“I—don’t know right now,” Meritan answered, truthfully. He thought, I must go to New York. And try to help Joan. She’s in this because of me; I have no choice. Even if they catch me because of it… how can I desert her?

Bogart Crofts said, “I didn’t get Mercer.”

He walked away from the empathy box, then turned to glare at it, balefully. “I got Meritan. But I don’t know where he is. At the moment I took hold of the handles of this box, Meritan took hold somewhere else. We were connected and now he knows everything I know. And we know everything he knows, which isn’t much.” Dazed he turned to Secretary Herrick. “He doesn’t know any more about Wilbur Mercer than we do; he was trying to reach him. He definitely is not Mercer.” Crofts was silent then.

“There’s more,” Herrick said, turning to Mr. Lee. “What else did he get from Meritan, Mr. Lee?”

“Meritan is coming to New York to try to find Joan Hiashi,” Mr. Lee said, obligingly reading Crofts’ mind. “He got that from Mr. Meritan during the moment their minds were fused.”

“We’ll prepare to receive Mr. Meritan,” Secretary Herrick said, with a grimace.

“Did I experience what you telepaths engage in all the time?” Crofts asked Mr. Lee.

“Only when one of us comes close to another telepath,” Mr. Lee said. “It can be unpleasant. We avoid it, because if the two minds are thoroughly dissimilar and hence clash, it is psychologically harmful. I would assume you and Mr. Meritan clashed.”

Crofts said, “Listen, how can we continue with this? I know now that Meritan is innocent. He doesn’t know a damn thing about Mercer or the organization that distributes these boxes except its name.”

There was momentary silence.

“But he is one of the few celebrities who has joined the Mercerites,” Secretary Herrick pointed out. He handed a teletype dispatch to Crofts. “And he has done it openly. If you’ll take the trouble to read this—”

“I know he affirmed his loyalty to Mercer on this evening’s TV program,” Crofts said, trembling.