We had things to do in the forenoon, and I didn't try to see His Honor Judge Vito Passarelli until after lunch. But the docket was crowded, and there was no chance until after court had adjourned, which was well on toward four o'clock. His Honor was hanging his robes on a clothes-tree as I came into his Chambers, and he nodded me politely to a chair, just as if our last words hadn't been pretty heated.
"Mary Hall?" he asked, fumbling around to find his in-Chambers glasses. He's too vain to wear them on the bench.
I nodded an answer to his question as he came back to take a creaky horse-hair swivel, relic of more judges and years than I like to think about. "I'm here as her counsel," I said.
"What else?" he asked mildly, taking the lid off a big humidor on his desk and starting to fill a pipe.
"We'd like you to know that Mary has joined an organization that should do for her all that the social workers would like to see done for her. She's no longer a behavior problem for Normal society."
"Quite some organization," he said, showing interest. "What one?"
"It has no formal name," I said. "Being a secret organization. In point of fact, it's an organization of Psis that is revealing itself for the first time."
"Odd that I never heard of it," Passarelli said, looking at his fingernails. He puffed smoke around the stem of his pipe. His coolness bothered me. He should have been much more excited about what I was saying. I threw my high hard one.
"This organization exercises a formidable discipline over its members," I went on. "One of its firm rules is that no Psi may use his powers to the detriment of a Normal."
He chuckled softly. "You're taking advantage of what I told you yesterday, Maragon," he said calmly. "You know, and I know, that Psis have never done any such thing. And if they had, why would they pick you to run their errands? What Psi would ever trust a Normal?"