ht question. He went back to the
easy-chair and sat down. His eyes came up to meet mine, and then he
held out his glass. I splashed some more Pinch in it.

"Politics, politics," he mourned. "The social workers are after me on
this thing. They _want_ that girl to be in a jam. They've asked me to
work on the Bank, asked that I make sure restitution can't be made.
They want the threat of a Federal indictment to hang over her head."

"Why?"

"So she'll agree to my committing her to their care. You know what
they try to do--it's the doctrine of sterilization. Remove young Psis
from the Psi society--cut them loose from their natural contacts,
force them to quit using their powers. It's the same technique they
use on narcotic violators, if they aren't too deeply committed to
drugs."

"And you are really resisting that?"

"Wouldn't you? Of course I had to tell the Bank to refuse restitution.
But do you think Psi is a sickness, like narcotic addiction? Nonsense.
Telepathy is no more sickness than the ability to discriminate colors,
or hear the tones of a scale. This is equivalent to the color-blind
and tone-deaf asking that the rest of us stop perceiving color or
hearing the pitch of sound. Ridiculous."

"What is the cure?"

"We could argue all night," he said wearily. Then my buzzer sounded.
"Expecting anybody else?" he said, alarmed in an instant.

"I can't think of anybody I'd like to find out that you were here," I
said. "Get out of sight." He carried his drink into my bedroom.

* * * * *

Mike Renner was at the door. For a fat-faced bookkeeper with a law
degree, he looked pretty grim and formidable.

"You rotten double-crosser," he greeted me. I was the darling of
practically everybody in New York that night.

"It happens every time. Now what do you want, Renner?"

"To break your neck," he said. "You have found that Psi, Mary Hall,
and you haven't turned her over to Dunn. That's a dirty double--"

"With good reason," I cut in on him. "Do we both have to be idiots?
I've just finished having the girl tested. She hasn't got the Stigma,
Mike. Dunn will look like a fool trying to pin anything on the
Judge."

"That's not our business. Our fee depends on giving her to Dunn!" He
shook a fist in my face when he said that. He just doesn't look the
part.

"And the reputation of our firm can very well depend on my
successfully representing her, and proving that she hasn't got the
Sti