"What do you hate and fear the most?" I asked him.
"Snakes, ah reckon," he decided.
"Show him a snake, Mary," I said. Her face twisted in indecision. I rammed a lift in under her heart—I know it hurt her. "Show him!" I snapped.
Elmer didn't jump more than three feet. Mary gave all of us the same hallucination. Her first try was a pretty sad kind of a snake, but it was bigger than the nine-by-twelve rug it squirmed on, and was making right for Elmer's legs, hissing in a horrible fashion.
"Enough," I said. "That's how, Elmer. And if that doesn't trouble you, how about this?" I gave him a sample of what TK means when it's clamped on the mitral valve. A heart attack is no joking matter, and just before he hit the deck I eased off.
"Now," I said, "will you do what I tell you, or do I have to kill you outright?"
He sank down to his knees, resting his palms on the carpet so recently vacant of illusory snake. "Yo' got me convinced, suh," he admitted. "No mo', you hear?"
"Any more protests?" I said. I got none. "Here's what we have to do," I went on, and spelled it out for them. At last they were ready to go, three shaken young people. "I repeat—absolute secrecy—none of you is a telepath, so only your lips can give you away if you keep your thoughts screened around TP's. Later that may change—the Lodge is preparing to come a little more into the open with Psis."
My whole membership nodded and left me. I was shaking from head to foot.