Science fiction; Spy stories; Telepathy -- Fiction; United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation -- Fiction
"I remember," Malone said. The name had been on one of the tapes, but
he just hadn't associated "Charles O'Neill" with "Little Charlie." He
felt as if he'd been caught with his homework undone. "How did you
manage to find him, anyway?" he said. Maybe, if he knew how
Westinghouse had found their imbecile-telepath, he'd have some kind of
clue that would enable him to find one, too. Anyhow, it was worth a
try.
"It wasn't difficult in Charlie's case," Dr. O'Connor said. He smiled.
"The child babbled all the time, you see."
"You mean he talked about being a telepath?"
Dr. O'Connor shook his head impatiently. "No," he said. "Not at all. I
mean that he babbled. Literally. Here: I've got a sample recording in
my files." He got up from his chair and went to the tall gray filing
cabinet that hid in a far corner of the pine-paneled room. From a
drawer he extracted a spool of common audio tape, and returned to his
desk.
"I'm sorry we didn't get full video on this," he said, "but we didn't
feel it was necessary." He opened a panel in the upper surface of the
desk, and slipped the spool in. "If you like, there are other tapes--"
"Maybe later," Malone said.
Dr. O'Connor nodded and pressed the playback switch at the side of the
great desk. For a second the room was silent.
Then there was the hiss of empty tape, and a brisk masculine voice
that overrode it:
"Westinghouse Laboratories," it said, "sixteen April nineteen-seventy.
Dr. Walker speaking. The voice you are about to hear belongs to
Charles O'Neill: chronological age fourteen years, three months;
mental age, approximately five years. Further data on this case will
be found in the file _O'Neill_."
There was a slight pause, filled with more tape hiss.
Then the voice began.
"... push the switch for record ... in the park last Wednesday ... and
perhaps a different set of ... poor kid never makes any sense in ...
trees and leaves all sunny with the ... electronic components of the
reducing stage might be ... not as predictable when others are around
but ... to go with Sally some night in the...."
It was a childish, alto voice, gabbling in a monotone. A phrase would
be spoken, the voice would hesitate for just an instant, and then
another, totally disconnected phrase would come. The enunciation and
pronunciation would vary from phrase to phrase, but the tone remained
essentially the same, drained of all emotional content.
"... in receiving psychocerebral impulses there isn't any ...
nonsense and nothing but nonsense all the ... tomorrow or maybe
Saturday with the girl ... tube might be replaceable only if . . .
something ought to be done for the . . . Saturday would be a good time
for ... work on the schematics tonight if...."
There was a click as the tape was turned off, and Dr. O'Connor looked
up.
"It doesn't make much sense," Malone said. "But the kid sure has a
hell of a vocabulary for an imbecile."
"Vocabulary?" Dr. O'Connor said softly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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