Yes, you can stop an internal combustion engine turning at three
thousand revolutions per minute by yanking off the ignition system. But
not when your opponent is doing everything in his power to prevent you,
and not when both of you are traveling at sixty or more miles per hour
and you have a rougher driving course than he.
* * * * *
My own siren was clearing my way, driving motorists to the shelter of
the side streets and parking places, and causing my fellow policemen
to take charge blocks ahead to clear the path for the vehicle that had
the right to exceed the city speed limit. My worthy opponent drove at
sixty miles per hour at his own risk, trying to race me to the Third
National Bank.
Wood's extra-sensory driving was no better than mine. The traffic
pattern was clear to both of us. But who should know better than a
policeman what the average motorist will do in the face of an emergency?
He took the time now and then to hurl something at me, but this was not
very effective. If you think not, figure how many things you can see
and use as weapons while driving at sixty.
And, too, he was also fighting the unfavorable end of a missile-problem
called "terminal control," which simply states that any guided missile
approaching its target is subject to greater and greater interference
by the enemy as it gets closer. Wood's near-misses I ignored with a
disdain calculated to make him furious, and his near-hits I blocked
with an ease that proved my ability to outguess and outmaneuver him.
I chuckled to myself, for Edward Hazlett Wood had been played
off-balance. He'd committed the hysterical mistake of fighting me on
my ground instead of his. He had thrust and I'd parried and advanced,
forcing him to thrust again before he could recover. He'd been fighting
in the very odd position of conducting a vigorous offensive while
back-stepping in inexorable retreat. He should have run and run until
he was clear enough to prepare a single telling blow.
And so ultimately I came to the front of the Third National Bank in a
screeching halt. I stepped under a falling cornice, neatly avoided a
revolving door that tried to slice me, and side-stepped the bronze bust
of Salmon P. Chase that toppled from its niche of honor above the door.
I evaded the erratic rolling of a pencil, and I trod with unerring step
on a circular patch of invisible stuff that was as slippery as the
proverbial frictionless lubricant. The slick flowed forward and down
over the stairs as I hurried below; I held myself erect above it by
sheer will power.
As I strode toward the safe-deposit vault, I thought exultantly:
"You're outpointed, Psi-man!"