The Right Time Read online

help break it up. Maragon's blood stream is not eroding the clot.Perhaps it has a sort of envelope of firmer fibrin around it,something that keeps it from breaking down. The question is whetheryou are sensitive enough, and have enough control, to get a good gripon the clot, and start breaking it up by tearing away at its surface.It certainly has very little mechanical strength, and you have severalgrams of TK in the lab. What do you think?"

  The whole idea scared the devil out of her, but we went back toMaragon's room together, where she felt for the clot with a newoutlook on the problem. After some minutes she nodded, and we went outin the corridor to put our heads together.

  "I think I can do it, Lefty," she said. "But what if something goeswrong?"

  "It won't," I said. "Evaleen Riley says that he isn't going to die,and I believe her."

  "O.K.," said Doc Swartz. "I'll put it up to him."

  "I'd put it this way," he said to Maragon, when we had gone back intohis room. "We can keep you here in bed for a while, but sooner orlater you are going to feel well enough to leave, and we won't be ableto make you stay. The first time you do anything that gets your heartgoing a little faster than it does lying here, that clot will breakloose and kill you."

  "The big thing," I reminded him, "is that Evaleen can't find that youare going to die. That argues that we are going to succeed."

  "And this witch?" Maragon asked, moving his head slightly to indicatePheola.

  "No reading at all for the next couple days," I said. "She's aperiodic PC."

  "I'll bet!" he said. He was beginning to feel better. "Well, goahead."

  Pheola went over to his side, carefully pulled the blanket down, andwith help from the nurse, drew his gown down from over his hairychest. She laid hands on him and stood there for many minutes with hereyes closed.

  "I'm doing it," she said at last. "I have sort of peeled off the top,and I can shred it away, a little at a time."

  "How long will this take?" Maragon grumbled, already beginning tosound more like his old self.

  "A couple hours," she said. "And hush!"

  At Doc Swartz's suggestion I stayed there with Pheola. "She depends onyou, Lefty," he whispered.

  Toward the end of the two hours they were giving Pete anti-coagulantinjections. "No sense letting another clot form just as soon as Pheolabreaks up this one," Swartz said. "This way we have a good chance thatthe open wound will form some scar tissue. Sure, the artery will havelost some flexibility, but the danger of another coronary will bepast."

  They consider the first six days the danger time. At the end of thatperiod Pheola confirmed that the open sore was gone and that bothareas of clotting had been repaired by Maragon's body's ownrestorative processes. They let him out of the hospital at the end ofanother week.

  * * * * *

  I went to see him with Pheola the first day that he spent back at hisdesk. He didn't seem in any way changed by his ordeal. I suppose, whenyou live as close to all the manifestations of Psi as Pete does, thatvery little can surprise you.

  "Well, young woman," he said to her, getting up to bring her one ofhis Bank of England chairs. "The sawbones tell me I have you to thankfor my life. And better than that, they feel there are a number ofdelicate TK's around who can be trained in your diagnostic techniques.This ought to be quite a thing in preventing coronaries."

  "Thank you," she said. "I was so frightened that I would let Leftydown a second time."

  "A second time?" he said.

  "I was wrong about your dying," she reminded him. "I'm wrong so muchin my predictions. I guess I'll just have to forget about that."

  * * * * *

  He looked over at me. "What about it, Lefty? Can we consider Pheola aPC, or is she merely a TK?"

  I grinned at him. "She is probably the most accurate PC in the Lodge,"I said to him. His eyebrows went up, and Pheola shook her head.

  "Accurate," I repeated, "if you'll let me define accuracy."

  "Define it."

  "According with some definite series of future events," I said."That's my definition."

  "But I thought you said she's only right now and then," Maragonprotested.

  "I said a 'definite series of events.' Unfortunately, the series ofevents that Pheola predicts are in a different space-time continuum,"I explained. "You have to consider that we are passing through time ina helix. The events that Pheola predicts are in a different helix. Thetwo helices are all snarled together, and at certain times our coil oftime intersects her coil. Then she's right, because events in the twocontinua are the same. We can predict when she's going to be right forour helix, which is a small part of the time, but that part we canuse."

  He gave me an owlish look. "Philadelphia lawyer," he said. "No otherPC is geared in to the same space-time continuum that Pheola predicts,I suppose, so that means there is no way to test whether she was rightor wrong about events in that other time."

  "None," I agreed. "But my theory is the only one that holds any water,so far. It works. It permits us to predict when Pheola can predict. Iclaim she qualifies for the Tenth Degree."

  "Maybe so," he said. "Well, young woman, welcome to Membership in theLodge." He held out his hand, which she took. "Tell me," he went on,"what's the next big thing you predict?"

  Pheola smiled over at me. "Lefty is going to take me to theorthodontist this afternoon," she said. "He wants me to have my teethstraightened before we get married."

  I'll say one thing for her, right or wrong, she never got off the loudpedal on _that_ prediction.

  * * * * *