Read Foundation for Free Online Page B

no sense at all.
    “I repeat, this is merely hypothetical,” said Benedict. “But suppose, for argument’s sake, that the murderer was also a telepath. He could act as a mental crawler, penetrating the minds of the believers to the point of being privy to what pleases them. He could easily build on or interfere with the stream of their memories, planting parasitic elements into the believers’ most pleasurable memories. What’s more important, he could do that despite the intricacies of the feed and the roadblocks of the aware mind. One by one, he might convert all the believers he needs, until the critical mass required to obtain a parasite belief would be reached. If properly done, the parasite belief would add to the Main Belief, not interfere with it, I guess.”
    Trumaine considered Benedict’s words.
    “It sounds like it would take him a very long time to convert one individual alone,” he said. “What about all the other believers he needs? It would take the murderer months, if not years to convert them all.”
    “If he’s good, I think a few months would do,” said Benedict.
    “It you are right, this means that Jarva’s murder has been carefully planned.”
    “Have you found any evidence against that?”
    Trumaine didn’t say anything. As far as he was concerned, he could use any evidence.
    “All right. Let’s suppose that our killer is not just a shrewd telepath, but that he’s a mind crawler as well. Let’s say that he’s murdered Jarva for reasons that we have yet to understand and that he carefully planned the whole thing, choosing in advance both the place and the time for killing. Wouldn’t it be easier for him if he too was a believer?”
    From the silence that followed, it was clear that Trumaine’s guess was Benedict’s worst fear: if a crawler was hiding among his believers, it was going to be the end of Credence.
    “He might be ...” said a deadpan Benedict.
    “Tell me then, what would you do to find him?”
    Benedict wet his lips. A moment was all it had taken him to go back to his confident manners. All of a sudden, he looked like a trophy hunter who had just been offered the lead in the search of a much fabled species.
    “What a great challenge for the mind that would be,” he said. “Usual investigating techniques would be useless in this case, I’m afraid. Direct questioning? How would you possibly know if the believer you are interviewing is really telling the truth or if—as a crawler—he’s second guessing you, depending on what he reads in your mind? Following suspects? That would be ridiculous, you will be tailing the crawler forever. No. That’s not the way to go ... You must think out of the box.”
    “How do you mean?” asked Trumaine.
    “Since it’s the crawler who owns the keys to your mind, your only chance to catch him would be to let him into your head.”
    “Why would he do such a thing?”
    “For curiosity, I guess. Curiosity can be a tremendous motivator, Detective. The crawler might want to see for himself who is the hound chasing after him. See if you are really as good as everybody claims. If you’ve got what it takes to catch him. He might want to confront you ...”
    “There’s very little for me to work on, don’t you think?” said Trumaine.
    “On the contrary, there’s a lot that you can do,” insisted Benedict. “Let him make the first move. Just expose your mind; let him in. Let him take a good look at your memories. Make him familiar to the way you think—to what makes you tick. There is a good chance that, once he’s inside your mind, he’s going to expose his own in turn. Without his knowledge, some details could slip from his mind into yours. Putting those details together, like in a puzzle, would be your job. Until you have a detailed enough profile of him—that’s when you drop your net, Detective.”
    Trumaine was unsure. “Use my mind as the bait?”
    “I’m afraid so ...”
    “In the chamber?”
    Benedict