam
+through. Each thought tells the receiver much more than can be put down
+in crude verbal symbols.
+
+Thus, Houston already knew that Lasser, Sager, and Pederson were the
+three top men in a world-wide clique of megalomaniac Controllers. This
+was the top of the madmen's organization; these three were the _creme de
+la creme_ of the Normal human's real enemies.
+
+He knew that there were twelve others scattered over Earth, and he knew
+where and who they were. That brief exchange had brought all the
+information into Houston's own mind as it leaked from the minds of the
+others. He knew it without thinking about how he knew it.
+
+And they were _not_ the ones who had been turning the sane Controllers
+over to the Psychodeviant Police!
+
+Then who was? And why?
+
+Houston was right back where he had started.
+
+But that brief instant of confusion was Houston's downfall. Sager
+instantly realized that he had delivered, inadvertently, a telling blow
+to Houston's mind.
+
+Physically, Houston had been propelling himself toward the open door. At
+the instant of the revelation, he had been part way through it. And at
+that moment, Sager acted.
+
+He slammed all his weight violently against his side of the door,
+knocking Houston off balance as the door swung and struck him. He went
+down, and Sager was on top of him before he struck the floor.
+
+It was the weirdest battle ever fought, but its true worth could only
+have been detected by another telepath. It was intense and brutal.
+
+The men fought both physically and mentally. They struggled for
+possession of the stun gun, at the same time hurling emotion-charged
+shafts of mental energy at each other's brains.
+
+The struggle lasted less than a minute. Somehow, Sager managed to get
+one hand on the gun, twisting it. Houston, trying to keep it out of
+Sager's hand, jerked it up between them.
+
+It coughed once, sending a beam of supersonic energy into the bodies of
+both men.
+
+The effect was the same as if they had both been crowned with baseball
+bats.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Little pinpoints of light against a sea of darkness.
+
+_I'm cold_, Houston thought. _And I'm sick._
+
+He couldn't tell whether his eyes were open or closed--and he didn't
+much care.
+
+He tried to move his arms and legs, found he couldn't, and gave it up.
+
+He blinked.
+
+_My eyes must be open_, he thought, _if I can blink_.
+
+Well, then, if his eyes were open, why couldn't he see anything? All he
+could see were the little pinpoints of light against a background of
+utter blackness.
+
+_Like stars_, he thought.
+
+_Stars? STARS!_
+
+With a sudden rush, total awareness came back to him, and he realized
+with awful clarity where he was.
+
+He was chained, spread-eagled, on an asteroid in the Penal Cluster,
+nearly a hundred million miles from Earth.
+
+It was easy to piece together what had happened. He dimly remembered
+that he had started to wake up once before. It was a vague, confused
+recollection, but he knew what had taken place.
+
+The PD Police, coming in response to his call, had found all four men
+unconscious from the effects of the stun beam. Naturally, all of them
+had been taken into custody; the PD Police had to find out which one of
+the men was the Controller and which the controlled. That could easily
+be tested by waiting until they began to wake up; the resulting mental
+disturbances would easily identify the telepath.
+
+Houston could imagine the consternation that must have resulted when the
+PD men found that all three suspects--_and_ their brother officer--were
+Controllers.
+
+And now here he was--tried, convicted, and sentenced while he was
+unconscious--doomed to spend the rest of his life chained to a rock
+floating in space.
+
+A sudden chill of terror came over him. Why wasn't he asleep? Why wasn't
+he under hibernene?
+
+_It's their way of being funny_, came a bitter thought. _We're supposed
+to be under hibernene, but we're left to die, instead._
+
+For a moment, Houston did not realize that the thought was not his own,
+so well did it reflect his own bitterness. It was bad enough to have to
+live out one's life under the influence of the hibernation drug, but it
+was infinitely worse to be conscious. Under hibernene, he would have
+known nothing; his sleeping mind in his comatose body would never have
+realized what had happened to him. But this way, he would remain fully
+awake while his body used up the air too fast and his stomach became
+twisted with hunger pangs which no amount of intravenous feeding could
+quell. Oh, he'd live, all right--for a few months--but it would be
+absolute hell while he lasted. Insanity and catatonia would come long
+before death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_That's a nasty thought; I wish you hadn't brought it up._
+
+That wasn't his own thought! There was someone else out here!
+
+_Hell, yes, my friend; we're all out here._
+
+"Where are you?" Houston asked aloud, just to hear his own voice. He
+knew the other couldn't hear the words which echoed so hollowly inside
+the bubble of the spacesuit helmet, but the thought behind them would
+carry.
+
+"You mean with relation to yourself?" came the answer. "I don't know. I
+can see several rocks around me, but I can't tell which one you're on."
+
+Houston could tell now that the other person was talking aloud, too. So
+great was the illusion carried to his own brain that it almost seemed as
+though he could hear the voice with his ears.
+
+"Then there are others around us?" Houston asked.
+
+"Sure. There were three of us: a Hawaiian named Jerry Matsukuo; a girl
+from Bombay, Sonali Siddhartha; and myself, Juan Pedro de Cadiz. Jerry
+and Sonali are taking a little nap. You're the first of your group to
+wake up."
+
+"My group?"
+
+"Certainly, my friend. There are five of you; the other four must still
+be unconscious."
+
+Four? That would be Lasser, Sager, Pederson, and--_and Dorrine!_
+
+Juan Pedro de Cadiz picked up the whole thought-process easily.
+
+"The girl--I'm sorry," he said. "But the other three--of us all, I
+think, they deserve this."
+
+"Juan!" came another thought-voice. "Have our newcomers awakened?"
+
+"Just one of them, my sweet," replied the Spaniard. "Sonali, may I
+present Mr. David Houston. Mr. Houston, the lovely Sonali Siddhartha."
+
+"Juano has a habit of jumping to conclusions, David," said the girl.
+"He's never even seen me, and I'm sure that after three weeks of being
+locked in this prison whatever beauty I may have had has disappeared."
+
+"Your thoughts are beautiful, Sonali," said Juan Pedro, "and with us,
+that is all that counts."
+
+"It is written," said a third voice, "that he who disturbs the slumber
+of his betters will wake somebody up. You people are giving me dreams,
+with your ceaseless mental chatter."
+
+"Ah!" the Spaniard said. "Mr. Matsukuo, may I--"
+
+"I heard, Romeo, I heard," said the Hawaiian. "An ex-cop, eh? I wonder
+if I like you? I'll take a few thousand years to think it over; in the
+meantime, you may treat me as a friend."
+
+"I'll try to live down my reputation," said Houston.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was an odd feeling. Physically, he was alone. Around him, he could
+see nothing but the blackness of space and the glitter of the stars. He
+knew that the sun must be shining on the back of his own personal
+asteroid, but he couldn't see it. As far as his body was concerned,
+there was nothing else in the universe but a chunk of pitted rock and a
+set of chains.
+
+But mentally, he felt snug and warm, safe in the security of good
+friends. He felt--
+
+"David! David! Help me! Oh, David, David, David!"
+
+It was Dorrine, coming up from her slumber. Like a crashing blare of
+static across the neural band, her wakening mind burst into sudden
+telepathic activity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gently, Houston sent out his thoughts, soothing her mind as he had
+soothed Harris's mind weeks before. And he noticed, as he did it, that
+the other three were with him, helping. By the time Dorrine was fully
+awake, she was no longer frightened or panicky.
+
+"You're wonderful people," she thought simply, after several minutes.
+
+"To one so beautiful, how else could we be?" asked Juan Pedro.
+
+"Ignore him, Dorrine," said Sonali, "he tells me the same thing."
+
+"But not in the same way, _amiga_!" the Spaniard protested. "Not in the
+same way. The beauty of your mind, Sonali, is like the beauty of a
+mountain lake, cool and serene; the beauty of Dorrine is like the beauty
+of the sun--warm, fiery, and brilliant."
+
+"By my beard!" snorted Matsukuo. "Such blather!"
+
+"I'll be willing to wager my beautiful _hacienda_ in the lovely
+countryside of Aragon against your miserable palm-leaf _nipi_ shack on
+Oahu that you have no beard," said Juan Pedro.
+
+"Hah!" said Matsukuo; "that's all I need now--Castles in Spain."
+
+It was suddenly dizzying for Houston. Here were five people, doomed to
+slow, painful death, talking as though there were nothing to worry
+about. Within minutes, each had learned to know the others almost
+perfectly.
+
+It was more than just the words each used. Talking aloud helped focus
+the thoughts more, but at the same time, thousands of little, personal,
+fringe ideas were present with the main idea transmitted in words.
+Houston had talked telepathically to Dorrine hundreds of times, but
+never before had so much fine detail come through.
+
+Why? Was there something different about space that made mental
+communication so much more complete?
+
+"No, not that, I think," said Matsukuo. "I believe it is because we have
+lost our fear--not of death; we still fear death--but of betrayal."
+
+That was it. They knew they were going to die, and soon. They had
+already been sentenced; nothing further could frighten them. Always
+before, on Earth, they had kept their thoughts to themselves, fearing to
+broadcast too much, lest the Normals find them out. The little, personal
+things that made a human being a living personality were kept hidden
+behind heavy mental walls. The suppression worked subconsciously, even
+when they actually wanted to communicate with another Controller.
+
+But out here, there was nothing to fear on that score. Why should they,
+who were already facing death, be afraid of anything now?
+
+So they opened up--wide. And they knew each other as no group of human
+beings had ever known each other. Every human being has little faults
+and foibles that he may be ashamed of, that he wants to keep hidden from
+others. But such things no longer mattered out here, where they had
+nothing but imminent death and the emptiness of space--and each other.
+
+Physically, they were miserable. To be chained in one position, with
+very little room to move around, for three weeks, as Sonali had been,
+was torture. Sonali had been there longer than the others--for three
+days, there had been no one but herself out there in the loneliness of
+space.
+
+But now, even physical discomfort meant little; it was easy to forget
+the body when the mind was free.
+
+"What of the others?" Dorrine asked. "Where are the ones who were
+sentenced before us?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston thought of Robert Harris. What had happened to the young
+Englishman?
+
+"Space is big," said Juan Pedro. "Perhaps they are too far away for our
+thoughts to reach them--or perhaps they are already dead."
+
+"Let's not talk of death." Sonali Siddhartha's thought was soft. "We
+have so many things to do."
+
+"We will have a language session," said Juan Pedro. "_Si?_"
+
+Matsukuo chuckled. "Good! Houston, until you've tried to learn Spanish,
+Hindustani, Arabic, Japanese, and French all at once, you don't know
+what a language session is. We--"
+
+The Hawaiian's thought was suddenly broken off by a shrieking burst of
+mental static.
+
+The effect was similar to someone dropping a handful of broken glass
+into an electric meat grinder right in the middle of a Bach cantata.
+
+It was Sager, coming out of his coma.
+
+Almost automatically, the five contacted his mind to relax him as he
+awoke. They touched his mind--and were repelled!
+
+_Stay out of my mind!_
+
+With almost savage fury, the still half-conscious Sager hurled thoughts
+of hatred and fear at the five minds who had tried to help him. They
+recoiled from the burst of insane emotion.
+
+"Leave him alone," Houston thought sharply. "He's a tough fighter."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first, Sager was terrified when he learned what had happened to him.
+Then the terror was mixed with a boiling, seething hatred. A hatred of
+the Normals who had done this to him, and an even more terrible hatred
+for Houston, the "traitor."
+
+The very emptiness of space itself seemed to vibrate with the surging
+violence of his hatred.
+
+"I know," Houston told him, "you'd kill me if you could. But you can't,
+so forget it."
+
+Not even the power of that hatred could touch Houston, protected as he
+was by the combined strength of the other four sane telepaths. He was
+comparatively safe.
+
+Sager snarled like a trapped animal. "You're all insane! Look at you!
+The four of you, siding with a man who has betrayed us to the Normals!
+He--"
+
+What Sager thought of Houston couldn't be put into words, and if it
+could no sane person would want to repeat the mad foulness in those
+words.
+
+"This is unbearable!" Sonali thought softly.
+
+"That's not a mind," said Dorrine, "it's a sewer."
+
+"I suggest," said Matsukuo, "that we do a little probing. Let's find out
+what makes this thing tick."
+
+"Stay out of my mind!" Sager screamed. "You have no right!"
+
+"You seemed to think you had the right to probe into the helpless minds
+of Normals," said Juan Pedro coldly. "We should show you how it feels."
+
+"But they're just animals!" Sager retorted. "I am a Controller!"
+
+"You're a madman," said Matsukuo. "And we must find out what makes you
+mad."
+
+Synchronizing perfectly, five minds began to probe at the walls that
+Sager had built up around his personality. And as they probed, Sager
+retreated behind ever thicker walls, howling in hatred and anguish.
+
+On and on went the five, needling, pressing at every weak spot, trying
+to break him down. Outnumbered and overpowered, it seemed as though
+Sager had no chance.
+
+But his insanity was stronger than they suspected. The barriers he built
+were harder, more opaque, and more impenetrable than any they had ever
+seen. The five pushed on, anyway, but their advance slowed tremendously.
+
+Then, mentally, there was a sudden silence.
+
+_Sager?_ they thought.
+
+No answer.
+
+"That's finished it," said Houston. "He's retreated so far behind those
+mental barriers that he's cut himself off completely."
+
+"He's not dead, is he?" Dorrine asked.
+
+"Dead?" said Juan Pedro. "Not in the sense you mean. But I think he is
+catatonic now; he has lost all touch with the outside. He is as though
+he were still drugged; he is physically helpless, and mentally blanked
+out."
+
+"There's one difference," Matsukuo said analytically. "And that is that,
+although he has cut himself off from us and from the rest of the
+universe, he is still conscious in some little, walled-in compartment of
+his mind. He has no one there but himself--and that, I think, is damned
+poor company."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They waited then. When Pederson awoke, they were ready for him. His
+hatred took a slightly different form from Sager's, but the effect was
+the same.
+
+And so were the results when the five bore down on him.
+
+Again they waited. Lasser was next.
+
+At first, it looked as though Lasser would go the way of Sager and
+Pederson, ending up as a hopelessly insane catatonic. Like his cohorts
+before him, Lasser retreated under the full pressure of the
+thought-probes of the five, building stronger and stronger walls.
+
+But, quite suddenly, all his defenses crumbled. The mental barriers went
+down, shattered and dissolving. Lasser's whole mind lay bare. Instead of
+fighting and hating, Lasser was begging, pleading for help.
+
+Lasser was not basically insane. His mind was twisted and warped, but
+beneath the outer shell was a personality that had enough internal
+strength to be able to admit that it was wrong and ask for help instead
+of retreating into oblivion.
+
+"This one--I think we can do something with," Matsukuo's thought
+whispered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Eight bodies, uncomfortable and pain-wracked, floated in space, chained
+to tiny asteroids that drifted slowly in their orbits under the constant
+pull of the sun. Two of them contained minds that were locked
+irrevocably within prisons of their own building, sealed off forever
+from external stimuli, but their suffering was the greater for all that.
+
+The other six, chained though their limbs might be, had minds that were
+free--free, even, of any but the most necessary of internal limitations.
+
+Eight bodies, chained to eight lumps of pitted rock, spun endlessly in
+endless space.
+
+And then the ship came.
+
+The flare of its atomic rocket could be seen for over an hour before it
+reached the Penal Cluster. The six eyed it speculatively. Although only
+two of them were facing the proper direction to see it with their
+physical eyes, the impressions of those two were easily transmitted to
+the other four.
+
+"Another load of captives," whispered Juan Pedro de Cadiz. "How many
+this time, I wonder?"
+
+"How long have we been here?" asked Houston, not expecting any answer.
+
+"Who knows?" It was Lasser. "What we need out here is a clock to tell us
+when we'll die."
+
+"Our oxygen tanks are our clocks," said Sonali. "And they'll notify us
+when the time comes."
+
+"I do believe you morbid-minded people are developing a sense of humor,"
+said Matsukuo, "but I'm not sure I care for the style too much."
+
+The flare of the rocket grew brighter as the decelerating ship
+approached the small cluster of rocks. At last the ship itself took
+form, shining in the eternal blaze of the sun. When the whiteness of the
+rocket blaze died suddenly, the ship was only a few dozen yards from
+Houston's own asteroid.
+
+And then a mental voice came into the minds of the six prisoners.
+
+"How do you feel, Controllers?"
+
+Only Houston recognized that thought-pattern, but his recognition was
+transmitted instantly to the others.
+
+"_Reinhardt!_"
+
+Hermann Reinhardt, Division Chief of the Psychodeviant Police, the one
+man most hated and feared by Controllers, was himself a telepath!
+
+"Naturally," said Reinhardt. "Someone had to take control of the
+situation. I was the only one who was in a position to do it."
+
+His thoughts were neither hard nor cold; it was almost as if he were one
+of them--except for one thing. Only the words of his thoughts came
+through; there were none of the fringe thoughts that the six were used
+to in each other.
+
+"That's true," thought Reinhardt. "You see, we have been at this a good
+deal longer than you." Then he directed his thoughts at members of the
+crew of the spaceship, but they could still be heard by the six
+prisoners. "All right, men, get those people off those rocks. We have to
+make room for another batch."
+
+The airlock in the side of the ship opened, and a dozen spacesuited men
+leaped out. The propulsion units in their hands guided them toward the
+prison asteroids.
+
+"Give them all anaesthetic except Sager and Pederson," Reinhardt
+ordered. "They won't need it." Then, with a note of apology, "I'm sorry
+we'll have to anaesthetize you, but you've been in one position so long
+that moving you will be rather painful. We have to get you to a hospital
+quickly."
+
+The minds of the six prisoners were frantically pounding questions at
+the PD chief, but he gave them no answer. "No; wait until you're
+better."
+
+The spacesuited rescuers went to the "back" of each asteroid and
+injected sleep-gas into the oxygen line that ran from the tank to the
+spacesuit of the prisoner.
+
+Houston could smell the sweetish, pungent odor in his helmet. Just
+before he blacked out, he hurled one last accusing thought at Reinhardt.
+
+"_You're_ the one who's been framing Controllers!"
+
+"Naturally, Houston," came the answer. "How else could I get you out
+here?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston woke up in a hospital bed. He was weak and hungry, but he felt
+no pain. As he came up from unconsciousness, he felt a fully awake mind
+guiding him out of the darkness.
+
+It was Reinhardt.
+
+"You're a tough man, Houston," he said mentally. "The others won't wake
+up for a while yet."
+
+He was sitting on a chair next to the bed, holding a smouldering
+cigarette in one hand. He looked strange, somehow, and it took Houston a
+moment to realize that there was a smile on that broad, normally
+expressionless face.
+
+Houston focussed his eyes on the man's face. "I want an explanation,
+Reinhardt," he said aloud. "And it better be a damned good one."
+
+"I give you free access to my mind," Reinhardt said. "See for yourself
+if my method wasn't the best one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Houston probed. The explanation, if not the best, was better than any
+Houston could have thought of.
+
+When the hatred of the normal-minded people of Earth had been turned
+against the Controllers because of the actions of a few megalomaniacs,
+it had become obvious that legal steps had to be taken to prevent mob
+violence.
+
+It had been Reinhardt himself who had suggested the Penal method to the
+UN government. At first, he had simply thought of it as a method to
+keep the Controllers alive until he could think of something better. But
+when he had discovered, by accident, what a small group of Controllers,
+alone in space, could do, he had set up the present machinery.
+
+As soon as a Controller was spotted, a careful frame-up was arranged.
+Then, when several had been found, they were arrested in quick
+succession and sent to the asteroids.
+
+Always and invariably, they had done what Houston's group had done--the
+sane or potentially sane ones had improved themselves tremendously,
+while the megalomaniacs had lapsed into catatonia.
+
+"Why couldn't it be done on Earth?" Houston asked.
+
+"We tried it," Reinhardt said. "It didn't work. Safe, on Earth,
+surrounded by Normals, a Controller still feels the hatred around him.
+He can't open his mind completely. Only the certain knowledge of
+impending death, and a complete freedom from the hatred of Normals can
+free the mind.
+
+"And that's why you couldn't be told beforehand; if you knew you were
+going to be rescued, you wouldn't open up."
+
+Houston nodded. It made sense. "Where are we now?" he asked.
+
+"Antarctica," said Reinhardt. "We've built an outpost here--almost
+self-sufficient. When you're in better shape physically, I'll show you
+around."
+
+"Do you mean that everyone who's been arrested is here, in Antarctica?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reinhardt laughed. "No, not by a long shot. Most of us are back out in
+civilization, searching for new, undiscovered Controllers, so that we
+can frame them. And, of course, some of us--the insane ones--have died.
+They will themselves to die when the going gets too tough."
+
+"Searching for recruits? Then the Group that Dorrine was working for
+was--"
+
+Reinhardt shook his head. "No. They were going about it the wrong way,
+just as you thought. We picked up the whole lot of them last week;
+they're occupying the asteroids now."
+
+"What do you do with the insane catatonics?"
+
+"Put them under hibernene and keep them alive. We hope, someday, to
+figure out a method of restoring their sanity. Until then, let them
+sleep."
+
+Houston narrowed his eyes. "How long have you known I was a Controller,
+Reinhardt?"
+
+The Prussian smiled. "Ever since you first tried to probe me.
+Fortunately, my training enabled me to put up a shield that you couldn't
+penetrate; I seemed like a Normal to you.
+
+"I kept you on because I knew you'd be useful in cracking Lasser and his
+gang when the time came. No one else could have done what you did that
+night."
+
+"Thanks," Houston said sincerely. "What's going to happen now? After I
+get well, I mean."
+
+"You'll do what the others have done. A little plastic surgery to change
+your face a trifle, a little record-juggling to give you a new identity,
+and you'll be ready to go back to work for the PD Police.
+
+"If anyone recognizes you, it's easy to take over their minds just long
+enough to make them forget. We allow that much Controlling."
+
+"And then what?" Houston wanted to know. "What happens in the long run?"
+
+"In a way," said Reinhardt, "your friend Sager was right. The
+Controllers will eventually become the rulers of Earth. But not by force
+or trickery. We must just bide our time. More and more of us are being
+born all the time; the Normals are becoming fewer and fewer. Within a
+century, we will outnumber them--we will be the Normals, not they.
+
+"But they'll never know what's going on. The last Normal will die
+without ever knowing that he is in a world of telepaths.
+
+"By the time that comes about, we'll no longer need the Penal Cluster,
+since Controllers will be born into a world where there is no fear of
+non-telepaths."
+
+"I wonder," Houston mused, "I wonder how this ability came about. Why is
+the human race acquiring telepathy so suddenly?"
+
+Reinhardt shrugged. "I can give you many explanations--atomic radiation,
+cosmic rays, natural evolution. But none of them really explains it.
+They just make it easier to live with.
+
+"I think something similar must have happened a few hundred thousand
+years ago, when Cro-Magnon man, our own ancestors, first developed true
+intelligence instead of the pseudo-intelligence, the highly developed
+instincts, of the Neanderthals and other para-men.
+
+"Within a relatively short time, the para-men had died out, leaving the
+Cro-Magnon, with his true intelligence, to rule Earth."
+
+Reinhardt stood up. "Why is it happening? We don't know. Maybe we never
+will know, any more than we know why Man developed intelligence." He
+shrugged. "Perhaps the only explanation we'll ever have is to call it
+the Will of God and let it go at that."
+
+"Maybe that's the best explanation, after all," Houston said.
+
+"Perhaps. Who knows?" Reinhardt crushed his cigarette out in a tray.
+"I'll go now, and let you get some rest. And don't worry; I'll have you
+notified as soon as Dorrine starts to come out of it."
+
+"Thanks--Chief," Houston said as Reinhardt left the room.
+
+David Houston lay back in his bed and closed his eyes.
+
+For the first time in his life, he felt completely at peace--with
+himself, and with the Universe.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from _Amazing Stories_ September 1957.
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
+    typographical errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Penal Cluster, by
+Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENAL CLUSTER ***
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