Beyond This Horizon

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Da Capo

"I'VE GOT it again." The receiver for the telepath made the announcement grimly. The gadget was still cantankerous; during the past few days it had worked beautifully part of the time-about twenty minutes in all!-and had refused to come to life the rest of the time. It seemed to have soaked up some of the contrariness of the subtle life-force it tapped. "What are you getting?"

"Feels like a dream. Water, long stretches of water. Shore line in the back with mountain peaks." A recorder at his elbow took down everything he said, with the exact times. "Are you sure it's the baby?"

"Sure as I was yesterday. Everybody is different over it. They taste different. I don't know how else to express it. Hold on! Something else ... a city, a damn big city, bigger than Buenos Aires."

"Theobald," said Mordan Claude gently, "can you still hear her?" Mordan had been brought because Felix conceded that Claude had a handier way with the child than Felix. The child could not hear the telepath receiver where they had spotted him, although Claude could cut in through an earphone. Phyllis, of course, was in another room, busy with her fundamental affairs ... it made no difference to the gadget, nor to Theobald. Felix had a roving assignment, privileged to make a nervous nuisance out of himself to anyone.

The boy leaned back against Mordan's thigh. "She's not over the ocean any more," he said. "She's gone to Capital City."

"Are you sure it's Capital City?"

"Sure." His voice was scornful. "I've been there, ain't I? And there's the tower."

Beyond the partition someone was asking, "A modern city?"

"Yes. Might be the Capital. It's got a pylon like it."

"Any other details?"

"Don't ask me so many questions-it breaks into the revery ... she's moving again. We're in a room... Lot of people, all adults. They're talking."

"What now, son?" Claude was saying. "Aw, she's gone to that party again."

Two observers, standing clear of the activity were whispering. "I don't like it," the short one said. "It's ghastly." "But it's happening."

"But don't you realize what this means, Malcolm? Where can an unborn child get such concepts?"

"Telepathically from its mother, perhaps. The brother is certainly a telepath."

"No, no, no! Not unless all our ideas of cerebration are mistaken. Conceptions are limited to experiences, or things similar to experiences. An unborn child has experienced nothing but warmth and darkness. It couldn't have such conceptions."

"Ummm."

"Well-answer me!"

"You've got me-I can't."

Someone was saying to the receiver, "Can you make out any of the people present?"

He raised his headset. "Quit bothering me! You drive it out with my own thoughts when you do that. No, I can't. It's like dream images... I think it is a dream. I can't feel anything unless she thinks about it."

A little later. "Something's happening... the dream's gone. Uneasy... it's very unpleasant... she's resisting it... it's... it's... Oh, Great-it's awful... it hurts! I can't stand it!" He tore off his headset, and stood up, white and shaking. At the same instant Theobald screamed.

It was a matter of minutes only when a woman came out the door of Phyllis' room and motioned to Hamilton.

"You can come in now," she said cheerfully.

Felix got up from where he was kneeling with Theobald. "Stay with Uncle Claude, Sport," he said, and went in to his wife.