were after. But about your
job," he continued after a moment, "we had no idea you could get so
much. We merely hoped you might find a lead or two for us to work on.
But you've practically wrapped this up for us."

"Unh-uh," his son demurred. "It's far from finished. We've got to get to
Algon and grab those ships. And if any of them, or enough of them, are
in shape to fight, that may take some doing ... if we can do it at all.
Then there's the job of finding out where Bohr came from, and how much
of a menace his planet or system or whatever it is, will be."

"Sure, sure, I realize that, Son. But those are incidentals. You've
given us the 'what' and 'who' we needed to know. But I see you're
dressed, and I'm hungry. Let's go eat."

As they were breakfasting his father asked for details, and Hanlon
explained about his new mental powers, and how they had helped him. "I
can't do much with men, except to read their surface thoughts," he
explained. "But with animals I can do more. I can follow those surface
thoughts and memories back and down into their total mind, and can take
over and control them. But it won't work with people--humans seem to
have a sort of natural block or screen I can't penetrate."

Newton's face was a study as he shook his head. "To think my boy can do
things like that!"

"How do you suppose it happens I can, Dad?"

"You didn't get it from me, that's for sure," his father grimaced
ruefully. "Perhaps through your mother, from her father. He was a
peculiar duck. They used to call him psychic, for he'd get some of the
craziest hunches--for lack of a better descriptive word. He often seemed
to know a lot of things when no one could figure out how he could have
learned them. Say, now that I remember back, he used to have quite a way
with animals, too, although I doubt if he had anything like your
powers."

"You said I'd probably develop other mental abilities," Hanlon grinned
nervously, "but I certainly never imagined anything like this."

"Me neither," ungrammatically. "It's weird!"

They had nearly finished eating when their waiter brought a portable
visiphone to the table. "A call for you, Mr. Hanlon," and he plugged the
set into a wall-socket.

Hanlon flipped the switch and saw Admiral Hawarden's face smiling from
the screen. "We got the freighter just a few minutes ago," he reported.
"One of our men daringly mingled with the crew as they were boarding,
and jammed the airlock so it couldn't be