it. But I never could--"

"That's right." Michaels waved the cigarette. "We don't have
recruiting offices. All our people have to force their way in. Tell
me, do you know anything about the history of this planet?"

Stan clenched his teeth. Somehow, he had lost the initiative in this
interview. He took a deep breath.

"Look," he said decisively, "I--"

"Later." Michaels shook his head. "You are familiar with this culture
by now, then?"

"Well ... yes. I've read some history ... a little law."

"Good. Saves me a lot of talk. You know, sometimes we run into a
situation that can be corrected by a single, deft stroke. Makes things
very pleasant. We send in an agent--or two or six. The necessary gets
done, and somebody writes up a nice, neat report." He toyed with the
cigarette lighter.

"But this thing isn't like that. We've got a long, monotonous job of
routine plugging to do. We've got to bust a hard-shelled system
without hurting too many of the people within it. And we've been at it
for a while. We think we've made some progress, but we've still got a
lot of snakes to kill.

"But even bad situations have their good points. At least, this place
is a good training ground for probationers."

"Probationers?"

"Right. Probationers who don't even know they're being tested." He
smiled.

"People with the qualifications for Senior Agent are hard to get. Most
of them are latent--asleep. We can't expect them to walk in--we have
to find them. Then we have to wake them up. It can be tricky."

He lit his cigarette, eying Stan thoughtfully.

"I suppose you've heard some of the stories that fly around about the
Corps. The truth of the matter is, the Senior Agent isn't any
superman. He's just a normal human being with a couple of extra
quirks."

He held up a finger.

"First, he's trouble prone. A nasty situation attracts him much as a
flame attracts a moth.

"There are a lot of people like that. Most of them are always getting
themselves clobbered. The agent usually doesn't."

He held up a second finger.

"Because he has a compensating ability. When he turns on the pressure,
people do just as he tells them--most people, that is." He sighed.

"That's the latent ability. Sometimes full control is buried so deeply
it takes something like a major catastrophe to wake the guy up to the
fact he can use it." He smiled wryly.

"Oh, he pushes people around once in a while--makes 'em uneasy when
he's around--makes hims