trouble. Naturally we want them.--For defense--what else? We'll have
most of our eggs in that basket. No--I don't know how we overlooked that
point. But if it wasn't for a bright young man out here we'd have left
ourselves wide open. Now get cracking--get that leak plugged!" Alexander
dropped the phone back in its cradle and sighed. "Well--that's buttoned
up," he said. "Thanks, Kennon."

Kennon looked at Alexander's grinning face, his own impassive, but a
shattering certainty exploded in his mind--Alexander was a telepath!
That was his difference! That was the thing that made him feared and
respected by his business associates. It wouldn't have been enough on
the Central Worlds, where men knew of sensitives and took precautions
against them. But out here on the periphery it was a deadly advantage.

"So I gave it away," Alexander said. "I suppose I was careless, but your
thoughts about the moons shocked me."

"You practically told me once before, when you hired me," Kennon said,
"but I never realized it."

"You were too excited then."

"I wouldn't know," Kennon said. "At any rate I didn't add the facts
correctly." From somewhere deep in his memory an old quip came floating
to the surface: "An executive is a man who picks brains--others'
brains." By that definition Alexander was an executive of the first
class. Alexander chuckled.

Suddenly Kennon wanted to run. Panic flooded him! What had he been
thinking about? Had he thought of--two times two are four, four times
four are sixteen, sixteen times sixteen are--let's see, six times
sixteen is ninety-six, one times sixteen is--six, five, carry
one--two--two hundred fifty-six. Two hundred fifty-six times--

"What's eating you?" Alexander demanded.

"I'm angry," Kennon said. "I told you the conditions I'd sign that
contract, and you wrote a Peeper Clause into it. And then you peep in
the worst way possible. There's no defense against a Telep unless
you know about him; you've had my whole mind bare! You've violated my
personal privacy like no man has done before. Sure I'm mad. I expected
honesty from you--and you peep!" The anger was stronger now--a wave of
raw emotion based on a lifetime of training in mutual respect of a man's
privacy--a feeling intensified by his childhood environment of a crowded
planetary ecology and the cramped crew quarters on a spaceship. To
Kennon, Alexander had committed the ultimate sin.

"I can see I made a mistake by not telling you," A