I waved a hand at him and walked over to sit on one of the lab stools. He went to the sorter and pulled cards from the bins, joggling them up into one solid stack that he put back in the hopper. But he did not press the "start" button. "You know, Maragon," I told him. "This girl is hot, and then she's cold. But there is so much accuracy when she's right that I think there's some future to training her. What I want out of you is a measurement of how great her accuracy is." Norty snorted. "When Maragon doesn't believe it?" he said. "No thanks." He started the card sorter, filling the room with its clatter. I drew a pair of dice from my pocket. I'm never without the ivories. They are the original instruments of my TK skill. That's how Maragon found me, unconsciously tipping dice in an alley crap game. I threw them out on the table next to the sorter, when the cards had gone through and it fell silent. They came up with a four-three natural. "Maragon!" I snapped. "You know he doesn't think enough of _your_ TK to have your training extended. Well, you and I both know we have done wonders for your grip. Just because he's Grand Master doesn't make him right all the time. I want you to test this girl, and I think she has as much right to the facts as you have to the training I've been giving you under the table all these months!" "Blackmail," he said sadly. "Extortion!" "So I'm extorting some work out of you," I agreed. "The only question is whether you will pay." "What do you want?" Baskins asked glumly. "I want you to make this woman predict a series, a number of series, and I want you to use your computers here to tell me on what basis her accuracy varies. You can do that, can't you?" He nodded, staring at the dice on the table. "If I wasn't so sure you can help me develop my TK, Lefty," he said, "I'd never do this. All right, sneak her down here and I'll get her to PC some weather information for a month or so." "Weather?" I said. "Why the weather?" "You'll see when I show the results," he said. "Roll those dice again. I swear I felt your lift that last time." * * * * * I made a few other calls around the building to catch up on what had been going on while I was in Nevada. Our formal organization is lousy, because Maragon is a one-man show. You just have to rely on gossip, what the CV's pick up and what leaks by telepathy, to know all the internal politics of the Lodge. I wouldn't want you to think that Psi's are more devious or Machiavellian than normals, but sometimes they act it. By the time I reached up to tap on Pheola's door, it opened in front of me, and a stylishly dressed young lady came out, smiling, with Pheola standing in the doorway behind her. "Lefty!" Pheola said happily. "Is this your fiance?" the girl said to Pheola. "No!" I said. "I'm her chiropractor, and I'm about to straighten out some vertebrae in her neck!"