"Maybe I should go out and take the next one apart. I'm still willing
to bet my life against a bunch of Martians." Then he looked at Jenna.
"I'm sorry, Jenna."
"Don't be," she said. "I may be Martian, but it's in ancestry only. I
gave up my heritage when I set eyes on Ralph, you know." Then she stood
up. "I'm definitely NOT running out," she laughed. "I'm going down to
put on more coffee. I think this may be a long, cold winter."
She left, and Ed Garrard looked up at Lindsay, sourly.
"Well?" asked Ralph.
"Look, Lindsay, I may be speaking out of turn."
"Only the Gods know," chuckled Grant.
"Shut up, you're banal and out of line again," snapped Lindsay. "Look,
Ed, no matter what it is, out with it."
"Lindsay, what do you know about this rumor about Martian mind-reading?"
"Very little. It is a very good possibility for the future, I'd say.
It's been said that the ability of certain Martians to mental telepathy
is a mutation. After all, the lighter atmosphere of Mars makes
bombardment from space more likely to succeed."
"Mutation wouldn't change existing Martians," mused Grant. "The thing,
of course, may either be a mutation that is expected--in which case it
may occur severally--or an unexpected dominant mutation in which case
its spread will occur as the first guy inseminates the race with the
seeds of his own being."
"Right."
"You don't know?"
"No," said Lindsay. "I don't know which and furthermore it is
unimportant."
"Might be," objected Grant. "How many are there and what is their
ability?"
"There are about seventy Martians known to be able to do mental
telepathy under ideal circumstances. Of the seventy-odd, all of them
are attuned to only one or two of the others. So we have an aggregation
of seventy, in groups of three maximum, that are able to do it."
"Is any of Jenna's family--?"
"Not that I know of. And besides, Jenna's loyal."
"They might be reading her mind unwittingly," said Garrard.
"Impossible."
"Know everything?" said Garrard, instantly regretting the implication.
"Only that Jenna's father was a psychoneural surgeon, and I've read
plenty of his books on the subject. They're authoritative."
"Were, before the war."