He bounced the rubber ball. It bounced a few times and subsided, after a couple of helpful Astronauts had prevented it from rolling off the edge of the table. He tossed the coin about a dozen times and rolled the dice about a dozen times, to prove that the falls were at random. All the while, he gave out a tired, monotonous spiel about the laws of chance.
Then Dori came out. She was too thin to be pretty, but there was a childish appeal about her. She had big, dark eyes in a sad little face, and almost colorless hair. She impressed me not at all. What held me then was that something obviously was to be done with dice.
The old man bounced the ball again. Dori stood a little way from the table and did nothing but keep her eyes on the bouncing ball. It bounced. It kept bouncing. It did not slow down. At the top of each arc, something invisible seemed to give it an additional downward push, so that it did not stop. When it drifted toward the edge of the table, something invisible seemed to guide it gently but forcefully back to the center.
The old man tossed the coin. Dori watched it silently as it spun in a sparkling arc. It fell heads. He tossed it again. It fell heads. As long as anyone at the table still doubted—nineteen times, I think—he tossed the coin and it fell heads.
The old man rolled the dice. Dori watched them as they rolled. They fell seven. He rolled them again. They fell seven. This time I counted. Twenty-two times he rolled the dice, and twenty-two times they fell seven. Then someone called for an eight, and they fell eight.
The act ended on a farcical note, with water jumping from a glass to splash the shirt front of Gerss, the club president. Gerss, whose shirt was well stuffed, didn't appear to appreciate it much, but the others roared. Then Dori and her father retired—and I was up from the table, nearly upsetting my chair, to follow them.
Most of the other members of the Astronaut Club undoubtedly thought the act was a clever piece of legerdemain. But I knew the power Dori possessed, for I had read much about it and had yearned for it myself.
Obviously, Dori had strong psychokinetic ability. If you are not familiar with that, Mr. Peache, it is the ability to manipulate physical things by means of the mind alone. It is still a subject for investigation, but it was a quality that Dori possessed beyond any doubt.
I caught up with them in the next room, waiting; for Greene, our club secretary, was a cautious man and never paid entertainers in advance. When Dori's father realized I was not the man bringing his money to him, he sat down disconsolately in a straight-backed chair and let me talk to Dori without interruption. Probably he had been through this before.