 As long as you wish. This is a LibreVox recording. All LibreVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibreVox.org. Recording by Joelle Peebles. As long as you wish by John O'Keefe. Quote, if somehow you get trapped in a circular time system, how long is the circumference of an infinitely retraced circle? The patient sat stiffly in the leather chair on the other side of the desk. Nervously he pressed a coin into the palm of one hand. Just start anywhere, I said, and tell me all about it. As before? Without waiting for an answer, he continued. The coin clutched tightly in one hand. I'm Charles J. Fisher, Professor of Philosophy at Reiser College. He looked at me quickly, or at least I was until recently, for a second his face was boyish. Professor of Philosophy, that is. I smiled and found that I was staring at the coin in his hand. He gave it to me. On one side I read the words, the statement on the other side of this coin is false. The patient watched me with an expressionless face. I turned over the coin. It was engraved with the words, the statement on the other side of this coin is false. That's not the problem, he said. Not my problem. I had the coin made when I was an undergraduate. I enjoyed reading one side, turning it over, reading the other side, and so on. A fiendish enjoyment like boys planning where to put the tipped over outhouse. I looked at the patient. He was thirty-eight, single, medium-build, had an MA and PhD from an Eastern university. I knew this and more from the folder on my desk. Eight months ago he continued. I read about the sphere found on Paney Island. He stopped, looking at me questioningly. Yes, I know, I said. I opened my desk drawer, took out a clipping from the newspaper, and handed it to him. That's it. I read the clipping before putting it back in the drawer. Manila, September 24, INS. Archeologists from University of California have discovered in Earth fault of recent quake a sphere two feet in diameter of an unidentifiable material. Dr. Carl Swartz, head of the group, said the sphere was returned to the University for study. He declined to answer questions on the cultural origin of the sphere. There wasn't any more in the newspaper about it, he said. I have a friend in California who got me the photographs. He looked at me intently. You won't believe any of this. He pressed the coin into the palm of his hand. You won't be able to. The photographs, he continued as if lecturing, were of characters projected by the sphere when placed before a focused light. The sphere was transparent, you see, embedded with dark microscopic specs. By moving the sphere a certain distance each time there was a total projection of 360 different characters in 18 different orderings, or 19 different orderings if you count one which was a list of all the characters. I made a mental note of the numbers, I felt they were significant. As I said, he continued, I obtained the photographs of the characters, very strange shapes, totally unlike the characters of oriental languages, but yet that is the closest way to describe them. He jerked forward in his chair, except of course, ostensibly. Later, I said, I wanted to get through the preliminaries first, there would be time later to see the photographs. The characters projected by the sphere, he said, weren't like the characters of any known language. He paused dramatically. There was reason to believe they had origin in an unknown culture, a culture more scientifically advanced than our own. And the reasons for this supposition, I asked? The material, the material of the sphere, it could only be roughly classified as ferroplastic, totally unknown, amazing in perviousness, a synthetic material, hardly the product of a former culture. From Mars, I said, smiling. There were all kinds of conjectures, but of course the important thing was to see if the projection of characters was a message, the message, if any, would mean more than any conjecture. You translated it? He polished the coin on his jacket. You won't dare believe it, he said sharply. He cleared his throat and stiffened into a more rigid posture. It wasn't exactly translation, you see. To us, none of the characters had designation, they were just characters. So it was a problem of decoding, I asked. As it turned out, no. Decoding is dependent on knowledge of language characteristics, characteristics of known languages. Decoding was tried but without success. No, what we had to find was a key to the language. You mean like the runestone. More or less. In principle, we needed a picture of a cow and a sign of meaning indicating one of the characters. For me, there was no possibility of finding similarities between the characters and characters of other languages. That would require tremendous linguistic knowledge and library facilities. Nor could I use a decoding approach. That would require special knowledge of techniques and access to electronic computers and other mechanical aids. No, I had to work on the assumption that the key to the sphere was implicit in the sphere. You hoped to find the key to the language in the language itself? Exactly, you know of course some languages do have an implicit key. For example, hieroglyphics or picture language. The word for cow is a picture of a cow. He looked at the toes of his shoes. You won't be able to believe it, it's impossible to believe. I use the word impossible in its logical sense. In most languages, he continued looking up from his shoes. The sound of some words themselves indicates the meaning of the word. Oh, no matter poetic words like bow-ow, buzz. And the key to the unknown language, I asked. How did you find it? I watched him push the coin against the back of his arm, then lift it to read the backward letters pressed into his skin. He looked up at me and smiled. I built models of the characters. Big material ones, exactly proportionate to the ones projected. Then, quite by accident, I viewed one of them through a glass globe the size of the original sphere. What do you think I saw? What? I noticed he had the boyish look again. A distortion of the model, but that's not what's important. The distortions on study gave specific visual entities, like when looking at one of those trick pictures and suddenly seeing the lion in the grass. The lines outlining the lion are there all the time. Only the observer has to view them as the outline of a lion. It was the same with the models of the characters, except the shapes that appeared were not of lions or other recognizable things. But they did suggest he pressed the coin against his forehead, closed his eyes, and appeared to be thinking deeply. Yes, impossible to believe. No one can believe it. In addition to the visual response, the distortions gave me definite feelings, not mixtures of feelings, but one definite emotional experience. How do you mean? One character, when viewed through the globe, gave me a visual image and, at the same time, a strong feeling of light hilarity. I take it then that these distortions seemed to connote meanings rather than denote them. You might say that their meaning was conveyed through a gestalt experience on the part of the observer. Yes, each character gave a definite gestalt, but the gestalt was the same for each observer, or at least for thirty-five observers there was an eighty percent correlation. I whistled softly. And the translation? Doctor, what would you say if I told you the translation was unbelievable, that it couldn't be seriously entertained by any man? What if I said that it would take the sanity of any man who believed it? I would say that it might well be incorrect. He took some papers from his pocket and laughed excitedly, slumping down in the chair. This is the complete translation in idiomatic English. I'm going to let you read it, but first I want you to consider a few things. He hid the papers behind the back of his chair. His face became even more boyish, almost as if he were deciding on where to put the tipped-over outhouse. Consider first doctor that there was a total projection of three hundred and sixty different characters. The same number as the number of degrees in a circle. Consider also that there were eighteen different orderings of the characters, or nineteen counting the alphabetical list. The square root of three hundred and sixty would lie between eighteen and nineteen. Yes, I said. I remembered there was something significant about the numbers, but I wasn't at all sure that it was this. Consider also he continued that the communication was through the medium of a sphere. Moreover, keep in mind that physics accepts the path of a beam of light as its definition of a straight line, yet the path is a curve. If extended sufficiently it would be a circle, the section of a sphere. All right, I said. By now the patient was pounding the coin against the sole of one shoe. And he said, keep in mind that in some sense time can be thought of as another dimension. He suddenly thrust the papers at me and sat back in the chair. I picked up the translation and began reading. The patient sat stiffly in the leather chair on the other side of the desk. Nervously he pressed a coin into the palm of one hand. Just start anywhere, I said, and tell me all about it. As before, without waiting for an answer, he continued. The coin clutched tightly in one hand. I'm Charles J. Fisher, professor of philosophy at Reiser College. He looked at me quickly, or at least I was until recently, for a second his face was boyish, professor of philosophy that is. I smiled and found that I was staring at the coin in his hand. He gave it to me. On one side I read the words, the statement on the other side of this coin is false. The patient watched. The end. End of As Long As You Wish by John O'Keefe Recording by Joelle Peebles The Big Fix This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alan Winteroud The Big Fix by George O. Smith It was April, a couple of weeks before the derby. We were playing poker, which is a game of skill that has nothing to do with the velocity of horse meat. Phil Howlin kept slipping open, but he managed to close up before I could tell whether the combination of three, five, two, four meant a full house of fives over fours, or whether he was betting on an open-ended straight that he hadn't bothered to arrange in order as he held them. The Greek was impenetrable. He also blocked me from reading the deck so that I could estimate his hand from the cards that weren't dealt out. Chicago Charlie's mind was easy to read, but no one could trust it. He was just as apt to think high to score someone out as he was to think low to suck the boys in. As for me, there I was, good old Wally Wilson holding a pat straight flush from the eight to the queen of diamonds. I was thinking full house, but I was betting like a week-three of a kind. It was a terrific game, between trying to read into the other guy's brains and keeping them from opening mine and blocking the Greek's sly stunt of tipping over the poker chips as a distraction. I was also concerned about the 8,000 bucks that was in the pot. The trouble was that all four of us had fully intended to rake it in. My straight flush would be good for the works in any normal game with wild cards, but the way this bunch was betting on her. Phil Howland didn't have much of a shield, but he could really read, and if he read me, either my mind or my hand, he'd automatically radiate, and that would be that. I was about at the point of calling for the draw, when the door opened without any knock. It was Tom Boy Taylor. We'd been so engrossed with one another that none of us had caught her approach. The Greek looked up at her and swore something he hadn't read in play-doh. Go down, he said, tossing in his hand. I grunted and spread my five beauties. Phil growled and shoved the pot in my direction, keeping both eyes on Tom Boy Taylor. She was something to keep eyes on, both figuratively and literally. The only thing that kept her from being a thionite dream was the Pittsburgh Stogie that she insisted upon smoking, and the only thing that kept her from being some man's companion to the Stogie was the fact that he'd have to keep his mouth shut or she'd steal his back teeth, if not for fillings, then for practice. You, Wally Wilson, she said around the cigar, get these grifters out of here. I got words. The Greek growled. Who says? Barcelona says. I do not have to explain who Barcelona is. All I have to say is that I'm a man and Chicago Charlie arose without a word and filed out with their minds all held tight behind solid shields. I said, what does Barcelona want with me? Tom Boy Taylor removed the Stogie and said evenly, Barcelona wants to see it flying heels, moonbeam, and Lady Grace next month. When I had got done gulping, I said, you mean Barcelona wants me to fix the Kentucky Derby? I replied in a very throaty control toe that went with her figure and her $1,000 worth of simple skirt and blouse. You needn't fix anything. Just be sure that it's flying heels, moonbeam, and Lady Grace in that order. One, two, three. Do I make Barcelona quite clear? I said, look, Tom Boy, neither of them playters can even run that far, let alone running ahead. Barcelona says they can and will. She leaned forward and stubbed out the Pittsburgh Stogie and in the gesture she became wholly beautiful as well as beautifully wholesome. As she leaned toward me, she unfogged the lighter surface of her mind and let me dig the faintly leaking concept that she considered me physically attractive. This did not offend me. To the contrary, it pleased my ego mightily until Tom Boy Taylor delicately let the barrier down to let me read the visual impression which included all of the implications contained in the old cliche and don't he look natural. How, I ask on the recoil, can I fix the derby? Barcelona says you know more about the horse racing business than any other big time operator in Chicago, she said smoothly. Barcelona says he doesn't know anything about horse racing at all but he has great faith in your ability. Barcelona says that if anybody can make it flying heels, moon beam, and Lady Grace one, two, three, Wally Wilson is the man who can do it. In fact, Barcelona will be terribly disappointed if you can't. I eyed her carefully. She was a composed and poised beauty who looked entirely incapable of uttering such words. I tried to peer into her mind but it was like trying to read the fine print of a telephone directory through a knitted woolen shawl. She smiled at me, her shapely lips curving graciously. I said Barcelona seems to have a lot of confidence in my ability to range things. With those delicate lips still curved sweetly she said Barcelona is willing to bet money on your ability as a manager. At this point Tom Boy Taylor fished another Pittsburgh Stogie out of her $100 handbag bit off the end with a quick nibble of even pearly white teeth and stuffed the cigar in between the arched lips. She scratched a big kitchen match on the seat of her skirt after raising one shapely thigh to stretch the cloth. She puffed the Stogie into light and became transformed from a beauty into a hag. My mind swore it was like painting a mustache out of the corner of her mouth she applied to my unspoken question. It helps to keep grippers like you at mine's length. Then she left me alone with my littered card table and the $8,000 final pot and the unhappy recollection that Barcelona had gotten upset at something Harold Grimmer had done and he'd gone into Grimmer's place and busted Grimmer flat by starting with one lousy buck and letting it ride through 18 straight passes. This feat of skill was performed under the mental noses of about eight operators trained to exert their extrasensory talents towards the defeat of sharpshooters who tried to add para-physics to the laws of chance. Lieutenant Delancey of the Chicago police came in an hour later. He refused my offer of a drink and a smoke and then because I didn't wave him to a chair he crossed my living room briskly himself into my favorite chair. I think I could have won the waiting game but the prize wasn't good enough to interest me in playing. So I said, okay Lieutenant what am I supposed to be guilty of? His smile was veiled. You're not guilty of anything so far as I know. You're not here to pass the time of day. No I'm not. I want information. What kind of information? One hears things, he said vaguely. Lieutenant I said you've been watching one of those Halicene who-done-it dramas where everybody stands around making what he's saying composed of disconnected phrases. You'll next be saying evil lurks in the minds of men in a sepulchral intonation. Let's skip it, huh? What kind of things does one hear and from whom? It starts with Gimpy Gordon whose mind meanders. Gimpy Gordon's meandering mind is well understood for what it is, he said but when it ceases to meander long enough to follow a single train of thought from beginning to logical end then something is up. Such as what, for instance? The Lieutenant leaned back in my easy chair and stared at the ceiling. Wally, he said I was relaxing in the car with Sergeant Holiday driving. We passed a certain area on Michigan near Randolph and I caught the strong mental impression of someone who, in this day and age mind you, had had the temerity to pickpocket a wallet containing $27. The sum of $27 was connected with the fact that the rewards made the risk worth taking. There were distinct impressions of playing that 27 bucks across the board on three very special nags at the Derby. The impression of the 27 bucks changed into a mental vision of a hand holding a sack of peanuts. There was indecision should he take more risk and run up his available cash to make a larger killing or would one Joseph Barcelona take a standoffish attitude if some outsider were to lower the track odds by betting a bundle on flying heels, moonbeam, and Lady Grace? I said Lieutenant you have a pickpocket to chug. Horse betting is illegal. The wagering on the speed of a horse has been redefined as the purchase of one corporate share to be valid for one transaction only and redeemable at a par value to be established by the outcome of this aforesaid single transaction horse betting is legal. This makes you an investment counselor short-term transactions only and removes from you the odious nomenclature of bookie. However, permit me to point out that the buying and selling of shares of horse flesh does not grant a license to manipulate the outcome. You sound as though you're accusing me of contemplating a fix. Oh, no. Not that. Then what? Wally flying heels, moonbeam, and Lady Grace were refused by the National Association of Dog Food Canners because of their substandard health. If I'm not mistaken, the Derby Association should have to run the race early that Saturday afternoon. Early? Uh-huh. Early. You see, Wally, the blue laws of the blue grass state make it illegal to run horse races on Sunday. Hence the start of the Derby must be early enough to let our three platers compete the race before midnight. Lieutenant, there still stands a mathematical probability that that the rest of the field will catch the Martian as they lead our three dogs past the clubhouse turn. Lieutenant, you are wronging me. I haven't said a thing. Then why have you come here to bedevil me, Lieutenant, if Barcelona has ideas of arranging a fix? If Barcelona has such notions, Wally Wilson would know about it. Everybody, I said, entertains notions of cleaning up a bundle by having the 100 to 1 shot come in by a length. Even Barcelona must have wild dreams now and then. Come off it, he snapped. Something's up, and I want to know what's cooking. Lieutenant, you're now asking me to describe to you how someone might rig the Kentucky Derby in a world full of expert telepaths and perceptives and manipulators. A large number of which will be rather well-paid to lend their extra sensory power to the process of keeping the Derby pure. He eyed me sourly. Remember Fireman O'Leary? That's an unfair allegation, I replied. The rumor that he started the Chicago Fire is absolutely unfounded. As I recall, Fireman O'Leary came by his nickname about 100 years after the Holocaust that started on De Covent Street in 1871. It seems that Fireman O'Leary was most useful in helping the Phillies home in Washington Park by assaulting them in the region of the Bang Tale with small bollocks of pure incandescence. He was a pyrotic. That is false accusation. It was never proved, admitted the Lieutenant, because anyone who accused anybody of making use of extra sensory facilities in 1971 would have been tossed into that establishment out on Narragansett Avenue where the head shrinkers once applied their mystic trade. Things are different now. Indeed they are Wally, which is why I'm here. No one but a fumbling idiot would try anything as crude as speeding a dog over the line by pyrotics or by jolting animals with a bolt of electrical energy. So? So considering the sad and sorry fact that human nature does not change very much despite the vast possibility for improvement, we must anticipate a fix that has been described and executed on a level that takes full cognizance of the widespread presence of sigh function. But again, why me? Was not Fireman O'Leary an ancestor of yours? He was my maternal grandparent. And so you do indeed come from a long line of horse operators, don't you? I resent your invidious implications. And wasn't Wireless Wilson the paternal ancestor from whom the family name has come? I fail to see the allegation that my father's father employed telepathy to transmit track information faster than the wire services has never been proved. He smiled knowingly. Wally, he said slowly, if you feel that allegations have somehow impugned the pure name of your family, you could apply for a review of several appearances in court. It's possible that Fireman O'Leary did not use his pyrotic talent to enhance the running speed of some tired old dogs. But, so I think we understand one another, Wally. There's also reason to believe that psionic talent tends to run in families. You're a sigh man and a good one. If I ever hear of anything, you'll let me know, he said flatly. I'll be back demanding to know how you, Wally Wilson, managed to hold them up. After which the good Lieutenant Delancey left me to my thoughts, which are most uncomfortable. Barcelona had to be kept cheerful. But the dogs he'd picked could only come in first unassisted if they happened to be leading the field that started the rexed race. And even then, there was no doubt that the dogs he'd picked started the rexed race. And even then, the post time would have to be delayed to give them a longer head start. That meant that if our three players came awake, everybody would be looking for the fix. Anybody you planned to caper would sure have to plan it well. Barcelona hadn't planned the fix. He merely stated a firm desire and either Barcelona got what he wanted or I got what I didn't want. And I had to do it real good to make it real hot for me. I was not only being forced to enter a life of crime, I was also being forced to perform cleverly. It wasn't fair for the law to gang up with the crooks against me. And so with a mind feeling sort of like the famous sparrow who'd gotten trapped for three hours in a badminton game at Forest Hills, I built a strong highball and poured it down while my Holocene set was warming up. I needed the highball as well as the relaxation. Because I knew that the drama being presented was the hundred and empty umph remake of Tarzan of the Apes. And for 90 solid minutes I would be swinging through trees without benefit of alcohol. Tarzan, you'll remember, did not learn to smoke and drink until the second book. The Holocene did relax me and kept my mind from its worry even though the drama was cast for kids and therefore contained a maximum amount of gymnastics and a near-darth of Lady Jane's pleasant company. What was irritating was the traces of wrong aroma. If one should not associate the African jungle with the aroma of a cheap bar, one should be forgiven for objecting to Lady Jane with a strong flavor of tobacco and cheap booze on her breath. And so I awoke with this irritating conflict in my senses to discover that I dropped out of my character as Tarzan and my surroundings of the jungle but I had somehow brought the stench of cheap liquor and moist cigarettes with me. There was an occupant in the chair next to mine. He needed a bath and he needed a shave but both would have been wasted if he couldn't change his clothing too. His name was Gimpy Gordon. I said, get out. He whined, Mr. Wilson, you just got to help me. How? For years he said I've been living on peanuts. I've been running errands for hard coins. I've been swiping the take of a Red Cross box. I snapped at him. Oh, Mr. Wilson, you whined. I simply got to make a stake. I'm going to send it back when I win. Are you going to win? Can't I? For a moment I toyed with the idea being honest with the Gimp. Somehow someone should tell the Duffer that all horse players die broke and make a living I'd be out of business. Gimpy Gordon was one of life's unfortunate. If it were to rein gold coins Gimpy would be out wearing boxing gloves. His mental processes meandered because of too much methyl. His unfortunate nickname did not come from the old fashion reason that he walked with a limp but from the even more unfortunate reason that he thought with a limp. In his own unhealthy way he was could we call it lucky out of honesty. In this world full of highly developed side talent the Gimp could pick a pocket and get away with it because he often literally could not remember where and how he'd acquired the wallet for longer than half a minute. And it was a sort of general unwritten rule that any citizen so utterly be fogged as to permit his wealth to be lifted via light fingers should lose it as a lesson. But then it did indeed occur to me that maybe I could make use of the Gimp. I said, what could I do Gimpy? Mr. Wilson he pleaded is it true that you're working for Barcelona? Now you know I can't answer that. I could read his mind struggling with this concept. It was sort of like trying to read a deck of Chinese fortune cards being shuffled before they're placed in the machine at the Penny Clark aid. As the drunk once said after reading the telephone directory not much plot but he sought a cast of characters. The gist of his mental mondering was a childlike desire to have everything sewed up tight. He wanted to win, to be told he'd win, and to have all the rules altered ad hoc to assure his winning. Just where he'd picked up the inside dope that Barcelona favored Flying Heels Moonbeam and Lady Grace in the Derby I could not dig out of him. Just how Gimpy had made his association between this flambé and me, good old Wally Wilson I couldn't dig either. But here he was with his, by now 65 bucks carefully heisted, lifted pinched and fingered and by the great Harry Gimpy was not going to lay it across the board on those three rejects from a claiming race unless he had a cast iron assurance that they'd come in across the board one, two, and three. I said slowly never thinking of working for Mr. Barcelona I told him. I would be very careful never, never to mention it, you know. This bundle of the awful truth hit him and began to sink in with the inexorable absorption of water dropping down into a bucket of dry sand. It took some time for the process to climax. Once it reached home base it took another period of time for the information to be inspected, sorted out, identified, analyzed, and in a very limited degree understood. He looked up at me. I couldn't cuff a hundred, could I? I shook my head. I didn't have to veil my mind because I knew that Gimpy was about as talented a telepath as a tallow candle. Frankly, between me and thee, dear reader, I do not put anybody's bet on the cuff. I do a fair to middling brisk trade in booking bets placed in disgust by telepathy. But the ones I accept and pay off on, if they're lucky, are those folks who've been sufficiently foresighted to lay it on the line with a retainer against which their losses can be assessed. On the other hand, I could see in Gimpy's mind the simple logic that told him that as a bookmaker I'd be disinclined to lend him money which he'd used to place with me against a sure thing longshot. If I were to lend him a century for an off the cuff bet on a hundred to one horse, especially one that I knew was sure to come in, I might simply better hand him one hundred times one hundred dollars as a gift. It would save a lot of messy bookkeeping. So the fact that I wouldn't cuff a bet for Gimpy gave him his own proof that I was confirming the fix. Then I buttered the process. Gimp? Do you know another good bookmaker? Sure, but you're the best. No one that'll take a bet from you, one that you don't like. Sure, Mr. Wilson. Then I said, hauling a thousand out of my wallet. Put this on our horses for me. He eyed the grand. But won't Mr. Barcelona be unhappy? Won't that run down the track odds? I laughed. The whole world knows them dogs is also rans, I said. Gimpy, they put longshots like those into races just to clip the suckers who think there's a real hundred-to-one chance that a hundred-to-one horse will outrun favorites. Well, if you say so, Mr. Wilson, I say so. Thanks, I'll pay it back. He would. I'd see to that. Gimpy Gordon scuttled out of my bailiwick almost on a dead run. He was positively radiating merriment and joy and excitement. The note in his hand represented a sum greater than he had ever seen in one piece at the time of his life. And the concept of the riches he would know when they paid off on the Kentucky Derby was vague simply because Gimpy could not grasp the magnitude of such magnificence. Oddly for some unexpected reason or from some unknown source hidden deep in his past, his mind pronounced it derby. I returned to my African jungle still bored with the lack of anything constructive. I returned at about the point where Tarzan and Jane had that silly Me Tarzan Eugene routine, which was even more irritating because the program director or someone had muffed the perfume that Lady Jane wore. Instead of the wholesome freshness of the free open air, Jane was wearing a heady, spicy scent engineered to cut its way through the blocking barrier of stale cigar smoke, whiskey laden secondhand air and a waft of cooking aroma from the kitchen of the standard worse. It got worse instead of better where a clever effects director might have started with the heavy sophisticated scent and switched to something lighter and airier as Jane was moved away from civilization but this one had done it backwards for some absolutely ridiculous reason. It finally got strong enough to distract me out of my characterization and I came back to reality to realize once more that reality had been strong enough to cut into the concentration level of a Holocene. There was strong woman presence in my room and as I looked around I found that Tom Boy Taylor had come in just as Gimpy Gordon had and was sitting in the other Holocene chair. She was probably playing Lady Jane to my Tarzan. Tom Boy Taylor had changed to a short skirted low neck cocktail dress. Relaxed with her eyes closed to my Holocene chair she looked lovely. She looked as vulnerable as a soft kitten remembering that it's the soft vulnerable ones that claw you if you touch I refrained. I went to my little bar and refilled my highball glass because swinging through the jungle makes one thirsty and while I was pouring I took a sly peek into Tom Boy Taylor's mind. She was not Holocene she was watching me and when I made contact with her she radiated a sort of overall aura of amusement emotion covered up her conscious deliberation and blocked my probing by directing me mentally make it too Wally. I billed her one handed it to her and then said folks these days sure have forgotten how to use doorbells. If you don't want people coming in Wally you should restrict your mind warden a little it's set to admit anybody who does not approach the door with a vigorous intent to commit grave physical harm. When the thing radiates come in and relax is a girl supposed to stand outside twiddling on the doorbell? I dropped the subject thinking that maybe I shouldn't have brought it up in the first place it's ones that can't be answered by logic whereas a firm emotional statement of like or dislike stops all counter argument and I made the mistake of questioning my own judgment. So I eyed her and said Tom Boy you do not come here to indulge in small talk. No she admitted I'm here to keep track of you Wally oh our great and good friend wants me to make notes on how clever you are at arranging things you mean Barcelona sent you that's about it I looked at her as scant and how long are you going to stay? She smiled until flying heels moon beam and lady grace crossed the finish line one two three at Churchill Downs on Derby Day I grinned at her considering that trio of turtles Tom Boy it may be for years and it may be forever she held up her glass in a sort of a toast or she said till death do us part a little bitterly I said one might think that Barcelona doesn't trust me she replied it isn't a matter of trust Barcelona holds you among his very closest friends he is well aware of the fact that you would do anything for him that you prize his friendship so highly yourself that you would go to the most desperate lengths to keep it firm and true yet he realizes that the simple desire he has recently expressed does place you in a delicate mental attitude you are likely to feel that he shouldn't have expressed this desire obligated to fulfill it he feels that maybe this obligation to maintain friendship at all costs may cause resentment since Barcelona does not want you to resent him he sent me to be your companion in the hope that I might get some forewarning should your friendship for him begin to weaken just why in this day and age she didn't just come out and say or think flatly that she was there to keep me in line I don't know but there she was talking all around the main point and delivering the information by long winded inference even so without her Pittsburgh Stoge Tom Boy Taylor was a mighty attractive dish and I knew that she could also be a bright and interesting conversationalist if she wanted to be under other circumstances I might have enjoyed the company but it was no pleasure to know that every grain of her 114 pounds of war do boy was Barcelona's personal property at that moment I realized that I was not too much concerned with what Barcelona's reaction might be instead I was wishing that things were different so that any activity between us would be for our own personal gain and pleasure rather than the order of or for the fight against one Joseph Barcelona there was one consolation Tom Boy Taylor had not come equipped with Pittsburgh Stoge's with which to make my appreciation of beauty throw up its lunch she said sweetly the better to ensnare you my dear but as she spoke for just a moment her thick woolly mind she'll thinned out enough for me to catch a strange puzzled grasp for understanding as if for the first time she had been shown how admiration for physical attractiveness could be both honest and good attitude over her Pittsburgh Stoge's was not so much based on the spoiling of beauty by the addition of ugliness but the fact that the act itself cheapened her in my eyes then she caught me peaking and clamped down a mind screen that made the old so-called iron curtain resemble a rusty sieve I'm the one that's supposed to keep track of you you remember she said once more covering up and leaping mentally to the attack I'll remember I said but will you tell me something maybe she said in a veiled attitude is your boyfriend really interested in cleaning up or is he interested in watching me squirm out of a trap he set for me in the first place she said I may have been seen in Barcelona's presence but please remember that my association with Mr. Joseph Barcelona has always been strictly on a financial plane this eliminates the difference contained under the phrase boyfriend check okay tomboy if that's the that's not only the way I want it she said but that's the way it has always been and always will be second I have been getting tired of this nickname tomboy if we're going to be racked this close together you'll grate on my nerves less if you use my right name it's just plain Nora but I'd like to hear it once in a while I nodded soberly I held out a hand but she put her empty highball glass in it instead of her own little paw I shrugged and mixed and when I returned and handed it to her I said I'll make you a deal I'll call you Nora just so long as you maintain the manners and attitude of a female feminine lady type woman I'll treat you like a woman but you've got to earn it is that a deal she looked at me her expression shy and as defenseless as a bruiser type caught reading sentimental poetry I perceived that I had again touched the sensitive spot by demanding that she be more than physically spectacular her defenses went down and I saw that she really did not know the answer to my question I did it had to do with something that only achievement of a god like state or extreme old age would change not so much the answer to why little boys walk high fences in front of little girls it had much more to do with the result of what happens between little boys when the little girl hides her baseball bat and straightens the seams of her stockings when one certain little boy comes into sight Joseph Barcelona did not admire my ability he had therefore caused me to back myself into a corner where I'd be taken down a peg shown up as a second raider with a little girl as witness and why had Barcelona been so brash as to send a little girl into my company in order for her to witness my downfall let me tell you about Joe Barcelona normally honest citizens often complain that Barcelona is living high off in the hog instead of slugging it out in residence at Stateville Joliet, Illinois with their straight line approach to simple logic these citizens argue that the advent of telepathy should have rendered the falsehood impossible and that perception should enable anybody with half a talent to uncover hidden evidence then since Mr. Joseph Barcelona is obviously not languishing in jail it is patent that the police are not making full use of their talented extra sensory operators nor the evidence thus collected and then after having argued thus our upstanding citizen will fire off a fast thought to his wife and ask her to invite the neighbors over that evening for a game of bridge none of these simple type of logicians seem to be aware of the rules for bridge or poker that were enforced prior to extra sensory training courses since no one recognized psionics the rules did not take telepathy perception manipulation into any consideration whatsoever psionics hadn't done away with anything including the old style game all psionics had done was to make the game of chance into a game of skill and made the game of skill into a game of talent that required better control and longer training in order to gain full proficiency in Barcelona's case he had achieved his own apparent immunity by surrounding himself with a number of hirelings who do a handsome salary for sitting around thinking noisy thoughts noisy thoughts jarring thoughts stunts like the concentration interrupter of playing the first 20 notes of Brahms lullaby in perfect pitch and timing and then playing the 21st note in staccato with a half tone flat making mental contact with Barcelona was approximately the analog of eavesdropping upon the intimate cooing of a lover sweet talking his lady in the middle of a sawmill working on an order three days late under a high priority clause for delay delivery people who wonder how Barcelona can think for himself with all of that terrific mental racket going on to not know that Barcelona is one of those very rare birds who can really concentrate to the whole exclusion of any distraction short of a vigorous threat to his physical well-being and so his trick of sending Nora Taylor served a three-fold purpose it indicated his contempt for me it removed Nora from his zone of interference so that she could really witness firsthand my mental squirmings as I watched my own comeuppance bearing down on me it also gave him double the telepathic contact with me and my counterplans if any in the latter you see Barcelona's way of collecting outside information was to order a temporary ceasefire of the mental noise barrage and then he'd sally forth like a one man mental commando raid to make a fast grab for what he wanted since the best of telepaths cannot read a man's opinion of prunes when he's thinking of peanuts it is necessary for someone to be thinking of the subject he wants when he makes his raid having two in the know and interested doubled his chance for success there was also the possibility that Barcelona might consider his deliberate leak to Gimpy Gordon ineffective the fact that some of the folks are disinclined to treat Gimpy's delusions of grandeur seriously despite the truth of the cliche that states that a one-to-one correspondence does indeed exist between the procession of smoke and the existence of pirotic activity Nora Taylor would add some certification to the rumor one thing simply had to be there must be no mistake about placing information in Lieutenant Delancey's hands so as to create the other jaw that I was going to be forced to close upon myself I tried a gentle poke in the general direction of Barcelona and found that the mental noise was too much to stand I withdrew just a bit and closed down the opening until the racket was no more than a mental rumor and I waited I hunched that Barcelona would be curious to know how his contact girl was making out and might be holding a ceasefire early in this phase of the operation I was right the noise diminished with a suddenness of turning off a mental switch and as it stopped I went in and practically popped Barcelona on the noodle with how to do Joseph he recoiled at the unexpected thrust but came back with Wally Wilson got a minute I looked at the calendar counted off the days to derby day in my mind and told him that I had that long at the very least and probably much much longer thinks you me thinks I replied Wally boy he returned you aren't playing this very smart suppose you tell me how you'd be playing it I bounce back at him tell you how I have erred he went vague on me if I were of a suspicious nature I would begin to wonder about certain connective events for instance less hypothesicate let's say that a certain prominent bookmaker have been suspecting of planning to put a fix on a certain important horse race but of course nothing could be proved now from another source we suddenly discover strong evidence to suggest that this bookmaker is not accepting wagers on the horses he is backing but conversely is busy laying wagers on the same nags through the help of a rather inept go-between I grunted aloud which caused Nora Taylor to look up and surprise I was tempted to say it aloud but I did not I thought in simple terms Joseph you are miffed because I will not cover your bets I thought nothing of the sort let's hedge I love you too Joseph well are you or aren't you are I what going to top the frosting by financing your little scheme to put the pinch on me now Wally can it Joseph we're both big boys now we both know what the score is you know and I know at the first time I or one of my boys takes a bet on any one of the three turtles you like the guy who laid the bet is going to slip the word to one of your outside men and you're going to leap to the strange conclusion that if Wally Wilson is accepting bets against his own fix he must know something exceedingly interesting now who's been saying anything about a fix Wally the people I thought bluntly who have most recently been associated with your clever kind of operator that isn't very nice Wally if it had been a telephone conversation I'd have slammed the telephone on him the mealy mouth louse and as hypocritical gab was making me mad and I knew that he was making me mad simply to make me lose control of my blanket I couldn't stop it so I let out my anger by thinking you think you're clever because you're slipping through sly little loopholes Joseph I'm going to show you how needed is to get everything I want including your grudging admission of defeat by the process of making use of the laws and rules that work in my favor you're a wise guy you hurled back at me I'm real clever Barcelona and I'm big enough to face you even though Phil Holland the Greek and Chicago Charlie make like cold clams the mention of your name why you punk go away Barcelona go away before I make up my mind make you eat it I turned to Nora and regarded her charms and attractions both physical and mental with open and glowing admiration it had the pre-calculator result and it wouldn't have been a bit different if I'd filed a declaration of intent and forced her to read it first it even satisfied my ambient curiosity about what a telepath grinding of the teeth in frustrated anger would transmit as and when it managed to occur to an unemployed thought center of my brain that the lines of battle were soft and sweetly curved indeed Joseph Barcelona couldn't stand it anymore he just gave a mental sigh and signaled for the noisemakers to shut him off from contact Derby Day the first Saturday in May dawned warm and clear with a fast dry track forecast for post-time the doorbell woke me up and I dredged my apartment to identify Nora fiddling in my two-bit kitchen with ham and eggs outside it was Lieutenant Delancey practicing kinematics by pressing the button with a levitated pencil instead of shoving on the thing directly I changed the combination on the mind warden and Nora's suggestion as I struggled out of bed Nora flashed you get it Wally and me she was busy manipulating the ham slicer and the coffee percolator and floating more eggs from the refrigerator the invitation and the acceptance for enough breakfast was still floating in the middle atmosphere heavy enough to smell the coffee I replied to both of them if he can't get in let him go hungry Lieutenant Delancey manipulated the door after I'd reset the mind warden for him he came in with a loud verbal greeting that Nora answered by a call from the kitchen I couldn't hear them because I was in the shower by that time however I did ask what gives Lieutenant it's derby day yeah so what going to watch it from here he thought incredulously why not be a big jam down there I have a box he said no how both the derby association and the Chicago police force have assigned me to protect you from the evil doings of sinners he said with a chuckle and I suggested that the best way of keeping an official eye on you was to visit you at the scene of the alleged intended crime and to serve that end they provided me with a box where we could all be together I tossed and if we do not elect to go to Kentucky he chuckled again then I shall have to arrest you for what? there is an old law in the city statute that declares something called massive cohabitation to be illegal you have been naughty Wally Nora exploded we have not she cried Lieutenant Delancey laughed like a stage villain the law I mentioned he said after a bit of belly laughing was passed long long ago before telepathy and perception were available to provide the truth at that time the law took the stand that any unmarried couple living together would take advantage of their unshaper owned freedom and if this state of cohabitation went on for a considerable length of time called massive but don't ask me to justify the term the probability of their taking pleasure in one another's company approached a 100% positive probability now this law was never amended by the review act hence the fact that you have been chastely occupying separate chambers has nothing to do with the letter of the law that says simply that it is not lawful for an unmarried couple to live under the same unshaper owned roof I came out of the shower toweling myself and manipulating a selection of clean clothing out of the closet of my bedroom the law I observed is administered by the intent of the law and not by the letter isn't it oh sure he said but I'm not qualified to interpret the law I'll arrest you and bring you to trial and then it's up to some judge to rule upon your purity and innocence of criminal intent and freedom from moral taint or turpitude maybe take weeks you know and watch the alternative I grunted flight he said in a sinister tone as I came out of my bedroom putting the last finishes on my necktie flight away from the jurisdiction of the law that proposes to warp the meaning of the law to accomplish its own ends and you my duty he grinned is to pursue you in which case observed Nora Taylor we might as well fly together and save both time and money that is why I have my personal sky bug he all ready to go instead of requisitioning an official vehicle he said I took a fork full of eggs and said you're a fool Wally the lady can cook I chuckled and what would happen if I hauled off and married her you mean right here and now yeah sorry I have to restrain you you see you couldn't get a legal license nor go through any of the other legal activities here go there would be a prima facie illegality about some part of the ceremony without being definite as to which phase I would find it my duty to restrain you from indulging in any act the consummation of which would be illegal Nora said in a pseudo-petulant tone I've been damned with very faint praise how so Wally Wilson has just said that he'd rather marry me than go to the Kentucky Derby with you Lieutenant Delancey said I urge both of you to come along you see my box is also being occupied by an old friend of yours I managed to talk him into joining us with reluctance he consented I'm a mind reader I said our friend's name is Joseph Barcelona as they say on the space radio I firm over and out Barcelona was there with two of his boys watching them were four ununiformed officers Nora and I and the Lieutenant joined later by Gimpy Gordon who might have been radiating childlike wonder and a circus air of excitement at actually being at the Derby he might have been no one could cut through the constant maddening mental blah blah blah those being churned out by Barcelona's noisemakers he greeted me curtly I Nora hungrily he said you look pretty confident Wilson I can't lose I said no frankly I don't see how you can win I smiled without mentioning any names Joseph I feel confident that the final outcome of this racing contest will be just as you want it to be I shall ask that no credit be given me although I shall be greatly admired by our mutual friend Miss Nora Taylor who will think that I am truly wonderful from making you happy and it is more than likely that she may marry me once I have shown and she and Lieutenant Delancey that I am a law-abiding citizen as well as a man who values friendship enough to do as his old pal Joe Barcelona desires it's going to be one of the neatest tricks of the week he said it will be done by the proper application of laws I said modestly behind us Gimpy Gordon light fingered a half dollar out of Delancey's pocket I was attracting the attention of a hot dog handler by waving his program some folks nearby were eyeing Barcelona's noisemakers angrily but making very little visible protest once they identified him Nora was reading her program and underlining some horses the whole place began to grow into a strange excited silence as the track board began to go up it was to be a nine horse race and at the top of the list were three count them three odds favorites first Murdoch's horde one to two second May Hughes jet three to five Johnny Brack five to seven Piper's son eight to five Daymare three to one Helen O'Loy eight to one and then of course there were our three mud turtles which must have been entered by someone who thought the Kentucky Derby was a claiming race and who hoped that the La Pages glue people would make a bid for the three mounds of thoroughbred horse flesh that dropped dead in the back stretch flying heels one hundred to one moonbeam two fifty to one lady grace five hundred to one the rack hadn't hit the top of the slide before there was a sort of mass movement towards the mutual windows the ones who didn't go in person tried to hurl betting thoughts in the hope of getting there early and failing this they arose and followed the crowd slowly the odds began to change the figures on our three platers began to rise there was very little activity on the other six horses slow thinking Gippy Gordon started to get up but I put out a hand to stop him but the odds are dropping he complained gimpy I said they pay on the final listing anyway but would you like a tip sure he said nervously my tip is to keep your cash in your wallet put it on the nose of some horse and it's likely to get blown away by a high wind the odds were changing rapidly what with psionic information receivers trend predictors and estimated anticipators the mutual computers kept up with a physical transfer of funds figured out the latest odds and flipped the figures as fast as the machinery could work the dials in no more than a few minutes the odds on the three platers looked more like the odds on horses that stood a chance of winning Barcelona looked at me what did you do wise guy who me well I didn't do anything that you did not start except that maybe I was a little more generous spiel he snarled why shucks Joseph all I did was to slip good ol' gimpy Gordon a tip how much just a lousy little thousand dollar bill a grand for what wise guy why just for telling me what horses you picked for the derby Barcelona looked at the odds on his horses flying heels had passed even money and was heading for a one to two odds on the other platers were following accordingly and what did you tell gimpy Wilson you tell him gimp I said why Wilson just said that we should ride along with you Mr. Barcelona because you are such a nice guy that everybody works awfully hard to see that you get what you want there's more Barcelona only that I shouldn't mention it to anybody and that I shouldn't place my bet until the mutual windows open because if I did it would louse up the odds and make you unhappy gimpy looked at Barcelona's stormy face and he grew frightened honest Mr. Barcelona I didn't say a word to nobody, not a word he turned to me and whined plainively you tell him Mr. Wilson I didn't say a word I soothed him we know you didn't gimpy Barcelona exploded ye gods he howled they used that gimmick on me when I lost my first baby tooth don't put your tongue in the vacant place they said think of the words gold tooth and it'll grow in natural gold as he spoke the odds on flying heels changed from a staggering one to eight to a more even staggering one to ten that meant that anybody holding less than a ten dollar bet on such a winner would only get his own money back because a tract does not insult its clients by weighing them down with coins in the form of small change they keep the change and call it breakage they want over an even dollar money Delancey said to Barcelona you've had it Joseph Barcelona snarled put the big arm on Wilson here he's the fast man with the big fix Wilson didn't fix any race Joseph he just parlayed some of the laws of human nature into a win for himself and a lose for you now see here what's this guff about human nature well there's the human desire to ride with a winner and the human frailty that hopes to get something for nothing to say nothing of the great human desire to be on the inside track or in the know so they can bet on the sure thing and so said Delancey we've about 20,000 human beings full of human nature holding tickets on your three dogs Joseph they bet their money because the inside dope said that the big fix was in and I can tell you what 20,000 people are going to do to this inside dope when their nags run last is going to make Torquemada ask permission to return to life for a second inquisition this time with extra sensory tortures he turned to me as Barcelona went pale Wally he said wanna bet that somebody doesn't remember that old question of whether it's possible to break every bone in a man's body without killing him would be a fool to cover that one I said but I'll play even money and on either side of whether Joseph dies or lives through the process stop it scream Barcelona he grabbed me by the arm Wilson he pleaded can you stop what I mean can you fix it sure I said legally yep but it'll cost you just money just money and admitting that you lost Joseph I lose he said go ahead okay Joseph now let's be real honest those three long short turtles belong to you don't they yes and right now you wouldn't even want to see them run would you in fact you really want that they shouldn't run yes all right Joseph call off your noisemakers and toss the head steward of thought tell him you're scratching your entries but that won't stop the people from losing their money match so next you broadcast the thought that because of this terrible grievous error you are refunding their money out of your own pocket since the track association will not or is not obliged to he turned to his pair of rattle heads and snarled all right shut up a mental silence fell that was like the peace of rest after a busy day as Barcelona was tossing his cancellation at the steward and preparing to make a full implausible explanation to the gambling instinct of the Kentucky Derby crowd I considered the matter carefully let's see I thought he wants him not to run and so he can't complain to me if they do not I didn't fix the race so Lieutenant Delancey can't accuse me of that that make everybody happy and I win a small hand stole into mine what about me Wally Nora asked sweetly I looked down at a finite dream come true by the glow in her eyes that admired no one else but me your mind I reminded her until flying heels moonbeam and Lady Grace win one two and three at the Kentucky Derby or she said mischievously till death do us part I was instructing her how to respond to a kiss as a lady should respond when about 200,000 noisy exuberant human natures yelled and radiated and thought they're off but they didn't mean us they were watching a bunch of long faced hay burners chasing one another around a dusty track human nature ain't changed a bit it's just more complicated in an extra sensory sort of way end of the big fix by George O. Smith recording by Alan Winterout boomcoach.blogspot.com the fourth invasion this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Tibbie Scott the fourth invasion by Henry Joseph Dr. Clayton's face was impassive as a marble mask when he turned to young Corelli for a moment the little group stood there and embarrassed silence in the classroom shifting uneasily from one foot to the other feigning interest in the paperweights upon Clayton's desk or in the utterly uninspiring scenes on the sidewalk outside the window you say Corelli that you saw three or Martianships can you describe them Corelli blinked as he felt the weight of his colleagues' eyes boring into him I didn't say they were Martians, sir only that they seemed to be unearthly and they were not the conventional saucer-shaped things they acted like saucers skimming across the water that's what made me think they were genuine and they didn't seem to be going fast enough so that I'd expect to hear a roar like a jet plane it struck me that this might not be the way they fly naturally but the way they might fly if the pilots were having trouble adjusting the controls to a heavier atmosphere than they were used to Clayton tapped the tabletop with his fingers what about you Marty did you see three ships Marty, football star was least nervous can't be sure about ship stock he rumbled I did see something strange disappearing over the horizon it, I mean they, may have been what Tony says but whatever it was there were three of them but I saw something else because I was looking in another direction what I saw first was a couple of funny looking shapes floating down near the ground didn't look like parachutists yet they seem big enough to be men or at least small men interesting, alright what about the rest of you how many saw the ships a chorus answered him I see Clayton mused you all agree on the behavior and you all think there were three not four, not two, three it was agreed Clayton rustled the pile of newspapers the reports in here vary I learned with amazement that you gentlemen seem to have missed completely the squirts of flame that issued from the alien ships flame which is reported to have set a house on fire and no one seems to have noticed that the invaders, in descending glided on huge black wings Corelli blushed a fiery crimson Dr. Clayton he protested we aren't making these things up for popular consumption we're just telling you what we actually saw that is what what we saw look like to us Clayton nodded of course that is all people were doing back in 1938 when the Martians landed in New Jersey at the time Orson Welles presented a radio version of H.G. Welles War of the Worlds or when the flying saucer craze first started or when Fanta Film put on their big publicity stunt for the improved 3D movie The Outsiders and people saw aliens over Broadway and heard them address the populace in weird booming tones gentlemen I am not pleased to find students of this university engaging in such unwanted extracurricular activity as inventing interplanetary scares I don't think Washington will be amused either Corelli clicked his heels Sir he stated in dignified tones I resent these implications I assume they have been directed at me at no time have I talked about this to reporters or in any way engaged in what you accuse me of if you want my resignation from this school you may have it really you think that an air of dignified innocence will undo the damage done I am well aware of your experiments with the Y wave gentlemen and it was on the Y wave that the messages came you may be interested to know that the number of lives lost the property damage the business losses due to the panic have not yet been fully determined but it makes the hysteria following the phanta film hoax very small potatoes by comparison you may withdraw now gentlemen this affair will be discussed at greater length later regardless of what the FBI decides I had hoped that the main culprit would try to save unwitting accomplices from a measure of grief that is all the seven students left Dr. Clayton's office in record time Professor Elton wrapped the table for silence gentlemen he began Dr. Clayton and I both extend our sincere apologies he smiled weanly of course that does not exonerate anyone from the charge of gullibility but Harvey Gale's confession has been fully confirmed by the FBI and you and this university have been cleared the public now knows that your testimony helped lead to the facts in this case to me the most interesting feature of this business is the fact that Gale was able to put over this hoax despite the fact that the public had been taken in three times before the Orson Welles scare rode on a wave of war hysteria crosser craze followed world war the Fanta film hoax came when the world was still in dread of sudden bombings but the Gale hoax what can we call it but what it is loosely known as the continuing gullibility of human beings we trust that this demonstration you have just observed will help you to remember that while seeing may be believing it's wise not to believe until you've accomplished just what you saw in his private office Dr. Clayton leaned forward over his desk or to be more exact something that looked like Dr. Clayton leaned over the desk the face was impassive as marble but from out a slit in his chest a pair of black and teni-like feelers were vibrating into a framed picture on the wall from which the picture had been slid aside landing safely affected brief panic when several terrestrial sighted ships all clear now full report containing details on the latest successful persuasion of earthlings that Martians or other aliens are imaginary will follow from the speaker beneath the desk came sounds of gasps heavy breathing and shuffling footsteps Clayton pushed the picture back into place then took off the skin-painted vest he wore with the flat box on the inside he snapped a switch on the side of his desk there now they can't hear if any are still hanging around Dr. Elton looked at him bewildedly I don't get it after all the risk we went to to convince the public no ghosts as the old saying goes you arranged to have the students hear you going into a report to the home planet act and you use a code they all know what's the point in undoing it Clayton nodded it looks somewhat mad doesn't it well the psychology team was sure of the necessity you see more and more humans remained unconvinced each time one of these hoaxes are exposed the unconvinced are sure that something fiendish is going on beneath the surface that the authorities all kinds from civil to scientific are engaged in a vast cover-up we can't prevent this belief we don't know how to keep it from spreading so the alternative is to direct it Elton nodded slowly I can see possibilities along that line but just what direction is this supposed to kind of bring about why obviously if large-scale invasion from Mars is imminent and this is the belief we're all catering to then it follows that the invasion hasn't already taken place the two of us and Harvey Gale will disappear shortly in one way or another and gradually public cries for efficient military defense will mount you know who will direct the defense end of the fourth invasion by Henry Joseph