 |
 |
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] As they passed before him, the telepath named Ralph turned suddenly sharp and piercing eyes on the old guard. This is government business, mister, he warned. One word of this, and you ll be a prisoner in your own jail. Digit? The turnkey bobbed his head quickly. And stop thinking, mister, the Mindee added nastily, we don t like to be referred to as slimy peekers! The turnkey turned a shade paler and watched silently as they disappeared down the hall, out of the Pawnee County jailhouse. He waited, blanking fiercely, till he heard the whine of the Bureau solocab rising into the afternoon sky. Now what the devil did they want with a crazy firebug hobo like that? He thought viciously, goddam Mindees! After they had flown him to Buenos Aires, deep in the heart of the blasted Argentine desert, they sent him in for testing. The testing was exhaustive. Even though he did not really cooperate, there were things he could not keep them from learning, things that showed up because they were there: Such as his ability to start fires with his mind. Such as the fact that he could not control the blazes. Such as the fact that he had been burning for fifteen years in an effort to find peace and seclusion. Page 91 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Such as the fact that he had become a tortured and unhappy man because of his strange mind-power... Alf, said the bodiless voice from the rear of the darkened auditorium, light that cigarette on the table. Put it in your mouth and make it light, Alf. Without a match. Alf Gunnderson stood in the circle of light. He shifted from leg to leg on the blazing stage, and eyed the cylinder of white paper on the table. He was trapped in it again. The harrying, the testing, the staring. He was different-even from the other accredited psioid types-and they would try to put him away. It had happened before, it was happening now. There was no real peace for him. I don t smoke, he said, which was not true. But this scene was brother to the uncountable police lineups he had gone through, all the way across the American continents, across Earth, to A Centauri IX and back. It annoyed him, and it terrified him, for he knew he could not escape. Except this time there were no hard rocky-faced cops out there in the darkness beyond his sight. This time there were hard, rocky-faced Bureau men and SpaceCom officials. Even Terrence, head of SpaceCom, was sitting in one of those pneumoseats, watching him steadily. Daring him to be what he was! He lifted the cylinder hesitantly, almost put it back. Smoke it, Alf! snapped a different voice, deeper in tone, from the darkness. He put the cigarette between his lips. The men waited. He wanted to say something, perhaps to object, but he could not. Alf Gunnderson s heavy brows drew down. His blank eyes became-if it were possible-even blanker. A sharp, denting V appeared between the brows. The cigarette flamed into life. A tongue of fire leaped up from the tip. In an instant it had consumed tobacco, paper, and denicotizer in one roar. The fire slammed against Gunnderson s lips, searing them, lapping at his nose, his face. He screamed, fell on his face and beat at the flames with his hands. Suddenly the stage was clogged with running men in the blue and charcoal suits of the SpaceCom. Gunnderson lay writhing on the floor, a wisp of charry smoke rising from his face. One of the SpaceCom officials broke the cap on an extinguisher vial and the spray washed over the body of the fallen man. Get the Mallaport! Get the goddammed Mallaport, willya! A young ensign with brush-cut blond hair, first to reach the stage, as though he had been waiting crouched below, cradled Gunnderson s head in his muscular arms, brushing with horror at the flakes of charred skin. He had the watery blue eyes of the spaceman, the man who has seen terrible things; yet his eyes were more frightened now than any man s eyes had a right to be. In a few minutes the angular, spade-jawed, Malleable. Transporter was smoothing the skin on Gunnderson s face, realigning the atoms-shearing away [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |