Simple Psiman

Egan Rains sees the universe in two ways: through his telescope and inside other minds. A telepathic astronomer in a future India teeming with mentalists and mystics, he alone has spotted the comet racing toward Earth. The catch: stopping it requires a teleport powerful enough to nudge the cosmic wanderer off course, and she resides in a land where science is suspect and the mind's eye sees everything. Wallace weaves hard SF astronomy into something stranger: a world where ancient spiritual traditions and psychic abilities have merged with technological advancement, creating a society both familiar and deeply alien. Rains must navigate bureaucratic mentalists, locate a woman who can step between places, and prevent cosmic annihilation all while his rationalist worldviewcollapses against the reality of what human consciousness can do. The comet doesn't care about physics or faith, but the people of India might. Published in 1952, this novella stands as a fascinating artifact: an American imagination of India that manages to be both dated and oddly prescient, wrestling with questions about whether humanity's future lies in machines or in the untapped potential of the mind itself.