Martin Black passed a very bad night. Maintaining a mental block when asleep is a major feat, especially when one has semantic instability and a dream can so often be so realistic as to bring one's consciousness awake and mentally screaming miles from the physical being it has involuntarily left.
He dreamed with incredible regularity, waking five times out of nightmares, five times strangely on the hour as though he had tied some part of his mental being to the irresistibly moving, luminescent minute hand of his electric clock. Time is of the essence, he had told himself during the psi-visiphone contact with Joyce. Association!
Two a.m. He had dreamt of Joyce, dreamt that Joyce had somehow revealed the proposed transaction to BEB, putting Dodson on his trail. Wide awake now, he forced himself to think of the options which must be picked up the following night, options drawn so that not only the landowners must sign them but both the realty outfit and he, as Lawrence's attorney-in-fact, as well. Could he sign for Lawrence if Joyce had spilled?... No, it was only a dream. Joyce was so very stable!
Three a.m. He had dreamt of Standskill, tall, lean Standskill striding through the lovely early morning along the Champs Élysées, moving purposefully. He had even dreamt he had for a moment invaded Standskill's mind and caught the lawyer's pounding thought, "Lawrence! Buy, Lawrence!" Oh, but that would never do. The service psis would catch Standskill, would test the ethics of it now that Joyce had spilled, would cause Standskill to be disbarred. But Standskill didn't know! A dream. A lunatic dream.
Four a.m. The coincidence of the timing of his wakings struck him then. For a moment the latest dream eluded him and then the sense of airless cold, a bleak, cratered landscape, stark stars staring in a lunar night swept coldly across his mind. He shivered, drew the blanket over him, thought: How many shares? Six thousand? I can do it. I'll contact the broker in the morning. Six thousand at two hundred per. One million two hundred thousand dollars.
But that would raise the price, the attempt to buy so many shares. You can't buy a million plus in one stock without driving the price up— unless you manage to buy all the shares at once! If only he could persuade—psionically persuade—but he couldn't! It wasn't ethical.
His mind drifted.... I'll call the broker in the morning. Perhaps he can start picking up some of the independent shares when the market opens. If only he could snag the four thousand that—what was that name in Lawrence's mind?—yes, Redgrave! The four thousand that Redgrave has! That would be a start!
Redgrave had always fought Lawrence tooth and nail. Lawrence would derive vast personal satisfaction from seeing Redgrave an ex -stockholder. Thankless cad! Investment in the corporation had helped make Redgrave a very wealthy man. Lawrence stock was only part of his vast holdings. Redgrave was definitely out of the red!
Black chuckled, then told himself that this was a grave and not a laughing matter. Sleep was coming again.... Out of the red. Grave. Redgrave!
Five a.m. He awoke in a cold sweat.... This time the dream came back slowly, drenching him with fear as it came. It was sheer madness, this dream! To have even considered investing in Lawrence Applied Atomics! The Government would never condone the deal Lawrence was contemplating—the Applied Atomics Corporation was nearly insolvent, the BEB psis were investigating it....
Black tossed fitfully on the bed, seeking sleep desperately, seeking to escape the black night pressing in, to evade the imagined—or was it real?—probing minds of service psis.
Six a.m. He almost forgot the fears that had assailed him an hour before. He realized then that in the last few minutes or seconds or however long the latest transient phantasm had been in his mind he had dreamt of his broker pacing a dimly-lighted chamber, muttering, "The man's out of his mind. Economic instability, that's certain. Thinking of selling good stock to invest in Lawrence Applied Atomics! Not that Lawrence stock isn't fairly good, but he'll never make enough out of the corporation's piles; the returns are not that great!"
8 a.m. Black stretched, felt strangely relaxed. He realized then that as he had slept and, despite the fitfulness of his sleeping, his mind had apparently gone on analyzing the possible reactions to the big deal.
He arose, took a shower, shaved, ate breakfast. Then he went to the visiphone and buttoned Charles Wythe, his broker, at his office.
"Charlie," Black said to the cadaverous looking man who answered. "Where's the boss?"
"Went to see a psychiatrist."
"Why?"
"I don't know. What's on your mind?"
"I want you to do some selling and buying for me. Sell whatever you like, but buy Lawrence Applied Atomics."
"Look, Marty, let's not go off half-cocked. Last year you had a sudden brainstorm and remember what happened. Lawrence may be a good stock, but it won't help you to build up to that thirty percent you need. Not in the time you have to do it in. It's bad enough for you to take a big licking once. Let's not be stupid again."
"Now, Charlie, don't be nasty. I want you to buy Lawrence as quietly as you can. I want six thousand shares at the current price. Get them for me."
"Are you shaken loose from your psyche or id or whatever?" Wythe cried. "Do it quietly, the man says, do it quietly! You can do it about as quietly as they launched the space station. Where do you think I can get six thousand shares of Lawrence?"
"Why, you buy them!" Black answered innocently. "Isn't that what you do down at the Stock Exchange?"
The broker groaned. "Sure, that's all I do. Buy, that is. But not Lawrence. Look, Marty, see this chart? Yesterday was a big day for Lawrence Applied Atomics. It was unusually active. Three hundred shares changed hands. The day before it was one hundred. Once in my memory Lawrence had a four thousand share day. That must have been when Redgrave bought in. Now you tell me how I'm going to get you six thousand shares, get them quietly, and get them at the current price!"
"Start buying," Black said, "because I've got a hunch you'll find them. My mother had hunches, didn't she? Did she ever tell you or the boss to buy the wrong stocks? Did she—"
"That was your mother, Marty. What about that hunch you had last year, the one that cost you a couple of hundred thou—"
"That was last year!"
"So, what's changed?" asked Wythe.
"Maybe I've changed, Charlie. Do it; that's all I ask."
"Okay, Marty. But I think you're out of your mind, especially with what was on the morning news."
"And what was that?"
"Lawrence is in bad shape. He's not likely to pull through. They operated last night, in case you didn't know."
"But that should drive the stock down!"
"Why? It won't affect the profits from the corporation's piles."
"No. I agree. But that's not the only thing that keeps the price up. What about Lawrence's reputation?"
"Well, there's also a rumor about a government investigation of the corporation," Wythe admitted. "That might have some downward effect."
"Buy, Charlie, buy! I'll ring you later."
Black rang off. He felt an overwhelming confidence. He had only one small doubt in his mind—during or following one of those disturbing dreams had he been sufficiently overwrought to have relaxed his mental block, thereby letting in a fleeting probe from a service psi who would then have gleaned, in a moment, knowledge of the proposed transaction?
The unease waned. The exuberant confidence was in him again. The prescience of Martha Black?
He went out and caught a heli-cab to the law offices. He'd be a good trainee to the eyes and minds of anyone who might check. If the service psis were on his trail, he'd show them how good a trainee he was. He could check with Charlie Wythe later.