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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, parakineticists, 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—”
    “Put her in solitary right now,” Runciter broke in. “Better she be isolated than not exist at all.”
    “She exists,” von Vogelsang corrected. “She merely can’t contact you. There’s a difference.”
    Runciter said, “A metaphysical difference which means nothing to me.”
    “I will put her in isolation,” von Vogelsang said, “but I think you’re right; it’s too late. Jory has permeated her permanently, to some extent at least. I’m sorry.”
    Runciter said harshly, “So am I.”

THREE
----
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    Still in gay pinstripe clown-style pajamas, Joe Chip hazily seated himself at his kitchen table, lit a cigarette and, after inserting a dime, twiddled the dial of his recently rented ’pape machine. Having a hangover, he dialed off
interplan news
, hovered momentarily at
domestic news
and then selected
gossip
.
    “Yes sir,” the ’pape machine said heartily. “Gossip. Guess what Stanton Mick, the reclusive, interplanetarily known speculator and financier, is up to at this very moment.” Its works whizzed and a scroll of printed matter crept from its slot; the ejected roll, a document in four colors, niftily incised with bold type, rolled across the surface of the neo-teakwood table and bounced to the floor. His head aching, Chip retrieved it, spread it out flat before him.
    MICK HITS WORLD BANK FOR TWO TRIL
    (AP) London. What could Stanton Mick, the reclusive, interplanetarily known speculator and financier be up to? the business community asked itself as rumor leaked out of Whitehall that the dashing but peculiar industrial magnate, who once offered to build free of charge a fleet by which Israel could colonize and make fertile otherwise desert areas of Mars, had asked for and may possibly receive a staggering and unprecedented loan of
    “This isn’t gossip,” Joe Chip said to the ’pape machine. “This is speculation about fiscal transactions. Today I want to read about which TV star is sleeping with whose drug-addicted wife.” He had as usual not slept well, at least in terms of