"Look," I said in a voice that sounded like a nutmeg grater, "Rambaugh wasa louse and he tried to kill me first. If it's revenge you want--why notlet's talk it over?"
"They don't care what you did to Rambaugh," said Martha.
"They didn't come here to practice torture," I snapped. "They wantsomething big. And the only guy I know mixed up with Peter Rambaugh isScarmann, himself."
"Scarmann?" blurted Martha.
Scarmann was a big shot who lived in a palace about as lush as the TajMahal, in the middle of a fenced-in property big enough to keep him out ofthe mental range of most peepers. Scarmann was about as big a louse asthey came but nobody could put a finger on him because he managed to keephimself as clean as a raygunned needle. I was expecting a clip on theskull for thinking the things I was thinking about Scarmann, but it didnot come. These guys were used to having people think violence at theirboss. I thought a little harder. Maybe if I made 'em mad enough one ofthem would belt me on the noggin and put me out, and then I'd be cold whenthat cigarette fell into the gunpowder and ruined my hand.
I made myself a firm, solid promise that if, as, and when I got out ofthis fix I would find Scarmann, shove the nose of my automatic down histhroat through his front teeth and empty the clip out through the top ofhis head.
Then the hotboy behind me lifted the cigarette from my fingers very gentlyand squibbed it out in the ashtray, and I got the pitch.
This is the way it is done in these enlightened days. Rhine Institute andthe special talents that Rhine developed should and could have made theworld a better, brighter place to live in. But I've heard it said and hadit proved that the minute someone comes up with something good, there area lot of buzzards who turn it bad and make it a foul, rotten medium fortheir lousy way of life.
No, in these days of mental telepathy and extra sensory perception, crumbsdo not erase other crumbs. They just grab some citizen and put him in abox until he is ready to do their dirty work for them.
Guilt? That would be mine. A crime is a crime and the guy who does it is acriminal, no matter how he justifies his act of violence.
The truth? Any court mentalist who waded through that pair of unwashedminds would find no evidence of any open deal with Steve Hammond. Sure, hewould find violence there, but the Court is more than well aware of thefact that thinking of an act of violence is not illegal. This Rhinetraining has been too recent to get the human race trained into theniceties of polite mental behavior. Sure, they'd get a few months or maybea few years for breaking and entering as well as assault, but after all,they were friends of Rambaugh and this might well be a matter ofretaliation, even though they thought Rambaugh was an incompetent bungler.
So if Steve Hammond believed that he could go free with a whole hand byplanning to rub out a man named Scarmann, that would be Steve Hammond'scrime, not theirs.
They didn't take any chances, even though I knew that they could read mymind well enough to know that I would go through with their nasty littlescheme. They hustled Martha into the kitchen, chair and all, and one ofthem stood there with my paring knife touching her soft throat enough toindent the skin but not enough to draw blood. The other rat untaped me andstood me on my feet.
I hurt all over from the pasting I'd taken, so I took a boiling shower anddressed leisurely. The guy handed me my forty-five, all loaded, as I cameout of the bathroom. The other bird hadn't moved a muscle out in thekitchen. His knife was still pressing against Martha's throat. He wasstill standing pat when I passed out of esper range on the street below.
In pre-Rhine days, a citizen in my pinch would holler for the cops becausehe couldn't be sure that the crooks would keep their end of the bargain.But Rhine training has produced a real "Honor Among Thieves" so thatorganized crime can run as fast as organized justice. If I kept my end andthey didn't keep theirs, the word would get around from their own dirtyminds that they couldn't keep a bargain. Well, I was going to keep minefor the same reason, even though I am not a thief.
That's the way it's done these days. You get a good esper like me to knockoff a sharp mental operator like Scarmann.
The trouble was that I didn't really want Scarmann, I wanted that pair ofmental sadists up in my apartment who were holding a knife againstMartha's throat. I wanted them, and I wanted Martha Franklin's skin to behappily whole. And if I crossed them now, the only guys that wouldn't playball with me in the future would be the crooks. Them I could do without.
So if they figured that an esper could take a mental like Scarmann, whycouldn't an esper take the pair of them?
All I had to do was to think of something else until I could get my handson their throats. Sure, they'd follow my mind as soon as they felt mymental waves within range, but if I could really find somethinginteresting enough to occupy my attention--and maybe theirs as well--theycould not identify me.
So I went back into the lobby of my apartment and dug into the mailbox ofanother party, thus identifying myself as the man in three eight four.Then I punched the elevator button for the Fourth and leaned back againstthe elevator and let my mind wander up through the apartments above.
I violated all the laws against Esping Toms as the elevator oozed upwards.Eventually my sense of perception wandered through my own apartment and Ilocated her lying on the bed, fully dressed. She'd probably been freedlest some esper cop get to wondering why there was a woman taped to achair in a bachelor's kitchen. I shut my mind like a clam, but I couldn'twithdraw my perception too fast. I let it ooze back there like the eyes ofa lecherous old man at a burleycue.
I left the elevator at the Fourth and walked up the stairs by reflex,while my mind was positively radiating waves of vulgarity.
My mind managed to identify her as "The girl on the bed" without thinkingany name. She was a good looking strawberry blonde with a slender waistand a high bosom and long, slender legs. She was wearing a pair of Dorniershoes with three inch heels that did things to her ankles. Her nylons weresize eight and one half, medium length, in that dark shade that alwaysgives me ideas. Her dress was a simple thing that did not have a storelabel on it, and so I dug the stitches for a bit and decided that it hadbeen hand made. Someone was a fine dress-maker because it fitted herslender body perfectly. Her petticoat was store type. It was simple andfitted, too, but it had a label from Forresters in the hem. Her bra was aGraceform, size thirty two, medium cup, but the girl on the bed did nothave much need for molding, shaping, uplifting, padding or pretense. Shewas all her and she filled it right to the brim. I let my perceptiondawdle on the slender ankles, the lissome waist, and the rounded hips.
My door key came out by habit-reflex and entered the keyhole while mysense of perception let them have one last vicarious thrill. The girl onthe bed was an honest allover strawberry blonde. She....
Then the door swung open and hell went out for breakfast.
My forty-five bellowed at the light as I slid in and sloped to one side.The room went dark as I dropped to the floor in front of my bookcase. Fromacross the room a hitburner seared the door and slashed sidewise, cuttinga smoking swathe across my encyclopedia from A-AUD to CAN-DAN and thencame down as I squirmed aside. It took King Lear right out of Shakespearebefore the beam winked out. It went off just in time to keep me fromsporting a cooked stripe down my face.
I triggered the automatic again to make a flash in their faces while I dugthe room to locate them in the dark. The needle beam flared out again anddrilled a hole in the bookcase behind me. The other guy made a slashingmotion with his beam to pin me down, but he made a mistake by standing upto do it.
I put a slug in his middle that slammed him back against the wall. He hungthere for a moment before he fell to the floor with a dull, limp sound.His needle beam slashed upward and burned the ceiling before his hand wentlimp and let the weapon drop.
I whirled to dig the other guy in the room just as the throb of a stun-gunbeam moaned over my head. I wondered where they'd got the arsenal, dug theserial number, and realized that it was mine. It gave me a c
huckle. I'm apistol man, so the stun-gun that old gorilla-man was toting couldn't havehad more than one more charge. I tried to dig it but couldn't. Even aDoctor Of Perception can't really dig the number of kilo-watt-seconds in ameson chamber.
My accurate esping must have made the other guy desperate, because he madea dive and let his needle ray burn out a slashing beam that zipped acrossover my head. My forty-five blazed twice. He missed but I didn't, just asthe throb of the stun-gun rang the air again. I whirled to face mystun-gun coming out of the bedroom door in front of Martha Franklin.
The slug intended for Martha's body never came out of my gun because herstun-gun got to me first. It froze me like a hunk of Greek statuary and Iwent forward and toppled over until I came on a three-point landing ofelbow, the opposite knee, and the side of my face.
I was as good as dead.
My brain was still functioning but nothing else was. I was completelyparalyzed. My heart had stopped breathing and my lungs had stoppedbreathing, and I've been told that a healthy man can retain consciousnessfor maybe a minute or so without a fresh supply of blood to the brain.Then things get muddy black and you've had it for good. My esp was stillfunctioning, but that would black out with the rest of Steve Hammond.
There was no physical pain. They could have drilled me with a blunttwo-by-four and I'd not have felt it.
Then because I couldn't stare Death in the face, I shut my mind on thefact and esped my late girl friend. She was standing there with mystun-gun in her hand with a smile on her beautiful puss and that vibrantbody swaying gently. I wanted to vomit and I would have if I'd not beenfrozen solid. That beautiful body presided over by that vicious brain mademe sick.
Her smile faded as I began to realize the truth. Her story was thin.Rambaugh, a mental, would have been able to play his blackmail game to thefine degree; he would have known when Martha's patience was about to growshort--if Martha's story were true. No blackmailer pushed his victim tothe breaking point. And Rambaugh wouldn't have gone for me if this hadjust been a plain case of blackmail.
No, by thinking deeply, Martha Franklin had engineered the death ofRambaugh and she'd almost engineered the rubbing-out of Scarmann. Amental, Martha Franklin. A high-grade mental, capable of controlling herthoughts so that her cohorts could be led by the mind into doing her dirtywork.
My mind chuckled. I'd be gone before they caught up with Martha, butthey'd catch up all right. She'd leave the apartment positively radiatingher act of violence and then the cops would have a catch. And you shouldsee how a set of Court Mentalists go to work on a guilty party these days.Once they get the guy that pulled the trigger on the witness stand, infront of a jury consisting of mixed mentals and espers, with no holdsbarred, the court record gets a full load of the killer's life,adventures, habits, and attitude; just before the guilty party heads forthe readjustment chamber.
Things were growing blacker. Waves of darkness clouded my mind and I foundit hard to think straight. My esper sense faded first and as it faded Ilet it run once more over Martha's attractiveness and found my darkeningmind wishing that she were the girl I'd believed her to be instead of thefemale louse she was. It could have been fun.
But now I was about to black out from stun-gun paralysis, and Martha washeaded for the readjustment chamber where they'd reduce her mentalactivity to the level of a menial, sterilize her, and put her to work inan occupation that no man or woman with a spark of intelligence, ambition,or good sense would take.
She would live and die a half-robot, alone and ignored, her attractivenesslost because of her own lack-luster mind.
And I'd been willing to go out and plug Scarmann for her.
Hah!
And then she was at my side. I perceived her dimly, inconstantly, throughthe waves of blackness and unreality that were like the half-dreams thatwe have when lying a-doze. She levered my frozen body over on its hardback and went to work on my chest. Her arms went around me and shesqueezed. Air whooshed into my dead lungs, and then she was beating mybreastbone black and blue with her small fists. Beat. Beat-beat. Beat. Icouldn't feel a thing but I could dig the fact that she was hurting herhands as she beat on my chest in a rhythm that matched the beat of her ownheart.
I dug her own heartbeat for her, and she read my mind and matched the beatperfectly.
Then I felt a thump inside of me and dug my own heart. It throbbed once,sluggishly. It struggled, slowly. Then it throbbed to the beat of herhands and the blackening waves went away. My frozen body relaxed and Icame down to rest on the floor like a melting lump of sugar.
Martha dropped on top of my body and pressed me down. Her arms were aroundmy chest as she forced air into my lungs. She beat my ribs sore when myheart faltered, and squeezed me when my breathing slowed. I felt the lifecoming back into me; it came in like the tide, with a fringe ofneedles-and-pins that flowed inward from fingers and toes and scalp.
Martha pressed me down on the carpet and kissed me, full, open mouthed,passionate. It stirred my blood and my mind and I took a deep, shudderingbreath.
I looked up into her soft blue eyes and said, "Thanks--slut!"
She kissed me again, pressing me down and writhing against me andobviously getting a kick out of my reaction.
Then I came alive and threw her off with no warning. I sat up, and swung aroundhouse right that clipped her on the jaw and sent her rolling over andover. Her eyes glazed for a moment but she came out of it and lookedpained and miserable.
"You promised," she said huskily.
"Promised?"
"To kill Scarmann."
"Yeah?"
"You thought how you'd kill Scarmann for me, Steve."
"Someday," I said flatly, "I may kill Scarmann, but it won't be for you!"
She tried to claw me but I clipped her again and this time I made itstick. She went out cold and she was still out like a frozen herring bythe time Lieutenant Williamson arrived with his jetcopter squad to takeher away.
The last time I saw Martha Franklin, she was still trying to convincetwelve Rhine Scholars and True that any woman with a body as beautiful ashers couldn't possibly have committed any crime. She was good at it, butnot that good.
Funny. Mental sensitives always think they're so damn superior to anyoneelse.
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