In the sixteen years that had ensued since the discovery of the abnormal mental powers of "Blackjack" Donnely, rumors had spread all over the world. There were supposed to be men who could levitate--fly through the air at will. Others could walk through walls, and still others could make themselves invisible. The horrible monsters that were supposed to be walking the Earth were legion. * * * * * Actually, only one type of supernormal psychodeviant had been found--the telepath, the mindreader who could probe into the mental processes of others. Worse than that, the telepath could project his own thoughts into the mind of another, so that the victim supposed that the thoughts were his own. Actually, it was a high-powered form of hypnotism; the victim could be made to do anything the projective telepath wanted him to. "Blackjack" Donnely had made that clear in his trial in Texas. Donnely had been a big man--big physically, and important in city politics. He had also been as arrogant as the Devil himself. It was the arrogance that had finally tripped up Donnely. He had thought himself impregnable. Haled into court on charges of misappropriation of public funds, he had just sat and smirked while several witnesses for the State admitted that they had aided Donnely, but they claimed he had "hypnotized" them. Donnely didn't try to interfere with the evidence--that's where he made his mistake. And that's where his arrogance tripped him up. * * * * * If he'd used telepathic projection to influence the State Attorney or the witnesses or the judge or the Grand Jury _before_ the trial, he might never have been discovered as the first of the Controllers. But that wasn't Donnely's style. "None of this namby-pamby stuff," he had once been quoted as saying; "if you got enemies, don't tease 'em--show 'em who's running things. Blackjack 'em, if you have to." And that's exactly what "Blackjack" Donnely had done. The trial was a farce from beginning to end; each witness gave his evidence from the stand, and then Donnely took control of their minds and made them refute every bit of it, publicly and tearfully apologizing to the "wonderful Mr. Donnely" for saying such unkind things about him. The judge and the jury knew something funny was going on, but they had no evidence, one way or another. The case, even at that point, might have ended with an acquittal or a hung jury, but Donnely wasn't through using his blackjack. He took over the mind of the foreman of the jury. The foreman claimed later that the jury had decided that they could reach no decision. Other jurors claimed that they had decided Donnely was guilty, but that was probably an _ex post facto_ switch. It didn't matter, anyway; when the foreman came out, he pronounced Donnely innocent. That should have ended it.