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started us off on our particular line of enquiry were the Navy. That has surprised you, hasn’t it? I thought so. You imagined that we were mainly commercial. No. It was the Navy who discovered the Drummond brothers and that discovery set the ball rolling.’ His explosive laugh echoed round the boarded walls. ‘The Army’s only real contribution is General Smythe-White but he’s an asset in his own right. He’s that rare type which knows exactly what it wants even if it happens to be the Earth. The picture which he has in his mind’s eye is of some splendid young guardsman in uniform sitting in some place inaccessible to radio and utterly unconnected with the rest of the world by any known means of communication. The only equipment he is to possess are two bulbs (sticking out of his ears, I imagine) green on the left, red on the right, and a mirror. Meanwhile, sitting at attention in an Army lecture room miles away is his opposite number, working a buzzer or a flasher, and connected by telephone to Command. One flash from number two at home intensifies the red bulb in the ear of number one: two flashes and the green one glows. No flash and there’s no change. Three signals which an ordinary digital computor can translate into any message Smythe-White can imagine wanting to send. That’s all he’s asking for and it was a pipe dream until along came the Navy with the Drummond brothers.’
    Helena was looking at him, captured at last, and he risked a glance at Martin.
    â€˜I know you can give her much more about the Drummonds than I can but I’d rather do it my way. I hope you don’t object. I’m taking the responsibility and I’m only telling as much as I think I need to. The Drummond brothers were non-identical twins, Helena. They came from an industrial slum in the North where they were both considered gormless. That is “slow” and “not very bright”. Len was the stronger character and the better specimen and he wasn’t a fool but Willie was definitely “sub”, or I thought so. Martin here and Tabard had a name for him. Anyway, Willie only got into the service because Len saw that he did. The extraordinary link between these two men was first noticed on board ship. A Medical Officer who observed it had the sense to report it and fortunately the two were passed on up the line until they finished where they ought to have been from their babyhood, in the hands of our Professor Tabard who was then in Cambridge.’ He paused and Martin ventured to intervene.
    â€˜They broke entirely new ground, Helena. No one had recorded anything quite like them before.’
    â€˜They provided the missing ingredient,’ Mayo agreed. ‘In them, Nature had taken the one vital step forward and had provided us with the concrete physical phenomenon which made their communication capable of test. Willie had two birth-marks. It sounds damn silly but there they were. They were pale pink patches, one inside his left wrist and one beside his left eye. In the normal way there was nothing unusual about them and they weren’t very noticeable, but when Len Drummond sent his brother a message of warning—when he released an unfriendly impulse towards him—the birth marks changed colour and became deep livid bruises. Anyone could see them and they could be recorded. So you see it did not matter what Willie
thought,
or received by way of thought transference, because we had something more definite to go on. Distance did not appear to have much effect on the phenomenon and nor did one or two other more important location factors. As long as Len was in good health and was permitted to think about his brother (to see his photograph or hear his recorded voice—that sort of thing) then the thought was transferred. One could prove it and see it.’ He shook his head. ‘The positive signal was not so satisfactory. When Len sent an approving or