“But he’s — !” Howson began, and checked at Singh’s frown. Wordlessly, he continued: But he’s a top, top man!

Correct. Eleven years of close association with Howson had enabled Singh to verbalize an unspoken communication almost as clearly as a telepathist. An arbitrator based on Hong Kong — maintains the Pacific Seaboard beat virtually single-handed.

Also a therapist retained occasionally by top UN staff. Not met him ?

No.

Nor have I. But we’re about to, aren’t we?

For the life of him, Howson could not have matched that mock-cynical comment. He felt only dismay. What was an arbitrator doing setting up a catapathic grouping? They were all chosen from the most stable, capable, highly-trained telepathists; they had to be like Caesar’s wife, beyond any breath of suspicion, for on the knife-edge of their self-control rested the uneasy peace of the planet.

If even such a man as that could choose fugue rather than reality, how secure was he, the cripple who could not even face strangers without being hurt ?

Singh was speaking briskly to the night-clerk. “Which is Mr Choong’s room, please ? I shall have to disturb him.”

“Mr Choong’s suite,” the woman corrected morosely. “His party booked into our penthouse early this evening. But I don’t think I can let you—”

“His party! How many?” Singh interrupted.

“Ten altogether.” And unwillingly: “Sir.”

“You were right about the need for another ambulance, Gerry,” Singh grunted. “All right,” he added to the night-clerk. “Get a porter or someone to take us up — and hurry! It’s a medical emergency, hear?”

Howson was content to comply with the course of events. He said nothing as he hobbled towards the elevator, in the wake of a porter wearing a sleepsuit and a startled expression. The ambulance attendants had gone around with their stretchers to the freight elevators. Howson left all that to Singh; he was busy trying to ride the bucking bronco of his thoughts, which threatened to run out of control whenever he let his attention wander towards the telepathic fantasies Choong was elaborating.

Try not to think of a white horse…

The car stopped at penthouse level. Singh automatically made to use the pass-key he had obtained from the night-clerk, but the door opened before he applied it. And beyond…

“It reminds me,” Singh said with ghastly calmness, “of the stage at the end of a performance of Hamlet.”

Bodies everywhere! Only — not bodies yet. Wax-pale, they sat or lay immobile, on chairs, couches, stacked cushions, nine of them in a circle around the tenth: a plump man with a Eurasian cast of features, relaxed in a padded arm-chair and wearing a splendid silk robe. At his side, as though this moment removed and set down, lay a pair of old-fashioned horn-rim spectacles. And that was, therefore, Hugh Choong.

Howson’s fists clenched ridiculously. Like a badly jointed puppet he limped towards the trance-lost telepathist, the violence of his anger fouling the air.

Damn you, damn you, damn you—

“Gerry!” Singh’s words lanced into his brain. “You can’t reach him, so don’t waste the effort!”

Howson’s rage, punctured, faded to nothing, leaving only a sick apathy. He made an empty gesture and turned his back.

“Where he’s gone, he doesn’t want anyone to reach him.”

“I’m not so sure,” Singh countered. “Look!” He strode over the soft carpet towards the wall-mounted phone and pointed to something on a low table close by. Howson’s lack-lustre gaze followed him.

“There’s a time-switch on the phone, and it’s set for eight tomorrow morning. And this is a recorder. Let’s see what it says.” He lifted up the small device, cased in a fine lacquered box, and discovered that it was connected to the phone by a gossamer-weight flex. A tug snapped the link; he depressed the replay switch.

At once a firm voice rang out.

“This is Hugh Choong in the penthouse. Good morning. Please do not be alarmed at this recorded message, which is set to repeat in case you don’t take it all in at one go.

“Please contact the director in chief of the WHO therapy centre, Dr. Pandit Singh. Inform him of my identity, and request him or one of his senior aides to come and see me. The elevator door is set to open automatically, so he will have no difficulty in entering. Thank you!”

“Shut it off!” said Howson savagely. “So he had it all worked out! The best of therapy, for no good reason! And now, I presume—” He broke off, his mouth working.

“Yes, Gerry ?” Singh prompted.

“You know exactly what I was going to say!” Howson flared. “Now somebody’s got to go in after him, drag him out of fugue by force, waste time and effort that ought to go to somebody who needs it!”

“As far as I’m concerned, Gerry,” said Singh in a tone he did not need to colour with reproof, “the fact that Hugh Choong is here, in this state, makes him a person in need of therapy. Am I wrong ?”

Howson flushed. He made as though to contradict, but before he had a chance to speak the ambulance attendants came from the freight elevator, and Singh’s entire attention went over to the supervision of their work.

Howson drew back into a corner out of the way, and gazed at the waxwork calm of Choong’s face as they manhandled him on to his stretcher, completing his statement for himself alone.

No, damn you. That’s why there’s such a stench of smugness reeking around you! You can’t have needed help, because you’ve taken so much care to make sure of getting it!

And you will — damn you again. They’ll make me chase after you into that nowhere-land, destroy your dreams, pester and persecute you till you come back. And I’ll take on the job, because this is all I have: my skill that nobody in the world can match.

So who will come after me, to help me, Choong? Who else is there? Damn you to hell.

16

His bitterness was still growing, accentuated by his lack of sleep, when the special conference convened next afternoon. For any ordinary patient, a place on the regular daily agenda sufficed; for anyone else in UN employ, at most a multi-line phone link was used to discuss the case. But for Choong the high executives came swarming in by Mach Five express.

In the chair reserved for him at Singh’s right, he sat trying to think of unimportant matters — the long low sea-green ceiling, the exquisite crafting of the beechwood furniture. He failed. He was much too aware of the guiltily curious stares of the strangers, which asked as clearly as a direct telepathic signal: The world’s greatest curative telepathist? Him?

He could barely prevent himself from blasting at them aloud: “What the hell did you expect, anyway ? A superman ? A pair of horns?”

Fortunately their attention had been distracted by the arrival of copies of the physical examination reports on Choong and his companions. Now they were doggedly ploughing through a welter of detail, hoping to save themselves from asking ignorant questions later and looking foolish.

Except one, he suddenly realized. Lockspeiser, the big Canadian with the red face and the bald patch on his crown, had shut his folder of papers and pushed it away. That was an honest action, anyway…

“Excuse me being blunt, Dr. Singh,” the Canadian said. “But this stuff is for doctors, and I’m not one. I’m an allegedly practical politician working with the Trade Co-ordination Commission, and my interest in Dr. Choong is confined to the fact that he was supposed to arbitrate in the balance-of-credits crisis you may have heard about — the Sino-Indonesian mess. It was hell’s own job cooling people’s tempers to the point where they’d accept an outside referee, and they want Choong or nobody. That’s what counts with me. Can we skip the jargon and boil out some hard facts now ?”