Finally, a non-anonymous letter had come to the S.M.M.R. requesting admission to the society, enclosing the proper fee. The letter also said that the writer was interested in literature on the subjects of prescience, precognition, and/or prophecy, and would be interested in contacting anyone who had had experience with such phenomena.

Putting two and two together only yields four, no matter how often it's done, but two to the eighth power gives a nice, round two hundred fifty-six, which is something one can sink one's teeth into.

Brian Taggert cut off the phone connection. "That's it, Mike," he said to the senator. "We've got him."

Two of the Society's agents, both top-flight telepaths, had gone out to "Dr. Joachim's" place on Coney Island's Boardwalk, posing as customers—"clients" was the word Dr. Joachim preferred—and had done a thorough probing job.

"He's what might be called a perfectly sincere fraud," Taggert continued. "You know the type I'm sure."

The senator nodded silently. The woods were full of that kind of thing. Complete, reliable control of any kind of psionic power requires understanding and sanity, but the ability lies dormant in many minds that cannot control it, and it can and does burst forth erratically at times. Finding a physical analogy for the phenomenon is difficult, since mental activities are, of necessity, of a higher order than physical activities.

Some of the operations of tensor calculus have analogs in algebra; many do not.

Taggert gestured with one hand. "He's been in business there for years. Evidently, he's been able to make a few accurate predictions now and then—enough to keep his reputation going. He's tried to increase the frequency, accuracy, and detail of his 'flashes' by studying up on the techniques used by other seers, and, as a result, he's managed to soak up enough mystic balderdash to fill a library.

"He embellishes every one of his predictions to his 'clients' with all kinds of hokum, and he's been doing it so long that he really isn't sure how much of any prediction is truth and how much is embroidery work.

"The boys are trying to get more information on him now, and they're going to do a little deep probing, if they can get him set up right; maybe they'll be able to trigger off another flash on that moon-hit—but I doubt it."

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