“Thanks, Jerry.” Powell smiled, shrugged, and turned again to Tate. “I just want to ask you one question, Gus. Skipping over the fact that you’re Ben Reich’s accessory… that you pumped Sam @kins about D’Courtney and got the orbits set for him… Skipping over the fact that you went to the Beaumont party with Reich, ran interference for him and’ve been running interference ever since—”

“Wait a minute, Powell—”

“Don’t get panicky, Gus. All I want to know is whether I’ve guessed Reich’s bribe correctly. He couldn’t bribe you with money. You make too much. He couldn’t bribe you with position. You’re one of the top peepers in the Guild. He must have bribed you with power, eh? Is that it?”

Tate was peeping him hysterically, and the calm assurance he found in Powell’s mind, the casual acceptance of Tate’s ruin as an accomplished fact jolted the little peeper with a series of shocks too sudden for adjustment. And he was communicating his panic to Church. All this Powell had planned in preparation for one crucial moment that was to come later.

“Reich could offer you power in his world,” Powell continued conversationally, “But it isn’t likely. He wouldn’t give up any of his own, and you wouldn’t want any of his kind. So be must have offered you power in the Esper world. How could he do that? Well, he finances the League of Esper Patriots. My guess is he offered you power through the League… A coup d’état, maybe? A dictatorship in the Guild? Probably you’re a member of the League.”

“Listen, Powell…”

“That’s my guess, Gus.” Powell’s voice hardened. “And I’ve got a hunch I can make my guess good. Did you imagine we’d let you and Reich smash the Guild as easily as that?”

“You’ll never prove anything. You’ll—”

“Prove? What?”

“Your word against mine. I—”

“You little fool. Haven’t you ever been at a peeper trial? We don’t run ’em like a court of law, where you swear and then I swear and then a jury tries to figure who’s lying. No, little Gus. You stand up there before the board and all the 1^sts start probing. You’re a 1^st, Gus. Maybe you could block two… Possibly three… But not all. I tell you, you’re dead.”

“Wait a minute, Powell. Wait!” The mannequin face was twitching with terror. “The Guild takes confession into account. Confession before the fact. I’ll give you everything right now. Everything. It was an aberration. I’m sane now. Tell the Guild. When you get mixed up with a damned psychotic like Reich, you fall into his pattern. You identify yourself with it. But I’m out of it. Tell the Guild. Here’s the whole picture… He came to me with a nightmare about a Man With No Face. He—”

“He was a patient?”

“Yes. That’s how he trapped me. He dragooned me! But I’m out of it now. Tell the Guild I’m cooperating. I’ve recanted. I’m volunteering everything. Church is your witness…”