Slan

"It's one of the silly lies," Kathleen said contemptuously. "They're all dreadful lies."

He chuckled. "I can see you have heard about it. And this may shock you: Such things do happen to babies. What do you know about the mental outlook of an adult slan, whose intelligence is two to three hundred per cent higher than that of a normal human being? All you know is that you wouldn't do such things, but you're only a child. Anyway, never mind that now. You and I are in a fight for our lives. The assassin has probably escaped from your room by now, but you just have to look into his mind to identify him. We'll have our showdown now. I'll get Petty here, and the council. They won't like being awakened from their beauty sleep, but to hell with them! You stay here. I want you to read their minds and tell me afterward what they thought during the investigation."

He pressed a button on his desk and said curtly into a little boxlike instrument: "Tell the captain of my personal guard to come to my office."

Chapter Three

It wasn't easy to sit under the dazzling lights that had been turned on. The men looked at her too often, their thoughts a mixture of impatience and mercilessness, and no pity for her anywhere. Their hatred weighed upon her spirit, and dimmed the life that throbbed along her nerves. They hated her. They wanted her dead. Appalled, Kathleen closed her eyes and turned her mind away, and tried to flatten herself back into her chair as if by sheer will power she might make her body invisible.

But there was so much at stake, she dared not miss a single thought or picture. Her eyes and mind jerked open, and there it was again – the room, the men, the whole menacing situation.

John Petty stood up abruptly and said, "I object to the presence of this slan at this meeting on the grounds-that her i

Kathleen stared at him wonderingly. The chief of the secret police was a heavily built man of medium height, and his face, which was rather corvine than aquiline, and the slightest degree too fleshy, showed not a trace of kindliness. Kathleen thought: Did he really believe that? Any one of these people merciful, for any reason!

She tried to read behind his words, but his mind was blurred deliberately, his dark, powerful face expressionless. She caught the faintest overtone of irony, and realized that John Petty understood the situation perfectly. This was his bid for power; and his whole body and brain were alert and deadly with the tremendousness of the knowledge.

Kier Gray laughed dryly and suddenly Kathleen caught the glow of the man's magnetic personality. There was a tigerish quality about the leader, immensely fascinating, a flamelike aura that made him alive as was no one else in the room. He said, "I don't think we have to worry about... about our kindly impulses overpowering our common sense."

"Quite right!" said Mardue, minister of transport. "A judge has to sit in the presence of the accused." He stopped there, but his mind carried the sentence on: " – especially if the judge knows in advance that the judgment is death." He chuckled softly to himself, his eyes cold.

"Then I want her out," snarled John Petty, "because she's a slan, and by heaven, I won't have a slan sitting in the same room with me!"

The answering surge of collective emotion to that popular appeal struck Kathleen like a physical blow. Voices rose up, raging:

"You're damned right!"

"Put her out!"

"Gray, you've got an almighty nerve waking us up in the middle of the night like this – "

"The council settled all this eleven years ago. I didn't even know about it until recently."

"The sentence was death, was it not?"

The hail of voices brought a grim smile to Petty's lips. He glanced at Kier Gray. The two men's eyes crossed like rapiers preliminary to a deadly thrust. It was easy for Kathleen to see that Petty was trying to confuse the issue. But if the leader felt himself losing, it was not visible in his impassive face; nor did a ripple of doubt flicker into his mind.

"Gentlemen, you are under a misapprehension. Kathleen Layton, the slan, is not on trial here. She is here to give evidence against John Petty, and I can well understand his desire to have her out of the room."

John Petty's amazement then was a little overdone, Kathleen analyzed. His mind remained too calm, too icily alert, as his voice took on a bull-like roar.

"Well, of all the damned nerve! You've awakened all of us out of our sleep to pull a two-o'clock-in-the-morning surprise trial on me – on the evidence of a slan! I say you've got an almighty nerve, Gray. And, once for all, I think we should settle right now the juridical problem of whether a slan's word can be taken as evidence of any kind."

There it was again, the appeal to basic hatreds. Kathleen shivered before the waves of answering emotion that swept out from the other men. There was no chance for her here, no hope, nothing but certain death.

Kier Gray's voice was almost stolid as he said, "Petty, I think you should know that you're not talking now to a bunch of peasants whose minds have been roused by propaganda. Your listeners are realists, and, in spite of your obvious attempts to befuddle the issue, they realize that their own political and perhaps physical lives are at stake in this crisis which you, not I, have forced upon us."

His face hardened into a thin bleak line of tensed muscles. His voice took on a harsh rasp. "I hope that everyone present will wake up from whatever degree of sleep, emotionalism or impatience controls him to realize this: John Petty is making this bid to depose me, and no matter who wins between us, some of you are going to be dead before morning."

They weren't looking at her now. In that suddenly still room, Kathleen had the sensation of being present but no longer visible. It was as if a weight had been removed from her mind, and she could see and feel and think for the first time with normal clarity.

The silence in that fine oak-paneled room was mental as well as sonal. For a moment the thoughts of the men were blurred, diminished in intensity. It was as if a barrier had been flung up between her mind and theirs, for their brains worked on deep, deep inside them, exploring, gauging chances, analyzing the situation, tensing against a suddenly realized, deadly danger.

Kathleen grew abruptly aware of a break in the blur of thoughts, a clear, sharp, mental command to her: "Go to the chair in the corner, where they can't see you without twisting their heads. Quick!"

Kathleen flung one glance at Kier Gray. She saw his eyes almost glaring at her, so fierce was the blaze in them. And then she slipped off her chair without a sound, obeying him.

The men didn't miss her, weren't even aware of her action. And Kathleen was conscious of a glow as she realized that Kier Gray, even in this moment of strain, was playing his cards without missing a trick. He spoke aloud:

"Of course, there is no absolute necessity for executions, provided John Petty once and for all gets out of his head this insane desire to replace me."

It was impossible now to read the thoughts of the men as they stared speculatively at Kier Gray. For the moment each man was intent; briefly, all their minds were as controlled as were John Petty's and Kier Gray's, their whole consciousness concentrated on what they should say and should do.

Kier Gray went on, the faintest tinge of passion in his voice: "I say insane because, though it may seem that this is simply a squabble for power between two men, it is more than that. The man who has supreme power represents stability and order. The man who wants it must, the moment he attains power, secure himself in his position. This means executions, exiles, confiscations, imprisonment, torture – all, of course, applied against those who have opposed him or whom he distrusts.