a Controller!"

"You're a madman," said Matsukuo. "And we must find out what makes you
mad."

Synchronizing perfectly, five minds began to probe at the walls that
Sager had built up around his personality. And as they probed, Sager
retreated behind ever thicker walls, howling in hatred and anguish.

On and on went the five, needling, pressing at every weak spot, trying
to break him down. Outnumbered and overpowered, it seemed as though
Sager had no chance.

But his insanity was stronger than they suspected. The barriers he built
were harder, more opaque, and more impenetrable than any they had ever
seen. The five pushed on, anyway, but their advance slowed tremendously.

Then, mentally, there was a sudden silence.

_Sager?_ they thought.

No answer.

"That's finished it," said Houston. "He's retreated so far behind those
mental barriers that he's cut himself off completely."

"He's not dead, is he?" Dorrine asked.

"Dead?" said Juan Pedro. "Not in the sense you mean. But I think he is
catatonic now; he has lost all touch with the outside. He is as though
he were still drugged; he is physically helpless, and mentally blanked
out."

"There's one difference," Matsukuo said analytically. "And that is that,
although he has cut himself off from us and from the rest of the
universe, he is still conscious in some little, walled-in compartment of
his mind. He has no one there but himself--and that, I think, is damned
poor company."

* * * * *

They waited then. When Pederson awoke, they were ready for him. His
hatred took a slightly different form from Sager's, but the effect was
the same.

And so were the results when the five bore down on him.

Again they waited. Lasser was next.

At first, it looked as though Lasser would go the way of Sager and
Pederson, ending up as a hopelessly insane catatonic. Like his cohorts
before him, Lasser retreated under the full pressure of the
thought-probes of the five, building stronger and stronger walls.

But, quite suddenly, all his defenses crumbled. The mental barriers went
down, shattered and dissolving. Lasser's whole mind lay bare. Instead of
fighting and hating, Lasser was begging, pleading for help.

Lasser was not basically insane. His mind was twisted and warped, but
beneath the outer shell was a personality that had enough internal
strength to be able to admit that it was wrong and ask for help instead
of retreating into obli