" Black said. "Why don't you fellows stick around and take
care of your business? I'm not even supposed to answer the telephone,
you know, but someone has to!"

"Can I help it that the Legal Secretaries Guild has called a
three-day convention? There's not a secretary present in any law
office in New York right now! I personally cut the phone in to the
answering service before I left for court."

"Inadvertence, I guess," Black said thoughtfully.

"Inadvertence?" Rich said quickly.

"Mine. I must have cut it back."

He didn't tell Rich that he hadn't stirred from the desk since Rich
had left. The switch was in the outer office. Had he with his
consciousness floating high over New York sensed subconsciously that
Lawrence was about to call and so cut in the switch? Had he built into
himself something of the pattern of his mother, something of
pre-vision or prescience, or call it what you will? Was a latent hunch
power coming out in him now, something that would manifest itself by
acts not consciously controlled? He hoped not! Semantic instability
was bad enough!

III

Sleep evaded Martin Black again that night.... There was no doubt that
Lawrence had a great idea.

Lawrence held forty-five percent of the company's stock. He wanted
control. In fact, he wanted outright ownership, but this was not
possible because the other major stockholders, holding forty-five
percent, seemed to be perfectly satisfied with their lucrative
investment. Cautious inquiries had failed to disclose any inclination
on their respective parts to sell.

There were, however, enough independent shares outstanding to give
Lawrence control if they were added to his own. The thing to do was to
figure a way to buy them. The problem was that no matter how secret
his operations, news or rumors of them would certainly leak out. The
shares would then undoubtedly jump to outrageous highs. Lawrence
couldn't risk that. He'd not be able to buy sufficient shares if the
price rose.

His corporation had completed Quijotoa City and had built Mojave City
and Sanup Plateau City, had through applied atomics created verdant
and lovely places out of wasteland and desert. It still owned the
atomic piles that provided power for the cities and the profits
therefrom were enormous.

Lawrence was progressive. He was at heart a humanitarian. He wanted to
develop other areas more from the humanitarian view than the profit
motive. He had learned long ago that the pr