* *

The Kitch-Hen tired of waiting for Jadiver to come out. It cackled
disgustedly and sent a table into his room. Mechanically he sat down and
began to eat.

Not only how far but also what kind of data did the circuit transmit?
That was one unanswered problem. If he couldn't outrun it, he might
outthink it.

First, the data was transmitted to the police with some degree of
accuracy. They had been able to anticipate the robbery. Not completely,
but they did know it was Burlingame and how many men he was using. They
also knew the approximate date. From that, it was a matter of logic to
determine what specific society event he was aiming at. Jadiver had been
able to do the same.

Thoughts, visual and auditory impressions, tactile and other sensory
data--that was the sum of what the circuit could transmit,
theoretically.

He could almost positively rule out thoughts. It had never been proved
that thoughts could be transferred from one person to another,
mechanically or otherwise. But that was not his reason for rejecting it.
If they could read his thoughts, it was useless for him to plan
anything. And he was going to plan ahead, whether it was useless or not.

Tactile sensations, temperature, roughness, and the like were
unimportant except to a scientist. He doubted that police were that
scientifically interested in him. He could forget about the sense of
touch.

Sight and hearing. Neither of these could be eliminated at present. They
could see what he saw, hear what he heard. As long as they could, escape
was out of the question. It wouldn't take much to betray him--a street
sign glimpsed through his eyes, for instance, and they knew where he
was.

As long as they could see what he saw.

But there was such a thing as a shield. Any known kind of radiation
could be shielded against.

He was working with intangibles. He didn't know the nature of the
phenomenon he had to fight. He had to extrapolate in part, guess the
rest. One thing was certain, though: If he was successful in setting up
a shield against the circuit, the police would arrive soon after.
Arrive here.

His value to them was obvious. Through him they could make an undetected
contact with the shadowy world of illegality. If that contact was cut
off or if he seemed about to escape, his usefulness came to an end and
they would want one more arrest while they could get it.

Once he started to work on the shield, he would have to work f