Foundation by Marco Guarda Read Free Book Online Page B

replied Trumaine, flatly.
    The puzzled sergeant scratched the top of his head as the detective walked past him.

    At least a dozen doors opened at either side of the corridor. Trumaine came to a small waiting room at the end of it. It contained a few chairs and a beautiful fern that looked too perfect to be real. Only one door gave on the waiting room and its brass nameplate read: CPT. GRANT FIRRELL .
    Trumaine stopped in front of the door and knocked.
    “Enter!” said a voice within.
    He opened the door and went in.

    “A what?!”
    Firrell had almost shouted at hearing the word. He had lifted his eyes from the document he was reading and stared at Trumaine with shock.
    Firrell’s office was medium-sized. One of the few in the level with a real window and a real view, through which real sunlight came in. Sparsely furnished, all that was personal—career achievements, mentions, encomia and a few strategic pictures portraying Firrell with the people who counted for something in the force—all had been confined to a solitary corner.
    The only pleasure the captain had conceded for himself was a small coffee machine standing behind him, along with a water dispenser.
    Firrell reached out feverishly for a glass of water. He gulped it, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his suit’s jacket. Only then did he dare look up at Trumaine a second time.
    “A what?!” he repeated, making sure he hadn’t heard wrong.
    “A telepath, Grant,” said Trumaine patiently.
    He was now sitting on a design chair in front of Firrell. A billowing cup of still untasted coffee lay on his side of the table.
    The captain rolled his eyes and groaned.
    “Of all the queer things I’ve heard in my life this is, by far, the queerest, I swear,” he snarled. “A telepath. And you say it was Benedict who suggested it?”
    “At first, he wouldn’t hear any reasons,” explained Trumaine. “According to him, Credence had nothing to do with the murder, it was just not possible. The feed, the way the system works, the way data is handled, everything was foolproof and watertight, and I was just wrong to suspect them.”
    He lunged for the coffee and took a sip before it got too cold. It wasn’t bad, compared with what the coffee dispensers served. All the same, he couldn’t get off his tongue the vague aftertaste of burned rubber.
    “It took a lot of prodding,” continued Trumaine, “before Benedict admitted that only a special individual with special skills could have done it: a telepath. According to Benedict, a telepath could have hijacked the believers and had them do anything he wanted, including flushing him in and out of the Jarvas’ bunker. He threw in a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts,’ but I think the threat he had in mind was real enough to him. I think he’s scared stiff to have a telepath roaming free in his Credence.”
    “Well, I can’t blame him,” said Firrell. “But I still don’t understand—is telepathy even possible?”
    Trumaine shrugged.
    “Credence uses believers’ minds to take starships to places obsolete technology would never dream of. More than half a million individuals travel across the universe using Credence’s services. Do they give a damn about how that is achieved? Do they crack their heads over how it all works? No. Do we? We don’t, either. We’re just contented to use the technology we have at hand, that’s all that matters to us. If I told you about something like Credence before Jarva made his discoveries, you would have laughed in my face. What would we do now without Credence?”
    He took another sip from his almost cold coffee.
    “What do we really know about our brain? What do we know about our skills? Very little. Until today, telepaths only existed in science fiction novels. What lunacy is in store for us, next? I don’t know, nobody knows. Let’s just keep our eyes open and get ready to ride it when it comes ...”
    Trumaine finished his coffee with a shiver of disgust, then watched the