By Mind Alone
Larry Niven, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, June, 1966.
part 6
We got the story out of him. Pat’s parents had been watching television when they’d heard a scream from the next room. They’d rushed in to find Pat on the floor, already unconscious, with a blazing fever. The doctor was there now.
“I’m going after her,” said Lou Dugan.
“Take the car!” Larsen ordered. “Don’t try and more teleporting.”
Lou went outside and we heard his car starting. The rest of us stayed, but not in any party mood. Had Pat strained her powers, or weakened some unknown and unguessed region in her brain? There was no real evidence for it, but most of us were convinced that Pat was sick because she had teleported. Larsen obviously thought so. His air of clownish good humor was gone. He sat on the couch and silently worried.
Hal an hour later we called again.
When the doctor arrived Pat had a temperature of one hundred and four. Her cheeks were flaming red, and the touch of her skin burned. The doctor refused to make a diagnosis, saying that all of her symptoms seemed to proceed directly from the fever. Now the fever had dropped to an even hundred.
Another half hour before our next call. The fever was falling with unlikely speed. It was down to ninety-nine point one. Pat had been conscious for a few minutes, and the doctor had immediately given her a sedative. He knew about our experiments with teleportation, and he didn’t want Pat going anywhere in her present condition. It was typical of Pat that she had left orders for the party to go on without her. But that didn’t seem right. People began leaving by twos and fours. Larsen was still on the couch, looking like the Thinker now, or like a math student beating his head against an exam problem that won’t come right.
In this Sunday series of posts I will be “re-publishing” pulp science fiction short stories that have long since gone out of print. When possible I will seek out author’s and estates for permission.
