She sagged. "All right. I know."
The television set in the corner suddenly ceased its yammering of daytime trash; the image of a woman's face and bottle of cleanser abruptly disappeared and there was only blackness. Then, in Spanish, a news announcer began to speak.
"Hurt," Mr. Lee said, listening. "But Mercer is not dead. How do you feel, Miss Hiashi, as a Mercerite? Does this affect you? Oh, but that's right. One must take hold of the handles first, for it to reach you. It must be a voluntary act."
Joan picked up the elderly Cuban's empathy box, held it for a moment, and then seized the handles. Mr. Lee stared at her in surprise; he moved toward her, reaching for the box…
It was not pain that she felt. Is this how it is? she wondered as she saw around her, the restaurant dim and faded. Maybe Wilbur Mercer is unconscious; that must be it. I'm escaping from you, she thought to Mr. Lee. You can't – or at least you won't – follow me where I've gone: into the tomb world of Wilbur Mercer, who is dying somewhere on a barren plain, surrounded by his enemies. Now I'm with him. And it is an escape from something worse. From you. And you're never going to be able to get me back.
She saw, around her, a desolate expanse. The air smelled of harsh blossoms; this was the desert, and there was no rain.
A man stood before her, a sorrowful light in his gray, pain-drenched eyes. "I am your friend," he said, "but you must go on as if I did not exist. Can you understand that?" He spread empty hands.
"No," she said, "I can't understand that."
"How can I save you," the man said, "if I can't save myself?" He smiled: "Don't you see? There is no salvation."
"Then what's it all for?" she asked.
"To show you," Wilbur Mercer said, "that you aren't alone. I am here with you and always will be. Go back and face them. And tell them that."
She released the handles.
Mr. Lee, holding his gun to her, said, "Well?"
"Let's go," she said. "Back to the United States. Turn me over to the FBI. It doesn't matter."
"What did you see?" Mr. Lee said, with curiosity.
"I won't tell you."
"But I can learn it anyhow. From your mind." He was probing, now, listening with his head cocked on one side. The corners of his mouth turned down as if he was pouting.
"I don't call that much," he said. "Mercer looks you in the face and says he can't do anything for you – is this the man you'd lay down your life for, you and the others? You're ill."
"In the society of the insane," Joan said, "the sick are well."
"What nonsense!" Mr. Lee said.
To Bogart Crofts Mr. Lee said, "It was interesting. She became a Mercerite directly in front of me. The latency transforming itself into actuality… it proved I was correct in what I previously read in her mind."
"We'll have Meritan picked up any time now," Crofts said to his superior, Secretary Herrick. "He left the television studio in Los Angeles, where he got news of Mercer's severe injury. After that, no one seems to know what he did. He did not return to his apartment. The local police picked up his empathy box, and he was beyond a doubt not on the premises."
"Where is Joan Hiashi?" Crofts asked.
"Being held now in New York," Mr. Lee said.
"On what charge?" Crofts asked Secretary Herrick.
"Political agitation inimical to the safety of the United States."
Smiling, Mr. Lee said, "And arrested by a Communist official in Cuba. It is a Zen paradox which no doubt fails to delight Miss Hiashi."
Meanwhile, Bogart Crofts reflected, empathy boxes were being collected in huge quantities. Soon their destruction would begin. Within forty-eight hours most of the empathy boxes in the United States would no longer exist, including the one here in his office.
It still rested on his desk, untouched. It was he who originally had asked that it be brought in, and in all this time he had kept his hands off it, had never yielded. Now he walked over to it.
"What would happen," he asked Mr. Lee, "if I took hold of these two handles? There's no television set here. I have no idea what Wilbur Mercer is doing right now; in fact for all that I know, now he's finally dead."
Mr. Lee said, "If you grip the handles, sir, you will enter a – I hesitate to use the word but it seems to apply. A mystical communion. With Mr. Mercer, wherever he is; you will share his suffering, as you know, but that is not all. You will also participate in his -" Mr. Lee reflected. " 'World-view' is not the correct term. Ideology? No."
Secretary Herrick suggested, "What about trance-state?"
"Perhaps that is it," Mr. Lee said, frowning. "No, that is not it either. No word will do, and that is the entire point. It cannot be described – it must be experienced."
"I'll try," Crofts decided.
"No," Mr. Lee said. "Not if you are following my advice. I would warn you away from it. I saw Miss Hiashi do it, and I saw the change in her. Would you have tried Paracodein when it was popular with rootless cosmopolite masses?" He sounded angry.
"I have tried Paracodein," Crofts said. "It did absolutely nothing for me."
"What do you want done, Boge?" Secretary Herrick asked him.
Shrugging, Bogart Crofts said, "I mean I could see no reason for anyone liking it, wanting to become addicted to it." And at last he took hold of the two handles of the empathy box.
V
Walking slowly in the rain, Ray Meritan said to himself, They got my empathy box and if I go back to the apartment they'll get me.
His telepathic talent had saved him. As he entered the building he had picked up the thoughts of the gang of city police.
It was now past midnight. The trouble is I'm too well-known, he realized, from my damned TV show. No matter where I go I'll be recognized.
At least anywhere on Earth.
Where is Wilbur Mercer? he asked himself. In this solar system or somewhere beyond it, under a different sun entirely? Maybe we'll never know. Or at least I'll never know.
But did it matter? Wilbur Mercer was somewhere; that was all that was important. And there was always a way to reach him. The empathy box was always there – or at least had been, until the police raids. And Meritan had a feeling that the distribution company which had supplied the empathy boxes, and which led a shadowy existence anyhow, would find a way around the police. If he was right about them -
Ahead in the rainy darkness he saw the red lights of a bar. He turned and entered it.
To the bartender he said, "Look, do you have an empathy box? I'll pay you one hundred dollars for the use of it."
The bartender, a big burly man with hairy arms, said, "Naw, I don't have nuthin like that. Go on."
The people at the bar watched, and one of them said, "Those are illegal now."
"Hey, it's Ray Meritan," another said. "The jazz man."
Another man said lazily, "Play some gray-green jazz for us, jazz man." He sipped at his mug of beer.
Meritan started out of the bar.
"Wait," the bartender said. "Hold on, buddy. Go to this address." He wrote on a match folder, then held it out to Meritan.
"How much do I owe you?" Meritan said.
"Oh, five dollars ought to do it."
Meritan paid and left the bar, the match folder in his pocket. It's probably the address of the local police station, he said to himself. But I'll give it a try anyhow.
If I could get to an empathy box one more time -
The address which the bartender had given him was an old, decaying wooden building in downtown Los Angeles. He rapped on the door and stood waiting.
The door opened. A middle-aged heavy woman in bathrobe and furry slippers peeped out at him. "I'm not the police," he said. "I'm a Mercerite. Can I use your empathy box?"
The door gradually opened; the woman scrutinized him and evidently believed him, although she said nothing.
"Sorry to bother you so late," he apologized.
"What happened to you, mister?" the woman said. "You look bad."
"It's
Wilbur Mercer," Ray said. "He's hurt."
"Turn it on," the woman said, leading him with shuffling into a dark, cold parlor where a parrot slept in a huge, bent, brass-wire cage. There, on an old-fashioned radio cabinet, he saw the empathy box. He felt relief creep over him at the sight of it.
"Don't be shy," the woman said.
"Thanks," he said, and took hold of the handles.
A voice said in his ear, "We'll use the girl. She'll lead us to Meritan. I was right to hire her in the first place."
Ray Meritan did not recognize the voice. It was not that of Wilbur Mercer. But even so, bewildered, he held tightly onto the handles, listening; he remained frozen there, hands extended, clutching.
"The non-T force has appealed to the most credulous segment of our community, but this segment – I firmly believe – is being manipulated by a cynical minority of opportunists at the top, such as Meritan. They're cashing in on this Wilbur Mercer craze for their own pocketbooks." The voice, self-assured, droned on.
Ray Meritan felt fear as he heard it. For this was someone on the other side, he realized. Somehow he had gotten into empathic contact with him, and not with Wilbur Mercer.
Or had Mercer done this deliberately, arranged this? He listened on, and now he heard:
"… have to get the Hiashi girl out of New York and back here, where we can quiz her further." The voice added, "As I told Herrick…"
Herrick, the Secretary of State. This was someone in the State Department thinking, Meritan realized, thinking about Joan. Perhaps this was the official at State who had hired her.
Then she wasn't in Cuba. She was in New York. What had gone wrong? The whole implication was that State had merely made use of Joan to get at him.
He released the handles and the voice faded from his presence.
"Did you find him?" the middle-aged woman asked.
"Y-yes," Meritan said, disconcerted, trying to orient himself in the unfamiliar room.
"How is he? Is he well?"
"I – don't know right now," Meritan answered, truthfully. He thought, I must go to New York. And try to help Joan. She's in this because of me; I have no choice. Even if they catch me because of it… how can I desert her?
Bogart Crofts said, "I didn't get Mercer."
He walked away from the empathy box, then turned to glare at it, balefully. "I got Meritan. But I don't know where he is. At the moment I took hold of the handles of this box, Meritan took hold somewhere else. We were connected and now he knows everything I know. And we know everything he knows, which isn't much." Dazed he turned to Secretary Herrick. "He doesn't know any more about Wilbur Mercer than we do; he was trying to reach him. He definitely is not Mercer." Crofts was silent then.
"There's more," Herrick said, turning to Mr. Lee. "What else did he get from Meritan, Mr. Lee?"
"Meritan is coming to New York to try to find Joan Hiashi," Mr. Lee said, obligingly reading Crofts' mind. "He got that from Mr. Meritan during the moment their minds were fused."
"We'll prepare to receive Mr. Meritan," Secretary Herrick said, with a grimace.
"Did I experience what you telepaths engage in all the time?" Crofts asked Mr. Lee.
"Only when one of us comes close to another telepath," Mr. Lee said. "It can be unpleasant. We avoid it, because if the two minds are thoroughly dissimilar and hence clash, it is psychologically harmful. I would assume you and Mr. Meritan clashed."
Crofts said, "Listen, how can we continue with this? I know now that Meritan is innocent. He doesn't know a damn thing about Mercer or the organization that distributes these boxes except its name."
There was momentary silence.
"But he is one of the few celebrities who has joined the Mercerites," Secretary Herrick pointed out. He handed a teletype dispatch to Crofts. "And he has done it openly. If you'll take the trouble to read this -"
"I know he affirmed his loyalty to Mercer on this evening's TV program," Crofts said, trembling.
"When you're dealing with a non-T force originating from another solar system entirely," Secretary Herrick said, "you must move with care. We will still try to take Meritan, and definitely through Miss Hiashi. We'll release her from jail and have her followed. When Meritan makes contact with her -"
To Crofts, Mr. Lee said, "Don't say what you intend, Mr. Crofts. It will permanently damage your career."
Crofts said, "Herrick, this is wrong. Meritan is innocent and so is Joan Hiashi. If you try to trap Meritan I'll resign from State."
"Write out your resignation and hand it to me," Secretary Herrick said. His face was dark.
"This is unfortunate," Mr. Lee said. "I would guess that your contact with Mr. Meritan warped your judgment, Mr. Crofts. He has influenced you malignly; shake it off, for the sake of your long career and country, not to mention your family."
"What we're doing is wrong," Crofts repeated.
Secretly Herrick stared at him angrily. "No wonder those empathy boxes have done harm! Now I've seen it with my own eyes. I wouldn't turn back on any condition now."
He picked up the empathy box which Crofts had used. Lifting it high he dropped it to the floor. The box cracked open and then settled in a heap of irregular surfaces. "Don't consider that a childish act," he said. "I want any contact between us and Meritan broken. It can only be harmful."
"If we capture him," Crofts said, "he may continue to exert influence over us." He amended his statement: "Or rather, over me."
"Be that as it may, I intend to continue," Secretary Herrick said. "And please present your resignation. Mr. Crofts, I intend to act on that matter as well." He looked grim and determined.
Mr. Lee said, "Secretary, I can read Mr. Crofts' mind and I see that he is stunned at this moment. He is the innocent victim of a situation, arranged perhaps by Wilbur Mercer to spread confusion among us. And if you accept Mr. Crofts' resignation, Mercer will have succeeded."
"It doesn't matter whether he accepts it or not," Crofts said. "Because in any case I'm resigning."
Sighing, Mr. Lee said, "The empathy box made you suddenly into an involuntary telepath and it was just too much." He patted Mr. Crofts on the shoulder. "Telepathic power and empathy are two versions of the same thing. It should be called 'telepathic box.' Amazing, those non-T individuals; they can build what we can only evolve."
"Since you can read my mind," Crofts said to him, "you know what I'm planning to do. I have no doubt you'll tell Secretary Herrick."
Grinning blandly, Mr. Lee said, "The Secretary and I are cooperating in the interest of world peace. We both have our instructions." To Herrick he said, "This man is so upset that he now actually considers switching over. Joining the Mercerites before all the boxes are destroyed. He liked being an involuntary telepath."
"If you switch," Herrick said, "you'll be arrested. I promise it." Crofts said nothing.
"He has not changed his mind," Mr. Lee said urbanely, nodding to both men, apparently amused by the situation.
But underneath, Mr. Lee was thinking, A brilliant bold type of stroke by the thing that calls itself Wilbur Mercer, this hooking up of Crofts with Meritan direct. It undoubtedly foresaw that Crofts would receive the strong emanations from the movement's core. The next step is that Crofts will again consult an empathy box – if he can find one – and this time Mercer itself will address him personally. Address its new disciple.
They have gained a man, Mr. Lee realized. They are ahead. But ultimately we will win. Because ultimately we will manage to destroy all the empathy boxes, and without them Wilbur Mercer can do nothing. This is the only way he has – or it has – of reaching and controlling people, as it has done here with unfortunate Mr. Crofts. Without the empathy boxes the movement is helpless.
VI
At the UWA desk, at Rocky Field in New York City, Joan Hiashi said to the uniformed clerk, "I want to buy a one-way ticket to Los Angeles on the next flight. Jet or rocket; it doesn't matter. I just want to get there."
"First class or tourist?" the cl
erk asked.
"Aw, hell," Joan said wearily, "just sell me a ticket. Any kind of a ticket." She opened her purse.
As she started to pay for the ticket a hand stopped hers. She turned – and there stood Ray Meritan, his face twisting with relief.
"What a place to try to pick up your thoughts," he said. "Come on, let's go where it's quiet. You have ten minutes before your flight."
They hurried together through the building until they came to a deserted ramp. There they stopped, and Joan said, "Listen, Ray, I know it's a trap for you. That's why they let me out. But where else can I go except to you?"
Ray said, "Don't worry about it. They were bound to pick me up sooner or later. I'm sure they know I left California and came here." He glanced around. "No FBI agents near us yet. At least I don't pick up anything suggesting it." He lit a cigarette.
"I don't have any reason to go back to L.A.," Joan said, "now that you're here. I might as well cancel my flight."
"You know they're picking up and destroying all the empathy boxes they can," Ray said.
"No," she said. "I didn't know; I was just released half an hour ago. That's dreadful. They really mean business."
Ray laughed. "Let's say they're really frightened." He put his arm around her and kissed her. "I tell you what we'll do. We'll try to sneak out of this place, go to the lower East Side and rent a little cold-water walk-up. We'll hide out and find an empathy box they missed." But, he thought, it's unlikely; they probably have them all by now. There weren't that many to start with.
"Anything you say," Joan said drably.
"Do you love me?" he asked her. "I can read your mind; you do." And then he said quietly, "I can also read the mind of a Mr. Lewis Scanlan, an FBI man who's now at the UWA desk. What name did you give?"
"Mrs. George McIsaacs," Joan said. "I think." She examined her ticket and envelope. "Yes, that's right."
"But Scanlan is asking if a japanese woman has been at the desk in the last fifteen minutes," Ray said. "And the clerk remembers you. So -" He took hold of Joan's arm. "We better get started."