"Well, then—" The boss looked up from his note pad. "About how long had the telenosis been on you? How many 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.