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But Houston could understand the Normal man; he could see how fear of a Controller could drive a man without the ability into a frenzied panic. He could understand, even forgive their actions, born and bred in ignorance and fear.

No, the ones he hated were the ones who had conceived and fostered that fear–the psychologically unstable megalomaniac Controllers. There were only a handful of them–probably not more than a few hundred or a thousand. But because of them, every telepath on Earth found his life in danger, and every Normal found his life a hell of terror.

Let Dorrine and her do-nothing friends run around the globe recruiting members for their precious Group; that was all right for them. Meanwhile, David Houston would be doing something on a more basic action level.

He glanced at his watch. Almost time.

“How’s the deployment?” he whispered in his throat.

“We’ve got the building surrounded now,” said the voice in his ear. “You can go in anytime.”

“How about the roof?”

“That’s taken care of, sir; we’ve got ‘copter that can be on the top of the Lasser Building at any time you call. They can land within thirty seconds of your signal.”

“Okay,” Houston said; “I’m going in now. Remember–no matter what I say or do, no one is to leave that building if they’re conscious. And keep your eyes on me; if I act in the least peculiar, handcuff me–but don’t knock me out.

“And if I’m not back on time, come in anyway.”

“Right.”

* * * * *

Houston finished his coffee, dropped a coin on the counter, and headed for the other side of the street.

The big problem was getting into the building itself. It was ringed with alarms; Lasser & Sons didn’t want just anybody wandering in and out of their building.

So Houston had arranged a roundabout way. The building next to the Lasser Building was a good deal smaller, only forty-five stories high. A week before, Houston had rented an office on the eighteenth floor of the building; on the door, he had already had a sign engraved: Ajax Enterprises.

It was a shame the office would never be used.

Houston walked straight to the next-door building and opened the front door with his key. Inside, a night watchman lounged behind a desk, smoking a blackened briar. He looked up, smiled, and nodded.

“Evening, Mr. Griswold; working late tonight?”

Houston forced a smile he did not feel. “Just doing a little paper work,” he said.

He took the automatic elevator to the eighteenth floor. He didn’t relish the idea of walking up to the roof, but taking the elevator would make the nightwatchman suspicious.

He didn’t bother going to the office; he headed directly for the stairway and began his long climb–twenty-seven floors to the roof.

All through it, he kept up a running comment through his throat mike. “I wish I weighed about fifty pounds less; carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of blubber up these stairs isn’t easy.”

“Blubber, hooey!” the earphone interrupted. “Any man who’s six-feet-three has a right to carry that much weight. Actually, you’re a skinny-looking sort of goop.”

Both men were exaggerating; Houston wasn’t fat, but his broad, powerful frame couldn’t be called skinny, either.

When he finally reached the roof, he paused and surveyed the wall of the Lasser Building, which towered high above him, spearing an additional thirty stories in the air. Up there, the lights on the sixtieth floor gleamed in the night.

The air was growing cooler, and the beginnings of a mist were forming. Houston hoped it wouldn’t start to rain before he got inside.

* * * * *

The forty-sixth floor of the Lasser Building had no windows on this side, but there were plenty on the forty-seventh.