ped inside.

He had ten more floors to go.

He took off the suit and rolled it up into a tight package, then dropped
it out the window. It landed with a barely audible thump. Houston took a
deep breath, drew his stun gun, and headed for the stairway.

* * * * *

On the landing of the sixtieth floor of the Lasser Building, David
Houston paused for a moment.

"Sounds like you're out of breath," said the voice in his ear.

"You try climbing all that way sometime," Houston whispered. "I'm no
superman, you know."

"Shucks," said the voice, "you've disillusioned me. What now?"

"I'm going to try to get a little information," Houston told him. "Hold
on."

On the other side of the door, he could hear faint sound, as if someone
were moving around, but he could hear no voices.

Carefully, he sent out a probing thought, trying to see if he could
attune his mind with that of someone inside without betraying himself.

He couldn't detect anything. The sixtieth floor covered a lot of space;
if whoever was inside was too far away, their thoughts would be too
faint to pick up unless Houston stepped up his own power, and he didn't
want to do that.

Cautiously, he reached out a hand and eased open the door.

The hallway was brightly lit, but there was no one in sight. The
unaccustomed light made Houston blink for a moment before his eyes
adjusted to it; the hallways and landings below had been pitch dark,
forcing him to use a penlight to find his way up.

He stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Now he could hear voices. He stopped to listen. The conversation was
coming from an office down the hall--if it could be called a
conversation.

There would be long periods of silence, then a word or two: "But not
that way." "Until tomorrow." "Vacillates."

There were three different voices.

Houston moved on down the hall, his stun gun ready. A few yards from the
door, he stopped again, and, very gently, he sent out another
thought-probe, searching for the minds of those within, carefully
forging his way.

* * * * *

And, at that crucial instant, a voice spoke in his ear.

"Houston! What's going on? You haven't said a thing for two full
minutes!"

"I'm all right!" Houston snapped. Only the force of long training and
habit kept him from shouting the words aloud instead of keeping them to
a subvocal whisper.

"All right or not," said the o