Project Hi-Psi

BY FRANK RILEY

The aliens were conducting an
experiment under laboratory conditions.
So, how could they guess that their
guinea pigs held the ultimate weapon?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Dr. Lucifer Brill stepped briskly down the corridor of the Federal Building. The taps on his leather heels clicked a precise rhythm on the marble floor.

He ignored the door that offered "Information", passed up office after office until he came to the glass paneled door which informed him that behind it functioned the Director of FBI operations in the Los Angeles area.

The door was locked.

Lucifer Brill rubbed the knuckles of his left hand over the bristles of his sand-colored, neatly trimmed bit of mustache. It was a gesture known to all graduate students, Department of Parapsychology, Western University, as an indication of annoyance.

The possibility of this office being closed had definitely not been part of Lucifer Brill's prospectus.

A movement behind the opaque glass panel caught his attention. He rattled the knob. When this produced no results, he tapped with his immaculate fingernails on the glass.

A shadow moved inside the office. The lock clicked. The door opened.

An overweight young woman, obviously interrupted in the act of painting a lush mouth over thin lips, glared at him through a veneer of politeness.

"Yes?"

"I have an appointment with the Director." Lucifer Brill's voice still carried the twang of boyhood in Chelmsford, Mass.

The young woman's plucked eyebrows arched.

"This office is closed. If there is an emergency, you may...."

Lucifer handed her his card. The eyebrows arched still higher.

"Dr. Brill! Your appointment was for 3:45!"

"I am aware of that," he told her, severely, "but the other drivers were not, and there were an incredible number of them on the road. Now, if you please...."

"Would you care to make another appointment for tomorrow?"

"I would not. You may inform the Director that I have arrived, that I regret my tardiness and that the purpose of my visit involves a matter of extreme urgency."

Lucifer hadn't raised the level of his voice, but behind the rimless spectacles, his mild blue eyes became very cold and direct. The secretary unpursed her lips and flounced toward the inner office.

She was back in a moment, and said with disapproval,

"This way, please—Sir."

The Director greeted Lucifer Brill with a courtesy that was somewhat strained. His briefcase was on his desk. So was his hat.

Lucifer went peremptorily to the point.

"I must report a most serious case."

From long training, the Director ignored the tone and inquired with careful politeness.

"What sort of a case, Dr. Brill?"

"I believe you would call it a case of kidnapping—multiple kidnapping."

"Kid—kidnapping!"

The Director's large hands hit the desk top with a cracking sound. His knee touched a button to flip on the tape recorder.

"When?—Where?—Who?"

Lucifer considered the questions, methodically organized his answers.

"As to when, I would say over the last eight years."

"What?"

"As to where, I would say all over the United States."

"Now, one moment ... please!"

"As to who.... Well, that would require a rather lengthy answer."

The Director's voice shook with an effort to keep calm.

"Dr. Brill, I would appreciate an answer to my question."

"Very well."

Lucifer took a small, brown leather notebook from the inside pocket of his beautifully pressed gabardine.

"It will take a little time. You see, I believe that over 3,000 persons have been kidnapped."

The Director's thick neck turned prime-rib red, and swelled over the collar of his shirt. Lucifer began to read:

"Anthell, Ruth ... Atwater, Horace ... Borsook, George...."

"That's enough, Dr. Brill!"

"Thank you. Time really is of the essence, you know. I learned this morning that two of the missing persons disappeared as recently as four days ago."

The Director breathed heavily.

"Just who are these people, Dr. Brill?"

"They are all positives. Some of them are positive positives."

The Director made a small, strangling sound.

"If you don't mind, Dr. Brill—just what in the hell are positive positives?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I had presumed you were familiar with my work."

"I'm a little vague about it."

"I see." Lucifer's expression showed intolerance for this cultural lag, but he condescended to explain. "For several years I have been re-evaluating psi card tests at Western University, with the project goal of answering criticism that Rhine and other researchers ended scoring runs at so-called convenient points. While one cannot approach the statistical ideal of infinity in any series, it is nevertheless mathematically possible, through multitudinous repetitions...."

There was an expression on the Director's face of a man trying to plod doggedly against a strong gale.

"Positives ..." he reminded, a little desperately.

"... to amass statistics that are conclusively beyond the bounds of chance. In this rechecking, I have received excellent cooperation from researchers at other universities, and consequently have compiled what may well be the largest list of psi cases on record, whereby...."

"Positives," grated the Director. "Kidnapping ... remember, Dr. Brill...?"

"... I have been able to establish categories—in my own terminology—of non-positives, positives and positive-positives. Do you follow me, Sir?"

"Absolutely." The FBI Director removed sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Now, shall we get on with this kidnapping...."

"I am convinced that my positives and positive positives are either being kidnapped, or otherwise caused to disappear involuntarily."

"3,000 of them?"

"3,116."

The Director, in this crisis, took refuge in routine. He picked up Lucifer's card.

"Do you have any other identification with you, Dr. Brill."

The routine was a mistake. Lucifer produced an expired driver's license, an unpaid gas bill, a membership card in the American Society for Psychic Research, a faculty football ticket, a credit slip from the May Company, six traffic citations....

The Director held up his hand in weary surrender.

"O.K.," he said. "Tell me all about it."

Lucifer told his story with an admirable lack of detail, and a certain intensity that compelled attention.

At a certain phase of his project, it was necessary to start re-evaluating cases he had previously re-evaluated. That phase had been reached two months ago. He had selected five hundred names from his card file, and had sent them form letters preparatory to arranging for tests.

When 480 came back marked "Address Unknown", or "No Forwarding Address", he was disturbed, but not unduly so. In an era of great population shifts, people could be lost and forgotten.

He mailed out another 500 forms. Four hundred and sixty-three came back unopened.

A third mailing brought similar results. Subsequent mailings added up to the startling statistic that some 3,000 people apparently had vanished.

Lucifer personally checked a score of names in the greater Los Angeles area. Five could not be located; seven seemed to have moved without leaving a forwarding address; one was reported drowned in the surf off Point Fermin; six were listed with the Missing Persons Bureau. Of the latter, two had briefly made headlines. They had kissed their wives goodby, driven off to work and had never been seen again.

Against his will, the FBI Director was impressed by Lucifer Brill's calm recital of these facts.

"But 3,000 people," he demurred. "Isn't it simply incredible that 3,000 people could disappear without causing a commotion?"

"Do you know the number of missing persons listed annually by the Los Angeles Police Department?"

The Director admitted he did not.

"Nearly 4,000 juveniles and adults. The number in other cities is roughly proportionate to the population ... New York, for example, had about eight...."

The FBI Director made his decision.

"Dr. Brill," he said, "Give me that list of names and addresses."

Within twenty-four hours, teletypes began pouring in from the District Offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Individually, the reports meant nothing. Obscure people who simply were missing. Many of them were not even missed enough to be listed as missing persons.

The final tabulation showed that 3,223 men and women were missing out of 4,775 people who had registered significantly above-chance in the psi re-evaluation tests conducted by Western University.

Lucifer Brill pointed out something else.

"The missing positives were my stronger positives. Most of those who have not disappeared were closer to borderline cases."

At this point, to the infinite relief of the Los Angeles office, prime responsibility for the case shifted to Washington, D.C.

A tight lid of security was clamped over the whole affair. FBI analysts went to work on the facts and figures. Mathematically, they proved that the percentage of missing psi test cases was fantastically above the probability of coincidence.

One by one, the people had dropped from sight, lost in the swirling undercurrents of a vast, shifting population. A school teacher in Little Rock, a side-show freak in Chattanooga, a TV salesman in Milwaukee, an artist in Philadelphia—all had disappeared, obscurely but definitely.

And the disappearances were continuing.

Only two days before an inquiring FBI agent called on a pharmacist in Dubuque, the man had closed up the drugstore, started for home and had never been seen again. He was listed as an amnesia victim at the local police department. In his psi test, four years earlier, he had consistently averaged seventeen out of twenty-five calls. Remorselessly, the accrual of new facts added to the Bureau's bewilderment.

One of the FBI statisticians pointed out that almost an identical number of men and women were missing: 1,596 men; 1,627 women.

Another perceptive young researcher ran cards on the missing positives through an IBM machine, and came up with this statistic: The women were between the ages of 17 and 35; the men between 19 and 45. Eighty percent of both sexes were in their late twenties.

When all possible data had been assembled, the FBI gingerly submitted its report to a super-secret meeting of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The reaction was not flattering.

Navy's slightly profane comment was that someone in the Bureau had flipped his wig.

Army looked disgusted.

State Department was pained.

White House was silent.

The Chairman smiled, and waited for someone else to laugh.

No one laughed.

Red-faced but unyielding, FBI insisted that its report merited serious consideration.

"We've kept this thing quiet," FBI said, "but you know what the reporters could do with it."

State looked less pained. Even Army and Navy gave reluctant attention. White House asked tentatively,

"What about the Russian angle? If even a fraction of this nonsense we hear about psi is true, these people might serve an espionage purpose. Could Soviet agents have smuggled them out of the country?"

"A few, maybe," admitted FBI. "But not 3,223. Not by any known method of transportation."

"Any subversives among them?" asked Army.

"One hard-shelled Commie, a few fuzzy-minded joiners ... about par for the course."

"Then why in the hell is this important, anyway?" demanded Navy.

A large hassle ensued, but all eventually agreed that if more than 3,000 people actually had been caused to vanish, it was at least potentially a cause for security concern. Army pointed out:

"Next time, they might not waste the effort on these crackpots. They might bag some important people."

White House asked:

"What are we going to do about it?"

There was an outburst of silence.

Finally, State spoke up:

"By all means, keep the matter quiet. It could be deucedly embarrassing."

But something, of course, had to be done.

And while something was being debated, at top level, in top secrecy, in eyes-only, Q-clearance sanctums, Lucifer Brill took matters into his own hands.

He felt a compelling personal responsibility to the missing people. Their names had been compiled together in his files; he had made no effort to protect the lists. Anyone who wanted to make the attempt could have found a way to copy the cards.

Lucifer also felt a sense of responsibility to science. And by science, he meant his own branch of parapsychology. All other science existed for him in a vague limbo into which no serious psychological student would venture. "Nuts and bolts," was the way Lucifer customarily dismissed the shadow-world of science outside his own laboratory.

But what use was it to go on confirming and re-confirming the existence of positives and positive positives if they just up and disappeared?

The answer was discouraging.

So Lucifer Brill took stock of himself.

He was forty-four years old. He had no dependents, and was dependent on no one. Except for chronic nearsightedness, and hay fever in the months of July and August, he was sound of limb and body.

Lucifer withdrew from the bank the balance of his inheritance and life savings. He placed the money in a trust fund to be given to Western University for continuance of psi research, five years after his death or disappearance. He drew up a holographic will bequeathing and bequesting his library and papers to the University. He prepared a sealed envelope containing three hundred dollars in cash and instructions for the care of his two parrots for the balance of their natural lives.

And then Lucifer Brill released to the profession the news that after testing thousands of people for the psi talent, he had finally tested himself—and had scored an average of 19 out of 25 in 4,000 PT tests, all conducted under strict laboratory conditions.

Parapsychological circles reacted with an affectionate blend of awe and amusement. Fellow professors wrote him congratulatory notes, some with postscripts that jibed at him goodnaturedly. The editors of two psychic journals called to ask for articles. One Eastern university wanted to test him for PC and PK, but Lucifer stalled for time, waiting for something or someone to cause him to vanish from the face of the earth.

On the evening of August 23, about eight-thirty, there was a knock on the screen door of his bachelor apartment. Lucifer called, "Come in, please," but he continued to work at a statistical tabulation.

The door opened; footsteps approached his desk.

"Sit down," said Lucifer. He had been expecting a summer school graduate student to come by for a book. "I'll be through with this column in just a moment."

"There is no hurry, Dr. Brill."

The voice was strange. It had almost a metallic ring.

Lucifer's fingers turned white where they gripped the pencil. But he carefully totalled up the column and rechecked the answer, ferreting out an error in the addition of 29 plus 8.

Only then did he swivel around to face the tall, thin, dark-faced stranger. Lucifer said quietly,

"Good evening. I am sorry to have kept you waiting."

The stranger nodded, and took a small blue phial from his pocket. Long, lean-muscled fingers squeezed the phial.

Lucifer's apartment faded gently away in the sweet, cloying odor of hyacinth.

When Lucifer Brill opened his eyes, his face was half buried in a white pillow. A damp breeze blew across the back of his neck. The breeze was heavy with tropical odors. Yet there was something curious about them. Lucifer sniffed, and sniffed again. He discovered that his hay fever wasn't bothering him.

Through one probing eye, Lucifer could see his glasses on a nightstand. Beyond them was a window down which drops of rain were beginning to streak.

Memories of the blue phial and the strange visitor flooded back. His right arm was numb, but he decided he had been sleeping on it. He experimented with his toes and legs.

They moved.

His right knee bumped against an object on the other side of the bed. The object felt alien to anything in Lucifer Brill's previous experience. He pushed firmly with his knee, and felt something that was both firm and soft, yielding and unyielding, warm and slightly cold.

There was a sleepy murmur of protest, and the alien object moved away.

Lucifer Brill obeyed habit. He reached for his glasses. Then he raised himself on his tingling right elbow and peered cautiously toward the other side of the bed.

By many standards, Lucifer could have been adjudged a brave man. But what he saw had a curiously frightening effect on him.

He saw the back of a woman's head, and a tangle of dark hair, a bare, sun-brown arm, a bare shoulder.

Lucifer took off his glasses, breathed upon them, polished them thoughtfully on a corner of the sheet, and looked again.

The apparition was still there. Only now the head was turned. The eyes that were watching him were wide and startled. The lips moved in sort of a gasping sound. They framed the words:

"Get out of my bed!"

In spite of a certain paralysis, Lucifer bridled at the words. He was a rational man, and believed that words should originate in a context of rationality.

"I can assure you," he stated, "that I am not voluntarily in your bed, and that I have no intention of remaining here."

There was another gasping sound. The eyes widened still more. The lips exclaimed. "Dr. Brill! Dr. Lucifer Brill!"

Lucifer made a sound that was as close to a gurgle as he had come since infancy.

When he had collated his emotions, he asked in his customary tone,

"Have we met?"

The lips smiled wryly.

"It looks that way."

"Ah ... Yes, of course. But, I mean ... under social or professional circumstances?"

"You're the odd little man who gave me those card tests in San Diego last winter."

Lucifer Brill digested this information in dignified silence. He considered the woman gravely, then took the white sheet and covered her up to her chin.

She gasped again.

"There are certain proprieties," he reminded her severely.

He considered her again, trying to place her face and its personality among the thousands of people he had psi-tested. It was what he would term a Type III face, although he had never been able to establish any defineable connection between bone structure and psi positive characteristics. This was a strong face on the pillow beside him. Strong and at the same time possessed of certain female qualities, principally in the fullness of the rather large lips and in the throat lines. The cheek bones were fairly high. The skin texture indicated a chronological age of about thirty.

Having thus appraised and catalogued the woman, Lucifer asked, "May I have the privilege of making your acquaintance?"

"Wh ... what?"

"Your name," he said impatiently. "Do you mind telling me your name?"

"Nina ... Nina Poteil. They call me Nina ... professionally."

"Professionally ...." Lucifer rolled the word on his tongue as though he relished its flavor. "May I inquire as to the nature of your profession?"

"You don't remember? Oh, well, I guess you'd call me a psychologist."

"A psychologist!" Lucifer's eyes glowed with relief and approval. If he had to awake to find himself in these distressing circumstances, it was good to know that he was with a confrere.

"Really!" he said. "I had no idea! It astonishes me that I do not remember you. What is your specialization?"

"I'm called an entertainment psychologist."

"How extraordinary! Where do you practice?"

"At the Blue Grotto on Fifth Street. I'm billed for character readings. Cards are my medium, but I don't need them, of course."

"Oh."

Lucifer adjusted his glasses. He said, "Now, if you will kindly face toward the opposite wall, I will get out of this bed."

As Lucifer climbed out of bed, he was painfully conscious of a short kimono that scarcely reached to his white, bony knees. Panic-stricken, he looked around for something else to wear, and found some neatly folded garments on a chair behind his side of the bed. With a shock, he realized this was exactly the way he had always left his own clothes overnight.

Only these were not his own clothes. They appeared to be made of a light, semi-transparent plastic material. There was a pair of trousers that fit rather like jodhpurs, a loose, practical tunic, and boots of the same thin material. When he had dressed, he still felt like a man in a goldfish bowl.

Looking out the window, he saw that they were near the center of a very large compound, comprising hundreds of small dwellings, all constructed of a slate-like grey metal. Each dwelling was surrounded with a neat area of what appeared at first glance to be a lawn. On closer observation, it was a lush, mossy growth, deep green in color. At one end of the compound was a much larger building, sprawling into many wings and substructures. Behind it rose a tremendous, yet somehow slender and graceful, silhouette of a shining projectile, aimed toward the clouds. Around the compound, at intervals of about two hundred yards, were tall guard towers. The compound itself seemed to be located in a vast, towering forest that rolled away in all directions until it disappeared in the low-hanging mists. Through a break in the clouds, Lucifer saw a giant, orange wheel, many times the size of the sun he had known all his life.

"Amazing," Lucifer murmured.

Averting his eyes from the bed, he walked across the room and opened a door. It led to a large, bright room, artificially lighted from a source he could not determine. At the far end of the room were a door and glass casement windows that opened on a small, mossy clearing. The forest curved in behind the clearing, and walled it off. In the room itself, a large screen occupied most of one wall. The furniture was extremely functional. Everything, even the cushions on a low couch, appeared to be made of a tinted metal. But when Lucifer touched one of the cushions, it yielded resiliently.

"Amazing," he repeated.

In his astonishment, Lucifer forgot himself and looked toward the bed.

"Miss Poteil, have you any idea where we are?"

"I woke up after you did," she reminded him.

"I see." He regarded her sternly. "What is your last recollection prior to awakening?"

"I don't know.... Yes, I do!" She sat up, then sank back and covered herself again as he glared disapproval. "I was in the Blue Grotto—It was getting late, and I had just left my card—like I always do—at a table where two men were drinking. One of them said, 'Sure, we want a reading.' Then I sat down, and that's all I remember."

"All?" he insisted, as if questioning a reluctant student.

"There was kind of a strange odor...."

"I know."

"You do!" She bolted upright, forgetting the sheet. She looked accusingly at him.

"Naturally, I recall the same odor. How else do you suppose I happened to wake up in this bed?"

"I wondered."

Lucifer turned back to the window in time to see two men, in the same plastic tunic and leggings he was wearing, approaching the front of their bungalow.

"We have visitors," he said. "Perhaps we shall also have some answers. While I greet them, I suggest that you make an effort to acquire some kind of apparel."

One of the visitors was a gaunt, heavy-boned man, exceedingly tall. Lucifer guessed his height at close to seven feet. The bone structure of his face was harsh and massive. His head was shaved; the flesh deeply bronzed. The second visitor was nearly as tall, but he was older, and his shoulders sagged. Bronze skin hung loosely over the bones of his face.

After a cautious glance over his shoulder indicated that Nina had stepped into the semi-transparent leggings and tunic that appeared to be standard garb, Lucifer opened the door and faced the men coming up the path.

The younger of the two nodded.

"Good morning, Dr. Brill."

His voice had the same metallic timbre that Lucifer had first heard from the tall visitor in his own study.

The older man stepped close to Lucifer and gazed intently into his eyes.

"He has emerged," he said.

"Good. In that case, we must introduce ourselves all over again." The large man bowed slightly, then drew himself stiffly erect. "Dr. Brill, in your language, my name would approximate the phonetic sounds: Huth Glaspac. You may call me Huth. I am the Administrative Director of this project." He indicated his older companion. "This is our medical director. For simplicity, you may call him Dr. Thame."

Lucifer studied them gravely.

"Come in, Gentlemen," he said.

Awkwardly, he went through the motions of introducing them to Nina. Dr. Thame examined Nina's eyes, and nodded.

"Our laboratory calculations were correct," he pronounced in a brittle voice that reflected satisfaction. To Nina and Lucifer he explained. "Due to the differing metabolisms of your bodies, it required a rather delicate calculation to bring you both out of the drug at the same time. It was estimated to occur about four cintros ... that is, hours ... ago, during your sleep...."

"Gentlemen," Lucifer interrupted impatiently, "do you mind telling us where we are and what this is all about?"

Huth's massive bronze features lightened with the shadow of a smile.

"It is doubtful that the answer to either question will be helpful at this time. However, in response to the first, may I inquire: Have you studied astronomy?"

Lucifer drew himself up with dignity. "I am a Parapsychologist."

Again there was the shadow of a smile on Huth's bronze features.

"The extreme specialization of your science will never cease to amaze me. At any rate, you are on the planet Melus, one of the outer planets of the star which your Earth astronomers call Capella, and which they place in the constellation of Auriga."

Lucifer blinked rapidly and rubbed the bristles of his mustache with more than ordinary vigor. Some of his colleagues at Western University had worked on rocket projects. He had always suspected they were fools; now he was sure of it. Why else would they be wasting their time with rockets, while another race was running around the universe, kidnapping positives?

It was Nina who spoke up first, her dark, deep-set eyes burning with excitement.

"Capella ... I know!" she exclaimed. "Sometimes I work with the medium of astrology. It doesn't mean anything, really, no more than the cards. I could do just as well without either. But the customers.... Say, unless you're not telling the truth, Mr. Huth, we're quite a ways from San Diego!"

"The distance is not important," said Huth. "Melus is now your home, and will be for the rest of your lives."

As the import of his words reached them, Lucifer blinked again. Nina sat down on the edge of the steel-grey couch.

"For the rest of our lives," she repeated wonderingly. "That's a long time."

"It is to be hoped," said Dr. Thame.

Lucifer had to speak with more than usual severity in order to keep the tremor out of his voice. "I asked two questions," he reminded Huth.

Huth nodded.

"Your second question will be answered during your orientation period."

"And how long does that last?"

"It varies. For you, Dr. Brill, it could be much longer than for your wife."

"My—" This time, Lucifer's dry New England twang definitely broke.

"Oh, yes. We learned that by observing the rituals of your culture we can minimize emotional trauma and thereby hasten orientation." He turned to Nina. "I can assure you that the proper Earth rituals were performed in the prescribed manner. Since neither of you were married, we could dispense with the Earth divorce ritual and perform only the marriage ritual. Does that ease your mind?"

She stared at him without answering.

Lucifer's temper bristled.

"I refuse to recognize such mockery. It is immoral, illegal and definitely unethical."

Huth dismissed the matter with a slight shake of his massive head, and proceeded to explain some of the objective facts of their situation.

During orientation period, they would be required to remain on their own premises, except for their educational sessions at Center. They would be taken to Center once or twice each day, depending on their progress. Food preparation was handled at the Project commissary. Huth opened a small pantry. Meals, cooked by molecular agitation in the commissary, would be delivered to the pantry via the commissary tubicular. He showed them how to turn on the visagraph screen.

"This is used for communication, education and also entertainment. You will find it very pleasant to read micro-filmed books off the screen. We also have a rather complete repertory of Earth music. After orientation, you will be assigned duties, and, of course, can become acquainted with fellow members of this project."

Dr. Thame added briefly that Melus had been chosen for the project because it was a hydrogen-oxygen planet similar to Earth, although almost uniformly tropical. The inner planets of the system were not inhabitable, since Capella, with three times the mass of Sol, produced one hundred times more heat.

"You'll discover that members of your Project have given this planet another name," he concluded. "But don't let it disturb you."

Nina spoke up suddenly.

"The name is—It's Mendel's Planet!"

A muscle twitched in Huth's bronze cheek. "How did you know that?"

She shook her head.

"I never know how. Things just come to me. Sometimes I say—said things to my customers at the Blue Grotto, and they would ask me the same thing. How do I know?" She shrugged her strong shoulders. "How does anyone know they know anything?"

Huth and Dr. Thame exchanged quick glances.

"Very interesting," said Huth. He moved toward the door. "We will send for you in two hours for your basic family record test."

"Basic fam—." Lucifer choked on the word. He asked bleakly. "What might that be?"

"It will be elementary to you, Dr. Brill. Just a basic psi-card test. We have your record, of course, but for purposes of standardization, we always start a new family's record in this manner. You undoubtedly will score rather close to your high test score on Earth."

Lucifer hoped his apprehension did not show. He had not expected having to meet this challenge so soon.

Nina had been pursing her lips, frowning and thoughtful. Now she asked.

"Mr. Huth, how long have we, Dr. Brill and I, been here on Melus?"

A hint of humor flickered in Huth's somber eyes.

"Two Earth months."

For several moments after their departure, Lucifer stalked silently around the room. Nina remained on the couch. Her eyes were closed; her hands folded on her legs. There was a click in the pantry. Nina got up and looked inside. Breakfast had arrived.

"We'd better eat something," she told Lucifer.

"I am not hungry, Miss Poteil."

She brought a plate, and stood resolutely before him.

"This is going to be a hard day. You will need the food."

He tried to stare her down, but couldn't. He accepted the plate, feeling like a chided school boy.

Lucifer ate in silence, and when he had finished, he wandered out into the mossy patio behind the bungalow. There was a milky opaqueness, without obvious form or solidity, that walled the area off from the bungalow on either side. The rear of the patio, facing the forest, was clear, but when he walked too far in that direction, an invisible force shocked him warningly, and he leaped back.

The trees were incredibly high; their canopy of branches and leaves was tightly interwoven. The rain had stopped momentarily, but water dripped unceasingly from the canopy to the mat of leaves on the forest floor. Spidery root tendrils crawled upward to mesh with tree boles and hanging vines. There was a smell of eternal dampness. Somewhere back in the shadows, an animal cried out. It sounded like a woman in pain.

Lucifer shivered. He wished forlornly that he had left matters up to the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency. He reviewed his prospects, and did not find them good. In a narrow sense, he had succeeded. He had found his positives and positive positives, but he did not yet know why they had been kidnapped. Nor was it likely that the knowledge would do him much good. He was on a strange planet, in the system of a distant star, apparently destined to spend the rest of his life with a woman who had been a nightclub fortune teller.

As a doctor of parapsychology, Lucifer was appalled. As a confirmed bachelor, he was horrified.

But a more immediate problem clamored for consideration. What happened to non-positives on Melus?

He would soon know.

The two attendants who came to take them to Center were much younger than Huth. They carried themselves with military stiffness. Nina and Lucifer were led to what vaguely resembled a motorboat, covered with a transparent bubble. The conveyance hovered in the air, about two feet above a narrow pathway that was surfaced with a dark, burnished metal. Lucifer accepted the vehicle without surprise. Physical scientists had always reminded him of boys playing with erector sets, and their accomplishments bored him.

Center was a series of low slate-metal buildings scattered over several acres. Some were inter-connected; some were separated by mossy areas. The outer walls were broken by tall casement windows that extended from just above the ground to just below the eaves.

As they circled among the buildings, the casement windows began to swing shut. Lucifer thought at first that this had something to do with their coming, but then he saw the thunder clouds tumbling in over the forest roof and heard the approaching rain.

The hot wind swept open a gate as they were rounding one of the opaquely enclosed areas. Lucifer caught a nerve-shocking glimpse of many grotesquely malformed creatures stumbling, sprawling and hopping into the building, under the supervision of several bronzed, statuesque attendants. One creature, with a huge bulging head that flopped uncontrollably from shoulder to shoulder, was bounding along on a single leg. Its twisted features were grimacing horribly.

Lucifer did not raise his eyes to Nina's face, but through the transparent sleeves of her tunic, he saw the muscles in her arms grow rigid.

The conveyance stopped in front of the entrance to one of the larger buildings. An attendant met them as they stepped out of the vehicle. He led them down a long, glass-roofed corridor. The rain was now drumming dismally against the glass.

A blindfolded girl of about six passed them in the corridor. She stepped politely to one side, then continued surely and unconcernedly on her way.

Huth received them in a large room equipped with two rows of facing desks.

"As I told you," he explained to Lucifer, "these tests will be very elementary. Together with your Earth records, they will form part of your basic family file. And," he added, harshness edging into his voice, "it will be wise for you to give us your complete cooperation."

One of the attendants led Nina to a seat in front of a desk. The other attendant beckoned to Lucifer.

"If you please," Lucifer said to Huth, "I would like to observe your technique. Being a professional man, you know...."

Huth assented.

"May I compliment you on your attitude, Dr. Brill. Such an interest can shorten your period of orientation, and it raises my already considerable expectations for you. But we do not pretend to any originality of technique."

After watching the attendant run through twenty-five cards with Nina, Lucifer was quite ready to agree with Huth. The technique was crude, far below minimal laboratory standards.

Nina's attention wandered about the room, but she called off the cards without hesitation. The attendant took her through three runs, checked his file record and stood up with a shrug. He said something to Huth in a language that blurred and rasped.

"Dr. Brill," said Huth, "will you oblige us now?"

Lucifer stepped resolutely to the desk, but the palms of his hands were moist. Over the past two decades he had taken many tests, enough to know that he could never score above chance save for an occasional run of coincidence.

And this was not one of those runs. He saw it in the attendant's manner before five cards had been turned. Desperately, he fumbled ahead, guessing blindly.

At the end of the first run, the attendant spoke rapidly to Huth.

Lucifer saw Nina watching him with surprise.

"This technique is incredible!" he snapped at Huth. "With all the distractions in this room, not to mention the emotional stress of our situation, a true score would have to depend on chance!"

"That is not necessarily so," Huth answered calmly. "The stronger a psi sense may be, the more easily it is brought into use, regardless of external circumstances. You Earth scientists go to incredible lengths to test under laboratory conditions an ability that does not belong in the laboratory."

"Ridiculous! Laboratory standards were necessary to prove the existence of psi."

"Therefore, Earth scientists will go on proving it to each other for the next hundred years."

"What are you proving by this inferior duplication of our psi tests?" Lucifer challenged, hoping to divert attention from another disastrous run of the cards.

"More than you suspect, Dr. Brill. For one thing, by checking this first test with your Earth record, and later with additional tests, we can obtain an indication of your response to orientation. This could be important to you, vitally important, I might add. Now, shall we proceed."

It was an order, not a question.

Lucifer saw Nina nod at him, and try to smile encouragingly. This fed his anger with the fuel of humiliation.

The attendant took a new deck of cards, began to turn them.

Brill felt his eyes drawn again to Nina. He called out his answer, unthinkingly. "Circle ... circle ... star ... rectangle ... circle...."

When the run was completed, the attendant instantly started another.

A third and a fourth run, then the attendant turned to Huth with a rapid burst of language.