Troublemakers (17 page)

   
Once he had thought himself normal, once he had thought of leading an ordinary life-of perhaps becoming a musician. But that idea had died aflaming, as all other normal ideas had followed it.

   
First the ostracism, then the hunting, then the arrests and the prison terms, one after another. Now something new-something he could not understand. What did they want with him? It was obviously in connection with the mighty battle being fought between Earth and the Delgarts, but of what use could his unreliable powers be?

   
Why was he in this most marvelous of the new SpaceCom ships, heading toward the central sun of the enemy cluster? And why should he help Earth in any case?

   
At that moment the locks popped, the safe broke open, and the clanging of the alarms was heard to the bowels of the invership.

   
The ensign stopped him as he rose and started toward the safe. The ensign thumbed a button on his wrist-console.

   
“Hold it, Mr. Gunnderson. I wasn’t told what was in there, but I was told to keep you away from it until the other two get here.”

   
Gunnderson slumped back hopelessly on the acceleration bunk. He dropped the harmonica to the metal floor and lowered his head into his hands. “What other two?”

   
“I don’t know, sir. I wasn’t told.”

   
The other two were psioids, naturally.

   
When the Mindee and the Blaster arrived, they motioned the ensign to remove the contents of the safe. He walked over nervously, took out the tiny recorder and the single speak-tip.

   
“Play it, Ensign,” the Mindee directed.

   
The spaceman thumbed the speak-tip into the hole, and the grating of the blank space at the beginning of the record fined the room.

   
“You can leave now, Ensign,” the Mindee said.

   
After the SpaceCom officer had securely loktited the door, the voice began. Gunnderson recognized it immediately as that of Terrence, head of SpaceCom. The man who had questioned him tirelessly at the Bureau building in Buenos Aires. Terrence: hero of another war, the Earth-Kyben War, now head of SpaceCom. The words were brittle, almost without inflection, yet they carried a sense of utmost importance:

   
“Gunnderson,” he began, “we have, as you already know, a job for you. By this time the ship will have reached the central-point of your trip through inverspace.

   
“You will arrive in two days Earthtime at a slip-out point approximately five million miles from Omalo, the enemy sun. You will be far behind enemy lines, but we are certain you will be able to accomplish your mission safely. That is why you have been given this new ship. It can withstand anything the enemy can throw.

   
“We want you to get back after your job is done. You are the most important man in our war effort, Gunnderson, and this is only your first mission.

   
“We want you to turn the sun Omalo into a supernova.”

   
Gunnderson, for perhaps the second time in thirty-eight years of bleak, gray life, was staggered. The very concept made his stomach churn. Turn another race’s sun into a flaming, gaseous bomb of incalculable power, spreading death into space, charring into nothing the planets of the system? Annihilate in one move an entire culture?

   
What did they think he was capable of?

   
Could he direct his mind to such a task?

   
Could he do it?

   
Should he do it?

   
His mind trembled at the possibility. He had never really considered himself as having many ideals. He had set fires in warehouses to get the owners their liability insurance; he had flamed other hobos who had tried to rob him; he had used the unpredictable power of his mind for many things, but this-

   
This was the murder of a solar system!

   
He wasn’t in any way sure he
could
turn a sun supernova. What was there to lead them to think he might be able to do it? Burning a forest and burning a giant red sun were two things fantastically far apart. It was something out of a nightmare. But even if he
could..
.

   
“In case you find the task unpleasant, Mr. Gunnderson,” the ice-chip voice of the SpaceCom head continued, “we have included in this ship’s complement a Mindee and a Blaster.

   
“Their sole job is to watch and protect you, Mr. Gunnderson. To make certain you are kept in the proper,
patriotic
state of mind. They have been instructed to read you from this moment on, and should you not be willing to carry out your assignment...well, I’m certain you are familiar with a Blaster’s capabilities.”

   
Gunnderson stared at the blank-faced telepath sitting across from him on the other bunk. The man was obviously listening to every thought in Gunnderson’s head. A strange, nervous expression was on the Mindee’s face. His gaze turned to the Blaster who accompanied him, then back to Gunnderson.

   
The pyrotic swiveled a glance at the Blaster, then swiveled away as quickly.

   
Blasters were men meant to do one job, one job only; a Blaster became the type of man he
had
to be, to be successful doing that job. They all looked the same, and now Gunnderson found the look almost terrifying. He had not thought he could
be
terrified, any more.

   
“That is your assignment, Gunnderson, and if you have any hesitation, remember our enemy is
not
human. They may look like you, but mentally they are extraterrestrials as unlike you as you are unlike a slug. And remember there’s a war on. You will be saving the lives of many Earthmen by performing this task.

   
“This is your chance to become respected, Gunnderson.

   
“A hero, respected, and for the first time,” he paused, as though not wishing to say what was next, “for the first time-worthy of your world.”

   
The rasp-rasp-rasp of the speak-tip filled the stateroom. Gunnderson said nothing. He could hear the phrase whirling, whirling in his head: There’s a war on,
There’s a war on,
THERE’S A WAR ON! He stood up and slowly walked to the door.

   
“Sorry, Mr. Gunnderson,” the Mindee said emphatically, “we can’t allow you to leave this room.”

   
He sat down and lifted the battered mouth organ from where it had fallen. He fingered it for a while, then put it to his lips. He blew, but made no sound.

   
And he didn’t leave.

They thought he was asleep. The Mindee-a cadaverously thin man with hair grayed at the temples and slicked back in strips on top, with a gasping speech and a nervous movement of hand to ear-spoke to the Blaster.

   
“He doesn’t seem to be thinking, John!”

   
The Blaster’s smooth, hard features moved vaguely, and a quirking frown split his inkline mouth. “Can he do it?”

   
The Mindee rose, ran a hand quickly through the straight, slicked hair.

   
“Can he do it? No, he shouldn’t be
able
to do it, but he’s doing it! I can’t figure it out...it’s eerie. Either I’ve lost it, or he’s got something new.”

   
“Trauma-barrier?”

   
“That’s what they told me before I left, that he seemed to be blocked off. But they thought it was only temporary, and that once he was away from the Bureau buildings he’d clear up.

   
“But he
hasn’t
cleared up.”

   
The Blaster looked concerned. “Maybe it’s you.”

   
“I didn’t get a Master’s rating for nothing, John, and I tell you there isn’t a trauma-barrier I can’t at least get
something
through. If only a snatch of gabble. But here there’s nothing-nothing!”

   
“Maybe it’s you,” the Blaster repeated, still concerned.

   
“Damn it! It’s
not
me! I can read you, can’t I-your right foot hurts from new boots, you wish you could have the bunk to lie down on, you...Oh, hell, I can read
you,
and I can read the Captain up front, and I can read the pitmen in the hold, but I
can’t
read
him!

   
“It’s like hitting a sheet of glass in his head. There should be a reflection if not penetration, but he seems to be opaqued. I didn’t want to say anything when he was awake, of course.”

   
“Do you think I should twit him a little-wake him up and warn him we’re on to his game?”

   
The Mindee raised a hand to stop the very thought of the Blaster. “Great Gods, no!” He gestured wildly. “This Gunnderson’s invaluable. If they found out we’d done anything unauthorized to him, we’d both be tanked.”

   
Gunnderson lay on his acceleration-bunk, feigning sleep, listening to them. It was a new discovery to him, what they were saying. He had sometimes suspected that the pyrotic faculty of his mind was not the only way he differed from the norm-perhaps there were others. And if it was a side-effect, there
ought
to be others. He knew
he
could not read minds; was this impenetrability by Mindees another factor?

   
Perhaps the Blaster was powerless against him, too.

   
It would never clear away his problem-that was something he could do only in his own mind-but it might make his position and final decision safer.

   
There was only one way to find out. He knew the Blaster could not actually harm him severely, by SpaceCom’s orders; but he wouldn’t hesitate to blast off one of the Pyrotic’s arms-cauterizing it as it disappeared-to warn him, if the situation seemed desperate enough.

   
The Blaster had seemed to Gunnderson a singularly overzealous man, in any case. It was a terrible risk, but he had to know.

   
There was only one way to find out, and he took it, finding a startling new vitality in himself for the first time in over thirty years.

   
He snapped his legs off the bunk, and lunged across the stateroom, shouldering aside the Mindee and straight-arming the Blaster in the mouth. The Blaster, surprised by the rapid and completely unexpected movement, had a reflex thought, and one entire bulkhead was washed by bolts of power. They crackled, and the plasteel buckled. His direction had been upset, but Gunnderson knew the instant he regained his mental balance, the power would be directed at him.

   
Gunnderson was at the stateroom door, palming the loktite open-having watched the manner used by the Blaster when he had left on several occasions-and putting one foot into the companionway.

   
Then the Blaster struck. His fury rose, and he lost his sense of duty. This man had struck him-an accepted psioid, not an oddie! The black of his eyes deepened, and his face strained. His cheekbones rose in the stricture of a grin, and the
force
materialized.

   
It was all around Gunnderson.

   
He could feel the heat...see his clothes sparking and disappearing...feel his hair charring at the tips...feel the strain of psi power in the air.