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.