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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psilent Partner, by 
+John Victor Peterson and Edward S. Staub
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Psilent Partner
+
+Author: John Victor Peterson
+        Edward S. Staub
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2010 [EBook #31735]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PSILENT PARTNER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe March 1954. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+    publication was renewed.
+
+
+[_Without stressing the technological aspects of the strange
+  powers of the widely-talented ones--the psis, espers, telepaths which
+  have been so painstakingly forecast by Stapledon, van Vogt, Weinbaum,
+  Vance and others--Messieurs Peterson and Staub have whipped fantasy,
+  forecasts and facts into a stirring and mentally titillating story of
+  a too-imaginative mind._]
+
+
+                         the psilent partner
+
+
+           by ... Edward S. Staub and John Victor Peterson
+
+
+     A pstrange probing mind that crossed pstate lines, the
+     pseas, even high in the psky--to bring psomething new to
+     Wall Pstreet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_He had never cast his consciousness so far before. It floated high
+above New York, perceiving in the noonday sky the thin, faint crescent
+of a waning moon. He wondered if one day he might cast his mind even
+to the moon, knew with a mounting exultation that his powers were
+already great enough._
+
+_Yet he was as afraid to launch it on that awesome transit as he still
+was to send it delving into the tight subway tunnels in the rock of
+Manhattan. Phobias were too real now. Perhaps it would be different
+later...._
+
+_He was young, as a man, younger as a recognized developing psi. As
+his consciousness floated there above the bustling city, exultant,
+free, it sensed that back where his body lay a bell was ringing. And
+the bell meant it--his consciousness--must return now to that
+body...._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dale V. Lawrence needed a lawyer urgently. Not that he hadn't a score
+of legal minds at his disposal; a corporation president must maintain
+a sizable legal staff. You can't build an industrial empire without
+treading on people's toes. And you need lawyers when you tread.
+
+He sat behind his massive mahogany desk, a stocky, slightly-balding,
+stern-looking man of middle age who was psychosomatically creating
+another ulcer as he worried about the business transaction which he
+could not handle personally because of the ulcer operation he was
+about to have. Neither the business transaction nor the operation
+could be delayed.
+
+He needed a particularly clever lawyer, one not connected with the
+corporation. Not that he had committed or that he contemplated
+committing a crime. But the eyes of the law and the minds of the psis
+of the government's Business Ethics Bureau were equally keen. Anyone
+in the business of commercially applied atomics was automatically and
+immediately investigated in any proposed transaction as soon as BEB
+had knowledge thereof. There was still the fear that someone somewhere
+might attempt, secretly, to build a war weapon again.
+
+Lawrence had an idea, a great, burning, impossible-to-discard idea.
+Lawrence Applied Atomics, Inc., had been his first great idea--the
+idea that had made him a multi-millionaire. But through some devious
+financing he had lost control of the corporation. And although his
+ideas invariably realized millions, the other major stockholders were
+becoming cautious about risking their profits. Overly cautious, he
+thought. And on this new idea he knew they would never support him.
+They'd consider it a wild risk. He could blame BEB with its psis for
+that. BEB was too inquisitive. A business man just couldn't take a
+decent gamble any longer.
+
+The real estate firm in Los Angeles was secretly securing options from
+individual landowners. Fortunately the firm employed a psi, one of the
+few known psis not in government service. Lawrence had wondered why
+this psi was not working for the government, but decided the 'why'
+didn't matter if there were positive results.
+
+Lawrence knew a little about psis. He knew, of course, what was
+commonly known--that they possessed wide and very varied talents, that
+they were categorized as plain psis, psi-espers, esper-psis, telepaths
+and other things. They weren't numerous; the Business Ethics Bureau
+which employed at least sixty percent of the known psis showed thirty
+on the payroll for this fiscal year.
+
+Despite their rumored emotional instability, he knew that they were
+clever and he would steer clear of them in the present stages of his
+transaction. Although his idea wasn't unethical, the so far closely
+kept secret would be out if BEB investigated. Then anybody could cut
+in. BEB advertised whatever it did on its video show, "Your
+Developing Earth."
+
+So, he needed a lawyer who could act for him personally, now, and
+steer his project clear of the government service psis. But where to
+find a psis....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course! Bob Standskill! Standskill had helped him once years before
+when he had had that trouble with the Corporation Stock Control Board
+over a doubtful issue of securities he had floated to build Mojave
+City out of desert wastes. Without Standskill's techniques he never
+would have put that issue across. Standskill could handle this if
+anyone could.
+
+Lawrence reached to the visiphone, punched the button sequence of
+Standskill's office number. The bell rang interminably before a rather
+bored young voice said, "Offices of Standskill and Rich,
+Attorneys-at-Law."
+
+"I know," Lawrence said harshly. "I don't button wrong numbers. Is
+Standskill there? And where's your courtesy? There's no visual."
+
+The picture came in then. Lawrence caught a flash of long, skinny legs
+going down behind the desk at the other end of the circuit; then he
+saw a most remarkable thing--the open collar of the young man's shirt
+seemed suddenly to button itself and the knot of the gaudy tie to
+tighten and all the while the fellow's hands were lying immobile on
+the desk!
+
+_Impossible!_ Lawrence thought. _I'm cracking up! Too many worries
+about the psis ... I think I see them everywhere!_
+
+As the youth gulped as though the tie was knotted too tightly,
+Lawrence was sure that he saw the knot relax itself!
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Standskill's on vacation and Mr. Rich is
+in court. May I help you, sir, or take a message?"
+
+Undoubtedly the fellow had recognized him from news fotos.
+
+"Well, who are you, the office boy?"
+
+A frown of annoyance crossed the young man's thin, dark features. He
+snapped, "Are corporation presidents exempt from common courtesy? My
+name is Black--Martin J. Black. I'm not connected with this firm. I
+answered as a courtesy. Shall we disconnect?"
+
+Lawrence was silent for a moment. He thought of the shirt-tie business
+and said, "You're a trainee psi, aren't you? A prospective service
+psi?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. I wish I weren't. It's not a pleasant prospect."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Would you like to probe minds for a living? And it has its other
+drawbacks. You can't live normally and you'll have very few friends.
+Unfortunately no two psis are alike, which makes the job more
+complicated. I'm un-normal, abnormal, subnormal or some other normal
+they haven't prefixed yet."
+
+"Any special talents?"
+
+"I'm afraid so."
+
+"Rather young," Lawrence mused. Then said, "Are you economically
+stable?"
+
+The young man hesitated, then said hastily, "Oh, yes, of course.
+Economically, yes. Somewhat more stable than most, I think. I'm in
+final training now. The legal phase comes last, you know."
+
+"Then you're not committed yet? You've not taken the Oath of
+Anterhine?"
+
+"No. I won't until the training is done. Wish I didn't have to then."
+
+"And your training?"
+
+"Complete except for criminal psychology."
+
+"Would you like to make a hundred thousand dollars?"
+
+Black said, "Your firm bought out Black Controlled Atomics, remember?
+That was my dad, and that was the end for him." He hesitated. "Let's
+say I'm vaguely interested. What's your proposition?"
+
+Lawrence was silent for a moment. At length he said, "Being a psi your
+ultimate destiny is to aid in the development of the world whether you
+like to look forward to it or not. But would you not like to see
+desert areas developed through applied atomics as Mojave City, Sanup
+Plateau City and Quijotoa City were?"
+
+"Certainly," Black said quickly. "It's in my blood. The old man did
+well at such developments; in fact, he started Quijotoa. Sometimes I
+wish Standskill hadn't liquidated our estate, but my mother's will
+made it mandatory."
+
+"How much do you know about Standskill's techniques?"
+
+"I'm a psi," Black said. "I can find out anything I want to know."
+
+"Where _is_ Standskill?"
+
+"Paris. His first vacation in years. Going to be away quite a while."
+
+"Will you come to my office?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'd like to discuss a business proposition."
+
+"What's wrong with doing it over the visiphone?"
+
+"This is confidential," Lawrence said.
+
+"Something not exactly legal?" Black asked. "Big deal, eh? The Control
+Board again--oh, oh! You'd better see Standskill!"
+
+Lawrence felt uneasy. "Are you--are you reading my mind?" he
+stammered.
+
+"Sorry," the young man said, smiling faintly. "It's easier that way. I
+dislike physical movement on such warm days as this. And it's easier
+for me to pick up your proposal this way than to go through that
+beastly traffic."
+
+"Then you know?"
+
+"Certainly. I'm a psi so I can read your mind."
+
+"Do you accept the job?"
+
+"Well, people in that area and the country in general would certainly
+benefit from the development. I don't know about that lawyer from Los
+Angeles though. They teach us in Service Psi School that non-service
+psis are not to be trusted. In fact, service psis are forbidden to
+associate with non-service psis. They're considered unethical."
+
+"You're not in service yet, Black, and you must realize that the
+psi-ethics as taught in your school are much more strict than business
+ethics. If Standskill were here he'd certainly help me, and you know
+he has a fine code of ethics. It's desperate, Black. I need your
+services urgently. Won't you please accept the job?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I suppose so," the young man said wearily, resignedly. "Standskill
+would agree, I'm sure. But, as a trainee, I'm not supposed to meddle
+in business transactions. However, I'd hate to see you lose out on
+this because I know Standskill would unhesitatingly help you if he
+were here. Also, I'm curious to meet that psi from Los Angeles." His
+sharp chin grew resolute. "I'll try, Mr. Lawrence. And my conscience
+will be clear; I haven't yet taken the Oath."
+
+"Will you need anything--any physical help, any tangible thing?"
+
+"I'll need your power-of-attorney."
+
+"You'll have it before I go to the hospital."
+
+"And, Mr. Lawrence," Black said softly. "About the surgery--don't
+worry, you'll be okay. It's chiefly psychosomatic, you know. In a
+couple of weeks you'll be fine. You couldn't have picked a better
+doctor than Summers."
+
+Lawrence felt better already, a result of his talk with this brash
+young man.
+
+"Thank you, Black," he said. "Thank you very much. But, look--as a
+psi, can you assure me that my idea is not slightly lunatic? I've
+begun to doubt that it will work."
+
+_Lunatic.... Mentally unsound.... Luna.... Moon.... The crescent of
+the moon in the noonday sky. Yes, he could go now.... The transit was
+brief.... No! He must go back, must bear the consciousness that was
+Martin Black back from this airless, cratered sphere! Panic seized
+him. He fled._
+
+Lawrence was astounded to see the young man at the other end of the
+visiphone seemingly fall into a deep sleep, his head down suddenly on
+the desk.
+
+"Black," he cried, "are you all right? Shall I send a doctor to--"
+
+"_No!_"
+
+The young man raised his head. "I'm quite all right, Mr. Lawrence,
+though slightly exhausted. Didn't sleep well last night. Sorry! I'll
+ring you after I contact Dick Joyce."
+
+"No names, please," Lawrence said. "I go into the hospital this
+afternoon, Black. You'd better not contact me there. The doctor said
+no business while I'm there. From now on you're on your own."
+
+_Your own! He was drifting! He fought it...._
+
+"Right, Mr. Lawrence. Goodbye!"
+
+
+II
+
+Martin Black _was_ tired. His consciousness had almost drifted off to
+home again, back to that old mansion on the Hudson River which
+Standskill had sold as directed under Black's mother's will. The old
+house in which he was born, where he had first found that he could sit
+in his room and send his consciousness questing down the hall to meet
+his father when he came home, pry into what his father had brought for
+him and surprise his parents later by invariably guessing correctly.
+
+Sometimes now he wished that he hadn't "guessed" correctly so often in
+those days. Then his uncle Ralph wouldn't have mentioned his unusual
+ability to the Business Ethics Bureau and the psis wouldn't have
+investigated him. Once they found that he had such mental
+qualifications he had been sent to the Service Psi School, a virtual
+prison despite his family's social status.
+
+Anger suddenly choked him at the thought of what his uncle Ralph had
+brought upon him. The psi training had been so rigid, so harsh at
+times.
+
+Well, of course they have to be sure that psis develop into useful
+members of society. But couldn't they treat you more normally, more
+humanly?
+
+Now, perhaps he'd show them, repay them for the cruel years of a
+lonely, bitter youth. He hadn't taken the Oath yet, and if he were
+clever enough he'd never have to! The real estate lawyer in Los
+Angeles with whom Lawrence was making a deal had evaded service
+somehow, apparently. So it was possible.
+
+He had learned long ago that money wouldn't buy him out of service.
+He'd tried also to purchase certain liberties at school. Some of the
+less scrupulous teachers had taken his allowance, but only one of them
+had ever given him anything in return. And of course he couldn't
+protest when he had violated Ethics to give the bribes. In any event,
+no one would take the word of an untrained psi over the word of a
+stable, normal human being.
+
+During the stabilization course one professor had permitted him to
+skip some classes. Now he wished that he hadn't missed them; he
+probably wouldn't have this semantic instability to contend with now.
+Oh, well....
+
+He _was_ tired. He'd spent the previous night, or most of it, worrying
+about the miserable state of his finances. He needed money, a lot of
+money. But he wouldn't, of course, admit that to Lawrence.
+
+Lawrence would have understood why he needed money--even more than the
+hundred thousand he had offered. But then Lawrence might mistrust his
+motives in accepting the proposal so readily if he knew.
+
+A year before Black had invested too much of his own money in a "sure
+thing" upon the advice of a fellow psi trainee who, he subsequently
+and sadly found out, had _economic_ instability. Semantic instability
+was bad enough!
+
+Not that Martin Black didn't have a hundred thousand dollars. He was,
+indeed, a rather wealthy young man, thanks to his mother who had been,
+to her son's knowledge--and to his alone--a psi with definite powers
+of pre-vision and persuasion.
+
+He recalled the tale Mom had told him of her first meeting with Dad,
+of how she'd lingered over Dad's well groomed nails three times longer
+than desire for a good tip made necessary, while she'd gently
+insinuated into his mind an idea that was next day translated into
+action on the stock market, with a modest investment from a modest
+purse that brought the young man a small fortune. After the wedding
+Martha Black dedicated herself to further improvements in the same
+direction.
+
+As for Martin's father, his chief business assets had been an
+unswerving adoration of his wife and complete willingness to do with
+his money as she saw fit. The combination had been unbeatable.
+
+When Martin's father was laid to rest, Martha Black, concerned over
+the future of her somewhat unusual son and fearing that economic
+instability might beset him, continued to improve the fortune he would
+some day inherit.
+
+Long before the death of his mother five years before, Black
+Controlled Atomics, Inc., had grown sufficiently important to command
+the services of a lawyer of Standskill's caliber. Gradually Standskill
+had become general counsel to the Black enterprises and at the same
+time a close friend of Martha Black and her son.
+
+It was chiefly in the latter capacity that the widow consulted
+Standskill as she approached the end of her life. Her Last Will and
+Testament, duly signed, sealed, published and declared, left one-half
+of the immediately-to-be-liquidated estate to her son outright. The
+other half was put in trust.
+
+Under the trust Martin was to receive the income until he was thirty.
+If then an audit showed that his net worth, exclusive of the trust,
+had increased by thirty percent the trust was to end and Martin was to
+receive the principal. If not, the trust would end and the full amount
+thereof would go to his uncle Ralph, a prospect which caused Martin
+completely to lose his stability whenever he allowed himself to think
+of it. He just _had_ to make the thirty percent!
+
+R. W. Standskill was trustee, and the will gave him full power to
+invest the trust estate as he saw fit and without liability if his
+investments went bad and without any bond or security required of him
+whatsoever. More in token of appreciation of his services than
+anything else, Standskill was to receive one percent of the trust as
+long as he was trustee.
+
+Martin Black's mind dwelled on the thought of the thirty percent
+increase. After five years of conservative investing he had taken some
+bad advice in the past year. And now he had to make some money fast in
+order to catch up to the quota which was necessary if he were to
+achieve his goal.
+
+The Lawrence deal would give him his chance. But not if Standskill
+knew about it. The Lawrence deal seemed a good thing, but perhaps it
+was only a _sure_ thing if he kept to himself, for the time being at
+least.
+
+He was so tired.... _Fatigué._ The French for tired. Funny, he did
+remember some of the French from school. Standskill was in Paris.
+Association. _Fatigué._ The word stuck. That club--Bob Standskill's
+favorite--_Le Cheval Fatigué_ in Montmartre. The Tired Horse.
+Tired....
+
+Sleep closed in.... He drifted ... and came to with a sudden start as
+a hand roughly shook his shoulder. It seemed as though he had been
+hovering mentally in a dimly-lighted cellar cafe, where there was a
+babel of voices speaking continental languages, and Standskill was
+there.
+
+But, _no!_ he couldn't have been in Paris any more than he had been on
+the meteor-pounded wastes of the moon! It was ridiculous. As far as he
+knew, no psi had ever been known consciously to flit to the moon--or
+unconsciously, for that matter--or to the other side of an ocean!
+
+Standskill's partner, G. D. Rich, was shaking his shoulder. "What's
+the matter, Marty? Big night?"
+
+"Big day," Black said. "Why don't you fellows stick around and take
+care of your business? I'm not even supposed to answer the telephone,
+you know, but someone has to!"
+
+"Can I help it that the Legal Secretaries Guild has called a
+three-day convention? There's not a secretary present in any law
+office in New York right now! I personally cut the phone in to the
+answering service before I left for court."
+
+"Inadvertence, I guess," Black said thoughtfully.
+
+"Inadvertence?" Rich said quickly.
+
+"Mine. I must have cut it back."
+
+He didn't tell Rich that he hadn't stirred from the desk since Rich
+had left. The switch was in the outer office. Had he with his
+consciousness floating high over New York sensed subconsciously that
+Lawrence was about to call and so cut in the switch? Had he built into
+himself something of the pattern of his mother, something of
+pre-vision or prescience, or call it what you will? Was a latent hunch
+power coming out in him now, something that would manifest itself by
+acts not consciously controlled? He hoped not! Semantic instability
+was bad enough!
+
+
+III
+
+Sleep evaded Martin Black again that night.... There was no doubt that
+Lawrence had a great idea.
+
+Lawrence held forty-five percent of the company's stock. He wanted
+control. In fact, he wanted outright ownership, but this was not
+possible because the other major stockholders, holding forty-five
+percent, seemed to be perfectly satisfied with their lucrative
+investment. Cautious inquiries had failed to disclose any inclination
+on their respective parts to sell.
+
+There were, however, enough independent shares outstanding to give
+Lawrence control if they were added to his own. The thing to do was to
+figure a way to buy them. The problem was that no matter how secret
+his operations, news or rumors of them would certainly leak out. The
+shares would then undoubtedly jump to outrageous highs. Lawrence
+couldn't risk that. He'd not be able to buy sufficient shares if the
+price rose.
+
+His corporation had completed Quijotoa City and had built Mojave City
+and Sanup Plateau City, had through applied atomics created verdant
+and lovely places out of wasteland and desert. It still owned the
+atomic piles that provided power for the cities and the profits
+therefrom were enormous.
+
+Lawrence was progressive. He was at heart a humanitarian. He wanted to
+develop other areas more from the humanitarian view than the profit
+motive. He had learned long ago that the profits would take care of
+themselves.
+
+In probing the man's mind, Black sensed Lawrence's great desire for
+adulation, his great desire to be remembered as a public benefactor.
+
+Now if only he, Martin J. Black, could benefit financially from this
+new deal--if he could corner enough of those independent shares, he
+could and certainly would vote them Lawrence's way. Then, perhaps the
+possibility of making the thirty percent he needed would approach
+probability, would reach it. With Lawrence's Midas touch the
+corporation would also realize millions in profits if the deal went
+through.
+
+Figures revolved in Black's mind. If Lawrence--or if he--could corner
+six percent of the stock.... Could some of the independents be
+persuaded to sell, _psionically persuaded_? Or one of the other major
+stockholders? No, that would be unethical and the strongest part of a
+psi's training was a fine code of ethics.
+
+Black began to doze--and felt something ever so softly probing at his
+mind. _A probe!_ Probably a service psi checking on him. _Why?_ Just
+the usual check? No, it wasn't due.
+
+He knew what to do. He had been probed before. Probing was part of the
+training at psi school but he had never revealed--and his tutors had
+never guessed--that he could create a block that could not be sensed
+by the prober. A block which could close off whatever thoughts he
+wished to conceal.
+
+He blocked his thoughts of Lawrence and the deal now, and opened
+freely that part of his mind which held the routine thoughts of the
+law offices. He felt that feather of thought brushing lightly through
+his brain, then it was gone as quickly as it had come.
+
+There was a cold sweat over him but he knew that he had passed the
+test. Why the probe? Perhaps a BEB psi had wind of Lawrence's deal and
+by probing Lawrence's mind--or the mind of someone in the West Coast
+realty outfit--had somehow learned of Black's association with the
+industrialist. If that were the case there would be more probes. One
+time or another a probe might come at a moment of nervous tension or
+stress and the information would be gleaned from his mind before he
+could block!
+
+He must work fast.
+
+He arose and went to the visiphone, placed a person-to-person call to
+Los Angeles.
+
+"Dick Joyce?" he asked before the visual contact was complete, and
+only his voice went out.
+
+The face that came in sync on the screen was round, jovial. "Well,
+hello, Marty!"
+
+_Lawrence must have called him, or else he plucked the name from my
+mind. But he didn't probe--or did he?_
+
+"Dick, do you register?" _With the mind now--cautiously!_
+
+"Yes, Marty."
+
+_Pretend you're my personal friend, Dick. There's no psi on us but we
+may be wiretapped by BEB--lots of law offices are and trainees
+connected with them. Can a definite date be set for the picking-up of
+the options?_
+
+"It's good to see you again, Marty! When will you be coming out for
+another visit?" _Yes, the options are in the bag. My agents have them
+all lined up. Confidentially, they couldn't miss. The only trouble
+they ran into was that some of the landowners thought they were insane
+to be interested in the property and one of them actually suffered a
+sprained wrist from the hand-shaking of an overly thankful owner._
+
+"Soon. That's why I called you. Thought we should get together after
+all these years." _What's the latest date for signing?_
+
+_Tomorrow night._
+
+_Tomorrow night! That doesn't give much time! Since I'm acting for
+Lawrence I have to see what we're getting._
+
+_Well, Lawrence told us to work fast. But I agree that it's a good
+idea that you see the properties._ "How about this weekend?" His voice
+was casual.
+
+_Tomorrow evening local time it is then. But where will we make
+psi-contact?_
+
+A mental picture of a map. Desolation.... Oklahoma....
+
+"Okay, Dick. See you then. Regards to the family!"
+
+"Goodbye, Marty."
+
+He rang off.
+
+He was tired. He went to bed and sought sleep, praying that the block
+his fatigued mind had set would remain firm.
+
+
+IV
+
+Martin Black passed a very bad night. Maintaining a mental block when
+asleep is a major feat, especially when one has semantic instability
+and a dream can so often be so realistic as to bring one's
+consciousness awake and mentally screaming miles from the physical
+being it has involuntarily left.
+
+He dreamed with incredible regularity, waking five times out of
+nightmares, five times strangely on the hour as though he had tied
+some part of his mental being to the irresistibly moving, luminescent
+minute hand of his electric clock. _Time is of the essence_, he had
+told himself during the psi-visiphone contact with Joyce.
+_Association!_
+
+Two A.M. He had dreamt of Joyce, dreamt that Joyce had somehow
+revealed the proposed transaction to BEB, putting Dodson on his trail.
+Wide awake now, he forced himself to think of the options which must
+be picked up the following night, options drawn so that not only the
+landowners must sign them but both the realty outfit and he, as
+Lawrence's attorney-in-fact, as well. Could he sign for Lawrence if
+Joyce had spilled?... No, it was only a dream. Joyce was so _very_
+stable!
+
+Three A.M. He had dreamt of Standskill, tall, lean Standskill striding
+through the lovely early morning along the Champs Élysées, moving
+purposefully. He had even dreamt he had for a moment invaded
+Standskill's mind and caught the lawyer's pounding thought, "Lawrence!
+_Buy_, Lawrence!" Oh, but that would never do. The service psis would
+catch Standskill, would test the ethics of it now that Joyce had
+spilled, would cause Standskill to be disbarred. But Standskill didn't
+know! A dream. _A lunatic dream._
+
+Four A.M. The coincidence of the timing of his wakings struck him
+then. For a moment the latest dream eluded him and then the sense of
+airless cold, a bleak, cratered landscape, stark stars staring in a
+lunar night swept coldly across his mind. He shivered, drew the
+blanket over him, thought: _How many shares? Six thousand? I can do
+it. I'll contact the broker in the morning. Six thousand at two
+hundred per. One million two hundred thousand dollars._
+
+But that would raise the price, the attempt to buy so many shares. You
+can't buy a million plus in one stock without driving the price
+up--_unless you manage to buy all the shares at once_! If only he
+could persuade--psionically persuade--but he couldn't! It wasn't
+ethical.
+
+His mind drifted.... I'll call the broker in the morning. Perhaps he
+can start picking up some of the independent shares when the market
+opens. If only he could snag the four thousand that--what was that
+name in Lawrence's mind?--yes, Redgrave! The four thousand that
+Redgrave has! That would be a start!
+
+Redgrave had always fought Lawrence tooth and nail. Lawrence would
+derive vast personal satisfaction from seeing Redgrave an
+_ex_-stockholder. Thankless cad! Investment in the corporation had
+helped make Redgrave a very wealthy man. Lawrence stock was only part
+of his vast holdings. Redgrave was definitely out of the red!
+
+Black chuckled, then told himself that this was a grave and not a
+laughing matter. Sleep was coming again.... _Out of the red. Grave.
+Redgrave!_
+
+Five A.M. He awoke in a cold sweat.... This time the dream came back
+slowly, drenching him with fear as it came. It was sheer madness, this
+dream! To have even considered investing in Lawrence Applied Atomics!
+The Government would never condone the deal Lawrence was
+contemplating--the Applied Atomics Corporation was nearly insolvent,
+the BEB psis were investigating it....
+
+Black tossed fitfully on the bed, seeking sleep desperately, seeking
+to escape the black night pressing in, to evade the imagined--or was
+it real?--probing minds of service psis.
+
+Six A.M. He almost forgot the fears that had assailed him an hour
+before. He realized then that in the last few minutes or seconds or
+however long the latest transient phantasm had been in his mind he had
+dreamt of his broker pacing a dimly-lighted chamber, muttering, "The
+man's out of his mind. Economic instability, that's certain. Thinking
+of selling good stock to invest in Lawrence Applied Atomics! Not that
+Lawrence stock isn't fairly good, but he'll never make enough out of
+the corporation's piles; the returns are not that great!"
+
+8 A.M. Black stretched, felt strangely relaxed. He realized then that
+as he had slept and, despite the fitfulness of his sleeping, his mind
+had apparently gone on analyzing the possible reactions to the big
+deal.
+
+He arose, took a shower, shaved, ate breakfast. Then he went to the
+visiphone and buttoned Charles Wythe, his broker, at his office.
+
+"Charlie," Black said to the cadaverous looking man who answered.
+"Where's the boss?"
+
+"Went to see a psychiatrist."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know. What's on your mind?"
+
+"I want you to do some selling and buying for me. Sell whatever you
+like, but buy Lawrence Applied Atomics."
+
+"Look, Marty, let's not go off half-cocked. Last year you had a sudden
+brainstorm and remember what happened. Lawrence may be a good stock,
+but it won't help you to build up to that thirty percent you need. Not
+in the time you have to do it in. It's bad enough for you to take a
+big licking once. Let's not be stupid again."
+
+"Now, Charlie, don't be nasty. I want you to buy Lawrence as quietly
+as you can. I want six thousand shares at the current price. Get them
+for me."
+
+"Are you shaken loose from your psyche or id or whatever?" Wythe
+cried. "Do it quietly, the man says, do it quietly! You can do it
+about as quietly as they launched the space station. Where do you
+think I can get six thousand shares of Lawrence?"
+
+"Why, you buy them!" Black answered innocently. "Isn't that what you
+do down at the Stock Exchange?"
+
+The broker groaned. "Sure, that's all I do. Buy, that is. But not
+Lawrence. Look, Marty, see this chart? Yesterday was a big day for
+Lawrence Applied Atomics. It was unusually active. Three hundred
+shares changed hands. The day before it was one hundred. Once in my
+memory Lawrence had a four thousand share day. That must have been
+when Redgrave bought in. Now you tell me how I'm going to get you six
+thousand shares, get them quietly, and get them at the current price!"
+
+"Start buying," Black said, "because I've got a hunch you'll find
+them. My mother had hunches, didn't she? Did she ever tell you or the
+boss to buy the wrong stocks? Did she--"
+
+"That was your mother, Marty. What about that hunch you had last year,
+the one that cost you a couple of hundred thou--"
+
+"That was last year!"
+
+"So, what's changed?" asked Wythe.
+
+"Maybe _I've_ changed, Charlie. Do it; that's all I ask."
+
+"Okay, Marty. But I think you're out of your mind, especially with
+what was on the morning news."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"Lawrence is in bad shape. He's not likely to pull through. They
+operated last night, in case you didn't know."
+
+"But that should drive the stock down!"
+
+"Why? It won't affect the profits from the corporation's piles."
+
+"No. I agree. But that's not the only thing that keeps the price up.
+What about Lawrence's reputation?"
+
+"Well, there's also a rumor about a government investigation of the
+corporation," Wythe admitted. "That might have some downward effect."
+
+"Buy, Charlie, buy! I'll ring you later."
+
+Black rang off. He felt an overwhelming confidence. He had only one
+small doubt in his mind--during or following one of those disturbing
+dreams had he been sufficiently overwrought to have relaxed his mental
+block, thereby letting in a fleeting probe from a service psi who
+would then have gleaned, in a moment, knowledge of the proposed
+transaction?
+
+The unease waned. The exuberant confidence was in him again. The
+prescience of Martha Black?
+
+He went out and caught a heli-cab to the law offices. He'd be a good
+trainee to the eyes and minds of anyone who might check. If the
+service psis were on his trail, he'd show them how good a trainee he
+was. He could check with Charlie Wythe later.
+
+
+V
+
+At ten A.M., Standskill's partner, G. D. Rich left the office to
+attend court.
+
+At ten-thirty A.M., a contact call came whispering to Black's mind. He
+thought it at first a probe and blocked part of his mind; then
+relaxed as it realized it was a psi asking with overbearing politeness
+for him to connect the visiphone circuit. The mental touch seemed
+somehow familiar, but it wasn't Joyce. He knew it wasn't Joyce; there
+was something unsure and tentative about the whisper of thought.
+
+Black psionically cut in the outer office visiphone connection. The
+bell rang almost immediately. He switched on the inner office
+instrument and a familiar face came in sync on the screen--that of
+Peter Dodson, the principal administrative officer of the BEB psis.
+
+Dodson's blondly handsome face showed concern. He said, "I wanted
+visiphone contact, Black, because of an unfavorable report I've
+received on you. I'll get to that in a minute. First, I'd like to
+explain the background. As you may have learned from the news this
+morning, we're investigating Lawrence Applied Atomics because of a tip
+we'd received from Los Angeles that Lawrence is engaged in a venture
+which will eventually affect corporation funds without proper advance
+authorization.
+
+"Finding that Lawrence had some dealings with Standskill in the past,
+we thought that Standskill might be able to shed some light on the new
+venture. When we were unable to contact Standskill, we sought to
+contact you psionically last night, but found that your mind was a
+completely unreadable jumble of nightmares, filled with phobias and
+instabilities. We stopped probing then, realizing that you might be
+seriously ill."
+
+Apparently visual examination had convinced Dodson that Black wasn't
+as ill as had been thought. Black felt the feather touch of a probe
+coming now and he blocked, his thin face expressionless.
+
+"I did have a rather bad night," Black said. "Association. Semantic
+instability." He felt the tentacle of thought that was sweeping across
+his mind.
+
+"Well," Dodson said, his eyes probing from the screen, "it's obvious
+_you_ know nothing of the Lawrence deal. Strange, though, since
+there's a record of a call placed to that office by Lawrence
+yesterday, and as far as we have been able to determine only you were
+there and only you could have answered. How do you explain that?"
+
+Easy now! The block is most difficult to maintain when you're lying.
+Easy....
+
+"There was a call," Black admitted, "from someone I don't know, a
+fellow who wanted Standskill. Wouldn't say why or give his name. The
+moment I told him Standskill was in Paris he said with some reluctance
+that he would have to contact another law firm. The caller was
+probably Lawrence. If you could describe him--"
+
+"So Standskill's in Paris! The answering service didn't know that.
+Well, that rules him out. Thank you, Black. Are you sure you're all
+right?"
+
+"Rather tired," Black said. "Overwork, I expect. The training is
+rather strenuous, and I do wish you wouldn't probe. As you found in
+psi school, my powers have a very delicate balance."
+
+The probe withdrew hastily.
+
+"Sorry, Black. Very sorry. Perhaps you need a rest. I'll be only too
+glad to send through an order--"
+
+"Oh, thank you, sir," Black said, trying to make it sound fervent and
+properly subservient. He sent a thought of thankfulness after his
+words, a weak one. He must not appear too strong.
+
+Dodson rang off.
+
+The coast was clear! They would not probe again soon!
+
+Black immediately called Charles Wythe, found his broker's cadaverous
+face puzzled.
+
+"Marty, the market's crazy! I managed to pick up four thousand shares
+within ten minutes after the market opened. One purchase. The broker
+from whom I obtained them represented Dan Redgrave--"
+
+"Redgrave!" Black almost shouted.
+
+"Yes, Redgrave. He said Redgrave is plain cuckoo. Ordered him to sell
+at one hundred fifty. Said he'd bought them at that and would sell
+them at that. No profit wanted. Glad to get out in time to recoup his
+original investment. What's cuckoo about it is that, except for the
+momentary flurry when we picked up the Redgrave shares, the stock has
+been rising all morning. It's up to two twenty-five as of this moment.
+
+"Lawrence must have someone else buying regardless of the price. Three
+concerns are still trying to buy at the present price. Ethics forbids
+me to ask who their clients are. Not that they'd tell me anyway! Now,
+look, Marty, do you want me to buy at that price, if I can, that is?"
+
+"Well, I must have six thousand, unless Lawrence is buying and I'm
+quite sure he isn't. See if you can find out who the buyer is, won't
+you?"
+
+"Everybody's crazy today," the broker said. "I'll call you back."
+
+Wythe did, a few minutes later.
+
+"I'm afraid it's no use, Marty. There's not another share to be had.
+There's been news from the hospital. Lawrence has rallied. Although
+he's still in a coma, his chances are good for recovery. Not only
+that, but the Business Ethics Bureau has issued a statement to the
+effect that the tip they'd received about Lawrence and a deal has not
+been proved to have a foundation in fact. Those things have put the
+stock way up. Everybody wants to buy Lawrence but nobody wants to
+sell--except me! Let's sell, Marty!"
+
+"Not on your life," Black said decisively. "And, look, we _must_ get
+two thousand more shares! Get them, Charlie!"
+
+He clicked off again.
+
+So Dan Redgrave had sold at a ridiculously low price! Had his
+consciousness wandered in those dreams? Had he psionically persuaded
+Redgrave to sell? That wouldn't be ethical. But do ethics apply to
+_involuntary_ acts?
+
+His mind was in turmoil. He dared not exercise his psi powers again
+just now. He feared above all the wrath of Dodson and the other
+service psis. If they came to suspect that he had persuaded
+Redgrave--that he had, according to Ethics, misused his powers ... he
+knew only too well that there are ways of banishing psi powers,
+insulin shock and other treatments.
+
+And for all his present aloneness he was beginning to realize his
+latent powers--powers which, when fully developed, would doubtlessly
+bring him into contact with others like himself, with someone who
+could share the fierce ecstasy of probing with the consciousness to
+the moon, or even farther, at the speed of light at which thought
+moved. No, perhaps he need not always be alone....
+
+He went out to lunch, returned, called his broker. Wythe told him
+there was no activity in Lawrence. The afternoon wore. A few minutes
+before the exchange closed the broker called.
+
+"It's hopeless, Marty," said Wythe. "Let's sell. The price is still
+two twenty-five and nothing for sale. How about it? Three hundred
+thousand profit in one day."
+
+It sounded attractive. Black hesitated, then thought of Lawrence,
+good, old would-be humanitarian and philanthropist D. V. Lawrence
+lying in coma. Lawrence, whose dreams were in his hands now. He had
+come to like Lawrence, the trail-blazer where there were so few trails
+to be blazed. He had to help him. If worse came to worse he would cast
+Ethics to the winds. He'd have to! His conscience couldn't permit him
+to do anything else. He would psionically persuade at least one of the
+other stockholders to vote Lawrence's way.
+
+Well, at least his mind was made up. Lawrence would have his options.
+And with forty-nine percent of the stock between them they could
+gamble on getting a favorable vote.
+
+"What about it, Marty?" the broker asked impatiently.
+
+"Sorry," Black said. "The answer is no, Charlie! I want that stock."
+
+He rang off.
+
+Moments later his consciousness was on its way to keep the rendezvous
+with Joyce high in the evening sky over Oklahoma, up where the blue of
+the atmosphere turned to the black of infinity.
+
+And moments later lights blazed over a table in a realty office in Los
+Angeles where no one sat. But pens lifted and wrote....
+
+"_D. V. Lawrence by Martin J. Black, his attorney-in-fact._"
+
+"_J. F. Cadigan Realty Corporation by Richard Joyce, Vice-President._"
+
+Another pen lifted with the invisible but delicate twist of a feminine
+psi-touch.
+
+"_Before me this ninth day of September in the year Nineteen Hundred
+and Seventy-six Anno Domini psionically appeared...._"
+
+The options were psigned, come what may!
+
+
+VI
+
+An oak-panelled conference room. Lawrence's first vice-president
+reading the proposal. The board of directors. The major stockholders.
+Smaller ones. Attorneys-in-fact for both Lawrence and Black.
+
+And _Bob Standskill_!
+
+What was Standskill doing here?
+
+But the first vice-president had finished reading the proposal and was
+asking for a vote.
+
+Lawrence--forty-five thousand shares--_yes_!
+
+Maryk--twenty thousand shares--_no_!
+
+Carrese--nine thousand shares--_no_!
+
+Tonemont--seven thousand shares--_no_!
+
+Black--four thousand shares--_yes_!
+
+Turitz--five thousand shares--_no_!
+
+And the smaller stockholders, one by one--_no_, _no_, _no_!
+
+Forty-nine thousand shares--_no_! Forty-nine thousand shares--_yes_!
+
+Black felt ill. His hovering consciousness almost fled from its
+invisible vantage point above the conference table back to the mansion
+on Riverside Drive, back where the memories of Martha Black
+remained.... But it wavered, stabilized....
+
+Standskill rising, so implacable, so sure and saying, "Two thousand
+shares--yes!"
+
+Black probed Standskill's mind almost involuntarily then, realizing
+instantly that he should have disregarded Ethics and probed before.
+Standskill was a psi, a _non-service psi_! And Black knew then that
+when his consciousness had flitted through association to _Le Cheval
+Fatigué_ in Montmarte, Paris, and had fixed there for a brief unstable
+moment it had yielded to Standskill all knowledge of the Lawrence
+deal, persuading Standskill to order his brokers to buy the
+corporation's stock for the trust....
+
+Black's consciousness sped to join Joyce's in a law office in
+Oklahoma. It watched the landowners signing the deeds even as it
+signed psionically the checks which represented the good and valuable
+considerations.
+
+The deal was closed.
+
+
+VII
+
+_Joyce, tell me--did you, to your knowledge, tip off the BEB psis?_
+
+_Yes. Inadvertently, of course. I had a nightmare. I'm afraid I'm
+sometimes unstable, anonymously so, when asleep. Only then, though,
+thank Heaven!_
+
+_And, Joyce, why aren't you in service?_
+
+_For the same reason you can't be._
+
+Confusion.
+
+_What do you mean?_
+
+_Your mother knew._
+
+_My mother?_
+
+_Yes, Marty, don't you realize that only unstable psis are taken into
+service? Stability is the mark of the superman. Do the majority of men
+want the minority--the supermen--running their world even though the
+supermen are their brothers, sisters and children? And they must
+surely realize that all mankind will evolve to psis one day. Marty,
+you were in psi school. So was I. Did you complete Stabilization?... I
+see you didn't. No psi does! They let you think you're getting away
+with something when you skip classes, but you're not!_
+
+_Fortunately, if you are strong enough, you stabilize on your own.
+Perhaps you'll realize now that your mother gave you the incentive:
+the thirty percent angle, realizing that an uncle you definitely did
+not like would inherit if you didn't strive to the utmost. It worked._
+
+_They can't touch me, Marty, and they can't touch you! We can elude
+them mentally and physically. They know they can't touch us; so they
+just have to tolerate us! I can read in your mind that you've
+stabilized. You can fit physically now. Why don't you try? Lawrence is
+waiting...._
+
+Black's consciousness sped back to his body. His body lifted and sped
+to a hospital room.
+
+Lawrence was awake. He viewed Black's materialization with
+incredulity.
+
+"The deal is closed," Black said.
+
+"But--you--" Lawrence stammered. "Closed?"
+
+"Yes. And, considering the shares I hold, I guess that makes me
+something of a psilent partner of yours!"
+
+A brash young man, Lawrence thought. A very brash young man!
+
+Black grinned. _Thirty percent? He couldn't miss!_
+
+They shook hands.
+
+It was a deal. Psigned, sealed and delivered!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psilent Partner, by 
+John Victor Peterson and Edward S. Staub
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PSILENT PARTNER ***
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Psilent Partner, by Edward S. Staub and John Victor Peterson
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psilent Partner, by 
+John Victor Peterson and Edward S. Staub
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Psilent Partner
+
+Author: John Victor Peterson
+        Edward S. Staub
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2010 [EBook #31735]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PSILENT PARTNER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
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+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<p class="center">This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="570" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><i>Without stressing the technological aspects of the strange
+powers of the widely-talented ones&mdash;the psis, espers, telepaths which
+have been so painstakingly forecast by Stapledon, van Vogt, Weinbaum,
+Vance and others&mdash;Messieurs Peterson and Staub have whipped fantasy,
+forecasts and facts into a stirring and mentally titillating story of
+a too-imaginative mind.</i></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>the psilent partner</h1>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2>by ... Edward S. Staub and John Victor Peterson</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>A pstrange probing mind that crossed pstate lines, the
+pseas, even high in the psky&mdash;to bring psomething new to
+Wall Pstreet.</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><i>He had never cast his consciousness so far before. It floated high
+above New York, perceiving in the noonday sky the thin, faint crescent
+of a waning moon. He wondered if one day he might cast his mind even
+to the moon, knew with a mounting exultation that his powers were
+already great enough.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Yet he was as afraid to launch it on that awesome transit as he still
+was to send it delving into the tight subway tunnels in the rock of
+Manhattan. Phobias were too real now. Perhaps it would be different
+later....</i></p>
+
+<p><i>He was young, as a man, younger as a recognized developing psi. As
+his consciousness floated there above the bustling city, exultant,
+free, it sensed that back where his body lay a bell was ringing. And
+the bell meant it&mdash;his consciousness&mdash;must return now to that
+body....</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Dale V. Lawrence needed a lawyer urgently. Not that he hadn't a score
+of legal minds at his disposal; a corporation president must maintain
+a sizable legal staff. You can't build an industrial empire without
+treading on people's toes. And you need lawyers when you tread.</p>
+
+<p>He sat behind his massive mahogany desk, a stocky, slightly-balding,
+stern-looking man of middle age who was psychosomatically creating
+another ulcer as he worried about the business transaction which he
+could not handle personally because of the ulcer operation he was
+about to have. Neither the business transaction nor the operation
+could be delayed.</p>
+
+<p>He needed a particularly clever lawyer, one not connected with the
+corporation. Not that he had committed or that he contemplated
+committing a crime. But the eyes of the law and the minds of the psis
+of the government's Business Ethics Bureau were equally keen. Anyone
+in the business of commercially applied atomics was automatically and
+immediately investigated in any proposed transaction as soon as BEB
+had knowledge thereof. There was still the fear that someone somewhere
+might attempt, secretly, to build a war weapon again.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence had an idea, a great, burning, impossible-to-discard idea.
+Lawrence Applied Atomics, Inc., had been his first great idea&mdash;the
+idea that had made him a multi-millionaire. But through some devious
+financing he had lost control of the corporation. And although his
+ideas invariably realized millions, the other major stockholders were
+becoming cautious about risking their profits. Overly cautious, he
+thought. And on this new idea he knew they would never support him.
+They'd consider it a wild risk. He could blame BEB with its psis for
+that. BEB was too inquisitive. A business man just couldn't take a
+decent gamble any longer.</p>
+
+<p>The real estate firm in Los Angeles was secretly securing options from
+individual landowners. Fortunately the firm employed a psi, one of the
+few known psis not in government service. Lawrence had wondered why
+this psi was not working for the government, but decided the 'why'
+didn't matter if there were positive results.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence knew a little about psis. He knew, of course, what was
+commonly known&mdash;that they possessed wide and very varied talents, that
+they were categorized as plain psis, psi-espers, esper-psis, telepaths
+and other things. They weren't numerous; the Business Ethics Bureau
+which employed at least sixty percent of the known psis showed thirty
+on the payroll for this fiscal year.</p>
+
+<p>Despite their rumored emotional instability, he knew that they were
+clever and he would steer clear of them in the present stages of his
+transaction. Although his idea wasn't unethical, the so far closely
+kept secret would be out if BEB investigated. Then anybody could cut
+in. BEB advertised whatever it did on its video show, "Your
+Developing Earth."</p>
+
+<p>So, he needed a lawyer who could act for him personally, now, and
+steer his project clear of the government service psis. But where to
+find a psis....</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Of course! Bob Standskill! Standskill had helped him once years before
+when he had had that trouble with the Corporation Stock Control Board
+over a doubtful issue of securities he had floated to build Mojave
+City out of desert wastes. Without Standskill's techniques he never
+would have put that issue across. Standskill could handle this if
+anyone could.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence reached to the visiphone, punched the button sequence of
+Standskill's office number. The bell rang interminably before a rather
+bored young voice said, "Offices of Standskill and Rich,
+Attorneys-at-Law."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," Lawrence said harshly. "I don't button wrong numbers. Is
+Standskill there? And where's your courtesy? There's no visual."</p>
+
+<p>The picture came in then. Lawrence caught a flash of long, skinny legs
+going down behind the desk at the other end of the circuit; then he
+saw a most remarkable thing&mdash;the open collar of the young man's shirt
+seemed suddenly to button itself and the knot of the gaudy tie to
+tighten and all the while the fellow's hands were lying immobile on
+the desk!</p>
+
+<p><i>Impossible!</i> Lawrence thought. <i>I'm cracking up! Too many worries
+about the psis ... I think I see them everywhere!</i></p>
+
+<p>As the youth gulped as though the tie was knotted too tightly,
+Lawrence was sure that he saw the knot relax itself!</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Standskill's on vacation and Mr. Rich is
+in court. May I help you, sir, or take a message?"</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly the fellow had recognized him from news fotos.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, who are you, the office boy?"</p>
+
+<p>A frown of annoyance crossed the young man's thin, dark features. He
+snapped, "Are corporation presidents exempt from common courtesy? My
+name is Black&mdash;Martin J. Black. I'm not connected with this firm. I
+answered as a courtesy. Shall we disconnect?"</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence was silent for a moment. He thought of the shirt-tie business
+and said, "You're a trainee psi, aren't you? A prospective service
+psi?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid so. I wish I weren't. It's not a pleasant prospect."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to probe minds for a living? And it has its other
+drawbacks. You can't live normally and you'll have very few friends.
+Unfortunately no two psis are alike, which makes the job more
+complicated. I'm un-normal, abnormal, subnormal or some other normal
+they haven't prefixed yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Any special talents?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid so."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather young," Lawrence mused. Then said, "Are you economically
+stable?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man hesitated, then said hastily, "Oh, yes, of course.
+Economically, yes. Somewhat more stable than most, I think. I'm in
+final training now. The legal phase comes last, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're not committed yet? You've not taken the Oath of
+Anterhine?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I won't until the training is done. Wish I didn't have to then."</p>
+
+<p>"And your training?"</p>
+
+<p>"Complete except for criminal psychology."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to make a hundred thousand dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>Black said, "Your firm bought out Black Controlled Atomics, remember?
+That was my dad, and that was the end for him." He hesitated. "Let's
+say I'm vaguely interested. What's your proposition?"</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence was silent for a moment. At length he said, "Being a psi your
+ultimate destiny is to aid in the development of the world whether you
+like to look forward to it or not. But would you not like to see
+desert areas developed through applied atomics as Mojave City, Sanup
+Plateau City and Quijotoa City were?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," Black said quickly. "It's in my blood. The old man did
+well at such developments; in fact, he started Quijotoa. Sometimes I
+wish Standskill hadn't liquidated our estate, but my mother's will
+made it mandatory."</p>
+
+<p>"How much do you know about Standskill's techniques?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a psi," Black said. "I can find out anything I want to know."</p>
+
+<p>"Where <i>is</i> Standskill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Paris. His first vacation in years. Going to be away quite a while."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come to my office?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to discuss a business proposition."</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong with doing it over the visiphone?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is confidential," Lawrence said.</p>
+
+<p>"Something not exactly legal?" Black asked. "Big deal, eh? The Control
+Board again&mdash;oh, oh! You'd better see Standskill!"</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence felt uneasy. "Are you&mdash;are you reading my mind?" he
+stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry," the young man said, smiling faintly. "It's easier that way. I
+dislike physical movement on such warm days as this. And it's easier
+for me to pick up your proposal this way than to go through that
+beastly traffic."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. I'm a psi so I can read your mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you accept the job?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, people in that area and the country in general would certainly
+benefit from the development. I don't know about that lawyer from Los
+Angeles though. They teach us in Service Psi School that non-service
+psis are not to be trusted. In fact, service psis are forbidden to
+associate with non-service psis. They're considered unethical."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not in service yet, Black, and you must realize that the
+psi-ethics as taught in your school are much more strict than business
+ethics. If Standskill were here he'd certainly help me, and you know
+he has a fine code of ethics. It's desperate, Black. I need your
+services urgently. Won't you please accept the job?"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"I suppose so," the young man said wearily, resignedly. "Standskill
+would agree, I'm sure. But, as a trainee, I'm not supposed to meddle
+in business transactions. However, I'd hate to see you lose out on
+this because I know Standskill would unhesitatingly help you if he
+were here. Also, I'm curious to meet that psi from Los Angeles." His
+sharp chin grew resolute. "I'll try, Mr. Lawrence. And my conscience
+will be clear; I haven't yet taken the Oath."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you need anything&mdash;any physical help, any tangible thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll need your power-of-attorney."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have it before I go to the hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"And, Mr. Lawrence," Black said softly. "About the surgery&mdash;don't
+worry, you'll be okay. It's chiefly psychosomatic, you know. In a
+couple of weeks you'll be fine. You couldn't have picked a better
+doctor than Summers."</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence felt better already, a result of his talk with this brash
+young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Black," he said. "Thank you very much. But, look&mdash;as a
+psi, can you assure me that my idea is not slightly lunatic? I've
+begun to doubt that it will work."</p>
+
+<p><i>Lunatic.... Mentally unsound.... Luna.... Moon.... The crescent of
+the moon in the noonday sky. Yes, he could go now.... The transit was
+brief.... No! He must go back, must bear the consciousness that was
+Martin Black back from this airless, cratered sphere! Panic seized
+him. He fled.</i></p>
+
+<p>Lawrence was astounded to see the young man at the other end of the
+visiphone seemingly fall into a deep sleep, his head down suddenly on
+the desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Black," he cried, "are you all right? Shall I send a doctor to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>No!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The young man raised his head. "I'm quite all right, Mr. Lawrence,
+though slightly exhausted. Didn't sleep well last night. Sorry! I'll
+ring you after I contact Dick Joyce."</p>
+
+<p>"No names, please," Lawrence said. "I go into the hospital this
+afternoon, Black. You'd better not contact me there. The doctor said
+no business while I'm there. From now on you're on your own."</p>
+
+<p><i>Your own! He was drifting! He fought it....</i></p>
+
+<p>"Right, Mr. Lawrence. Goodbye!"</p>
+
+
+<h2>II</h2>
+
+<p>Martin Black <i>was</i> tired. His consciousness had almost drifted off to
+home again, back to that old mansion on the Hudson River which
+Standskill had sold as directed under Black's mother's will. The old
+house in which he was born, where he had first found that he could sit
+in his room and send his consciousness questing down the hall to meet
+his father when he came home, pry into what his father had brought for
+him and surprise his parents later by invariably guessing correctly.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes now he wished that he hadn't "guessed" correctly so often in
+those days. Then his uncle Ralph wouldn't have mentioned his unusual
+ability to the Business Ethics Bureau and the psis wouldn't have
+investigated him. Once they found that he had such mental
+qualifications he had been sent to the Service Psi School, a virtual
+prison despite his family's social status.</p>
+
+<p>Anger suddenly choked him at the thought of what his uncle Ralph had
+brought upon him. The psi training had been so rigid, so harsh at
+times.</p>
+
+<p>Well, of course they have to be sure that psis develop into useful
+members of society. But couldn't they treat you more normally, more
+humanly?</p>
+
+<p>Now, perhaps he'd show them, repay them for the cruel years of a
+lonely, bitter youth. He hadn't taken the Oath yet, and if he were
+clever enough he'd never have to! The real estate lawyer in Los
+Angeles with whom Lawrence was making a deal had evaded service
+somehow, apparently. So it was possible.</p>
+
+<p>He had learned long ago that money wouldn't buy him out of service.
+He'd tried also to purchase certain liberties at school. Some of the
+less scrupulous teachers had taken his allowance, but only one of them
+had ever given him anything in return. And of course he couldn't
+protest when he had violated Ethics to give the bribes. In any event,
+no one would take the word of an untrained psi over the word of a
+stable, normal human being.</p>
+
+<p>During the stabilization course one professor had permitted him to
+skip some classes. Now he wished that he hadn't missed them; he
+probably wouldn't have this semantic instability to contend with now.
+Oh, well....</p>
+
+<p>He <i>was</i> tired. He'd spent the previous night, or most of it, worrying
+about the miserable state of his finances. He needed money, a lot of
+money. But he wouldn't, of course, admit that to Lawrence.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence would have understood why he needed money&mdash;even more than the
+hundred thousand he had offered. But then Lawrence might mistrust his
+motives in accepting the proposal so readily if he knew.</p>
+
+<p>A year before Black had invested too much of his own money in a "sure
+thing" upon the advice of a fellow psi trainee who, he subsequently
+and sadly found out, had <i>economic</i> instability. Semantic instability
+was bad enough!</p>
+
+<p>Not that Martin Black didn't have a hundred thousand dollars. He was,
+indeed, a rather wealthy young man, thanks to his mother who had been,
+to her son's knowledge&mdash;and to his alone&mdash;a psi with definite powers
+of pre-vision and persuasion.</p>
+
+<p>He recalled the tale Mom had told him of her first meeting with Dad,
+of how she'd lingered over Dad's well groomed nails three times longer
+than desire for a good tip made necessary, while she'd gently
+insinuated into his mind an idea that was next day translated into
+action on the stock market, with a modest investment from a modest
+purse that brought the young man a small fortune. After the wedding
+Martha Black dedicated herself to further improvements in the same
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>As for Martin's father, his chief business assets had been an
+unswerving adoration of his wife and complete willingness to do with
+his money as she saw fit. The combination had been unbeatable.</p>
+
+<p>When Martin's father was laid to rest, Martha Black, concerned over
+the future of her somewhat unusual son and fearing that economic
+instability might beset him, continued to improve the fortune he would
+some day inherit.</p>
+
+<p>Long before the death of his mother five years before, Black
+Controlled Atomics, Inc., had grown sufficiently important to command
+the services of a lawyer of Standskill's caliber. Gradually Standskill
+had become general counsel to the Black enterprises and at the same
+time a close friend of Martha Black and her son.</p>
+
+<p>It was chiefly in the latter capacity that the widow consulted
+Standskill as she approached the end of her life. Her Last Will and
+Testament, duly signed, sealed, published and declared, left one-half
+of the immediately-to-be-liquidated estate to her son outright. The
+other half was put in trust.</p>
+
+<p>Under the trust Martin was to receive the income until he was thirty.
+If then an audit showed that his net worth, exclusive of the trust,
+had increased by thirty percent the trust was to end and Martin was to
+receive the principal. If not, the trust would end and the full amount
+thereof would go to his uncle Ralph, a prospect which caused Martin
+completely to lose his stability whenever he allowed himself to think
+of it. He just <i>had</i> to make the thirty percent!</p>
+
+<p>R. W. Standskill was trustee, and the will gave him full power to
+invest the trust estate as he saw fit and without liability if his
+investments went bad and without any bond or security required of him
+whatsoever. More in token of appreciation of his services than
+anything else, Standskill was to receive one percent of the trust as
+long as he was trustee.</p>
+
+<p>Martin Black's mind dwelled on the thought of the thirty percent
+increase. After five years of conservative investing he had taken some
+bad advice in the past year. And now he had to make some money fast in
+order to catch up to the quota which was necessary if he were to
+achieve his goal.</p>
+
+<p>The Lawrence deal would give him his chance. But not if Standskill
+knew about it. The Lawrence deal seemed a good thing, but perhaps it
+was only a <i>sure</i> thing if he kept to himself, for the time being at
+least.</p>
+
+<p>He was so tired.... <i>Fatigu&eacute;.</i> The French for tired. Funny, he did
+remember some of the French from school. Standskill was in Paris.
+Association. <i>Fatigu&eacute;.</i> The word stuck. That club&mdash;Bob Standskill's
+favorite&mdash;<i>Le Cheval Fatigu&eacute;</i> in Montmartre. The Tired Horse.
+Tired....</p>
+
+<p>Sleep closed in.... He drifted ... and came to with a sudden start as
+a hand roughly shook his shoulder. It seemed as though he had been
+hovering mentally in a dimly-lighted cellar cafe, where there was a
+babel of voices speaking continental languages, and Standskill was
+there.</p>
+
+<p>But, <i>no!</i> he couldn't have been in Paris any more than he had been on
+the meteor-pounded wastes of the moon! It was ridiculous. As far as he
+knew, no psi had ever been known consciously to flit to the moon&mdash;or
+unconsciously, for that matter&mdash;or to the other side of an ocean!</p>
+
+<p>Standskill's partner, G. D. Rich, was shaking his shoulder. "What's
+the matter, Marty? Big night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Big day," Black said. "Why don't you fellows stick around and take
+care of your business? I'm not even supposed to answer the telephone,
+you know, but someone has to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can I help it that the Legal Secretaries Guild has called a
+three-day convention? There's not a secretary present in any law
+office in New York right now! I personally cut the phone in to the
+answering service before I left for court."</p>
+
+<p>"Inadvertence, I guess," Black said thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Inadvertence?" Rich said quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mine. I must have cut it back."</p>
+
+<p>He didn't tell Rich that he hadn't stirred from the desk since Rich
+had left. The switch was in the outer office. Had he with his
+consciousness floating high over New York sensed subconsciously that
+Lawrence was about to call and so cut in the switch? Had he built into
+himself something of the pattern of his mother, something of
+pre-vision or prescience, or call it what you will? Was a latent hunch
+power coming out in him now, something that would manifest itself by
+acts not consciously controlled? He hoped not! Semantic instability
+was bad enough!</p>
+
+
+<h2>III</h2>
+
+<p>Sleep evaded Martin Black again that night.... There was no doubt that
+Lawrence had a great idea.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence held forty-five percent of the company's stock. He wanted
+control. In fact, he wanted outright ownership, but this was not
+possible because the other major stockholders, holding forty-five
+percent, seemed to be perfectly satisfied with their lucrative
+investment. Cautious inquiries had failed to disclose any inclination
+on their respective parts to sell.</p>
+
+<p>There were, however, enough independent shares outstanding to give
+Lawrence control if they were added to his own. The thing to do was to
+figure a way to buy them. The problem was that no matter how secret
+his operations, news or rumors of them would certainly leak out. The
+shares would then undoubtedly jump to outrageous highs. Lawrence
+couldn't risk that. He'd not be able to buy sufficient shares if the
+price rose.</p>
+
+<p>His corporation had completed Quijotoa City and had built Mojave City
+and Sanup Plateau City, had through applied atomics created verdant
+and lovely places out of wasteland and desert. It still owned the
+atomic piles that provided power for the cities and the profits
+therefrom were enormous.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence was progressive. He was at heart a humanitarian. He wanted to
+develop other areas more from the humanitarian view than the profit
+motive. He had learned long ago that the profits would take care of
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>In probing the man's mind, Black sensed Lawrence's great desire for
+adulation, his great desire to be remembered as a public benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>Now if only he, Martin J. Black, could benefit financially from this
+new deal&mdash;if he could corner enough of those independent shares, he
+could and certainly would vote them Lawrence's way. Then, perhaps the
+possibility of making the thirty percent he needed would approach
+probability, would reach it. With Lawrence's Midas touch the
+corporation would also realize millions in profits if the deal went
+through.</p>
+
+<p>Figures revolved in Black's mind. If Lawrence&mdash;or if he&mdash;could corner
+six percent of the stock.... Could some of the independents be
+persuaded to sell, <i>psionically persuaded</i>? Or one of the other major
+stockholders? No, that would be unethical and the strongest part of a
+psi's training was a fine code of ethics.</p>
+
+<p>Black began to doze&mdash;and felt something ever so softly probing at his
+mind. <i>A probe!</i> Probably a service psi checking on him. <i>Why?</i> Just
+the usual check? No, it wasn't due.</p>
+
+<p>He knew what to do. He had been probed before. Probing was part of the
+training at psi school but he had never revealed&mdash;and his tutors had
+never guessed&mdash;that he could create a block that could not be sensed
+by the prober. A block which could close off whatever thoughts he
+wished to conceal.</p>
+
+<p>He blocked his thoughts of Lawrence and the deal now, and opened
+freely that part of his mind which held the routine thoughts of the
+law offices. He felt that feather of thought brushing lightly through
+his brain, then it was gone as quickly as it had come.</p>
+
+<p>There was a cold sweat over him but he knew that he had passed the
+test. Why the probe? Perhaps a BEB psi had wind of Lawrence's deal and
+by probing Lawrence's mind&mdash;or the mind of someone in the West Coast
+realty outfit&mdash;had somehow learned of Black's association with the
+industrialist. If that were the case there would be more probes. One
+time or another a probe might come at a moment of nervous tension or
+stress and the information would be gleaned from his mind before he
+could block!</p>
+
+<p>He must work fast.</p>
+
+<p>He arose and went to the visiphone, placed a person-to-person call to
+Los Angeles.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick Joyce?" he asked before the visual contact was complete, and
+only his voice went out.</p>
+
+<p>The face that came in sync on the screen was round, jovial. "Well,
+hello, Marty!"</p>
+
+<p><i>Lawrence must have called him, or else he plucked the name from my
+mind. But he didn't probe&mdash;or did he?</i></p>
+
+<p>"Dick, do you register?" <i>With the mind now&mdash;cautiously!</i></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Marty."</p>
+
+<p><i>Pretend you're my personal friend, Dick. There's no psi on us but we
+may be wiretapped by BEB&mdash;lots of law offices are and trainees
+connected with them. Can a definite date be set for the picking-up of
+the options?</i></p>
+
+<p>"It's good to see you again, Marty! When will you be coming out for
+another visit?" <i>Yes, the options are in the bag. My agents have them
+all lined up. Confidentially, they couldn't miss. The only trouble
+they ran into was that some of the landowners thought they were insane
+to be interested in the property and one of them actually suffered a
+sprained wrist from the hand-shaking of an overly thankful owner.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Soon. That's why I called you. Thought we should get together after
+all these years." <i>What's the latest date for signing?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Tomorrow night.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Tomorrow night! That doesn't give much time! Since I'm acting for
+Lawrence I have to see what we're getting.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Well, Lawrence told us to work fast. But I agree that it's a good
+idea that you see the properties.</i> "How about this weekend?" His voice
+was casual.</p>
+
+<p><i>Tomorrow evening local time it is then. But where will we make
+psi-contact?</i></p>
+
+<p>A mental picture of a map. Desolation.... Oklahoma....</p>
+
+<p>"Okay, Dick. See you then. Regards to the family!"</p>
+
+<p>"Goodbye, Marty."</p>
+
+<p>He rang off.</p>
+
+<p>He was tired. He went to bed and sought sleep, praying that the block
+his fatigued mind had set would remain firm.</p>
+
+
+<h2>IV</h2>
+
+<p>Martin Black passed a very bad night. Maintaining a mental block when
+asleep is a major feat, especially when one has semantic instability
+and a dream can so often be so realistic as to bring one's
+consciousness awake and mentally screaming miles from the physical
+being it has involuntarily left.</p>
+
+<p>He dreamed with incredible regularity, waking five times out of
+nightmares, five times strangely on the hour as though he had tied
+some part of his mental being to the irresistibly moving, luminescent
+minute hand of his electric clock. <i>Time is of the essence</i>, he had
+told himself during the psi-visiphone contact with Joyce.
+<i>Association!</i></p>
+
+<p>Two <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> He had dreamt of Joyce, dreamt that Joyce had somehow
+revealed the proposed transaction to BEB, putting Dodson on his trail.
+Wide awake now, he forced himself to think of the options which must
+be picked up the following night, options drawn so that not only the
+landowners must sign them but both the realty outfit and he, as
+Lawrence's attorney-in-fact, as well. Could he sign for Lawrence if
+Joyce had spilled?... No, it was only a dream. Joyce was so <i>very</i>
+stable!</p>
+
+<p>Three <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> He had dreamt of Standskill, tall, lean Standskill striding
+through the lovely early morning along the Champs &Eacute;lys&eacute;es, moving
+purposefully. He had even dreamt he had for a moment invaded
+Standskill's mind and caught the lawyer's pounding thought, "Lawrence!
+<i>Buy</i>, Lawrence!" Oh, but that would never do. The service psis would
+catch Standskill, would test the ethics of it now that Joyce had
+spilled, would cause Standskill to be disbarred. But Standskill didn't
+know! A dream. <i>A lunatic dream.</i></p>
+
+<p>Four <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> The coincidence of the timing of his wakings struck him
+then. For a moment the latest dream eluded him and then the sense of
+airless cold, a bleak, cratered landscape, stark stars staring in a
+lunar night swept coldly across his mind. He shivered, drew the
+blanket over him, thought: <i>How many shares? Six thousand? I can do
+it. I'll contact the broker in the morning. Six thousand at two
+hundred per. One million two hundred thousand dollars.</i></p>
+
+<p>But that would raise the price, the attempt to buy so many shares. You
+can't buy a million plus in one stock without driving the price
+up&mdash;<i>unless you manage to buy all the shares at once</i>! If only he
+could persuade&mdash;psionically persuade&mdash;but he couldn't! It wasn't
+ethical.</p>
+
+<p>His mind drifted.... I'll call the broker in the morning. Perhaps he
+can start picking up some of the independent shares when the market
+opens. If only he could snag the four thousand that&mdash;what was that
+name in Lawrence's mind?&mdash;yes, Redgrave! The four thousand that
+Redgrave has! That would be a start!</p>
+
+<p>Redgrave had always fought Lawrence tooth and nail. Lawrence would
+derive vast personal satisfaction from seeing Redgrave an
+<i>ex</i>-stockholder. Thankless cad! Investment in the corporation had
+helped make Redgrave a very wealthy man. Lawrence stock was only part
+of his vast holdings. Redgrave was definitely out of the red!</p>
+
+<p>Black chuckled, then told himself that this was a grave and not a
+laughing matter. Sleep was coming again.... <i>Out of the red. Grave.
+Redgrave!</i></p>
+
+<p>Five <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> He awoke in a cold sweat.... This time the dream came back
+slowly, drenching him with fear as it came. It was sheer madness, this
+dream! To have even considered investing in Lawrence Applied Atomics!
+The Government would never condone the deal Lawrence was
+contemplating&mdash;the Applied Atomics Corporation was nearly insolvent,
+the BEB psis were investigating it....</p>
+
+<p>Black tossed fitfully on the bed, seeking sleep desperately, seeking
+to escape the black night pressing in, to evade the imagined&mdash;or was
+it real?&mdash;probing minds of service psis.</p>
+
+<p>Six <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> He almost forgot the fears that had assailed him an hour
+before. He realized then that in the last few minutes or seconds or
+however long the latest transient phantasm had been in his mind he had
+dreamt of his broker pacing a dimly-lighted chamber, muttering, "The
+man's out of his mind. Economic instability, that's certain. Thinking
+of selling good stock to invest in Lawrence Applied Atomics! Not that
+Lawrence stock isn't fairly good, but he'll never make enough out of
+the corporation's piles; the returns are not that great!"</p>
+
+<p>8 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> Black stretched, felt strangely relaxed. He realized then that
+as he had slept and, despite the fitfulness of his sleeping, his mind
+had apparently gone on analyzing the possible reactions to the big
+deal.</p>
+
+<p>He arose, took a shower, shaved, ate breakfast. Then he went to the
+visiphone and buttoned Charles Wythe, his broker, at his office.</p>
+
+<p>"Charlie," Black said to the cadaverous looking man who answered.
+"Where's the boss?"</p>
+
+<p>"Went to see a psychiatrist."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. What's on your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to do some selling and buying for me. Sell whatever you
+like, but buy Lawrence Applied Atomics."</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Marty, let's not go off half-cocked. Last year you had a sudden
+brainstorm and remember what happened. Lawrence may be a good stock,
+but it won't help you to build up to that thirty percent you need. Not
+in the time you have to do it in. It's bad enough for you to take a
+big licking once. Let's not be stupid again."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Charlie, don't be nasty. I want you to buy Lawrence as quietly
+as you can. I want six thousand shares at the current price. Get them
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you shaken loose from your psyche or id or whatever?" Wythe
+cried. "Do it quietly, the man says, do it quietly! You can do it
+about as quietly as they launched the space station. Where do you
+think I can get six thousand shares of Lawrence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you buy them!" Black answered innocently. "Isn't that what you
+do down at the Stock Exchange?"</p>
+
+<p>The broker groaned. "Sure, that's all I do. Buy, that is. But not
+Lawrence. Look, Marty, see this chart? Yesterday was a big day for
+Lawrence Applied Atomics. It was unusually active. Three hundred
+shares changed hands. The day before it was one hundred. Once in my
+memory Lawrence had a four thousand share day. That must have been
+when Redgrave bought in. Now you tell me how I'm going to get you six
+thousand shares, get them quietly, and get them at the current price!"</p>
+
+<p>"Start buying," Black said, "because I've got a hunch you'll find
+them. My mother had hunches, didn't she? Did she ever tell you or the
+boss to buy the wrong stocks? Did she&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That was your mother, Marty. What about that hunch you had last year,
+the one that cost you a couple of hundred thou&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That was last year!"</p>
+
+<p>"So, what's changed?" asked Wythe.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe <i>I've</i> changed, Charlie. Do it; that's all I ask."</p>
+
+<p>"Okay, Marty. But I think you're out of your mind, especially with
+what was on the morning news."</p>
+
+<p>"And what was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lawrence is in bad shape. He's not likely to pull through. They
+operated last night, in case you didn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"But that should drive the stock down!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why? It won't affect the profits from the corporation's piles."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I agree. But that's not the only thing that keeps the price up.
+What about Lawrence's reputation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's also a rumor about a government investigation of the
+corporation," Wythe admitted. "That might have some downward effect."</p>
+
+<p>"Buy, Charlie, buy! I'll ring you later."</p>
+
+<p>Black rang off. He felt an overwhelming confidence. He had only one
+small doubt in his mind&mdash;during or following one of those disturbing
+dreams had he been sufficiently overwrought to have relaxed his mental
+block, thereby letting in a fleeting probe from a service psi who
+would then have gleaned, in a moment, knowledge of the proposed
+transaction?</p>
+
+<p>The unease waned. The exuberant confidence was in him again. The
+prescience of Martha Black?</p>
+
+<p>He went out and caught a heli-cab to the law offices. He'd be a good
+trainee to the eyes and minds of anyone who might check. If the
+service psis were on his trail, he'd show them how good a trainee he
+was. He could check with Charlie Wythe later.</p>
+
+
+<h2>V</h2>
+
+<p>At ten <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, Standskill's partner, G. D. Rich left the office to
+attend court.</p>
+
+<p>At ten-thirty <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, a contact call came whispering to Black's mind. He
+thought it at first a probe and blocked part of his mind; then
+relaxed as it realized it was a psi asking with overbearing politeness
+for him to connect the visiphone circuit. The mental touch seemed
+somehow familiar, but it wasn't Joyce. He knew it wasn't Joyce; there
+was something unsure and tentative about the whisper of thought.</p>
+
+<p>Black psionically cut in the outer office visiphone connection. The
+bell rang almost immediately. He switched on the inner office
+instrument and a familiar face came in sync on the screen&mdash;that of
+Peter Dodson, the principal administrative officer of the BEB psis.</p>
+
+<p>Dodson's blondly handsome face showed concern. He said, "I wanted
+visiphone contact, Black, because of an unfavorable report I've
+received on you. I'll get to that in a minute. First, I'd like to
+explain the background. As you may have learned from the news this
+morning, we're investigating Lawrence Applied Atomics because of a tip
+we'd received from Los Angeles that Lawrence is engaged in a venture
+which will eventually affect corporation funds without proper advance
+authorization.</p>
+
+<p>"Finding that Lawrence had some dealings with Standskill in the past,
+we thought that Standskill might be able to shed some light on the new
+venture. When we were unable to contact Standskill, we sought to
+contact you psionically last night, but found that your mind was a
+completely unreadable jumble of nightmares, filled with phobias and
+instabilities. We stopped probing then, realizing that you might be
+seriously ill."</p>
+
+<p>Apparently visual examination had convinced Dodson that Black wasn't
+as ill as had been thought. Black felt the feather touch of a probe
+coming now and he blocked, his thin face expressionless.</p>
+
+<p>"I did have a rather bad night," Black said. "Association. Semantic
+instability." He felt the tentacle of thought that was sweeping across
+his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Dodson said, his eyes probing from the screen, "it's obvious
+<i>you</i> know nothing of the Lawrence deal. Strange, though, since
+there's a record of a call placed to that office by Lawrence
+yesterday, and as far as we have been able to determine only you were
+there and only you could have answered. How do you explain that?"</p>
+
+<p>Easy now! The block is most difficult to maintain when you're lying.
+Easy....</p>
+
+<p>"There was a call," Black admitted, "from someone I don't know, a
+fellow who wanted Standskill. Wouldn't say why or give his name. The
+moment I told him Standskill was in Paris he said with some reluctance
+that he would have to contact another law firm. The caller was
+probably Lawrence. If you could describe him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"So Standskill's in Paris! The answering service didn't know that.
+Well, that rules him out. Thank you, Black. Are you sure you're all
+right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rather tired," Black said. "Overwork, I expect. The training is
+rather strenuous, and I do wish you wouldn't probe. As you found in
+psi school, my powers have a very delicate balance."</p>
+
+<p>The probe withdrew hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, Black. Very sorry. Perhaps you need a rest. I'll be only too
+glad to send through an order&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, sir," Black said, trying to make it sound fervent and
+properly subservient. He sent a thought of thankfulness after his
+words, a weak one. He must not appear too strong.</p>
+
+<p>Dodson rang off.</p>
+
+<p>The coast was clear! They would not probe again soon!</p>
+
+<p>Black immediately called Charles Wythe, found his broker's cadaverous
+face puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Marty, the market's crazy! I managed to pick up four thousand shares
+within ten minutes after the market opened. One purchase. The broker
+from whom I obtained them represented Dan Redgrave&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Redgrave!" Black almost shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Redgrave. He said Redgrave is plain cuckoo. Ordered him to sell
+at one hundred fifty. Said he'd bought them at that and would sell
+them at that. No profit wanted. Glad to get out in time to recoup his
+original investment. What's cuckoo about it is that, except for the
+momentary flurry when we picked up the Redgrave shares, the stock has
+been rising all morning. It's up to two twenty-five as of this moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Lawrence must have someone else buying regardless of the price. Three
+concerns are still trying to buy at the present price. Ethics forbids
+me to ask who their clients are. Not that they'd tell me anyway! Now,
+look, Marty, do you want me to buy at that price, if I can, that is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must have six thousand, unless Lawrence is buying and I'm
+quite sure he isn't. See if you can find out who the buyer is, won't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody's crazy today," the broker said. "I'll call you back."</p>
+
+<p>Wythe did, a few minutes later.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it's no use, Marty. There's not another share to be had.
+There's been news from the hospital. Lawrence has rallied. Although
+he's still in a coma, his chances are good for recovery. Not only
+that, but the Business Ethics Bureau has issued a statement to the
+effect that the tip they'd received about Lawrence and a deal has not
+been proved to have a foundation in fact. Those things have put the
+stock way up. Everybody wants to buy Lawrence but nobody wants to
+sell&mdash;except me! Let's sell, Marty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not on your life," Black said decisively. "And, look, we <i>must</i> get
+two thousand more shares! Get them, Charlie!"</p>
+
+<p>He clicked off again.</p>
+
+<p>So Dan Redgrave had sold at a ridiculously low price! Had his
+consciousness wandered in those dreams? Had he psionically persuaded
+Redgrave to sell? That wouldn't be ethical. But do ethics apply to
+<i>involuntary</i> acts?</p>
+
+<p>His mind was in turmoil. He dared not exercise his psi powers again
+just now. He feared above all the wrath of Dodson and the other
+service psis. If they came to suspect that he had persuaded
+Redgrave&mdash;that he had, according to Ethics, misused his powers ... he
+knew only too well that there are ways of banishing psi powers,
+insulin shock and other treatments.</p>
+
+<p>And for all his present aloneness he was beginning to realize his
+latent powers&mdash;powers which, when fully developed, would doubtlessly
+bring him into contact with others like himself, with someone who
+could share the fierce ecstasy of probing with the consciousness to
+the moon, or even farther, at the speed of light at which thought
+moved. No, perhaps he need not always be alone....</p>
+
+<p>He went out to lunch, returned, called his broker. Wythe told him
+there was no activity in Lawrence. The afternoon wore. A few minutes
+before the exchange closed the broker called.</p>
+
+<p>"It's hopeless, Marty," said Wythe. "Let's sell. The price is still
+two twenty-five and nothing for sale. How about it? Three hundred
+thousand profit in one day."</p>
+
+<p>It sounded attractive. Black hesitated, then thought of Lawrence,
+good, old would-be humanitarian and philanthropist D. V. Lawrence
+lying in coma. Lawrence, whose dreams were in his hands now. He had
+come to like Lawrence, the trail-blazer where there were so few trails
+to be blazed. He had to help him. If worse came to worse he would cast
+Ethics to the winds. He'd have to! His conscience couldn't permit him
+to do anything else. He would psionically persuade at least one of the
+other stockholders to vote Lawrence's way.</p>
+
+<p>Well, at least his mind was made up. Lawrence would have his options.
+And with forty-nine percent of the stock between them they could
+gamble on getting a favorable vote.</p>
+
+<p>"What about it, Marty?" the broker asked impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry," Black said. "The answer is no, Charlie! I want that stock."</p>
+
+<p>He rang off.</p>
+
+<p>Moments later his consciousness was on its way to keep the rendezvous
+with Joyce high in the evening sky over Oklahoma, up where the blue of
+the atmosphere turned to the black of infinity.</p>
+
+<p>And moments later lights blazed over a table in a realty office in Los
+Angeles where no one sat. But pens lifted and wrote....</p>
+
+<p>"<i>D. V. Lawrence by Martin J. Black, his attorney-in-fact.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>J. F. Cadigan Realty Corporation by Richard Joyce, Vice-President.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Another pen lifted with the invisible but delicate twist of a feminine
+psi-touch.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Before me this ninth day of September in the year Nineteen Hundred
+and Seventy-six Anno Domini psionically appeared....</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The options were psigned, come what may!</p>
+
+
+<h2>VI</h2>
+
+<p>An oak-panelled conference room. Lawrence's first vice-president
+reading the proposal. The board of directors. The major stockholders.
+Smaller ones. Attorneys-in-fact for both Lawrence and Black.</p>
+
+<p>And <i>Bob Standskill</i>!</p>
+
+<p>What was Standskill doing here?</p>
+
+<p>But the first vice-president had finished reading the proposal and was
+asking for a vote.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence&mdash;forty-five thousand shares&mdash;<i>yes</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Maryk&mdash;twenty thousand shares&mdash;<i>no</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Carrese&mdash;nine thousand shares&mdash;<i>no</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Tonemont&mdash;seven thousand shares&mdash;<i>no</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Black&mdash;four thousand shares&mdash;<i>yes</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Turitz&mdash;five thousand shares&mdash;<i>no</i>!</p>
+
+<p>And the smaller stockholders, one by one&mdash;<i>no</i>, <i>no</i>, <i>no</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Forty-nine thousand shares&mdash;<i>no</i>! Forty-nine thousand shares&mdash;<i>yes</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Black felt ill. His hovering consciousness almost fled from its
+invisible vantage point above the conference table back to the mansion
+on Riverside Drive, back where the memories of Martha Black
+remained.... But it wavered, stabilized....</p>
+
+<p>Standskill rising, so implacable, so sure and saying, "Two thousand
+shares&mdash;yes!"</p>
+
+<p>Black probed Standskill's mind almost involuntarily then, realizing
+instantly that he should have disregarded Ethics and probed before.
+Standskill was a psi, a <i>non-service psi</i>! And Black knew then that
+when his consciousness had flitted through association to <i>Le Cheval
+Fatigu&eacute;</i> in Montmarte, Paris, and had fixed there for a brief unstable
+moment it had yielded to Standskill all knowledge of the Lawrence
+deal, persuading Standskill to order his brokers to buy the
+corporation's stock for the trust....</p>
+
+<p>Black's consciousness sped to join Joyce's in a law office in
+Oklahoma. It watched the landowners signing the deeds even as it
+signed psionically the checks which represented the good and valuable
+considerations.</p>
+
+<p>The deal was closed.</p>
+
+
+<h2>VII</h2>
+
+<p><i>Joyce, tell me&mdash;did you, to your knowledge, tip off the BEB psis?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Yes. Inadvertently, of course. I had a nightmare. I'm afraid I'm
+sometimes unstable, anonymously so, when asleep. Only then, though,
+thank Heaven!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>And, Joyce, why aren't you in service?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>For the same reason you can't be.</i></p>
+
+<p>Confusion.</p>
+
+<p><i>What do you mean?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Your mother knew.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>My mother?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Yes, Marty, don't you realize that only unstable psis are taken into
+service? Stability is the mark of the superman. Do the majority of men
+want the minority&mdash;the supermen&mdash;running their world even though the
+supermen are their brothers, sisters and children? And they must
+surely realize that all mankind will evolve to psis one day. Marty,
+you were in psi school. So was I. Did you complete Stabilization?... I
+see you didn't. No psi does! They let you think you're getting away
+with something when you skip classes, but you're not!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Fortunately, if you are strong enough, you stabilize on your own.
+Perhaps you'll realize now that your mother gave you the incentive:
+the thirty percent angle, realizing that an uncle you definitely did
+not like would inherit if you didn't strive to the utmost. It worked.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>They can't touch me, Marty, and they can't touch you! We can elude
+them mentally and physically. They know they can't touch us; so they
+just have to tolerate us! I can read in your mind that you've
+stabilized. You can fit physically now. Why don't you try? Lawrence is
+waiting....</i></p>
+
+<p>Black's consciousness sped back to his body. His body lifted and sped
+to a hospital room.</p>
+
+<p>Lawrence was awake. He viewed Black's materialization with
+incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>"The deal is closed," Black said.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;you&mdash;" Lawrence stammered. "Closed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And, considering the shares I hold, I guess that makes me
+something of a psilent partner of yours!"</p>
+
+<p>A brash young man, Lawrence thought. A very brash young man!</p>
+
+<p>Black grinned. <i>Thirty percent? He couldn't miss!</i></p>
+
+<p>They shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>It was a deal. Psigned, sealed and delivered!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psilent Partner, by 
+John Victor Peterson and Edward S. Staub
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psilent Partner, by
+John Victor Peterson and Edward S. Staub
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Psilent Partner
+
+Author: John Victor Peterson
+        Edward S. Staub
+
+Release Date: March 22, 2010 [EBook #31735]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PSILENT PARTNER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe March 1954. Extensive
+    research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+    publication was renewed.
+
+
+[_Without stressing the technological aspects of the strange
+  powers of the widely-talented ones--the psis, espers, telepaths which
+  have been so painstakingly forecast by Stapledon, van Vogt, Weinbaum,
+  Vance and others--Messieurs Peterson and Staub have whipped fantasy,
+  forecasts and facts into a stirring and mentally titillating story of
+  a too-imaginative mind._]
+
+
+                         the psilent partner
+
+
+           by ... Edward S. Staub and John Victor Peterson
+
+
+     A pstrange probing mind that crossed pstate lines, the
+     pseas, even high in the psky--to bring psomething new to
+     Wall Pstreet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_He had never cast his consciousness so far before. It floated high
+above New York, perceiving in the noonday sky the thin, faint crescent
+of a waning moon. He wondered if one day he might cast his mind even
+to the moon, knew with a mounting exultation that his powers were
+already great enough._
+
+_Yet he was as afraid to launch it on that awesome transit as he still
+was to send it delving into the tight subway tunnels in the rock of
+Manhattan. Phobias were too real now. Perhaps it would be different
+later...._
+
+_He was young, as a man, younger as a recognized developing psi. As
+his consciousness floated there above the bustling city, exultant,
+free, it sensed that back where his body lay a bell was ringing. And
+the bell meant it--his consciousness--must return now to that
+body...._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dale V. Lawrence needed a lawyer urgently. Not that he hadn't a score
+of legal minds at his disposal; a corporation president must maintain
+a sizable legal staff. You can't build an industrial empire without
+treading on people's toes. And you need lawyers when you tread.
+
+He sat behind his massive mahogany desk, a stocky, slightly-balding,
+stern-looking man of middle age who was psychosomatically creating
+another ulcer as he worried about the business transaction which he
+could not handle personally because of the ulcer operation he was
+about to have. Neither the business transaction nor the operation
+could be delayed.
+
+He needed a particularly clever lawyer, one not connected with the
+corporation. Not that he had committed or that he contemplated
+committing a crime. But the eyes of the law and the minds of the psis
+of the government's Business Ethics Bureau were equally keen. Anyone
+in the business of commercially applied atomics was automatically and
+immediately investigated in any proposed transaction as soon as BEB
+had knowledge thereof. There was still the fear that someone somewhere
+might attempt, secretly, to build a war weapon again.
+
+Lawrence had an idea, a great, burning, impossible-to-discard idea.
+Lawrence Applied Atomics, Inc., had been his first great idea--the
+idea that had made him a multi-millionaire. But through some devious
+financing he had lost control of the corporation. And although his
+ideas invariably realized millions, the other major stockholders were
+becoming cautious about risking their profits. Overly cautious, he
+thought. And on this new idea he knew they would never support him.
+They'd consider it a wild risk. He could blame BEB with its psis for
+that. BEB was too inquisitive. A business man just couldn't take a
+decent gamble any longer.
+
+The real estate firm in Los Angeles was secretly securing options from
+individual landowners. Fortunately the firm employed a psi, one of the
+few known psis not in government service. Lawrence had wondered why
+this psi was not working for the government, but decided the 'why'
+didn't matter if there were positive results.
+
+Lawrence knew a little about psis. He knew, of course, what was
+commonly known--that they possessed wide and very varied talents, that
+they were categorized as plain psis, psi-espers, esper-psis, telepaths
+and other things. They weren't numerous; the Business Ethics Bureau
+which employed at least sixty percent of the known psis showed thirty
+on the payroll for this fiscal year.
+
+Despite their rumored emotional instability, he knew that they were
+clever and he would steer clear of them in the present stages of his
+transaction. Although his idea wasn't unethical, the so far closely
+kept secret would be out if BEB investigated. Then anybody could cut
+in. BEB advertised whatever it did on its video show, "Your
+Developing Earth."
+
+So, he needed a lawyer who could act for him personally, now, and
+steer his project clear of the government service psis. But where to
+find a psis....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course! Bob Standskill! Standskill had helped him once years before
+when he had had that trouble with the Corporation Stock Control Board
+over a doubtful issue of securities he had floated to build Mojave
+City out of desert wastes. Without Standskill's techniques he never
+would have put that issue across. Standskill could handle this if
+anyone could.
+
+Lawrence reached to the visiphone, punched the button sequence of
+Standskill's office number. The bell rang interminably before a rather
+bored young voice said, "Offices of Standskill and Rich,
+Attorneys-at-Law."
+
+"I know," Lawrence said harshly. "I don't button wrong numbers. Is
+Standskill there? And where's your courtesy? There's no visual."
+
+The picture came in then. Lawrence caught a flash of long, skinny legs
+going down behind the desk at the other end of the circuit; then he
+saw a most remarkable thing--the open collar of the young man's shirt
+seemed suddenly to button itself and the knot of the gaudy tie to
+tighten and all the while the fellow's hands were lying immobile on
+the desk!
+
+_Impossible!_ Lawrence thought. _I'm cracking up! Too many worries
+about the psis ... I think I see them everywhere!_
+
+As the youth gulped as though the tie was knotted too tightly,
+Lawrence was sure that he saw the knot relax itself!
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Standskill's on vacation and Mr. Rich is
+in court. May I help you, sir, or take a message?"
+
+Undoubtedly the fellow had recognized him from news fotos.
+
+"Well, who are you, the office boy?"
+
+A frown of annoyance crossed the young man's thin, dark features. He
+snapped, "Are corporation presidents exempt from common courtesy? My
+name is Black--Martin J. Black. I'm not connected with this firm. I
+answered as a courtesy. Shall we disconnect?"
+
+Lawrence was silent for a moment. He thought of the shirt-tie business
+and said, "You're a trainee psi, aren't you? A prospective service
+psi?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. I wish I weren't. It's not a pleasant prospect."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Would you like to probe minds for a living? And it has its other
+drawbacks. You can't live normally and you'll have very few friends.
+Unfortunately no two psis are alike, which makes the job more
+complicated. I'm un-normal, abnormal, subnormal or some other normal
+they haven't prefixed yet."
+
+"Any special talents?"
+
+"I'm afraid so."
+
+"Rather young," Lawrence mused. Then said, "Are you economically
+stable?"
+
+The young man hesitated, then said hastily, "Oh, yes, of course.
+Economically, yes. Somewhat more stable than most, I think. I'm in
+final training now. The legal phase comes last, you know."
+
+"Then you're not committed yet? You've not taken the Oath of
+Anterhine?"
+
+"No. I won't until the training is done. Wish I didn't have to then."
+
+"And your training?"
+
+"Complete except for criminal psychology."
+
+"Would you like to make a hundred thousand dollars?"
+
+Black said, "Your firm bought out Black Controlled Atomics, remember?
+That was my dad, and that was the end for him." He hesitated. "Let's
+say I'm vaguely interested. What's your proposition?"
+
+Lawrence was silent for a moment. At length he said, "Being a psi your
+ultimate destiny is to aid in the development of the world whether you
+like to look forward to it or not. But would you not like to see
+desert areas developed through applied atomics as Mojave City, Sanup
+Plateau City and Quijotoa City were?"
+
+"Certainly," Black said quickly. "It's in my blood. The old man did
+well at such developments; in fact, he started Quijotoa. Sometimes I
+wish Standskill hadn't liquidated our estate, but my mother's will
+made it mandatory."
+
+"How much do you know about Standskill's techniques?"
+
+"I'm a psi," Black said. "I can find out anything I want to know."
+
+"Where _is_ Standskill?"
+
+"Paris. His first vacation in years. Going to be away quite a while."
+
+"Will you come to my office?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'd like to discuss a business proposition."
+
+"What's wrong with doing it over the visiphone?"
+
+"This is confidential," Lawrence said.
+
+"Something not exactly legal?" Black asked. "Big deal, eh? The Control
+Board again--oh, oh! You'd better see Standskill!"
+
+Lawrence felt uneasy. "Are you--are you reading my mind?" he
+stammered.
+
+"Sorry," the young man said, smiling faintly. "It's easier that way. I
+dislike physical movement on such warm days as this. And it's easier
+for me to pick up your proposal this way than to go through that
+beastly traffic."
+
+"Then you know?"
+
+"Certainly. I'm a psi so I can read your mind."
+
+"Do you accept the job?"
+
+"Well, people in that area and the country in general would certainly
+benefit from the development. I don't know about that lawyer from Los
+Angeles though. They teach us in Service Psi School that non-service
+psis are not to be trusted. In fact, service psis are forbidden to
+associate with non-service psis. They're considered unethical."
+
+"You're not in service yet, Black, and you must realize that the
+psi-ethics as taught in your school are much more strict than business
+ethics. If Standskill were here he'd certainly help me, and you know
+he has a fine code of ethics. It's desperate, Black. I need your
+services urgently. Won't you please accept the job?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I suppose so," the young man said wearily, resignedly. "Standskill
+would agree, I'm sure. But, as a trainee, I'm not supposed to meddle
+in business transactions. However, I'd hate to see you lose out on
+this because I know Standskill would unhesitatingly help you if he
+were here. Also, I'm curious to meet that psi from Los Angeles." His
+sharp chin grew resolute. "I'll try, Mr. Lawrence. And my conscience
+will be clear; I haven't yet taken the Oath."
+
+"Will you need anything--any physical help, any tangible thing?"
+
+"I'll need your power-of-attorney."
+
+"You'll have it before I go to the hospital."
+
+"And, Mr. Lawrence," Black said softly. "About the surgery--don't
+worry, you'll be okay. It's chiefly psychosomatic, you know. In a
+couple of weeks you'll be fine. You couldn't have picked a better
+doctor than Summers."
+
+Lawrence felt better already, a result of his talk with this brash
+young man.
+
+"Thank you, Black," he said. "Thank you very much. But, look--as a
+psi, can you assure me that my idea is not slightly lunatic? I've
+begun to doubt that it will work."
+
+_Lunatic.... Mentally unsound.... Luna.... Moon.... The crescent of
+the moon in the noonday sky. Yes, he could go now.... The transit was
+brief.... No! He must go back, must bear the consciousness that was
+Martin Black back from this airless, cratered sphere! Panic seized
+him. He fled._
+
+Lawrence was astounded to see the young man at the other end of the
+visiphone seemingly fall into a deep sleep, his head down suddenly on
+the desk.
+
+"Black," he cried, "are you all right? Shall I send a doctor to--"
+
+"_No!_"
+
+The young man raised his head. "I'm quite all right, Mr. Lawrence,
+though slightly exhausted. Didn't sleep well last night. Sorry! I'll
+ring you after I contact Dick Joyce."
+
+"No names, please," Lawrence said. "I go into the hospital this
+afternoon, Black. You'd better not contact me there. The doctor said
+no business while I'm there. From now on you're on your own."
+
+_Your own! He was drifting! He fought it...._
+
+"Right, Mr. Lawrence. Goodbye!"
+
+
+II
+
+Martin Black _was_ tired. His consciousness had almost drifted off to
+home again, back to that old mansion on the Hudson River which
+Standskill had sold as directed under Black's mother's will. The old
+house in which he was born, where he had first found that he could sit
+in his room and send his consciousness questing down the hall to meet
+his father when he came home, pry into what his father had brought for
+him and surprise his parents later by invariably guessing correctly.
+
+Sometimes now he wished that he hadn't "guessed" correctly so often in
+those days. Then his uncle Ralph wouldn't have mentioned his unusual
+ability to the Business Ethics Bureau and the psis wouldn't have
+investigated him. Once they found that he had such mental
+qualifications he had been sent to the Service Psi School, a virtual
+prison despite his family's social status.
+
+Anger suddenly choked him at the thought of what his uncle Ralph had
+brought upon him. The psi training had been so rigid, so harsh at
+times.
+
+Well, of course they have to be sure that psis develop into useful
+members of society. But couldn't they treat you more normally, more
+humanly?
+
+Now, perhaps he'd show them, repay them for the cruel years of a
+lonely, bitter youth. He hadn't taken the Oath yet, and if he were
+clever enough he'd never have to! The real estate lawyer in Los
+Angeles with whom Lawrence was making a deal had evaded service
+somehow, apparently. So it was possible.
+
+He had learned long ago that money wouldn't buy him out of service.
+He'd tried also to purchase certain liberties at school. Some of the
+less scrupulous teachers had taken his allowance, but only one of them
+had ever given him anything in return. And of course he couldn't
+protest when he had violated Ethics to give the bribes. In any event,
+no one would take the word of an untrained psi over the word of a
+stable, normal human being.
+
+During the stabilization course one professor had permitted him to
+skip some classes. Now he wished that he hadn't missed them; he
+probably wouldn't have this semantic instability to contend with now.
+Oh, well....
+
+He _was_ tired. He'd spent the previous night, or most of it, worrying
+about the miserable state of his finances. He needed money, a lot of
+money. But he wouldn't, of course, admit that to Lawrence.
+
+Lawrence would have understood why he needed money--even more than the
+hundred thousand he had offered. But then Lawrence might mistrust his
+motives in accepting the proposal so readily if he knew.
+
+A year before Black had invested too much of his own money in a "sure
+thing" upon the advice of a fellow psi trainee who, he subsequently
+and sadly found out, had _economic_ instability. Semantic instability
+was bad enough!
+
+Not that Martin Black didn't have a hundred thousand dollars. He was,
+indeed, a rather wealthy young man, thanks to his mother who had been,
+to her son's knowledge--and to his alone--a psi with definite powers
+of pre-vision and persuasion.
+
+He recalled the tale Mom had told him of her first meeting with Dad,
+of how she'd lingered over Dad's well groomed nails three times longer
+than desire for a good tip made necessary, while she'd gently
+insinuated into his mind an idea that was next day translated into
+action on the stock market, with a modest investment from a modest
+purse that brought the young man a small fortune. After the wedding
+Martha Black dedicated herself to further improvements in the same
+direction.
+
+As for Martin's father, his chief business assets had been an
+unswerving adoration of his wife and complete willingness to do with
+his money as she saw fit. The combination had been unbeatable.
+
+When Martin's father was laid to rest, Martha Black, concerned over
+the future of her somewhat unusual son and fearing that economic
+instability might beset him, continued to improve the fortune he would
+some day inherit.
+
+Long before the death of his mother five years before, Black
+Controlled Atomics, Inc., had grown sufficiently important to command
+the services of a lawyer of Standskill's caliber. Gradually Standskill
+had become general counsel to the Black enterprises and at the same
+time a close friend of Martha Black and her son.
+
+It was chiefly in the latter capacity that the widow consulted
+Standskill as she approached the end of her life. Her Last Will and
+Testament, duly signed, sealed, published and declared, left one-half
+of the immediately-to-be-liquidated estate to her son outright. The
+other half was put in trust.
+
+Under the trust Martin was to receive the income until he was thirty.
+If then an audit showed that his net worth, exclusive of the trust,
+had increased by thirty percent the trust was to end and Martin was to
+receive the principal. If not, the trust would end and the full amount
+thereof would go to his uncle Ralph, a prospect which caused Martin
+completely to lose his stability whenever he allowed himself to think
+of it. He just _had_ to make the thirty percent!
+
+R. W. Standskill was trustee, and the will gave him full power to
+invest the trust estate as he saw fit and without liability if his
+investments went bad and without any bond or security required of him
+whatsoever. More in token of appreciation of his services than
+anything else, Standskill was to receive one percent of the trust as
+long as he was trustee.
+
+Martin Black's mind dwelled on the thought of the thirty percent
+increase. After five years of conservative investing he had taken some
+bad advice in the past year. And now he had to make some money fast in
+order to catch up to the quota which was necessary if he were to
+achieve his goal.
+
+The Lawrence deal would give him his chance. But not if Standskill
+knew about it. The Lawrence deal seemed a good thing, but perhaps it
+was only a _sure_ thing if he kept to himself, for the time being at
+least.
+
+He was so tired.... _Fatigue._ The French for tired. Funny, he did
+remember some of the French from school. Standskill was in Paris.
+Association. _Fatigue._ The word stuck. That club--Bob Standskill's
+favorite--_Le Cheval Fatigue_ in Montmartre. The Tired Horse.
+Tired....
+
+Sleep closed in.... He drifted ... and came to with a sudden start as
+a hand roughly shook his shoulder. It seemed as though he had been
+hovering mentally in a dimly-lighted cellar cafe, where there was a
+babel of voices speaking continental languages, and Standskill was
+there.
+
+But, _no!_ he couldn't have been in Paris any more than he had been on
+the meteor-pounded wastes of the moon! It was ridiculous. As far as he
+knew, no psi had ever been known consciously to flit to the moon--or
+unconsciously, for that matter--or to the other side of an ocean!
+
+Standskill's partner, G. D. Rich, was shaking his shoulder. "What's
+the matter, Marty? Big night?"
+
+"Big day," Black said. "Why don't you fellows stick around and take
+care of your business? I'm not even supposed to answer the telephone,
+you know, but someone has to!"
+
+"Can I help it that the Legal Secretaries Guild has called a
+three-day convention? There's not a secretary present in any law
+office in New York right now! I personally cut the phone in to the
+answering service before I left for court."
+
+"Inadvertence, I guess," Black said thoughtfully.
+
+"Inadvertence?" Rich said quickly.
+
+"Mine. I must have cut it back."
+
+He didn't tell Rich that he hadn't stirred from the desk since Rich
+had left. The switch was in the outer office. Had he with his
+consciousness floating high over New York sensed subconsciously that
+Lawrence was about to call and so cut in the switch? Had he built into
+himself something of the pattern of his mother, something of
+pre-vision or prescience, or call it what you will? Was a latent hunch
+power coming out in him now, something that would manifest itself by
+acts not consciously controlled? He hoped not! Semantic instability
+was bad enough!
+
+
+III
+
+Sleep evaded Martin Black again that night.... There was no doubt that
+Lawrence had a great idea.
+
+Lawrence held forty-five percent of the company's stock. He wanted
+control. In fact, he wanted outright ownership, but this was not
+possible because the other major stockholders, holding forty-five
+percent, seemed to be perfectly satisfied with their lucrative
+investment. Cautious inquiries had failed to disclose any inclination
+on their respective parts to sell.
+
+There were, however, enough independent shares outstanding to give
+Lawrence control if they were added to his own. The thing to do was to
+figure a way to buy them. The problem was that no matter how secret
+his operations, news or rumors of them would certainly leak out. The
+shares would then undoubtedly jump to outrageous highs. Lawrence
+couldn't risk that. He'd not be able to buy sufficient shares if the
+price rose.
+
+His corporation had completed Quijotoa City and had built Mojave City
+and Sanup Plateau City, had through applied atomics created verdant
+and lovely places out of wasteland and desert. It still owned the
+atomic piles that provided power for the cities and the profits
+therefrom were enormous.
+
+Lawrence was progressive. He was at heart a humanitarian. He wanted to
+develop other areas more from the humanitarian view than the profit
+motive. He had learned long ago that the profits would take care of
+themselves.
+
+In probing the man's mind, Black sensed Lawrence's great desire for
+adulation, his great desire to be remembered as a public benefactor.
+
+Now if only he, Martin J. Black, could benefit financially from this
+new deal--if he could corner enough of those independent shares, he
+could and certainly would vote them Lawrence's way. Then, perhaps the
+possibility of making the thirty percent he needed would approach
+probability, would reach it. With Lawrence's Midas touch the
+corporation would also realize millions in profits if the deal went
+through.
+
+Figures revolved in Black's mind. If Lawrence--or if he--could corner
+six percent of the stock.... Could some of the independents be
+persuaded to sell, _psionically persuaded_? Or one of the other major
+stockholders? No, that would be unethical and the strongest part of a
+psi's training was a fine code of ethics.
+
+Black began to doze--and felt something ever so softly probing at his
+mind. _A probe!_ Probably a service psi checking on him. _Why?_ Just
+the usual check? No, it wasn't due.
+
+He knew what to do. He had been probed before. Probing was part of the
+training at psi school but he had never revealed--and his tutors had
+never guessed--that he could create a block that could not be sensed
+by the prober. A block which could close off whatever thoughts he
+wished to conceal.
+
+He blocked his thoughts of Lawrence and the deal now, and opened
+freely that part of his mind which held the routine thoughts of the
+law offices. He felt that feather of thought brushing lightly through
+his brain, then it was gone as quickly as it had come.
+
+There was a cold sweat over him but he knew that he had passed the
+test. Why the probe? Perhaps a BEB psi had wind of Lawrence's deal and
+by probing Lawrence's mind--or the mind of someone in the West Coast
+realty outfit--had somehow learned of Black's association with the
+industrialist. If that were the case there would be more probes. One
+time or another a probe might come at a moment of nervous tension or
+stress and the information would be gleaned from his mind before he
+could block!
+
+He must work fast.
+
+He arose and went to the visiphone, placed a person-to-person call to
+Los Angeles.
+
+"Dick Joyce?" he asked before the visual contact was complete, and
+only his voice went out.
+
+The face that came in sync on the screen was round, jovial. "Well,
+hello, Marty!"
+
+_Lawrence must have called him, or else he plucked the name from my
+mind. But he didn't probe--or did he?_
+
+"Dick, do you register?" _With the mind now--cautiously!_
+
+"Yes, Marty."
+
+_Pretend you're my personal friend, Dick. There's no psi on us but we
+may be wiretapped by BEB--lots of law offices are and trainees
+connected with them. Can a definite date be set for the picking-up of
+the options?_
+
+"It's good to see you again, Marty! When will you be coming out for
+another visit?" _Yes, the options are in the bag. My agents have them
+all lined up. Confidentially, they couldn't miss. The only trouble
+they ran into was that some of the landowners thought they were insane
+to be interested in the property and one of them actually suffered a
+sprained wrist from the hand-shaking of an overly thankful owner._
+
+"Soon. That's why I called you. Thought we should get together after
+all these years." _What's the latest date for signing?_
+
+_Tomorrow night._
+
+_Tomorrow night! That doesn't give much time! Since I'm acting for
+Lawrence I have to see what we're getting._
+
+_Well, Lawrence told us to work fast. But I agree that it's a good
+idea that you see the properties._ "How about this weekend?" His voice
+was casual.
+
+_Tomorrow evening local time it is then. But where will we make
+psi-contact?_
+
+A mental picture of a map. Desolation.... Oklahoma....
+
+"Okay, Dick. See you then. Regards to the family!"
+
+"Goodbye, Marty."
+
+He rang off.
+
+He was tired. He went to bed and sought sleep, praying that the block
+his fatigued mind had set would remain firm.
+
+
+IV
+
+Martin Black passed a very bad night. Maintaining a mental block when
+asleep is a major feat, especially when one has semantic instability
+and a dream can so often be so realistic as to bring one's
+consciousness awake and mentally screaming miles from the physical
+being it has involuntarily left.
+
+He dreamed with incredible regularity, waking five times out of
+nightmares, five times strangely on the hour as though he had tied
+some part of his mental being to the irresistibly moving, luminescent
+minute hand of his electric clock. _Time is of the essence_, he had
+told himself during the psi-visiphone contact with Joyce.
+_Association!_
+
+Two A.M. He had dreamt of Joyce, dreamt that Joyce had somehow
+revealed the proposed transaction to BEB, putting Dodson on his trail.
+Wide awake now, he forced himself to think of the options which must
+be picked up the following night, options drawn so that not only the
+landowners must sign them but both the realty outfit and he, as
+Lawrence's attorney-in-fact, as well. Could he sign for Lawrence if
+Joyce had spilled?... No, it was only a dream. Joyce was so _very_
+stable!
+
+Three A.M. He had dreamt of Standskill, tall, lean Standskill striding
+through the lovely early morning along the Champs Elysees, moving
+purposefully. He had even dreamt he had for a moment invaded
+Standskill's mind and caught the lawyer's pounding thought, "Lawrence!
+_Buy_, Lawrence!" Oh, but that would never do. The service psis would
+catch Standskill, would test the ethics of it now that Joyce had
+spilled, would cause Standskill to be disbarred. But Standskill didn't
+know! A dream. _A lunatic dream._
+
+Four A.M. The coincidence of the timing of his wakings struck him
+then. For a moment the latest dream eluded him and then the sense of
+airless cold, a bleak, cratered landscape, stark stars staring in a
+lunar night swept coldly across his mind. He shivered, drew the
+blanket over him, thought: _How many shares? Six thousand? I can do
+it. I'll contact the broker in the morning. Six thousand at two
+hundred per. One million two hundred thousand dollars._
+
+But that would raise the price, the attempt to buy so many shares. You
+can't buy a million plus in one stock without driving the price
+up--_unless you manage to buy all the shares at once_! If only he
+could persuade--psionically persuade--but he couldn't! It wasn't
+ethical.
+
+His mind drifted.... I'll call the broker in the morning. Perhaps he
+can start picking up some of the independent shares when the market
+opens. If only he could snag the four thousand that--what was that
+name in Lawrence's mind?--yes, Redgrave! The four thousand that
+Redgrave has! That would be a start!
+
+Redgrave had always fought Lawrence tooth and nail. Lawrence would
+derive vast personal satisfaction from seeing Redgrave an
+_ex_-stockholder. Thankless cad! Investment in the corporation had
+helped make Redgrave a very wealthy man. Lawrence stock was only part
+of his vast holdings. Redgrave was definitely out of the red!
+
+Black chuckled, then told himself that this was a grave and not a
+laughing matter. Sleep was coming again.... _Out of the red. Grave.
+Redgrave!_
+
+Five A.M. He awoke in a cold sweat.... This time the dream came back
+slowly, drenching him with fear as it came. It was sheer madness, this
+dream! To have even considered investing in Lawrence Applied Atomics!
+The Government would never condone the deal Lawrence was
+contemplating--the Applied Atomics Corporation was nearly insolvent,
+the BEB psis were investigating it....
+
+Black tossed fitfully on the bed, seeking sleep desperately, seeking
+to escape the black night pressing in, to evade the imagined--or was
+it real?--probing minds of service psis.
+
+Six A.M. He almost forgot the fears that had assailed him an hour
+before. He realized then that in the last few minutes or seconds or
+however long the latest transient phantasm had been in his mind he had
+dreamt of his broker pacing a dimly-lighted chamber, muttering, "The
+man's out of his mind. Economic instability, that's certain. Thinking
+of selling good stock to invest in Lawrence Applied Atomics! Not that
+Lawrence stock isn't fairly good, but he'll never make enough out of
+the corporation's piles; the returns are not that great!"
+
+8 A.M. Black stretched, felt strangely relaxed. He realized then that
+as he had slept and, despite the fitfulness of his sleeping, his mind
+had apparently gone on analyzing the possible reactions to the big
+deal.
+
+He arose, took a shower, shaved, ate breakfast. Then he went to the
+visiphone and buttoned Charles Wythe, his broker, at his office.
+
+"Charlie," Black said to the cadaverous looking man who answered.
+"Where's the boss?"
+
+"Went to see a psychiatrist."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know. What's on your mind?"
+
+"I want you to do some selling and buying for me. Sell whatever you
+like, but buy Lawrence Applied Atomics."
+
+"Look, Marty, let's not go off half-cocked. Last year you had a sudden
+brainstorm and remember what happened. Lawrence may be a good stock,
+but it won't help you to build up to that thirty percent you need. Not
+in the time you have to do it in. It's bad enough for you to take a
+big licking once. Let's not be stupid again."
+
+"Now, Charlie, don't be nasty. I want you to buy Lawrence as quietly
+as you can. I want six thousand shares at the current price. Get them
+for me."
+
+"Are you shaken loose from your psyche or id or whatever?" Wythe
+cried. "Do it quietly, the man says, do it quietly! You can do it
+about as quietly as they launched the space station. Where do you
+think I can get six thousand shares of Lawrence?"
+
+"Why, you buy them!" Black answered innocently. "Isn't that what you
+do down at the Stock Exchange?"
+
+The broker groaned. "Sure, that's all I do. Buy, that is. But not
+Lawrence. Look, Marty, see this chart? Yesterday was a big day for
+Lawrence Applied Atomics. It was unusually active. Three hundred
+shares changed hands. The day before it was one hundred. Once in my
+memory Lawrence had a four thousand share day. That must have been
+when Redgrave bought in. Now you tell me how I'm going to get you six
+thousand shares, get them quietly, and get them at the current price!"
+
+"Start buying," Black said, "because I've got a hunch you'll find
+them. My mother had hunches, didn't she? Did she ever tell you or the
+boss to buy the wrong stocks? Did she--"
+
+"That was your mother, Marty. What about that hunch you had last year,
+the one that cost you a couple of hundred thou--"
+
+"That was last year!"
+
+"So, what's changed?" asked Wythe.
+
+"Maybe _I've_ changed, Charlie. Do it; that's all I ask."
+
+"Okay, Marty. But I think you're out of your mind, especially with
+what was on the morning news."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"Lawrence is in bad shape. He's not likely to pull through. They
+operated last night, in case you didn't know."
+
+"But that should drive the stock down!"
+
+"Why? It won't affect the profits from the corporation's piles."
+
+"No. I agree. But that's not the only thing that keeps the price up.
+What about Lawrence's reputation?"
+
+"Well, there's also a rumor about a government investigation of the
+corporation," Wythe admitted. "That might have some downward effect."
+
+"Buy, Charlie, buy! I'll ring you later."
+
+Black rang off. He felt an overwhelming confidence. He had only one
+small doubt in his mind--during or following one of those disturbing
+dreams had he been sufficiently overwrought to have relaxed his mental
+block, thereby letting in a fleeting probe from a service psi who
+would then have gleaned, in a moment, knowledge of the proposed
+transaction?
+
+The unease waned. The exuberant confidence was in him again. The
+prescience of Martha Black?
+
+He went out and caught a heli-cab to the law offices. He'd be a good
+trainee to the eyes and minds of anyone who might check. If the
+service psis were on his trail, he'd show them how good a trainee he
+was. He could check with Charlie Wythe later.
+
+
+V
+
+At ten A.M., Standskill's partner, G. D. Rich left the office to
+attend court.
+
+At ten-thirty A.M., a contact call came whispering to Black's mind. He
+thought it at first a probe and blocked part of his mind; then
+relaxed as it realized it was a psi asking with overbearing politeness
+for him to connect the visiphone circuit. The mental touch seemed
+somehow familiar, but it wasn't Joyce. He knew it wasn't Joyce; there
+was something unsure and tentative about the whisper of thought.
+
+Black psionically cut in the outer office visiphone connection. The
+bell rang almost immediately. He switched on the inner office
+instrument and a familiar face came in sync on the screen--that of
+Peter Dodson, the principal administrative officer of the BEB psis.
+
+Dodson's blondly handsome face showed concern. He said, "I wanted
+visiphone contact, Black, because of an unfavorable report I've
+received on you. I'll get to that in a minute. First, I'd like to
+explain the background. As you may have learned from the news this
+morning, we're investigating Lawrence Applied Atomics because of a tip
+we'd received from Los Angeles that Lawrence is engaged in a venture
+which will eventually affect corporation funds without proper advance
+authorization.
+
+"Finding that Lawrence had some dealings with Standskill in the past,
+we thought that Standskill might be able to shed some light on the new
+venture. When we were unable to contact Standskill, we sought to
+contact you psionically last night, but found that your mind was a
+completely unreadable jumble of nightmares, filled with phobias and
+instabilities. We stopped probing then, realizing that you might be
+seriously ill."
+
+Apparently visual examination had convinced Dodson that Black wasn't
+as ill as had been thought. Black felt the feather touch of a probe
+coming now and he blocked, his thin face expressionless.
+
+"I did have a rather bad night," Black said. "Association. Semantic
+instability." He felt the tentacle of thought that was sweeping across
+his mind.
+
+"Well," Dodson said, his eyes probing from the screen, "it's obvious
+_you_ know nothing of the Lawrence deal. Strange, though, since
+there's a record of a call placed to that office by Lawrence
+yesterday, and as far as we have been able to determine only you were
+there and only you could have answered. How do you explain that?"
+
+Easy now! The block is most difficult to maintain when you're lying.
+Easy....
+
+"There was a call," Black admitted, "from someone I don't know, a
+fellow who wanted Standskill. Wouldn't say why or give his name. The
+moment I told him Standskill was in Paris he said with some reluctance
+that he would have to contact another law firm. The caller was
+probably Lawrence. If you could describe him--"
+
+"So Standskill's in Paris! The answering service didn't know that.
+Well, that rules him out. Thank you, Black. Are you sure you're all
+right?"
+
+"Rather tired," Black said. "Overwork, I expect. The training is
+rather strenuous, and I do wish you wouldn't probe. As you found in
+psi school, my powers have a very delicate balance."
+
+The probe withdrew hastily.
+
+"Sorry, Black. Very sorry. Perhaps you need a rest. I'll be only too
+glad to send through an order--"
+
+"Oh, thank you, sir," Black said, trying to make it sound fervent and
+properly subservient. He sent a thought of thankfulness after his
+words, a weak one. He must not appear too strong.
+
+Dodson rang off.
+
+The coast was clear! They would not probe again soon!
+
+Black immediately called Charles Wythe, found his broker's cadaverous
+face puzzled.
+
+"Marty, the market's crazy! I managed to pick up four thousand shares
+within ten minutes after the market opened. One purchase. The broker
+from whom I obtained them represented Dan Redgrave--"
+
+"Redgrave!" Black almost shouted.
+
+"Yes, Redgrave. He said Redgrave is plain cuckoo. Ordered him to sell
+at one hundred fifty. Said he'd bought them at that and would sell
+them at that. No profit wanted. Glad to get out in time to recoup his
+original investment. What's cuckoo about it is that, except for the
+momentary flurry when we picked up the Redgrave shares, the stock has
+been rising all morning. It's up to two twenty-five as of this moment.
+
+"Lawrence must have someone else buying regardless of the price. Three
+concerns are still trying to buy at the present price. Ethics forbids
+me to ask who their clients are. Not that they'd tell me anyway! Now,
+look, Marty, do you want me to buy at that price, if I can, that is?"
+
+"Well, I must have six thousand, unless Lawrence is buying and I'm
+quite sure he isn't. See if you can find out who the buyer is, won't
+you?"
+
+"Everybody's crazy today," the broker said. "I'll call you back."
+
+Wythe did, a few minutes later.
+
+"I'm afraid it's no use, Marty. There's not another share to be had.
+There's been news from the hospital. Lawrence has rallied. Although
+he's still in a coma, his chances are good for recovery. Not only
+that, but the Business Ethics Bureau has issued a statement to the
+effect that the tip they'd received about Lawrence and a deal has not
+been proved to have a foundation in fact. Those things have put the
+stock way up. Everybody wants to buy Lawrence but nobody wants to
+sell--except me! Let's sell, Marty!"
+
+"Not on your life," Black said decisively. "And, look, we _must_ get
+two thousand more shares! Get them, Charlie!"
+
+He clicked off again.
+
+So Dan Redgrave had sold at a ridiculously low price! Had his
+consciousness wandered in those dreams? Had he psionically persuaded
+Redgrave to sell? That wouldn't be ethical. But do ethics apply to
+_involuntary_ acts?
+
+His mind was in turmoil. He dared not exercise his psi powers again
+just now. He feared above all the wrath of Dodson and the other
+service psis. If they came to suspect that he had persuaded
+Redgrave--that he had, according to Ethics, misused his powers ... he
+knew only too well that there are ways of banishing psi powers,
+insulin shock and other treatments.
+
+And for all his present aloneness he was beginning to realize his
+latent powers--powers which, when fully developed, would doubtlessly
+bring him into contact with others like himself, with someone who
+could share the fierce ecstasy of probing with the consciousness to
+the moon, or even farther, at the speed of light at which thought
+moved. No, perhaps he need not always be alone....
+
+He went out to lunch, returned, called his broker. Wythe told him
+there was no activity in Lawrence. The afternoon wore. A few minutes
+before the exchange closed the broker called.
+
+"It's hopeless, Marty," said Wythe. "Let's sell. The price is still
+two twenty-five and nothing for sale. How about it? Three hundred
+thousand profit in one day."
+
+It sounded attractive. Black hesitated, then thought of Lawrence,
+good, old would-be humanitarian and philanthropist D. V. Lawrence
+lying in coma. Lawrence, whose dreams were in his hands now. He had
+come to like Lawrence, the trail-blazer where there were so few trails
+to be blazed. He had to help him. If worse came to worse he would cast
+Ethics to the winds. He'd have to! His conscience couldn't permit him
+to do anything else. He would psionically persuade at least one of the
+other stockholders to vote Lawrence's way.
+
+Well, at least his mind was made up. Lawrence would have his options.
+And with forty-nine percent of the stock between them they could
+gamble on getting a favorable vote.
+
+"What about it, Marty?" the broker asked impatiently.
+
+"Sorry," Black said. "The answer is no, Charlie! I want that stock."
+
+He rang off.
+
+Moments later his consciousness was on its way to keep the rendezvous
+with Joyce high in the evening sky over Oklahoma, up where the blue of
+the atmosphere turned to the black of infinity.
+
+And moments later lights blazed over a table in a realty office in Los
+Angeles where no one sat. But pens lifted and wrote....
+
+"_D. V. Lawrence by Martin J. Black, his attorney-in-fact._"
+
+"_J. F. Cadigan Realty Corporation by Richard Joyce, Vice-President._"
+
+Another pen lifted with the invisible but delicate twist of a feminine
+psi-touch.
+
+"_Before me this ninth day of September in the year Nineteen Hundred
+and Seventy-six Anno Domini psionically appeared...._"
+
+The options were psigned, come what may!
+
+
+VI
+
+An oak-panelled conference room. Lawrence's first vice-president
+reading the proposal. The board of directors. The major stockholders.
+Smaller ones. Attorneys-in-fact for both Lawrence and Black.
+
+And _Bob Standskill_!
+
+What was Standskill doing here?
+
+But the first vice-president had finished reading the proposal and was
+asking for a vote.
+
+Lawrence--forty-five thousand shares--_yes_!
+
+Maryk--twenty thousand shares--_no_!
+
+Carrese--nine thousand shares--_no_!
+
+Tonemont--seven thousand shares--_no_!
+
+Black--four thousand shares--_yes_!
+
+Turitz--five thousand shares--_no_!
+
+And the smaller stockholders, one by one--_no_, _no_, _no_!
+
+Forty-nine thousand shares--_no_! Forty-nine thousand shares--_yes_!
+
+Black felt ill. His hovering consciousness almost fled from its
+invisible vantage point above the conference table back to the mansion
+on Riverside Drive, back where the memories of Martha Black
+remained.... But it wavered, stabilized....
+
+Standskill rising, so implacable, so sure and saying, "Two thousand
+shares--yes!"
+
+Black probed Standskill's mind almost involuntarily then, realizing
+instantly that he should have disregarded Ethics and probed before.
+Standskill was a psi, a _non-service psi_! And Black knew then that
+when his consciousness had flitted through association to _Le Cheval
+Fatigue_ in Montmarte, Paris, and had fixed there for a brief unstable
+moment it had yielded to Standskill all knowledge of the Lawrence
+deal, persuading Standskill to order his brokers to buy the
+corporation's stock for the trust....
+
+Black's consciousness sped to join Joyce's in a law office in
+Oklahoma. It watched the landowners signing the deeds even as it
+signed psionically the checks which represented the good and valuable
+considerations.
+
+The deal was closed.
+
+
+VII
+
+_Joyce, tell me--did you, to your knowledge, tip off the BEB psis?_
+
+_Yes. Inadvertently, of course. I had a nightmare. I'm afraid I'm
+sometimes unstable, anonymously so, when asleep. Only then, though,
+thank Heaven!_
+
+_And, Joyce, why aren't you in service?_
+
+_For the same reason you can't be._
+
+Confusion.
+
+_What do you mean?_
+
+_Your mother knew._
+
+_My mother?_
+
+_Yes, Marty, don't you realize that only unstable psis are taken into
+service? Stability is the mark of the superman. Do the majority of men
+want the minority--the supermen--running their world even though the
+supermen are their brothers, sisters and children? And they must
+surely realize that all mankind will evolve to psis one day. Marty,
+you were in psi school. So was I. Did you complete Stabilization?... I
+see you didn't. No psi does! They let you think you're getting away
+with something when you skip classes, but you're not!_
+
+_Fortunately, if you are strong enough, you stabilize on your own.
+Perhaps you'll realize now that your mother gave you the incentive:
+the thirty percent angle, realizing that an uncle you definitely did
+not like would inherit if you didn't strive to the utmost. It worked._
+
+_They can't touch me, Marty, and they can't touch you! We can elude
+them mentally and physically. They know they can't touch us; so they
+just have to tolerate us! I can read in your mind that you've
+stabilized. You can fit physically now. Why don't you try? Lawrence is
+waiting...._
+
+Black's consciousness sped back to his body. His body lifted and sped
+to a hospital room.
+
+Lawrence was awake. He viewed Black's materialization with
+incredulity.
+
+"The deal is closed," Black said.
+
+"But--you--" Lawrence stammered. "Closed?"
+
+"Yes. And, considering the shares I hold, I guess that makes me
+something of a psilent partner of yours!"
+
+A brash young man, Lawrence thought. A very brash young man!
+
+Black grinned. _Thirty percent? He couldn't miss!_
+
+They shook hands.
+
+It was a deal. Psigned, sealed and delivered!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Psilent Partner, by
+John Victor Peterson and Edward S. Staub
+
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