there was a man in our town, and he was wondrous wise;

he jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes.

and when he saw what he had done, with all his might and main

he jumped into another bush and scratched them in again.

mother goose

dr. david lessing found jack dorffman and the boy waiting in his office when he arrived at the hoffman center that morning. dorffman looked as though he'd been running all night. there were dark pouches under his eyes; his heavy unshaven face seemed to sag at every crease. lessing glanced sharply at his field director and sank down behind his desk with a sigh. "all right, jack—what's wrong?"

"this kid is driving me nuts," said dorffman through clenched teeth. "he's gone completely hay-wire. nobody's been able to get near him for three weeks, and now at six o'clock this morning he decides he's leaving the farm. i talk to him, i sweat him down, i do everything but tie him to the bed, and i waste my time. he's leaving the farm. period."

"so you bring him down here," said lessing sourly. "the worst place he could be, if something's really wrong." he looked across at the boy. "tommy? come over and sit down."

there was nothing singular about the boy's appearance. he was thin, with a pale freckled face and the guileless expression of any normal eight-year-old as he blinked across the desk at lessing. the awkward grey monitor-helmet concealed a shock of sandy hair. he sat with a mute appeal in his large grey eyes as lessing flipped the reader-switch and blinked in alarm at the wildly thrashing pattern on the tape.

the boy was terrorized. he was literally pulsating with fear.

lessing sat back slowly. "tell me about it, tommy," he said gently.

"i don't want to go back to the farm," said the boy.

"why?"

"i just don't. i hate it there."

"are you frightened?"

the boy bit his lip and nodded slowly.

"of me? of dr. dorffman?"

"no. oh, no!"

"then what?"

again the mute appeal in the boy's eyes. he groped for words, and none came. finally he said, "if i could only take this off—" he fingered the grey plastic helmet.

"you think that would make you feel better?"

"it would, i know it would."

lessing shook his head. "i don't think so, tommy. you know what the monitor is for, don't you?"

"it stops things from going out."

"that's right. and it stops things from going in. it's an insulator. you need it badly. it would hurt you a great deal if you took it off, away from the farm."

the boy fought back tears. "but i don't want to go back there—" the fear-pattern was alive again on the tape. "i don't feel good there. i never want to go back."

"well, we'll see. you can stay here for a while." lessing nodded at dorffman and stepped into an adjoining room with him. "you say this has been going on for three weeks?"

"i'm afraid so. we thought it was just a temporary pattern—we see so much of that up there."

"i know, i know." lessing chewed his lip. "i don't like it. we'd better set up a battery on him and try to spot the trouble. and i'm afraid you'll have to set it up. i've got that young melrose from chicago to deal with this morning—the one who's threatening to upset the whole conference next month with some crazy theories he's been playing with. i'll probably have to take him out to the farm to shut him up." lessing ran a hand through sparse grey hair. "see what you can do for the boy downstairs."

"full psi precautions?" asked dorffman.

"certainly! and jack—in this case, be sure of it. if tommy's in the trouble i think he's in, we don't dare risk a chance of adult contact now. we could end up with a dead boy on our hands."