“First,” Joe said, “I have to obtain a reading on the counter-field our inertials are generating.”

“You should have done that on the trip,” Runciter said.

“Are you attempting to take measurements?” Miss Wirt inquired alertly. “Mr. Howard expressly contraindicated that, as I explained.”

“We’re taking a reading anyway,” Runciter said.

“Mr. Howard—”

“This isn’t Stanton Mick’s business,” Runciter told her.

To her drab assistant, Miss Wirt said, “Would you ask Mr. Mick to come down here, please?” The assistant scooted off in the direction of the syndrome of elevators. “Mr. Mick will tell you himself,” Miss Wirt said to Runciter. “Meanwhile, please do nothing; I ask you kindly to wait until he arrives.”

“I have a reading now,” Joe said to Runciter. “On our own field. It’s very high.” Probably because of Pat, he decided. “Much higher than I would have expected,” he said. Why are they so anxious for us not to take readings? he wondered. It’s not a time factor now; our inertials are here and operating.

“Are there closets,” Tippy Jackson asked, “where we can put away our clothes? I’d like to unpack.”

“Each bedroom,” Miss Wirt said, “has a large closet, coin-operated. And to start you all off—” She produced a large plastic bag. “Here is a complimentary supply of coins.” She handed the rolls of dimes, nickels and quarters to Jon Ild. “Would you distribute these equally? A gesture of goodwill by Mr. Mick.”

Edie Dorn asked, “Is there a nurse or doctor in this settlement? Sometimes I develop psychosomatic skin rashes when I’m hard at work; a cortisone-base ointment usually helps me, but in the hurry I forgot to bring some along.”

“The industrial, research installations adjoining these living quarters,” Miss Wirt said, “keep several doctors on standby, and in addition there is a small medical ward with beds for the ill.”

“Coin-operated?” Sammy Mundo inquired.

“All our medical care,” Miss Wirt said, “is free. But the burden of proof that he is genuinely ill rests on the shoulders of the alleged patient.” She added, “All medication-dispensing machines, however, are coin-operated. I might say, in regard to this, that you will find in the game room of this suite a tranquilizer-dispensing machine. And, if you wish, we can probably have one of the stimulant-dispensing machines moved in from the adjoining installations.”

“What about hallucinogens?” Francesca Spanish inquired. “When I’m at work I function better if I can get an ergot-base psychedelic drug; it causes me to actually see who I’m up against, and I find that helps.”

Miss Wirt said, “Our Mr. Mick disapproves of all the ergot-base hallucinogenic agents; he feels they’re liver-toxic. If you have brought any with you, you’re free to use them. But we will not dispense any, although I understand we have them.”

“Since when,” Don Denny said to Francesca Spanish, “did you begin to need psychedelic drugs in order to hallucinate? Your whole life’s a waking hallucination.”

Unfazed, Francesca said, “Two nights ago I received a particularly impressive visitation.”

“I’m not surprised,” Don Denny said.

“A throng of precogs and telepaths descended from a ladder spun of finest natural hemp to the balcony outside my window. They dissolved a passageway through the wall and manifested themselves around my bed, waking me up with their chatter. They quoted poetry and languid prose from oldtime books, which delighted me; they seemed so—” She groped for the word. “Sparkling. One of them, who called himself Bill—”

“Wait a minute,” Tito Apostos said. “I had a dream like that, too.” He turned to Joe. “Remember, I told you just before we left Earth?” His hands convulsed excitedly. “Didn’t I?”

“I dreamed that too,” Tippy Jackson said. “Bill and Matt. They said they were going to get me.”

His face twisting with abrupt darkness, Runciter said to Joe, “You should have told me.”

“At the time,” Joe said, “you—” He gave up. “You looked tired. You had other things on your mind.”

Francesca said sharply, “It wasn’t a dream; it was an authentic visitation. I can distinguish the difference.”

“Sure you can, Francy,” Don Denny said. He winked at Joe.

“I had a dream,” Jon Ild said. “But it was about hovercars. I was memorizing their license-plate numbers. I memorized sixty-five, and I still remember them. Want to hear them?”

“I’m sorry, Glen,” Joe Chip said to Runciter. “I thought only Apostos experienced it; I didn’t know about the others. I—” The sound of elevator doors sliding aside made him pause; he and the others turned to look.

Potbellied, squat and thick-legged, Stanton Mick perambulated toward them. He wore fuchsia pedal-pushers, pink yakfur slippers, a snakeskin sleeveless blouse, and a ribbon in his waist-length dyed white hair. His nose, Joe thought; it looks like the rubber bulb of a New Delhi taxi horn, soft and squeezable. And loud. The loudest nose, he thought, that I have ever seen.

“Hello, all you top anti-PSIs,” Stanton Mick said, extending his arms in fulsome greeting. “The exterminators are here—by that, I mean yourselves.” His voice had a squeaky, penetrating castrato quality to it, an unpleasant noise that one might expect to hear, Joe Chip thought, from a hive of metal bees. “The plague, in the form of various psionic riff-raff, descended upon the harmless, friendly, peaceful world of Stanton Mick. What a day that was for us in Mickville—as we call our attractive and appetizing Lunar settlement here. You have, of course, already started work, as I knew you would. That’s because you’re tops in your field, as everyone realizes when Runciter Associates is mentioned. I’m already delighted at your activity, with one small exception that I perceive your tester there dingling with his equipment. Tester, would you look my way while I’m speaking to you?”

Joe shut off his polygraphs and gauges, killed the power supply.

“Do I have your attention now?” Stanton Mick asked him.

“Yes,” Joe said.

“Leave your equipment on,” Runciter ordered him.

“You’re not an employee of Mr. Mick; you’re my employee.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Joe said to him. “I’ve already gotten a reading on the PSI field being generated in this vicinity.” He had done his job. Stanton Mick had been too slow in arriving.

“How great is their field?” Runciter asked him.

Joe said, “There is no field.”

“Our inertials are nullifying it? Our counter-field is greater?”

“No,” Joe said. “As I said: There is no PSI field of any sort within range of my equipment. I pick up our own field, so as far as I can determine my instruments are functioning; I consider that an accurate feedback. We’re producing 2000 blr units, fluctuating upward to 2100 every few minutes. Probably it will gradually increase; by the time our inertials have been functioning together, say, twelve hours, it may reach as high as—”

“I don’t understand,” Runciter said. All the inertials now were gathering around Joe Chip; Don Denny picked up one of the tapes which had been excreted by the polygraph, examined the unwavering line, then handed the tape to Tippy Jackson. One by one the other inertials examined it silently, then looked toward Runciter. To Stanton Mick, Runciter said, “Where did you get the idea that PSIs had infiltrated your operations here on Luna? And why didn’t you want us to run our normal tests? Did you know we would get this result?”

“Obviously, he knew,” Joe Chip said. He felt sure of it.

Rapid, agitated activity crossed Runciter’s face; he started to speak to Stanton Mick, then changed his mind and said to Joe in a low voice, “Let’s get back to Earth; let’s get our inertials right out of here now.”

Aloud, to the others, he said, “Collect your possessions; we’re flying back to New York. I want all of you in the ship within the next fifteen minutes; any of you who aren’t in will be left behind. Joe, get all that junk of yours together in one heap; I’ll help you lug it to the ship, if I have to—anyhow, I want it out of here and you with it.” He turned in Mick’s direction once again, his face puffy with anger; he started to speak—