“Damnation!”

“I agree.”

“Have you got anything for me? Anything at all?”

“Yes. He was eating candy before his death. Found a fragment of gel in his mouth… bit of standard candy wrapping.”

“And?”

“No candy in the suite.”

“He might have eaten it all.”

“No candy in his stomach. Anyway, he wouldn’t be eating candy with his throat.”

“Why not?”

“Psychogenic cancer. Bad. He couldn’t talk, let alone eat gook.”

“Hell and damnation. We need that weapon… whatever it is.”

Powell fingered the sheaf of field reports, staring at the waxen body, whistling a crooked tune. He remembered hearing an audio-book once about an Esper who could read a corpse… like that old myth about photographing the retina of a dead eye. He wished it could be done.

“Well,” he sighed at last. “They licked us on motive, and they’ve licked us on method. Let’s hope we can get something on opportunity, or we’ll never bring Reich down.”

“What Reich? Ben Reich? What about him?”

“It’s Gus Tate I’m worried about most,” Powell murmured. “If he’s mixed up in this… What? Oh, Reich? He’s the killer, De Santis. I slicked Jo ¼maine down in Maria Beaumont’s study. Reich made a slip. I staged an act and misdirected Jo while I peeped to make sure. This is off the record, of course, but I got enough to convince me Reich’s our man.”

“Holy Christ!” De Santis exclaimed.

“But that’s a long way from convincing a court. We’re a long way from Demolition, brother. A long, long way.”

Moodily, Powell took leave of the Lab Chief, loafed through the anteroom and descended to field headquarters in the picture gallery.

“And I like the guy,” he muttered.

In the picture gallery outside the Orchid Suite where temporary headquarters had been set up. Powell and Beck met for a conference. Their mental exchange took exactly thirty seconds in the lightning tempo typical of telepathic talk: