"I really should explain," the voice replied, "and apologize for my
silly joke. It was frightfully rude to laugh at you, but when I saw you
waltzing and preening yourself, I just couldn't help it. I'm a telepath,
you see, from Dekker's star, out on the Rim."
That would explain, she thought, his slightly stilted phraseology;
English was apparently not his native tongue--or, rather, his native
thought.
"There was a mild mutation among the settlers there, and the third
generation all have this ability. I shouldn't use it, I know, but I've
been so lonely, confined here to my room, that I cast around to see if
there were anyone that I could talk to. Then I came upon you considering
your own virtues, and you were so cute and funny that I couldn't resist.
Then I laughed and you caught me."
* * * * *
"I've heard of telepaths," she said doubtfully, "though I've never heard
of Dekker's star. However, I don't think you have any right to go
thinking around the ship spying on people."
"Sh!" whispered the silent voice. "You needn't shout. I'll go away if
you wish and never spy on you again, but don't tell Captain Blake, or
he'll have me sealed in a lead-lined cell or something. We're not
supposed to telepath around others, but I've been sitting here with all
sorts of interesting thoughts just tickling the edges of my mind for so
long that I had to go exploring."
"Why not go exploring on your own two feet like anyone else? Have you so
much brains, your head's too heavy to carry?"
"Unfortunately," the voice mourned, "my trouble is in my foot and not in
my head. On the second night out from Dekker's star, I lost my footing
on the stairs from the dining hall and plunged like a comet to the
bottom. I would probably have been killed but for the person of a stout
steward who, at that moment, started to ascend the stairs. He took the
full impact of my descent on his chest and saved my life, I'm sure.
However, I still received a broken ankle that has given me so much pain
that I have been forced to remain in my cabin.
"I have had no one to talk to except the steward who brings me my meals,
and, as he is the one whom I met on the stairs, he has little to say. In
the morning he frowns at me, at noon he glowers, and in the evening he
remarks hopefully, 'Foot still pretty bad?' Thus, I'm starved for
conversation."
[Illustration]
Lenore smiled at this earnest speech. "I might talk with you for a
minute or two, but you must admit that you have one advantage over me.
You can see me, or so you say, and know what I look like, but I can't
see you. It isn't fair."
"I can show myself to you," he said, "but you'll have to help me by
closing your eyes and concentrating very hard."
* * * * *
She closed her eyes and waited expectantly. There was a moment of
darkness; then there appeared in the middle of the darkness a point of
light, a globe, a giant balloon of color. Suddenly she was looking into
the corner of a stateroom which appeared to hang in space. In the center
of the area stood a handsome young man in a startling black and orange
lounging robe, holding on to the back of a chair.
She opened her eyes; for an instant the vision of the young telepath
hung in the air over her couch like a ghostly double exposure. Then it
faded and the room was empty.
"That's a terrible effort," came his thought, "particularly when I have
to balance on one foot at the same time. Well, now are we even?"
Abandoning her post by the door, she moved to the couch and sat down.
"I'm really disappointed," she smiled. "I was sure you'd have two heads.
But I think you do have nice eyes and a terrible taste in bathrobes."
She took a cigarette from her case and lit it carefully. Then she
remembered her manners and extended the case to the empty air. "Won't
you have one?"
"I certainly would like to. I'm all out of them until the steward brings
my dinner. But I'm afraid I'll have to wait, unless you can blow the
smoke through the ventilators to me, or unless ... you bring me one?"
Lenore blushed and changed the subject. "Tell me, what do you do all day
in your stateroom? Do you read? Do you play the flute? Do you telepath
sweet nothings across the light-years to your girl friend on Dekker's
star?"
"I'm afraid my telepathic powers are a bit short-ranged to reach
Dekker's star," he replied. "Besides, what girl would commune with me
through the depths of space when some other young man is calling her
from the dancing pavilion? And my musical talents are limited. However,
I do read. I brought some books connected with the research I intend to
do on Earth for my degree, and I have spent many happy hours poring over
the thrilling pages of _Extraterrestrial Entomology_ and _Galactic
Arachnida_."
"I came better prepared than you did," she said. "Perhaps I could lend
you some of my books. I have novels, plays, poetry, and one very
interesting volume called _Progressive Education under Rim Star
Conditions_. But," she lowered her voice to a whisper, "I must tell you
a secret about that last one."
"What is it?"
"I haven't even opened it."
* * * * *
They laughed together, her merriment bubbling aloud in her cabin, his
echoing silently inside her mind.
"I haven't time to read a novel," his thought came, "and drama always
bored me, but I must confess to a weakness for poetry. I love to read it
aloud, to throw myself into a heroic ballad and rush along, spouting
grand phrases as though they were my own and feeling for a moment as
though I were really striding the streets of ancient Rome, pushing west
on the American frontier or venturing out into space in the first wild,
reckless, heroic days of rocket travel. But I soon founder. I get swept
away by the rhythm, lost in the intricacies of cadence and rhyme, and,
when the pace slows down, when the poem becomes soft and delicate and
the meaning is hidden behind a foliage of little gentle words, I lose
myself entirely."