"That's what we're afraid of." Wilmer looked soberly at the parapsychologist. "I think I can understand what's going on in your mind. This is your special love and you're finding it difficult to divorce yourself from pure clinical investigation. You want, really, to talk to Dobbs as one scientist to another. But I must warn you that this is impossible. If he gets the least inkling that you're a special mind, something disastrous may result. As long as he gets what he wants, fine, but rub him the wrong way and--" "And yet you have him a virtual prisoner and he doesn't object?" "Well, at least not strenuously," Wilmer said. "I don't profess to understand a warped mind, but apparently Dobbs realizes that his confinement is mostly protective custody. It's to his own advantage. After all, he doesn't have to stand up at a public forum and shout threats. All he has to do is contact the few to reach the many. And if he has the powers he says he has, full use of them would result in his own destruction. And he doesn't want that. He's too interested, right now, in satisfying his own animal appetites. But faced with losing everything--" "Our biggest immediate worry," Hayes said from the front seat, "is keeping all this from the public. That's why we put Dobbs out of sight in a hurry. There have been some leaks already, but so far most people consider the papers' theories as just so much wild speculation. And thank God for that. You can understand why all recognizable public figures are keeping as far away from Dobbs as possible." * * * * * Flinn nodded; it was self-evident. There were other phases of the problem that bothered him more. He was still vaguely and, as it seemed, illogically worried about the several questions he had raised the day before. The fact that Dobbs might have read his articles and hence might put two and two together, despite a cover identity, was the least of them. Flinn had never lectured in public, his efforts had received no publicity except in specialized psychological circles, and his latest monograph on TH had been published when Dobbs was working at the atoll. Wilmer, Hayes, and others had managed to assuage reasonable fears on the other point. Flinn had always assumed that psychokinesis would be the logical result of advanced telepathy, that they were links in the same chain. Now it seemed that a person could be one without the other. Either you possessed a latent ability to scan mind-matter, or an affinity for material substance, but not necessarily both. Earlier, Wilmer and Hayes had devised a test to check the possibility that Dobbs was an advanced telepath. They had mentally vilified him beyond the ability of even an accomplished actor to resist, over prolonged periods of time, and yet Dobbs had shown not the least indication that he had intercepted their thoughts. But there was one additional point.