The demolished man Read Free Page A

D'Courtney?"
    "En route to Terra, aboard the `Astra'."
    "Know his plans? Where he'll be staying?"
    "No. Want a check?"
    "I don't know. It depends..."
    "Depends on what?" West glanced at him curiously. "I wish the Telepathic Pattern
    could be transmitted by phone, Ben. I'd like to know what you're thinking at."
    Reich smiled grimly. "Thank God for the phone. At least we've got that
    protection from mind readers. What's your attitude on crime, Ellery?"
    "Typical."
    "Of anybody?"
    "Of the Guild. The Guild doesn't like it, Ben."
    "So what's so hot about the Esper Guild? You know the value of money, success...
    Why don't you clever-up? Why do you let the Guild do your thinking?"
    "You don't understand. We're born in the Guild. We live with the Guild. We die
    in the Guild. We have the right to elect Guild officers, and that's all. The
    Guild runs our professional lives. It trains us, grades us, sets ethical
    standards, and sees that we stick to them. It protects us by protecting the
    layman, the same as medical associations. We have the equivalent of the
    Hippocratic Oath. It's called the Esper Pledge. God help any of us if we break
    it... as I judge you're suggesting I should."
    "Maybe I am," Reich said intently. "Maybe I'm hinting it could be worth your
    while to break the peeper pledge. Maybe I'm thinking in terms of money ... more
    than you or any 2nd Class peeper ever sees in a lifetime."
    "Forget it, Ben. Not interested."
    "So you bust your pledge. What happens?"
    "We're ostracized."
    "That's all? Is that so awful? With a fortune in your pocket? Smart peepers have
    broken with the Guild before. They've been ostracized. So what? Clever-up,
    Ellery."
    West smiled wryly: "You wouldn't understand, Ben."
    "Make me understand."
    "Those ousted peepers you mention... like Jerry Church. They weren't so smart.
    It's like this..." West considered. "Before surgery really got started, there
    used to be a handicapped group called deaf-mutes."
    "No-hear no-talk?"
    "That's it. They communicated by a manual sign language. That meant they
    couldn't communicate with anybody but deaf-mutes. Understand? They had to live
    in their own community or they couldn't live at all. A man goes crazy if he
    can't talk to friends."
    "So?"
    "Some of them started a racket. They'd tax the more successful deaf-mutes for
    weekly hand-outs. If the victim refused to pay, they'd ostracize him. The victim
    always paid. It was a choice of paying or living in solitary until he went mad."
     
    "You mean you peepers are like deaf-mutes?"
    "No, Ben. You normals are the deaf-mutes. If we had to live with you alone, we'd
    go mad. So leave me alone. If you're nursing something dirty, I don't want to
    know."
    West cut off the phone in Reich's face. With a roar of rage, Reich snatched up a
    gold paper-weight and hurled it into the crystal screen. Before the shattered
    fragments finished flying, he was in the corridor and on his way out of the
    building.
    His peeper secretary knew where he was going. His peeper chauffeur knew where he
    wanted to go. Reich arrived in his apartment and was met by his peeper
    house-supervisor who at once announced early luncheon and dialed the meal to
    Reich's unspoken demands. Feeling slightly less violent, Reich stalked into bis
    study and turned to bis safe, a shimmer of light in the corner.
    It was simply a honey-comb paper rack turned out of temporal phrase with a
    single-cycle beat. Each second when the safe phase and the temporal phase
    coincided, the rack pulsed with a brilliant glow. The safe could only be opened
    by the pore-pattern of Reich's left index finger which was irreproducible.
    Reich placed the tip of his finger in the center of the glow. It faded and the
    honey-comb rack appeared. Holding his finger in place, he reached up and took
    down a small black notebook and a large red envelope. He removed his index
    finger and the safe pulsed out of phase again.
    Reich flipped through the pages of the notebook... ABDUCTION...