Arlene Rolf laughed shortly. "He's right, Ben." She looked at Weldon.
"The hypothetical goal of the project was an instrument which would
enable your department telepaths to make positive identification of a
hypothetical Public Enemy Number One ... the same being described as a
'rogue telepath' with assorted additional qualifications."
Weldon said, "That's a little different, isn't it? Do you recall the
other qualifications?"
"Is that important at the moment?" Miss Rolf asked. "Oh, well ...
this man is also a dangerous and improbably gifted hypnotist. Disturb
him with an ordinary telepathic probe or get physically within a
mile or so of him, and he can turn you mentally upside down, and
will do it in a flash if it suits his purpose. He's quite ruthless,
is supposed to have committed any number of murders. He might as
easily be some unknown as a man constantly in the public eye who is
keeping his abilities concealed.... He impersonates people.... He
is largely responsible for the fact that in a quarter of a century
the interplanetary colonization program literally hasn't got off the
ground...."
She added, "That's as much as I remember. There will be further details
in the files. Should I dig them out?"
"No," Ferris Weldon said. "You've covered most of it."
* * * * *
Dr. Lowry interrupted irritably, "What's the point of this rigmarole,
Weldon? You aren't assuming that either of us has taken your rogue
telepath seriously...."
"Why not?"
Lowry shrugged. "Because he is, of course, one of the government's
blandly obvious fictions. I've no objection to such fictions when
they serve to describe the essential nature of a problem without
revealing in so many words what the problem actually is. In this case,
the secrecy surrounding the project could have arisen largely from a
concern about the reaction in various quarters to an instrument which
might be turned into a thought-control device."