Schiml nodded gravely, adjusting the microvernier that controlled the probing instrument. "Of course it could be dangerous, but not too much so. Twenty years ago he'd have been dead already, but we haven't been wasting time all these years we've been waiting for him. Particularly in this cell-probing technique, we've ironed out the bugs. He'll survive, all right, unless we run into something mighty—"
Conroe shook his head. "Oh, no, no. I don't mean dangerous for him. I mean dangerous for us. Even he doesn't realize his power. How can we predict what sort of power it might be?" He looked up at Schiml, his eyes wide. "That room—it would have been gone in another five minutes, simply torn apart into molecular dust. He did it—and yet, I'd swear he didn't know what he was doing. I doubt if he even realized what was happening. And the fire—that was real fire, Roger. I know, I felt it burn me."
Schiml nodded eagerly. "Of course it was real fire! Set molecules to spinning at terrifically accelerated rates and you have fire. But those are the things we have to learn, Paul."
Conroe shook his head, fearfully. "We could both see the fire, but there was something else. You couldn't feel the hatred that was in that room. I could." He looked up, his eyes haunted. "God, Roger, how could a man hate that way? It was thick; it ran out into the room like syrup. Oh, I've felt hatred before in the minds I've contacted, many times. I've felt vile hatred before, but this was alive, crawling hate—" He sighed, his hands trembling. "It's in his mind, Roger. We don't know what else he might do, even under anesthetic, if we hit the right places. But it's in his mind. That we know. But why?"
Schiml nodded again. "That's the key question, of course. Why does he hate you so much? When we know that"—the doctor spread his hands—"we'll have the answer to twenty years' work, perhaps. And dangerous as it is, we've got to find out, while we have a chance, Paul. You know that. We can't stop now, not with what we know. We know that Jeff's insanity is far less active right now than his father's was. But unless we can locate the areas, find the location of both factors, the psychosis and the extra-sensory powers, we're lost. We'd have no recourse but to turn our findings over to the authorities. And you know what that would mean."
Conroe nodded wearily. "Yes, I know. Mass slaughter, sterilization, fear, panic—all the wrong answers. And even the panic alone would be fatal in our psychotic world."
Dr. Schiml shrugged and went back to the bedside. "We'll know soon, one way or the other," he said softly. "We're coming through right now."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The needle moved, probed ever so slightly, stimulating deep, deep in the soft, fragile tissue ... seeking, probing, recording. A twinge, the barest trace of shock, a sharp series of firing nerve cells, a flicker of light, a picture—Jeff Meyer shifted, his eyelids lowering very slightly, and a muscle in his jaw began twitching involuntarily....