days?"

"H'm. Don't know. It's hard to tell, if it's handled right. Weird nightmares, daydreams, absent-mindedness, sudden impulses, optical illusions—it can be telenosis, and it can be just you. I'd say three or four days, but—"

"Wouldn't necessarily prove anything, anyway," Newell broke in. "Here's the report on Grogan. Been out of Corrective for a little more than a month now. Went directly to Memphis. Cleared up business affairs there, then went to Palm Beach for vacation. Arrived late Tuesday afternoon—four days ago. Took a suite in Space Verge hotel with four quote secretaries unquote, and has refused to see anyone. No unusually large baggage. No unusual activities reported. So much for that."

He turned a page of the note pad and went on: "Corrective Institute record: responded favorably to treatment. Occupational training in administrative accounting. Special courses in business and political ethics. Now get this—it's the one thing that gives your hunch any credibility at all. Three months intermittent telenosis therapy for slight paranoiac tendencies. Response favorable. Dismissed from C.I. after five years, three weeks and six days. Classification: Apparent cure, but possibility of relapse."

We were both quiet for a while, looking at each other.

Then I said, "Well, I'll see him tomorrow. Remember, it's nothing but a hunch—not even that."

"Be careful, dammit," Newell cautioned.

... I woke up sometime in the early morning, before it was light, with a clicking noise in my ears. I lay there in bed, gazing into the darkness, wondering, yet knowing, what would happen if the defense mech should break down—if a tube should give out, or if some little coil should prove defective.

The clicking stopped after a while, but it was a long time before I got back to sleep.

I had no trouble getting an interview with Grogan. I'd known I wouldn't. It was a simple matter of calling his suite and telling the loose-mouthed, scar-cheeked "secretary" who answered that Earl Langston would like to make an appointment with Isaac Grogan for, say, 10:30.

"Grogan ain't seein' nobody," the secretary growled.

"Ask him," I said.

The face vanished and reappeared on the screen a few moments later. "Okay. Come up anytime you're ready."

"Fifteen minutes," I said, and replaced the mike.

I turned up the volume of the defense mech as high as it would go, and left it in my room when I left.

The same hideous secretary, with the loose jowels and the deep, livid scar on his right cheek, met me at the door of Grogan's suite.

"Th' boss'll see you in th' library," the bodyguard rumbled, and led me to the room. The door closed, but did not click behind me.

Isaac Grogan was slouched on a sofa, hands in his pockets, looking at the floor.

I stood for a moment, looking at him.

He had changed only a little in five years. He was a big man with a broad, pleasant face and thick black hair. A deep dimple divided his chin. The last time I'd seen him, he had been getting a little paunchy, and there had been wrinkles developing in his neck and bags under his eyes. But that had been from strain and worry, and he looked a lot better now.

"You're looking well," I told him.

"What the hell do you want?" Grogan said quietly. "Why can't you leave me alone? I don't want any trouble."

"Neither do I."

And suddenly I felt very awkward. What the hell did I want? Just exactly what had I expected to accomplish with this visit? I didn't really know.

I cleared my throat. "I've got one question, Grogan. Maybe two. Then I'll leave."

He looked at me.

"Do you still blame me for what happened in Memphis?" I asked.

Grogan shifted his position and gave a sort of half-laugh. "Langston, I've never liked you, and I don't now. But I can't say that I blame you for the Memphis mess—if I ever did. Now, what's your other question?"

"Telenosis," I said.

He waited, looking straight at me. "Well? What about it?"

"According to your C.I. record," I said, "you had three months of intermittent telenosis therapy."

He shrugged. "That's right. Lots of people do. You still haven't asked your question."

"Yes, I have," I replied. "I'll leave now. Thanks for your time."

The gorilla-secretary was opening the front door for me, when Grogan spoke again. "Langston."

I turned around.

Grogan was standing in the door of the library.

"Langston," he repeated. "I don't know what your angle is. I don't know why you came here, or whether you got what you wanted. Furthermore, I don't care much. Five years ago is not today, Langston. I've changed. Just the same, I don't believe I want to see you again. I don't like you. Okay?"

I said, "Okay," and left.

Back in my hotel room, I first turned down the volume of the defense mech, then sat down at the visiphone and put in a call to New York. The pudgy image of Carson Newell appeared.

"I'm stumped," I told him.

"What's the matter? Did you see Grogan?"

"Yeah. Just now."

"Well?"

"Nothing. I'm stumped. He's completely changed. If there was ever a case of full and complete correction, I'd say Grogan is it."

Newell tapped his fingertips together, then shrugged impatiently. "Well, hell, I don't think we're getting anywhere on this. I'll turn it over to the C.I.D. and let them worry about it."

"So what happens now?" I asked. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Take a vacation. But hang on to that defense mech. Stay in Palm Beach and contact me pronto if anything happens. Buzz me at least once a day, even if anything doesn't happen."

He started to put down the mike, then lifted it again. "How's the SRI?"

"Oh, that. I'll whip out a story on it in a couple of days."

"No hurry. Find out all you can about it. Give you something to do while you're waiting around."

He put down the mike and faded from the screen.

So I promptly did my damnedest to forget all about Isaac Grogan and telenosis. I spent the rest of the day at the beach, sprawled out on the hot sand with the defense mech beside me and an army of people—humans and aliens—surrounding me. Only once, at about four o'clock, did the defense mech start going click-click-click. I timed it. It lasted three minutes and then quit.

When I got back to the hotel, at about five, a man fell into step with me as soon as I entered the lobby.

"Name's Maxwell," he told me. "C.I.D. I'm one of your bodyguards for a while."

"How many others do I rate?" I asked.

He was a tall, heavily built young man in his middle twenties. He carried a briefcase. We headed for the elevator.

"Only one," he replied, "but he'll stay pretty much out of sight. He'll join us in your room after a while. We have to ask you a lot of questions."

The other bodyguard, who slipped into my room without knocking twenty minutes later, was shorter, thinner and older. He was bald except for a gray fringe, and his name was Johnson.

The C.I.D. men spent a half-hour checking for hidden mikes and cameras before they said much of anything. Then they plopped down on the edge of the bed, and the young man opened his briefcase.

The older one said, "Have your dinner sent up here. We'll get started on some of these questions right away."

The questions were both exhaustive and exhausting. The older man, Johnson, fired the questions, and Maxwell wrote down the answers, occasionally inserting an inquiry of his own. They wanted to know everything—not only about my telenosis experiences and my knowledge of and contacts with Isaac Grogan, but everything I had done, said or thought during the past two weeks, everyone I had met and talked to, and everything we had talked about.

At the end of three and a half hours, I felt completely pumped out, and Maxwell had a sheaf of notes the size of a best-seller.

Johnson said, "Well, I