. To them, it was like a vaguely unpleasant but totally
unrecognizable nudge from their own subconscious, like some
long-forgotten and deeply buried memory that had been forced down into
oblivion and was now trying to obtrude itself on the conscious mind.

_Uhhh--Oooohh--where?--what happened?--_

A fully conscious telepath could project his thoughts along a narrow
locus, focusing them on a single brain, leaving all other brains
oblivious to his thoughts. Like a TV broadcasting station, he could
choose his wavelength and stick to it.

But a half-conscious Controller sprayed his thoughts at random, creating
mental disturbances in his vicinity. Like a thunderstorm creating radio
static, there was no selectivity.

Savagely, David Houston did what he had to do. It might be a trap, but
he had to avoid the carnage that might follow if this went on. He hurled
a beam of thought, hard-held, at the offending mind of the awakening
telepath.

_DON'T THINK! RELAX!_

Normally it was impossible for a Controller to take over the mind of
another Controller, but these were abnormal circumstances; the
half-conscious man, whoever he was, was weakened mentally by some kind
of enforced unconsciousness--either a drug or a stun gun. Houston took
over his mind smoothly and easily.

_Robert Harris!_

Houston recognized the mind as soon as he held it.

He didn't try to force anything on Harris's mind; he simply held it,
cradling it, helping Harris to regain consciousness easily, bringing him
up from the darkness gently.

In normal sleep, everyone's mind retains a certain amount of
self-control and awareness of environment. If it didn't, noise and
bright lights wouldn't awaken a sleeping person.

* * * * *

In normal sleep, a telepath retained enough control to keep his thoughts
to himself, even when waking up.

But total anaesthesia brought on a mental blackout from which the victim
recovered only with effort. And during that time, a Controller's mind
was violently disturbing to the Normal minds around him, who mistook his
disordered thoughts for their own.

Like pouring heavy oil on choppy waters, Houston soothed the
disturbances of Harris's mind, focusing the random broadcasts on his own
brain.

And while he did that, he probed gently into the weakened mind of the
prisoner for information.

Harris was a Controller, all right; there was no doubt about that. But
nowhere in his mind was there an