question was asked, she fed the mechanism the answer she wanted it to give, along with the assurance that it was the truth. It usually was not the truth, but the mechanism believed it was. Psi sealed Telzey’s mind away otherwise both from the detector’s sensors and from crucial body contacts. There were no betraying physical reactions.
It took much more concentration than she liked—she’d still found no mental traces of Osselin, and a purposeful search probe absorbed concentration enough itself. But she needed time and was more likely to gain time if she kept their attention on her, away from Keth. He wasn’t being questioned directly, but Telzey suspected the detector was picking up readings from him through the chair to which he was fastened and comparing them with the readings it got from her. There was a slight glassiness in Keth’s look which indicated he’d gone into a self-induced trance as soon as the questions began, couldn’t hear either questions or answers, hence wasn’t affected by them. He’d said he could hold out against a lie detector by such means for a while. But a sophisticated detector had ways of dealing with hypnotic effects, and the COS machine obviously was an advanced model. She should keep it working away at her as long as possible.
The questions ended abruptly. Telzey drew a long, slow breath.
She might have caught a touch of Chan Osselin’s mind just then! She wasn’t sure. The stress of maintaining her defense against the detector had begun to blur her sensitivity.
The lie detector’s voice said, “Deboll does not respond to verbal stimuli at present. The cause can be analyzed if desired. Amberdon’s response to each question registered individually as truthful. The overall question-response pattern, however, shows a slight but definite distortion.”
“In other words,” Barrand said from behind Telzey, “she’s been lying.”
“That is the probability. The truth registration on individual questions is not a machine error. It remains unexplained.”
Barrand and Nelt moved into Telzey’s range of vision, looked down at her. Nelt shook his head.
“I don’t like that,” he said uneasily.
“Nor I,” said Barrand. “And we can’t be sure of what
It took much more concentration than she liked—she’d still found no mental traces of Osselin, and a purposeful search probe absorbed concentration enough itself. But she needed time and was more likely to gain time if she kept their attention on her, away from Keth. He wasn’t being questioned directly, but Telzey suspected the detector was picking up readings from him through the chair to which he was fastened and comparing them with the readings it got from her. There was a slight glassiness in Keth’s look which indicated he’d gone into a self-induced trance as soon as the questions began, couldn’t hear either questions or answers, hence wasn’t affected by them. He’d said he could hold out against a lie detector by such means for a while. But a sophisticated detector had ways of dealing with hypnotic effects, and the COS machine obviously was an advanced model. She should keep it working away at her as long as possible.
The questions ended abruptly. Telzey drew a long, slow breath.
She might have caught a touch of Chan Osselin’s mind just then! She wasn’t sure. The stress of maintaining her defense against the detector had begun to blur her sensitivity.
The lie detector’s voice said, “Deboll does not respond to verbal stimuli at present. The cause can be analyzed if desired. Amberdon’s response to each question registered individually as truthful. The overall question-response pattern, however, shows a slight but definite distortion.”
“In other words,” Barrand said from behind Telzey, “she’s been lying.”
“That is the probability. The truth registration on individual questions is not a machine error. It remains unexplained.”
Barrand and Nelt moved into Telzey’s range of vision, looked down at her. Nelt shook his head.
“I don’t like that,” he said uneasily.
“Nor I,” said Barrand. “And we can’t be sure of what