Read Online The Whole Man by John Brunner - Free Book Online
Authors: John Brunner
Tags: Science-Fiction, Fantasy
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create.
Nonetheless the distractions continued, at the very edge of consciousness, and were so labile that the act of turning his attention to them altered them. It might seem for a few seconds that he was thinking: This is childish; why don’t I go and learn to use my talents properly? Then, when he tried to blot out that, he was thinking: That way lies danger; I might forget my body and starve while I’m day dreaming. And the angry counter to that —Should I care? —was itself countered: Die, without knowing the intimacy of telepathic friendship?
He gasped and opened his eyes, sitting up with a jerk. A stab of pain from cramp-stiffened back muscles followed the movement. Beside him, the girl whimpered her complaint at losing contact. He ignored her, scrambled to his feet and plunged through the sacking-screened opening which served as their doorway.
Outside, the rain drizzled down, scarcely thick enough to veil the surrounding buildings, but quite enough to make it impossible to stare upward when he tried it. The water, dirty with city smoke and dust, ran into his eyes and made him blink helplessly. Besides, what he was looking for was hidden behind the clouds still.
Hidden! How could he hide?
That last distracting concept, the one which had jolted him to his feet, had been neither his own nor the girl’s. Behind its simple verbalization had lain layer on layer of remembered experience, belonging to a telepathist with full training and tremendous skill. He didn’t have to have previous knowledge to sense that. The message was self- identifying.
So they had come for him, who could not run and had not yet learned how to blank out his projections.
The din of the helicopters battered at his ears, the rain stung his eyes. Without forethought, he found himself stumbling across the uneven ground; a patch of slimy mud moved under his foot, and he was sprawling in a puddle. Heedless of wet and dirt, he got up again, hearing the formless bubbling voice of the girl behind him, sensing that the hunters had located him now beyond doubt, expecting momentarily that the angular insect shapes of the helicopters would buzz through the gray overcast and close on him like vultures circling a lost explorer.
And there was one of them! Gasping, cursing, he turned, slipping and sliding and clutching whatever support he could to prevent another headlong fall. A fast vertical gale hammered the top of his head with accelerated raindrops, like birdshot, as the copter passed above him, and stayed there. The down draft formed a cage around him, its bars the needles of rain.
The girl was screaming now, as nearly as she could; the disgusting noise of her moans blended in confusion with the hammer of the copter engine.
Telepathist, why are you afraid?
The silent voice came into his head like a cold cleansing wind, islanding his consciousness in the eye of the hurricane of noise and fear. It was laden with encouragement to accept what was happening. For a moment he was too startled to resist the intrusion; this wasn’t a random concept picked up by himself from a passive mind, but a deliberate projection with the force of years of mental discipline behind it. Then the second helicopter dropped into view, and he found strength in terror.
NO NO NO LEAVE ME ALONE!
The thought blasted out unaimed, and the copter directly above him reacted as though he had riddled it with gunfire. Its nose dipped, it twisted and slid across the bare ground, it jerked crazily as one of its outstretched legs crashed into the wall of the ruined warehouse, and turned over around the point of impact. On its side, it fell crunching among piled rubble, and the rotor blades snapped like dry sticks and the engine died instantly.
Unbelieving, Howson watched it crash, hardly daring to accept that he could have been responsible. Yet he knew he was: he had sensed the blinding shock in the pilot’s mind as all his reflexes were deranged. Moreover, he had driven
Nonetheless the distractions continued, at the very edge of consciousness, and were so labile that the act of turning his attention to them altered them. It might seem for a few seconds that he was thinking: This is childish; why don’t I go and learn to use my talents properly? Then, when he tried to blot out that, he was thinking: That way lies danger; I might forget my body and starve while I’m day dreaming. And the angry counter to that —Should I care? —was itself countered: Die, without knowing the intimacy of telepathic friendship?
He gasped and opened his eyes, sitting up with a jerk. A stab of pain from cramp-stiffened back muscles followed the movement. Beside him, the girl whimpered her complaint at losing contact. He ignored her, scrambled to his feet and plunged through the sacking-screened opening which served as their doorway.
Outside, the rain drizzled down, scarcely thick enough to veil the surrounding buildings, but quite enough to make it impossible to stare upward when he tried it. The water, dirty with city smoke and dust, ran into his eyes and made him blink helplessly. Besides, what he was looking for was hidden behind the clouds still.
Hidden! How could he hide?
That last distracting concept, the one which had jolted him to his feet, had been neither his own nor the girl’s. Behind its simple verbalization had lain layer on layer of remembered experience, belonging to a telepathist with full training and tremendous skill. He didn’t have to have previous knowledge to sense that. The message was self- identifying.
So they had come for him, who could not run and had not yet learned how to blank out his projections.
The din of the helicopters battered at his ears, the rain stung his eyes. Without forethought, he found himself stumbling across the uneven ground; a patch of slimy mud moved under his foot, and he was sprawling in a puddle. Heedless of wet and dirt, he got up again, hearing the formless bubbling voice of the girl behind him, sensing that the hunters had located him now beyond doubt, expecting momentarily that the angular insect shapes of the helicopters would buzz through the gray overcast and close on him like vultures circling a lost explorer.
And there was one of them! Gasping, cursing, he turned, slipping and sliding and clutching whatever support he could to prevent another headlong fall. A fast vertical gale hammered the top of his head with accelerated raindrops, like birdshot, as the copter passed above him, and stayed there. The down draft formed a cage around him, its bars the needles of rain.
The girl was screaming now, as nearly as she could; the disgusting noise of her moans blended in confusion with the hammer of the copter engine.
Telepathist, why are you afraid?
The silent voice came into his head like a cold cleansing wind, islanding his consciousness in the eye of the hurricane of noise and fear. It was laden with encouragement to accept what was happening. For a moment he was too startled to resist the intrusion; this wasn’t a random concept picked up by himself from a passive mind, but a deliberate projection with the force of years of mental discipline behind it. Then the second helicopter dropped into view, and he found strength in terror.
NO NO NO LEAVE ME ALONE!
The thought blasted out unaimed, and the copter directly above him reacted as though he had riddled it with gunfire. Its nose dipped, it twisted and slid across the bare ground, it jerked crazily as one of its outstretched legs crashed into the wall of the ruined warehouse, and turned over around the point of impact. On its side, it fell crunching among piled rubble, and the rotor blades snapped like dry sticks and the engine died instantly.
Unbelieving, Howson watched it crash, hardly daring to accept that he could have been responsible. Yet he knew he was: he had sensed the blinding shock in the pilot’s mind as all his reflexes were deranged. Moreover, he had driven
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