Curative Telepath by John Brunner

Author:John Brunner [Brunner, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi Short Story
Publisher: Fantastic Universe
Published: 1959-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

"It was just the way they were rowing with each other when I first saw them—doesn't matter. Sorry, go on.”

“Ah-h-h—yes. So Jay and Charma, anyway, being slightly crazy, as you might expect in view of their having got married under the circumstances, quit in sympathy. Sorry, you were asking about Rudi. Radi is—well, a problem.”

“Odd you should say that.” Howson remarked, puzzled. “He—well, obviously you know him better than I do. But I would have Mid he was rather a well-balanced and unproblematical person.”

”He seems that way.” Clara looked across the room to where the subject of their discussion sat on the floor next the concertina-player. Her eyes unfocused again. “Maybe one of these days, if he keeps up the act long enough, he'll convince himself that that's the way be really is. And a good thing, too. Otherwise—he will suffer a serious breakdown, and probably not be very much good to himself or anybody for a long, long time."

“Does the probability show?”

She came beck to the present and Shook herself very slightly. "If you know where to look for it. Sorry, I think I ought to go into circulation and attend to the other guests. See you later ”

She had just got to her feet when •the turned back. “I don't mean to be rude,” she Mid. "But you seem to be a bit of a problem too. Are you?” Howson looked her as hard in the eyes as he could. "You seem to be good at spotting problems,” he answered. •Make your own mind up.”

”I deserved that,” she Mid, and turned away.

And after all that, Howson realised, ha still hadn’t found out very much about Rudi A lief.

But at that moment Rudi himself remembered about Brian's sociological theories, dragged Brian away from his argument, and presented Howson to him. More than ever, as he looked at Rudi's eager grin, Howson found himself tempted to take one quick glance—just one!—inside that wellshaped head.

And if he did, and proceeded to dis. play—even inadvertently—a knowledge of Rudi he couldn't possibly have obtained ordinarily in the course of a abort acquaintance... ? Howson suddenly realised that he felt what it must have been like for a mulatto "passing” in tho southern U.S.A. a few years before. In that moment the room seemed to grow cold.

He just hadn't known this sort of feeling before. He was s dwarf and a cripple: all right, that much passed for granted. But there were some people, and might be some even here, who considered him alien. Maybe, when the time came to tell them (he didn’t question that he would get to know them well enough to consider telling them) they would shrug and continue to regard him as a nice guy. Or maybe not.

Perhaps, in sheer self-defence, he ought to find out their opinions before committing himself—? He could do it in a moment!

Then he realised he had failed to catch something that was said to him. and reflexively picked the words out of Rudi's mind.

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