active inEngland. But his recall order had been decided upon _before_ Harris wascaught--or even suspected. Someone in the UN Psychodeviant PoliceSupreme Headquarters in New York must have known that Harris would becaught that day!
_Something's bothering you_, Dorrine stated flatly.
_I was thinking about leaving London_, he replied evasively. _I haven'tseen you for six months, and now I have to leave again._
_I'll be back in New York within three weeks_, the girl thought warmly._I'll be--_
Her thoughts were cut off suddenly by a strident voice in Houston's ear."Attention; all-band notice. Robert Bentley Harris, arraigned thisevening on a charge of illegal use of psychodeviant powers for thepurpose of compounding a felony, has been found guilty as charged. Hewas therefore sentenced by the Lord Justice of Her Majesty's Court ofStar Chamber to be banished from Earth forever, such banishment to becarried out by the United Nations Penology Service at the Queen'spleasure."
The words that were running through Houston's brain, had beentransmitted easily to Dorrine. For a moment, neither of them made anycomment. Then Houston glanced at his watch.
_Twenty-one minutes_, he thought bitterly. _What took them so long?_
* * * * *
High in the thin ionosphere, seventy miles above the surface of theEarth, a fifteen-hundred-mile-an-hour rocket airliner winged its waywestward across the Atlantic, pushing herself forward on the thin,whispering, white-hot jets of her atomic engine. Behind her, theoutdistanced sun sank slowly below the eastern horizon.
David Houston wasn't watching the sunrise-in-reverse; he was sittingquietly in his seat, still trying to puzzle out his queer recall to NewYork. When Hamilton had told him about it over the phone, he'd assumedthat New York, having been notified that Harris had been captured, haddecided to send for Houston, now that his job was over.
But now he knew that the order had come through nearly twenty-four hoursbefore Harris was captured.
Did someone at UN Headquarters know that Harris was going to becaptured? Or did someone there suspect that there was something oddabout Police Operative David Houston?
Or both?
Whatever it was, Houston would have to take his chances; to actsuspiciously would be a deadly mistake.
A stewardess, clad in the chic BOAC uniform, moved down the aisle,quietly informing the passengers that they could have coffee served attheir seats or take breakfast in the lounge. The atmosphere of theplane's interior was filled with the low murmur of a hundredconversations against the background of the susurrant mutter of themighty engines.
_Uhhh--uh--uh--dizzy--head hurts--uh--uh--_
The sounds in the plane altered subtly as the faint thought insinuateditself on every brain inside the aircraft. None of the Normal passengersrecognized it for what it was; it was too gentle, too weak, to berecognized directly by their minds.
But David Houston recognized it instantly for what it was.
Somewhere on the plane, a Controller had been unconscious. _Had_ been.For now, his powerful mind was trying to swim up from the black depthsof nothingness.
_Uh--uhhhh--uhh--_
The Normal passengers became uneasy, not knowing why they weredisturbed. To them, it was like a vaguely unpleasant but totallyunrecognizable nudge from their own subconscious, like somelong-forgotten and deeply buried memory that had been forced down intooblivion and was now trying to obtrude itself on the conscious mind.
_Uhhh--Oooohh--where?--what happened?--_
A fully conscious telepath could project his thoughts along a narrowlocus, focusing them on a single brain, leaving all other brainsoblivious to his thoughts. Like a TV broadcasting station, he couldchoose his wavelength and stick to it.
But a half-conscious Controller sprayed his thoughts at random, creatingmental disturbances in his vicinity. Like a thunderstorm creating radiostatic, there was no selectivity.
Savagely, David Houston did what he had to do. It might be a trap, buthe had to avoid the carnage that might follow if this went on. He hurleda beam of thought, hard-held, at the offending mind of the awakeningtelepath.
_DON'T THINK! RELAX!_
Normally it was impossible for a Controller to take over the mind ofanother Controller, but these were abnormal circumstances; thehalf-conscious man, whoever he was, was weakened mentally by some kindof enforced unconsciousness--either a drug or a stun gun. Houston tookover his mind smoothly and easily.
_Robert Harris!_
Houston recognized the mind as soon as he held it.
He didn't try to force anything on Harris's mind; he simply held it,cradling it, helping Harris to regain consciousness easily, bringing himup from the darkness gently.
In normal sleep, everyone's mind retains a certain amount ofself-control and awareness of environment. If it didn't, noise andbright lights wouldn't awaken a sleeping person.
* * * * *
In normal sleep, a telepath retained enough control to keep his thoughtsto himself, even when waking up.
But total anaesthesia brought on a mental blackout from which the victimrecovered only with effort. And during that time, a Controller's mindwas violently disturbing to the Normal minds around him, who mistook hisdisordered thoughts for their own.
Like pouring heavy oil on choppy waters, Houston soothed thedisturbances of Harris's mind, focusing the random broadcasts on his ownbrain.
And while he did that, he probed gently into the weakened mind of theprisoner for information.
Harris was a Controller, all right; there was no doubt about that. Butnowhere in his mind was there any trace of any knowledge of what hadhappened to Sir Lewis Huntley. If Sir Lewis had actually beencontrolled, it hadn't been done by Robert Harris.
Houston wished he'd been able to probe Sir Lewis's mind; he'd have beenable to get a lot more information out of it than he had in hispossession now. But that would have been dangerous; if Sir Lewis was aController himself, and had been acting a part, Houston would have givenhimself away the instant he attempted to touch the baronet's mind. If,on the other hand, Sir Lewis had actually been under the control ofanother telepath, any probing into the mind of the puppet would havebetrayed Houston to the real Controller.
Harris knew nothing. He wasn't acquainted with any other Controllers,and had kept his nose clean ever since he'd discovered his latentpowers. He knew that megalomaniac Controllers were either captured ormobbed, and he had no wish to experience either.
The Normals had long since discovered that the only way to overcome aController was by force of numbers. A Controller could only hold oneNormal mind at a time. That was why a mob could easily kill a singleController; that was why the Psychodeviant Police had evolved the "net"system for arresting a telepath.
Harris, then, had been framed. Or could it be called a frame-up whenHarris was really guilty of the actual crime? Because the crime he hadreally been accused of was not that of controlling Sir Lewis, but thecrime of being a telepath. That, and that alone, damned him in the eyesof the Normals; the crime of taking over a mind for gain was incidental.The stigma lies in what he _was_, not what he did.
Harris himself was in the bottom of the plane, in the baggage sectionnear the landing gear. After his trial, still drugged, he had beensecretly put aboard, to be taken to the Long Island Spaceport in NewYork. It had had to be secret; no Normal would knowingly ride on anaircraft which carried a Controller, even if he were drugged into totalunconsciousness.
With Harris were two PD Police guards. Their low conversation impingedon Harris's ears, and was transmitted to Houston's mind.
Suddenly, one of them said: "Hey! He's moving!"
"Better give him another shot, Harry;" said the other, "when those guyswake up, they drive you crazy."
Houston could almost feel the sting of the needle as it was insertedinto the arm of the helpless prisoner.
Slowly, Harris's thoughts, which had begun to become fully coherent,again became chaotic, finally sliding off into s
ilence and darkness.
"Are you all right, sir?"
Houston looked up from his intense concentration. The stewardess wasstanding by his seat. He realized that there was a film of perspirationon his brow, and that he probably had looked dazed while he wasconcentrating on Harris's mind.
"Sure," he said quickly, "I'm all right. I'm just a little tired. Had toget up too early to catch this plane." He rubbed his forehead. "I dohave a little headache; would you happen to have any aspirin aboard?"
She smiled professionally. "Certainly, sir. I'll get a couple oftablets."
As she left for the first-aid cabinet, Houston thought bleakly tohimself: _Harris was framed. Possibly others have been, too. But bywhom? And why?_
He could see why a Normal might do such a thing. But why would aController do it?
There was only one answer. Somewhere, there was a Controller, or a groupof Controllers who were megalomaniacs _par