f Total Insight was doomed to remain
forever obscure.

He settled his attention on the only two students on this side of the
room with him. Dexter Jones and Perrie Rochelle were sitting side by
side in front-row chairs--the same chairs they usually occupied during
these meetings. They were exceptions to the general run of the group
in a number of ways. Younger, for one thing; Dexter was twenty-nine
and Perrie twenty-three while the group averaged out at around
forty-five which happened to be Cavender's age. Neither was blessed
with worldly riches; in fact, it was questionable whether the Rochelle
girl, who described herself as a commercial artist, even had a bank
account. Dexter Jones, a grade-school teacher, did have one but was
able to keep it barely high enough to cover his rent and car payment
checks. Their value to the Institute was of a different kind. Both
possessed esoteric mental talents, rather modest ones, to be sure, but
still very interesting, so that on occasion they could state
accurately what was contained in a sealed envelope, or give a
recognizable description of the photograph of a loved one hidden in
another student's wallet. This provided the group with encouraging
evidence that such abilities were, indeed, no fable and somewhere
along the difficult road to Total Insight might be attained by all.

In addition, Perrie and Dexter were volunteers for what Dr. Aloys
Ormond referred to cryptically as "very advanced experimentation." The
group at large had not been told the exact nature of these
experiments, but the implication was that they were mental exercises
of such power that Dr. Al did not wish other advanced students to try
them, until the brave pioneer work being done by Perrie and Dexter was
concluded and he had evaluated the results....

* * * * *

"Headaches, Dr. Al," said Perrie Rochelle. "Sometimes quite bad
headaches--" She hesitated. She was a thin, pale girl with untidy
arranged brown hair who vacillated between periods of vivacious
alertness and activity and somewhat shorter periods of blank-faced
withdrawal. "And then," she went on, "there are times during the day
when I get to feeling sort of confused and not quite sure whether I'm
asleep or awake ... you know?"

Dr. Ormond nodded, gazing at her reflectively from the little lectern
on which he leaned. His composed smile indicated that he was not in
the least surprised or disturbed by her report on t