Sordman studied the young man's emotions. He was frightened, but only
a little more than the others. There was something else there, too.
Something very strong. Sex frustration! The young man had an athletic
body and a handsome, chiselled face. On his yellow vest he wore the
emblem of a Second Class Technician. But even a young man with adequate
finances could be frustrated. Keeping the stone in his mind, he
undressed a certain actress.
He loved women and engaged in sex with lusty, triumphant joy. To him it
was a celebration of the sacred mystery of life. He hoped some of this
emotion reached its target.
He started talking without asking for a parley.
"Two men died yesterday. I've come to hunt out the murderer and put him
away. What's the evidence against this girl?"
"We found drugs and a divining rod in her room."
"She's had a reputation for a long time."
"The school kids say she's a daydreamer."
Sordman understood their fear. Psi was a new and dangerous force.
Its use demanded moral and intellectual discipline. Only a rare and
carefully developed personality could encounter the anger, hostility
and fear in other minds and still retain compassion and reasonable
respect for human beings. An undisciplined person panicked and went
into a mental state approaching paranoia. Sordman fought panic every
day. He fought it with a total acceptance of human motivations,
cultivated tenderness and compassion, and a healthy ego which could
accept and enjoy its own self-love.
Those things, Sordman would have said, and also the necessary grace of
God.
But the most undisciplined personality could practice psi
destructively. Hostile minds roamed the world. Death could strike you
in a clear field beneath an open sky while your murderer lay home in
his bed. No wonder they dragged a girl from her parents and bullied her
till dawn.
* * * * *
They talked. Sordman picked his way through fourteen minds. As always,
he found what he wanted.
A fat, redheaded man sat a little apart from the group. He radiated a
special kind of concern. He was concerned for the girl and for his own
children. He believed the actions of the night had been necessary, but
he felt the girl's pain and he wasn't sure he was doing the right thing.
Above all, he was a man who wanted to do the right thing--the really
right thing.
"You all have children," Sordman said. "Would you like to see them
dragged out at night and treated the way you've treated this girl?"
"We've got to protect ourselves!" the young man said.
"Let him talk!" the fat man growled. He stared at the thick hands he
spread on the table. "The girl has said all night she's innocent. Maybe
she is. Maybe the Protector can do what we haven't done and find the
real killer."
"I'm a master Talent," Sordman said. "If the killer is in the hotel, I
can track him down before midnight. Will you give me that long?"
"How do we know you'll bring in the right man?"
"If he's the right man, he'll make it plain enough."
"You'll make him confess," the young man said. "You'll manipulate him
like a puppet."
"What good will that do?" Sordman said. "Do you think I could control a
man all the time he's in prison and on trial? If I use my Talent more
than a few hours, I collapse."
"Can we hold the girl here?" asked the redheaded fat man.
"Feed her and treat her right," Sordman said. "What's your name?"
"John Dyer. My friends were about to use their belts on her."
A rifleman shuffled uneasily. "It's the only way. Mind killers use
their Talent to tie their tongues and confuse us. Only pain can break
their control."
"That's a fairy tale," Sordman said. "Without drugs a Talent is
helpless."
"We've got the girl," John Dyer said. "She can't hurt us while we're
waiting."
"_He can!_" the young man screamed. "Are you a plain fool? He can go
outside and kill us all."
Sordman laughed. "Sure I could. And tomorrow I'd have to fight off
an army. That I couldn't do if I was fool enough to try. You're
frightened, boy. Use your head."
"You are excited, Leonard," said an armed man. He wore a blue morning
coat with Manager's stars and the emblem of a transportation company.
"We can wait a day. If we've got the killer, then we're safe. If we
don't, then we've failed and the Protector should try."
"I'm not frightened. I just don't like Talent."
Most of the men frowned. They didn't share the prejudice. A few nodded
and mumbled and shot dark glances at Sordman.
He let them talk. He stood there and thought apple pies and the
brotherhood of man and the time he and his second wife spent three days
in bed. And the big block of stone.
He was a high-powered transmitter broadcasting joy, good will toward
men and tranquility.
In the end they listened to Dyer.
"But don't think you'll get a minute past midnight," said the young man.
"Technician, your Protector will remember."
* * * * *
Clarke Esponito had been a hard, quick little man in his early fifties.
On the day of his death, the hotel newspaper had published his
picture and announced his promotion to Director of Vocational Testing
for the entire Atlantic Region. He had lived with his wife and his
nineteen-year-old son, and his wife had been a lifetime wife. Esponito
had been a Catholic, and that faith still called short-term marriages a
mortal sin.
For a moment Sordman wondered what it would be like to know only one
woman your entire life. He loved the infinite variety of God's creation
and wanted to sample as much of it as he could.
"Mylady Widow, our apologies." Lee bowed, hands before her chest, and
Sordman and George Aaron bowed with her. "We intrude on you," Lee said,
"only because we have to find the real killer. Other people may be in
danger."
The Widow Esponito bowed in return.
"I understand, Politician Shawn."
Even with her face scarred by tears she looked lovely. From the
earliest years of their marriage, her husband had been high in the
Civil Service and able to buy her beauty treatments.
"Mylady," Sordman said, "I need your help for two things. We want to
know who you think wanted to kill your husband. And we need your want."
"Our want?" her son asked. He stood rigidly beside his mother's chair.
His clothes were rich and formal tweed.
"Do you want to find the killer?"
The boy nodded soberly. "The moment I heard of his murder, I promised
to avenge him."
"John!" His mother trembled. "You were raised to be a Christian!"
Sordman said, "I want to locate the image I think was used to kill
him. For that I want to hook your strong desires into my thoughts. You
won't know I'm doing it. But if you're near me, I'll use your emotions."
"Your husband was a very important man," Lee said. "Would anyone gain
by his death?"
"Everyone liked my husband. He was always laughing, he--" The old-young
woman started crying. Her son put his arm around her shoulders.
* * * * *
Sordman felt her pain and winced. Death and pain were part of Creation,
but he hated them and often cursed them. At times like these, he
understood George's skepticism.