The Forerunners by Norman Arkawy and Stanley Henig _When a stellar navigator as gifted as Norman Arkawy finds a test pilot of Stanley Henig’s brilliance seated beside him on a journey to a star the cosmic mists are certain to roll back resplendently. True_, THE FORERUNNERS _does not take us on a stellar journey in a strictly literal sense. But it would be carping indeed to insist on that when the cybernetic regions explored therein are so galactic in scope, and so challengingly mysterious_. =The telepaths were a danger and a threat--to a world grown monstrous. But the human mind can unlock a multitude of doors.= He felt it when he awoke--the dull, persistent throbbing deep within his head--and he knew that no human mind would be closed to him today. For thirty-two of his thirty-four years Neville Brandt had been a normal person. He had risen rapidly in the Cybernetics Division of Central Metals, Inc., and was now one of the youngest experts in the country. But he was no longer normal. The throbbing continued while he dressed and while he ate his breakfast. It lingered with him during the drive to the jet port. It hung over him like a mantle of fire while he waited for the express, and it accompanied him aboard. The jet train screamed along the monorail toward East City. Brandt watched the landscape rush by in a blurred fantasia of color. He stared through the window at the fascinating smear until he became dizzy. And the painful throbbing pounded on in his skull. The express roared over the Appalachians, soaring up and through the man-made cuts and passes, and then sweeping down the eastern slope with its speed unabated. Still, the pain persisted. Suddenly it was gone. Brandt closed his eyes and relaxed into the cushions of his seat, the absence of the nagging pain soothing him like a balm. With his eyes shut, and smiling to himself, he sent telepathic feelers into the minds of his neighbors on the train. Gently, experimentally, his mental fingers touched one mind, then another. Reception was good. Brandt arrived at Centrals at his usual time. He entered his office and greeted the same busy assemblage of secretaries, clerks and assistants he encountered every morning. Then he promptly settled into his customary work routine. But there was nothing usual about the way Brandt spent the first few minutes on this particular morning. He was testing his telepathic capacity. He reached out carefully, extending himself until his mind shrieked in agony. Then, with as precise a mental movement as he could manage, he began to slowly extend fringes of his power until he scooped up impressions from the restaurant at the far end of the street. He held a waiter’s thoughts for a moment, then let them go. He probed further, to the bank on the next block. But all he could pick up was a monotonous hum of unintelligible noise. He sagged against the back of his chair until the pounding in his head eased.