Дэймон Найт - Orbit 4

“He! he!” Godwin slapped the bench with his open palm. “Well said, young man.”

Sickles bowed to the aged justice—and wondered how many votes he had just lost.

“Mr. Sickles,” said Helen Nord, “do you know what is in the safe—on the camera film, I mean?”

“No, your honor. I’m interested, of course. It may be nothing at all. But whatever it is, it can have no relevance in these proceedings.”

“Suppose, Mr. Sickles,” said the Chief Justice, “that it shows the face of the assassin?”

Sickles looked up at the great man in astonishment, then shrugged. “And who is the assassin, your honor? How would face and deed be connected? But I respectfully submit that the camera and its contents, whether present or prospective, are moot. Exhibit Q simply is not in evidence.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Can electromagnetic radiation penetrate that safe?” asked Helen Nord.

“Quite impossible, your honor. The walls are one-inch steel and form a perfect Faraday box.”

“So that, if psi does exist, and is a form of electromagnetic radiation, it would not be possible to penetrate the steel shell and affect the photographic emulsion in any way?”

“That’s right, your honor.”

“Then,” asked Pendleton, “if we open the safe, and find the film activated, wouldn’t this prove that psi is not a violation of Section six-oh-five of the Federal Communications Act, and hence that you have no benefit under Nardone v. United States?"

“That would seem to follow, your honor,” said Sickles unhappily. He realized that he was being given the “treatment.” The court frequently, at argument, forced both sides to admit they were in the wrong; then neither could complain if he lost. But he was not ready to admit defeat. “If the court please, I’d like to elaborate a little further on the constitutional question. I respectfully remind this court that under the British common law, before this country had a constitution, it was lawful to extract testimony on the rack. Farfetched, your honors? Similar things have happened here, and not too long ago. Your honors will recall the case of Rochin v. California, in which the police used a stomach pump to recover the ‘evidence,’ two capsules of narcotics, from Rochin’s stomach. After lengthy appeals, it was finally held that Rochin’s constitutional rights had been violated, and the exhibits were ruled inadmissible. Now, if a man’s stomach is sacred, how much more so his mind!”

“But surely Tyson does not contend that his body is inviolate from the police for all purposes?” demanded Justice Blandford. “Surely they can still fingerprint him, measure him, take his picture, record his voiceprint, and test his blood and breath for alcohol, and do it all without his consent?”

“Well, yes, your honor.”

“Then how does clairvoyance differ?”

“It’s the degree of privacy. The attributes that your honor has just mentioned, fingerprinting and so on, well, these are pretty well exposed to the public anyhow. But a man’s thoughts are not. If Americans lose their right to have private thoughts, freedom is gone.”

Edmonds found himself nodding in agreement.

“But you contend there is no such thing as clairvoyance,” said Justice Burke. “How then, this concern for privacy of thought?”

Sickles grinned crookedly. “Until this court rules that psi is nonexistent, I have to argue in the alternate: psi doesn’t exist; but if it does, it was used in violation of Tyson’s constitutional rights.”

“Yes,” agreed Burke. “Quite logical.”

Sickles looked down at his wristwatch. He was done. There was no room in him to wonder whether he had saved a man’s life. He felt only relief. He looked up at the Chief Justice. “I have nothing more, your honors.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sickles. May we hear now from New York?”

Guy Winters took a deep breath and walked to the lectern, where he pulled off his watch and laid down a sheaf of notes. His eyes swept the faces at the bench without seeing them. He was tense, nervous. But he had rehearsed for hours, and knew exactly what he wanted to say—if they would let him.

“May it please the court, one issue alone is involved in this case—the question on which certiorari was granted, namely, whether the warrant was invalidly issued as based on clairvoyant information.” He took another deep breath and wished he could do something about the perspiration soaking his armpits. “It is the position of New York that clairvoyance does exist, and that, although the state police did not explain that the information was obtained in this way, the magistrate, had he known, would necessarily have issued the warrant; and if this be so, the warrant was valid under the Fourth Amendment, the rifle was admissible under the Fifth, and Tyson’s conviction must stand.

“The record below, through the testimony of Dr. Drago, is replete with a documentation of American psi, even to the very beginnings of history on this continent. With the court’s indulgence, I’d like to digress for just a moment to present this historical background.

“As far as North America is concerned, historical psi began with the Aztec chief, Quetzalcoatl. When he was forced to abdicate the Aztec throne in ten nineteen, he predicted that in exactly five hundred years he would return in full war panoply and reclaim his dominions. That was why—in fifteen nineteen—the Aztec emperor Moctezuma was too paralyzed to act, when Hernando Cortes arrived at the gates of the Aztec capital.

“And psi is an integral part of the history of the United States. Many famous Americans were involved at one time or another with psi. In fact, we might reasonably infer that their psi abilities contributed to their fame. Their names include some of our best known writers, artists, politicians, poets, and religious leaders. One could turn to the Index of American Biography almost at random. Edgar Allan Poe said he did not know the meaning of Ulalume, the poem that describes a man wandering down a misty cypress-lined path, in the month of October, to the crypt where bis wife lay buried. We can well understand his mental block. October, of course, was the month, a few years later, in which Poe followed his wife to the grave.

“And Sam Clemens—Mark Twain—dreamed he saw his brother Henry dead of a steamboat accident, lying in a metal casket, and that on his breast was a spray of white flowers centered with a single red rose. When he found him in Memphis, his brother was dying of injuries received in the explosion of the boilers of a river boat, the Philadelphia. On the fourth day, his brother died, and was placed in a metal casket. As Sam looked on, grieving, a lady walked up and placed flowers on the boy’s chest. It was a spray of white blooms, and in the center was a single red rose. I might add that this final detailed touch, completing the dream, or vision, or hallucination, if you like, is quite common.”

Pendleton broke in. “My question is perhaps not completely relevant, but I am curious. Is there any reason to believe that there is a psi on this court?”

Edmonds started, but continued to look at the assistant attorney general.

“I don’t know for sure, your honor,” said Winters. “But I think it likely, simply as a matter of statistical probability, that there are at least three psi’s on this honorable court. And probably more.” He stood there calmly as several of the justices leaned forward suddenly. There was a buzzing rustle in the crowded room behind him.

The Chief Justice rapped the gavel sharply. “Would you explain that, please?”

“Certainly, your honor. It’s pretty difficult, of course, to take a census of psi’s, although it’s something the Bureau of the Census really ought to include in nineteen ninety. But fairly large samples have been made in the past. The English Society for Psychical Research canvassed seventeen thousand people in eighteen eighty, and ten percent reported that they had had psi experiences. The Boston Society for Psychical Research made a similar survey in nineteen twenty-five, and that time twenty percent reported psi experiences. In nineteen sixty-six, one hundred and fifteen students of Aberdeen University were similarly sampled. Thirty percent acknowledged a personal psi experience. The psi percentage of the population is certainly growing, but the rate is hard to determine. We may nevertheless estimate that at least thirty percent of this court is gifted in some phase of psi. And thirty percent of nine is about three. And, having regard to growth rate, and—forgive me, your honors—the fact that psi correlates strongly with intelligence, culture, and mental activity, one might reasonably expect to find four, possibly even five, psi’s on the court.”