He aimed a cold glance at the bailiff, who arose and read off the
charges against me in a deep, hollow intonation.
"Speak up!" he snapped. "Are you guilty or not guilty?"
"Guilty," I admitted.
He beamed a sort of self-righteous evil. It was easy to see that never
in his tenure of office had he ever encountered a criminal as hardened
and as vicious as I. Nor one who admitted to his turpitude so blandly. I
felt it coming, and it made me itch, and I knew that if I tried to
scratch His Honor would take the act as a personal affront. I fought
down the crazy desire to scratch everything I could reach and it was
hard; about the time His Honor added a charge of endangering human life
on the highway to the rest of my assorted crimes, the itch had localized
into the ring finger of my left hand. That I could scratch by rubbing it
against the seam of my trousers.
Then His Honor went on, delivering Lecture Number Seven on Crime,
Delinquency, and Grand Larceny. I was going to be an example, he vowed.
I was assumed to be esper since no normal--that's the word he used,
which indicated that the old bird was a blank and hated everybody who
wasn't--human being would be able to drive as though he had eyes mounted
a half mile in front of him. Not that my useless life was in danger, or
that I was actually not-in-control of my car, but that my actions made
for panic among normal--again he used it!--people who were not blessed
with either telepathy or perception by a mere accident of birth. The
last one proved it; it was not an accident of birth so much as it was
proper training, to my way of thinking. Magistrate Hollister hated
psi-trained people and was out to make examples of them.
He polished off his lecture by pronouncing sentence: "--and the Law
provides punishment by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars, or a
sentence of ninety days in jail--_or both_." He rolled the latter off as
though he relished the sound of the words.
I waited impatiently. The itch on my finger increased; I flung a fast
dig at it but there was nothing there but Sophomore's Syndrome. Good old
nervous association. It was the finger that little Snoodles, the
three-month baby supergirl had munched to a faretheewell. Darned good
thing the kid didn't have teeth! But I was old Steve, the immune, the
carrier, the--
"Well, Mr. Cornell?"