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"What would that accomplish? He's going to die anyway."
"That's a rotten attitude for a doctor," Forester snapped.
"And for a scientist. Don't you care what's causing this problem?"
"I'm sure the autopsy will reveal that," Barenburg muttered.
"Great. Just great. And in the process you may be tossing away a shot at
medical history."
Barenburg threw him a sideways glance. "What are you talking about?"
"Suppose you were right earlier—suppose Twenty-Seven really being
distracted." Forester is chose his words carefully; he'd hoped this approach
would stir Barenburg's interest. It seemed to be working, at least a little.
"That might mean that, against all odds, he's actually getting smarter. Maybe
not much, but even a few IQ points would be a significant change. If he became
aware of his surroundings in any real way—"
"Of course he's aware of his surroundings. Why else would Kincaid want him off
the line so fast?"
Forester's mental processes skidded to a halt.
"What?"
Barenburg spun his chair around, his eyes wide with guilt. "Oh, hell. Forget I
said that, Ted—please. And don't tell Kincaid—"
"Doc, what is it I'm not supposed to know?" Forester interrupted sharply.
Something was terribly wrong here. "You've got to give me all of it now."
Barenburg sagged in his chair, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "That damned
bourbon," he said tiredly.
"Hell. Look, Ted, Red Staley won the Smithsonian Triple-P for his telekinetic
ability, right? But he was also an 80 percent-accurate telepath. You probably
didn't know that; he didn't publicize it much."
"No, I heard a rumor about it once. But I didn't know it was that accurate."
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"It was. So now we have forty-nine active Spoonbenders with genetically
enhanced telekinesis. If the chromosome mapping is at all the way we think it
is... then they've got enhanced telepathy, too.
Enhanced a lot."
The words hit Forester like an icy shower. Groping blindly, he found a chair
and swiveled it to face
Barenburg. His eyes still on the doctor's face, he sank into it. "Do you mean
to say they could have been reading our minds all this time?" The very thought
gave him an itchy feeling between his shoulder blades.
Barenburg signed. "I'm sure they have been, though probably on a subconscious
level. But you're missing my point. Their real problem is lack of long-range
intracerebral communication, right? But with a functioning telepathic center
they don't need the neural connectors.
They can shunt everything major directly through that center, leaving the
neurons to handle more localized operations and storage. It'd take a lot of
adaptation, but the human brain's good at that sort of thing."
"God in heaven," Forester whispered. He threw an involuntary glance at
Twenty-Seven's monitor. "Then they could have completely normal IQs!"
Barenburg snorted. "They could be geniuses, for all we know."
"But if it's not their brain chemistry, then what's kept them... like they
are?"
"You mean semiconscious?" Barenburg smiled bitterly. "The oldest trick in the
book: their oxygen level's been kept deliberately low. Not low enough to put
them to sleep, really, but low enough to keep metabolic activity down." He
shrugged. "At least it used to work that way. But the oxygen flow to
Twenty-Seven still reads normal. I have no idea what could have woken him up."
Forester's brain was struggling out from under the numbness Barenburg's
bombshell had produced.
"Have you told Kincaid or the board about this?"
"Who do you think ordered the low oxygen flow? Of course they know."
"But—" Forester broke off as the door opened and Kincaid walked into the
control room.
The project director was sharp, all right. He was no more than two steps into
the room when he apparently read from the others' faces what had happened. His
stride faltered a bit, and his own expression grew thunderous. "Damn it,
Barenburg. I ought to slap you in Leavenworth for this."
The doctor muttered something and dropped his eyes.
Forester stood up, fists clenched at his sides. "It was bad enough when you
were going to kill a human vegetable," he grated. "But you're about to destroy
a perfectly intelligent, rational child. You can't do it!"
"Please keep your voice down, Ted," Kincaid said in a low voice, glancing
nervously across the room at the three operators. "Look, I don't do this
lightly; the only reason I could give the order so quickly is that we've
agonized for months about what we'd do if this happened. But we've got to get
him off the line before he starts influencing any of the other
Spoonbenders—and if he's really poking around with telepathy and TK he's
bound to do something like that eventually."
"Why would that be so bad?"
"Because even if he's intelligent he may not be at all sane. Remember, the
extra nucleic material in his cells has thrown his hormone levels and brain
chemistry to hell and halfway back. He could be schizophrenic,
manic-depressive, paranoid, or something we haven't even got a name for yet.
We simply can't take the chance that he might destabilize any of the others.
They're too valuable to risk. The
Project's too valuable to risk."
"The greatest good for the greatest number," Forester said bitterly. "Is that
it?"
"Yes, I guess so," Kincaid admitted. "With the 'greatest number' being in this
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case the entire country. I'm sorry." He turned to the control board and picked
up the phone.
A feeling of defeat seeped into Forester without relieving any of the tension
within him. Perhaps it was better this way, he told himself bleakly. Perhaps
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