The Link by Richard Matheson Page A

which knowledge of it came to us, so that we were able to make provision for getting the supernormally acquired details definitely noted
beforehand
seem, to me, to make it a first-class case.”
    Cut back to Robert in his office, finishing his dictation, looking tired; it is late.
    “The experienced investigator W. H. Salter wrote a study of the two mediums in which he stated—” he reads, almost reluctantly, from a book, CAMERA PULLING UP FROM him. “If, as their sitters would affirm, a communicator with a well-marked personality, unknown during life to the medium, in messages continued year after year, never puts the mental or emotional emphasis wrong, never speaks out of character, it is hard to construct a plausible explanation out of subconscious inference and dramatization on the medium’s part, even if amplified by telepathy from the sitters.”
    CAMERA HAS STOPPED. Robert sits wearily below. He switches off the processor, exhales heavily. Silence. Then he mutters, “Why am I doing this? Why am I going so deeply into the one subject I want to avoid the most? Why?”
    He leans over onto his arms, CAMERA HOLDING for a moment, than SHOCK CUTTING TO:
    The outrageous Greenwich Village nightclub act of TEDDIE BERGER, 61, a small but powerful looking German American. The audience howls at his grotesque humor.
    He is in the very epicenter of his madness when his attention is uncontrollably drawn to the face of a woman at a nearby table.
    He tries to avoid what is happening but finally is compelled to tell her that her house is on fire.
    She laughs, thinking it part of his act.
    He tells her that it isn’t, she should call home, her house is on fire.
    She still isn’t sure if he’s kidding or not; the audience still laughs if somewhat tentatively now.
    Teddie explodes. “Damn it, this is not a part of my act!” he rages. “Go to a damn telephone and call your neighbor! Your house is on fire and your children are going to fry in their beds if you don’t save them in the next ten minutes!”

THREE
    R obert drives to New York City, parks and cabs to the ESPA offices where Cathy greets him warmly; they haven’t seen each other in a while but, clearly, still find one another attractive.
    Peter asks him how the outline is coming; like Cathy, he has read the early pages, likes them, has some notions on revision. Robert tells him that he’s just completed a section on Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Leonard.
    “Good,”
says Peter. “Mrs. Piper is a perfect illustration of what I was saying the other day about how difficult psychics have it. Can you visualize a man like
William James
treating the poor woman so barbarically—sticking needles into her flesh, holding match flames to her skin? Good God!”
    When Cathy presents her customary appraisal of the two mediums—“A prime example of telepathy”—Peter reminds her of information transmitted which nobody knew. “Somebody did,” she counters.
    “Yes!” says Peter, laughing. “But they were dead!”
    “Uh-huh,” says Cathy patiently. She comments, to Robert, that he is now in the section of his outline where, historically, the rise of psychical research was accompanied by a strong decline in Spiritualism which extends to the present.
    “None of us study mediumship per se any more,” she tells him.
    “Maybe that’s a blessing,” he responds.
    She looks at him curiously as Peter tells him why he called Robert. They’d like him to join “the team” at ESPA, at least while he is working on the outline; as long as he desires after that.
    “You seem the perfect sort to us,” Peter says. “A true skeptic opposing both a priori cynicism and naïve gullibility.”
    Robert hesitates, then accepts. Is it because ESPA represents science, not superstition? Because he likes Peter? Or does it have something to do with Cathy?
    Peter and Cathy are pleased by his decision and tell him that they hope he can attend, with them, a year-end convention in San Francisco. “If I’m