It's a strange sort of sensation, and more than a little scary the first time you experience it. Even a hundred miles apart. Calvin and I were now close enough that it was no longer possible to block our surface thoughts from each other: to tune each other out, so to speak. It's the same thing that happens when a telepath and human are only two or three feet apart, but with the extra complication that it's a true two-way communication. If the plane now suddenly turned due south and Calvin and I got even closer...

but that wasn't something I wanted to think about.

Of course, as long as you didn't panic, the effortless communication provided by a close approach was a good opportunity to talk. Calvin and I spent quite some time doing just that, discussing life in general and ourselves and our fellow telepaths in particular. But he couldn't hide his curiosity about my sudden trip, just as I couldn't hide my somewhat perverse decision to make him bring up the subject first.

Calvin cracked first. All right, you win, he said at last. You're not going to Vegas just to say good-bye to Amos-I can tell that much. So?

You're right. I explained as best I could the questions I had about Amos's death-not an easy task, since a lot of my feelings hadn't really made it to verbal level yet.

He mulled at the problem for a bit after I finished, his thoughts an orderly flow of questions, possibility, and logic. Interesting, he said. I agree; something here doesn't ring quite true. I don't know, though.

Suppose one of the hijackers recognized Amos, decided to kill him to cover their trail, and threatened to kill some of the other passengers too unless Amos went quietly? He was nobler than the rest of us put together, and I could see him giving in under those circumstances.