se he plucked the name from my
mind. But he didn't probe--or did he?_

"Dick, do you register?" _With the mind now--cautiously!_

"Yes, Marty."

_Pretend you're my personal friend, Dick. There's no psi on us but we
may be wiretapped by BEB--lots of law offices are and trainees
connected with them. Can a definite date be set for the picking-up of
the options?_

"It's good to see you again, Marty! When will you be coming out for
another visit?" _Yes, the options are in the bag. My agents have them
all lined up. Confidentially, they couldn't miss. The only trouble
they ran into was that some of the landowners thought they were insane
to be interested in the property and one of them actually suffered a
sprained wrist from the hand-shaking of an overly thankful owner._

"Soon. That's why I called you. Thought we should get together after
all these years." _What's the latest date for signing?_

_Tomorrow night._

_Tomorrow night! That doesn't give much time! Since I'm acting for
Lawrence I have to see what we're getting._

_Well, Lawrence told us to work fast. But I agree that it's a good
idea that you see the properties._ "How about this weekend?" His voice
was casual.

_Tomorrow evening local time it is then. But where will we make
psi-contact?_

A mental picture of a map. Desolation.... Oklahoma....

"Okay, Dick. See you then. Regards to the family!"

"Goodbye, Marty."

He rang off.

He was tired. He went to bed and sought sleep, praying that the block
his fatigued mind had set would remain firm.

IV

Martin Black passed a very bad night. Maintaining a mental block when
asleep is a major feat, especially when one has semantic instability
and a dream can so often be so realistic as to bring one's
consciousness awake and mentally screaming miles from the physical
being it has involuntarily left.

He dreamed with incredible regularity, waking five times out of
nightmares, five times strangely on the hour as though he had tied
some part of his mental being to the irresistibly moving, luminescent
minute hand of his electric clock. _Time is of the essence_, he had
told himself during the psi-visiphone contact with Joyce.
_Association!_

Two A.M. He had dreamt of Joyce, dreamt that Joyce had somehow
revealed the proposed transaction to BEB, putting Dodson on his trail.
Wide awake now, he forced himself to think of the options which must
be picked up the following night, options drawn so that not only t