a medium. Would I kindly
arrange for the Swami to hold a seance that evening, after office hours,
so that he might analyze the man's methods and procedures to see how
they could fit smoothly into Company Operation. This was not to be
construed as interference in the workings of my department but in the
interests of pursuing the entire matter with diligence and dispatch--

The seance was to be held in my office.

I had had many peculiar conferences in this room--from union leaders
stripping off their coats, throwing them on the floor and stomping on
them; to uplifters who wanted to ban cosmetics on our women employees so
the male employees would not be tempted to think Questionable Thoughts.
I could not recall ever having held a seance before.

My desk had been moved out of the way, over into one corner of the large
room. A round table was brought over from the salesmen's report writing
room (used there more for surreptitious poker playing than for writing
reports) and placed in the middle of my office--on the grounds that it
had no sharp corners to gouge people in their middles if it got to
cavorting about recklessly. In an industrial plant one always has to
consider the matter of safety rules and accident insurance rates.

In the middle of the table there rested, with dark fluid gleaming
through clear plastic cases, six fresh cylinders which Auerbach had
prepared in his laboratory over in the plant.

Auerbach had shown considerable unwillingness to attend the seance; he
pleaded being extra busy with experiments just now, but I gave him that
look which told him I knew he had just been stalling around the last few
months, the same as I had.

If the psi effect had never come out in the first place, there wouldn't
have been any mental conflict. He could have gone on with his processes
of refining, simplifying and increasing the efficiency ratings of his
goop. But this unexpected side effect, the cylinders learning and
demonstrating something he considered basically untrue, had tied his
hands with a hopeless sort of frustration. He would have settled gladly
for a chemical compound which could have added two and two upon request;
but when that compound can learn and demonstrate that there's no such
thing as gravity, teaching it simple arithmetic is like ashes in the
mouth.

I said as much to him. I stood there in his laboratory, leaned up
against a work bench, and risked burning an acid hole in the sleeve of
my jacke