Dean McLaughlin - Always, There's Somebody Doesn’t Get the Word

Muttering to myself, I dialed, then listened to the usual hiccups as connection was made. At last came the signal it was ringing at the far end. Once. The expected pause like a deep breath. Then again.

Answer the blipping phone, thought I, projecting as strongly as I could. Even with the Moon not right for me just then, they should have heard. Presuming they wanted to, that is.

Buzz number three. Finally, clicking again.

“Hi.” Unmistakably a recording; I’d been shunted to the voicemail thing. Deliberately, I’m sure. They knew how Nadia’s chirpy voice clanged my sensibility. “You have reached the offices of the Universal Psychics’ Association. We already have your vibes, of course, so you really didn’t need to go to all this trouble. If you’re having difficulty establishing two-way, it’s because all our staff are on some other channel.”

Uh huh, thought I. So you had a phone put in just so the telepathically challenged could talk at you. I’m expected to cheer or something?

“We’ll have someone appropriate on the line soon as we can,” Nadia’s chirp proceeded, “but to simplify, this mechanical system isn’t sensitive, so if you’re deaf or mute—you understand what we mean, do you not?—and you’re phoning on a matter of mundane business, please press one.”

I am not of that category. Neither do I have a touch-tone phone.

“If you wish to leave a message—you really don’t need to, you know—press two.”

If I wanted to leave a message, I thought, I would carve it on a rock and drop it on that insolent toy. I do not have a touch-tone phone.

“If you believe yourself qualified for membership but have been unsure how to proceed, leaving aside how you could qualify if that’s the case, you may apply by phone if you wish—you realize it’s not efficient, don’t you?—press three.”

I’m a member already, I thought loudly, and I still don’t have a touch-tone phone.

“If you’re a member, but are using this crutchlike system to get our attention—we can’t think why—press four.”

You know I don’t have a touchtone phone, I muttered mentally. Stop with the arrogant needles, already.

“If you are calling from a piece of old-fashioned equipment,” Nadia’s voice proceeded—just for me, thought I sarcastically, “please hold. We’ll have someone on the line as soon as we can.”

For a blessed instant then, silence. Nadia’s voice would irritate equally a parrot, a gorilla, or a clam. I’d have gladly waited serenely thus, but that would have been too merciful. Clickclick, and I had music to keep my interest while time ticked slow. Brahms? Rachmaninoff? No such luck. East Wind, Rain scorching the optical fiber with their platinum, “Whips and Chains Just Ain’t the Same When It’s Naugahyde.” I could either endure or hang up and try later.

I cast my mind forward. If my talent was in phase—which, it being the Moon’s first quarter, it almost certainly was—a special treat waited. The Right to Life Death Squad, doing their “Hymn to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Gritting teeth, I elected to stick it out.

My mistake. As “Naugahyde” faded into obscurity, East Wind, etc. promptly commenced, “Chainsaw Lunch.” They had a thing about chains. This little ditty jackhammered my eardrum for exactly three minutes, seventeen seconds—I’m perfect with that skill, even if no one appreciates—before it broke off in midscreech with the same sort of brisk double-click which began the entertainment, after which Nadia’s voice came as the most beautiful sound in the world. “Hi, Harold.”

Is it possible she was telling me something?

“Hi, Nadia,” said I suavely. “How are ya?”

“You’re fine,” she replied. “How’m I?”

That gag, I’m told, was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls along with attribution to yet-undiscovered Ancient Writings. I bit my tongue. “Just trying to be polite,” I said. “You need to have your gall bladder taken out but you don’t have the nerve. Look, let me talk to Max, there’s a doll.”

“Actually, it’s my spleen, and he’s on a different channel, just now,” she tweaked. “As you probably know.”

Well!

“Just tell him I’m waiting,” says I.

“Sure thing, Harold. Anything you say. You think he doesn’t know?”

At that point, anything I said would have curdled the cable. Metaplasm is more resilient. I let the information make transfer and waited silently. Well, almost silently. Double-click again, sounding much like a snicker, and the entertainment resumed. Now it was Prong and the Circumcisions, their version of “Lady, We Can’t All Be Elvis.” They didn’t play it right, and their drummer—as usual—got confused about which hand was doing what.

Mercifully, it persisted only long enough to numb one side of my body, scalp to little toe, before another snicker delivered Max’s mellifluous tones. “Howdy, Harold. How come you’re using the phone?”

Rubbing it in. “Howdy,” I grumbled. “Max, you know I’m erratic. I’m in precog phase right now, and when I’m that, can’t do mindreach. We went all through that, didn’t we?”

“Ah, so we did,” says Max. “Some of us manage.”

Superior schmuck. “Some of us can’t be everything all at once.”

“True,” he admitted, but did I imagine that air of pity in his voice? “Has it ever occurred to you, Harold, merely by reorienting your precog it would become mindreach?”

“I know that’s the theory,” I said. “But that puts it right in the middle of one of my blind spots. I’m supposed to bite my elbow or something?”

“It’s actually quite simple, Harold,” Max said. I had this flash of a shrug, bright clear for an instant, but it went away. The showoff. “So what are you calling about?”

“You don’t know?” I asked archly. Gotcha that time.

“Well, now that you mention,” he condescended. “Merely trying to facilitate our exchange. You know how it is.”

Talking to me like we talk to the speechless and blind, pretending it’s really not their fault they’re inferior. I seethed but suppressed; well, most of the way. “Why did we start sending meeting notices?” It just burst out.

“Oh? You received one?”

“You know I did.”

“Well, actually, of course I do.”

“Uh huh.” Impossible to strangle a man over the phone. I can’t, that is. There have been whispers. “So why?” I inquired.

“I knew you’d ask,” said he.

Belaboring the obvious. “Maaax!” I complained.

“It’s really very simple, Harold,” he went on smoothly, pretending not to have heard. “Aren’t you the one who wanted to eliminate the riffraff from our organization? The pretenders who don’t really have it?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” I demanded.

“Why, everything, Harold.” As if explaining to a child. “After all, they’ve been paying dues for years. We can’t just tell them now that they’re not welcome anymore. It would be terribly unkind.”

“Huh? How’s that follow?” I wanted to know.

“So we’ve created a sort of auxiliary, only we don’t call it that, and sidetracked them into it. They’ll be much happier with just themselves and never suspect a thing.”

“That’s not what I asked,” I said. “I want to know—”

“Our real meeting will be somewhere else,” he said. “At a different time.”

“Oh,” said I, for a moment awed by this cleverness. Then, catching breath, thoughts came. “But—”

“Do you know where?” he asked, adroit as ever. “Do you know when?”

“You know I don’t,” I said, suddenly desolate.