FullReads

Theory Two: Robert Harris actually was a megalomaniac Controller; with a long record of success behind him, who had finally grown careless.

At that point, Dorrine interjected a thought: Isn’t it possible that he wanted to be caught?

Houston mulled it over for a minute. A guilt-punishment reaction? He wanted to be punished for his crimes? I suppose that might account for part of it, yes. But if he’d been so successful, what did he do with all his money?

Dorrine gave a mental shrug. Who knows? What’s Theory Number Three?

* * * * *

Number Three was the screwiest one of all, yet it made a weird kind of sense. Suppose that Sir Lewis himself had had a grudge against Harris? The whole thing would have been ridiculously easy; all he’d have to do would be to act just as he had acted and then give evidence against Harris.

The thing that made it odd wasn’t the actual frame-up (if that’s what it was); these days, every crime was blamed on a Controller. A man accused of murder simply looked virtuous and said that he would never have done such a thing if he hadn’t been under the power of a Controller. Ditto for robbery, rape, and any other felony you’d care to name.

An aura of fear hung over the whole Earth; each man half suspected everyone with whom he came in contact of being a Controller.

So it wasn’t that the frame-up in itself was peculiar in this case; it was simply that it wasn’t Sir Lewis Huntley’s style. If Sir Lewis had wanted to get Harris, he’d have done it legally, without any underhanded frame-ups. Still, the theory remained as a possibility.

I suppose it does, Dorrine agreed, but how does that tie in with our own Group? What about Jackson and Marcy? What happened to them?

I don’t know, Houston admitted, I just don’t know.

Jackson and Marcy had been members of the Group of telepaths who had banded together for companionship and mutual protection. Both of them had been trapped by the PD Police in exactly the same way that Harris had been trapped. They were now where Harris would be in a matter of hours–in the Penal Cluster.

Their arrests didn’t make sense, either; they had been accused of taking over someone’s mind for the purpose of gaining money illegally–illegal, that is, according to the new UN laws that had been passed to supersede the various national laws that had previously been in effect.

But Houston had known both men well, and neither of them was the kind of man who would pull such a stunt, much less do it in such a stupid manner.

Dorrine thought: Well, Dave, this Harris case is out of our hands now; we’ve got to concentrate on getting others into the Group–we’ve got to find the other sane ones.

You’re ready to take over here, then? he asked.

* * * * *

At the table, several yards away from where Houston was sitting, Dorrine, still looking at the book, smiled faintly.

I’ll have to; you’re being transferred back to New York at six in the morning.

Houston allowed a feeling of startled surprise to bridge the gap between their minds. How’d you know that? He hadn’t told her, and she couldn’t have forced the knowledge from his mind. A telepath can open the mind of a Normal as simply as he might open the pages of a book, but the mind of another Controller is far stronger. One telepath couldn’t force anything from the mind of another; all thoughts had to be exchanged voluntarily.

She was still smiling. We’ve got a few spies in the UN now, she told him. I got the information before you did.