eep sleep, his head down suddenly on
the desk.

"Black," he cried, "are you all right? Shall I send a doctor to--"

"_No!_"

The young man raised his head. "I'm quite all right, Mr. Lawrence,
though slightly exhausted. Didn't sleep well last night. Sorry! I'll
ring you after I contact Dick Joyce."

"No names, please," Lawrence said. "I go into the hospital this
afternoon, Black. You'd better not contact me there. The doctor said
no business while I'm there. From now on you're on your own."

_Your own! He was drifting! He fought it...._

"Right, Mr. Lawrence. Goodbye!"

II

Martin Black _was_ tired. His consciousness had almost drifted off to
home again, back to that old mansion on the Hudson River which
Standskill had sold as directed under Black's mother's will. The old
house in which he was born, where he had first found that he could sit
in his room and send his consciousness questing down the hall to meet
his father when he came home, pry into what his father had brought for
him and surprise his parents later by invariably guessing correctly.

Sometimes now he wished that he hadn't "guessed" correctly so often in
those days. Then his uncle Ralph wouldn't have mentioned his unusual
ability to the Business Ethics Bureau and the psis wouldn't have
investigated him. Once they found that he had such mental
qualifications he had been sent to the Service Psi School, a virtual
prison despite his family's social status.

Anger suddenly choked him at the thought of what his uncle Ralph had
brought upon him. The psi training had been so rigid, so harsh at
times.

Well, of course they have to be sure that psis develop into useful
members of society. But couldn't they treat you more normally, more
humanly?

Now, perhaps he'd show them, repay them for the cruel years of a
lonely, bitter youth. He hadn't taken the Oath yet, and if he were
clever enough he'd never have to! The real estate lawyer in Los
Angeles with whom Lawrence was making a deal had evaded service
somehow, apparently. So it was possible.

He had learned long ago that money wouldn't buy him out of service.
He'd tried also to purchase certain liberties at school. Some of the
less scrupulous teachers had taken his allowance, but only one of them
had ever given him anything in return. And of course he couldn't
protest when he had violated Ethics to give the bribes. In any event,
no one would take the word of an untrained psi over the word of a
sta