Actually, this has happened before; Jory has shown up several times where he shouldn't be." Once more into the microphone he said, "This is very unfair of you, Jory; Mr. Runciter has come a long way to talk to his wife. Don't dim her signal, Jory; that's not nice." A pause as he listened to the earphone. "I know her signal is weak." Again he listened, solemn and froglike, then removed the earphone and rose to his feet.

"What'd he say?" Runciter demanded. "Will he get out of there and let me talk to Ella?"

Von Vogelsang said, "There's nothing Jory can do. Think of two AM radio transmitters, one close by but limited to only five-hundred watts of operating power. Then another, far off, but on the same or nearly the same frequency, and utilizing five-thousand watts. When night comes -"

"And night," Runciter said, "has come." At least for Ella. And maybe himself as well, if Hollis' missing teeps, para-kineticists, precogs, resurrectors and animators couldn't be found. He had not only lost Ella; he had also lost her advice, Jory having supplanted her before she could give it.

"When we return her to the bin," von Vogelsang was blabbing, "we won't install her near Jory again. In fact, if you're agreeable as to paying the somewhat larger monthly fee, we can place her in a high-grade isolated chamber with walls coated and reinforced with Teflon-26 so as to inhibit hetero-psychic infusion, from Jory or anybody else."

"Isn't it too late?" Runciter said, surfacing momentarily from the depression into which this happening had dropped him.

"She may return. Once Jory phases out. Plus anyone else who may have gotten into her because of her weakened state. She's accessible to almost anyone." Von Vogelsang chewed his lip, palpably pondering. "She may not like being isolated, Mr. Runciter. We keep the containers - the caskets, as they're called by the lay public - close together for a reason. Wandering through one another's mind gives those in half-life the only-"