Read They'd Rather Be Right for Free Online Page A

years. From the sidelines he had watched Joe get through primary and secondary schools.
    He had marveled at the continued, never-breaking concealment the boy practiced in covering his unique tal-ent. But concealment breeds distrust. The boy grew up friendless and alone.
    Every year Billings had reviewed the grades which Joe had made. They were uniformly, monotonously, equivalent of C. He was determined to be neither sharp nor dull; determined that he would do nothing to make anyone notice him for any reason. As if his life, itself, depended upon remaining unnoticed.
    Both his high school associates and Joe’s parents were astonished when Hoxworth University offered him a scholarship. It wasn’t much of a scholarship, true, for Joe’s parents had no influence and Joe was not an athlete. Since there would be neither prestige nor financial return to the University, it hadn’t been easy, but Billings had managed it, and without revealing the reasons for it.
    He paused and caught his breath in the hallway at the top of the first flight of stairs, and then resumed his upward climb. They could talk all they pleased about how hale and hearty he was at seventy, but two flights of stairs
    Twelve years. That would make Joe about twenty now. The last three years had been at Hoxworth.
    And Joe had been as colorless in college as in high school.
    Billings had tried, many times, to draw him out, make him flare into life. He had shown infinite patience; he had strived to radiate sympathy and understanding. Joe Carter had remained polite, friendly, appreciative—and closed. Billings had tried to show community of spirit, transcending the fifty years gap in their ages—and Joe had remained respectful, con-siderate, and aware of the honor of personal friendship from such a famous man. If Joe had known who wheedled a scholarship for him, he had never shown the knowledge.
    Tonight Billings would try a different method. Tonight he would sink to the common level of the mean in spirit. He would demand acknowledgment and some repayment for his benefaction.
    He hesitated in front of the wooden paneled door, almost withdrew back down the stairs in preference to portraying himself in such a petty light; and then before he could make up his mind to give it up, he knocked.
     
    The door opened, almost immediately, as if Joe had been waiting for the knock. The boy’s face was withdrawn and expressionless, as usual. Yet Billings felt there was a greater wariness than usual.
    “Come in, doctor,” Joe said. “I heard you coming up the stairs. I’ve just made some coffee.”
    Two chairs were placed at the pitiful little table; two heavy china cups wreathed vapor. A battered coffeepot sat on a gas plate. The housekeeping was light, indeed.
    The two of them sat down in chairs, straight hard chairs and picked up the mugs of coffee.
    “I’m in trouble, Joe,” Billings began. “I need your help.” Somehow he felt that an immediate opening, without preliminary fencing, would be more appreci-ated. And on this basis, he proceeded into the story of the newest order he had just received that afternoon from Rogan. He made no effort, either, to draw Joe out, to get the boy to acknowledge his talent of telepathy. Billings took it for granted, and became aware as he progressed that Joe was making no effort to deny it.
    That, at least, was hopeful. He switched suddenly to a frontal approach, although he knew that young men usually resented it when an older man, particularly a successful one, did it.
    “Have you given any thought, Joe, to what you intend to do with your life? Any way you can turn your gift into constructive use?”
    “A great deal, of course,” Joe answered without hesitation. “In that, at least, I’m no different from the average fellow. You want me to work with you on this synthetic brain, don’t you, doctor? You think I may have some understanding you lack? Is that it?”
    “Yes, Joe.”
    “It could destroy the human race, you