The Sensitive Man Read online

hadtraveled a lot. They had often been in the huge pylon of the mainInstitute building. They had gone over to Tighe's native England oncea year at least. But always the old house had been dear to them.

  It stood on a ridge, long and low and weathered gray like a part ofthe earth. By day it had rested in a green sun-dazzle of trees or aglistering purity of snow. By night you heard the boards creaking andthe lonesome sound of wind talking down the chimney. Yes, it had beengood.

  And there had been the wonder of it. He loved his training. Thehorizonless world within himself was a glorious thing to explore. Andthat had oriented him outward to the real world--he had felt wind andrain and sunlight, the pride of high buildings and the surge of agalloping horse, thresh of waves and laughter of women and smoothmysterious purr of great machines, with a fullness that made him pitythose deaf and dumb and blind around him.

  Oh yes, he loved those things. He was in love with the whole turningplanet and the big skies overhead. It was a world of light andstrength and swift winds and it would be bitter to leave it. But Tighewas locked in darkness.

  He said slowly, "All we ever were was a research and educationalcenter, a sort of informal university specializing in the scientificstudy of man. We're not any kind of political organization. You'd besurprised how much we differ in our individual opinions."

  "What of it?" shrugged Tyler. "This is something larger than politics.Your work, if fully developed, would change our whole society, perhapsthe whole nature of man. We _know_ you've learned more things thanyou've made public. Therefore you're reserving that information foruses of your own."

  "And you want it for your purposes?"

  "Yes," said Tyler. After a moment, "I despise melodrama but if youdon't cooperate you're going to get the works. And we've got Tighetoo, never forget that. One of you ought to break down if he watchesthe other being questioned."

  _We're going to the same place! We're going to Tighe!_

  The effort to hold face and voice steady was monstrous. "Just whereare we bound?"

  "An island. We should be there soon. I'll be going back again myselfbut Mr. Bancroft is coming shortly. That should convince you just howimportant this is to us."

  Dalgetty nodded. "Can I think it over for awhile? It isn't an easydecision for me."

  "Sure. I hope you decide right."

  Tyler got up and left with his guards. The big man who had handed himthe drink earlier sat where he had been all the time. Slowly thepsychologist began to tighten himself. The faint drone of turbines andwhistle of jets and sundered air began to enlarge.

  "Where are we going?" he asked.

  "CAN'T TELL YOU THAT. SHUDDUP, WILL YOU?"

  "But surely...."

  The guard didn't answer. But he was thinking._Ree-villa-ghee-gay-doe--never would p'rnounce that damn Spig name ...cripes, what a God-forsaken hole!... Mebbe I can work a trip over toMexico.... That little gal in Guada...._

  Dalgetty concentrated. Revilla--he had it now. Islas de Revillagigedoa small group some 350 or 400 miles off the Mexican coast, littlevisited with very few inhabitants. His eidetic memory went to work,conjuring an image of a large-scale map he had once studied. Closinghis eyes he laid off the exact distance, latitude and longitude,individual islands.

  Wait, there was one a little further west, a speck on the map, notproperly belonging to the group. And--he riffled through all the factshe had ever learned pertaining to Bancroft. Wait now, Bertrand Meade,who seemed to be the kingpin of the whole movement--yes, Meade ownedthat tiny island.

  _So that's where we're going!_ He sank back, letting weariness overrunhim. It would be awhile yet before they arrived.

  Dalgetty sighed and looked out at the stars. Why had men arranged suchclumsy constellations when the total pattern of the sky was a big andlovely harmony? He knew his personal danger would be enormous once hewas on the ground. Torture, mutilation, even death.

  Dalgetty closed his eyes again. Almost at once he was asleep.

  IV

  They landed on a small field while it was still dark. Hustled out intoa glare of lights Dalgetty did not have much chance to study hissurroundings. There were men standing on guard with magnum rifles,tough-looking professional goons in loose gray uniforms. Dalgettyfollowed obediently across the concrete, along a walk and through agarden to the looming curved bulk of a house.

  He paused just a second as the door opened for them and stood lookingout into darkness. The sea rolled and hissed there on a wide beach. Hecaught the clean salt smell of it and filled his lungs. It might bethe last time he ever breathed such air.

  "Get along with you." An arm jerked him into motion again.

  Down a bare coldly-lit hallway, down an escalator, into the guts ofthe island. Another door, a room beyond it, an ungentle shove. Thedoor clashed to behind him.

  Dalgetty looked around. The cell was small, bleakly furnished withbunk, toilet and washstand, had a ventilator grille in one wall.Nothing else. He tried listening with maximum sensitivity but therewere only remote confused murmurs.

  _Dad!_ he thought. _You're here somewhere too._

  He flopped on the bunk and spent a moment analyzing the aesthetics ofthe layout. It had a certain pleasing severity, the unconsciousbalance of complete functionalism. Soon Dalgetty went back to sleep.

  A guard with a breakfast tray woke him. Dalgetty tried to read theman's thoughts but there weren't any to speak of. He ate ravenouslyunder a gun muzzle, gave the tray back and returned to sleep. It wasthe same at lunch time.

  His time-sense told him that it was 1435 hours when he was rousedagain. There were three men this time, husky specimens. "Come on,"said one of them. "Never saw such a guy for pounding his ear."

  Dalgetty stood up, running a hand through his hair. The red bristleswere scratchy on his palm. It was a cover-up, a substitute symbol tobring his nervous system back under full control. The process felt asif he were being tumbled through a huge gulf.

  "Just how many of your fellows are there here?" he asked.

  "Enough. Now get going!"

  He caught the whisper of thought--_fifty of us guards, is it? Yeah,fifty, I guess._

  Fifty! Dalgetty felt taut as he walked out between two of them. Fiftygoons. And they were trained, he knew that. The Institute had learnedthat Bertrand Meade's private army was well-drilled. Nothing obtrusiveabout it--officially they were only servants and bodyguards--but theyknew how to shoot.

  And he was alone in mid-ocean with them. He was alone and no one knewwhere he was and anything could be done to him. He felt cold, walkingdown the corridor.

  There was a room beyond with benches and a desk. One of the guardsgestured to a chair at one end. "Sit," he grunted.

  Dalgetty submitted. The straps went around his wrists and ankles,holding him to the arms and legs of the heavy chair. Another buckledabout his waist. He looked down and saw that the chair was bolted tothe floor. One of the guards crossed to the desk and started up a taperecorder.

  A door opened in the far end of the room. Thomas Bancroft came in. Hewas a big man, fleshy but in well-scrubbed health, his clothesdesigned with quiet good taste. The head was white-maned, leonine,with handsome florid features and sharp blue eyes. He smiled ever sofaintly and sat down behind the desk.

  The woman was with him--Dalgetty looked harder at her. She was new tohim. She was medium tall, a little on the compact side, her blond haircut too short, no makeup on her broad Slavic features. Young, in hardcondition, moving with a firm masculine stride. With those tilted grayeyes, that delicately curved nose and wide sullen mouth, she couldhave been a beauty had she wanted to be.

  _One of the modern type_, thought Dalgetty. _A flesh-and-bloodmachine, trying to outmale men, frustrated and unhappy without knowingit and all the more bitter for that._

  Briefly there was sorrow in him, an enormous pity for the millions ofmankind. They did not know themselves, they fought themselves likewild beasts, tied up in knots, locked in nightmare. Man could be somuch if he had the chance.

  He glanc
ed at Bancroft. "I know you," he said, "but I'm afraid thelady has the advantage of me."

  "My secretary and general assistant, Miss Casimir." The politician'svoice was sonorous, a beautifully controlled instrument. He leanedacross the desk. The recorder by his elbow whirred in the flatsoundproofed stillness.

  "Mr. Dalgetty," he said, "I want you to understand that we aren'tfiends. There are things too important for ordinary rules though. Warshave been fought over them in the past and may well be fought again.It will be easier for all concerned if you cooperate with us now. Noone need ever know that you have done so."

  "Suppose I answer your questions," said Dalgetty. "How do you knowI'll be telling the truth?"

  "Neoscopolamine, of course. I don't think you've been immunized. Itconfuses the mind too much