Pstalemate by Lester Del Rey

Author:Lester Del Rey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-09T03:05:54+00:00

X. SEARCH

Harry got up from the kitchen table, stretching his cramped muscles and glancing at the clock. He'd been aware of daylight coming in the window for some time, but hadn't realized the day was that far advanced. He'd been digging into Coleman's notes longer than he'd planned. No wonder he felt stiff. He turned on the heat under the coffee and tiptoed toward the bedroom, where Ellen was sleeping.

She was curled up tightly on her side, but a faint wash of vague sleep images reached him, telling him it was one of her better nights. The past month had been hard on her. Now, however, it seemed she was winning the torturous fight within herself. Somehow, Coleman's brief visit seemed to have given her more strength to face herself as she really was. Her thoughts were jumbled, but peaceful enough. And even in her sleep, she seemed aware of his mind touching hers; she stirred faintly, and something warm and soft reached out gently toward him.

Well, he'd wondered what was the value of telepathy. Now he knew.

The smell of scorching coffee roused him from his reverie and sent him back to the kitchen. Mechanically, he began dumping the pot and cleaning it to make fresh.

The odor of the ruined coffee must have roused Ellen. He heard her going into the bathroom and drew his mind back from her. As part of her fight with herself, she refused to put up a blanking guard even where it would be normal; but the first week of marriage had been time enough in which to establish those areas where privacy was important, and Harry respected them now without conscious thought.

She came out in a brief robe, glanced at the clock in surprise and then at the table where he had been working. Her thoughts were concerned for him and his lack of sleep, but she made no comment. She poured herself a glass of orange juice before she began bustling about to prepare breakfast. "I heard you come in, but I couldn't get myself up," she said. "You were awfully late—long after the library closed. Oh, Harry! You went to see that Jamieson woman. Was it so horrible?"

"It wasn't good," he admitted. He let her see enough from his mind to give a general picture.

Coleman had discovered and kept records on nearly two hundred mutants, but then had turned to theoretical considerations ten years before, with the result that the larger part of his notes was of little value now beyond a list of names to track down. The Jamieson woman had been seemingly the most hopeful evidence of recovery. She had been institutionalized twice but had made enough progress to be released, and the notes indicated she still had telepathic powers.

Unfortunately, she did have them—though she was no longer consciously aware of them. She had fragmented her mind and blocked them off, though they were all that enabled her to avoid the consequences of her present sick quest for satisfaction in a dulled world.

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