The World of Ptavvs

Read The World of Ptavvs for Free Online Page B

Book: Read The World of Ptavvs for Free Online
Authors: Larry Niven
Tags: Science-Fiction, adventure, Fantasy, High Tech
can't follow him. Luke, have you got some reason to think he doesn't like cities?"
    Luke nodded. Judy thought he looked like the oldest man in the world. His face was as wrinkled as Satan's. He rode a ground-effect travel chair as powerful as a personal tank. "I've been expecting something like this for years," he said. "Lloyd, do you remember when the Fertility Laws went into force, and I told you that a lot of homicidal nuts would start killing bachelors who had gotten permits to have children? And it happened. This is like that. I thought it might happen on Jinx, but it happened here instead.
    "Larry Greenberg thinks he's an alien."
    Judy was stunned. "But he's done this before," she protested.
    "No." Garner drew a lit cigarette from the arm of his chair. "He hasn't. He's worked with men and dolphins. Now he's run into something he can't take. I've got a hunch what it is, and I'd give my wheel chair" --Judy looked, but it didn't have wheels-- "to know if I'm right.
    "Mrs. Greenberg. Has your husband ever been asked to read the mind of a telepath?"
    Mutely Judy shook her head.
    "So," said Garner. Again he looked like he'd gone to sleep, this time with a cigarette burning between his fingers. His hands were huge, with muscles showing beneath the loose, mottled skin, and his shoulders belonged on a blacksmith. The contrast between Gamer's massive torso and his helpless, almost fleshiess legs made him look a little like a bald ape. He came to life, sucked in a massive dose of smoke, and went on talking.
    "Lloyd's men got here about fifteen minutes after Larry Greenberg left. Trimonti called the cops, of course; nobody else could move. Lloyd himself was here in another ten. When he saw the wounds on the men Greenberg shot, he called me in Brussels.
    "I'm an Arm, a member of the UN Technological Police. There was a chance the weapon that made those wounds would have to be suppressed. Certainly it needed investigation. So my first interest was the weapon.
    "I don't suppose either of you ever heard of Buck Rogers? No? Too bad. Then I'll just say that noihing in our present technology could have led to a weapon like this.
    "It does not destroy matter, which is reassuring. Rewriting one law of physics is worse than trying to eat one peanut. The weapon scatters matter. Lloyd's men found traces of blood and flesh and bone forming a greasy layer all over the room. Not merely microscopic traces, but clumps too small to see at all.
    "Trimonti's testimony was a godsend. Obviously the Sea Statue dropped the weapon, and Greenberg used it.
    Why?"
    Masney rumbled, "Get to the point, Luke."
    "Okay, here it comes. The contact helmet is a very complicated psionics device. One question the psychologists have wondered about is this. Why don't the contact men get more confused when extraneous memories pour in? Usually there's a few minutes of confusion, and then everything straightens out. They say it's because the incoming memories are weak and fuzzy, but that's only half an answer. It may even be a result, not a cause.
    "Picture it. Two men sit down under crystal-iron helmets, and when one of them gets up he has two complete sets of memories. Which one is him?
    "Well, one set remembers a different body from the one he finds himself in. More important, one set remembers being a telepath and the other doesn't! One set remembers sitting down under a contact helmet with the foreknowledge that when her gets up he will have two sets of memories. Naturally the contact man will behave as if that set were his own. Even with eight or ten different memory sets, the contact man will automatically use his own.
    "Well, let's say the Sea Statue is a telepath. Not a telepathy-prone, like Larry Greenberg, but a full telepath, able to read any mind whenever be chooses. Suddenly all bets are off. Greenberg wakes with two sets of memories, and one set remembers reading hundreds of other minds, or thousands! Got it?"
    "Yes. Oh, yes," said Judy. "I warned him something

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