e some unaccountable effects. We have
advised your general manager, Mr. Henry Grenoble, that we are in the act
of carrying out our part of the agreement, namely, to provide you with
six male-type poltergeists, and to both you and him we are respectfully
suggesting that you get on with the business of putting the antigravity
units into immediate production."

I folded the letter and tucked it into one side of my desk pad. I looked
at Sara.

"Never mind the letter to General Sanfordwaithe," I said. "He has
successfully cut off my retreat in that direction." I looked over at the
lieutenant. "All right," I said resignedly, "I'll apologize to the
Swami, and make a try at using him."

I picked up the letter again and pretended to be reading it. But this
was just a stall, because I had suddenly been struck by the thought that
my extreme haste in scoring off the Swami and trying to get rid of him
was because I didn't want to get involved again with poltergeists. Not
any, of any nature.

The best way on earth to avoid having to explain psi effects and come to
terms with them is simply to deny them, convince oneself that they don't
exist. I sighed deeply. It looked as if I would be denied that little
human privilege of closing my eyes to the obvious.

* * * * *

Old Stone Face, our general manager, claimed to follow the philosophy of
building men, not machines. To an extent he did. His favorite phrase
was, "Don't ask me how. I hired you to tell me." He hired a man to do a
job, and I will say for him, he left that man alone as long as the job
got done. But when a man flubbed a job, and kept on flubbing it, then
Mr. Henry Grenoble stepped in and carried out his own job--general
managing.

He had given me the assignment of putting antigrav units into
production. He had given me access to all the money I would need for the
purpose. He had given me sufficient time, months of it. And, in spite of
all this cooeperation, he still saw no production lines which spewed out
antigrav units at some such rate as seventeen and five twelfths per
second.

Apparently he got his communication from the Pentagon about the time I
got mine. Apparently it contained some implication that Computer
Research, under his management, was not pursuing the cause of
manufacturing antigrav units with diligence and dispatch. Apparently he
did not like this.

I had no more than apologized to the Swami, and received his marty