My brain was still functioning but nothing else was. I was completely
paralyzed. My heart had stopped breathing and my lungs had stopped
breathing, and I've been told that a healthy man can retain consciousness
for maybe a minute or so without a fresh supply of blood to the brain.
Then things get muddy black and you've had it for good. My esp was still
functioning, but that would black out with the rest of Steve Hammond.
There was no physical pain. They could have drilled me with a blunt
two-by-four and I'd not have felt it.
Then because I couldn't stare Death in the face, I shut my mind on the
fact and esped my late girl friend. She was standing there with my
stun-gun in her hand with a smile on her beautiful puss and that vibrant
body swaying gently. I wanted to vomit and I would have if I'd not been
frozen solid. That beautiful body presided over by that vicious brain made
me sick.
Her smile faded as I began to realize the truth. Her story was thin.
Rambaugh, a mental, would have been able to play his blackmail game to the
fine degree; he would have known when Martha's patience was about to grow
short--if Martha's story were true. No blackmailer pushed his victim to
the breaking point. And Rambaugh wouldn't have gone for me if this had
just been a plain case of blackmail.
No, by thinking deeply, Martha Franklin had engineered the death of
Rambaugh and she'd almost engineered the rubbing-out of Scarmann. A
mental, Martha Franklin. A high-grade mental, capable of controlling her
thoughts so that her cohorts could be led by the mind into doing her dirty
work.
My mind chuckled. I'd be gone before they caught up with Martha, but
they'd catch up all right. She'd leave the apartment positively radiating
her act of violence and then the cops would have a catch. And you should
see how a set of Court Mentalists go to work on a guilty party these days.
Once they get the guy that pulled the trigger on the witness stand, in
front of a jury consisting of mixed mentals and espers, with no holds
barred, the court record gets a full load of the killer's life,
adventures, habits, and attitude; just before the guilty party heads for
the readjustment chamber.
Things were growing blacker. Waves of darkness clouded my mind and I found
it hard to think straight. My esper sense faded first and as it faded I
let it run once more over Martha's attractiveness and found my darkening
mind wishing that she were the girl I'd believed her to be instead of the
female louse she was. It could have been fun.
But now I was about to black out from stun-gun paralysis, and Martha was
headed for the readjustment chamber where they'd reduce her mental
activity to the level of a menial, sterilize her, and put her to work in
an occupation that no man or woman with a spark of intelligence, ambition,
or good sense would take.
She would live and die a half-robot, alone and ignored, her attractiveness
lost because of her own lack-luster mind.
And I'd been willing to go out and plug Scarmann for her.
Hah!
And then she was at my side. I perceived her dimly, inconstantly, through
the waves of blackness and unreality that were like the half-dreams that
we have when lying a-doze. She levered my frozen body over on its hard
back and went to work on my chest. Her arms went around me and she
squeezed. Air whooshed into my dead lungs, and then she was beating my
breastbone black and blue with her small fists. Beat. Beat-beat. Beat. I
couldn't feel a thing but I could dig the fact that she was hurting her
hands as she beat on my chest in a rhythm that matched the beat of her own
heart.
I dug her own heartbeat for her, and she read my mind and matched the beat
perfectly.
Then I felt a thump inside of me and dug my own heart. It throbbed once,
sluggishly. It struggled, slowly. Then it throbbed to the beat of her
hands and the blackening waves went away. My frozen body relaxed and I
came down to rest on the floor like a melting lump of sugar.
Martha dropped on top of my body and pressed me down. Her arms were around
my chest as she forced air into my lungs. She beat my ribs sore when my
heart faltered, and squeezed me when my breathing slowed. I felt the life
coming back into me; it came in like the tide, with a fringe of
needles-and-pins that flowed inward from fingers and toes and scalp.
Martha pressed me down on the carpet and kissed me, full, open mouthed,
passionate. It stirred my blood and my mind and I took a deep, shuddering
breath.