Wordlessly, he handed over his billfold, letters, enough identification
to have satisfied Allen Pinkerton or John Edgar Hoover.
"Okay," I drawled. "I'll accept your story for the moment. Now answer
me the big query: Why are the good people of Granite City doing this to
you? By any chance, you wouldn't happen to know of a mass fraud they
are perpetrating on Manhattan-Universal?"
"I know nothing of their ethical standards," Parnell said, "but I do
know that they are absolutely _subhuman_!"
"I admit I have met likelier groups of human beings in my time."
"No, understand me. These people are literally subhuman--they are
inferior to other human beings."
"Look, I know the Klan is a growing organization but I can't go along
with you."
"Madison, understand me, I insist. Ethnologically speaking, it is well
known that certain tribes suffer certain deficiencies due to diet,
climate, et cetera. Some can't run, sing, use mathematics. The people
of Granite City have the most unusual deficency on record, I admit.
Their _psionic_ senses have been impaired. They are completely devoid
of any use of telepathy, precognition, telekinesis."
* * * * *
"Because they aren't supermen, that doesn't mean that they are submen,"
I protested. "I don't have any psionic abilities either."
"But you do!" Parnell said earnestly. "Everybody has some psionics
ability, but we don't realize it. We don't have the fabulous abilities
of a few recorded cases of supermen, but we have some, a trace. Granite
City citizens have _no_ psionic ability whatsoever, not even the little
that you and I and the rest of the world have!"
"You said you were Duke University, didn't you?" I mused. "Maybe you
know what you are talking about; I've never been sure. But these
people can't suffer very much from their lack of what you call psi
ability."
"I tell you they do," he said hoarsely. "We never realize it but we all
have some power of precognition. If we didn't, we would have a hundred
accidents a day--just as these people _do_. They can't foresee the
bump in the road the way we can, or that that particular match will
flare a little higher and burn their fingers. There are other things,
as well. You'll find it is almost impossible to carry on a lengthy
conversation with any of them--they have no telepathic ability, no
matter how slight, to see through the semantic barrier. None of them
can play ball. They don't have the unconscious psionic ability to
influence the ball in flight. All of us can do that, even if the case
of a 'Poltergeist' who can lift objects is rare."
"Professor, you mean these people are holding you here simply so you
won't go out and tell the rest of the world that they are submen?"
"They don't want the world to know _why_ they are psionically
subnormal," he said crisply. "It's the _granite_! I don't understand
why myself. I'm not a physicist or a biologist. But for some reason the
heavy concentration and particular pattern of the radioactive radiation
in its matrix is responsible for both inhibiting the genes that
transmit psi powers from generation to generation _and_ affecting those
abilities in the present generation. A kind of psionic sterility."
"How do you know this?"
"We haven't the time for all that. But think about it. What else
_could_ it be? It's that granite that they are shipping all over the
world, spreading the contamination. I want to stop that contamination.
To the people of Granite City that means ruining their only industry,
putting them all out of work. They are used to this psionic sterility;
they don't see anything so bad about it. Besides, like everybody else,
they have some doubts that there really are such things as telepathy
and the rest to be affected."
"Frankly," I said, hedging only a little, "I don't know what to
make of your story. This is something to be decided by somebody
infallible--like the Pope or the President or Board Chairman of
Manhattan-Universal. But the first thing to do is get you out of here.
We had better get back to my car. I've got good lights to get down the
mountain."
Parnell jumped up eagerly, and brushed over his china mug, staining the
tabletop with brown caffeine.
"Sorry," he said. "I should have been precognizant of that. I try to
stay away from the rock as much as possible, but it's getting to me."