“Ah, Miss Wirt,” he said. “I can’t give you too much time; maybe you should get to the point. What’s the problem?”
In a mellow, merry, incongruous voice Miss Wirt said, “We’re having a little trouble with telepaths. We think so but we’re not sure. We maintain a telepath of our own—one we know about and who’s supposed to circulate among our employees. If he comes across any PSIs, telepaths or precogs of any kind, he’s supposed to report to—” She eyed Runciter brightly. “To my principal. Late last week he made such a report. We have an evaluation, done by a private firm, on the capacities of the various prudence agencies. Yours is rated foremost.”
“I know that,” Runciter said; he had seen the evaluation, as a matter of fact. As yet, however, it had brought him little if any greater business. But now this. “How many telepaths,” he said, “did your man pick up? More than one?”
“Two at least.”
“Possibly more?”
“Possibly.” Miss Wirt nodded.
“Here is how we operate,” Runciter said. “First we measure the PSI field objectively, so we can tell what we’re dealing with. That generally takes from one week to ten days, depending on—”
Miss Wirt interrupted, “My employer wants you to move in your inertials right away, without the time-consuming and expensive formality of making tests.”
“We wouldn’t know how many inertials to bring in. Or what kind. Or where to station them. Defusing a PSI operation has to be done on a systematic basis; we can’t wave a magic wand or spray toxic fumes into corners. We have to balance Hollis’ people individual by individual, an anti-talent for every talent. If Hollis has gotten into your operation he’s done it the same way: Psi by Psi. One gets into the personnel department, hires another; that person sets up a department or takes charge of a department and requisitions a couple more… sometimes it takes them months. We can’t undo in twenty-four hours what they’ve constructed over a long period of time. Big-time Psi activity is like a mosaic; they can’t afford to be impatient, and neither can we.”
“My employer,” Miss Wirt said cheerfully, “is impatient.”
“I’ll talk to him.” Runciter reached for the vidphone. “Who is he and what’s his number?”
“You’ll deal through me.”
“Maybe I won’t deal at all. Why won’t you tell me who you represent?” He pressed a covert button mounted under the rim of his desk; it would bring his resident telepath, Nina Freede, into the next office, where she could monitor Miss Wirt’s thought processes. I can’t work with these people, he said to himself, if I don’t know who they are. For all I know, Ray Hollis is trying to hire me.
“You’re hidebound,” Miss Wirt said. “All we’re asking for is speed. And we’re only asking for that because we have to have it. I can tell you this much: our operation which they’ve infested isn’t on Earth. From the standpoint of potential yield, as well as from an investment standpoint, it’s our primary project. My principal has put all his negotiable assets into it. Nobody is supposed to know about it. The greatest shock to us, in finding telepaths on the site—”
“Excuse me,” Runciter said; he rose, walked to the office door. “I’ll find out how many people we have about the place who’re available for use in this connection.” Shutting his office door behind him, he looked into each of the adjoining offices until he spied Nina Freede; she sat alone in a minor sideroom, smoking a cigarette and concentrating. “Find out who she represents,” he said to her. “And then find out how high they’ll go.” We’ve got thirty-eight idle inertials, he reflected. Maybe we can dump all of them or most of them into this. I may finally have found where Hollis’ smart-assed talents have sneaked off to. The whole goddam bunch of them.
He returned to his own office, reseated himself behind his desk.
“If telepaths have gotten into your operation,” he said to Miss Wirt, his hands folded before him, “then you have to face up to and accept the realization that the operation per se is no longer secret. Independent of any specific technical info they’ve picked up. So why not tell me what the project is?”
Hesitating, Miss Wirt said, “I don’t know what the project is.”
“Or where it is?”
“No.” She shook her head.
Runciter said, “Do you know who your employer is?”
“I work for a subsidiary firm which he financially controls; I know who my immediate employer is—that’s a Mr. Shepard Howard—but I’ve never been told whom Mr. Howard represents.”
“If we supply you with the inertials you need, will we know where they are being sent?”
“Probably not.”
“Suppose we never get them back?”
“Why wouldn’t you get them back? After they’ve decontaminated our operation.”
“Hollis’ men,” Runciter said, “have been known to kill inertials sent out to negate them. It’s my responsibility to see that my people are protected; I can’t do that if I don’t know where they are.”
The concealed microspeaker in his left ear buzzed and he heard the faint, measured voice of Nina Freede, audible to him alone. “Miss Wirt represents Stanton Mick. She is his confidential assistant. There is no one named Shepard Howard. The project under discussion exists primarily on Luna; it has to do with Techprise, Mick’s research facilities, the controlling stock of which Miss Wirt keeps in her name. She does not know any technical details; no scientific evaluations or memos or progress reports are ever made available to her by Mr. Mick, and she resents this enormously. From Mick’s staff, however, she has picked up a general idea of the nature of the project. Assuming that her secondhand knowledge is accurate, the Lunar project involves a radical, new, low-cost interstellar drive system, approaching the velocity of light, which could be leased to every moderately affluent political or ethnological group. Mick’s idea seems to be that the drive system will make colonization feasible on a mass basic understructure. And hence no longer a monopoly of specific governments.”
Nina Freede clicked off, and Runciter leaned back in his leather and walnut swivel chair to ponder.
“What are you thinking?” Miss Wirt asked brightly.
“I’m wondering,” Runciter said, “if you can afford our services. Since I have no test data to go on, I can only estimate how many inertials you’ll need… but it may run as high as forty.” He said this knowing that Stanton Mick could afford—or could figure out how to get someone else to underwrite—an unlimited number of inertials.
“ ‘Forty,’ ” Miss Wirt echoed. “Hmm. That is quite a few.”
“The more we make use of, the sooner we can get the job done. Since you’re in a hurry, we’ll move them all in at one time. If you are authorized to sign a work contract in the name of your employer,”—he pointed a steady, unyielding finger at her; she did not blink—“and you can come up with a retainer now, we could probably accomplish this within seventy-two hours.” He eyed her then, waiting.
The microspeaker in his ear rasped, “As owner of Techprise she is fully bonded. She can legally obligate her firm up to and including its total worth. Right now she is calculating how much this would be, if converted on today’s market.” A pause. “Several billion poscreds, she has decided. But she doesn’t want to do this; she doesn’t like the idea of committing herself to both a contract and retainer. She would prefer to have Mick’s attorneys do that, even if it means several days’ delay.”
But they’re in a hurry, Runciter reflected. Or so they say. The microspeaker said, “She has an intuition that you know—or have guessed—whom she represents. And she’s afraid you’ll up your fee accordingly. Mick knows his reputation. He considers himself the world’s greatest mark. So he negotiates in this manner: through someone or some firm as a front. On the other hand, they want as many inertials as they can get. And they’re resigned to that being enormously expensive.”