Intervention

  "Comment? Comment? Qu'est-ce que c'est?" we babbled, backing away. I had the basketball.

  "Don't gimme that Frog talk — I know you speak English!" He grabbed Don by the jersey. "I been watching and I seen you gimmick the ball, make it stop in midair and dribble all over your bodies and go into the hoop in crazy ways. Whatcha got — radio control?"

  "No! Hey, leggo!" Don struggled in the big kid's grip and O'Shaughnessy struck him a savage, sharp-knuckled blow in the face that made my own nerves cringe. Both of us yelled.

  "Shaddup!" hissed O'Shaughnessy. His right hand still clenched Don's shirt. The left, grubby and broken-nailed, seized Don's nose in some terrible street-fighter grip with two fingers thrust up the nostrils and the thumbnail dug into the bridge. Don sucked in a ragged agonized breath through his mouth, but before he could utter another sound the brute said:

  "Not a squeak, cocksucker — and your brother better hold off if he knows what's good for the botha you!" The fingers jammed deeper into Don's nose. I experienced a hideous burst of sympathetic pain. "I push just a little harder, see, I could pop out his eyeballs. Hey, punk! You wanna see your brother's eyeballs rollin' on the gym floor? Where I could step on 'em?"

  Queasily, I shook my head.

  "Right. " O'Shaughnessy relaxed a little. "Now you just calm down and do a repeat of that cute trick I saw you doing when I came in. The in-and-outer long bomb. "

  My mind cried out to my brother: "DonnieDonniewhatgonnaDO?

  TricktrickDOit! DOitGodsake —

  Thenhe'llKNOW —

  O'Shaughnessy growled, "You stalling?" He dug in. I felt pain and nausea and the peripheral area of the gym had become a dark-red fog.

  "Don't hurt him! I'll do it!"

  Trembling, I held the ball between my hands and faced the basket at the opposite end of the court. It was fully sixty feet away, more than eighteen meters. I made a gentle toss. The ball soared in a great arc as though it were jet-propelled and dropped into the distant basket. When it hit the floor it bounced mightily, came up through the hoop from beneath, and neatly returned to my waiting hands.

  "Jeez!" said O'Shaughnessy. "Radio control! I knew it. Thing's a gold mine!" Raw greed glared out of his eyes. "Awright, punk, hand over the ball and the gimmick. "

  "Gimmick?" I repeated stupidly.

  "The thing!" he raged. "The thing that controls the ball! Dumb little fart-face frog! Don't you know a ball-control gimmick like that's gotta be worth a fortune? Get me outa this backwoods hole and back to Beantown and my Uncle Dan and — never mind! Hand it over. "

  "Let my brother go first, " I pleaded.

  The big kid laughed. He crooked one leg around Don's ankle and simultaneously pushed. My brother sprawled helplessly on the floor, gagging and groaning. O'Shaughnessy advanced on me with hands out­stretched. Two of his fingers were bloody.

  "The ball and the gimmick, " he demanded, "or it's your turn, punk. "

  "The only gimmick's inside my head, " I said. "But you can have the ball. "

  I drove the rubber sphere at him with all my psychokinetic strength, hitting him full in his grinning face. His nose shattered with the impact and the ball burst its bladder. I heard a gargling scream from O'Shaughnessy and a throaty noise like a Malamute snarl from some­body else.

  Help me get him Donnie!

  The torn and flattened ball like some writhing marine organism clamping itself across a horror-stricken face. Savage sounds and big hands clawing and punching at me. The brother mind poured out its own PK spontaneously to meld with mine, strength magnified manyfold, cemented with mutual loathing, fear, and creative solidarity. Somebody shrieking as the three of us struggled beneath the basket. Then a gro­tesque figure like a scarecrow, its head a red-smeared dented globe. Go for it Donnie man HEY togethernow togethernow allezallez SLAM-DUNK THE BASTARD...

  They found O'Shaughnessy bloody-nosed and half out of his mind with terror, stuffed headfirst into the basket so that the hoop impris­oned his upper arms. The broken basketball encased his head and muf­fled his cries a little, but he was never in any real danger of suffocating. We had been caught, literally red-handed, trying to sneak out of the gymnasium. O'Shaughnessy blamed us, of course, and told the story pretty much as it had happened — leaving out his own extortion at­tempt and assault with intent to maim. He also accused us of owning a mysterious electronic device "that the FBI'd be real interested in hear­ing about. "

  His tale was too outlandish to be credited, even against us, the Crazy Twins. We maintained that we had found him in his weird predicament and attempted to help. Since we were obviously both too small to have boosted a hulking lout three meters above floor-level, it was evident that O'Shaughnessy had lied. His reputation was even more dubious than ours: he was a bad hat who had been shipped off to relatives in the New Hampshire boondocks in the vain hope of keeping him out of a Boston reformatory. Following the incident with us he was retransported with alacrity and never heard from again.

  We, on the other hand, were clearly not telling all we knew.

  Many questions were asked. Odd bits of circumstantial evidence were noted and pondered. In the midst of the uproar we remained tight as quahog clams. Our cousins who knew (or could deduce) a thing or two rallied round loyally. The family came first — especially against the Irish saloperie! After some weeks the incident was forgotten.

  But Don and I didn't forget. We hashed over and over the glorious experience of metaconcert, the two-minds-working-as-one that had pro­duced an action greater than the sum of its parts, giving us transcendent power over a hated enemy. We tried to figure out how we had done it. We knew that if we could reproduce the effect at will we would never have to be afraid of anyone again.

  We thought about nothing else and our schoolwork was totally ne­glected; but we were never able to mesh our minds that way again, no matter how hard we tried. Some of the fault lay in our imperfect metapsychic development, but the greater failure was grounded in a mutual lack of trust. Our peril at O'Shaughnessy's hands had been sufficient to cancel our jealous individuality; but once the danger was lifted, we reverted to our deeper mind-sets — Don the driven, domineer­ing coercer and I the one who thought too much, whose imagination even at that young age whispered where the abuse of power might lead.

  Each of us blamed the other for the metaconcert failure. We ended up locking each other out in a fury of disappointment, thwarted ambition, and fear — and we barely missed flunking the fifth grade.

  Onc' Louie called us to him on a certain spring evening and displayed the fatal report cards. Our cousins were all outside playing in the warm dusk. We heard their laughter and shrieks as they played Red Rover in a vacant lot while we stood sulkily before our uncle and faced the time of reckoning.

  "Haven't I done my best to rear you properly? Aren't you as dear to me as any of my own children?" He brandished the cards and his beer-tinged breath washed over us. "A few failing grades, one could under­stand. But this! The sisters say that you must make up these failed subjects or repeat a year. All summer long, you must go to the public school in the morning. What a disgrace! Such a thing has never hap­pened before in this family. You shame the Remillards!"

  We mumbled something about being sorry.

  "Oh, my boys, " he said sorrowfully. "What would your poor parents say? Think of them, watching from heaven, so disappointed. It's not as though you were blockheads who could do no better. You have good brains, both of you! To waste them is an insult to the good God who made you. "

  We began to sniffle.

  "You will do better?"

  "Yes, Onc' Louie. "

  "Bon." He heaved a great sigh, turned away from us, and went to the sideboard where he kept the whiskey. "Now go out and play for a while before bedtime. "

  As we fled onto the front porch we heard the clink of glassware.

  "Now he can get stinko in peace, " Don hissed bitterly. "Rotten old drunk. Never expect him to understand. He talks about us being a disgrace —" br />
  We sat together on the bottom step, putting aside our enmity. It was quite dark. The other kids were dodging around under the streetlights. We had no wish to join them.

  I said, "Plenty of people flunk. He didn't have to drag Papa and Maman into it... or God. "

  "God!" Don made the word a curse. "When you come right down to it, the whole darn mess is his fault. "

  Horrified at the sacrilege, I could only gape at him.

  He was whispering, but his mental voice seemed to shout inside my skull. "God made us, didn't he? Okay — our parents made our bodies, but didn't he make our souls? Isn't that what the nuns say? And what's a soul anyhow, Rogi? A mind!"

  "Yes, but —"

  "God made these weird minds of ours, so it's his fault we have all this trouble. How can we help it?"

  "Gee, I don't know, " I began doubtfully.

  He grabbed me by the shoulders. The voices of the kids mingled with crickets and traffic noises and the sound of a television program that Onc' Louie had turned on inside.

  "Didn't you ever stop to think about it, dummy?" Don asked me. "Why are we like this? Why aren't there any other people in the world like us? When God made us, what in hell did he think he was doing?"

  "What kind of a dumb question is that? That's the dumbest thing you ever said! It's probably some kind of sin, even. You better shut your stupid trap, Donnie!"

  He started to laugh, then, a smothered squeaky sound loaded with an awful triumph, and he mind-screamed at me:

  He did it it's not our fault we didn't ask for this he can't blame us nobody can hell with all of them hell! hell! hell!...

  I closed my mind to him, slamming the barrier into place as though I were locking the door of a cellar that threatened to spew out black nightmares; and then he began to snivel and beg me to open up to him again, but I got up from the steps and went back into the house, into the kitchen where Tante Lorraine was baking something and the lights were bright, and I sat at the table and pretended to do my homework.

  6

  OBSERVATION VESSEL SPON-SU-BREVON [Pol 41-11000]

  10 NOVEMBER 1957

  THE POLTROYAN COMMANDER'S ruby eyes lost their twin­kle and his urbane smile faded to a grimace of incredulity. "Surely you jest, Dispensator Ma'elfoo! Personnel from my ship?"

  The Krondaku's mind displayed a replay of the incident, complete with close-ups of the miscreant Simbiari scouts taken flagrante delicto. "As you see, Commander Vorpimin-Limopilakadafin. "

  "Call me Vorpi. Do you mind telling me what you were doing in the vicinity of the satellite anyhow?"

  "My spouse, Taka'edoo Rok, and I were doing an unscheduled survey in order to include details of its fascinatingly crude design in a report we have prepared. Our transport module was totally screened, as is the invariable custom of the Krondak Xenocultural Bureau when visiting pre-emergent solar systems. The scout craft with the Simbiari was also screened heavily, but this presented no particular obstacle to Grand Master farsensors such as Taka'edoo and myself. We considered replac­ing the stolen property. However, the scouts had meddled with the biomonitoring equipment, and there was a chance that the satellite might have transmitted some anomalous signal to the Earthside control station. And so we contented ourselves with taking the scouts in charge, together with their booty, and bringing them to you. "

  "Love's Oath, " groaned Commander Vorpi. "Our tour's nearly over, and we had an almost perfect disciplinary record — up to now. "

  "My condolences. " The Krondaku politely refrained from stating the obvious: When vessels of his own methodical race were in charge of planetary Mind observations, nothing ever went wrong.

  "I must request that you testify at the disciplinary hearing, " Vorpi said. "And perhaps you have suggestions for redress. "

  "Our time is limited, Commander Vorpi. We are due back on Dranra-Two in the Thirty-Second Sector for a conference on primitive orbital biohabitats, derelict and functional. We postponed presentation of our paper and sped here at maximum displacement factor when we learned that Sol-Three had just entered this phase of astronautic achievement. (Most of our investigations have involved the orbiters of extinct civili­zations. ) However, it will not be convenient to prolong our stay... " "Oh, I'll call the silly buggers on the carpet right now. " Vorpi sent out a thought on the imperative mode: GupGup Zuzl! Have Enforcer Amichass bring in those two scouts on report. And don't forget the contraband. I'll need you to log the hearing. Snapsnapsnap!

  Dispensator Ma'elfoo glanced about the commander's directorium. "A handsomely appointed chamber, " he remarked politely. "The arti­facts are from Earth?" One tentacle palpated the multicolored animal-fiber carpet while another lifted an Orrefors crystal vase from Vorpi's monitoring desk.

  "Souvenirs. " Vorpi waved a violet-tinted hand. "The drapery textiles from the serictery secretions of certain insect larvae; the rug painstak­ingly knotted by hand-laborers in a desert region; the paintings by Matisse and Kandinsky, rescued from a Parisian fence; the settee by Sears Roebuck; the liquor-dispensing cabinet by Harrods. May I offer you some refreshment, by the way?"

  "I would esteem some Bowmore Scotch, " the Krondaku said. "My deep-sight perceives a bottle hidden away. "

  Vorpi chuckled as he left his desk to do the honors. "Distinctive treatment of alcohol, the Scotches. I predict a wide market for them in the Milieu — provided the Intervention does take place. Mixer?"

  "Just a splash of liquid petrolatum. " The two entities toasted one another. After savoring his drink, Ma'elfoo exhaled gustily. "Yes, it is as I remembered. Ten orbits ago I visited Sol-Three to participate in a comparative study of aircraft evolution. We went on a survey to the British Isles and I acquired a taste for this beverage, among others. Earth technology has developed apace; but one can be grateful that the dis­tilleries cling to tradition."

  The connoisseurs enjoyed a momentary mental rapport. "Have you ever sampled the genuine rareties?" Vorpi asked softly. "Bunnahabhain? Bruichladdich? Lagavulin? Caol Ila?"

  The fearsome Krondaku uttered a whimper of ecstasy. "You're not joshing me, you fire-eyed little pipsqueak? Caol Ila?"

  Vorpi lifted his shoulders, let a tiny smile crease his lips.

  The door of the directorium slid open. The Gi GupGup Zuzl, secre­tary of the mission, stalked in, followed by two very young Simbiari scouts and an enforcer of the same race. Vorpi went back to his desk and sat down. The Gi declaimed:

  "Commander, the prisoners taken by Grand Masters Ma'elfoo and

  Taka'edoo Rok herewith submit to disciplinary inquiry. Defendant names: Scout Misstiliss Abaram and Scout Bali Ala Chamirish. Charges: On this Galactic Day La-Prime 1-344-207, the defendants, on a routine inspection of the Second Earth Orbital Vehicle, did mischievously in­terfere with said orbiter in contravention of divers Milieu statutes and regulations, removing its subsapient passenger with intent to smuggle said creature on board the Spon-su-Brevon. "

  The male and the female scouts stood at attention with screened minds and dry, impassive faces. Bali Ala had a harder time of it than her comrade because the small animal in her arms was squirming wildly and resisting her attempts at coercion. The Simbiari enforcer scowled and added his coercive quotient, but the beast only struggled harder, gave a sharp yap, and jumped free. It made a dash for the still-open door and would have escaped if Ma'elfoo had not zapped its brainstem very gently, paralyzing it in its tracks.

  Enforcer Amichass, mortified and glistening with green sweat, re­trieved the creature and set it like a stuffed toy beside the two crewmen on report. "I'm sorry about that, Commander. A recalcitrant species that resists —"

  "Never mind, " Vorpi sighed. "Get on with it. What do you two have to say for yourselves? Of all the sophomoric idiocies — pinching the damn Russian dog!"

  "Her name is Laika, " Misstiliss said.

  Bali Ala said, "The power-source of the vehicle's environmental sys­tem was almost exhausted. The animal was about to perish from oxy­gen lack. We — we shorted out th
e biomonitoring equipment and took Laika after making certain that Soviet ground control would have no indication of any anomaly. "

  Misstiliss added, "The orbit of the satellite is very eccentric and de­caying rapidly. Sputnik II will burn up on re-entry, obliterating any trace of our interference. Laika has endured nearly a week in orbit, and we thought she might provide us with valuable research data —"

  "Half-masticated lumpukit!" swore the Poltroyan commander. "You wanted to take the thing back with you as a souvenir! As a pet!"

  A green droplet hung from Misstiliss's nose. He fixed his gaze on a point where the wall behind Commander Vorpi met the ceiling. "You are correct, of course, sir. We admit our guilt fully, repent of the infrac­tion, and stand ready to accept discipline at the Commander's plea­sure. "

  "So say I also, " Bali Ala murmured. "But we really didn't do any harm. "

  "Won't you youngsters ever learn?" Vorpi was out of his chair and pacing in front of the pair and the dog, waving his glass of Scotch by way of punctuation. "We realize that these long surveillance tours of exotic worlds can be tedious — especially to youths who, like yourselves, be­long to a race imperfectly attuned to Unity. But think of the importance of our work! Think of the Milieu's noble scheme for planet Earth and our hope that its unique Mind may eventually enrich the Galaxy!"

  The Krondaku addressed Commander Vorpi on his intimate mode: At least that's what the Lylmik keep telling us.

  "Young people, " Vorpi went on, "remember your history. Think of the poor planet Yanalon, Friin-Six, that was hurled back to barbarism on the very threshold of coadunation merely because a careless botanist on a Milieu survey vessel contravened regulations and picked a single piece of fruit and spat out the pips... "

  She was a Poltroyan, as I recall, said Ma'elfoo.

  "The work we do, coaxing these primitive worlds toward metapsychic operancy and coadunation with our Milieu, is excruciatingly delicate. It can be jeopardized by a single thoughtless action, even one that seems harmless. This is why every infraction of the Guidance Statutes for Overt Intervention must be considered a most serious matter. One doesn't meddle frivolously with the destiny of a sapient race. "