dvantage.

It was impossible to keep his mind a perfect blank. What he had to do was
keep his strongest surface thoughts entirely on innocuous things. The
trouble with that was that it made it extremely difficult to think about
some way to get out of the jam he was in. Thinking on two levels at once,
while not impossible, required a nicety of control that made wire-walking
over Niagara look easy.

The thing to do was to make the surface thoughts automatically repetitive.
A song.

"_In a hall of strange description (Antiquarian Egyptian),
Figuring his monthly balance sheet, a troubled monarch sat
With a frown upon his forehead, hurling interjections horrid
At the state of his finances, for his pocketbook was flat._"

Simultaneously, he kept a picture in his mind's eye. It had to be
something vivid that would be easy to concentrate on. The first thing that
came to mind was the brilliant necktie that the President had used in his
test several months before. He conjured it up in all its chartreuse glory,
then he animated it. Mauve satyrs danced with rose-pink nymphs and chased
them over the yellow-green landscape.

"_Not a solitary single copper cent had he to jingle
In his pocket, and his architects had gone off on a strike,
Leaving pyramids unfinished, for their wages had diminished,
And their credit vanished likewise, in a way they didn't like._"

Rafe could tell that Dr. Malekrinova's mind was trying to reject the alien
ideas that were coming into her mind. She wasn't consciously trying to
pick up Rafe's thoughts. But the rejection was ineffective because of its
fascination. The old business about the horse's tail. If you see a white
horse, you'll soon get rich if you can keep from thinking about the
horse's tail until it's out of sight. The first thought that comes to mind
is: "I mustn't think about the horse's tail." A self-defeating
proposition.

If Sonya Borisovna had been certain that she was receiving the thoughts
telepathically, she might have been able to reject them. But her mind
rejected the idea of telepathy instead, so she was susceptible to the
thoughts because she thought they were her own.

The cavorting of the nymphs and satyrs became somewhat obscene, but Rafe
didn't bother to correct it. He had more to worry about than offending the
rather prim mind of Dr. Malekrinova.

"_It was harder for His Royal Highness than for sons of toil,