Randall Garrett: The Randall Garrett Omnibus

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.