"Got what?" growled Villainowski, moving uneasily behind his massive desk.
"Saxon! Saxon, that's who! My Lord, why didn't it occur to me before. He's a—"
The words died suddenly on the N.P.A.'s lips. An expression of fright crossed his lean features. Then, without a sound, he crumpled to the carpet.
Jon Saxon, staring in horror, realized that the tingling of his skin was diminishing. The telepaths were withdrawing.
At the same instant Murdock's chair hit the floor as he leaped across the room, dropped to his knee beside the prone figure of the N.P.A. For a moment he was bent over the body like a bronze statue, then he turned his face up to Villainowski.
Saxon, who had read his thoughts, was amazed at Murdock's passionless expression.
"He's dead," the T.I.S. agent said in a toneless voice. "I wouldn't have believed it, if I hadn't seen it happen, but he's deader than the moon."
IV
Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong! rang the warning gong, reverberating through the launching pit.