"By all means."
"In other words you are more than willing to be convinced?"
"Yes," she said simply. She went silent then and I wondered what she was
thinking about, but she didn't bother to tell me.
Eventually we came back to the crossroad, and with a feeling of having
been successful, I continued South with a confidence that I had not felt
before. We stopped for dinner in a small town, ate hastily but well, and
then had a very mild debate.
"Shall we have a drink and relax for a moment?"
"I'd like it," she replied honestly. "But somehow I doubt that I could
relax."
"I know. But it does seem like a good idea to take it easy for a half
hour. It might even be better if we stopped over and took off again in
the morning."
"Steve," she told me, "the only way I could relax or go to sleep would
be to take on a roaring load so that I'd pass out cold. I'd rather not
because I'd get up tomorrow with a most colossal hangover. Frankly, I'm
excited and I'd prefer to follow this thing to a finish."
"It's a deal," I said. "We'll go until we have to stop."
It was about eight o'clock when we hit the road again.
* * * * *
By nine-forty-five we'd covered something better than two hundred miles,
followed another intersection turn according to the missing spoke, and
were heading well toward the upper right-hand corner of Colorado on the
road map.
At ten o'clock plus a few minutes we came upon the roadsign that pointed
the way to a ranch-type house set prettily on the top of a small knoll
several hundred yards back from the main road. I stopped briefly a few
hundred feet from the lead-in road and asked Miss Farrow:
"What's your telepath range? You've never told me."
She replied instantly, "Intense concentration directed at me is about a
half mile. Superficial thinking that might include me or my personality
as a by-thought about five hundred yards. To pick up a thought that has
nothing to do with me or my interests, not much more than a couple of
hundred feet. Things that are definitely none of my business close down
to forty or fifty feet."
That was about the average for a person with a bit of psi training
either in telepathy or in esper; it matched mine fairly well, excepting
that part about things that were none of my business. She meant
_thoughts_ and not _things_. I had always had a hard time
differentiating between things that were none of my damned business,
although I do find it more difficult to dig the contents of a letter
between two unknown parties at a given distance than it is to dig a
letter written or addressed to a person I know. _Things_ are, by and
large, a lot less personal than thoughts, if I'm saying anything new.
"Well," I told her, "this is it. We're going to go in close enough for
you to take a 'pathic look-around. Keep your mind sensitive. If you dig
any danger, yell out. I'm going to extend my esper as far as I can and
if I suddenly take off like a startled spacecraft, it's because I have
uncovered something disagreeable. But keep your mind on them and not me,
because I'm relying on you to keep posted on their mental angle."
Miss Farrow nodded. "It's hard to remember that other people haven't the
ability to make contact mentally. It's like a normal man talking to a
blind man and referring constantly to visible things because he doesn't
understand. I'll try to remember."
"I'm going to back in," I said. "Then if trouble turns up, I'll have an
advantage. As soon as they feel our minds coming in at them, they'll
know that we're not in there for their health. So here we go!"
"I'm a good actor," she said. "No matter what I say, I'm with you all
the way!"
I yanked the car forward, and angled back. I hit the road easily and
started backing along the driveway at a rather fast speed with my eyes
half-closed to give my esper sense the full benefit of my concentration
along the road. When I was not concentrating on how I was going to turn
the wheel at the next curve I thought, #I hope these folks know the best
way to get to Colorado Springs from here. Dammit, we're lost!#
Miss Farrow squeezed my arm gently, letting me know that she was
thinking the same general thoughts.