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It said a lot for Mother Earth. Ecologically aware, English’s “disease” had been held in abeyance by the planet’s partial recovery. She would be as good a place as any to start. Trask nodded his intention; a nod which she returned, however imperceptibly, before answering, “Can we step through into Ops? Maybe use the screens and charts?”
    Trask and Chung came back down off the dais, followed the other espers into the Ops section where they switched on table screens and illuminated walls. As shutters whirred into position covering the windows, so the room lit up; suddenly it took on a sort of cold, technological life of its own. On one large wall screen the Earth was shown in flat, stereographic projection, with colours which were lifelike as seen from space.
    Anna Marie English went to the screen, paused and looked at the other espers, especially Trask. Her unlovely face was tinged blue in the glare of the projection, and her eyes were invisible behind the reflective sheen of her spectacles. The ecopath’s voice was a rasp as she asked of no one in particular, “Is our world under threat?” She shrugged and turned to the screen. “I can only offer my opinion.”
    The next step was one which everyone present understood well enough: sympathetic perception. She reached up and placed a trembling right hand over a mountainous region of Russia, the Urals some four hundred miles north of Sverdlovsk. And closing her eyes, she held her breath and leaned her physical and metaphysical weight on that one sensitive extension of herself. Several long seconds ticked by, and as many quiet heartbeats, before she straightened up, withdrew her hand and faced her colleagues again.
    “Well?” Trask gave voice to all of their anxieties.
    She took a deep breath and said, “Perchorsk reads to me just exactly the way it did the last time I scanned it—menacing! The place itself is … well, a dire threat, obviously. But I detected nothing of any additional hazard. I did sense something new, however. Something … warm? In my opinion: if something, someone, has come through to our side, he, she, or it is harmless to our world, maybe even benevolent.”
    Trask sighed. Like everyone else, he’d been holding his breath. He looked around. Who else could he use? David Chung was standing close to him, but he shook his head. “I can only tell you what I’ve already told you: it feels like the Necroscope to me. Like him, but that’s all.”
    The precog Guy Teale had taken over Duty Officer from Millicent Cleary. As the group of espers had entered the Ops area, Teale had been summoned to duty by his pager, which was locked into Branch communications. Now he returned and said, “It’s the Opposition, Turkur Tzonov again. Still wanting to speak to you, sir.” He looked at Trask. “I patched him through to the screen in here. When you’re ready?”
    “He can wait a minute more,” Trask growled. But he knew that if Tzonov was that impatient, this was at least as important as he suspected it to be. He looked at the others gathered round him. Ian Goodly seemed on the point of saying something. Knowing how reluctant “hunchmen” usually are to air their talents, Trask prompted him, “Ian?”
    “I was waiting until Guy got back,” the gangling, cadaverous esper answered. “Being likeminded, so to speak—both of us being precogs, prognosticators—I’m interested to get a second opinion.”
    “Your own opinion will do for starters,” Trask told him.
    Goodly shuffled uncomfortably, then shrugged. “We’re going to be involved,” he finally said. Trask turned towards Teale.
    “Likewise,” said the other. “Who or whatever it is that’s come through —” He frowned and paused. “—No, whoever it is, he needs our help.”
    “He?”
    “That’s my guess,” Teale answered. “Educated, as always.”
    “And that’s it?”
    “Heavily involved,” Goodly nodded. “I see … interesting times ahead.” He held up a hand.