Ray nodded. “You’re right.”

“And—what about when he’s actually killed?” She shuddered.

“We’ll see what happens then,” Ray said quietly. “We don’t know.”

To Bogart Crofts, Secretary of State Douglas Herrick said, “I think you’re wrong, Boge. The girl may be Meritan’s mistress but that doesn’t mean she knows.”

“We’ll wait for Mr. Lee to tell us,” Crofts said irritably. “When she gets to Havana he’ll be waiting to meet her.”

“Mr. Lee can’t scan Meritan direct?”

“One telepath scan another?” Bogart Crofts smiled at the thought. It conjured up a nonsensical situation: Mr. Lee reading Meritan’s mind, and Meritan, also being a telepath, would read Mr. Lee’s mind and discover that Mr. Lee was reading his mind, and Lee, reading Meritan’s mind, would discover that Meritan knew—and so forth. Endless regression, winding up with a fusion of minds, within which Meritan carefully guarded his thoughts so that he did not think about Wilbur Mercer.

“It’s the similarity of names that convinces me,” Herrick said. “Meritan, Mercer. The first three letters—?”

Crofts said, “Ray Meritan is not Wilbur Mercer. I’ll tell you how we know. Over at CIA, we made an Ampex video tape from Mercer’s telecast, had it enlarged and analyzed. Mercer was shown against the usual dismal background of cactus plants and sand and rock… you know.”

“Yes,” Herrick said, nodding. “The Wilderness, as they call it.”

“In the enlargement something showed up in the sky. It was studied. It’s not Luna. It’s a moon, but too small to be Luna. Mercer is not on Earth. I would guess that he is not a terrestrial at all.”

Bending down, Crofts picked up a small metal box, carefully avoiding the two handles. “And these were not designed and built on Earth. The entire Mercer Movement is null-T all the way, and that’s the fact we’ve got to contend with.”

Herrick said, “If Mercer is not a Terran, then he may have suffered and even died before, on other planets.”

“Oh, yes,” Crofts said. “Mercer—or whatever his or its real name is—may be highly experienced in this. But we still don’t know what we want to know.” And that of course was, What happens to those people holding onto the handles of their empathy boxes?

Crofts seated himself at his desk and scrutinized the box resting directly before him, with its two inviting handles. He had never touched them, and he never intended to. But—

“How soon will Mercer die?” Herrick asked.

“They’re expecting it some time late next week.”

“And Mr. Lee will have gotten something from the girl’s mind by then, you think? Some clue as to where Mercer really is?”

“I hope so,” Crofts said, still seated at the empathy box but still not touching it. It must be a strange experience, he thought, to place your hands on two ordinary-looking metal handles and find, all at once, that you’re no longer yourself; you’re another man entirely, in another place, laboring up a long, dreary inclined plain toward certain extinction. At least, so they say. But hearing about it… what does that actually convey? Suppose I tried it for myself.

The sense of absolute pain… that was what appalled him, held him back.

It was unbelievable that people could deliberately seek it out, rather than avoiding it. Gripping the handles of the empathy box was certainly not the act of a person seeking escape. It was not the avoidance of something but the seeking of something. And not the pain as such; Crofts knew better than to suppose that the Mercerites were simple masochists who desired discomfort. It was, he knew, the meaning of the pain which attracted Mercer’s followers.

The followers were suffering from something.

Aloud, he said to his superior, “They want to suffer as a means of denying their private, personal existences. It’s a communion in which they all suffer and experience Mercer’s ordeal together.” Like the Last Supper, he thought. That’s the real key: the communion, the participation that is behind all religion. Or ought to be. Religion binds men together in a sharing, corporate body, and leaves everyone else on the outside.

Herrick said, “But primarily it’s a political movement, or must be treated as such.”

“From our standpoint,” Crofts agreed. “Not theirs.”

The intercom on the desk buzzed and his secretary said, “Sir, Mr. John Lee is here.”

“Tell him to come in.”

The tall, slender young Chinese entered, smiling, his hand out. He wore an old-fashioned single-breasted suit and pointed black shoes. As they shook hands, Mr. Lee said, “She has not left for Havana, has she?”

“No,” Crofts said.

“Is she pretty?” Mr. Lee said.

“Yes,” Crofts said, with a smile at Herrick. “But—difficult. The snappish kind of woman. Emancipated, if you follow me.”

“Oh, the suffragette type,” Mr. Lee said, smiling. “I detest that type of female. It will be hard going, Mr. Crofts.”

“Remember,” Crofts said, “your job is simply to be converted. All you have to do is listen to her propaganda about Zen Buddhism, learn to ask a few questions such as, ‘Is this stick the Buddha?’ and expect a few inexplicable blows on the head—a Zen practice, I understand, supposed to instill sense.”

With a broad grin, Mr. Lee said, “Or to instill nonsense. You see, I am prepared. Sense, nonsense; in Zen it’s the same thing.” He became sober, now. “Of course, I myself am a Communist,” he said. “The only reason I’m doing this is because the Party at Havana has taken the official stand that Mercerism is dangerous and must be wiped out.” He looked gloomy. “I must say, these Mercerites are fanatics.”

“True,” Crofts agreed. “And we must work for their extinction.” He pointed to the empathy box. “Have you ever—?”

“Yes,” Mr. Lee said. “It’s a form of punishment. Self-imposed, no doubt for reasons of guilt. Leisure gleans such emotions from people if it is properly utilized; otherwise not.”

Crofts thought, This man has no understanding of the issues at all. He’s a simple materialist. Typical of a person born in a Communist family, raised in a Communist society. Everything is either black or white.

“You’re mistaken,” Mr. Lee said; he had picked up Crofts’ thought.

Flushing, Crofts said, “Sorry, I forgot. No offense.”

“I see in your mind,” Mr. Lee said, “that you believe Wilbur Mercer, as he calls himself, may be non-T. Do you know the Party’s position on this question? It was debated just a few days ago. The Party takes the stand that there are no non-T races in the solar system, that to believe remnants of once-superior races still exist is a form of morbid mysticism.”

Crofts sighed. “Deciding an empirical issue by vote—deciding it on a strictly political basis. I can’t understand that.”

At that point, Secretary Herrick spoke up, soothing both men. “Please, let’s not become sidetracked by theoretical issues on which we don’t all agree. Let’s stick to basics—the Mercerite Party and its rapid growth all over the planet.”

Mr. Lee said, “You are right, of course.”