Dying Inside

He was the only other person Selig knew who had the power. Not only that, having it hadn’t crippled him at all. Nyquist used his gift as simply and naturally as he did his eyes or his legs, for his own advantage, without apologies and without guilt. Perhaps he was the least neurotic person Selig had ever met. By occupation he was a predator, skimming an income by raiding the minds of others; but, like any jungle cat, he pounced only when hungry, never for sheer love of pouncing. He took what he needed, never questioning the providence that had made him so superbly fitted for taking, yet he did not take more than he needed, and his needs were moderate. He held no job and apparently never had. Whenever he wanted money he made the ten-minute subway ride to Wall Street, sauntered through the gloomy canyons of the financial district, and rummaged about freely in the minds of the moneymen cloistered in the lofty boardrooms. On any given day there was always some major development hatching that would have an impact on the market — a merger, a stock split, an ore discovery, a favorable earnings report — and Nyquist had no difficulty learning the essential details. This information he swiftly sold at handsome but reasonable fees to some twelve or fifteen private investors who had learned in the happiest possible way that Nyquist was a reliable tout. Many of the unaccountable leaks on which quick fortunes had been made in the bull market of the ’50’s were his doing. He earned a comfortable living this way, enough to support himself in a congenial style. His apartment was small and agreeable — black Naugahyde upholstery, Tiffany lamps, Picasso wallpaper, a well-stocked liquor closet, a superb music system that emitted a seamless flow of Monteverdi and Palestrina, Bartok and Stravinsky. He lived a gracious bachelor life, going out often, making the rounds of his favorite restaurants, all of them obscure and ethnic — Japanese, Pakistani, Syrian, Greek. His circle of friends was limited but distinguished: painters, writers, musicians, poets, mainly. He slept with many women, but Selig rarely saw him with the same one twice.

Like Selig, Nyquist could receive but was unable to send; he was, however, able to tell when his own mind was being probed. That was how they had happened to meet. Selig, newly arrived in the building, had indulged himself in his hobby, letting his consciousness rove freely from floor to floor by way of getting acquainted with his neighbors. Bouncing about, surveying this head and that, finding nothing of any special interest, and then suddenly:

— Tell me where you are.

A crystalline string of words glimmering at the periphery of a sturdy, complacent mind. The statement came through with the immediacy of an explicit message. Yet Selig realized that no act of active transmission had taken place; he had simply found the words lying passively in wait. He made quick reply:

— 35 Pierrepont Street.

— No, I know that. I mean, where are you in the building?

— Fourth floor.

— I’m on the eighth. What’s your name?

— Selig.

— Nyquist.

The mental contact was stu

— Come upstairs. I’ll meet you by the elevator.

He was bigger than Selig expected, a fullback of a man, his blue eyes uninviting, his smile a purely formal one. He was remote without actually being cold. They went into his apartment: soft lights, unfamiliar music playing, an atmosphere of unostentatious elegance. Nyquist offered him a drink and they talked, keeping out of one another’s minds as much as possible. It was a subdued visit, unsentimental, no tears of joy at having come together at last. Nyquist was affable, accessible, pleased that Selig had appeared, but not at all delirious with excitement at the discovery of a fellow freak. Possibly it was because he had discovered fellow freaks before. “There are others,” he said. “You’re the third, fourth, fifth I’ve met since I came to the States. Let’s see: one in Chicago, one in San Francisco, one in Miami, one in Mi

“Are you still in touch with the others?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“We drifted apart,” Nyquist said. “What did you expect? That we’d be cla

“I never met another one,” said Selig. “Until today.”

“It isn’t important. What’s important is living your own life. How old were you when you found out you could do it?”

“I don’t know. Five, six years old, maybe. And you?”

“I didn’t realize I had anything special until I was eleven. I thought everybody could do it. It was only after I came to the States and heard people thinking in a different language that I knew there was something out of the ordinary about my mind.”

“What kind of work do you do?” Selig asked.

“As little as I can,” said Nyquist. He gri

“Do I?”

“It’s all over your head. What’s the problem, Selig? I’ve looked into you and I don’t see the problem, only the pain.”

“The problem is that I feel isolated from other human beings.”

“Isolated? You? You can get right inside people’s heads. You can do something that 99.999% of the human race can’t do. They’ve got to struggle along using words, approximations, semaphore signals, and you go straight to the core of meaning. How can you pretend you’re isolated?”

“The information I get is useless,” Selig said. “I can’t act on it. I might just as well not be reading it in.”