doesn't" she sniffed.
Shari's laboratory was nothing more than a large windowlessoffice that could be cut into two sound-proof parts with amovable partition. She had a whopper desk with full controls andother evidences of academic pelf. On a table against the shortwall was her apparatus--if that's what you call decks of cards, aroulette wheel, a set of Rhine ESP cards, several dice and, sohelp me, a crystal ball.
* * * * *
Shari stood up behind her desk when I came in. It was something of a shockto find that her colorful peasant getup was antiseptically sheathed in awhite laboratory coat. She was sure dressed for dirtier work than she wouldever have to do in that lab.
Her first look at me was one of surprise, but it softened to oneof concern, which might have been cheering on some otheroccasion. "What has happened, Tex?" she asked.
"Nothing," I said, keeping calm. "Not a thing."
"Outside of seeing a ghost, eh?" she said. "_Stop_ grinding yourteeth like that. You'll give me the creeps. Sit down. Sit down!Do you hear me? Relax!"
I guess I found the chair across from her at the desk. "Do I havepsi powers?" I asked her. "Either TK or PC? Test me, Shari."
"What happened?" she insisted.
I shook my head. "I'd rather not talk about it--not until I knowthe result of your test," I said.
Shari thought about it for a while, tapping her desk with anirritated finger, and finally got a set of cards from the labtable against the wall. She shuffled them slowly on her deskblotter. "Cards are your strong point," she observed. "If youhave any psi powers, they're most likely to show up with cards. Itake it you will do your utmost to be right?"
"Who would double-cross himself?" I said tightly.
"Most people," Shari said. "When it comes to psi. But we'llassume, for a starter, that you are on the level." She stackedthe cards in her hand. "We'll keep it simple," Shari suggested."I'll deal the cards one at a time. All you have to do is tell mewhether the next card will be red or black. Fair?"
"Sure," I said. "Deal!"
She was a lousy dealer. Or maybe it was because it was aone-handed operation. She was scoring my hits and misses with thelittle counter in her other hand.
She ran the deck ten times for me. I got thirty-eight right on mybest attempt and thirty-seven wrong on my worst. In total, offive hundred and twenty chances, I was right on two hundred andseventy-three, or fifty-two point two per cent of the time,according to Shari's slide rule.
"Oh, no," I said dismally. "I _do_ have a little edge on thecards!"
"As a statistician, you'll make a great biochemist," Shari said,putting the deck away. "That would only be true if I hadn't letyou see your hits and misses as each deal proceeded. You madesucceeding guesses in the knowledge of what had already beendealt. Actually, your score was below average for trainedobservers without psi powers." She heaved a sigh, which somehowseemed to be of relief. "And now, you crazy cowpoke," she said,"tell me what this is all about."
"I'm not a psi?" I demanded.
"Not if you were really trying," she said. "Were you?"
"You think I _want_ to be a psi?" I demanded. I told her all thathad happened the night before from the time Lefty had accused meof being a snake until he had let me out of the brownstone houseand warned me against gambling.
Guess how Shari reacted. A big nothing!
* * * * *
"Well?" I asked, as she sat silent with her elbows on the edge ofher desk and her chin propped up on her knuckles.
"You're really quite naive, aren't you, Tex?" she asked me. "Letme give you an objective statement of what happened to you lastnight."
She counted these things off on her fingers: "You won some moneyat poker. A gambler said you used TK to win. He took yourwinnings, and then some, away from you as the price of silence.He warned you not to gamble any more. He claimed he was part ofan organization of psi personalities. Is that a fair statement?"
"Except for one thing," I said. "He used his psi powers on me ina pretty dramatic fashion."
"Try Occam's razor," she suggested.
She was getting insulting. "All right," I growled, feeling myface get red. "Prefer the simpler explanation, if you can findone. I was prodded in the back, both in the alley and in theoffice at the brownstone house. Something hit me in the gut andtripped me up. I had a heart seizure. What's simpler than TK inaccounting for the fact this was done without a soul around?"
"I suppose I shouldn't be critical of you," she said. "It's notyour field and you haven't been exposed to the lengths to whichcharlatans go, just to prove they are supermen. The simplerexplanation is that there _was_ someone else in the alley,carefully dressed in dull black to stay invisible in thedarkness. The second prodding of a gun in your spine was puresuggestion--you'd been so well-sold by that time you were readyto believe anything."
"And my heart attack?"
"I can think of ten poisons that would give you the symptoms,"Shari said. "And don't tell me you let nothing pass your lips!"she burst out hotly as I started to speak. "I suppose you'venever had a spray hypodermic? You'd never have felt it. Don'tyou see why they went to all this trouble?"
"Honestly," I said. "I can't. I'm simply not that important toanyone in the world."
"You're not," she said dryly. "But your eight thousand dollarswas. I'd say if people can steal that much money and convince thevictim he shouldn't go to the police, it was worth their while.You're not very likely to advertise the claim that you're a psi,are you?"
"No," I admitted.
"And," she said wearily, standing up. "There's always the anglethat they'll con you by letting you into their imaginary 'Lodge'and extract some kind of dues out of you in return for keepingquiet about your so-called psi powers when you gamble. That wouldserve you right," she concluded.
]
"For what?" I demanded, beginning to feel pretty icy.
"Being such an easy mark, for one thing," Shari said. "And forseriously thinking that you might be a PC! That, I must confess,I find the most comical of all. You, Tex, a PC!"
"Why is that funnier than being a TK?" I demanded, getting up.
She waved her hand impatiently. "We see a little TK here in thelab right along," she said. "At least, there are those who seemto have a small genuine edge on the cards that we can explain noother way. It's small, but apparently exists. But precognition?That's not simply mechanical or kinetic, like TK. PC is somethingterrifyingly different." Her voice hushed as she said it. "It'sa kind of sensitivity that has nothing to do with mere kinetics.It defies time!" She looked back at me. "I simply find it comicalthat you thought of yourself as sensitive to that degree."
"So I've been a fool," I mused.
"In a word, yes. You're a Normal. They suckered you, if you wantthe jargon."
"Wait till tonight!" I seethed, beginning to feel my anger growas my fear dwindled. "Let them try to pin the psi label on me!I'll call their bluff!"
The TV-phone on Shari's desk rang, and she pressed the Acceptkey.
"Let me speak with Tex," a familiar aggressive voice said. Itdidn't sound as if it would stand for much nonsense.
Shari still had another look of surprise in her. "For you," shesaid, arching her romantic eyebrows, and turning the instrumentaround so I was facing the 'scope and screen.
Sure enough, it was Wally Bupp. "Don't do it, Tex," he warned me.
"Don't do what?"
"Don't play tonight. It won't be practical. We mean business."
"So do the laws of libel," I said. "One crack about my having psipowers--"
"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted. "You told us about the lawsuit," hesaid. "You've got six more days." I could see his hand come up tocut the image.
"Hey!" I said. "How'd you know where to reach me?"
His sharp face split in that vicious grin. "I forgot to tellyou," he said. "Maragon is a clairvoyant, too." The image faded.
"See what I mean?" I said shakily to Shari. "They sure talk agood game.
I didn't tell a soul I was coming here. How'd theycatch me?"
"Occam's razor," she said. "How many wrong numbers did they tryfirst? Come back to earth!"
"That snake Lefty still worries me," I admitted, going to