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present.” He realized his voice showed his incredulity, and that it would displease Rogan. It did.
    “I believe the order is quite clear, doctor,” Rogan said decisively. “And there is certainly nothing difficult about it, now that Washington has shown you the way to solve it. What a target-finder missile does, you simply have to do in reverse.”
    “But why did Washington select me, Mr. Rogan?” Billings asked carefully. “I am not a mechanical technician or engineer. I work with the human mind and body, their interaction. I wouldn’t know anything about this project at all.”
    He was sorry he mentioned it, for it could be construed as Unwillingness to Cooperate, a fellow traveler act if not actually subversive. And it was a foolish question to ask, too, since government did not usually take capability into consideration in making an appointment—no more than the people did in electing government. Still, his question did bring him unexpected results.
    Rogan hesitated, pulled at his lip, decided not to make anything out of the doctor’s slip.
    “Washington does not usually have to explain to a citizen,” he said, “but I am instructed to answer you. This project is not a new one. It has been assigned before—several times.”
    “You mean the mechanical engineers have refused it?” Billings asked.
    “Those who did are serving their sentences, of course,” Rogan said, and his voice implied that Dr.
    Billings could join them without loss to the world. “But there was one thread of agreement at their trials.
    They all said that this would be duplicating the work of the human brain, and we’d better go to an expert on the human brain if we wanted to know how that worked.
    “So,” he finished simply, “here we are.”
    Billings had thought he was beyond further astonishment, but he had underestimated his own capacity for it.
    “Mr. Rogan,” he said slowly, trying not to show that he was aghast at the vacuity of such logic. “I do not question Washington’s wisdom. But for the sake of the record, I know only a few of the secondary effects of mental action; I do not know how the mind works; I do not know of any human being who does.”
    He stopped short, for there flashed into his mind the possibility of one who might. Joe Carter, a student—a telepath.
     
    The house where Joe lived was nearly a century old, and did not need the aid of the fog and the dusk to give it an air of grimy neglect. The weather-stained sign which proclaimed light-housekeeping rooms for students seemed almost as old, but at least it did not misrepresent them as being cheery or bright or comfortable.
    Billings hesitated briefly at the foot of the steps leading up to its front door, and mentally pictured with dread the two long flights of wooden stairs he must climb to reach Joe’s room.
    He could have summoned Joe to his office, of course, but tonight that would have been adding insult to injury. And, too, in his own room, the boy seemed to have a little less reserve than in the office or the classrooms.
    He started the slow, careful climb up the steps, opened the front door which was never locked for it was obvious that no one here could have anything worth taking, walked across the short hall, and started up the first flight of stairs. He glanced farther down the hall, saw the landlady’s door close abruptly, and smiled. It was the same, every time he came to see Joe.
    He had known Joe Carter for twelve years. First there had been the letter from Martin at Steiffel University, telling him about an eight-year-old telepath whose parents thought him insane. He, himself, had gone to the small college town and talked with the boy. He had arrived at a bad time. The story, as he got it from others, was that the boy had picked up a stray dog. The boy’s parents had turned the dog over to the pound, and it had been destroyed. Joe had become silent, uncommunicative, unresponsive to any of Billings’ attempts to draw him out.
    Twelve