guts of an automatic pump, built to
lift water from a deep well into a water tower about forty feet tall. He
did not notice my arrival until I stopped my rented car beside him and
said:

"Being a mechanical engineer and an esper, Phil, I can tell you that you
have a--"

"A worn gasket seal," he said. "It doesn't take an esper engineer to
figure it out. How the heck did you find us?"

"Out in your mailbox there is a letter," I told him. "I came with it."

He eyed me humorously. "How much postage did you cost? Or did you come
second class mail?"

I was not sure that I cared for the inference, but Phillip was kidding
me by the half-smile on his face. I asked, "Phil, please tell me--what
is going on?"

His half-smile faded. He shook his head unhappily as he said, "Why can't
you leave well-enough alone?"

My feelings welled up and I blew my scalp. "Let well enough alone?" I
roared. "I'm pushed from pillar to post by everybody. You steal my girl.
I'm in hokus with the cops, and then you tell me that I'm to stay--"

"Up the proverbial estuary lacking the customary means of locomotion,"
he finished with a smile.

I couldn't see the humor in it. "Yeah," I drawled humorlessly.

"You realize that you're probably as big a liability with us as you were
trying to find us?"

I grunted. "I could always blow my brains out."

"That's no solution and you know it."

"Then give me an alternative."

Phillip shrugged. "Now that you're here, you're here. It's obvious that
you know too much, Steve. You should have left well enough alone."

"I didn't know well enough. Besides, I couldn't have been pushed better
if someone had slipped me--" I stopped, stunned at the idea and then I
went on in a falter, "--a post-hypnotic suggestion."

"Steve, you'd better come in and meet Marian. Maybe that's what
happened."

"Marian?" I said hollowly.

"She's a high-grade telepath. Master of psi, no less."

My mind went red as I remembered how I'd catalogued her physical charms
on our first meeting in an effort to find out whether she were esper or
telepath. Marian had fine control; her mind must have positively seethed
at my invasion of her privacy. I did not want to meet Marian face to
face right now, but there wasn't a thing I could do about it.

Phillip left his pump and waved for me to follow. He took off in his
jeep and I trailed him to the farmhouse. We went through a dim area that
was almost the ideal shape for a home. The ring