The Sensitive Man Read online

wasn't more truth than fictionin that Tau Ceti story, that you aren't really the agent of somenon-human power quietly taking over all our race?"

  At another time Dalgetty might have argued, tried to veil it from her,tried to trick her once again. But now he was too weary. There was agreat surrender in him. "I'll tell you if you wish," he said, "andafter that it's in your hands. You can make us or break us."

  "Go on then." Her tone withdrew into wariness.

  "I'm human," he said. "I'm as human as you are. Only I've had ratherspecial training, that's all. It's another discovery of the Institutefor which we don't feel the world is ready. It'd be too big atemptation for too many people, to create followers like me." Helooked away, into the windy dark. "The scientist is also a member ofsociety and has a responsibility toward it. This--restraint--of oursis one way in which we meet that obligation."

  She didn't speak, but suddenly one hand reached over and rested onhis. The impulsive gesture brought warmth flooding through him.

  "Dad's work was mostly in mass-action psych," he said, making his tonetry to cover what he felt, "but he has plenty of associates trying tounderstand the individual human being as a functioning mechanism. Alot's been learned since Freud, both from the psychiatric and theneurological angle. Ultimately, those two are interchangeable.

  "Some thirty years ago one of the teams which founded the Institutelearned enough about the relationship between the conscious,subconscious and involuntary minds to begin practical tests. Alongwith a few others I was a guinea pig. And their theories worked.

  "I needn't go into the details of my training. It involved physicalexercises, mental practice, some hypnotism, diet and so on. It wentconsiderably beyond the important Synthesis education which is themost advanced thing known to the general public. But its aim--onlypartially realized as yet--its aim was simply to produce thecompletely integrated human being."

  Dalgetty paused. The wind flowed and muttered beyond the wall.

  "There is no sharp division between conscious and subconscious or evenbetween those and the centers controlling involuntary functions," hesaid. "The brain is a continuous structure. Suppose, for instance,that you become aware of a runaway car bearing down on you.

  "Your heartbeat speeds up, your adrenalin output increases, your sightsharpens, your sensitivity to pain drops--it's all preparation forfight or flight. Even without obvious physical necessity the samething can happen on a lesser scale--for example when you read anexciting story. And psychotics, especially hysterics, can produce someof the damnedest physiological symptoms you ever saw."

  "I begin to understand," she whispered.

  "Rage or fear brings abnormal strength and fast reaction. But thepsychotic can do more than that. He can show physical symptoms likeburns, stigmata or--if female--false pregnancy. Sometimes he becomeswholly insensitive in some part of his body via a nerve bloc.Bleeding can start or stop without apparent cause. He can go into acoma or he can stay awake for days without getting sleepy. He can--"

  "Read minds?" It was a defiance.

  "Not that I know of." Simon chuckled. "But human sense organs areamazingly good. It only takes three or four quanta to stimulate thevisual purple--a little more actually because of absorption by theeyeball itself. There have been hysterics who could hear a watchticking twenty feet away that the normal person could not hear at onefoot. And so on.

  "There are excellent reasons why the threshold of perception isrelatively high in ordinary people--the stimuli of usual conditionswould be blinding and deafening, unendurable, if there weren't adefense." He grimaced. "I _know_!"

  "But the telepathy?" Elena persisted.

  "It's been done before," he said. "Some apparent cases of mindreadingin the last century were shown to be due to extremely acute hearing.Most people sub-vocalize their surface thoughts. With a littlepractice a person who can hear those vibrations can learn to interpretthem. That's all." He smiled with one side of his mouth. "If you wantto hide your thoughts from me just break that habit, Elena."

  She looked at him with an emotion he could not quite recognize. "Isee," she breathed. "And your memory must be perfect too, if you canpull any datum out of the subconscious. And you can--do everything,can't you?"

  "No," he said. "I'm only a test case. They've learned a great deal byobserving me but the only thing that makes me unusual is that I haveconscious control of certain normally subconscious and involuntaryfunctions. Not all of them by a long shot. And I don't use thatcontrol any more than necessary.

  "There are sound biological reasons why man's mind is so divided andplenty of penalties attached to a case like mine. It'll take me acouple of months to get back in shape after this bout. I'm due for agood old-fashioned nervous breakdown and while it won't last long itwon't be much fun while it does last."

  The appeal rose in his eyes as he watched Elena. "All right," he said."Now you have the story. What are you going to do about it?"

  For the first time she gave him a real smile. "Don't worry," she said,"Don't worry, Simon."

  "Will you come hold my hand while I'm recuperating?" he askedanxiously.

  "I'm holding it now, you fool," Elena answered.

  Dalgetty chuckled happily. Then he went to sleep.

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