"You mean he talked about being a telepath?"
Dr. O'Connor shook his head impatiently. "No," he said. "Not at all. I mean that he babbled. Literally. Here: I've got a sample recording in my files." He got up from his chair and went to the tall gray filing cabinet that hid in a far corner of the pine-paneled room. From a drawer he extracted a spool of common audio tape, and returned to his desk.
"I'm sorry we didn't get full video on this," he said, "but we didn't feel it was necessary." He opened a panel in the upper surface of the desk, and slipped the spool in. "If you like, there are other tapes—"
"Maybe later," Malone said.
Dr. O'Connor nodded and pressed the playback switch at the side of the great desk. For a second the room was silent.
Then there was the hiss of empty tape, and a brisk masculine voice that overrode it:
"Westinghouse Laboratories," it said, "sixteen April nineteen-seventy. Dr. Walker speaking. The voice you are about to hear belongs to Charles O'Neill: chronological age fourteen years, three months; mental age, approximately five years. Further data on this case will be found in the file O'Neill."
There was a slight pause, filled with more tape hiss.
Then the voice began.
"… push the switch for record … in the park last Wednesday … and perhaps a different set of … poor kid never makes any sense in … trees and leaves all sunny with the … electronic components of the reducing stage might be … not as predictable when others are around but … to go with Sally some night in the…."