observation bunker at the landing area of St. Thomas
Spacefield and watched through the periscope as a heavy rocket settled
itself to the surface of the landing area. The blue-white tongue of
flame touched the surface and splattered; then the heavy ship settled
slowly down over it, as though it were sliding down a column of light.
The column of light shortened--

And abruptly vanished as the ship touched down.

General Layton took his eyes away from the periscope. "Another one
back safely. Thank God."

Nearby, the only other man in that room of the bunker, a rather short
civilian, had been watching the same scene on a closed-circuit TV
screen. He smiled up at the general. "How many loads does that make,
so far?"

"Five. We'll have the job done before the deadline time."

"Were you worried?"

"A little. I still am, to be honest. What if nothing happens at the
end of sixty days? The President isn't one of us, and he's only gone
along with the Society's recommendations so far because we've been
able to produce results. But"--he gestured outside, indicating the
newly-landed ship--"all this extra expense isn't going to set well
with him if we goof this once."

"I know," said the civilian. "But have you ever known Brian Taggert to
be wrong?"

General Layton grinned. "No. And in a lesser man, that sort of
omniscience could be infernally irritating. How is he progressing with
Forsythe?"

The civilian frowned. "We've got plenty of data so far, and the method
seems to be working well, but we don't have enough to theorize yet.

"Forsythe just sits in his office and gives 'readings,' or whatever
you want to call them, to the subjects who come in. _The
Metaphysicist_ has been running an ad asking for volunteers, so we
have all kinds of people calling up for appointments. Forsythe is as
happy as a kid."

"How about his predictions?"

"Donna Tedesco is running data processing on them. She's in constant
mental contact with him. So are Hughes and Matson, in the office
above. The three of them are meshed together with each other--don't
ask me how; I'm no telepath--and they're getting a pretty good idea of
what's going on in Forsythe's mind.

"Every once in a while, he gets a real flash of something, and it
apparently comes pretty fast. The team is trying to analyze the
fine-grain structure of the process now.

"The rest of the time, he simply gives out with the old guff that
phony crystal-ball gazers have been giving