So he had something. At last he had something. But what do you do with an idea when you can’t communicate it and can’t act upon it yourself?
Ping!
The previous invitation was being repeated, more urgently. Ping! Ping! Ping!
“No!” he yelled and tried to stand. He found he couldn’t. “I’m not… I don’t want to go Prime!”
There was detached, almost divine laughter.
He felt that awful scrabbling inside his brain as if two or three entities were jostling each other within it. He shut his eyes hard and thought. He was close, he was very close. He had an idea, but he needed time to formulate it—a little while to figure out just exactly what the idea was and just exactly what to do with it!
Ping, ping, ping! Ping, ping, ping!
He had a headache. He felt as if his mind were being sucked out of his head. He tried to hold on to it. He couldn’t.
All right, then. He relaxed abruptly, stopped trying to protect himself. But with his mind and his mouth, he yelled. For the first time in his life and with only a partially formed conception of whom he was addressing the desperate call to, Algernon Hebster screamed for help.
“I can do it!” he alternately screamed and thought. “Save money, save time, save whatever it is you want to save, whoever you are and whatever you call yourself—I can help you save! Help me, help me — We can do it—but hurry. Your problem can be solved—Economize. The balance-sheet— Help —”