Telepathy is a theme that’s fascinated science fiction writers and readers alike, for wouldn’t it be wonderful to share our thoughts with others without the fetters of spoken language, and to perceive our friends’ emotions directly?

Yet there could be dangers. Consider sharing a telepathic link with a friend who’s dying, who can “speak” to no one but you . . . and who might be able to take over your mind. How strong can a friendship be?

Cynthia Felice, who wrote this suspenseful story about the implications of mind-sharing, spends most of her time managing a motel with her husband in Colorado; between check-ins, she pursues a beginning career as an author. Unless the business becomes too hectic, you’ll see her by-line frequently, and prominently, in the future.

* * * *

DAVID AND LINDY

Cynthia Felice

The Nightwine is faster than light, but, from the moment we received the report of Captain Linden’s injuries, the damn ship moved like a horse in a tar pit. Lindy wasn’t dead but he was dying. His ship had blown an unstable cargo and half the crew as well. While I worried only about Lindy, death notices were blinking throughout the universe. No guilt; I couldn’t do anything for them but it was possible I could do something for Lindy: he’s a telepath and so am I.

Finally, the Nightwine was falling in a tight elliptical orbit around a giant planet in Barnard’s Star System, matching velocity with the Dandelion. Before the lights signaled “go” for transfer, I was in an eva-pod, the new ship’s doctor waiting in another. Through relay cameras, I could see a dozen eva-pods on silver-coated lines, hauling plates from the Dandelion’s cargo hatch to replace damaged ones on the hull. Waldoes were being used to repair damaged sensors and telemetry. They’d tried to jettison the cargo before it blew up but had only half-succeeded, so now the tedious work of jury-rigging spare parts, billions of AU’s from a supply depot, was underway. At least the burial pods were gone. They’d been shoved into a lower orbit and in a few years would wink out like meteorites as they passed through the planet’s atmosphere.

Then it was “go.” I latched Doc Varner’s eva-pod with a waldoe and gave a long thrust with the cold-jet. Hauling the other pod’s mass required several mid-course corrections, or maybe it was because I was aware of Lindy’s thoughts by then—incomprehensible mumbo jumbo as if he were desperately trying to concentrate amid frantic interruptions. The pattern indicated fear and I couldn’t get the word-thoughts. I could have broken through then and there, but the eva-pods are not to be trifled with, and I was catching subliminal alarms from the Dandelion’s crew about my deceleration. I stayed with the job at hand.

Once inside the Dandelion’s axis, the iris spiraled shut behind us and in a few minutes the safe-atmosphere light went on. I traced a comma on the labyrinth control, popping my pod’s hatch, then floated in freefall, waiting for Doc Varner. He came out, too fast, arms flailing and face filled with bewilderment. I grabbed his belt before he hit the bulkhead and pulled him to the hatch, shoving him into the lighted tube beyond. He didn’t feel confident until I’d manhandled him down to the hydroponic farm level where the tug of centrifugal force gave him something to base his bearings on. He grabbed the center pole and pushed past the succeeding levels until he could slide. At the outer rim, he stood again, signaled an “okay” to me, and ducked into the corridor. I was right behind him.

Jill, Lindy’s wife, was waiting at the pole. She’s a red-haired woman, freckle-skinned, with height that makes me feel like a dwarf. There were healing wounds on her arms and fresh ones in her mind.—Big fat question mark surrounded by anxiety.—

“He’s there, Jill,” I said. “I’ve been reading him during transfer.”

Her eyes moistened and I felt her anxiety give over to relief.

Uninhibited excitement turned my attention to the doc. —What does he say? Telepath, aware while in a coma. Computers and medics inadequate . . . perhaps not really coma... confusion when dealing with telepaths ...—

The doc was athirst to see his patient in the clinic just meters away though outwardly he was appropriately composed. I was pleased with his mind’s impatience; I’ve learned that most competent professionals are exhilarated by their work. I gestured and we three went into the clinic together.

Lindy lay amid stark white sheets with TV’s feeding in and tubes I couldn’t identify draining out. He’d been shorn of his tight brown curls and his skull skin was stitched together like a patchwork quilt. But within the mind of the fallen giant was a brilliance: thoughts, which were not stacked in his usual order of concentration but which were somehow pasted into a collage, swirling in that same desperate intentness I’d seen while in the eva-pod. What I did then was not like comparing a shout to a normal speaking voice; it was like leaping and hitting him with two feet square in the brain. It had to be quick for I had to get back and catch my body before it collapsed with nothing for support.—Lindy.—

The collage splintered.—David!—

My name was a sonic boom in my skull as I felt his joy. My own pleasure was no small thing either.—I’m here, Lindy.—

The exchange went quickly without words to slow us down. In minutes I knew of the agony he’d suffered by being trapped within his own mind yet hearing Jill and the crew, picking up the medic’s concern for the injured and himself, the grief of the funerals without being able to communicate in any way. Fearing insanity, he’d worked state vectors, doing the computer’s work in his mind. When I understood what it was like for him to have only the deep complication of his own mind for company, I perspired. Then I realized the doc was talking to me:

“Can you read him?”

“Loud and clear; he’s fine,” I said.

Jill smiled but the doctor shook his head and went back to the medical computer printouts he was studying.

Lindy, still content from my arrival, asked me almost lightheartedly,—What’s the latest prognosis?—

I tried to feel optimistic.—The doc has no confidence in computers.—

But it’s difficult to keep a secret from Lindy. Lindy was listening to the doc while listening to me, and the doc, who was fresh from Earth and did not have command of the privacy request normals develop when they live around telepaths, was spewing diagnosis like a siren: — coma for sure . . . paralyzed even if he can be revived . . . rapid deterioration . . .—

—Give the man a chance to think, Lindy. Thought processes are not final conclusions.—But Lindy knew that.

Resignedly, he sighed. —Coma, the medic was right. It’s less difficult to accept with you here. At least I can communicate.—

—He may change his diagnosis when he’s done examining you.—

Lindy laughed.—Right now he’s thinking of the implications of an aware telepathic mind while the body lies in a coma and about a paper he will write.—

I glanced up at Doc Varner, seemingly involved only with the printouts. The paper was only a fringe thought; the human mind cannot help exploring its thoughts even while pressing needs involve the conscious. I wished I had Lindy’s ability to decipher simultaneous thoughts. I had to shift from one person to the other. Lindy already knew more than I.

—How’s Jill taking it?—Lindy said.

I was aware that Jill’s thoughts were drawn tight in privacy request. Telepaths honor normals’ privacy because we’ve carefully cultivated trust within the closed social system of the ships. Lindy wouldn’t breach the privacy pattern with any of his crew—except Jill, whom he couldn’t resist touching often. But he honored her request now, fearing that her love had been replaced with pity she could not hide from him. Yet he was asking me if pity was there.

—I don’t know,—I said honestly. —She was relieved when I told her I could read you. Beyond that I’m not sure. Why should pity worry you? It’s a normal reaction.—

—I don’t want her pity and none from you either! There’s enough around the ship without yours and Jill’s.—

—Been busy since you’ve had me to lean on, haven’t you? Be nice, or I’ll stop listening...—

Lindy’s mind screamed:—No!—

I regretted the jest immediately. I touched his hand. He couldn’t feel my touch with his body’s nerves, but his mind felt the gesture.

—I’m sorry, David. I’ve had enough silence . . . perhaps more than I can take. Don’t leave me.—

—I won’t. I’ll stay.—

—Until the end?—

I was startled. —We don’t know that you’re going to die. The doc . . .—

—. . . is doubtful. I need the services of an Earth specialist but the planetfall would surely kill me even if Earth-eaters gave dispensation for surgery on a telepath. My body is wasting. Men have lived months, even years, in comas, but Varner sees only months for me.—

The doc was talking in muted tones to the medic. Sure enough, they were planning life-prolonging, not lifesaving, measures. Stricken, I turned back to Lindy. —To the end, then . . . but I’m not convinced you’ll die. You know that.—

—Do I?—

Fringe thoughts. “Hey, Doc, give Captain Linden a frank report on his condition. Forget the bedside manner: it would be wasted.”

He verbalized and his words were pretty close to the truth; “It’s not good. On Earth, I would give him a fifty-fifty chance on the paralysis after surgery, but I’m just not sure about the coma. The symptoms hinge on each other. I’m not qualified to perform the surgery and we can’t transport him to Earth because his spinal cord could be severed during atmospheric re-entry. I don’t even want to subject him to the jolt necessary to exceed speed-of-light.” The next part was almost a lie, designed to comfort the next of kin—Jill and me—and to keep up the patient’s spirits. It helped only Jill. “I’m going to set up a temporary clinic on the hydroponic farm level. The lesser centrifugal force will help heal the bedsores and relieve nerve pressure. Then you’ll have to decide if you want me to return to Earth and find a competent specialist.”

“No decision involved, Doctor.” It was Jill who spoke. “Of course you must go.”

The doc had the good grace at least to try straight-line communication. He was clumsy, but I got the message. Time was the problem, a three-month round trip from Barnard’s Star System to Sol, not including downtime in locating the right doctor. Lindy probably wouldn’t last. There also were fringe thoughts about his paper and mental explorations about sending the medic to Earth while he remained with Captain Linden.

While Jill was looking at Lindy, I gave the doc a nod to let him know I understood. Then I went to the computer console and traced a spiral on the maze that put me in direct contact with the Nightwine’s bridge.

“Greenberg,” I said, “this is David Atkins. “What’s the fastest jump you can make to Earth, decelerating past Luna?”

“Past Luna? We can’t. That’s against the law...”

Earth’s laws are archaic. Our equipment can slip into parking orbit right from speed-of-light, but Earth-eaters still worry about deep-space collisions on their slag pile. “The hell with the law,” I said, “the captain’s life hangs on time.”

“Twenty days,” Greenberg replied promptly. “He’s communicating?”

“Yes,” I said, regretting I’d forgotten to tell the crews earlier. With few exceptions these people had worked for Lindy for a long time. Their concern was genuine.

“And the captain agrees to risk Earth’s law?” Greenberg said.

—No, I don’t,—Lindy straight-lined to me. —Tell him to take time for proper deceleration.—

“Yes, he does,” I told Greenberg, “but he says to be careful.”

—Damn you, David. There’s forty good crew on that ship!—

Earth-eaters would have to catch the Nightwine before they could arrest her crew. Never happen. —Shut up, Lindy. I’m in command.—I turned back to the doc. I’d given him enough time to finish exploring. “Can the medic make the jump?”

The doc was cautious, rechecked his data: —Printouts are accurate ... no dud, this medic . . . give him a list of the best men . . . Linden Fleet rich enough to offer the right price . . . learn much for my paper by staying . . . be on hand to take more drastic measures than a medic might dare . . .— “Yes,” he finally said. “I’ll . . .”

I waved off his list of things to do. “Go do it, I know,” I said. Then into the communicator: “Greenberg, I’m sending the medic to the Nightwine. You jump for Earth as soon as he gets there.”

“We’re transferring cargo, Mr. Atkins. Twenty hours of work...”

“Stow it”

“Yes, sir.”

—They could do some business as long as the trip has to be made,—Linden said.

—And waste a day? Not on your life.—”Doc, I’ve got things to see to.” It wasn’t necessary for me to be in the same room with Lindy to keep him company and we both had ship worries on our minds that I could soothe with a little checking.

“Now? So soon? But we haven’t talked. You haven’t told me what his reactions are!” Intoxicated excitement again: —Medical first . . . brain alert . . . need David’s co-operation to learn ...—

“Later. Right now I’m going to take Jill back to the captain’s cabin.”

The doc nodded resignedly. “The medic gave her some sedatives. See that she takes one.” He gave Jill a sideways glance.

—Tell him to give me one too,—Lindy said.

I responded with confusion.

—You’re going to talk to Jill, aren’t you?—he said.

—Yes.—

—I don’t want to listen.—

He was anxious that he’d lost something with Jill. It had to do with her faith in his strength and what Lindy got from that faith. It’s just the way it was between them; it was theirs and maybe, now, it was gone. The doctor was still at my side by the console. “If you have something that will make Captain Linden’s brain relax, give it to him.”

He seemed to understand, for he nodded and left me with his mind muttering about avoiding depression.

—Try to sleep, Lindy. I’ll be waiting when you awaken.—

I took Jill’s hand and led her out of the clinic and down the corridor. Her privacy request was ablaze. Even though she was exhausted, it didn’t skip. When I was sure Lindy wasn’t fighting the shot the doc gave him, I asked Jill: “Why won’t you talk to Lindy?”

“I’m . . . shaken. I don’t want him to see me this way. He’s always been the stronger, but now he can’t help me. I need time to do it on my own.”

I nodded. Eventually Lindy would reach for Jill, and I hoped she could carry it off when that time came. He’d need her strength. Role reversal? No, that was what it always was. Her love was his strength. We were standing in front of the captain’s cabin. “Will you take the sedative, Jill?”

She nodded. “I can rest now. You’re here.”

“Did you doubt I’d come?”

“No, but it should be me he needs ...”

But those were fringe thoughts, verbalized. “He’s sleeping now,” I told her. “You do the same.”

Jill smiled tiredly, nodded, and let the labyrinth sense her body warmth in the proper pattern. I watched until the iris closed between us, then I turned to the bridge. The Dandelion had been orbiting without a captain for weeks. I had much to attend.

* * * *

There are few telepaths in the universe, but Earth-eaters are scared of even a minute number. Lindy was one of Earth’s first exiles, only ten years old when he was piped aboard a none-too-willing merchant ship as cabin boy. Twenty years later, I, a comfortably settled man with a nice job, a wife, and two kids, was discovered. I’d barely learned myself that I was telepathic and I wasn’t too happy about leaving Earth. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, didn’t understand why I must be exiled to live the rest of my life in orbital tin cans. I wasn’t piped aboard; they took me to Lindy’s ship in a strait jacket.

Lindy was a compassionate teacher: I had tried to deny my telepathic abilities, for I thought if I wouldn’t or couldn’t use them, I’d be welcomed home with open arms. Lindy tried to explain that Earth-eaters are not dung beetles. When it didn’t sink in, he showed me why. He put me in an eva-pod and shoved me out the air lock. The comm-system in the pod was inexplicably jammed and I couldn’t operate the confusing labyrinth controls without direction. I learned a lot about my will to live and telepathy that day. For a long time I thought I knew what I hated: Lindy. It gave me something powerful on which to cling. Doesn’t sound like much of a beginning for a friendship, but at that time Lindy knew my mind better than I. He’d seen what was in the fringes of my cortex, hammered there by Earth-eaters’ hatred and fear, and he didn’t let me alone until he’d pried the synapses that let out love, compassion, and joy.

That was a long time ago. Now there is a fleet of one hundred cargo and passenger ships, blinking between star systems, which is the Linden Fleet. Earth-eaters are suspicious about the cabin boy who became the head of the fantastic fleet. Success stories about telepaths make them tremble. Their fears are well founded; we are powerful and Lindy is ruthless. But he’s also very shrewd, for he knows Earth’s good will is our bread and butter. If there is a mercy trip to be made, the Linden Fleet can be counted on to do it at its own cost. If there is a dangerous cargo to be hauled, we do that too. . . .

* * * *

After I’d seen the Nightwine change attitude and leave for Earth, finished going over the damage reports, checked death and injury compensations, revised the repair schedule, talked with the doc, and gone to bed, I felt Lindy’s probe. I was tired, but I didn’t resist his need for communication.

—Sorry to awaken you.—

—It’s okay,—I lied, and Lindy knew I lied but such formalities are accepted at face value between telepaths.

—How’s Jill?—

—Sleeping, I hope.— But I couldn’t hedge with Lindy. —I don’t know. She’s scared for you and for herself as well.—

—Keeping her thoughts from you too?—

—affirmative—

—David, I want to try something ... for Jill’s sake. Let me borrow your body.—

I couldn’t help flinching. Protests came unbidden. — She doesn’t know of the method. It might not help the state she’s in. We’ve rarely done it. It frightens me!—

Eagerness: —It’s power, David, and power will destroy her pity. I can end her fears, and mine. Let me!—

—It requires my submission. I don’t like that.—

—You fear I’d not release you?—

—No.— Too slow, the affirmative slipped through. I tried to explain. —I trust you, but I have a ship to run.—

Lindy laughed. —You forget, I’m the captain.—

I felt sheepish. —All right, Lindy, but be careful. She may not accept you in my body.—

—I know how to handle my own wife.—

I took my conscious and my doubts that anyone “handled” Jill into a far cozy corner of my mind before Lindy could sense them. Then it was like wading through a dream while he sought out my synapses and tripped the right ones in proper sequence. I felt cramped, but not uncomfortable when he began moving fully in my mind, using my body as if it were his own. But I was helpless where I waited. Lindy was in control until he chose to relinquish my body, or until he fell asleep. Briefly, I wondered if men in comas ever slept naturally or only under sedatives. I heard Lindy’s good-humored reply and I relaxed. My fears, brief as they were, seemed groundless just then.

For all his forethought, Lindy reflexively traced the pattern on the labyrinth of his cabin’s iris and he didn’t realize what he’d done until Jill looked up from where she stood, drawing up her jumper. Her hands tried to cover her naked breasts and Lindy grinned in full appreciation.

Thrusting her arms into the jumper, she whirled to display backside fabric while she fastened the front out of his sight Then she turned, redfaced and angry. “David!” was all she could manage.

Lindy was enjoying Jill’s first display of modesty in years, but she was struggling between impulses to throw a boot at him and to reasonably await explanation.

He spoke when she reached for the boot. “It’s Lindy, not David.”

Jill’s eyes softened slightly. “You’re relaying for him?”

“No. It’s Lindy, first hand. I am possessing. David and I have experimented with possession. This seemed a good time to put the experiments into practical use.”

Jill was nervous. “I don’t know . . . I’m not sure.” Then, with less suspicion. “Why?”

Lindy walked to his grip-chair, eager to enjoy its comforts again. It dwarfed my small body, the specially made contours didn’t fit and he stood up again, looking around the cabin. It was one that a monk might live in: bed, chairs, and workbench by the computer extension. In ten years, Jill had made no changes except to add her own chair and hang her clothes in the closet. “I lay three weeks in black silence and you need to ask why?” He smiled. “It feels good to flex muscles again, even these small ones of David. But most of all, I needed to talk to you, directly.”

“David is your friend. He would have relayed precisely what you wished,” Jill said. “Lindy, is it truly you? Or is David Atkins perpetrating some macabre trick?”

“Would David walk in here without announcing himself?”

“Not ordinarily. But if it served some obscure purpose, Linden could have shown him the pattern.”

“What purpose could it serve?” he said.

When Jill did not answer, Lindy, for the first time in a very long time, deliberately ignored her privacy pattern. He laughed aloud. “Do you really think David would dare seduce my wife? The thought has occurred to him, but he knows it would risk our friendship.”

Jill frowned. “Nor would David invade my privacy.”

Lindy still grinned. “No, he wouldn’t.”

Jill walked across the cabin, staring at David’s face. — Linden? . . . tugs on a beard that isn’t there, but I’ve seen the gesture in Lindy a million times . . . smooth fingers brushing across my cheekbone . . . don’t pull my hair, Lindy! David would not touch me this way . . . your way.—

“Don’t be afraid, Jill. It is me.” When he saw Jill close her eyes, he drew her near and found his cheek on her breast. There were some compensations for being a short man that he’d not suspected, but it wasn’t all pleasant surprises. He was less enthralled when Jill had to bend to kiss him. Lindy’d had enough with the height reversal and he leveled it. He picked up Jill, a heavier weight than he remembered but not an unreasonable burden for my strong body, and carried her to the bed.

I’m not a voyeur but I get bored going through state vectors like a computer—especially when there’s something more interesting going on in my own body....

* * * *

I felt as anyone feels after missing sleep periods. Coffee helped but it was an effort to resist the temptation of going back to bed. I’d finished another session with the doc in the jury-rigged medical area on the hydroponic level where Lindy’s body lay. The doc was pleased that the captain’s depression had eased after a prolonged discussion with Jill—I didn’t explain how that was accomplished—and pleased that Lindy was resting comfortably now. But the doc was unhappy with the rapid deterioration of Lindy’s body. He was glad he’d stayed, for he’d come close to losing Lindy—unquestionably during the time he was possessing me. Lindy’s kidneys were failing. I was compelled to put off rest for a while longer and tell Jill about his condition. I didn’t even hesitate in front of the iris. I traced a pattern on the labyrinth and started through.

“Lindy!” Jill said when she saw me.

I stopped and the iris whooshed behind me. “No,” I said quickly. “It’s David.” I glanced back at the iris, realizing that the day before I’d not known the operational pattern. “Sorry, Jill. I guess some things remain. I didn’t give it a thought.”

“What else remained?” I saw flickers of disgust and embarrassment.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s insignificant to me, less than a dream.”

“You forget that I’m a computer programmer. I know how the storage systems work in the mechanical brains and I’ve had experience with the flesh ones too.”

“Still, it’s less than a dream,” I insisted. “Perhaps there will be times when something will trigger a memory that is not of my own making, but it’s not something I can do voluntarily.” Certain lies comfort and I never hesitate to use them when I know things that are none of my business.

Jill sat in her chair and gestured for me to use Lindy’s. I would have refused, but even improper contours are some relief to a tired body. “David, don’t let him do it again. It’s not just that.” She gestured toward the iris. “I’m frightened with him in your body. While he was with me he knew exactly what to say and do to soothe my anxieties. As soon as he left, I knew it wasn’t real and that it was wrong.”

“He may not live through this,” I told her bluntly. “His kidneys are failing. Even forty days may not be soon enough. In light of that, how can I refuse him?”

Jill was repelled. “Make his dying days as pleasant as possible?”

“Something like that.”

She was almost vicious. “Lindy won’t die; he’s too strong! He has too much will power to let go.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Doc thinks that if I hadn’t come, Lindy would have gone insane. I’m still worried about that. Ever thought about an insane telepath?”

I could tell she hadn’t and she wasn’t going to think about it now either. She was worried about something else.

“If you continue to let him possess you, he’ll be convinced you’re patronizing him. He’ll find the same pity in you that he feared to see in me.”

“I can’t hide that from him. But he’s been a telepath long enough to understand it’s human for the mind to go off on tangents.” Lindy’s relation with me was disparate from the one between them. But Jill didn’t quite understand; there was a bit of envy in her.

Jill shook her head. “As much as I want to be able to talk to him face to face—even if it’s your face—I believe you’re doing him a disservice. It’s not the best thing for him.”

She believed it. She didn’t consider the disservice possession might do to me. “Jill, unless he agrees to respect my refusal to accommodate him, I’m not going to be able to stop him.”

—What do you mean?— Her mental query formulated before she could even open her mouth to speak.

“Awake, I can refuse him.” So far, that was true. “Asleep my conscious is open to invasion from him. Lindy is more powerful than I.”

—You think he would use you against your will? No!— She hadn’t the slightest doubt in him.

But I doubted. “I know the part that you have never seen and he’s terrified of death. He’s fighting it now, but later he’ll become resentful and, eventually, accept it. It’s the normal pattern. Using my body gives him a lot of power—at least in his mind—to fight death.”

—He’s not weak, David. Lindy has courage to spare for ten people.—

I nodded. “Perhaps you’re right.” The emotion casements around her words showed nothing could shake her belief. I didn’t pursue the subject any further. Jill was remembering Lindy’s keen perceptions of risk, which were always intelligently calculated, and she was interpreting his responses as bravery. I knew Lindy more intimately than his wife ever could, just as he knew me. We supplied strength where the other was weak, called on superiorities as if they were owned.

But years of trust were falling away. I feared Lindy was ruthlessly capable of using any means available to resist death. I understood his temptations just as he knew my suspicions. Lindy had laughed and I’d relaxed, but I couldn’t deny what I saw. I feared my friend’s superior strength.

He was sleeping. I decided the first step in resisting the man was to match sleep cycles. Awake, he could not take possession without my willingness. I left Jill and went to bed.

* * * *

I outwitted Lindy for one sleep cycle. The next one, he was waiting and I awoke fighting from the place in my mind’s corner. But there was no leverage for me to pry even one finger from his control and in minutes he was on his way to his cabin in my body.

“David?” Jill asked, when he entered. “I’m due on the bridge in a minute.”

“Linden,” he said quietly. I screamed my own name: It was heard only by Lindy, who didn’t even flinch. But I did—just a shadow picture of Lindy performing a mutilation on my body before he returned to his own. Willful son of a bitch! I couldn’t tell if he’d really do it, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance. I cowered silently.

“I wish you’d tell me who’s coming through that iris,” Jill said, exasperated.

“David knocks ... or doesn’t he?”

“No. It seems you leave things like lock patterns in his head.”

Lindy laughed.

“Lindy, this isn’t wise. If for no other reason, consider my reputation. The crew is bound to see David coming in here and they won’t think much of me allowing it while you’re incapacitated.”

“We three know the truth. Let them think what they wish.”

“It’s not like you to disregard crew opinion.”

“It’s only temporary.”

“I still don’t like it.” Jill looked at him steadily. “Does David know you’re in there?”

“Oh yes, he knows.” Linden chuckled.

“And he was willing?”

Lindy frowned. “Does it matter?”

“Yes!”

Lindy didn’t like the scathing thoughts he saw in her mind, nor did he understand them. “I should think you’d want me to spend my last days with you,” he said.

—So that’s it! I didn’t believe David when he told me you were frightened. I can understand expediency because you are a self-centered man. But this! You say you don’t want my pity yet you come sniffing around in another man’s body and ask for pity. Sorry, I have none to give. Get out of my way, Lindy, I have work to do.—

Lindy let his wife pass. He could see she didn’t accept the inevitability of his death for one minute and he thought her very unreasonable. Angrily, he stomped into the corridor, turned away from the direction of the bridge, and went to the nearest pole radiating up a shaft to the other levels. He took the grips one at a time instead of his usual two by two and then stepped off at the hydroponic level. He walked through a maze of crops suspended in clear nutrient sacks, their roots as twisted and tangled as the thoughts in his mind. He stopped when he reached his body, lying inert, breathing shallowly. It seemed little different from the tomato plants surrounding it with the sacks of sucrose and pumps supporting his life. The tomatoes at least had purpose. Lindy felt less certain of his own existence.

“There’s no change, David.” It was the doc’s voice interrupting his maudlin musing.

Lindy nodded, then realized the doc was talking from a bed just beyond his own, where he’d taken up residency to tend his patient. Still nursing his abandonment by Jill, Lindy wondered if the doc’s concern was only for the paper he wanted to write, but he couldn’t tell, for the doc was not thinking along those lines.

“Is he asleep?” the doc said, swinging his feet over the bed and grabbing the rail to correct the overfast movement. He used more care to pull on his coveralls.

Lindy hesitated, then replied: “Yes.”

“David, I’m concerned for you. If Captain Linden dies while your minds are linked, how will you be affected?”

“I’ve been with dying men before. It’s a comfort to them. The hearing passes last . . . did you know that? Yes, well, I can answer their final questions.”

“But this is different. You’re both telepaths. You talk of Captain Linden’s mind within your own. It seems the link between telepaths is different from the link you have with normals.”

“That’s true, it is different.” It was all Lindy could say. He couldn’t describe a process where vocabulary had never been developed. We’d devised symbols to close the gap, but they weren’t anything you could draw or define for a normal.

“Could you be trapped in his mind at the moment of death?”

Lindy looked at the doc strangely, for dead minds could not be touched. Then he shook his head. “There is much about telepathy I don’t know. Even . . . Captain Linden . . . does not know, though he’s been telepathic since childhood.” He looked up at the doctor. “Are you suggesting a mind transfer?” Fringe thoughts were being drawn in for consideration. Would there be a bit of himself in my mind after his death—leavings, like the lock pattern, in the mnemonics? It came to him quickly then: Or his whole awareness?

“Schizophrenia... or a dual personality.”

“What?” Lindy said. The words shook him. Every tele-path has flirted with insanity before learning to cope.

The doc sighed. “I pose questions, David. I have no answers and it seems you don’t either.”

Lindy grasped the rail of the bed where his body lay wasting. If he died, would it be a final death? Now he doubted it. He hadn’t been distracted with near-death while he was in my body visiting Jill. Would he live on, in part? In entirety? In my body? What happened when a telepath who was half a love-bond died and the other half was near enough to possess? Suddenly, Lindy withdrew from my mind and I hastened to right the stagger it produced.

—Damn you, Linden!— I almost pummeled his body with my fists.

Lindy did not respond. His thoughts were spinning rapidly, seemingly shocked. I probed and he resisted.

I turned away from Lindy and the doc, traced a comma on the comm-system and reached the bridge. “Send Jill to my cabin.” She’d be wondering which telepath gave the order but she wouldn’t refuse. I left without even saying good-by to the doc, slid down the nearest pole, and walked down the corridor. What I’d hoped were only fringe thoughts could no longer be ignored.

I gave him two feet in the brain. —Why does it scare you, Lindy? Did you think telepaths wink out like novas?—

He didn’t answer, but was listening.

The implications were enough to have us both suspended between hope and fear. Skin prickling, I tried a solution on him. —We will share.—

—Ha! You think we won’t fight over control? You think I would share? I am more powerful.—

While Jill walked the dish of the outer rim corridor toward me, I wondered what a battle of two minds within the same body would be like. When Jill and I met at my cabin, I barely had enough presence to hold the iris for her.

“David?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“It’s as you suspected,” she said, beginning to explain Lindy’s recent possession of my body. “He is frightened of death.”

—David.— Lindy interrupted. —I want you to have the doctor sedate me.—

—Wouldn’t work, Lindy. You can fight sedation. They can paralyze your muscles but nothing can stop your mind.—

—It would give me something to fight . . . besides you.—

I looked at Jill. “He’s accepted death. In fact, he’s making arrangements for it.” Knowing he could live on in my body, suicide was a better word for it. Lindy wasn’t capable of suicide.

—No! You must not accept dying. I don’t!— Jill straight-lined to him.

—You heard?—I asked Lindy.

—She doesn’t understand the danger. It’s not Jill’s place to decide, it’s mine. I won’t risk a schizophrenic captain at the head of Linden Fleet.—

—Yet you’d disregard Jill? Leave her alone?—

—I’m not worried about Jill, I’m worried about you ... us and insanity. Send her out. We’ll talk without her.—

I looked at Jill. She’d barely noticed the pause. “He wants to be sedated until it’s all over.”

—Linden, you can’t just give up! I won’t take that from you. I love you. You know that I do.— Jill blazed with fury, indignant in her half-comprehension. Her love was undeniable.

Lindy groaned. —I can’t have her emotions distracting me now. Stop her. I’ve decided . . . David, please.—

There was a momentary silence.

Softly, his thoughts came to me. —When I’m dead you’ll be the head of Linden Fleet. It’s safe in your hands. Jill will get over it. Perhaps you and she . . .—

I blasted my reply, for I was angry with my temptation. —Don’t try arranging my life for me!—

—If you don’t do as I ask, I will spend the rest of your life doing just that!—

—No. I trust you, Lindy. If telepaths can live on after death, then there must be a way to cope with the dual existence. We’ll take the risk and find a way.— I didn’t believe myself, but I wanted to. Lindy, despite his pitiless mask, was my friend, closer to me than kin.

—You’re a fool!—

—Only a fool would think you’re dying.—

—Then we’re both fools.—

And I knew it was true. But there was Jill with true emotional quality and steadfast belief, insisting: —Lindy, you can’t die.— But we couldn’t be sure, so we had to deal with the alternative. Shortly, she left my cabin, her faith still impervious to all influences. I felt a prevailing dread that she might be right, that Lindy couldn’t die . . . at least, not his mind.

Lindy was outraged that I could think of sharing my body and of learning to cope with dual existence when all the while I was terrified. —You can’t act on intellect,— he told me, angrily, —while every instinct shouts denial.—

—Our friendship precludes reservations.—

—Our friendship demands confidence and I have none left in you, David. You’re groveling because I’m more powerful.—

There was no denying it. It hardly mattered that it occurred to him first; it fit in my head. —We both know I can’t escape your superior strength, so why is it strange that I want to retain your good will?— He’d always been stronger. There were good friendship-preserving reasons for us working on two different ships, separated by light-years.

—I asked your help in preventing this fiasco. Instead, you’re paving the way.—

—Drugs can’t hold you for long. You will possess me when you feel death approaching. I don’t think it will matter whether I’m awake or asleep when the times comes. Do you?—

—No, it won’t matter. But if you let me do this, it will destroy us, and Jill too. Fight me!—

—No.—

I felt his resolve to stay in his body despite my invitation and we both knew such resolutions were useless. Then Lindy withdrew, but not before I felt his aversion and it nearly sickened me to know it.

* * * *

I existed, hovering between somnolence and delirium; the drugs I’d denied Lindy I allowed for myself. Lindy saw it as escape from my torment. Perhaps it was. Or maybe I could not tolerate his growing disgust.

When the Nightwine returned with the specialist, I was barely lucid enough to comprehend. But while the surgeon and Doc Varner made preparations for surgery and Jill paced in the corridor, I ... I fled to the Nightwine. Puzzled crew obeyed my orders to leave the parking orbit and put as much distance between the Dandelion and me as the thrusters could.

I stayed in my cabin. The last drugs I’d taken were amphetamines and I was as jittery as a loose strut on an airborne wing. Sixty times an hour, I searched my brain looking for him, suspecting my drug-clouded senses had overlooked him. I screamed his name but he wouldn’t answer. Silently he lurked, waiting for an unguarded second in which to take control. Time passed. Had those first minutes of sedation been enough for me to escape without him?

There was a noise from my cabin iris. I froze, wondered where to hide from him. I glanced around. There was only the WC and he could break that down with his huge boots. The intercom blared my name: “Mr. Atkins? Mr. Atkins, are you all right?”

It was Greenberg’s voice. Shaking, I traced the lock pattern and let him in. I saw his mental reflection of me and was startled to composure.

“The Dandelion has been trying to raise us for the last hour, but your orders not to respond ...”

“The surgery must be over,” I said. “I’ll come to the bridge.”

Greenberg looked at me suspiciously. “You all right, sir?”

“I’m fine.” I wasn’t exactly, but I was better; I knew I was alone. I followed him to the bridge, avoiding stares and quizzical thoughts. It was Jill’s voice the speaker amplified. I motioned the comm-engineer out of the way and sat down.

“This is the Nightwine, Atkins here.”

“David!”

I was glad I wasn’t close enough to get the mental blast accompanying that single word. “How is he, Jill?”

Her voice was as cold as ice. “He’s out of danger now. Where the hell did you go? Tell me what’s going on!”

“Another time, okay?”

Jill hesitated. “All right, just hurry back.”

“Back?” Right then I realized I had no intention of going back. I’d deserted my brother, severed his life line. I was sure he wouldn’t want me near him.

“Of course, back. David, he’s had surgery on his brain! His telepathic abilities might have been destroyed during surgery.”

I still hedged. “Ask Lindy.”

“He won’t be able to talk for weeks.”

“Jill, did you surmise this all along?”

“Yes.”

And I thought she was hiding pity! Jill had strengths I’d not suspected. Lindy and I might learn something from a normal. Then I wondered how I’d dared to link his name to mine within the same thought. And I realized I had to know if our friendship had survived this ultimate test. “We’re coming about, Jill.”

* * * *

Wake for a telepath or reunion with a friend? If reunion, what kind? Lindy might understand that my survival instinct was completely dependable, not something I could shut off, not even for him. But I wasn’t sure: I was so damned filled with guilt that I didn’t know how I’d have the gall to touch the man’s mind.

Hand over hand, I pushed myself down the center pole. I’d do it for Jill’s sake. Equivocating, of course, and poorly too. That rock-hard woman was waiting for me when I touched the outer rim corridor in the Dandelion, her jaw as set as her thought pattern. I suspected an indignant barrage within her, one she wasn’t going to let out until she didn’t need me any more. I brushed past her.

“Is he . . . ?” I could hear her steps trailing me as I hurried toward the clinic. “David, is he receiving?” she said.

Maybe I was being unfair. Perhaps that privacy circle was for Lindy’s benefit. My defenses were hot-wired just then; I was half-eager, half-anxious for this confrontation she’d forced on me. “He’s sleeping,” I said. The iris dilated more quickly than I recalled, then Jill and I were in the clinic. The doc was beaming at me, nodding at his prize patient. “Out,” I said, ignoring his desire for my expressed gratitude. He thought he’d saved my closest friend, but for all I knew Lindy might now be my enemy, the most powerful kind in the universe. If I didn’t think I’d have to throw her bodily, I’d have ordered Jill out of the room, too. Two angry telepaths are capable of quite a lot of havoc, and angry we were. Lindy wasn’t sleeping, he was ignoring me. Ha! Think again, David Atkins, disarming me!

I felt two feet in my brain, toes first, pointed and rigid. —You should have kept running, David.— Then he realized Jill was present. He delayed a second blow and sought her mind. I swayed, leaned against the wall for support. My hands were at my temples and I was blinking back tears. Pain tears and guilt tears. Lindy felt them and hardened himself against them.

“Lindy?” Jill said. She’d moved to the bed and seemed a softer woman than she had just a few moments ago. She looked at me expectantly.

—Tell her I’m all right,— Lindy said.

. . . And then he’d have at me. No, not word thoughts: Fringe stuff leaking. So small only my hyper-fear sensed it. —Go to hell!— I said. —You still need me.—

Lindy’s denial flared, reflexively.

—If you won’t recognize your need you can spend your convalescence listening to Jill’s lament. She’ll pity you until you scream ... until you can scream again.—

He flung the vision I’d conjured from his mind. — What do you want from me, David? A pat on the back? All right, well done. Your deception was very clever.—

—I’m sorry,— I said. I meant it, but so what. I’d been willing to sacrifice his existence for mine. Yet at least he was talking, not striking.

—Jill’s very anxious. Please tell her...—

—No, not yet,— I said. But I didn’t know what to say next. I still felt as if I’d attempted murder. Why was this guilt mine? I was nothing more than a circumstantial receptacle for his awareness.

—You didn’t wait to see if I would attempt the transference.— Surrounded with a violent boiling over of feeling.

—It would have been too late.— But doubt nagged and Lindy seized it.

—You underestimated my restraint.—

Would he have died willingly to spare me? I deliberately used all my abilities to fathom the truth from his mind. —You would have possessed me had I been near enough. You’d have clung to me for life as a fetus clings to the womb. You would have left your body to the surgeon’s mercy, left it without spirit, without will to live. I would be we.—

Then, for the first time, something he’d desperately been suppressing surfaced. I’d seen the veils and thought hatred would come from that place, but it was his culpability. —I would have been a parasite in your body,— Lindy said. He hated admitting it.

I nodded. —I was the only human in the universe able to host you, but I was too cowardly to accept the obligation.— And I didn’t like admitting that. Confession, it seemed, was also good for anger; our tempers subsided. Shaking my head, reaching out to him with my mind, I said, —Lindy, when the parasite is human, is it homicide to eliminate it?— Begging for exoneration.

I felt his mental sigh. —If only you could have hosted me willingly. Not by my forcing you, not through your fear of consequences . . .— He did not form the rest of his thought, but I understood. I’d repudiated a fraternal duty.

—Damn it, Lindy, I’m not a cow who doesn’t understand the consequences of getting mounted!— I said, outraged. —It wasn’t my duty. It was my right!— And when I said it, the words cut through my guilt and made mush of the fragments. —The choice was mine, not yours, not God’s, and not mankind’s.—

Lindy blinked. (A mind can do that.) —One day, it may be I who is faced with exercising my rights ... or not, for you.— A warning implied? Perhaps, but his comprehension was complete and his wrath as shattered as my guilt.

—If you choose differently than I, my friend, it will be because you are prepared to accept the consequences.— I breathed deeply. More than ever I eagerly anticipated sharing a universe with my telepathic friend; now we appreciated that with rights go burdens and with honors go privileges. I turned to Jill. “He’s all right. He’s sending and receiving, loud and clear.”

She looked at me sharply. “Truly all right?”

—Tell her that though the doctors don’t know it yet, I know that I will walk again.—

And that the coma, already less deep, would pass, soon. I detected that he’d learned something about our bodies during the surgery, during that moment when he would have abandoned his but found he could not. Something he was willing to share with me, but not now. Not while he was eager to be with Jill. I was pleased, and I liked knowing I could be happy for him again. —Tell her yourself, Lindy,— I said.

He needed no second invitation; he quickly caught my body and went to Jill, explaining in my voice, brushing away her happy tears with my hands. Soon they/we left the clinic.

I really did work state vectors—after things calmed down, and I think I even went to sleep when they did. What the heck, I could spare a shift to sleep with my friends. But suddenly I was startled. Jill was nuzzling my cheek, blowing in my ear.

“Don’t go to sleep on me now,” she whispered. “You’ll be in the cast for months and David won’t be here.”

—Lindy, what the hell is going on? Why’d you leave me here?—

—Damn doctor... sedative.—

I saw the lazy circle of sleep idly wandering in Lindy’s satiated mind. —Fight it!— I said, and he said “sure” just before he snored.

I couldn’t feign sleep and Lindy was content to nap, as was his habit. Damn, who’d have guessed Jill came around for seconds? She’d be mortified if I told her who she was lavishing her attentions on. She’d bolt upright in the bed and scream her fool head off. So, I thought, what the hell. He’d do it for me.