The Complete Stories_ Volume 1 - Isaac Asimov [39]
"No."
"Surely you don't expect sensitive and superior creatures such as the elves to watch a group of hairy mammals outdo them. It wouldn't be so bad if we could imitate the electronic development ourselves, but our psychic energies were insufficient for the purpose. Well, we retreated from reality. We sulked, pined and drooped. Call it an inferiority complex, if you will, but from two centuries ago onward, we slowly abandoned mankind and retreated to such centers as Avalon." Prentiss thought furiously. "Let's get this straight. You can handle minds?"
"Certainly."
"You can make me think you're invisible? Hypnotically, I mean?"
"A crude term, but yes."
"And when you appeared just now, you did it by lifting a kind of mental block. Is that it?"
"To answer your thoughts, rather than your words: You are not sleeping; you are not mad; and I am not supernatural."
"I was just making sure. I take it, then, you can read my mind."
"Of course. It is a rather dirty and unrewarding sort of labor, but I can do it when I must. Your name is Prentiss and you write imaginative fiction. You have one larva who is at a place of instruction. I know a great deal about you." Prentiss winced. "And just where is Avalon?"
"You won't find it." The elf clacked his mandibles together two or three times. "Don't speculate on the possibility of warning the authorities. You'll find yourself in a madhouse. Avalon, in case you think the knowledge will help you, is in the middle of the Atlantic and quite invisible, you know. After the steamboat was invented, you man-things got to moving about so unreasonably that we had to cloak the whole island with a psychic shield.
"Of course, incidents will take place. Once a huge, barbaric vessel hit us dead center and it took all the psychic energy of the entire population to give the island the appearance of an iceberg. The Titanic, I believe, was the name printed on the vessel. And nowadays there are planes flying overhead all the time and sometimes there are crashes. We picked up cases of canned milk once. That's when I tasted it."
Prentiss said, "Well, then, damn it, why aren't you still on Avalon? Why did you leave?"
"I was ordered to leave," said the elf angrily. "The fools."
"Oh?"
"You know how it is when you're a little different. I'm not like the rest of them and the poor tradition-ridden fools resented it. They were jealous. That's the best explanation. Jealous!"
"How are you different?"
"Hand me that light bulb," said the elf. "Oh, just unscrew it. You don't need a reading lamp in the daytime." With a quiver of repulsion, Prentiss did as he was told and passed the object into the little hands of the elf. Carefully, the elf, with fingers so thin and wiry that they looked like tendrils, touched the bottom and side of the brass base. Feebly the filament in the bulb reddened.
"Good God," said Prentiss.
"That," said the elf proudly, "is my great talent. I told you that we elves couldn't adapt psychic energy to electronics. Well, I can! I'm not just an ordinary elf. I'm a mutant! A super-elf! I'm the next stage in elfin evolution. This light is due just to the activity of my own mind, you know. Now watch when I use yours as a focus." As he said that, the bulb's filament grew white hot and painful to look at, while a vague and not unpleasant tickling sensation entered Prentiss' skull.
The lamp went out and the elf put the bulb on the desk behind the typewriter.
"I haven't tried," said the elf proudly, "but I suspect I can fission uranium too."
"But look here, lighting a bulb takes energy. You can't just hold it—"
"I've told you about psychic energy. Great Oberon, man-thing, try to understand." Prentiss felt increasingly uneasy; he said cautiously, "What do you intend doing with this gift of yours?"
"Go back