an arm of cumulus cloud and the top of it rose like a column to a
height above my range. It sort of leaned forward but it did not lean far
enough to be directly above the building. The far side of the column was
just like the rear side; even though I'm well trained, it always
startles me when I perceive the far side of a smallish dead area. I'm
inclined like everybody else to consider perception on a line-of-sight
basis instead of on a sort of all-around grasp.

I let my thinker run free. If I could direct a breakout from this joint
with a lot of outside help, I'd have a hot jetcopter pilot come down the
dead-area column with a dead engine. The Medical Center did not have any
radar, probably on the proposition that too high a degree of security
indicated a high degree of top-secret material to hide. So I'd come down
dead engine, land, and wait it out. Timing would have to be perfect,
because I, the prisoner, would have to make a fast gallop across a
couple of hundred yards of wide open psi area, scale a tall fence topped
with barbed wire, cross another fifty yards into the murk, and then find
my rescuer. The take off would be fast once I'd located the 'copter in
the murk, and everything would depend upon a hot pilot who felt
confident enough in his engine and his rotorjets to let 'em go with a
roar and a lift without warmup.

During which time, unfortunately for all plans, the people at The
Medical Center would have been reading my mind and would probably have
that dead patch well patrolled with big, rough gentlemen armed with
stuff heavy enough to stop a tank.

Lacking any sort of device or doodad that would conceal my mind from
prying telepaths, about the only thing I could do was to lay here in my
soft bed and daydream of making my escape.

Eventually I went to sleep and dreamed that I was hunting Mallards with
a fly-rod baited with a stale doughnut. The only thing that bothered me
was a couple of odd-looking guys who thought that the way to hunt
Mallards was with shotguns, and their dress was just as out of taste as
their equipment. Who ever hunted ducks from a canoe, dressed in
windbreakers and hightopped boots? Eventually they bought some ducks
from me and went home, leaving me to my slumbers.

* * * * *

About eight in the morning, there was a tentative tap on my door. While
I was growling about why they should bother tapping, the door opened and
a woman came in with my breakf