lasted. Insanity and catatonia would come longbefore death.
* * * * *
_That's a nasty thought; I wish you hadn't brought it up._
That wasn't his own thought! There was someone else out here!
_Hell, yes, my friend; we're all out here._
"Where are you?" Houston asked aloud, just to hear his own voice. Heknew the other couldn't hear the words which echoed so hollowly insidethe bubble of the spacesuit helmet, but the thought behind them wouldcarry.
"You mean with relation to yourself?" came the answer. "I don't know. Ican see several rocks around me, but I can't tell which one you're on."
Houston could tell now that the other person was talking aloud, too. Sogreat was the illusion carried to his own brain that it almost seemed asthough he could hear the voice with his ears.
"Then there are others around us?" Houston asked.
"Sure. There were three of us: a Hawaiian named Jerry Matsukuo; a girlfrom Bombay, Sonali Siddhartha; and myself, Juan Pedro de Cadiz. Jerryand Sonali are taking a little nap. You're the first of your group towake up."
"My group?"
"Certainly, my friend. There are five of you; the other four must stillbe unconscious."
Four? That would be Lasser, Sager, Pederson, and--_and Dorrine!_
Juan Pedro de Cadiz picked up the whole thought-process easily.
"The girl--I'm sorry," he said. "But the other three--of us all, Ithink, they deserve this."
"Juan!" came another thought-voice. "Have our newcomers awakened?"
"Just one of them, my sweet," replied the Spaniard. "Sonali, may Ipresent Mr. David Houston. Mr. Houston, the lovely Sonali Siddhartha."
"Juano has a habit of jumping to conclusions, David," said the girl."He's never even seen me, and I'm sure that after three weeks of beinglocked in this prison whatever beauty I may have had has disappeared."
"Your thoughts are beautiful, Sonali," said Juan Pedro, "and with us,that is all that counts."
"It is written," said a third voice, "that he who disturbs the slumberof his betters will wake somebody up. You people are giving me dreams,with your ceaseless mental chatter."
"Ah!" the Spaniard said. "Mr. Matsukuo, may I--"
"I heard, Romeo, I heard," said the Hawaiian. "An ex-cop, eh? I wonderif I like you? I'll take a few thousand years to think it over; in themeantime, you may treat me as a friend."
"I'll try to live down my reputation," said Houston.
* * * * *
It was an odd feeling. Physically, he was alone. Around him, he couldsee nothing but the blackness of space and the glitter of the stars. Heknew that the sun must be shining on the back of his own personalasteroid, but he couldn't see it. As far as his body was concerned,there was nothing else in the universe but a chunk of pitted rock and aset of chains.
But mentally, he felt snug and warm, safe in the security of goodfriends. He felt--
"David! David! Help me! Oh, David, David, David!"
It was Dorrine, coming up from her slumber. Like a crashing blare ofstatic across the neural band, her wakening mind burst into suddentelepathic activity.
* * * * *
Gently, Houston sent out his thoughts, soothing her mind as he hadsoothed Harris's mind weeks before. And he noticed, as he did it, thatthe other three were with him, helping. By the time Dorrine was fullyawake, she was no longer frightened or panicky.
"You're wonderful people," she thought simply, after several minutes.
"To one so beautiful, how else could we be?" asked Juan Pedro.
"Ignore him, Dorrine," said Sonali, "he tells me the same thing."
"But not in the same way, _amiga_!" the Spaniard protested. "Not in thesame way. The beauty of your mind, Sonali, is like the beauty of amountain lake, cool and serene; the beauty of Dorrine is like the beautyof the sun--warm, fiery, and brilliant."
"By my beard!" snorted Matsukuo. "Such blather!"
"I'll be willing to wager my beautiful _hacienda_ in the lovelycountryside of Aragon against your miserable palm-leaf _nipi_ shack onOahu that you have no beard," said Juan Pedro.
"Hah!" said Matsukuo; "that's all I need now--Castles in Spain."
It was suddenly dizzying for Houston. Here were five people, doomed toslow, painful death, talking as though there were nothing to worryabout. Within minutes, each had learned to know the others almostperfectly.
It was more than just the words each used. Talking aloud helped focusthe thoughts more, but at the same time, thousands of little, personal,fringe ideas were present with the main idea transmitted in words.Houston had talked telepathically to Dorrine hundreds of times, butnever before had so much fine detail come through.
Why? Was there something different about space that made mentalcommunication so much more complete?
"No, not that, I think," said Matsukuo. "I believe it is because we havelost our fear--not of death; we still fear death--but of betrayal."
That was it. They knew they were going to die, and soon. They hadalready been sentenced; nothing further could frighten them. Alwaysbefore, on Earth, they had kept their thoughts to themselves, fearing tobroadcast too much, lest the Normals find them out. The little, personalthings that made a human being a living personality were kept hiddenbehind heavy mental walls. The suppression worked subconsciously, evenwhen they actually wanted to communicate with another Controller.
But out here, there was nothing to fear on that score. Why should they,who were already facing death, be afraid of anything now?
So they opened up--wide. And they knew each other as no group of humanbeings had ever known each other. Every human being has little faultsand foibles that he may be ashamed of, that he wants to keep hidden fromothers. But such things no longer mattered out here, where they hadnothing but imminent death and the emptiness of space--and each other.
Physically, they were miserable. To be chained in one position, withvery little room to move around, for three weeks, as Sonali had been,was torture. Sonali had been there longer than the others--for threedays, there had been no one but herself out there in the loneliness ofspace.
But now, even physical discomfort meant little; it was easy to forgetthe body when the mind was free.
"What of the others?" Dorrine asked. "Where are the ones who weresentenced before us?"
* * * * *
Houston thought of Robert Harris. What had happened to the youngEnglishman?
"Space is big," said Juan Pedro. "Perhaps they are too far away for ourthoughts to reach them--or perhaps they are already dead."
"Let's not talk of death." Sonali Siddhartha's thought was soft. "Wehave so many things to do."
"We will have a language session," said Juan Pedro. "_Si?_"
Matsukuo chuckled. "Good! Houston, until you've tried to learn Spanish,Hindustani, Arabic, Japanese, and French all at once, you don't knowwhat a language session is. We--"
The Hawaiian's thought was suddenly broken off by a shrieking burst ofmental static.
The effect was similar to someone dropping a handful of broken glassinto an electric meat grinder right in the middle of a Bach cantata.
It was Sager, coming out of his coma.
Almost automatically, the five contacted his mind to relax him as heawoke. They touched his mind--and were repelled!
_Stay out of my mind!_
With almost savage fury, the still half-conscious Sager hurled thoughtsof hatred and fear at the five minds who had tried to help him. Theyrecoiled from the burst of insane emotion.
"Leave him alone," Houston thought sharply. "He's a tough fighter."
* * * * *
At first, Sager was terrified when he learned what had happened to him.Then the terror was mixed with a boiling, seething hatred. A hatred ofthe Normals who had done this to him, and an even more terrible hatredfor Houston, the "traitor."
The very emptin
ess of space itself seemed to vibrate with the surgingviolence of his hatred.
"I know," Houston told him, "you'd kill me if you could. But you can't,so forget it."
Not even the power of that hatred could touch Houston, protected as hewas by the combined strength of the other four sane telepaths. He wascomparatively safe.
Sager snarled like a trapped animal. "You're all insane! Look at you!The four of you, siding with a man who has betrayed us to the Normals!He--"
What Sager thought of Houston couldn't be put into words, and if itcould no sane person would want to repeat the mad foulness in thosewords.
"This is