The image faded.
Jestocost saw the girl staring as she sat awkwardly on the chair, looking blindly through him. He was on the edge of making a joke about her hypnotic capacity when he saw that she was still deeply hypnotized, even after he had been released. She had stiffened and again her clothing had fallen into its planned disarray. The effect was not stimulating; it was pathetic beyond words, as though an accident had happened to a pretty child. He spoke to her.
He spoke to her, not really expecting an answer.
“Who are you?” he said to her, testing her hypnosis.
“I am he whose name is never said aloud,” said the girl in a sharp whisper, “I am he whose secret you have penetrated. I have printed my image and my name in your mind.”
Jestocost did not quarrel with ghosts like this. He snapped out a decision. “If I open my mind, will you search it while I watch you? Are you good enough to do that?”
“I am very good,” hissed the voice in the girl’s mouth.
C’mell arose and put her two hands on his shoulders. She looked into his eyes. He looked back. A strong telepath himself, Jestocost was not prepared for the enormous thought-voltage which poured out of her.
Look in my mind, he commanded, for the subject of underpeople only.
I see it, thought the mind behind C’mell.
Do you see what I mean to do for the underpeople?
Jestocost heard the girl breathing hard as her mind served as a relay to his. He tried to remain calm so that he could see which part of his mind was being searched. Very good so far, he thought to himself. An intelligence like that on Earth itself, he thought—and we of the Lords not knowing it!
The girl hacked out a dry little laugh.
Jestocost thought at the mind, Sorry. Go ahead.
This plan of yours—thought the strange mind—may I see more of it?
That’s all there is.
Oh, said the strange mind, you want me to think for you. Can you give me the keys in the Bank and Bell which pertain to destroying underpeople?
You can have the information keys if I can ever get them, thought Jestocost, but not the control keys and not the master switch of the Bell.
Fair enough, thought the other mind, and what do I pay for them?
You support me in my policies before the Instrumentality. You keep the underpeople reasonable, if you can, when the time comes to negotiate. You maintain honor and good faith in all subsequent agreements. But how can I get the keys? It would take me a year to figure them out myself.
Let the girl look once, thought the strange mind, and I will be behind her. Fair?
Fair, thought Jestocost.
Break? thought the mind.
How do we re-connect? thought Jestocost back.
As before. Through the girl. Never say my name. Don’t think it if you can help it. Break?
Break! thought Jestocost.
The girl, who had been holding his shoulders, drew his face down and kissed him firmly and warmly. He had never touched an underperson before, and it never had occurred to him that he might kiss one. It was pleasant but he took her arms away from his neck, half-turned her around, and let her lean against him.
“Daddy!” she sighed happily.
Suddenly she stiffened, looked at his face, and sprang for the door. “Jestocost!” she cried. “Lord Jestocost! What am I doing here?”
“Your duty is done, my girl. You may go.”
She staggered back into the room. “I’m going to be sick,” she said. She vomited on his floor.
He pushed a button for a cleaning robot and slapped his desk-top for coffee.
She relaxed and talked about his hopes for the underpeople. She stayed an hour. By the time she left they had a plan. Neither of them had mentioned E-telekeli, neither had put purposes in the open. If the monitors had been listening, they would have found no single sentence or paragraph which was suspicious.
When she had gone, Jestocost looked out of his window. He saw the clouds far below and he knew the world below him was in twilight. He had planned to help the underpeople, and he had met powers of which organized mankind had no conception or perception. He was righter than he had thought. He had to go on through.
But as partner—C’mell herself!
Was there ever an odder diplomat in the history of worlds?
3
In less than a week they had decided what to do. It was the council of the Lords of the Instrumentality at which they would work—the brain center itself. The risk was high, but the entire job could be done in a few minutes if it were done at the Bell itself.
This is the sort of thing which interested Jestocost.
He did not know that C’mell watched him with two different facets of her mind. One side of her was alertly and wholeheartedly his fellow-conspirator, utterly in sympathy with the revolutionary aims to which they were both committed. The other side of her—was feminine.
