Malone expectantly.

Malone shrugged. "Well, if I can't carry the thing around, I guess
that's that," he said. "But here's the next question: Do you happen to
know the maximum range of a telepath? I mean: How far away can he get
from another person and still read his mind?"

Dr. O'Connor frowned again. "We don't have definite information on that,
I'm afraid," he said. "Poor little Charlie was rather difficult to work
with. He was mentally incapable of co-operating in any way, you see."

"Little Charlie?"

"Charles O'Neill was the name of the telepath we worked with," Dr.
O'Connor explained.

"I remember," Malone said. The name had been on one of the tapes, but he
just hadn't associated "Charles O'Neill" with "Little Charlie." He felt
as if he'd been caught with his homework undone. "How did you manage to
find him, anyway?" he said. Maybe, if he knew how Westinghouse had found
their imbecile-telepath, he'd have some kind of clue that would enable
him to find one, too. Anyhow, it was worth a try.

"It wasn't difficult in Charlie's case," Dr. O'Connor said. He smiled.
"The child babbled all the time, you see."

"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