"How about reading minds?"
* * * * *
Larry's expression cleared. "Oh, you're remembering some of the things I
said years ago. No, I can't do that either, Dick. Maybe, some day, if I
keep working at this thing-- Well, I can't right now. There are things I
can do, though, that are just as good."
"Show me something you can do," I asked.
He smiled. Larry was enjoying himself; I didn't begrudge it to him. He
had hugged this to himself for years, from the day he found his first
clue, through the decade of proving and experimenting, almost always
being wrong, but always getting closer.... He _needed_ to talk about it.
I think he was really glad that, at last, someone had found him out.
He said, "Show you something? Why, let's see, Dick." He looked around
the room, then winked. "See that window?"
[Illustration]
I looked. It opened with a slither of wood and a rumble of sash weights.
It closed again.
"The radio," said Larry. There was a _click_ and his little set turned
itself on. "Watch it."
It disappeared and reappeared.
"It was on top of Mount Everest," Larry said, panting a little.
The plug on the radio's electric cord picked itself up and stretched
toward the baseboard socket, then dropped to the floor again.
"No," said Larry, and his voice was trembling, "I'll show you a hard
one. Watch the radio, Dick. I'll run it without plugging it in! The
electrons themselves--"
He was staring intently at the little set. I saw the dial light go on,
flicker, and hold steady; the speaker began to make scratching noises. I
stood up, right behind Larry, right over him.
I used the telephone on the table beside him. I caught him right beside
the ear and he folded over without a murmur. Methodically, I hit him
twice more, and then I was sure he wouldn't wake up for at least an
hour. I rolled him over and put the telephone back in its cradle.
I ransacked his apartment. I found it in his desk: All his notes. All
the information. The secret of how to do the things he could do.
I picked up the telephone and called the Washington police. When I heard
the siren outside, I took out my service revolver and shot him in the
throat. He was dead before they came in.
* * * * *
For, you see, I knew Laurence Connaught. We were friends. I would have
trusted him with my life. But this was more than just a life.
Twenty-three words told how to do the things that Laurence Connaught
did. Anyone who could read could do them. Criminals, traitors,
lunatics--the formula would work for anyone.
Laurence Connaught was an honest man and an idealist, I think. But what
would happen to any man when he became God? Suppose you were told
twenty-three words that would let you reach into any bank vault, peer
inside any closed room, walk through any wall? Suppose pistols could not
kill you?
They say power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And
there can be no more absolute power than the twenty-three words that can
free a man of any jail or give him anything he wants. Larry was my
friend. But I killed him in cold blood, knowing what I did, because he
could not be trusted with the secret that could make him king of the
world.
But I can.
--FREDERIK POHL
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Galaxy Science Fiction_ February 1955.
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.