Telepathist by John Brunner

Author:John Brunner [Brunner, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-08-29T01:36:49.835000+00:00

16

His bitterness was still growing, accentuated by his lack of sleep, when the special conference convened next afternoon. For any ordinary patient, a place on the regular daily agenda sufficed; for anyone else in UN employ, at most a multi-line phone link was used to discuss the case. But for Choong the high executives came swarming in by Mach Five express.

In the chair reserved for him at Singh's right, he sat trying to think of unimportant matters--the long low sea-green ceiling, the exquisite crafting of the beechwood furniture. He failed. He was much too aware of the guiltily curious stares of the strangers, which asked as clearly as a direct telepathic signal: The world's greatest curative telepathist? Him?

He could barely prevent himself from blasting at them aloud: 'What the hell did you expect, anyway? A superman? A pair of horns?'

Fortunately their attention had been distracted by the arrival of copies of the physical examination reports on Choong and his companions. Now they were doggedly ploughing through a welter of detail, hoping to save themselves from asking ignorant questions later and looking foolish.

Except one, he suddenly realized. Lockspeiser, the big Canadian with the red face and the bald patch on his crown, had shut his folder of papers and pushed it away. That was an honest action, anyway ...

'Excuse me being blunt, Dr. Singh,' the Canadian said. 'But this stuff is for doctors, and I'm not one. I'm an allegedly practical politician working with the Trade Co-ordination Commission, and my interest in Dr.

Choong is confined to the fact that he was supposed to arbitrate in the balance-of-credits crisis you may have heard about--the Sino-Indonesian mess. It was hell's own job cooling people's tempers to the point where they'd accept an outside referee, and they want Choong or nobody. That's what counts with me.

Can we skip the jargon and boil out some hard facts now?'

So he had been running away from a job, had he? The idea was oddly comforting to Howson. For seconds only, though. Singh raised his head.

'Had he been notified that his services were required?'

'I don't know,' Lockspeiser grunted. 'I warned his Hong Kong office, naturally. You're from there, aren't you?' He glanced at the worried Chinese opposite him, who had been presented to the meeting as Mr Jeremy Ho.

'Yes. Ah--' Ho looked very unhappy. 'The answer to Dr. Singh's question is negative. We hadn't heard from Dr. Choong in over a week.'

'And it didn't bother you?' Lockspeiser asked incredu-lously.

'Put it the other way around: we didn't--don't--bother Dr. Choong.' Ho's tone was mildly reproachful.

'We assumed he was making one of his regular study-tours. He goes off to sound out public opinion, gathering background data which may prove useful in the future. Only he can say what's important to him.'

Singh gave a polite cough. 'I don't think we need pursue this any further. We've located Choong; our immediate diffi-culty is getting to him. We'd better concentrate on that.'

'Agreed.' That was the self-possessed woman with auburn hair, age--probably--thirty-five to forty, in black and green, who sat a little apart from her neighbour Lockspeiser.

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