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murderer could have changed the feed after it was administered and before the Main Belief was created?”
    Benedict thought for a moment.
    “I don’t see how he could,” he said. “The feed is securely delivered into the minds of the believers through a transmitter embedded in the headrest of their couches. The murderer would have had to have tampered with more than half of the deckchair computers—decidedly an unlikely event.”
    “And why is that? Why more than half the couches?” asked Trumaine.
    “Because the Main Belief is attained when more than half the believers are synchronized, which is to say when they believe exactly the same thing. But it’s only when more than eighty-five percent of the total believers are correctly aligned that the Main Belief becomes effective. Under that threshold, even if the Main Belief is established, nothing happens. No spaceship is going to move, not even an inch,” explained Benedict.
    “Well,” said Trumaine with a frown. “A man weighs a small fraction of a spaceship’s whole tonnage. The murderer might have needed to tamper with far less computer headrests to have himself flushed into Jarva’s bunker and kill him.”
    Benedict nodded his head. Trumaine had a point there. “Still, the couches are guarded,” he said. “One could never access them without being discovered. I’m afraid that’s out of the question too.”
    “Couldn’t the murderer have converted the believers outside Credence?” threw in Trumaine.
    “Well, that’s possible in theory, but it’s actually unfeasible. Think about it, Detective. Let’s say that the average weight of a grown man is, what, about a hundred eighty pounds, at most? Still, the murderer should have approached more than forty believers. Not any believers, mind you, but Credence’s believers. He would have convinced them he was going to be in the bunker at a given time, then that he was going to be in another place, say half an hour later. I mean, convinced them in such a satisfying way that they would believe him. Again, I’m afraid that’s not the case. It is one thing administering the feed in a trancelike state specifically designed to take advantage of the subject’s suspensions of disbelief. It is another thing to do that when the subject is fully awake, when all the barriers the logic mind arranges between us and the world outside are up and working. The thing just couldn’t be done.”
    Trumaine groaned. Something deep inside him kept telling him that the murderer had found a way to use Credence for his awful purposes.
    “I’m sure there’s something we’re overlooking,” he said. “Is there anything else you can think of? Don’t limit yourself to what you think is possible. The murderer might be one step ahead of us.”
    Benedict stroked his chin and took a few steps around as he pondered the question. Somehow, he seemed to have lost a bit of his cockiness and self-assurance. The thought that, unbeknown to him, something unlawful could be going on under the crystal-clean semblance of Credence made him uneasy.
    He stopped in front of the window that gave onto the believers’ chamber and watched the believers float around peacefully, mindless of the troubles of the world. After a moment of silence, he turned.
    “There might be another possibility, but it so defies my beliefs, I’m reluctant to even consider it.”
    “I’m all ears,” prodded Trumaine. “Go on.”
    “This is highly hypothetical, mind you. There’s no proof whatsoever that such an individual exists.”
    “I’m used to examining the strangest hypotheses. Who are you talking about?”
    Benedict rolled over the word in his mouth, as if it had an unsavory taste, almost unable to pronounce it. It took him a lot of effort to get it out of him.
    “I’m talking about ... a telepath,” he said at last.
    “A telepath ?” The jarring word rang inside Trumaine’s ears like an offbeat note. He shook his head, confused, as if the word made