eyebrows at Rynason. "And be careful, Lee. I'm counting on you."

Rynason ignored his paternal gaze, and turned instead to Mara. "We'll
try it again tomorrow," he said. "Get in a requisition for a telepather
this afternoon; make sure we'll have one ready to go first thing in the
morning. I'll check back with you about an hour after we leave here
today."

She looked up at him, surprised. "Check back? Why?"

"I put in a requisition myself, yesterday. Wine from Cluster II, vintage
'86. I was hoping for some company."

She smiled. "All right."

Manning was ending the session. "...Carl, be sure to get those studies
of the Outsiders artifacts together for me by tonight. And I'm going to
hand back your reports to each of the rest of you; go through them and
watch for those inconsistencies you skipped over the first time. We may
be able to turn up something else that doesn't check out. Go over them
_carefully_--all the reports were sloppy jobs. You're all trying to work
too fast."

Rynason rose with the rest of them, grinning as he remembered how
Manning had rushed those reports. Well, that was one of the privileges
of authority: delegating fault. He started for the door.

"Lee! Hold it a minute; I want to talk to you, alone."

Rynason sat, and when all the others had gone Manning came back and sat