"Everybody violates the law. When I tell you olives taste terrible, I'm technically violating the law. When somebody says that dogs are man's best friend, it's illegal. It goes on all the time—we're not interested in that!"

Pearson had come into the office. "What's going on?" he demanded irritably, tall and stern in his brown police uniform.

"Our young friend here has brought back the quarry," Kaminski said sourly. "At this carnival he covered... he unearthed a fortuneteller."

Turning to Pearson, Cussick tried to explain. "Not a regular fortuneteller; there was one of those, too." Hearing his voice mutter out huskily, awkwardly, he rushed on: "I think this man's a mutant, a precog of some land. He claims to know future history; he told me that somebody named Saunders is going to be the next Council chairman."

"Never heard of him," Pearson said, unimpressed.

"This man told me," Cussick went on, "that the drifters are going to turn out to be actual living creatures, not ships. And that it's known, now, at high levels."

A strange expression crossed Pearson's uncompromising features. At his desk, Kaminski abruptly stopped writing.

"Oh?" Pearson said faintly.

"He told me," Cussick continued, "that the drifters are going to be the biggest issue in the next year. The most important thing tangled with."

Neither Pearson nor Kaminski said anything. They didn't have to; Cussick could see it on their faces. He had made his point. He had covered all that was necessary.

Jones was about to become known.

CHAPTER FOUR

AS AN immediate measure, Floyd Jones was taken into surveillance. That interim system continued for a period of seven months. In November of 1995, the bland, uncomplicated candidate of the extremist Nationalist Party came through and won the general Council election. Within twenty-four hours of the time Ernest T. Saunders was sworn into office, Jones had been quietly arrested.