He nodded. "I can make it worth your while," he said.
"How?" I asked.
"Money. You'll do anything for money." Redman looked at me soberly. "You're a repulsive little weasel, Cyril, and I would distrust you thoroughly except that I know you as well as you know me. That's the virtue of being human. We understand each other without words. You are a cheap, chiseling, doublecrossing, money-grabbing heel. You'd kick your mother's teeth out for a price. And for what I'm going to offer you, you'll jump at the chance to help us—but I don't have to tell you that. You know already."
"What do you mean—know already?" I said. "Can I read your mind?"
"Do you mean to tell me—" Redman began. And then a peculiar smile crossed his face, a light of dawning comprehension. "Why no," he said, "why should you be telepathic—why should you? And to think I kept hiding—" he broke off and looked at me with a superior look a man gives his dog. Affectionate but pitying. "No wonder there were no psych fields protecting that dice game—and I thought—" he started to laugh.
And I knew then why the Patrol had sealed Earth off. Mutated by radiation, speeded up in their evolution by the effects of the Blowup, Earthmen were as far ahead of us mentally as we were ahead of them technologically. To let these telepaths, these telekinetics—and God knows what else—loose on the Galaxy would be like turning a bunch of hungry kelats loose in a herd of fat sloats. My head buzzed like it was filled with a hive of bees. For the first time in years I stopped thinking of the main chance. So help me, I was feeling noble!
"Just take it easy, Cyril," Redman said. "Don't get any bright ideas."
Bright ideas! Ha! I should be getting bright ideas with a character who could read me like a book. What I needed was something else.
"If you cooperate," Redman said, "you'll be fixed for life."