Brain Twister | Page 9

Dr. O'Connor frowned again. "We don't have definite information on
that, I'm afraid," he said. "Poor little Charlie was rather difficult to
work with. He was mentally incapable of cooperating in any way, you

see."
"Little Charlie?"
"Charles O'Neill was the name of the telepath we worked with," Dr.
O'Connor explained.
"I remember," Malone said. The name had been on one of the tapes, but
he just hadn't associated "Charles O'Neill" with "Little Charlie." He felt
as if he'd been caught with his homework undone. "How did you
manage to find him, anyway?" he said. Maybe, if he knew how
Westinghouse had found their imbecile-telepath, he'd have some kind
of clue that would enable him to find one, too. Anyhow, it was worth a
try.
"It wasn't difficult in Charlie's case," Dr. O'Connor said. He smiled.
"The child babbled all the time, you see."
"You mean he talked about being a telepath?"
Dr. O'Connor shook his head impatiently. "No," he said. "Not at all. I
mean that he babbled. Literally. Here: I've got a sample recording in
my files." He got up from his chair and went to the tall gray filing
cabinet that hid in a far corner of the pine-paneled room. From a drawer
he extracted a spool of common audio tape, and returned to his desk.
"I'm sorry we didn't get full video on this," he said, "but we didn't feel it
was necessary." He opened a panel in the upper surface of the desk, and
slipped the spool in. "If you like, there are other tapes--"
"Maybe later," Malone said.
Dr. O'Connor nodded and pressed the playback switch at the side of the
great desk. For a second the room was silent.
Then there was the hiss of empty tape, and a brisk masculine voice that
overrode it:
"Westinghouse Laboratories," it said, "sixteen April nineteen-seventy.

Dr. Walker speaking. The voice you are about to hear belongs to
Charles O'Neill: chronological age fourteen years, three months; mental
age, approximately five years. Further data on this case will be found in
the file O'Neill."
There was a slight pause, filled with more tape hiss.
Then the voice began.
"... push the switch for record ... in the park last Wednesday ... and
perhaps a different set of ... poor kid never makes any sense in ... trees
and leaves all sunny with the ... electronic components of the reducing
stage might be ... not as predictable when others are around but ... to go
with Sally some night in the...."
It was a childish, alto voice, gabbling in a monotone. A phrase would
be spoken, the voice would hesitate for just an instant, and then another,
totally disconnected phrase would come. The enunciation and
pronunciation would vary from phrase to phrase, but the tone remained
essentially the same, drained of all emotional content.
"... in receiving psychocerebral impulses there isn't any ... nonsense and
nothing but nonsense all the ... tomorrow or maybe Saturday with the
girl ... tube might be replaceable only if . . . something ought to be done
for the . . . Saturday would be a good time for ... work on the
schematics tonight if...."
There was a click as the tape was turned off, and Dr. O'Connor looked
up.
"It doesn't make much sense," Malone said. "But the kid sure has a hell
of a vocabulary for an imbecile."
"Vocabulary?" Dr. O'Connor said softly.
"That's right," Malone said. "Where'd an imbecile get words like
'psychocerebral?' I don't think I know what that means, myself."

"Ah," Dr. O'Connor said. "But that's not his vocabulary, you see. What
Charlie is doing is simply repeating the thoughts of those around him.
He jumps from mind to mind, simply repeating whatever he receives."
His face assumed the expression of a man remembering a bad taste in
his mouth. "That's how we found him out, Mr. Malone," he said. "It's
rather startling to look at a blithering idiot and have him suddenly
repeat the very thought that's in your mind."
Malone nodded unhappily. It didn't seem as if O'Connor's information
was going to be a lot of help as far as catching a telepath was concerned.
An imbecile, apparently, would give himself away if he were a telepath.
But nobody else seemed to be likely to do that. And imbeciles didn't
look like very good material for catching spies with. Then he
brightened. "Doctor, is it possible that the spy we're looking for really
isn't a spy?"
"Eh?"
"I mean, suppose he's an imbecile, too? I doubt whether an imbecile
would really be a spy, if you see what I mean."
Dr. O'Connor appeared to consider the notion. After a little while he
said: "It is, I suppose, possible. But the readings on the machine don't
give us the