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Supermind

by Randall Garrett · English · Gutenberg #22342 · 427,494 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Supermind

Author: Randall Garrett
        Laurence M. Janifer


        
Release date: August 16, 2007 [eBook #22342]
                Most recently updated: August 29, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22342


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUPERMIND ***




Transcriber’s Note:

This etext was produced from the 1963 book publication of the story.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on
this publication was renewed.

Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without
note.

The word “PLaza” (two capital letters) was correct usage to designate
a telephone exchange at the time the story was written. It has been
left as printed.

* * * * *




Supermind


Mark Phillips




1


In 1914, it was enemy aliens.

In 1930, it was Wobblies.

In 1957, it was fellow travelers.

In 1971, it was insane telepaths.

And, in 1973:

“We don’t know _what_ the hell it is,” said Andrew J. Burris, Director
of the FBI. He threw his hands in the air and looked baffled and
confused.

Kenneth J. Malone tried to appear sympathetic. “What what is?” he
asked.

Burris frowned and drummed his fingers on his big desk. “Malone,” he
said, “make sense. And don’t stutter.”

“Stutter?” Malone said. “You said you didn’t know what it was. What
the hell it was. And I wanted to know what it was.”

“That’s just it,” Burris said. “I don’t know.”

Malone sighed and repressed an impulse to scream. “Now wait a minute,
Chief—” he started.

Burris frowned again. “Don’t call me Chief,” he said.

Malone nodded. “Okay,” he said. “But if you don’t know what it is, you
must have some idea of what you don’t know. I mean, is it larger than
a breadbox? Does it perform helpful tasks? Is it self-employed?”

“Malone,” Burris sighed, “you ought to be on television.”

“But—”

“Let me explain,” Burris said. His voice was calmer now, and he spoke
as if he were enunciating nothing but the most obvious and eternal
truths. “The country,” he said, “is going to hell in a handbasket.”

Malone nodded again. “Well, after all, Chief—”

“Don’t call me Chief,” Burris said wearily.

“Anything you say,” Malone agreed peacefully. He eyed the Director of
the FBI warily. “After all, it isn’t anything new,” he went on. “The
country’s always been going to hell in a handbasket, one way or
another. Look at Rome.”

“Rome?” Burris said.

“Sure,” Malone said. “Rome was always going to hell in a handbasket,
and finally it—” He paused. “Finally it did, I guess,” he said.

“Exactly,” Burris said. “And so are we. Finally.” He passed a hand
over his forehead and stared past Malone at a spot on the wall. Malone
turned and looked at the spot, but saw nothing of interest. “Malone,”
Burris said, and the FBI agent whirled around again.

“Yes, Ch—Yes?” he said.

“This time,” Burris said, “it isn’t the same old story at all. This
time it’s different.”

“Different?” Malone said.

Burris nodded. “Look at it this way,” he said. His eyes returned to
the agent. “Suppose you’re a congressman,” he went on, “and you find
evidence of inefficiency in the government.”

“All right,” Malone said agreeably. He had the feeling that if he
waited around a little while everything would make sense, and he was
willing to wait. After all, he wasn’t on assignment at the moment, and
there was nothing pressing waiting for him. He was even between
romances.

If he waited long enough, he told himself, Andrew J. Burris might say
something worth hearing. He looked attentive and eager. He considered
leaning over the desk a little, to look even more eager, but decided
against it; Burris might think he looked threatening. There was no
telling.

“You’re a congressman,” Burris said, “and the government is
inefficient. You find evidence of it. What do you do?”

Malone blinked and thought for a second. It didn’t take any longer
than that to come up with the old, old answer. “I start an
investigation,” he said. “I get a committee and I talk to a lot of
newspaper editors and magazine editors and maybe I go on television
and talk some more, and my committee has a lot of meetings—”

“Exactly,” Burris said.

“And we talk a lot at the meetings,” Malone went on, carried away,
“and get a lot of publicity, and we subpoena famous people, just as
famous as we can get, except governors or presidents, because you
can’t—they tried that back in the Fifties, and it didn’t work very
well—and that gives us some more publicity, and then when we have all
the publicity we can possibly get—”

“You stop,” Burris said hurriedly.

“That’s right,” Malone said. “We stop. And that’s what I’d do.”

“Of course, the problem of inefficiency is left exactly where it
always was,” Burris said. “Nothing’s been done about it.”

“Naturally,” Malone said. “But think of all the lovely publicity. And
all the nice talk. And the subpoenas and committees and everything.”

“Sure,” Burris said wearily. “It’s happened a thousand times. But,
Malone, that’s the difference. It isn’t happening this time.”

There was a short pause. “What do you mean?” Malone said at last.

“This time,” Burris said, in a tone that sounded almost awed, “they
want to keep it a secret.”

“A secret?” Malone said, blinking. “But that’s—that’s not the
American way.”

Burris shrugged. “It’s un-congressman-like, anyhow,” he said. “But
that’s what they’ve done. Tiptoed over to me and whispered softly that
the thing has to be investigated quietly. Naturally, they didn’t give
me any orders—but only because they know they can’t make one stick.
They suggested it pretty strongly.”

“Any reasons?” Malone said. The whole idea interested him strangely.
It was odd—and he found himself almost liking odd cases, lately. That
is, he amended hurriedly, if they didn’t get _too_ odd.

“Oh, they had reasons, all right,” Burris said. “It took a little
coaxing, but I managed to pry some loose. You see, every one of them
found inefficiency in his own department. And every one knows that
other men are investigating inefficiency.”

“Oh,” Malone said.

“That’s right,” Burris said. “Every one of them came to me to get me
to prove that the goof-ups in his particular department weren’t his
fault. That covers them in case one of the others happens to light
into the department.”

“Well, it must be _somebody’s_ fault,” Malone said.

“It isn’t theirs,” Burris said wearily, “I ought to know. They told
me. At great length, Malone.”

Malone felt a stab of honest pity. “How many so far?” he asked.

“Six,” Burris said. “Four representatives, and two senators.”

“Only two?” Malone said.

“Well,” Burris said, “the Senate is so much smaller. And, besides, we
may get more. As a matter of fact, Senator Lefferts is worth any six
representatives all by himself.”

“He is?” Malone said, puzzled. Senator Lefferts was not one of his
favorite people. Nor, as far as he knew, did the somewhat excitable
senator hold any place of honor in the heart of Andrew J. Burris.

“I mean his story,” Burris said. “I’ve never heard anything like it—
at least, not since the Bilbo days. And I’ve only heard about those,”
he added hurriedly.

“What story?” Malone said. “He talked about inefficiency—”

“Not exactly,” Burris said carefully. “He said that somebody was out
to get him—him, personally. He said somebody was trying to discredit
him by sabotaging all his legislative plans.”

“Well,” Malone said, feeling that some comment was called for, “three
cheers.”

“That isn’t the point,” Burris snapped. “No matter how we feel about
Senator Lefferts or his legislative plans, we’re sworn to protect him.
And he says ‘they’ are out to get him.”

“They?” Malone said.

“You know,” Burris said, shrugging. “The great ‘they.’ The invisible
enemies all around, working against him.”

“Oh,” Malone said. “Paranoid?” He had always thought Senator Lefferts
was slightly on the batty side, and the idea of real paranoia didn’t
come as too much of a surprise. After all, when a man was batty to
start out with ... and he even _looked_ like a vampire, Malone thought
confusedly.

“As far as paranoia is concerned,” Burris said, “I checked with one of
our own psych men, and he’ll back it up. Lefferts has definite
paranoid tendencies, he says.”

“Well, then,” Malone said, “that’s that.”

Burris shook his head. “It isn’t that simple,” he said. “You see,
Malone, there’s some evidence that somebody _is_ working against him.”

“The American public, with any luck at all,” Malone said.

“No,” Burris said. “An enemy. Somebody sabotaging his plans. Really.”

Malone shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said.

Burris looked shocked. “Malone, I’m the Director of the FBI,” he said.
“And if you insist on being disrespectful—”

“Sorry,” Malone murmured. “But—”

“I am perfectly sane,” Burris said slowly. “It’s Senator Lefferts
who’s crazy. The only trouble is, he has evidence to show he’s not.”

Malone thought about odd cases, and suddenly wished he were somewhere
else. Anywhere else. This one showed sudden signs of developing into
something positively bizarre. “I see,” he said, wondering if he did.

“After all,” Burris said, in a voice that attempted to sound
reasonable, “a paranoid has just as much right to be persecuted as
anybody else, doesn’t he?”

“Sure,” Malone said. “Everybody has rights. But what do you want me to
do about that?”

“About their rights?” Burris said. “Nothing, Malone. Nothing.”

“I mean,” Malone said patiently, “about whatever it is that’s going
on.”

Burris took a deep breath. His hands clasped behind his head, and he
looked up at the ceiling. He seemed perfectly relaxed. That, Malone
knew, was a bad sign. It meant that there was a dirty job coming, a
job nobody wanted to do, and one Burris was determined to pass off on
him. He sighed and tried to get resigned.

“Well,” the FBI director said, “the only actual trouble we can
pinpoint is that there seem to be a great many errors occurring in the
paperwork. More than usual.”

“People get tired,” Malone said tentatively.

“But computer-secretary calculating machines don’t,” Burris said. “And
that’s where the errors are, in the computer-secretaries down in the
Senate Office Building. I think you’d better start out there.”

“Sure,” Malone said sadly.

“See if there’s any mechanical or electrical defect in any of those
computers,” Burris said. “Talk to the computer technicians. Find out
what’s causing all these errors.”

“Yes, sir,” Malone said. He was still trying to feel resigned, but he
wasn’t succeeding very well.

“And if you don’t find anything—” Burris began.

“I’ll come right back,” Malone said instantly.

“No,” Burris said. “You keep on looking.”

“I do?”

“You do,” Burris said. “After all, there has to be _something_ wrong.”

“Sure,” Malone said, “if you say so. But—”

“There are the interview tapes,” Burris said, “and the reports the
Congressmen brought in. You can go through those.”

Malone sighed. “I guess so,” he said.

“And there must be thousands of other things to do,” Burris said.

“Well—” Malone began cautiously.

“You’ll be able to think of them,” Burris said heartily. “I know you
will. I have confidence in you, Malone. Confidence.”

“Thanks,” Malone said sadly.

“You just keep me posted from time to time on what you’re doing, and
what ideas you get,” Burris said. “I’m leaving the whole thing in your
hands, Malone, and I’m sure you won’t disappoint me.”

“I’ll try,” Malone said.

“I know you will,” Burris said warmly. “And no matter how long it
takes, I know you’ll succeed.”

“No matter how long it takes?” Malone said hesitantly.

“That’s right!” Burris said. “You can do it, Malone! You can do it.”

Malone nodded slowly. “I hope so,” he said. “Well, I—Well, I’ll start
out right away, then.”

He turned. Before he could make another move Burris said, “Wait!”

Malone turned again, hope in his eyes. “Yes, sir?” he said.

“When you leave—” Burris began, and the hope disappeared. “When you
leave,” he went on, “please do one little favor for me. Just one
little favor, because I’m an old, tired man and I’m not used to things
any more.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “Anything, Chief.”

“Don’t call me—”

“Sorry,” Malone said.

Burris breathed heavily. “When you leave,” he said, “please, please
use the door.”

“But—”

“Malone,” Burris said, “I’ve tried. I’ve really tried. Believe me.
I’ve tried to get used to the fact that you can teleport. But—”

“It’s useful,” Malone said, “in my work.”

“I can see that,” Burris said. “And I don’t want you to, well, to stop
doing it. By no means. It’s just that it sort of unnerves me, if you
see what I mean. No matter how useful it is for the FBI to have an
agent who can go instantaneously from one place to another, it
unnerves me.” He sighed. “I can’t get used to seeing you disappear
like an overdried soap bubble, Malone. It does something to me, here.”
He placed a hand directly over his sternum and sighed again.

“I can understand that,” Malone said. “It unnerved me, too, the first
time I saw it. I thought I was going crazy, when that kid—Mike
Fueyo—winked out like a light. But then we got him, and some FBI
agents besides me have learned the trick.” He stopped there, wondering
if he’d been tactful. After all, it took a latent ability to learn
teleportation, and some people had it, while others didn’t. Malone,
along with a few other agents, did. Burris evidently didn’t, so he
couldn’t teleport, no matter how hard he tried or how many lessons he
took.

“Well,” Burris said, “I’m still unnerved. So please, Malone, when you
come in here, or go out, use the door. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” Malone said. He turned and went out. As he opened the
door, he could almost hear Burris’ sigh of relief. Then he banged it
shut behind him and, feeling that he might as well continue with his
space-bound existence, walked all the way to the elevator, and rode it
downstairs to the FBI laboratories.

The labs, highly efficient and divided into dozens of departments,
covered several floors. Malone passed through the Fingerprint section,
filled with technicians doing strange things to great charts and
slides, and frowning over tiny pieces of material and photographs.
Then came Forgery Detection, involving many more technicians, many
more slides and charts and tiny pieces of things and photographs, and
even a witness or two sitting on the white bench at one side and
looking lost and somehow civilian. Identification Classified was next,
a great barn of a room filled with index files. The real indexes were
in the sub-basement; here, on microfilm, were only the basic
divisions. A man was standing in front of one of the files, frowning
at it. Malone went on by without stopping.

Cosmetic Surgery Classification came next. Here there were more
indexes, and there were also charts and slides. There was an agent
sitting on a bench looking bored while two female technicians—
classified as O&U for Old and Ugly in Malone’s mind—fluttered around
him, deciding what disguises were possible, and which of those was
indicated for the particular job on hand. Malone waved to the agent,
whom he knew very slightly, and went on. He felt vaguely regretful
that the FBI couldn’t hire prettier girls for Cosmetic Surgery, but
the trouble was that pretty girls fell for the Agents, and vice versa,
and this led to an unfortunate tendency toward only handsome and
virile-looking disguises. The O&U division was unfortunate, he
decided, but a necessity.

Chemical Analysis (III) was next. The Chemical Analysis Section was
scattered over several floors, with the first stages up above.
Division III, Malone remembered, was devoted to nonpoisonous
substances, like clay or sand found in boots or trouser cuffs, cigar
ashes and such. They were placed on the same floor as Fingerprints to
allow free and frequent passage between the sections on the problems
of plastic prints, made in putty or like substances, and visible
prints, made when the hand is covered with a visible substance like
blood, ketchup or glue.

Malone found what he was looking for at the very end of the floor. It
was the Computer Section, a large room filled with humming, clacking
and buzzing machines of an ancient vintage, muttering to themselves as
they worked, and newer machines which were smaller and more silent.
Lights were lighting and bells were ringing softly, relays were
relaying and the whole room was a gigantic maze of calculating and
control machines. What space wasn’t filled by the machines themselves
was filled by workbenches, all littered with an assortment of gears,
tubes, spare relays, transistors, wires, rods, bolts, resistors and
all the other paraphernalia used in building the machines and
repairing them. Beyond the basic room were other, smaller rooms, each
assigned to a particular kind of computer work.

The narrow aisles were choked here and there with men who looked up as
Malone passed by, but most of them gave him one quick glance and went
back to work. A few didn’t even do that, but went right on
concentrating on their jobs. Malone headed for a man working all alone
in front of a workbench, frowning down at a complicated-looking
mechanism that seemed to have neither head nor tail, and prodding at
it with a long, thin screwdriver. The man was thin, too, but not very
long; he was a little under average height, and he had straight black
hair, thick-lensed glasses and a studious expression, even when he was
frowning. He looked as if the mechanism were a student who had cut too
many classes, and he was being kind but firm with it.

Malone managed to get to the man’s side, and coughed discreetly. There
was no response.

“Fred?” he said.

The screwdriver waggled a little. Malone wasn’t quite sure that the
man was breathing.

“Fred Mitchell,” he said.

Mitchell didn’t look up. Another second passed.

“Hey,” Malone said. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Fred,” he said in a loud, reasonable-sounding voice, “the State
Department’s translator has started to talk pig-Latin.”

Mitchell straightened up as if somebody had jabbed him with a pin. The
screwdriver waved wildly in the air for a second, and then pointed at
Malone. “That’s impossible,” Mitchell said in a flat, precise voice.
“Simply impossible. It doesn’t have a pig-Latin circuit. It can’t
possibly—” He blinked and seemed to see Malone for the first time.
“Oh,” he said. “Hello, Malone. What can I do for you?”

Malone smiled, feeling a little victorious at having got through the
Mitchell armor, which was almost impregnable when there was a job in
hand. “I’ve been standing here talking to you for some time.”

“Oh, have you?” Mitchell said. “I was busy.” That, obviously,
explained that. Malone shrugged.

“I want you to help me check over some calculators, Fred,” he said.
“We’ve had some reports that some of the government machines are out
of kilter, and I’d like you to go over them for me.”

“Out of kilter?” Fred Mitchell said. “No, you can forget about it.
It’s absolutely unnecessary to make a check, believe me. Absolutely.
Forget it.” He smiled suddenly. “I suppose it’s some kind of a joke,
isn’t it?” he said, just a trifle uncertainly. Fred Mitchell’s world,
while pleasant, did not include much humor, Malone knew. “It’s
supposed to be funny,” he said in the same flat, precise voice.

“It isn’t funny,” Malone said.

Fred sighed. “Then they’re obviously lying,” he said, “and that’s all
there is to it. Why bother me with it?”

“Lying, Fred?” Malone said.

“Certainly,” Fred said. He looked at the machinery with longing.

Malone took a breath. “How do you know?” he said.

Fred sighed. “It’s perfectly obvious,” he said in a patient tone.
“Since the State Department translator has no pig-Latin circuit, it
can’t possibly be talking pig-Latin. I will admit that such a circuit
would be relatively easy to build, though it would have no utility as
far as I can see. Except, of course, for a joke.” He paused. “Joke?”
he said, in a slightly uneasy tone.

“Sure,” Malone said. “Joke.”

Mitchell looked relieved. “Very well, then,” he began. “Since—”

“Wait a minute,” Malone said. “The pig-Latin is a joke. That’s right.
But I’m not talking about the pig-Latin.”

“You’re not?” Mitchell asked, surprised.

“No,” Malone said.

Mitchell frowned. “But you said—” he began.

“A joke,” Malone said. “You were perfectly right. The pig-Latin is a
joke.” He waited for Fred’s expression to clear, and then added: “But
what I want to talk to you about isn’t.”

“It sounds very confused,” Fred said after a pause. “Not at all the
sort of thing that—that usually goes on.”

“You have no idea,” Malone said. “It’s about the political machines,
all right, but it isn’t anything as simple as pig-Latin.” He
explained, taking his time over it.

When he had finished, Fred was nodding his head slowly. “I see,” he
said. “I understand just what you want me to do.”

“Good,” Malone said.

“I’ll take a team over to the Senate Office Building,” Fred said, “and
check the computer-secretaries there. That way, you see, I’ll be able
to do a full running check on them without taking any one machine out
of operation for too long.”

“Sure,” Malone said.

“And it shouldn’t take long,” Fred went on, “to find out just what the
trouble is.” He looked very confident.

“How long?” Malone asked.

Fred shrugged. “Oh,” he said, “five or six days.”

Malone repressed an impulse to scream. “Days?” he said. “I mean—well,
look, Fred, it’s important. Very important. Can’t you do the job any
faster?”

Fred gave a little sigh. “Checking and repairing all those machines,”
he said, “is an extremely complex job. Sometimes, Malone, I don’t
think you realize quite how complex and how delicate a job it is to
deal with such a high-order machine. Why—”

“Wait a minute,” Malone said. “Check and repair them?”

“Of course,” Fred said.

“But I don’t want them repaired,” Malone said. Seeing the look of
horror on Fred’s face, he added hastily, “I only want a report from
you on what’s wrong, whether they are actually making errors or not.
And if they are making errors, just what’s making them do it. And just
what kind of errors. See?”

Fred nodded very slowly. “But I can’t just leave them there,” he said
piteously. “In pieces and everything. It isn’t right, Malone. It just
isn’t right.”

“Well, then,” Malone said with energy, “you go right ahead and repair
them, if you want to. Fix ’em all up. But you can do that after you
make the report to me, can’t you?”

“I—” Fred hesitated. “I had planned to check and repair each machine
on an individual basis.”

“The Congress can allow for a short suspension,” Malone said. “Anyhow,
they can now, or as soon as I get the word to them. Suppose you check
all the machines first, and then get around to the repair work.”

“It’s not the best way,” Fred demurred.

Malone discovered that it was his turn to sigh. “Is it the fastest?”
he said.

Fred nodded.

“Then it’s the best,” Malone said. “How long?”

Fred rolled his eyes to the ceiling and calculated silently for a
second. “Tomorrow morning,” he announced, returning his gaze to
Malone.

“Fine,” Malone said. “Fine.”

“But—”

“Never mind the buts,” Malone said hurriedly. “I’ll count on hearing
from you tomorrow morning.”

“All right.”

“And if it looks like sabotage,” Malone added, “if the errors aren’t
caused by normal wear and tear on the machines, you let me know right
away. Phone me. Don’t waste an instant.”

“I’ll—I’ll start right away,” Fred said heavily. He looked sadly at
the mechanism he had been working on, and put his screwdriver down
next to it. It looked to Malone as if he were putting flowers on the
grave of a dear departed. “I’ll get a team together,” Fred added. He
gave the mechanism and screwdriver one last fond parting look, and
tore himself away.

Malone looked after him for a second, thinking of nothing in
particular, and then turned in the opposite direction and headed back
toward the elevator. As he walked, he began to feel more and more
pleased with himself. After all, he’d gotten the investigation
started, hadn’t he?

And now all he had to do was go back to his office and read some
reports and listen to some interview tapes, and then he could go home.

The reports and the interview tapes didn’t exactly sound like fun,
Malone thought, but at the same time they seemed fairly innocent. He
would work his way through them grimly, and maybe he would even
indulge his most secret vice and smoke a cigar or two to make the work
pass more pleasantly. Soon enough, he told himself, they would be
finished.

Sometimes, though, he regretted the reputation he’d gotten. It had
been bad enough in the old days, the pre-1971 days when Malone had
thought he was just lucky. Burris had called him a Boy Wonder then,
when he’d cracked three difficult cases in a row. Being just lucky had
made it a little tough to live with the Boy Wonder label. After all,
Malone thought, it wasn’t actually as if he’d done anything.

But since 1971 and the case of the Telepathic Spy, things had gotten
worse. Much worse. Now Malone wasn’t just lucky any more. Instead, he
could teleport and he could even foretell the future a little, in a
dim sort of way. He’d caught the Telepathic Spy that way, and when the
case of the Teleporting Juvenile Delinquents had come up he’d been
assigned to that one too, and he’d cracked it. Now Burris seemed to
think of him as a kind of God, and gave him all the tough dirty jobs.

And if he wasn’t just lucky any more, Malone couldn’t think of himself
as a fearless, heroic FBI agent, either. He just wasn’t the type. He
was ... well, talented. That was the word, he told himself: talented.
He had all these talents and they made him look like something
spectacular to Burris and the other FBI men. But he wasn’t, really. He
hadn’t done anything really tough to get his talents; they’d just
happened to him.

Nobody, though, seemed to believe that. He heaved a little sigh and
stepped into the waiting elevator.

There were, after all, he thought, compensations. He’d had some good
times, and the talents did come in handy. And he did have his pick of
the vacation schedule lately. And he’d met some lovely girls....

And besides, he told himself savagely as the elevator shot upward, he
wasn’t going to do anything except return to his office and read some
reports and listen to some tapes. And then he was going to go home and
sleep all night, peacefully. And in the morning Mitchell was going to
call him up and tell him that the computer-secretaries needed nothing
more than a little repair. He’d say they were getting old, and he’d be
a little pathetic about it; but it wouldn’t be anything serious.
Malone would send out orders to get the machines repaired, and that
would be that. And then the next case would be something both normal
and exciting, like a bank robbery or a kidnapping involving a gorgeous
blonde who would be so grateful to Malone that....

He had stepped out of the elevator and gone down the corridor without
noticing it. He pushed at his own office door and walked into the
outer room. The train of thought he had been following was very nice,
and sounded very attractive indeed, he told himself.

Unfortunately, he didn’t believe it. His prescient ability,
functioning with its usual efficient aplomb, told Malone that things
would not be better, or simpler, in the morning. They would be worse,
and more complicated.

They would be quite a lot worse.

And, as usual, that prescience was perfectly accurate.




2


The telephone, Malone realized belatedly, had had a particularly
nasty-sounding ring. He might have known it would be bad news.

As a matter of fact, he told himself sadly, he had known.

“Nothing at all wrong?” he said into the mouthpiece. “Not with any of
the computers?” He blinked. “Not even one of them?”

“Not a thing,” Mitchell said. “I’ll be sending a report up to you in a
little while. You read it; we put them through every test, and it’s
all detailed there.”

“I’m sure you were very thorough,” Malone said helplessly.

“Of course we were,” Mitchell said. “Of course. And the machines
passed every single test. Every one. Malone, it was beautiful.”

“Goody,” Malone said at random. “But there’s got to be something—”

“There is, Malone,” Fred said. “There is. I think there’s definitely
something odd going on. Something funny. I mean peculiar, not
humorous.”

“I thought so,” Malone put in.

“Right,” Fred said. “Malone, try and relax. This is a hard thing to
say, and it must be even harder to hear, but—”

“Tell me,” Malone said. “Who’s dead? Who’s been killed?”

“I know it’s tough, Malone,” Fred went on.

“Is everybody dead?” Malone said. “It can’t be just one person, not
from that tone in your voice. Has somebody assassinated the entire
senate? Or the president and his cabinet? Or—”

“It’s nothing like that, Malone,” Fred said, in a tone that implied
that such occurrences were really rather minor. “It’s the machines.”

“The machines?”

“That’s right,” Fred said grimly. “After we checked them over and
found they were in good shape, I asked for samples of both the input
and the output of each machine. I wanted to do a thorough job.”

“Congratulations,” Malone said. “What happened?”

Fred took a deep breath. “They don’t agree,” he said.

“They don’t?” Malone said. The phrase sounded as if it meant something
momentous, but he couldn’t quite figure out what. In a minute, he
thought confusedly, it would come to him. But did he want it to?

“They definitely do not agree,” Fred was saying. “The correlation is
erratic; it makes no statistical sense. Malone, there are two
possibilities.”

“Tell me about them,” Malone said. He was beginning to feel relieved.
To Fred, the malfunction of a machine was more serious than the murder
of the entire Congress. But Malone couldn’t quite bring himself to
feel that way about things.

“First,” Fred said in a tense tone, “it’s possible that the
technicians feeding information to the machines are making all kinds
of mistakes.”

Malone nodded at the phone. “That sounds possible,” he said. “Which
ones?”

“All of them,” Fred said. “They’re all making errors—and they’re all
making about the same number of errors. There don’t seem to be any
real peaks or valleys, Malone; everybody’s doing it.”

Malone thought of the Varsity Drag and repressed the thought. “A bunch
of fumblebums,” he said. “All fumbling alike. It does sound unlikely,
but I guess it’s possible. We’ll get after them right away, and—”

“Wait,” Fred said. “There is a second possibility.”

“Oh,” Malone said.

“Maybe they aren’t mistakes,” Fred said. “Maybe the technicians are
deliberately feeding the machine with wrong answers.”

Malone hated to admit it, even to himself, but that answer sounded a
lot more probable. Machine technicians weren’t exactly picked off the
streets at random; they were highly trained for their work, and the
idea of a whole crew of them starting to fumble at once, in a big way,
was a little hard to swallow.

The idea of all of them sabotaging the machines they worked on, Malone
thought, was a tough one to take, too. But it had the advantage of
making some sense. People, he told himself dully, will do nutty things
deliberately. It’s harder to think of them doing the same nutty things
without knowing it.

“Well,” he said at last, “however it turns out, we’ll get to the
bottom of it. Frankly, I think it’s being done on purpose.”

“So do I,” Fred said. “And when you find out just who’s making the
technicians do such things—when you find out who gives them their
orders—you let me know.”

“Let you know?” Malone said. “But—”

“Any man who would give false data to a perfectly innocent computer,”
Fred said savagely, “would—would—” For a second he was apparently
lost for comparisons. Then he finished: “Would kill his own mother.”
He paused a second and added, in an even more savage voice, “And then
lie about it!”

The image on the screen snapped off, and Malone sat back in his chair
and sighed. He spent a few minutes regretting that he hadn’t chosen,
early in life, to be a missionary to the Fiji Islands, or possibly
simply a drunken bum without any troubles, but then the report
Mitchell had mentioned arrived. Malone picked it up without much
eagerness, and began going through it carefully.

It was beautifully typed and arranged; somebody on Mitchell’s team had
obviously been up all night at the job. Malone admired the work,
without being able to get enthusiastic about the contents. Like all
technical reports, it tended to be boring and just a trifle obscure to
someone who wasn’t completely familiar with the field involved. Malone
and cybernetics were not exactly bosom buddies, and by the time he
finished reading through the report he was suffering from an extreme
case of ennui.

There were no new clues in the report, either; Mitchell’s phone
conversation had covered all of the main points. Malone put the sheaf
of papers down on his desk and looked at them for a minute as if he
expected an answer to leap out from the pile and greet him with a glad
cry. But nothing happened. Unfortunately, he had to do some more work.

The obvious next step was to start checking on the technicians who
were working on the machines. Malone determined privately that he
would give none of his reports to Fred Mitchell; he didn’t like the
idea of being responsible for murder, and that was the least Fred
would do to someone who confused his precious calculators.

He picked up the phone, punched for the Records Division, and waited
until a bald, middle-aged face appeared. He asked the face to send up
the dossiers of the technicians concerned to his office. The face
nodded.

“You want them right away?” it said in a mild, slightly scratchy
voice.

“Sooner than right away,” Malone said.

“They’re coming up by messenger,” the voice said.

Malone nodded and broke the connection. The technicians had, of
course, been investigated by the FBI before they’d been hired, but it
wouldn’t do any harm to check them out again. He felt grateful that he
wouldn’t have to do all that work himself; he would just go through
the dossiers and assign field agents to the actual checking when he
had a picture of what might need to be checked.

He sighed again and leaned back in his chair. He put his feet up on
the desk, remembered that he was entirely alone, and swung them down
again. He fished in a private compartment in his top desk drawer, drew
out a cigar and unwrapped it. Putting his feet back on the desk, he
lit the cigar, drew in a cloud of smoke, and lapsed into deep thought.

Cigar smoke billowed around him, making strange, fantastic shapes in
the air of the office. Malone puffed away, frowning slightly and
trying to force the puzzle he was working on to make some sense.

It certainly looked as though something were going on, he thought.
But, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out just what it was.
After all, what could be anybody’s purpose in goofing up a bunch of
calculators the way they had? Of course, the whole thing could be a
series of accidents, but the series was a pretty long one, and made
Malone suspicious to start with. It was easier to assume that the
goof-ups were being done deliberately.

Unfortunately, they didn’t make much sense as sabotage, either.

Senator Deeds, for instance, had sent out a ten-thousand-copy form
letter to his constituents, blasting an Administration power bill in
extremely strong language, and asking for some comments on the
Deeds-Hartshorn Air Ownership Bill, a pending piece of legislation
that provided for private, personal ownership, based on land title, to
the upper stratosphere, with a strong hint that rights of passage no
longer applied without some recompense to the owner of the air.
Naturally, Deeds had filed the original with a computer-secretary to
turn out ten thousand duplicate copies, and the machine had done so,
folding the copies, slipping them into addressed envelopes and sending
them out under the Senator’s franking stamp.

The addresses on the envelopes, however, had not been those of the
Senator’s supporters. The letter had been sent to ten thousand
stockholders in major airline companies, and the Senator’s head was
still ringing from the force of the denunciatory letters, telegrams
and telephone calls he’d been getting.

And then there was Representative Follansbee of South Dakota. A set of
news releases on the proposed Follansbee Waterworks Bill contained the
statement that the artificial lake which Follansbee proposed in the
Black Hills country “be formed by controlled atomic power blasts, and
filled with water obtained from collecting the tears of widows and
orphans.”

Newsmen who saw this release immediately checked the bill. The wording
was exactly the same. Follansbee claimed that the “widows and orphans”
phrase had appeared in his speech on the bill, and not in the proposed
bill itself. “It’s completely absurd,” he said, with commendable calm,
“to consider this method of filling an artificial lake.”
Unfortunately, the absurdity was now contained in the bill, which
would have to go back to committee for redefinition, and probably
wouldn’t come up again in the present session of Congress. Judging
from the amount of laughter that had greeted the error when it had
come to light, Malone privately doubted whether any amount of
redefinition was going to save it from a landslide defeat.

Representative Keller of Idaho had made a speech which contained so
many errors of fact that newspaper editorials, and his enemies on the
floor of Congress, cut him to pieces with ease and pleasure. Keller
complained of his innocence and said he’d gotten his facts from a
computer-secretary, but this didn’t save him. His re-election was a
matter for grave concern in his own party, and the opposition was,
naturally, tickled. They would not, Malone thought, dare to be tickled
pink.

And these were not the only casualties. They were the most blatant
foul-ups, but there were others, such as the mistake in numbering of a
House Bill that resulted in a two-month delay during which the
opposition to the bill raised enough votes to defeat it on the floor.
Communications were diverted or lost or scrambled in small ways that
made for confusion—including, Malone recalled, the perfectly horrible
mixup that resulted when a freshman senator, thinking he was talking
to his girlfriend on a blanked-vision circuit, discovered he was
talking to his wife.

The flow of information was being blocked by bottlenecks that suddenly
existed where there had never been bottlenecks before.

And it wasn’t only the computers, Malone knew. He remembered the
reports the senators and representatives had made. Someone forgot to
send an important message here, or sent one too soon over there. Both
courses were equally disturbing, and both resulted in more snarl-ups.
Reports that should have been sent in weeks before arrived too late;
reports meant for the eyes of only one man were turned out in
triplicate and passed all over the offices of Congress.

Each snarl-up was a little one. But, together, they added up to
inefficiency of a kind and extent that hadn’t been seen, Malone told
himself with some wonder, since the Harding administration fifty years
before.

And there didn’t seem to be anyone to blame anything on.

Malone thought hopefully of sabotage, infiltration and mass treason,
but it didn’t make him feel much better. He puffed out some more smoke
and frowned at nothing.

There was a knock at the door of his office.

Speedily and guiltily, he swung his feet off the desk and snatched the
cigar out of his mouth. He jammed it into a deep ashtray and put the
ashtray back into his desk drawer. He locked the drawer, waved
ineffectively at the clouds of smoke that surrounded him, and said in
a resigned voice: “Come in.”

The door opened. A tall, solidly-built man stood there, wearing a
fringe of beard and a cheerful expression. The man had an enormous
amount of muscle distributed more or less evenly over his chunky body,
and a pot-belly that looked as if he had swallowed a globe of the
world. In addition, he was smoking a cigarette and letting out little
puffs of smoke, rather like a toy locomotive.

“Well, well,” Malone said, brushing feebly at the smoke that still
wreathed him faintly. “If it isn’t Thomas Boyd, the FBI’s answer to
Nero Wolfe.”

“And if the physique holds true, you’re Sherlock Holmes, I suppose,”
Boyd said.

Malone shook his head, thinking sadly of his father and the cigar.
“Not exactly,” he said. “Not ex—” And then it came to him. It wasn’t
that he was ashamed of smoking cigars like his father, exactly, but
cigars just weren’t right for a fearless, dedicated FBI agent. And he
had just thought of a way to keep Boyd from knowing what he’d been
doing. “That’s a hell of a cigarette you’re smoking, by the way,” he
said.

Boyd looked at it. “It is?” he said.

“Sure is,” Malone said, hoping he sounded sufficiently innocent.
“Smells like a cigar or something.”

Boyd sniffed the air for a second, his face wrinkled. Then he looked
down at his cigarette again. “By God,” he said, “you’re right, Ken. It
_does_ smell like a cigar.” He came over to Malone’s desk, looked
around for an ashtray and didn’t find one, and finally went to the
window and tossed the cigarette out into the Washington breeze. “How
are things, anyhow, Ken?” he said.

“Things are confused,” Malone said. “Aren’t they always?”

Boyd came back to the desk and sat down in a chair at one side of it.
He put his elbow on the desk. “Sure they are,” he said. “I’m confused
myself, as a matter of fact. Only I think I know where I can get some
help.”

“Really?” Malone said.

Boyd nodded. “Burris told me I might be able to get some information
from a certain famous and highly respected person,” he said.

“Well, well,” Malone said. “Who?”

“You,” Boyd said.

“Oh,” Malone said, trying to look disappointed, flattered and modest
all at the same time. “Well,” he went on after a second, “anything I
can do—”

“Burris thought you might have some answers,” Boyd said.

“Burris is getting optimistic in his old age,” Malone said. “I don’t
even have many questions.”

Boyd nodded. “Well,” he said, “you know this California thing?”

“Sure I do,” Malone said. “You’re looking into the resignation out
there, aren’t you?”

“Senator Burley,” Boyd said. “That’s right. But Senator Burley’s
resignation isn’t all of it, by any means.”

“It isn’t?” Malone said, trying to sound interested.

“Not at all,” Boyd said. “It goes a lot deeper than it looks on the
surface. In the past year, Ken, five senators have announced their
resignations from the Senate of the United States. It isn’t exactly a
record—”

“It sounds like a record,” Malone said.

“Well,” Boyd said, “there was 1860 and the Civil War, when a whole lot
of senators and representatives resigned all at once.”

“Oh,” Malone said. “But there isn’t any Civil War going on now. At
least,” he added, “I haven’t heard of any.”

“That’s what makes it so funny,” Boyd said. “Of course, Senator Burley
said it was ill health, and so did two others, while Senator Davidson
said it was old age.”

“Well,” Malone said, “people do get old. And sick.”

“Sure,” Boyd said. “The only trouble is—” He paused. “Ken,” he said,
“do you mind if I smoke? I mean, do you mind the smell of cigars?”

“Mind?” Malone said. “Not at all.” He blinked. “Besides,” he added,
“maybe this one won’t smell like a cigar.”

“Well, the last one did,” Boyd said. He took a cigarette out of a pack
in his pocket, and lit it. He sniffed. “You know,” he said, “you’re
right. This one doesn’t.”

“I told you,” Malone said. “Must have been a bad cigarette. Spoiled or
something.”

“I guess so,” Boyd said vaguely. “But about these retirements—the FBI
wanted me to look into it because of Burley’s being mixed up with the
space program scandal last year. Remember?”

“Vaguely,” Malone said. “I was busy last year.”

“Sure you were,” Boyd said. “We were both busy getting famous and well
known.”

Malone grinned. “Go on with the story,” he said.

Boyd puffed at his cigarette. “Anyhow, we couldn’t find anything
really wrong,” he said. “Three senators retiring because of ill
health, one because of old age. And Farnsworth, the youngest, had a
nervous breakdown.”

“I didn’t hear about it,” Malone said.

Boyd shrugged “We hushed it up,” he said. “But Farnsworth’s got
delusions of persecution. He apparently thinks somebody’s out to get
him. As a matter of fact, he thinks _everybody’s_ out to get him.”

“Now that,” Malone said, “sounds familiar.”

Boyd leaned back a little more in his chair. “Here’s the funny thing,
though,” he said. “The others all act as if they’re suspicious of
everybody who talks to them. Not anything obvious, you understand.
Just worried, apprehensive. Always looking at you out of the corners
of their eyes. That kind of thing.”

Malone thought of Senator Lefferts, who was also suffering from
delusions of persecution, delusions that had real evidence to back
them up. “It does sound funny,” he said cautiously.

“Well, I reported everything to Burris,” Boyd went on. “And he said
you were working on something similar, and we might as well pool our
resources.”

“Here we go again,” Malone said. He took a deep breath, filling his
nostrils with what remained of the cigar odor in the room, and felt
more peaceful. Quickly, he told Boyd about what had been happening in
Congress. “It seems pretty obvious,” he finished, “that there is some
kind of a tie-up between the two cases.”

“Maybe it’s obvious,” Boyd said, “but it is just a little bit odd. Fun
and games. You know, Ken, Burris was right.”

“How?” Malone said.

“He said everything was all mixed up,” Boyd went on. “He told me the
country was going to Rome in a handbasket, or something like that.”

Wondering vaguely if Burris had really been predicting mass religious
conversions, Malone nodded silently.

“And he’s right,” Boyd said. “Look at the newspapers. Everything’s
screwy lately.”

“Everything always is screwy,” Malone said.

“Not like now,” Boyd said. “So many big-shot gangsters have been
killed lately we might as well bring back Prohibition. And the labor
unions are so busy with internal battles that they haven’t had time to
go on strike for over a year.”

“Is that bad?” Malone said.

Boyd shrugged. “God knows,” he said. “But it’s sure confusing as all
hell.”

“And now,” Malone said, “with all that going on—”

“The Congress of the United States decides to go off its collective
rocker,” Boyd finished. “Exactly.” He stared down at his cigarette for
a minute with a morose and pensive expression on his face. He looked,
Malone thought, like Henry VIII trying to decide what to do about all
these here wives.

Then he looked up at Malone. “Ken,” he said in a strained voice,
“there seem to be a lot of nutty cases lately.”

Malone considered. “No,” he said at last. “It’s just that when a nutty
one comes along, we get it.”

“That’s what I mean,” Boyd said. “I wonder why that is.”

Malone shrugged. “It takes a thief to catch a thief,” he said.

“But these aren’t thieves,” Boyd said. “I mean, they’re just nutty.”
He paused. “Oh,” he said.

“And two thieves are better than one,” Malone said.

“Anyhow,” Boyd said with a small, gusty sigh, “it’s company.”

“Sure,” Malone said.

Boyd looked for an ashtray, failed again to find one, and walked over
to flip a second cigarette out onto Washington. He came back to his
chair, sat down, and said, “What’s our next step, Ken?”

Malone considered carefully. “First,” he said finally, “we’ll start
assuming something. We’ll start assuming that there is some kind of
organization behind all this, behind all the senators’ resignations
and everything like that.”

“It sounds like a big assumption,” Boyd said.

Malone shook his head. “It isn’t really,” he said. “After all, we
can’t figure it’s the work of one person: it’s too widespread for
that. And it’s silly to assume that everything’s accidental.”

“All right,” Boyd said equably. “It’s an organization.”

“Trying to subvert the United States,” Malone went on. “Reducing
everything to chaos. And that brings in everything else, Tom. That
brings in the unions and the gang wars and everything.”

Boyd blinked. “How?” he said.

“Obvious,” Malone said. “Strife brought on by internal confusion,
that’s what’s going on all over. It’s the same pattern. And if we
assume an organization trying to jam up the United States, it even
makes sense.” He leaned back and beamed.

“Sure it makes sense,” Boyd said. “But who’s the organization?”

Malone shrugged.

“If I were doing the picking,” Boyd said, “I’d pick the Russians. Or
the Chinese. Or both. Probably both.”

“It’s a possibility,” Malone said. “Anyhow, if it’s sabotage, who else
would be interested in sabotaging the United States? There’s some
Russian or Chinese organization fouling up Congress, and the unions,
and the gangs. Come to think of it, why the gangs? It seems to me that
if you left the professional gangsters strong, it would do even more
to foul things up.”

“Who knows?” Boyd said. “Maybe they’re trying to get rid of American
gangsters so they can import some of their own.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Malone said, “but I’ll think about it.
In the meantime, we have one more interesting question.”

“We do?” Boyd said.

“Sure we do,” Malone said. “The question is: how?”

Boyd said: “Mmm.” Then there was silence for a little while.

“How are the saboteurs doing all this?” Malone said. “It just doesn’t
seem very probable that _all_ the technicians in the Senate Office
Building, for instance, are spies. It makes even less sense that the
labor unions are composed mostly of spies. Or, for that matter, the
Mafia and the organizations like it. What would spies be doing in the
Mafia?”

“Learning Italian,” Boyd said instantly.

“Don’t be silly,” Malone said. “If there were that many spies in this
country, the Russians wouldn’t have to fight at all. They could _vote_
the Communists into power, and by a nice big landslide, too.”

“Wait a minute,” Boyd said. “If there aren’t so many spies, then how
is all this getting done?”

Malone beamed. “That’s the question,” he said. “And I think I have an
answer.”

“You do?” Boyd said. After a second he said: “Oh, no.”

“Suppose you tell me,” Malone said.

Boyd opened his mouth. Nothing emerged. He shut it. A second passed
and he opened it again. “Magic?” he said weakly.

“Not exactly,” Malone said cheerfully. “But you’re getting warm.”

Boyd shut his eyes. “I’m not going to stand for it,” he announced.
“I’m not going to take any more.”

“Any more what?” Malone said. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

“I won’t even consider it,” Boyd said. “It haunts me. It gets into my
dreams. Now, look, Ken, I can’t even see a pitchfork any more without
thinking of Greek letters.”

Malone took a breath. “Which Greek letter?” he said.

“You know very well,” Boyd said. “What a pitchfork looks like. _Psi._
And I’m not even going to think about it.”

“Well,” Malone said equably, “you won’t have to. If you’d rather start
with the Russian-spy end of things, you can do that.”

“What I’d rather do,” Boyd said, “is resign.”

“Next year,” Malone said instantly. “For now, you can wait around
until the dossiers come up—they’re for the Senate Office Building
technicians, and they’re on the way. You can go over them, and start
checking on any known Russian agents in the country for contacts. You
can also start checking on the dossiers, and in general for any
hanky-panky.”

Boyd blinked. “Hanky-panky?” he said.

“It’s a perfectly good word,” Malone said, offended. “Or two words.
Anyhow, you can start on that end, and not worry about anything else.”

“It’s going to haunt me,” Boyd said.

“Well,” Malone said, “eat lots of ectoplasm and get enough sleep, and
everything will be fine. After all, I’m going to have to do the real
end of the work, the psionics end. I may be wrong, but—”

He was interrupted by the phone. He flicked the switch and Andrew J.
Burris’ face appeared on the screen.

“Malone,” Burris said instantly, “I just got a complaint from the
State Department that ties in with your work. Their translator has
been acting up.”

Malone couldn’t say anything for a minute.

“Malone,” Burris went on. “I said—”

“I heard you,” Malone said. “And it doesn’t have one.”

“It doesn’t have one what?” Burris said.

“A pig-Latin circuit,” Malone said. “What else?”

Burris’ voice was very calm. “Malone,” he said, “what does pig-Latin
have to do with anything?”

“You said—”

“I said one of the State Department translators was acting up,” Burris
said. “If you want details—”

“I don’t think I can stand them,” Malone said.

“Some of the Russian and Chinese releases have come through with the
meaning slightly altered,” Burris went on doggedly. “And I want you to
check on it right away. I—”

“Thank God,” Malone said.

Burris blinked. “What?”

“Never mind,” Malone said. “Never mind. I’m glad you told me, Chief.
I’ll get to work on it right away, and—”

“You do that, Malone,” Burris said. “And for God’s sake stop calling
me Chief! Do I look like an Indian? Do I have feathers in my hair?”

“Anything,” Malone said grandly, “is possible.” He broke the
connection in a hurry.




3


The summer sun beat down on the white city of Washington, D. C, as if
it had mistaken its instructions slightly and was convinced that the
city had been put down somewhere in the Sahara. The sun seemed
confused, Malone thought. If this were the Sahara, obviously there was
no reason whatever for the Potomac to be running through it. The sun
was doing its best to correct this small error, however, by exerting
even more heat in a valiant attempt to dry up the river.

Its attempt was succeeding, at least partially. The Potomac was still
there, but quite a lot of it was not in the river bed any more.
Instead, it had gone into the air, which was so humid by now that
Malone was willing to swear that it was splashing into his lungs at
every inhalation. Resisting an impulse to try the breaststroke, he
stood in the full glare of the straining sun, just outside the Senate
Office Building. He looked across at the Capitol, just opposite,
squinting his eyes manfully against the glare of its dome in the
brightness.

The Capitol was, at any rate, some relief from the sight of Thomas
Boyd and a group of agents busily grilling two technicians. That was
going on in the Senate Office Building, and Malone had come over to
watch the proceedings. Everything had been set up in what Malone
considered the most complicated fashion possible. A big room had been
turned into a projection chamber, and films were being run off over
and over. The films, taken by hidden cameras watching the
computer-secretaries, had caught two technicians red-handed punching
errors into the machines. Boyd had leaped on this evidence, and he and
his crew were showing the movies to the technicians and questioning
them under bright lights in an effort to break down their resistance.

But it didn’t look as though they were going to have any more success
than the sun was having, turning Washington into the Sahara. After
all, Malone told himself, wiping his streaming brow, there were no
Pyramids in Washington. He tried to discover whether that made any
sense, but it was too much work. He went back to thinking about Boyd.

The technicians were sticking to their original stories that the
mistakes had been honest ones. It sounded like a sensible idea to
Malone; after all, people did make mistakes. And the FBI didn’t have a
single shred of evidence to prove that the technicians were engaged in
deliberate sabotage. But Boyd wasn’t giving up. Over and over he got
the technicians to repeat their stories, looking for discrepancies or
slips. Over and over he ran off the films of their mistakes, looking
for some clue, some shred of evidence.

Even the sight of the Capitol, Malone told himself sadly, was better
than any more of Boyd’s massive investigation techniques.

He had come out to do some thinking. He believed, in spite of a good
deal of evidence to the contrary, that his best ideas came to him
while walking. At any rate, it was a way of getting away from four
walls and from the prying eyes and anxious looks of superiors. He
sighed gently, crammed his hat onto his head and started out.

Only a maniac, he reflected, would wear a hat on a day like the one he
was swimming through. But the people who passed him as he trudged
onward to no particular destination didn’t seem to notice; they gave
him a fairly wide berth, and seemed very polite, but that wasn’t
because they thought he was nuts, Malone knew. It was because they
knew he was an FBI man.

That was the result of an FBI regulation. All agents had to wear hats.
Malone wasn’t sure why, and his thinking on the matter had only
dredged up the idea that you had to have a hat in case somebody asked
you to keep something under it. But the FBI was firm about its
rulings. No matter what the weather, an agent wore a hat. Malone
thought bitterly that he might just as well wear a red, white and blue
luminous sign that said _FBI_ in great winking letters, and maybe a
hooting siren too. Still, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not
supposed to be a secret organization, no matter what occasional
critics might say. And the hats, at least as long as the weather
remained broiling, were enough proof of that for anybody.

Malone could feel water collecting under his hat and soaking his head.
He removed the hat quickly, wiped his head with a handkerchief and
replaced the hat, feeling as if he had become incognito for a few
seconds. The hat was back on now, feeling official but terrible, and
about the same was true of the fully-loaded Smith & Wesson .44
Magnum revolver which hung in his shoulder holster. The harness chafed
at his shoulder and chest and the weight of the gun itself was an
added and unwelcome burden.

But even without the gun and the hat, Malone did not feel exactly
chipper. His shirt and undershirt were no longer two garments, but
one, welded together by seamless sweat and plastered heavily and not
too skillfully to his skin. His trouser legs clung damply to calves
and thighs, rubbing as he walked, and at the knees each trouser leg
attached and detached itself with the unpleasant regularity of a wet
bastinado. Inside Malone’s shoes, his socks were completely awash, and
he seemed to squish as he walked. It was hard to tell, but there
seemed to be a small fish in his left shoe. It might, he told himself,
be no more than a pebble or a wrinkle in his sock. But he was willing
to swear that it was swimming upstream.

And the forecast, he told himself bitterly, was for continued warm.

He forced himself to take his mind off his own troubles and get back
to the troubles of the FBI in general, such as the problem at hand. It
was an effort, but he frowned and kept walking, and within a block he
was concentrating again on the _psi_ powers.

_Psi_, he told himself, was behind the whole mess. In spite of Boyd’s
horrified refusal to believe such a thing, Malone was sure of it.
Three years ago, of course, he wouldn’t have considered the notion
either. But since then a great many things had happened, and his
horizons had widened. After all, capturing a double handful of totally
insane, if perfectly genuine telepaths, from asylums all over the
country, was enough by itself to widen quite a few stunned horizons.
And then, later, there had been the gang of juvenile delinquents. They
had been perfectly normal juvenile delinquents, stealing cars and
bopping a stray policeman or two. It happened, though, that they had
solved the secret of instantaneous teleportation, too. This made them
just a trifle unusual.

In capturing them, Malone, too, had learned the teleportation secret.
Unlike Boyd, he thought, or Burris, the idea of psionic power didn’t
bother him much. After all, the psionic spectrum (if it was a spectrum
at all) was just as much a natural phenomenon as gravity or magnetism.

It was just a little hard for some people to get used to.

And, of course, he didn’t fully understand _how_ it worked, or _why_.
This put him in the position, he told himself, of an Australian
aborigine. He tried to imagine an Australian aborigine in a hat on a
hot day, decided the aborigine would have too much sense, and got back
off the subject again.

However, he thought grimly, there was this Australian aborigine. And
he had a magnifying glass, which he’d picked up from the wreck of some
ship. Using that—assuming that experience, or a friendly missionary,
taught him how—he could manage to light a fire, using the sun’s
thermonuclear processes to do the job. Malone doubted that the
aborigine knew anything about thermonuclear processes, but he could
start a fire with them.

As a matter of fact, he told himself, the aborigine didn’t understand
oxidation, either. But he could use that fire, when he got it going.
In spite of his lack of knowledge, the aborigine could use that nice,
hot, burning fire....

Hurriedly, Malone pried his thoughts away from aborigines and heat,
and tried to focus his mind elsewhere. He didn’t understand psionic
processes, he thought; but then, nobody did, really, as far as he
knew. But he could use them.

And, obviously, somebody else could use them too.

Only what kind of force was being used? What kind of psionic force
would it take to make so many people in the United States goof up the
way they were doing?

That, Malone told himself, was a good question, a basic and an
important question. He was proud of himself for thinking of it.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the answer.

But he thought he knew a way of getting one.

It was perfectly true that nobody knew much about how psionics worked.
For that matter, nobody knew very much about how gravity worked. But
there was still some information, and, in the case of psionics, Malone
knew where it was to be found.

It was to be found in Yucca Flats, Nevada.

It was, of course, true that Nevada would probably be even hotter than
Washington, D. C. But there was no help for that, Malone told himself
sadly; and, besides, the cold chill of the expert himself would
probably cool things off quite rapidly. Malone thought of Dr. Thomas
O’Connor, the Westinghouse psionics expert and frowned. O’Connor was
not exactly what might be called a friendly man.

But he did know more about psionics than anyone else Malone could
think of. And his help had been invaluable in solving the two previous
psionic cases Malone had worked on.

For a second he thought of calling O’Connor, but he brushed that
thought aside bravely. In spite of the heat of Yucca Flats, he would
have to talk to the man personally. He thought again of O’Connor’s
congealed personality, and wondered if it would really be effective in
combating the heat. If it were, he told himself, he would take the man
right back to Washington with him, and plug him into the
air-conditioning lines.

He sighed deeply, thought about a cigar and decided regretfully
against it, here on the public street where he would be visible to
anyone. Instead, he looked around him, discovered that he was only a
block from a large, neon-lit drugstore and headed for it. Less than a
minute later he was in a phone booth.

The operators throughout the country seemed to suffer from heat
prostration, and Malone was hardly inclined to blame them. But, all
the same, it took several minutes for him to get through to Dr.
O’Connor’s office, and a minute or so more before he could convince a
security-addled secretary that, after all, he would hardly blow
O’Connor to bits over the long-distance phone.

Finally the secretary, with a sigh of reluctance, said she would see
if Dr. O’Connor were available. Malone waited in the phone booth,
opening the door every few seconds to breathe. The booth was
air-conditioned, but remained for some mystical reason an even ten
degrees above the boiling point of Malone’s temper.

Finally Dr. O’Connor’s lean, pallid face appeared on the screen. He
had not changed since Malone had last seen him. He still looked, and
acted, like one of Malone’s more disliked law professors.

“Ah,” the scientist said in a cold, precise voice. “Mr. Malone. I am
sorry for our precautions, but you understand that security must be
served.”

“Sure,” Malone said.

“Being an FBI man, of course you would,” Dr. O’Connor went on, his
face changing slightly and his voice warming almost to the boiling
point of nitrogen. It was obvious that the phrase was Dr. O’Connor’s
idea of a little joke, and Malone smiled politely and nodded. The
scientist seemed to feel some friendliness toward Malone, though it
was hard to tell for sure. But Malone had brought him some fine
specimens to work with—telepaths and teleports, though human, being
no more than specimens to such a very precise scientific mind—and he
seemed grateful for Malone’s diligence and effort in finding such
fascinating objects of study.

That Malone certainly hadn’t started out to find them made, it
appeared, very little difference.

“Well, then,” O’Connor said, returning to his normal, serious tone.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Malone?”

“If you have the time, Doctor,” Malone said respectfully, “I’d like to
talk to you for a few minutes.” He had the absurd feeling that
O’Connor was going to tell him to stop by after class, but the
scientist only nodded.

“Your call is timed very well,” he said. “As it happens, Mr. Malone, I
do have a few seconds to spare just now.”

“Fine,” Malone said.

“I should be glad to talk with you,” O’Connor said, without looking
any more glad than ever.

“I’ll be right there,” Malone said. O’Connor nodded again, and blanked
out. Malone switched off and took a deep, superheated breath of phone
booth air. For a second he considered starting his trip from outside
the phone booth, but that was dangerous—if not to Malone, then to
innocent spectators. Psionics was by no means a household word, and
the sight of Malone leaving for Nevada might send several citizens
straight to the wagon. Which was not a place, he thought judiciously,
for anybody to be on such a hot day.

He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. In that time he
reconstructed from memory a detailed, three-dimensional, full-color
image of Dr. O’Connor’s office in his mind. It was perfect in detail;
he checked it over mentally and then, by a special effort of will, he
gave himself the psychic push that made the transition possible.

When he opened his eyes, he was in O’Connor’s office, standing in
front of the scientist’s wide desk. He hoped nobody had been looking
into the phone booth at the instant he had disappeared, but he was
reasonably sure he’d been unobserved. People didn’t go around peering
into phone booths, after all, and he had seen no one.

O’Connor looked up without surprise. “Ah,” he said. “Sit down, Mr.
Malone.” Malone looked around for the chair, which was an
uncomfortably straight-backed affair, and sat down in it gingerly.
Remembering past visits to O’Connor, he was grateful for even the
small amount of relaxation the hard wood afforded him. O’Connor had
only recently unbent to the point of supplying a spare chair in his
office for visitors, and, apparently, especially for Malone. Perhaps,
Malone thought, it was more gratitude for the lovely specimens.

Malone still felt uncomfortable, but tried bravely not to show it. He
felt slightly guilty, too, as he always did when he popped into
O’Connor’s office without bothering to stay space-bound. By law, after
all, he knew he should check in and out at the main gate of the huge,
ultra-top-secret Government reservation whenever he visited Yucca
Flats. But that meant wasting a lot of time and going through a lot of
trouble. Malone had rationalized it out for himself that way, and had
gotten just far enough to do things the quick and easy way and not
quite far enough to feel undisturbed about it. After all, he told
himself grimly, anything that saved time and trouble increased the
efficiency of the FBI, so it was all to the good.

He swallowed hard. “Dr. O’Connor—” he began.

O’Connor looked up again. “Yes?” he said. He’d had plenty of practice
in watching people appear and disappear, between Malone and the
specimens Malone had brought him; he was beyond surprise or shock by
now.

“I came here to talk to you,” Malone began again.

O’Connor nodded, a trifle impatiently. “Yes,” he said. “I know that.”

“Well—” Malone thought fast. Presenting the case to O’Connor was
impossible; it was too complicated, and it might violate governmental
secrecy somewhere along the line. He decided to wrap it up in a
hypothetical situation. “Doctor,” he said, “I know that all the
various manifestations of the _psi_ powers were investigated and named
long before responsible scientists became interested in the subject.”

“That,” O’Connor said with some reluctance, “is true.” He looked sad,
as if he wished they’d waited on naming some of the psionic
manifestations until he’d been born and started investigating them.
Malone tried to imagine a person doing something called O’Connorizing,
and decided he was grateful for history.

“Well, then—” he said.

“At least,” O’Connor cut in, “it is true in a rather vague and general
way. You see, Mr. Malone, any precise description of a psionic
manifestation must wait until a metalanguage has grown up to encompass
it; that is, until understanding and knowledge have reached the point
where careful and accurate description can take place.”

“Oh,” Malone said helplessly. “Sure.” He wondered if what O’Connor had
said meant anything, and decided that it probably did, but he didn’t
want to know about it.

“While we have not yet reached that point,” O’Connor said, “we are
approaching it in our experiments. I am hopeful that, in the near
future—”

“Well,” Malone cut in desperately, “sure. Of course. Naturally.”

Dr. O’Connor looked miffed. The temperature of the room seemed to drop
several degrees, and Malone swallowed hard and tried to look
ingratiating and helpful, like a student with nothing but A’s on his
record.

Before O’Connor could pick up the thread of his sentence, Malone went
on: “What I mean is something like this. Picking up the mental
activity of another person is called telepathy. Floating in the air is
called levitation. Moving objects around is psychokinesis. Going from
one place to another instantaneously is teleportation. And so on.”

“The language you use,” O’Connor said, still miffed, “is extremely
loose. I might go so far as to say that the statements you have made
are, essentially, meaningless as a result of their lack of rigor.”

Malone took a deep breath. “Dr. O’Connor,” he said, “you know what I
mean, don’t you?”

“I believe so,” O’Connor said, with the air of a king granting a
pardon to a particularly repulsive-looking subject in the lowest
income brackets.

“Well, then,” Malone said. “Yes or no?”

O’Connor frowned. “Yes or no what?” he said.

“I—” Malone blinked. “I mean, the things have names,” he said at
last. “All the various psionic manifestations have names.”

“Ah,” O’Connor said. “Well. I should say—” He put his fingertips
together and stared at a point on the white ceiling for a second.
“Yes,” he said at last.

Malone breathed a sigh of relief. “Good,” he said. “That’s what I
wanted to know.” He leaned forward. “And if they all do have names,”
he went on, “what is it called when a large group of people are forced
to act in a certain manner?”

O’Connor shrugged. “Forced?” he said.

“Forced by mental power,” Malone said.

There was a second of silence.

“At first,” O’Connor said, “I might think of various examples: the
actions of a mob, for example, or the demonstrations of the Indian
Rope Trick, or perhaps the sale of a useless product through
television or through other advertising.” Again his face moved, ever
so slightly, in what he obviously believed to be a smile. “The usual
name for such a phenomenon is ‘mass hypnotism,’ Mr. Malone,” he said.
“But that is not, strictly speaking, a _psi_ phenomenon at all.
Studies in that area belong to the field of mob psychology; they are
not properly in my scope.” He looked vastly superior to anything and
everything that was outside his scope. Malone concentrated on looking
receptive and understanding.

“Yes?” he said.

O’Connor gave him a look that made Malone feel he’d been caught
cribbing during an exam, but the scientist said nothing to back up the
look. Instead he went on: “I will grant that there may be an
amplification of the telepathic faculty in the normal individual in
such cases.”

“Good,” Malone said doubtfully.

“Such an amplification,” O’Connor went on, as if he hadn’t heard,
“would account for the apparent—ah—mental linkage that makes a mob
appear to act as a single organism during certain periods of—ah—
stress.” He looked judicious for a second, and then nodded. “However,”
he said, “other than that, I would doubt that there is any psionic
force involved.”

Malone spent a second or two digesting O’Connor’s reply.

“Well,” he said at last, “I’m not sure that’s what I meant. I mean,
I’m not sure I meant to ask that question.” He took a breath and
decided to start all over. “It’s not like a mob,” he said, “with
everybody all doing the same thing at the same time. It’s more like a
group of men, all separated, without any apparent connections between
any of the men. And they’re all working toward a common goal. All
doing different things, but all with the same objective. See?”

“Of course I do,” O’Connor said flatly. “But what you’re suggesting—”
He looked straight at Malone. “Have you had any experience of this ...
phenomenon?”

“Experience?” Malone said.

“I believe you have had,” O’Connor said. “Such a concept could not
have come to you in a theoretical manner. You must be involved with an
actual situation very much like the one you describe.”

Malone swallowed. “Me?” he said.

“Mr. Malone,” O’Connor said. “May I remind you that this is Yucca
Flats? That the security checks here are as careful as anywhere in the
world? That I, myself, have top-security clearance for many special
projects? You do not need to watch your words here.”

“It’s not security,” Malone said. “Anyhow, it’s not only security. But
things are pretty complicated.”

“I assure you,” O’Connor said, “that I will be able to understand even
events which you feel are complex.”

Malone swallowed again, hard. “I didn’t mean—” he started.

“Please, Mr. Malone,” O’Connor said. His voice was colder than usual.
Malone had the feeling that he was about to take the extra chair away.
“Go on,” O’Connor said. “Explain yourself.”

Malone took a deep breath. He started with the facts he’d been told by
Burris, and went straight through to the interviews of the two
computer-secretary technicians by Boyd and Company.

It took quite awhile. By the time he had finished, O’Connor wasn’t
looking frozen any more; he’d apparently forgotten to keep the freezer
coils running. Instead, his face showed frank bewilderment, and great
interest. “I never heard of such a thing,” he said. “Never. Not at any
time.”

“But—”

O’Connor shook his head. “I have never heard of a psionic
manifestation on that order,” he said. It seemed to be a painful
admission. “Something that would make a random group of men co-operate
in that manner—why, it’s completely new.”

“It is?” Malone said, wondering if, when it was all investigated and
described, it might be called O’Connorizing. Then he wondered how
anybody was going to go about investigating it and describing it, and
sank even deeper into gloom.

“Completely new,” O’Connor said. “You may take my word.” Then, slowly,
he began to brighten again, with all the glitter of newly-formed ice.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, in a tone more like his usual one, “as
a matter of fact, Mr. Malone, I don’t think it’s possible.”

“But it happened,” Malone said. “It’s still happening. All over.”

O’Connor’s lips tightened. “I have given my opinion,” he said. “I do
not believe that such a thing is possible. There must be some other
explanation.”

“All right,” Malone said agreeably. “I’ll bite. What is it?”

O’Connor frowned. “Your levity,” he said, “is uncalled-for.”

Malone shrugged. “I didn’t mean to be—” He paused. “Anyhow, I didn’t
mean to be funny,” he went on. “But I would like to have another idea
of what’s causing all this.”

“Scientific theories,” O’Connor said sternly, “are not invented on the
spur of the moment. Only after long, careful thought.”

“You mean you can’t think of anything,” Malone said.

“There must be some other explanation,” O’Connor said. “Naturally,
since the facts have only now been presented to me, it is impossible
for me to display at once a fully-constructed theory.”

Malone nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Have you got any hints, then?
Any ideas at all?”

O’Connor shook his head. “I have not,” he said. “But I strongly
suggest, Mr. Malone, that you recheck your data. The fault may very
well lie in your own interpretations of the actual facts.”

“I don’t think so,” Malone said.

O’Connor grimaced. “I do,” he said firmly.

Malone sighed, very faintly. He shifted in the chair and began to
realize, for the first time, just how uncomfortable it really was. He
also felt a little chilly, and the chill was growing. That, he told
himself, was the effect of Dr. O’Connor. He no longer regretted
wearing his hat. As a matter of fact, he thought wistfully for a
second of a small, light overcoat.

O’Connor, he told himself, was definitely not the warm, friendly type.

“Well, then,” he said, conquering the chilly feeling for a second,
“maybe there’s somebody else. Somebody who knows something more about
psionics, and who might have some other ideas about—”

“Please, Mr. Malone,” O’Connor said. “The United States Government
would hardly have chosen me had I not been uniquely qualified in my
field.”

Malone sighed again. “I mean, maybe there are some books on the
subject,” he said quietly, hoping he sounded tactful. “Maybe there’s
something I could look up.”

“Mr. Malone.” The temperature of the office, Malone realized, was
definitely lowering. O’Connor’s built-in freezer coils were working
overtime, he told himself. “The field of psionics is so young that I
can say, without qualification, that I am acquainted with everything
written on the subject. By that, of course, I mean scientific works. I
do not doubt that the American Society for Psychical Research, for
instance, has hundreds of crackpot books which I have never read, or
even heard of. But in the strictly scientific field, I must say
that—”

He broke off, looking narrowly at Malone with what might have been
concern, but looked more like discouragement and boredom.

“Mr. Malone,” he said, “are you ill?”

Malone thought about it. He wasn’t quite sure, he discovered. The
chill in the office was bothering him more and more, and as it grew he
began to doubt that it was all due to the O’Connor influence. Suddenly
a distinct shudder started somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulders
and rippled its way down his body.

Another one followed it, and then a third.

“Mr. Malone,” O’Connor said.

“Me?” Malone said. “I’m—I’m all right.”

“You seem to have contracted a chill,” O’Connor said.

A fourth shudder followed the other three.

“I—guess so,” Malone said. “I d-d—I do s-seem to be r-r-rather
chilly.”

O’Connor nodded. “Ah,” he said. “I thought so. Although a chill is
certainly odd at seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit.” He looked at the
thermometer just outside the window of his office, then turned back to
Malone. “Pardon me,” he said. “Seventy-one point six.”

“Is—is that all it is?” Malone said. Seventy-one point six degrees,
or even seventy-two, hardly sounded like the broiling Nevada desert
he’d expected.

“Of course,” O’Connor said. “At nine o’clock in the morning, one would
hardly expect great temperatures. The desert becomes quite hot during
the day, but cools off rapidly; I assume you are familiar with the
laws covering the system.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “S-sure.”

The chills were not getting any better. They continued to travel up
and down his body with the dignified regularity of Pennsylvania
Railroad commuter trains.

O’Connor frowned for a second. It was obvious that his keen scientific
eye was sizing up the phenomenon, and reporting events to his keen
scientific brain. In a second or less, the keen scientific brain had
come up with an answer, and Dr. O’Connor spoke in his very keenest
scientific voice.

“I should have warned you,” he said, without an audible trace of
regret. “The answer is childishly simple, Mr. Malone. You left
Washington at noon.”

“Just a little before noon,” Malone said. Remembering the burning sun,
he added: “High noon. Very high.”

“Just so,” O’Connor said. “And not only the heat was intense; the
humidity, I assume, was also high.”

“Very,” Malone said, thinking back. He shivered again.

“In Washington,” O’Connor said, “it was noon. Here it is nine o’clock,
and hardly as warm. The atmosphere is quite arid, and about twenty
degrees below that obtaining in Washington.”

Malone thought about it, trying to ignore the chills. “Oh,” he said at
last. “And all the time I thought it was you.”

“What?” O’Connor leaned forward.

“Nothing,” Malone said hastily. “Nothing at all.”

“My suggestion,” O’Connor said, putting his fingertips together again,
“is that you take off your clothes, which are undoubtedly damp, and—”

Naturally, Malone had not brought any clothes to Yucca Flats to change
into. And when he tried to picture himself in a spare suit of Dr.
O’Connor’s, the picture just wouldn’t come. Besides, the idea of doing
a modified striptease in, or near, the O’Connor office was thoroughly
unattractive.

“Well,” he said slowly, “thanks a lot, Doctor, but no thanks. I really
have a better idea.”

“Better?” O’Connor said.

“Well, I—” Malone took a deep breath and shut his eyes.

He heard Dr. O’Connor say: “Well, Mr. Malone, goodbye. And good luck.”

Then the office in Yucca Flats was gone, and Malone was standing in
the bedroom of his own apartment, on the fringes of Washington, D.C.




4


He walked over to the wall control and shut off the air-conditioning
in a hurry. He threw open a window and breathed great gulps of the
hot, humid air from the streets. In a small corner at the back of his
mind, he wondered why he was grateful for the air he had suffered
under only a few minutes before. But that, he reflected, was life. And
a very silly kind of life, too, he told himself without rancor.

In a few minutes he left the window, somewhat restored, and headed for
the shower. When it was running nicely and he was under it, he started
to sing. But his voice didn’t sound as much like the voice of Lauritz
Melchior as it usually did, not even when he made a brave, if
foolhardy stab at the Melchior accent. Slowly, he began to realize
that he was bothered.

He climbed out of the shower and started drying himself. Up to now, he
thought, he had depended on Dr. Thomas O’Connor for edifying,
trustworthy and reasonably complete information about psionics and
_psi_ phenomena in general. He had looked on O’Connor as a sort of
living version of an extremely good edition of the Britannica, always
available for reference.

And now O’Connor had failed him. That, Malone thought, was hardly
fair. O’Connor had no business failing him, particularly when there
was no place else to go.

The scientist had been right, of course, Malone knew. There was no
other scientist who knew as much about psionics as O’Connor, and if
O’Connor said there were no books, then that was that: there were no
books.

He reached for a drawer in his dresser, opened it and pulled out some
underclothes, humming tunelessly under his breath as he dressed. If
there was no one to ask, he thought, and if there were no books....

He stopped with a sock in his hand, and stared at it in wonder.
O’Connor hadn’t said there were no books. As a matter of fact, Malone
realized, he’d said exactly the opposite.

There were books. But they were “crackpot” books. O’Connor had never
read them. He had, he said, probably never even heard of many of them.

“Crackpot” was a fighting word to O’Connor. But to Malone it had all
the sweetness of flattery. After all, he’d found telepaths in insane
asylums, and teleports among the juvenile delinquents of New York.
“Crackpot” was a word that was rapidly ceasing to have any meaning at
all in Malone’s mind.

He realized that he was still staring at the sock, which was black
with a pink clock. Hurriedly, he put it on, and finished dressing. He
reached for the phone and made a few fast calls, and then teleported
himself to his locked office in FBI Headquarters, on East 69th Street
in New York. He let himself out, and strolled down the corridor. The
agent-in-charge looked up from his desk as Malone passed, blinked, and
said, “Hello, Malone. What’s up now?”

“I’m going prowling,” Malone said. “But there won’t be any work for
you, as far as I can see.”

“Oh?”

“Just relax,” Malone said. “Breathe easy.”

“I’ll try to,” the agent-in-charge said, a little sadly. “But every
time you show up, I think about that wave of red Cadillacs you
started. I’ll never feel really secure again.”

“Relax,” Malone said. “Next time it won’t be Cadillacs. But it might
be spirits, blowing on ear-trumpets. Or whatever it is they do.”

“Spirits, Malone?” the agent-in-charge said.

“No, thanks,” Malone said sternly. “I never drink on duty.” He gave
the agent a cheery wave of his hand and went on out to the street.

The Psychical Research Society had offices in the Ravell Building, a
large structure composed mostly of plate glass and anodized aluminum
that looked just a little like a bright blue transparent crackerbox
that had been stood on end for purposes unknown. Having walked all the
way down to this box on 56th Street, Malone had recovered his former
sensitivity range to temperature and felt pathetically grateful for
the coolish sea breeze that made New York somewhat less of an
unbearable Summer Festival than was normal.

The lobby of the building was glittering and polished, as if human
beings could not possibly exist in it. Malone took an elevator to the
sixth floor, stepped out into a small, equally polished hall, and
hurriedly looked off to his right. A small door stood there, with a
legend engraved in elegantly small letters. It said:

     _The Psychical Research Society_
                  _Push_

Malone obeyed instructions. The door swung noiselessly open, and then
closed behind him.

He was in a large square-looking room which had a couch and chair set
at one corner, and a desk at the far end. Behind the desk was a brass
plate, on which was engraved:

     _The Psychical Research Society_
               _Main Offices_

To Malone’s left was a hall that angled off into invisibility, and to
the left of the desk was another one, going straight back past doors
and two radiators until it ran into a right-angled turn and also
disappeared.

Malone took in the details of his surroundings almost automatically,
filing them in his memory just in case he ever needed to use them.

One detail, however, required more than automatic attention. Sitting
behind the desk, her head just below the brass plaque, was a redhead.
She was, Malone thought, positively beautiful. Of course, he could not
see the lower two-thirds of her body, but if they were half as
interesting as the upper third and the face and head, he was willing
to spend days, weeks or even months on their investigation. Some jobs,
he told himself, feeling a strong sense of duty, were definitely worth
taking time over.

She was turned slightly away from Malone, and had obviously not heard
him come in. Malone wondered how best to announce himself, and
regretfully gave up the idea of tiptoeing up to the girl, placing his
hands over her eyes, kissing the back of her neck and crying:
“Surprise!” It was elegant, he felt, but it just wasn’t _right_.

He compromised at last on the old established method of throat-clearing
to attract her attention. He was sure he could take it from there, to
an eminently satisfying conclusion.

He tiptoed on the deep-pile rug right up to her desk. He took a deep
breath.

And the expected happened.

He sneezed.

The sneeze was loud and long, and it echoed through the room and
throughout the corridors. It sounded to Malone like the blast of a
small bomb, or possibly a grenade. Startled himself by the volume of
sound he had managed to generate, he jumped back.

The girl had jumped, too, but her leap had been straight upward, about
an inch and a half. She came down on her chair and reached up a hand.
The hand wiped the back of her neck with a slow, lingering motion of
complete loathing. Then, equally slowly, she turned.

“That,” she said in a low, sweet voice, “was a hell of a dirty trick.”

“It was an accident,” Malone said. “The Will of God.”

“God has an exceedingly nasty mind,” the girl said. “Something, by the
way, which I have often suspected.” She regarded Malone darkly. “Do
you always do that to strangers? Is it some new sort of perversion?”

“I have never done such a thing before,” Malone said sternly.

“Oh,” the girl said. “An experimenter. Avid for new sensations.
Probably a jaded scion of a rich New York family.” She paused. “Tell
me,” she said, “is it fun?”

Malone opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He shut it, thought for
a second and then tried again. He got as far as: “I—” before Nemesis
overtook him. The second sneeze was even louder and more powerful than
the first had been.

“It must be fun,” the girl said acidly, producing a handkerchief from
somewhere and going to work on her face. “You just can’t seem to wait
to do it again. Would it do any good to tell you that the fascination
with this form of greeting is not universal? Or don’t you care?”

“Damn it,” Malone said, goaded, “I’ve got a cold.”

“And you feel you should share it with the world,” the girl said. “I
quite understand. Tell me, is there anything I can do for you? Or has
your mission been accomplished?”

“My mission?” Malone said.

“Having sneezed twice at me,” the girl said, “do you feel satisfied?
Will you vanish softly and silently away? Or do you want to sneeze at
somebody else?”

“I want the president of the Society,” Malone said. “According to my
information, his name is Sir Lewis Carter.”

“And if you sneeze at him,” the girl said, “yours is going to be mud.
He isn’t much on novelty.”

“I—”

“Besides which,” she said, “he’s extremely busy. And I don’t think
he’ll see you at all. Why don’t you go and sneeze at somebody else?
There must be lots of people who would consider themselves honored to
be noticed, especially in such a startling way. Why don’t you try and
find one somewhere? Somewhere very far away.”

Malone was beyond speech. He fumbled for his wallet, flipped it open
and showed the girl his identification.

“My, my,” she said. “And hasn’t the FBI anything better to do? I mean,
can’t you go and sneeze at counterfeiters in their lairs, or wherever
they might be?”

“I want to see Sir Lewis Carter,” Malone said doggedly.

The girl shrugged and picked up the phone on the desk. It was a
blank-vision device, of course; many office intercoms were. She
dialed, waited and then said, “Sir Lewis, please.” Another second went
by. Then she spoke again. “Sir Lewis,” she said, “this is Lou, at the
front desk. There’s a man here named Malone, who wants to see you.”

She waited a second. “I don’t know what he wants,” she told the phone.
“But he’s from the FBI.” A second’s pause. “That’s right, the FBI,”
she said. “All right, Sir Lewis. Right away.” She hung up the phone
and turned to watch Malone warily.

“Sir Lewis,” she said, “will see you. I couldn’t say why. But take the
side corridor to the rear of the suite. His office has his name on it,
and I won’t tell you you can’t miss it because I have every faith that
you will. Good luck.”

Malone blinked. “Look,” he said. “I know I startled you, but I didn’t
mean to. I—” He started to sneeze, but this time he got his own
handkerchief out in time and muffled the explosion slightly.

“Good work,” the girl said approvingly. “Tell me, Mr. Malone, have you
been toilet-trained, too?”

There was nothing at all to say to that remark, Malone reflected as he
wended his way down the side corridor. It seemed endless, and kept
branching off unexpectedly. Once he blundered into a large open room
filled with people at desks. A woman who seemed to have a great many
teeth and rather bulbous eyes looked up at him. “Can I help you?” she
said in a fervent whine.

“I sincerely hope not,” Malone said, backing away and managing to find
the corridor once more. After what seemed like a long time, and two
more sneezes, he found a small door which was labeled in capital
letters:

     THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY
             SIR LEWIS CARTER
                PRESIDENT

Malone sighed. “Well,” he muttered, “they certainly aren’t hiding
anything.” He pushed at the door, and it swung open.

Sir Lewis was a tall, solidly-built man with a kindly expression. He
wore grey flannel trousers and a brown tweed jacket, which made an
interesting color contrast with his iron-grey hair. His teeth were
clenched so firmly on the bit of a calabash pipe with a meerschaum
bowl that Malone wondered if he could ever get loose. Malone shut the
door behind him, and Sir Lewis rose and extended a hand.

Malone went to the desk and reached across to take the hand. It was
firm and dry. “I’m Kenneth Malone,” Malone said.

“Ah, yes,” Sir Lewis said. “Pleased to meet you. Always happy, of
course, to do whatever I can for your FBI. Not only a duty, so to
speak, but a pleasure. Sit down. Please do sit down.”

Malone found a chair at the side of the desk, and sank into it. It was
soft and comfortable. It provided such a contrast to O’Connor’s
furnishings that Malone began to wish it was Sir Lewis who was
employed at Yucca Flats. Then he could tell Sir Lewis everything about
the case.

Now, of course, he could only hedge and try to make do without stating
very many facts. “Sir Lewis,” he said, “I trust you’ll keep this
conversation confidential.”

“Naturally,” Sir Lewis said. He removed the pipe, stared at it, and
replaced it.

“I can’t give you the full details,” Malone went on, “but the FBI is
presently engaged in an investigation which requires the specialized
knowledge your organization seems to have.”

“FBI?” Sir Lewis said. “Specialized investigation?” He seemed pleased,
but a trifle puzzled. “Dear boy, anything we have is at your disposal,
of course. But I quite fail to see how you can consider us—”

“It’s rather an unusual problem,” Malone said, feeling that that was
the understatement of the year. “But I understand that your records go
back nearly a century.”

“Quite true,” Sir Lewis murmured.

“During that time,” Malone said, “the Society investigated a great
many supposedly supernatural or supernormal incidents.”

“Many of them,” Sir Lewis said, “were discovered to be fraudulent, I’m
afraid. The great majority, in fact.”

“That’s what I’d assume,” Malone said. He fished in his pockets, found
a cigarette and lit it. Sir Lewis went on chewing at his unlit pipe.
“What we’re interested in,” Malone said, “is some description of the
various methods by which these frauds were perpetrated.”

“Ah,” Sir Lewis said. “The tricks of the trade, so to speak?”

“Exactly,” Malone said.

“Well, then,” Sir Lewis said. “The luminous gauze, for instance, that
passes for ectoplasm; the various methods of table-lifting; control of
the Ouija board—things like that?”

“Not quite that elementary,” Malone said. He puffed on the cigarette,
wishing it was a cigar. “We’re pretty much up to that kind of thing.
But had it ever occurred to you that many of the methods used by phony
mind-reading acts, for instance, might be used as communication
methods by spies?”

“Why, I believe some have been,” Sir Lewis said. “Though I don’t know
much about that, of course; there was a case during the First World
War—”

“Exactly,” Malone said. He took a deep breath. “It’s things like that
we’re interested in,” he said, and spent the next twenty minutes
slowly approaching his subject. Sir Lewis, apparently fascinated, was
perfectly willing to unbend in any direction, and jotted down notes on
some of Malone’s more interesting cases, murmuring: “Most unusual,
most unusual,” as he wrote.

The various types of phenomena that the Society had investigated came
into the discussion, and Malone heard quite a lot about the Beyond,
the Great Summerland, Spirit Mediums and the hypothetical existence of
fairies, goblins and elves.

“But, Sir Lewis—” he said.

“I make no claims personally,” Sir Lewis said. “But I understand that
there is a large and somewhat vocal group which does make rather
solid-sounding claims in that direction. They say that they have seen
fairies, talked with goblins, danced with the elves.”

“They must be very unusual people,” Malone said, understating heavily.

“Oh,” Sir Lewis said, without a trace of irony, “they certainly are.”

Talk like this passed away nearly a half-hour, until Malone finally
felt that it was the right time to introduce some of his real
questions. “Tell me, Sir Lewis,” he said. “Have you had many instances
of a single man, or a small group of men, controlling the actions of a
much larger group? And doing it in such a way that the larger group
doesn’t even know it is being manipulated?”

“Of course I have,” Sir Lewis said. “And so have you. They call it
advertising.”

Malone flicked his cigarette into an ashtray. “I didn’t mean exactly
that,” he said. “Suppose they’re doing it in such a way that the
larger group doesn’t even suspect that manipulation is going on?”

Sir Lewis removed his pipe and frowned at it. “I may be able to give
you a little information,” he said slowly, “but not much.”

“Ah?” Malone said, trying to sound only mildly interested.

“Outside of mob psychology,” Sir Lewis said, “and all that sort of
thing, I really haven’t seen any record of a case of such a thing
happening. And I can’t quite imagine anyone faking it.”

“But you have got some information?” Malone said.

“Certainly,” Sir Lewis said. “There is always spirit control.”

“Spirit control?” Malone blinked.

“Demoniac intervention,” Sir Lewis said. “‘My name is Legion,’ you
know.”

Sir Lewis Legion, Malone thought confusedly, was a rather unusual
name. He took a breath and caught hold of his revolving mind. “How
would you go about that?” he said, a little hopelessly.

“I haven’t the foggiest,” Sir Lewis admitted cheerfully. “But I will
have it looked up for you.” He made a note. “Anything else?”

Malone tried to think. “Yes,” he said at last. “Can you give me a
condensed report on what is known—and I mean _known_—on telepathy
and teleportation?”

“What you want,” Sir Lewis said, “are those cases proven genuine, not
the ones in which we have established fraud, or those still in doubt.”

“Exactly,” Malone said. If he got no other use out of the data, it
would provide a measuring-stick for the Society. The general public
didn’t know that the Government was actually using psionic powers, and
the Society’s theories, checked against actual fact, would provide a
rough index of reliability to use on the Society’s other data.

But spirits, somehow, didn’t seem very likely. Malone sighed and stood
up.

“I’ll have copies made of all the relevant material,” Sir Lewis said,
“from our library and research files. Where do you want the material
sent? I do want to warn you of its bulk; there may be quite a lot of
it.”

“FBI Headquarters, on 69th Street,” Malone said. “And send a statement
of expenses along with it. As long as the bill’s within reason, don’t
worry about itemizing; I’ll see that it goes through Accounting
myself.”

Sir Lewis nodded. “Fine,” he said. “And, if you should have any
difficulties with the material, please let me know. I’ll always be
glad to help.”

“Thanks for your co-operation,” Malone said. He went to the door, and
walked on out.

He blundered back into the same big room again, on his way through the
corridors. The bulbous-eyed woman, who seemed to have inherited a full
set of thirty-two teeth from each of her parents, gave him a friendly
if somewhat crowded smile, but Malone pressed on without a word. After
awhile, he found the reception room again.

The girl behind the desk looked up. “How did he react?” she said.

Malone blinked. “React?” he said.

“When you sneezed at him,” she said. “Because I’ve been thinking it
over, and I’ve got a new theory. You’re doing a survey on how people
act when encountering sneezes. Like Kinsey.”

This girl—Lou something, Malone thought, and with difficulty
refrained from adding “Gehrig”—had an unusual effect, he decided. He
wondered if there were anyone in the world she couldn’t reduce to
paralyzed silence.

“Of course,” she went on, “Kinsey was dealing with sex, and you
aren’t. At least, you aren’t during business hours.” She smiled
politely at Malone.

“No,” he said helplessly, “I’m not.”

“It is sneezing, then,” she said. “Will I be in the book when it’s
published?”

“Book?” Malone said, feeling more and more like a rather low-grade
moron.

“The book on sneezing, when you get it published,” she said. “I can
see it now: _The Case of Miss X, a Receptionist_.”

“There isn’t going to be any book,” Malone said.

She shook her head. “That’s a shame,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to
be a Miss X. It sounds exciting.”

“X,” Malone said at random, “marks the spot.”

“Why, that’s the sweetest thing that’s been said to me all day,” the
girl said. “I thought you could hardly talk, and here you come out
with lovely things like that. But I’ll bet you say it to all the
girls.”

“I have never said it to anybody before,” Malone said flatly. “And I
never will again.”

The girl sighed. “I’ll treasure it,” she said. “My one great moment.
Goodbye, Mr.—Malone, isn’t it?”

“Ken,” Malone said. “Just call me Ken.”

“And I’m Lou,” the girl said. “Goodbye.”

An elevator arrived and Malone ducked into it. Louie? he thought.
Louise? Luke? Of course, there was Sir Lewis Carter, who might be
called Lou. Was he related to the girl?

No, Malone thought wildly. Relations went by last names. There was no
reason for Lou to be related to Sir Lewis. They didn’t even look
alike. For instance, he had no desire whatever to make a date with Sir
Lewis Carter, or to take him to a glittering night-club, or to make him
any whispered propositions. And the very idea of Sir Lewis Carter
sitting on the Malone lap was enough to give him indigestion and spots
before the eyes.

Sternly, he told himself to get back to business. The elevator stopped
at the lobby and he got out and started down the street, feeling that
consideration of the lady known as Lou was much more pleasant. After
all, what did he have to work with, as far as his job was concerned?

So far, two experts had told him that his theory was full of lovely
little holes. Worse than that, they had told him that mass control of
human beings was impossible, as far as they knew.

And maybe it was impossible, he told himself sadly. Maybe he should
just junk his whole theory and think up a new one. Maybe there was no
psionics involved in the thing at all, and Boyd and O’Connor were
right.

Of course, he had a deep-seated conviction that psionics was somewhere
at the root of everything, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
A lot of people had deep-seated convictions that they were beetles, or
that the world was flat And then again, murderers often suffered as a
result of deep-seated convictions of one sort or another.

On the other hand, maybe he had invented a whole new psionic theory
or, at least, observed some new psionic facts. Maybe they would call
the results Malonizing, instead of O’Connorizing. He tried to picture
a man opening a door and saying: “Come out quick, Mr. Frembits is
Malonizing again.”

It didn’t sound very plausible. But, after all, he did have a
deep-seated conviction. He tried to think of a shallow-seated
conviction, and failed. Didn’t convictions ever stand up, anyhow, or
lie down?

He shook his head, discovered that he was on 69th Street, and headed
for the FBI Headquarters. His convictions, he had found, were
sometimes an expression of his precognitive powers; he determined to
ride with them, at least for awhile.

By the time he came to the office of the agent-in-charge, he had
figured out the beginnings of a new line of attack.

“How about the ghosts?” the agent-in-charge asked as he passed.

“They’ll be along,” Malone said. “In a big bundle, addressed to me
personally. And don’t open the bundle.”

“Why not?” the agent-in-charge asked.

“Because I don’t want the things to get loose and run around saying
boo to everybody,” Malone said brightly, and went on.

He opened the door of his private office, went inside and sat down at
the desk there. He took his time about framing a thought, a single,
clear, deliberate thought:

_Your Majesty, I’d like to speak to you._

He hardly had time to finish it. A flash of color appeared in the
room, just a few feet from his desk. The flash resolved itself into a
tiny, grandmotherly-looking woman with a corona of white hair and a
kindly, twinkling expression. She was dressed in the full court
costume of the First Elizabethan period, and this was hardly
surprising to Malone. The little old lady believed, quite firmly, that
she was Queen Elizabeth I, miraculously preserved over all these
centuries. Malone, himself, had practically forgotten that the woman’s
real name was Rose Thompson, and that she had only been alive for
sixty-five years or so. For most of that time, she had been insane.

For all of that time, however, she had been a genuine telepath. She
had been discovered during the course of Malone’s first psionic case,
and by now she had even learned to teleport by “reading” the process
in Malone’s mind.

“Good afternoon, Sir Kenneth,” she said in a regal, kindly voice. She
was mad, he knew, but her delusion was nicely kept within bounds. All
of her bright world hinged on the single fact that she was unshakably
certain of her royalty. As long as the FBI catered to that notion—which
included a Royal dwelling for her in Yucca Flats, and the privilege of
occasionally knighting FBI agents who had pleased her unpredictable
fancy—she was perfectly rational on all other points. She co-operated
with Dr. O’Connor and with the FBI in the investigation of her psionic
powers, and she had given her Royal word not to teleport except at
Malone’s personal request.

“I’d like to talk to you,” Malone said, “Your Majesty.”

There was an odd note in the Queen’s voice, and an odd, haunted
expression on her face. “I’ve been hoping you’d ask me to come,” she
said.

“I had a hunch you were following me telepathically,” Malone said.
“Can you give me any help?”

“I—I really don’t know,” she said. “It’s something new, and something
disturbing. I’ve never come across anything like it before.”

“Like what?” Malone asked.

“It’s the—” She made a gesture that conveyed nothing at all to
Malone. “The—the static,” she said at last.

Malone blinked. “Static?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re not telepathic, so I can’t tell you what it’s
really like. But—well, Sir Kenneth, have you ever seen disturbance on
a TV screen, when there’s some powerful electric output nearby? The
bright, senseless snowstorms, the meaningless hash?”

“Sure,” Malone said.

“It’s like that,” she said. “It’s a sudden, meaningless, disturbing
blare of telepathic energy.”

The telephone rang once. Malone ignored it.

“What’s causing these disturbances?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Sir Kenneth. I don’t know,” she
said. “I can’t pick up a person’s mind over a distance unless I know
him, and I can’t see what’s causing this at all. It’s—frankly, Sir
Kenneth, it’s rather terrifying.”

The phone rang again.

“How long have you been experiencing this disturbance?” Malone asked.
He looked at the phone.

“The telephone isn’t important,” Her Majesty said. “It’s only Sir
Thomas, calling to tell you he’s arrested three spies, and that
doesn’t matter at all.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Not at all,” Her Majesty said. “What does matter is that I’ve only
been picking up these flashes since you were assigned to this new
case, Sir Kenneth. And....” She paused.

“Well?” Malone said.

“And they only appear,” Her Majesty said, “when I’m tuned to _your_
mind!”




5


Malone stared. He tried to say something but he couldn’t find any
words. The telephone rang again and he pushed the switch with a sense
of relief. The beard-fringed face of Thomas Boyd appeared on the
screen.

“You’re getting hard to find,” Boyd said. “I think you’re letting fame
and fortune go to your head.”

“I left word at the office that I was coming here,” Malone said
aggrievedly.

“Sure you did,” Boyd said. “How do you think I found you? Am I
telepathic? Do I have strange powers?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” Malone said. “Now, about those
spies—”

“See what I mean?” Boyd said. “How did you know?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Malone murmured. “But what about them?”

“Well,” Boyd said, “we picked up two men working in the Senate Office
Building, and another one working for the State Department.”

“And they are spies?” Malone said. “Real spies?”

“Oh, they’re real enough,” Boyd said. “We’ve known about ’em for
years, and I finally decided to pick them up for questioning. God
knows, but maybe they have something to do with all this mess that’s
bothering everybody.”

“You haven’t the faintest idea what you mean,” Malone said. “Mess is
hardly the word.”

Boyd snorted. “You go on getting yourself confused,” he said, “while
some of us do the real work. After all—”

“Never mind the insults,” Malone said. “How about the spies?”

“Well,” Boyd said, a trifle reluctantly, “they’ve been working as
janitors and maintenance men, and of course we’ve made sure they
haven’t been able to get their hands on any really valuable
information.”

“So they’ve suddenly turned into criminal masterminds,” Malone said.
“After being under careful surveillance for years.”

“Well, it’s possible,” Boyd said defensively.

“Almost anything is possible,” Malone said.

“Some things,” Boyd said carefully, “are more possible than others.”

“Thank you, Charles W. Aristotle,” Malone said. “I hope you realize
what you’ve done, picking up those three men. We might have been able
to get some good lines on them, if you’d left them where they were.”

There is an old story about a general who went on an inspection tour
of the front during World War I, and, putting his head incautiously up
out of a trench, was narrowly missed by a sniper’s bullet. He turned
to a nearby sergeant and bellowed: “Get that sniper!”

“Oh, we’ve got him spotted, sir,” the sergeant said. “He’s been there
for six days now.”

“Well, then,” the general said, “why don’t you blast him out of
there?”

“Well, sir, it’s this way,” the sergeant explained. “He’s fired about
sixty rounds since he’s been out there, and he hasn’t hit anything
yet. We’re afraid if we get rid of him they’ll put up somebody who
_can_ shoot.”

This was standard FBI policy when dealing with minor spies. A great
many had been spotted, including four in the Department of Fisheries.
But known spies are easier to keep track of than unknown ones. And, as
long as they’re allowed to think they haven’t been spotted, they may
lead the way to other spies or spy networks.

“I thought it was worth the risk,” Boyd said. “After all, if they have
something to do with the case—”

“But they don’t,” Malone said.

“Damn it,” Boyd exploded, “let me find out for myself, will you?
You’re spoiling all the fun.”

“Well, anyhow,” Malone said, “they don’t.”

“You can’t afford to take any chances,” Boyd said. “After all, when I
think about William Logan, I tell myself we’d better take care of
every lead.”

“Well,” Malone said finally, “you may be right. And then again, you
may be normally wrong.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Boyd said.

“How should I know?” Malone said. “I’m too busy to go around and
around like this. But since you’ve picked the spies up, I suppose it
won’t do any harm to find out if they know anything.”

Boyd snorted again. “Thank you,” he said, “for your kind permission.”

“I’ll be right down,” Malone said.

“I’ll be waiting,” Boyd said. “In Interrogation Room 7. You’ll
recognize me by the bullet hole in my forehead and the strange South
American poison, hitherto unknown to science, in my esophagus.”

“Very funny,” Malone said. “Don’t give up the ship.”

Boyd switched off without a word. Malone shrugged at the blank screen
and pushed his own switch. Then he turned slowly back to Her Majesty,
who was standing, waiting patiently, at the opposite side of the desk.
Interference, he thought, located around him....

“Why yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I did say.”

Malone blinked. “Your Majesty,” he said, “would you mind terribly if I
asked you questions before you answered them? I know you can see them
in my mind, but it’s simpler for me to do things the normal way, just
now.”

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I do agree that matters are confused
enough already. Please go on.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Malone said. “Well, then. Do you mean that
_I’m_ the one causing all this mental static?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Not at all. It’s definitely coming from somewhere
else, and it’s beamed at you, or beamed around you.”

“But—”

“It’s just that I can only pick it up when I’m tuned to your mind,”
she said.

“Like now?” Malone said.

She shook her head. “Right now,” she said, “there isn’t any. It only
happens every once in awhile, every so often, and not continuously.”

“Does it happen at regular intervals?” Malone asked.

“Not as far as I’ve been able to tell,” Her Majesty said. “It just
happens, that’s all. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to
it. Except that it did start when you were assigned to this case.”

“Lovely,” Malone said. “Perfectly lovely. And what is it supposed to
mean?”

“Interference,” she said. “Static. Jumble. That’s all it means. I just
don’t know any more than that, Sir Kenneth; I’ve never experienced
anything like it in my life. It really does disturb me.”

That, Malone told himself, he could believe. It must be an experience,
he told himself, like having someone you were looking at suddenly
dissolve into a jumble of meaningless shapes and lights.

“That’s a very good analogy,” Her Majesty said. “If you’ll pardon me
speaking before you’ve voiced your thought.”

“Not at all,” Malone said. “Go right ahead.”

“Well, then,” Her Majesty said. “The analogy you use is a good one.
It’s just as disturbing and as meaningless as that.”

“And you don’t know what’s causing it?” Malone said.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Nor what the purpose of it is?” he said.

Her Majesty shook her head slowly. “Sir Kenneth,” she said, “I don’t
even know whether or not there _is_ any purpose.”

Malone sighed deeply. Nothing in the case seemed to make any sense. It
wasn’t that there were no clues, or no information for him to work
with. There were a lot of clues, and there was a lot of information.
But nothing seemed to link up with anything else. Every new fact was a
bright, shiny arrow pointing nowhere in particular.

“Well, then—” he started.

The intercom buzzed. Malone jabbed ferociously at the button. “Yes?”
he said.

“The ghosts are here,” the agent-in-charge’s voice said.

Malone blinked. “What?” he said.

“You said you were going to get some ghosts,” the agent-in-charge
said. “From the Psychical Research Society, in a couple of large
bundles. And they’re here now. Want me to exorcise ’em for you?”

“No,” Malone said wearily. “Just send them in to join the crowd. Got a
messenger?”

“I’ll send them down,” the agent-in-charge said. “About one minute.”

Malone nodded, realized the man couldn’t see him, said: “Fine,” and
switched off. He looked at his watch. A little over half an hour had
passed since he had left the Psychical Research Society offices. That,
he told himself, was efficiency.

Not that the books would mean anything, he thought. They would just
take their places at the end of the long row of meaningless,
disturbing, vicious facts that cluttered up his mind. He wasn’t an FBI
agent any more; he was a clown and a failure, and he was through. He
was going to resign and go to South Dakota and live the life of a
hermit. He would drink goat’s milk and eat old shoes or something, and
whenever another human being came near he would run away and hide.
They would call him Old Kenneth, and people would write articles for
magazines about The Twentieth Century Hermit.

And that would make him famous, he thought wearily, and the whole
circle would start all over again.

“Now, now, Sir Kenneth,” Queen Elizabeth said. “Things aren’t quite
that bad.”

“Oh, yes, they are,” Malone said. “They’re even worse.”

“I’m sure we can find an answer to all your questions,” Her Majesty
said.

“Sure,” Malone said. “Even I can find an answer. But it isn’t the
right one.”

“You can?” Her Majesty said.

“That’s right,” Malone said. “My answer is: to hell with everything.”

* * * * *

Malone’s Washington offices didn’t look any different. He sighed and
put the two big packages from the Psychical Research Society down on
his desk, and then turned to Her Majesty.

“I wanted you to teleport along with me,” he said, “because I need
your help.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

He blinked. “Oh. Sure you do. But let me go over the details.”

Her Majesty waved a gracious hand. “If you like, Sir Kenneth,” she
said.

Malone nodded. “We’re going on down to Interrogation Room 7 now,” he
said. “Next door to it, there’s an observation room, with a one-way
panel in the wall. You’ll be able to see us, but we won’t be able to
see you.”

“I really don’t require an observation panel,” Her Majesty said. “If I
enter your mind, I can see through your eyes.”

“Oh, sure,” Malone said. “But the observation room was built for more
normal people—saving your presence, Your Majesty.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Now,” Malone went on, “I want you to watch all three of the men we’re
going to bring in, and dig everything you can out of their minds.”

“Everything?” she said.

“We don’t know what might be useful,” Malone said. “Anything you can
find. And if you want any questions asked—if there’s anything you
think I ought to ask the men, or say to them—there’s a non-vision
phone in the observation room. Just lift the receiver. That
automatically rings the one in the interrogation room and I’ll pick it
up. Understand?”

“Perfectly, Sir Kenneth,” she said.

“Okay, then,” Malone said. “Let’s go.” They headed for the door.
Malone stopped as he opened it. “And by the way,” he said.

“Yes?”

“If you get any more of those disturbances, let me know.”

“At once,” Her Majesty promised.

They went on down the hall and took the elevator down to Interrogation
Room 7, on the lowest level. There was no particular reason for
putting the interrogation section down there, except that it tended to
make prisoners more nervous. And a nervous prisoner, Malone knew, was
very possibly a confessing prisoner.

Malone ushered Her Majesty through the unmarked door of the
observation chamber, made sure that the panel and phone were in
working order, and went out. He stepped into Interrogation Room 7
trying hard to look bored, businesslike and unbeatable. Boyd and four
other agents were already there, all standing around and talking
desultorily in low tones. None of them looked as if they had a
moment’s worry in their lives. It was all part of the same technique,
of course, Malone thought. Make the prisoner feel resistance is
useless, and you’ve practically got him working for you.

The prisoner was a hulking, flabby fat man in work coveralls. He had
black hair that spilled all over his forehead, and tiny button eyes.
He was the only man in the room who was sitting down, and that was
meant to make him feel even more inferior and insecure. His hands were
clasped fatly in his lap, and he was staring down at them in a
regretful manner. None of the agents paid the slightest attention to
him. The general impression was that something really tough was coming
up, but that they were in no hurry for it. They were willing to wait
for the third degree, it seemed, until the blacksmith had done a
really good job with the new spikes for the Iron Maiden.

The prisoner looked up apprehensively as Malone shut the door. Malone
paid no attention to him, and the prisoner unclasped his hands, rubbed
them on his coveralls and then reclasped them in his lap. His eyes
fell again.

Boyd looked up too. “Hello, Ken,” he said. He tapped a sheaf of papers
on the single table in the room. Malone went over and picked them up.

They were the abbreviated condensations of three dossiers. All three
of the men covered in the dossiers were naturalized citizens, but all
had come in as “political refugees” from Hungary, from Czechoslovakia,
and from East Germany. Further checking had turned up the fact that
all three were actually Russians. They had been using false names
during their stay in the United States, but their real ones were
appended to the dossiers.

The fat one in the interrogation room was named Alexis Brubitsch. The
other two, who were presumably waiting separately in other rooms, were
Ivan Borbitsch and Vasili Garbitsch. The collection sounded, to
Malone, like a seedy musical-comedy firm of lawyers: Brubitsch,
Borbitsch and Garbitsch. He could picture them dancing gaily across a
stage while the strains of music followed them, waving legal forms and
telephones and singing away.

Brubitsch did not, however, look very gay. Malone went over to him
now, walking slowly, and looked down. Boyd came and stood next to him.

“This is the one who won’t talk, eh?” Malone said, wondering if he
sounded as much like Dick Tracy as he thought he did. It was a
standard opening, meant to make the prisoner think his fellows had
already confessed.

“That’s him,” Boyd said.

“Mmm,” Malone said, trying to look as if he were deciding between the
rack and the boiling oil. Brubitsch fidgeted slightly, but he didn’t
say anything.

“We didn’t know whether we had to get this one to talk, too,” Boyd
said. “What with the others, and all. But we did think you ought to
have a look at him.” He sounded very bored. It was obvious from his
tone that the FBI didn’t care in the least if Alexis Brubitsch never
opened his mouth again, in what was likely to be a very short
lifetime.

“Well,” Malone said, equally bored, “we might be able to get a few
corroborative details.”

Brubitsch swallowed hard. Malone ignored him.

“Now, just look at him,” Boyd said. “He certainly doesn’t _look_ like
the head of a spy ring, does he?”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Malone said. “That’s probably why the Russians
used him. They figured nobody would ever look twice at a fat slob like
this. Nobody would ever suspect him of being the head man.”

“I guess you’re right,” Boyd said. He yawned, which Malone thought was
overacting a trifle. Brubitsch saw the yawn, and one hand came up to
jerk at his collar.

“Who’d ever think,” Malone said, “that he plotted those killings in
Redstone—all three of them?”

“It is surprising,” Boyd said.

“But, then,” Malone said, “we know he did. There isn’t any doubt of
that.”

Brubitsch seemed to be turning a pale green. It was a fascinating
color, unlike any other Malone had ever seen. He watched it with
interest.

“Oh, sure,” Boyd said. “We’ve got enough evidence from the other two
to send this one to the chair tomorrow, if we want to.”

“More than enough,” Malone agreed.

Brubitsch opened his mouth, shut it again and closed his eyes. His
lips moved silently.

“Tell me,” Boyd said conversationally, leaning down to the fat man.
“Did your orders on that job come from Moscow, or did you mastermind
it all by yourself?”

Brubitsch’s eyes stirred, then snapped open as if they’d been pulled
by a string. “Me?” he said in a hoarse bass voice. “I know nothing
about this murder. What murder? I know nothing about it.”

There were no such murders, of course. But Malone was not ready to let
Brubitsch know anything about that. “Oh, the ones you shot in
Redstone,” he said in an offhand way.

“The what?” Brubitsch said. “I shot people? Never.”

“Oh, sure you did,” Boyd said. “The others say you did.”

Brubitsch’s head seemed to sink into his neck. “Borbitsch and
Garbitsch, they tell you about a murder? It is not true. Is a lie.”

“Really?” Malone said. “We think it’s true.”

“Is a lie,” Brubitsch said, his little eyes peering anxiously from
side to side. “Is not true,” he went on hopefully. “I have alibi.”

“You do?” Boyd said. “For what time?”

“For time when murder happened,” Brubitsch said. “I was someplace
else.”

“Well, then,” Malone said, “how do you know when the murders were
done? They were kept out of the newspapers.” That, he reflected, was
quite true, since the murders had never happened. But he watched
Brubitsch with a wary eye.

“I know nothing about time,” Brubitsch said, jerking at his collar. “I
don’t know when they happened.”

“Then how can you have an alibi?” Boyd snapped.

“Because I didn’t do them!” Brubitsch said tearfully. “If I didn’t,
then I _must_ have alibi!”

“You’d be surprised,” Malone said. “Now, about these murders—”

“Was no murder, not by me,” Brubitsch said firmly. “Was never any
killing of anybody, not even by accident.”

“But your two friends say—” Boyd began.

“My two friends are not my friends,” Brubitsch said firmly. “If they
tell you about murder and say it was me, they are no friends. I did
not murder anybody, I have alibi. I did not even murder anybody a
little bit. They are no friends. This is terrible.”

“There,” Malone said reflectively, “I agree with you. It’s positively
awful. And I think we might as well give it up. After all, we don’t
need your testimony. The other two are enough; they’ll get maybe ten
years apiece, but you’re going to get the chair.”

“I will not sit down,” Brubitsch said firmly. “I am innocent. I am
innocent like a small child. Does a small child commit a murder? It is
ridiculous.”

Boyd picked up his cue with ease. “You might as well give us your side
of the story, then,” he said easily. “If you didn’t commit any
murders—”

“I am a small child,” Brubitsch announced.

“Okay,” Boyd said. “But if you didn’t commit any murders, just what
_have_ you been doing since you’ve been in this country as a Soviet
agent?”

“I will say nothing,” Brubitsch announced. “I am a small child. It is
enough.” He paused, blinked, and went on, “I will only tell you this:
no murders were done by our group in any of our activities.”

“And what were your activities?” Malone asked.

“Oh, many things,” Brubitsch said. “Many, many things. We—”

The telephone rang loudly, and Malone scooped it up with a practiced
hand. “Malone here,” he said.

Her Majesty’s voice was excited. “Sir Kenneth!” she said. “I just got
a tremendous burst of static!”

Malone blinked. _Is my mind acting up again?_ he thought, knowing she
would pick it up. _Am I being interfered with?_

He didn’t feel any different. But then, how was he supposed to feel?

“It’s not _your_ mind, Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said. “Not this time.
It’s _his_ mind. That sneaky-thinking Brubitsch fellow.”

_Brubitsch?_ Malone thought. _Now what is that supposed to mean?_

“I don’t know, Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said. “But get on back to
your questioning. He’s ready to talk now.”

“Okay,” Malone said aloud. “Fine.” He hung up and looked back to the
Russian sitting on his chair. Brubitsch was ready to talk, and that
was one good thing, anyhow. But what was all the static about?

What was going on?

“Now, then,” Malone said. “You were telling us about your group
activities.”

“True,” Brubitsch said. “I did not commit any murders. It is possible
that Borbitsch committed murders. It is maybe even possible that
Garbitsch committed murders. But I do not think so.”

“Why not?” Boyd said.

“They are my friends,” Brubitsch said. “Even if they tell lies. They
are also small children. Besides, I am not even the head of the
group.”

“Who is?” Malone said.

“Garbitsch,” Brubitsch said instantly. “He worked in the State
Department, and he told us what to look for in the Senate Office
Building.”

“What were you supposed to look for?” Boyd said.

“For information,” Brubitsch said. “For scraps of paper, or things we
overheard. But it was very bad, very bad.”

“What do you mean, bad?” Malone said.

“Everything was terrible,” Brubitsch said mournfully. “Sometimes
Borbitsch heard something and forgot to tell Garbitsch about it.
Garbitsch did not like this. He is a very inflamed person. Once he
threatened to send Borbitsch to the island of Yap as a spy. That is a
very bad place to go to. There are no enjoyments on the island of Yap,
and no ones likes strangers there. Borbitsch was very sad.”

“What did you do with your information?” Boyd said.

“We remembered it,” Brubitsch said. “Or, if we had a scrap of paper,
we saved it for Garbitsch and gave it to him. But I remember once that
I had some paper. It had a formula on it. I do not know what the
formula said.”

“What was it about?” Malone said.

Brubitsch gave a massive shrug. “It was about an X and some numbers,”
he said. “It was not very interesting, but it was a formula, and
Garbitsch would have liked it. Unfortunately, I did not give it to
him.”

“Why not?” Boyd said.

“I am ashamed,” Brubitsch said, looking ashamed. “I was lighting a
cigarette in the afternoon, when I had the formula. It is a very
relaxing thing to smoke a cigarette in the afternoon. It is soothing
to the soul.” He looked very sad. “I was holding the piece of paper in
one hand,” he said. “Unfortunately, the match and the paper came into
contact. I burned my finger. Here.” He stuck out a finger toward
Malone and Boyd, who looked at it without much interest for a second.
“The paper is gone,” he said. “Don’t tell Garbitsch. He is very
inflamed.”

Malone sighed. “But you remember the formula,” he said. “Don’t you?”

Brubitsch shook his massive head very slowly. “It was not very
interesting,” he said. “And I do not have a mathematical mind.”

“We know,” Malone said. “You are a small child.”

“It was terrible,” Brubitsch said. “Garbitsch was not happy about our
activities.”

“What did Garbitsch do with the information?” Boyd said.

“He passed it on,” Brubitsch said. “Every week he would send a
short-wave message to the homeland, in code. Some weeks he did not
send the message.”

“Why not?” Malone said.

“The radio did not work,” Brubitsch said simply. “We received orders
by short-wave, but sometimes we did not receive the orders. The radio
was of very poor quality, and some weeks it refused to send any
messages. On other weeks, it refused to receive any messages.”

“Who was your contact in Russia?” Boyd said.

“A man named X,” Brubitsch said. “Like in the formula.”

“But what was his real name?” Malone said.

“Who knows?” Brubitsch said. “Does it matter?”

“What else did you do?” Boyd said.

“We met twice a week,” Brubitsch said. “Sometimes in Garbitsch’s home,
sometimes in other places. Sometimes we had information. At other
times, we were friends, having a social gathering.”

“Friends?” Malone said.

Brubitsch nodded. “We drank together, talked, played chess. Garbitsch
is the best chess player in the group. I am not very good. But once we
had some trouble.” He paused. “We had been drinking Russian liquors.
They are very strong. We decided to uphold the honor of our country.”

“I think,” Malone murmured sadly, “I know what’s coming.”

“Ah?” Brubitsch said, interested. “At any rate, we decided to honor
our country in song. And a policeman came and talked to us. He took us
down to the police station.”

“Why?” Boyd said.

“He was suspicious,” Brubitsch said. “We were singing the
_Internationale_, and he was suspicious. It is unreasonable.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Boyd said. “What happened then?”

“He took us to the police station,” Brubitsch said, “and then after a
little while he let us go. I do not understand this.”

“It’s all right,” Malone said. “I do.” He drew Boyd aside for a
second, and whispered to him: “The cops were ready to charge these
three clowns with everything in the book. We had a hell of a time
springing them so we could go on watching them. I remember the
stir-up, though I never did know their names until now.”

Boyd nodded, and they returned to Brubitsch, who was staring up at
them with surly eyes.

“It is a secret you are telling him,” Brubitsch said. “That is not
right.”

“What do you mean, it’s not right?” Malone said.

“It is wrong,” Brubitsch went on. “It is not the American way.”

He went on, with some prodding, to tell about the activities of the
spy ring. It did not seem to be a very efficient spy ring; Brubitsch’s
long sad tale of forgotten messages, mixed orders, misplaced documents
and strange mishaps was a marvel and a revelation to the listening
officers. “I’ve never heard anything like it,” one of them whispered
in a tone of absolute wonder. “They’re almost working on our side.”

Over an hour later, Malone turned wearily away from the prisoner. “All
right, Brubitsch,” he said. “I guess that pretty much covers things
for the moment. If we want any more information, though—”

“Call on me,” Brubitsch said sadly. “I am not going anyplace. And I
will give you all the information you desire. But I did not commit any
murders.”

“Goodbye, small child,” Malone said, as two agents led the fat man
away. The other two left soon afterward, and Malone and Boyd were
alone.

“Think he was telling the truth?” Boyd said.

Malone nodded. “Nobody,” he said, “could make up a story like that.”

“I suppose so,” Boyd said, and the phone rang. Malone picked it up.

“Well?” he asked.

“He was telling the truth, all right,” Her Majesty said. “There are a
few more details, of course, like the girl Brubitsch was involved
with, Sir Kenneth. But she doesn’t seem to have anything to do with
the spy ring, and besides, she isn’t a very nice person. She always
wants money.”

“Sounds perfectly lovely,” Malone said. “As a matter of fact, I think
I know her. I know a lot of girls who always want money. It seems to
be in fashion.”

“You don’t know this one, Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said, “and
besides, she wouldn’t be a good influence on you.”

Malone sighed. “How about the static explosions?” he said. “Pick up
any more?”

“No,” she said. “Just that one.”

Malone nodded at the receiver. “All right,” he said. “We’re going to
bring in the second one now. Keep up the good work.”

He hung up.

“Who’ve you got in the observation room?” Boyd asked.

“Queen Elizabeth I,” Malone said. “Her Royal Majesty.”

“Oh,” Boyd said without surprise. “Well, was Brubitsch telling the
truth?”

“He wasn’t holding back anything important,” Malone said, thinking
about the girl. It would be nice to meet a bad influence, he thought
mournfully. It would be nice to go somewhere with a bad influence (a
bad influence, he amended, with a good figure) and forget all about
his job, about the spies, about telepathy, teleportation, psionics and
everything else. It might be restful.

Unfortunately, it was impossible.

“What’s this business about a static explosion?” Boyd said.

“Don’t ask silly questions,” Malone said. “A static explosion is a
contradiction in terms. If something is static, it doesn’t move—
whoever heard of a motionless explosion?”

“If it is a contradiction in terms,” Boyd said, “they’re your terms.”

“Sure,” Malone said. “But I don’t know what they mean. I don’t even
know what I mean.”

“You’re in a bad way,” Boyd said, looking sympathetic.

“I’m in a perfectly terrible way,” Malone said, “and it’s going to get
worse. You wait and see.”

“Of course I’ll wait and see,” Boyd said. “I wouldn’t miss the end of
the world for anything. It ought to be a great spectacle.” He paused.
“Want them to bring in the next one?”

“Sure,” Malone said. “What have we got to lose but our minds? And who
is the next one?”

“Borbitsch,” Boyd said. “They’re saving Garbitsch for a big finish.”

Malone nodded wearily. “Onward,” he said, and picked up the phone. He
punched a number, spoke a few words and hung up.

A minute later, the four FBI agents came back, leading a man. This one
was tall and thin, with the expression of a gloomy, degenerate and
slightly nauseated bloodhound. He was led to the chair and he sat down
in it as if he expected the worst to start happening at once.

“Well,” Malone said in a bored, tired voice. “So this is the one who
won’t talk.”




6


Midnight.

Kenneth J. Malone sat at his desk, in his Washington office,
surrounded by piles of papers covering the desk, spilling off onto the
floor and decorating his lap. He was staring at the papers as if he
expected them to leap up, dance round him and shout the solution to
all his problems at him in trained choral voices. They did nothing at
all.

Seated cross-legged on the rug in the center of the room, and looking
like an impossible combination of the last Henry Tudor and Gautama
Buddha, Thomas Boyd did nothing either. He was staring downward, his
hands folded on his ample lap, wearing an expression of utter, burning
frustration. And on a nearby chair sat the third member of the
company, wearing the calm and patient expression of the gently-born
under all vicissitudes: Queen Elizabeth I.

“All right,” Malone said into the silence. “Now let’s see what we’ve
got.”

“I think we’ve got cerebral paresis,” Boyd said. “It’s been coming on
for years.”

“Don’t be funny,” Malone said.

Boyd gave a short, mirthless bark. “Funny?” he said. “I’m absolutely
hysterical with joy and good humor. I’m out of my mind with
happiness.” He paused. “Anyway,” he finished, “I’m out of my mind.
Which puts me in good company. The entire FBI, Brubitsch, Borbitsch,
Garbitsch, Dr. Thomas O’Connor and Sir Lewis Carter—we’re all out of
our minds. If we weren’t, we’d all move away to the moon.”

“And drink to forget,” Malone added. “Sure. But let’s try and get some
work done.”

“By all means, Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said. Boyd had not included
her in his list of insane people, and she looked slightly miffed. It
was hard for Malone to tell whether she was miffed by the mention of
insanity, or at being left out.

“Let’s review the facts,” Malone said. “This whole thing started with
some inefficiency in Congress.”

“And some upheavals elsewhere,” Boyd said. “Labor unions, gangster
organizations.”

“Just about all over,” Malone said. “And though we’ve found three
spies, it seems pretty obvious that they aren’t causing this.”

“They aren’t causing much of anything,” Boyd said. “Except a lot of
unbelieving laughter further up the FBI line. I don’t think anybody is
going to believe our reports of those interviews.”

“But they’re true,” Her Majesty said.

“Sure they’re true,” Boyd said. “That’s the unbelievable part. They
read like farce, and not very good farce at that.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Malone said. “I think they’re pretty funny.”

“Shall we get back to the business at hand?” Her Majesty said gently.

“Ah,” Malone said. “Anyhow, it isn’t the spies. And what we now have
is confusion even worse compounded.”

“Confounded,” Boyd said. “John Milton. _Paradise Lost_, I heard it
somewhere.”

“I don’t mean confounded,” Malone said. “I mean confusion. Anyhow, the
Russian espionage rings in this country seem to be in as bad a state
as the Congress, the labor unions, the syndicates, and all the rest.
And all of them seem to have some sort of weird tie-in to these
flashes of telepathic interference. Right, Your Majesty?”

“I believe so, Sir Kenneth,” she said. The old woman looked tired and
confused. Somehow, a lot of the brightness seemed to have gone out of
her life. “That’s right,” she said. “I didn’t realize there was so
much of it going on. You see, Sir Kenneth, you’re the only one I can
pick up at a distance who has been having these flashes. But now that
I’m here in Washington, I can feel it going on all around me.”

“It may not have anything to do with everything else,” Boyd said.

Malone shook his head. “If it doesn’t,” he said, “it’s the weirdest
coincidence I’ve ever even dreamed about, and my dreams can be pretty
strange. No, it’s got to be tied in. There’s some kind of mental
static that is somehow making all these people goof up.”

“But why?” Boyd said. “What is it being done for? Just fun?”

“God only knows,” Malone said. “But we’re going to have to find out.”

“In that case,” Boyd said, “I suggest lots and lots of prayers.”

Her Majesty looked up. “That’s a fine idea,” she said.

“But God helps those,” Malone said, “who help themselves. And we’re
going to help ourselves. Mostly with facts.”

“All right,” Boyd said. “So far, all the facts have been a great
help.”

“Well, here’s one,” Malone said. “We got one flash each from
Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch while we were questioning them. And
in each case, that flash occurred just before they started to blab
everything they knew. Before the flash, they weren’t talking. They
were behaving just like good spies and keeping their mouths shut.
After the flash, they couldn’t talk fast enough.”

“That’s true,” Boyd said reflectively. “They did seem to give up
pretty fast, even for amateurs.”

Malone nodded. “So the question is this,” he said. “Just what happens
during those crazy bursts of static?”

He looked expectantly at Her Majesty, but she shook her head sadly. “I
don’t know,” she said. “I simply don’t know. It’s just noise to me,
meaningless noise.” She put her hands slowly over her face. “People
shouldn’t do things like that to their Sovereign,” she said in a
muffled voice.

Malone got up and went over to her. She wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t
far from it. He put an arm around her thin shoulders. “Now, look, Your
Majesty,” he said in gentle tones, “this will all clear up. We’ll find
out what’s going on, and we’ll find a way to put a stop to it.”

“Sure we will,” Boyd said. “After all, Your Majesty, Sir Kenneth and I
will work hard on this.”

“And the Queen’s own FBI,” Malone said, “won’t stop until we’ve
finished with this whole affair, once and for all.”

Her Majesty brought her hands down from her face, very slowly. She was
forcing a smile, but it didn’t look too well. “I know you won’t fail
your Queen,” she said. “You two have always been the most loyal of my
subjects.”

“We’ll work hard,” Malone said. “No matter how long it takes.”

“Because, after all,” Boyd said in a musing, thoughtful tone, “it is a
serious crime, you know.”

The words seemed to have an effect on Her Majesty, like a tonic. For a
second her face wore an expression of Royal anger and indignance, and
the accustomed strength flowed back into her aged voice. “You’re quite
correct, Sir Thomas!” she said. “The security of the Throne and the
Crown are at stake!”

Malone blinked. “What?” he said. “Are you two talking about something?
What crime is this?”

“An extremely serious one,” Boyd said in a grave voice. He rose
unsteadily to his feet, planted them firmly on the carpet, and
frowned.

“Go on,” Malone said, fascinated. Her Majesty was watching Boyd with
an intent expression.

“The crime,” Boyd said, “the very serious crime involved, is that of
Threatening the Welfare of the Queen. The criminal has committed the
crime of Causing the Said Sovereign, Baselessly, Reasonlessly and
Without Consent or Let, to Be in a State of Apprehension for Her Life
or Her Well-Being. And this crime—”

“Aha,” Malone said. “I’ve got it. The crime is—”

“High treason,” Boyd intoned.

“High treason,” Her Majesty said with satisfaction and fire in her
voice.

“Very high treason,” Malone said. “Extremely high.”

“Stratospheric,” Boyd agreed. “That is, of course,” he added, “if the
perpetrators of this dastardly crime are Her Majesty’s subjects.”

“My goodness,” the Queen said. “I never thought of that. Suppose
they’re not?”

“Then,” Malone said in his most vibrant voice, “it is an Act of War.”

“Steps,” Boyd said, “must be taken.”

“We must do our utmost,” Malone said. “Sir Thomas—”

“Yes, Sir Kenneth?” Boyd said.

“This task requires our most fervent dedication,” Malone said. “Please
come with me.”

He went to the desk. Boyd followed him, walking straight-backed and
tall. Malone bent and removed from a drawer of the desk a bottle of
bourbon. He closed the drawer, poured some bourbon into two handy
water-glasses from the desk, and capped the bottle. He handed one of
the water-glasses to Boyd, and raised the other one aloft.

“Sir Thomas,” Malone said, “I give you Her Majesty, the Queen!”

“To the Queen!” Boyd echoed.

They downed their drinks and turned, as one man, to hurl the glasses
into the wastebasket.

In thinking it over later, Malone realized that he hadn’t considered
anything about that moment silly at all. Of course, an outsider might
have been slightly surprised at the sequence of events, but Malone was
no outsider. And, after all, it was the proper way to treat a Queen,
wasn’t it?

And....

When Malone had first met Her Majesty, he had wondered why, although
she could obviously read minds, and so knew perfectly well that
neither Malone nor Boyd believed she was Queen Elizabeth I, she
insisted on an outward show of respect and dedication. He’d asked her
about it at last, and her reply had been simple, reasonable and to the
point.

According to her—and Malone didn’t doubt it for an instant—most
people simply didn’t think their superiors were all they claimed to
be. But they acted as if they did, at least while in the presence of
those superiors. It was a common fiction, a sort of handy oil on the
wheels of social intercourse.

And all Her Majesty had ever insisted on was the same sort of
treatment.

“Bless you,” she’d said, “I can’t help the way you _think_, but, as
Queen, I do have some control over the way you _act_.”

The funny thing, as far as Malone was concerned, was that the two
parts of his personality were becoming more and more alike. He didn’t
actually believe that Her Majesty was Queen Elizabeth I, and he hoped
fervently that he never would. But he did have a great deal of respect
for her, and more affection than he had believed possible at first.
She was the grandmother Malone had never known; she was good, and
kind, and he wanted to keep her happy and contented. There had been
nothing at all phony in the solemn toast he had proposed, nor in the
righteous indignation he had felt against anyone who was giving Her
Majesty even a minute’s worth of discomfort.

And Boyd, surprisingly enough, seemed to feel the same way. Malone
felt good about that; Her Majesty needed all the loyal supporters she
could get.

But all of this was later. At the time, Malone was doing nothing
except what came naturally. Nor, apparently, was Boyd. After the
glasses had been thrown, with a terrifying crash, into the metal
wastebasket, and the reverberations of that second had stopped ringing
in their ears, a moment of silence had followed.

Then Boyd turned, briskly rubbing his hands. “All right,” he said.
“Let’s get back to work.”

Malone looked at the proud, happy look on Her Majesty’s face; he saw
the glimmer of a tear in the corner of each eye. But he gave no
indication that he had noticed anything at all out of the ordinary.

“Fine,” he said. “Now, getting on back to the facts, we’ve established
something, anyhow. Some agency is causing flashes of telepathic static
all over the place. And those flashes are somehow connected with the
confusion that’s going on all around us. Somehow, these flashes have
an effect on the minds of people.”

“And we know at least one manifestation of that effect,” Boyd said.
“It makes spies blab all their secrets when they’re exposed to it.”

“These three spies, anyhow,” Malone said.

“If spies is the right word,” Boyd said.

“Okay,” Malone said. “And now we’ve got another obvious question.”

“It seems to me we’ve got about twelve,” Boyd said.

“I mean, who’s doing it?” Malone said. “Who is causing these
telepathic flashes?”

“Maybe it’s just happening,” Boyd said. “Out of thin air.”

“Maybe,” Malone said. “But let’s go on the assumption that there’s a
human cause. The other way, we can’t do a thing except sit back and
watch the world go to hell.”

Boyd nodded. “It doesn’t seem to be the Russians,” he said. “Although,
of course, it might be a Red herring.”

“What do you mean?” Malone said.

“Well,” Boyd said, “they might have known we were on to Brubitsch,
Borbitsch and Garbitsch—” He stopped. “You know,” he said, “every
time I say that name I have to reassure myself that we’re not all
walking around in the world of Florenz Ziegfeld.”

“Likewise,” Malone said. “But go on.”

“Sure,” Boyd said. “Anyhow, they might have set the three of them up
as patsies, just in case we stumbled on to this mess. We can’t
overlook this possibility.”

“Right,” Malone said. “It’s faint, but it is a possibility. In other
words, the agency behind the flashes might be Russian, and it might
not be Russian.”

“That clears that up nicely,” Boyd said. “Next question?”

“The next one,” Malone said grimly, “is, what’s behind the flashes?
Some sort of psionic power is causing them, that much is obvious.”

“I’ll go along with that,” Boyd said. “I have to go along with it. But
don’t think I like it.”

“Nobody likes it,” Malone said. “But let’s go on. O’Connor isn’t any
help; he washes his hands of the whole business.”

“Lucky man,” Boyd said.

“He says that it can’t be happening,” Malone said, “and if it is we’re
all screwy. Now, right or wrong, that isn’t an opinion that gives us
any handle to work with.”

“No,” Boyd said reflectively. “A certain amount of comfort, to be
sure, but no handles.”

“Sir Lewis Carter, on the other hand—” Malone said. He fumbled
through some of the piles of paper until he had located the ones the
president of the Psychical Research Society had sent. “Sir Lewis
Carter,” he went on, “does seem to be doing some pretty good work. At
least, some of the more modern stuff he sent over looks pretty solid.
They’ve been doing quite a bit of research into the subject, and their
theories seem to be all right, or nearly all right, to me. Of course,
I’m not an expert.”

“Who is?” Boyd said. “Except for O’Connor, of course.”

“Well, somebody is,” Malone said. “Whoever’s doing all this, for
instance. And the theories do seem okay. In most cases, for instance,
they agree with O’Connor’s work, though they’re not in complete
agreement.”

“I should think so,” Boyd said. “O’Connor wouldn’t recognize an astral
plane if TWA were putting them into service.”

“I don’t mean that sort of thing,” Malone said. “There’s lots about
astral bodies and ghosts, ectoplasm, Transcendental Yoga, theosophy,
deros, the Great Pyramid, Atlantis, Mu, norns, and other such
ridiculous pets. That’s just silly, as far as I can see. But what they
have to say about parapsychology and psionics as such does seem to be
reasonably accurate.”

“I suppose so,” Boyd said tiredly.

“Okay, then,” Malone said. “Did anybody notice anything in that pile
of stuff that might conceivably have any bearing whatever on our
problems?”

“I did,” Boyd said. “Or I think I did.”

“You both did,” Her Majesty said. “And so did I, when I looked through
it. But I didn’t bother with it. I dismissed it.”

“Why?” Malone said.

“Because I don’t think it’s true,” she said. “However, my opinion is
really only an opinion.” She smiled around at the others.

Malone picked up a thick sheaf of papers from one of the piles of his
desk. “Let’s get straight what it is we’re talking about,” he said.
“All right?”

“Anything’s all right with me,” Boyd said. “I’m easy to please.”

Malone nodded. “Now, this writer—what’s his name?” he said. He
glanced at the copy of the cover page. “_Minds and Morons_,” he read.
“By Cartier Taylor.”

“Great title,” Boyd said. “Does he say which is which?”

“Let’s get back to serious business,” Malone said, giving Boyd a
single look. There was silence for a second, and then Malone said, “He
mentions something, in the book, that he calls ‘telepathic
projection.’ As far as I understand what he’s talking about, that’s
some method of forcing your thoughts on another person.” He glanced
over at the Queen. “Now, Your Majesty,” he said, “you don’t think it’s
true—and that may only be an opinion, but it’s a pretty informed one.
It seems to me as if Taylor makes a good case for this ‘telepathic
projection’ of his. Why don’t you think so?”

“Because,” Her Majesty said flatly, “it doesn’t work.”

“You’ve tried it?” Boyd put in.

“I have,” she said. “And I have had no success with it at all. It’s a
complete failure.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Boyd said. “Just a minute.”

“What’s the matter?” Malone said. “Have you tried it, and made it
work?”

Boyd snorted. “Fat chance,” he said. “I just want to look at the
thing, that’s all.” He held out his hand, and Malone gave him the
sheaf of papers. Boyd leafed through them slowly, stopping every now
and again to consult a page, until he found what he was looking for.
“There,” he said.

“There what?” Malone said.

“Listen to this,” Boyd said. “‘For those who draw the line at demonic
possession, I suggest trying telepathic projection. Apparently, it is
possible to project one’s own thoughts directly into the mind of
another—even to the point of taking control of the other’s mind.
Hypnotism? You tell me, and we’ll both know. Ever since the orthodox
scientists have come around to accepting hypnotism, I’m been chary of
it. Maybe there really is an astral body or a soul that a person has
stashed about him somewhere—something that he can send out to take
control of another human being. But I, personally, prefer the
telepathic projection theory. All you have to do is squirt your
thoughts across space and spray them all over the other fellow’s
brain. Presto-bingo, he does pretty much what you want him to do.’”

“That’s the quote I was thinking of,” Malone said.

“Of course it is,” Her Majesty said. “But it really doesn’t work. I’ve
tried it.”

“How have you tried it?” Malone said.

“There were many times, Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said, “when I wanted
someone to do something particular for me or for some other person.
After all, you must remember that I was in a hospital for a long time.
Of course, that represents only a short segment of my life-span, but
it seemed long to me.”

Malone, who was trying to view the years from age fifteen to age
sixty-odd as a short segment of anybody’s lifetime, remembered with a
shock that this was not Rose Thompson speaking. It was Queen Elizabeth
I, who had never died.

“That’s right, Sir Kenneth,” she said kindly. “And in that hospital,
there were a number of times when I wanted one of the doctors or
nurses to do what I wanted them to. I tried many times, but I never
succeeded.”

Boyd nodded his head. “Well—” he began.

“Oh, yes, Sir Thomas,” Her Majesty said. “What you’re thinking is
certainly possible. It may even be true.”

“What _is_ he thinking?” Malone said.

“He thinks,” Her Majesty said, “that I may not have the talent for
this particular effect—and perhaps I don’t. But, talent or not, I
know what’s possible and what isn’t. And the way Mr. Taylor describes
it is simply silly, that’s all. And unladylike. Imagine any
self-respecting lady ‘squirting’ her thoughts about in space!”

“Well,” Malone said carefully, “aside from its being unladylike—”

“Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said, “you are not telepathic. Neither is
Sir Thomas.”

“I’m nothing,” Boyd said. “I don’t even exist.”

“And it is very difficult to explain to the non-telepath just what Mr.
Taylor is implying,” Her Majesty went on imperturbably. “Before you
could inject any thoughts into anyone else’s mind, you’d have to be
able to see into that mind. Is that correct?”

“I guess so,” Malone said.

“And in order to do that, you’d have to be telepathic,” Her Majesty
said. “Am I correct?”

“Correct,” Malone said.

“Well, then,” Her Majesty said with satisfaction, and beamed at him.

A second passed.

“Well, then, what?” Malone said in confusion.

“Telepathy,” Her Majesty said patiently, “is an extremely complex
affair. It involves a sort of meshing with the mind of this other
person. It has nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with this simple
‘squirting’ of thoughts across space, as if they were orange pips you
were trying to put into a wastebasket. No, Sir Kenneth, I cannot
believe in what Mr. Taylor says.”

“But it’s still possible,” Malone said.

“Oh,” Her Majesty said, “it’s certainly possible. But I should think
that if any telepaths were around, and if they were changing people’s
minds by ‘squirting’ at them, I would know it.”

Malone frowned. “Maybe you would at that,” he said. “I guess you
would.”

“Not to mention,” Boyd put in, “that if you were going to control
everything we’ve come across like that you’d need an awful lot of
telepathic operators.”

“That’s true,” Malone admitted. “And the objections seem to make some
sense. But what else is there to go on?”

“I don’t know,” Boyd said. “I haven’t the faintest idea. And I’m
rapidly approaching the stage where I don’t care.”

“Well,” Malone said, heaving a sigh, “let’s keep looking.”

He bent down and picked up another sheaf of copies from the Psychical
Research Society.

“After all,” he said, without much hope, “you never know.”

* * * * *

Malone looked around the office of Andrew J. Burris as if he’d never
seen it before. He felt tired, and worn out, and depressed; it had
been a long night, and here it was morning and the head of the FBI was
giving him instructions. It was, Malone told himself, a hell of a
life.

“Now, Malone,” Burris said, “this is a very ticklish situation. You’ve
got to handle it with great care.”

“I can see that,” Malone said apprehensively. “It certainly looks
ticklish. And unusual.”

“Well, we don’t want any trouble,” Burris said. “We have enough
trouble now.”

“Sometimes I think we have too much,” Malone said.

“That’s our job,” Burris said, looking grim.

Malone blinked. “What is?” he said.

“Having trouble,” Burris said.

There was a short silence. Malone broke it. “Anyhow,” he said, “you
feel we have enough trouble, so we’re trying to make things easy for
everybody.”

Burris nodded. “I’ve talked with the president,” he said, “and he
feels this is the best way to handle matters.”

Malone tried to imagine Burris explaining the incredible complexities
of the situation to the president, and was torn between relief that he
hadn’t been there and a curious wish to have heard the scrambled
conversation that must have taken place. “The way it seems to me,” he
said cautiously, “shipping those spies back to Russia is a worse
punishment than sending them to the federal pen.”

“Maybe it is,” Burris said. “Maybe it is. How would you feel if you
were being sent to jail?”

“Innocent,” Malone said instantly.

“But that isn’t the point,” Burris went on. “You see, Malone, we don’t
really have much damaging evidence against those spies, except for
their confessions. During all the time we were watching them, we took
care that they never did come up with anything dangerous; we weren’t
fishing for them but for their superiors, for the rest of the
network.”

“There doesn’t seem to be any more network,” Malone said. “Not in this
country, anyhow.”

“Sure,” Burris said. “We know that now, thanks to the confessions, and
to Her Majesty. But we can’t prosecute on that sort of evidence. You
know what a good defense attorney could do with unsupported
confessions—and even if we wanted to take the lid off telepathy for
the general public, it would be absolute hell bringing it into court.”

“So,” Malone said, “we can’t put them in prison, even if we want to.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Burris said hastily. “We could probably win,
even against a good defense. But they wouldn’t get much time in
prison, and we’d only end up deporting them in any case.”

Malone fished for a cigarette, lit it and blew out smoke. “So we’re
going to save the taxpayers some money,” he said. “That’ll be nice for
a change.”

“That’s right,” Burris said, beaming. “We’re going to save Federal
funds by shipping them back to their motherland now. After all, they
did take out their naturalization papers under false names, and their
declarations are chockfull of false information. So all it takes is a
court order to declare their citizenships null and void, and hand all
three of them back to the Soviets.”

“A nice, simple housecleaning,” Malone said. “All open and
above-board. And the confessions will certainly stand up in a
deportation hearing.”

“No question of it,” Burris said. “But the reason I called you here,
Malone, is that there’s still one thing bothering me.”

Malone blew out some more smoke, thought wistfully about cigars, and
said: “What? Everything seems simple enough to me.”

Burris frowned and leaned back in his chair. “It’s this notion of
yours, Malone,” he said.

“Notion?”

“About going over there,” Burris said. “Now, I can understand your
wanting some facts on Moscow, current background and all that sort of
thing. So far, everything makes sense.”

“Fine,” Malone said warily.

“But, after all, Malone,” Burris said, “we do have such a thing as the
Central Intelligence Agency. They send us reports. That’s what they’re
for. And why you want to ignore the reports and make a trip over there
to walk around and see for yourself—”

“It’s because of everything that’s happening,” Malone said.

Burris looked puzzled. “What?” he said.

“Because of all the confusion,” Malone said. “Frankly, I can’t trust
the CIA, or any other branch of the government. I’ve got to see for
myself.”

Burris considered this for a second. “It’s going to look very
peculiar,” he said.

Malone shrugged. “Everything looks peculiar,” he said. “A little more
won’t hurt anything. And if I do turn up anything we can use, the
whole trip will be worth it.”

“But sending an FBI man along with Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch
is a little strange,” Burris said. “Not to mention Her Majesty.”

“There is that,” Malone said. “I wonder what our Red friends are going
to think of the Queen.”

“God knows,” Burris said. “If they take her seriously, they’re liable
to call her some sort of capitalist deviationist.”

“And if they don’t take her seriously?” Malone said.

“Then they’re going to wonder why she’s _pretending_ to be a
capitalist deviationist,” Burris said.

Malone flicked his cigarette at an ashtray. “You can’t win,” he said.

“Frankly,” Burris said, “I wouldn’t allow Her Majesty to go along
under any circumstances—except that there is an excuse for having an
older woman around.”

“There is?” Malone said.

Burris nodded. “As a chaperone,” he said.

“Now, wait a minute,” Malone said. “Brubitsch, Borbitsch and
what’s his name don’t need a chaperone.”

“I didn’t say it was for them,” Burris said.

“Me?” Malone asked in a tone of absolute wonder. “Now, Chief, I don’t
need a chaperone. I’m a grown man. I know my way around. And the idea
of having Her Majesty along to chaperone me is going to make
everything look even stranger. After all, Chief—”

“Malone,” Burris said, in a voice of steel.

“Sorry,” Malone mumbled. “But, really, I’m not some young, innocent
girl in a Victorian novel.”

“No,” Burris said, a trifle sadly, “you’re not. But there is one going
along on the trip with the rest of you.”

“There is?” Malone said. “Who is she? Rebecca?”

“Her name’s Luba,” Burris said. “Luba Garbitsch.”

“Garbitsch’s wife?” Malone said.

Burris shook his head. “His daughter,” he said. “And don’t tell me
there isn’t any such name as Luba. I know there isn’t. But what would
you pick to go with Garbitsch?”

“Wastepaper basket,” Malone said instantly. “Grapefruit rinds. Lemon
peels. Coffee grounds.”

“Damn it, Malone,” Burris said, “this is serious.”

“Well,” Malone said, “it doesn’t sound serious. What are we doing,
deporting the entire family?”

“I suppose we could,” Burris said, “if we really wanted to get
complicated about it. What with Garbitsch’s false declaration, I
haven’t the faintest idea what his daughter’s status would be—but she
_was_ born here, Malone, and as far as we can tell she’s perfectly
loyal to the United States.”

“Fine,” Malone said. “So you’re sending her to Russia. This is making
less and less sense, you know.”

Burris rubbed a hand over his face. “Malone,” he said in a quiet,
patient voice, “why don’t you wait for me to finish? Then everything
will make sense. I promise.”

“Well, all right,” Malone said doubtfully. “Luba Garbitsch is going
along to Russia, in spite of the fact that she’s perfectly loyal.”

“True,” Burris said. “You see, Malone, she loves her traitorous old
daddy just the same. Family affection. Very touching.”

“And if he’s going to Moscow—”

“She wants to go along,” Burris said. “That’s right.”

“And you’re going to send her along,” Malone said, “out of the
goodness of your kindly old heart. Just like Santa Claus. Or the
Easter bunny.”

Burris looked acutely uncomfortable. “Now, Malone,” he said. “It’s not
exactly that, and you know it.”

“It isn’t?” Malone said, trying to look surprised.

Burris shook his head. “If we send Luba Garbitsch along,” he said,
“that gives us a good excuse for Her Majesty. As a chaperone.”

“Are you sure,” Malone asked slowly, “that anybody with a name like
Luba Garbitsch could plausibly need a chaperone? Even in a den of
vice? Because somehow it doesn’t sound right: Luba Garbitsch,
chaperoned by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I.”

“Well,” Burris said, “it won’t be the Queen. I mean, she won’t be
known as the Queen.”

“Incognito?” Malone said.

Burris shrugged. “In away,” he said. “What do you think would be a
good name for her to travel under?”

Malone considered. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “But no more
Lubas.”

“I was thinking,” Burris said carefully. “How about Rose Thompson?”

There was a long silence.

“I don’t know whether she’ll go for the idea,” Malone said. “But I’ll
try it.”

“You can do it, Malone,” Burris said instantly. “I know you can. I
just know it.”

“Your faith,” Malone said with a sigh, “is going to be too much for me
one of these days.”

Burris shrugged. “Just take it easy, Malone,” he said. “You said you
wanted to have Her Majesty over there to read a few minds, and you’ve
got her. But remember, don’t get involved in anything complicated.
Don’t start any fireworks.”

“I hope not,” Malone said.

“Stay out of political arguments,” Burris said.

Malone blinked. “What do you think I’m going to do?” he said. “Bring
along a soapbox?”

“You never know,” Burris said. “Just keep quiet, and don’t go prowling
around where you’re not wanted.”

“That,” Malone said decisively, “would keep me out of Russia
entirely.”

“Damn it,” Burris said, “you know what I mean. We don’t want any
international incidents, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Malone said.

Burris nodded. “All right, then,” he said. “Your plane leaves from the
airport in an hour. You’d better go and talk to Her Majesty first.”

“Right,” Malone said.

“And I hope you know what you’re doing,” Burris said.

_So do I_, Malone thought privately. Aloud, he said, “I just want to
get the feel of things over there, that’s all, sir. I won’t cause any
more trouble than an ordinary tourist.”

“Malone,” Burris said, “don’t be an ordinary tourist. They’re
empty-headed morons and they do make trouble. Be an invisible tourist.
Be nice to everybody. Be polite and kind. Don’t step on any toes, no
matter whose and no matter why.”

“Yes, sir,” Malone said.

“Remember, they’re going to know who you are,” Burris said.

“It’s not as if we could keep it a secret.”

“Yes, sir,” Malone said. “I’ll remember.”

“All right.” Burris extended his hand. “Good luck, Malone,” he said,
with a deeper feeling of sincerity than Malone had experienced from
him in months.

Malone shook the hand. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

* * * * *

A little less than an hour later, Malone sat on the steps of the
landing ramp that led up to the open door of the big Air Force
transport plane on the runway. The plane was waiting, and so was
Malone. He didn’t feel confident, or even excited. He felt just a
little bit frightened. Burris’ complicated warnings had had some
effect, and Malone was fighting down a minor case of the shakes.

Next to him, her face wreathed in happy smiles, sat a smartly-dressed
grey-haired woman in her sixties. She wore an unobtrusive tailored
suit and a light jacket, and she looked as if she might be one of the
elder matrons of the society set, very definitely an upper-crust type.
In spite of the normality of her clothing, Her Majesty looked every
inch a Queen, Malone thought.

“And that, Sir Kenneth, is only natural,” she said sweetly. “Even when
traveling incognito, one must retain one’s dignity. And I don’t object
at all to using the name of Rose Thompson in a good cause; it was used
for so many years it almost feels like part of me.”

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” Malone said mildly.

A voice from above and behind him interrupted his worried thoughts.
“Mr. Malone!” it said. “Mr. Malone?”

Malone screwed his head around and looked up. An Air Force colonel was
standing in the doorway of the plane, looking down with a stern,
worried expression. “Yes?” Malone said. “What is it?”

“Takeoff, Mr. Malone,” the colonel said. “We’re due to go in fifteen
minutes, and our clearance has been established.”

“Fine,” Malone said.

“But your passengers,” the colonel said. “Where are they?”

Malone tried to look calm, cool and collected. “They’ll be here,” he
said. “Don’t worry about a thing.” Privately, he hoped he was right.
Boyd hadn’t shown up yet, and Boyd was bringing the musical-comedy spy
trio. It wasn’t, Malone thought, that Boyd was usually late. But with
Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch in tow, almost anything could
happen, he thought. He hoped fervently that it wouldn’t.

“It won’t,” Her Majesty said. “At least, it hasn’t so far. They’re all
in a car, and they’re driving right here. Boyd is thinking that he
ought to be here within five minutes.”

Malone nodded, wiping his forehead. “Five minutes, Colonel,” he called
back to the figure at the door. The colonel nodded efficiently at him,
turned and disappeared inside the plane. Malone looked at his watch.
The second hand was going around awfully fast, he thought. He wondered
if it were possible for time to speed up while he waited, so that by
the time Boyd arrived he would be an old, old man. He felt about eight
years older already, he told himself, and a minute hadn’t even passed.

He forced his eyes away from the moving second hand. Looking at it, he
knew, would only make him more nervous. Maybe there was some scenery
around that he could stare at. He raised his eyes and looked out
toward the gates that led to the interior of the air terminal.

Scenery, he told himself in sudden wonder, was no word for it.

He stared. He wanted to blink, but at the same time he felt that it
would be a shame to close his eyes for even a tenth of a second. He
held his eyelids apart by main force and went right on staring.

The girl walking toward him across the field was absolutely beautiful.
She seemed to make everything light up and start singing. Malone was
sure that, somewhere, he could hear birds plugging their favorite
numbers, and the soft rustle of the wind through pine branches. He
could feel the soft caress of the wind on his face, and he could smell
the odor of lilacs and honeysuckles and violets and whatever all those
other flowers were. They had all different colors and shapes, and he
couldn’t remember many of their names, but he could tell they were all
around him. They had to be all around him. Especially all the red
ones.

The girl had red hair that tossed gently in the wind. The bottom
two-thirds of her figure, Malone was happy to note, was not only as
good as the top third but a good deal better. It took him several
seconds to reach this conclusion, because at first he was willing to
swear that he had never seen such a beautiful girl before.

But, he told himself with a shade of apprehension, he had.

As she approached, he stood up. “Well, well,” he said brightly. “If it
isn’t the Lady That’s Known as Lou. Did the Psychical Research Society
give you the day off, or are you here to see about a misplaced broom?”

The girl beamed at him. “My, my,” she said. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Malone said. “And—”

“And how are the others?” she said.

Malone blinked. “Others?” he said.

She nodded. “Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, Bashful and Doc,” she said.

Malone opened his mouth, shut it again, and thought for a second.
“Now, wait a minute,” he said at last. “That’s not fair. I—”

“Oh,” she said. “And I nearly forgot. I owe you one from last time:
_gesundheit_.”

“And many happy returns,” Malone said. “Seriously, what are you doing
out here?”

“Talking,” the girl said. “To you. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“I mean in general,” Malone said desperately.

“In general,” she said agreeably, “I’m here to take a little trip.”

“Oh,” Malone said. “By plane?”

She smiled sweetly and shook her head. “Not at all,” she said. “I’m
waiting for the next scheduled broomstick.”

Malone took a deep breath. “When does your plane leave?” he said
doggedly.

“In ten minutes or so,” she said.

“Then you’d better hurry and get on,” he said.

She nodded. “That’s what I thought,” she said.

A second passed.

“Did you want to say something?” Malone said uncomfortably.

She shook her head. “Not particularly,” she said.

“Well, then—”

“The time _is_ growing short,” she said.

“Isn’t it, though?” Malone said, feeling a little mystified. “Well,
now. Goodbye. I’ll see you soon.”

“Goodbye,” she said.

Another second passed.

“Your plane—” Malone started.

“How about yours?” she said.

“I’m all right,” Malone said nervously. “But if your plane’s leaving
in ten minutes you’d better get on it.”

“I intend to,” she said, without moving.

“Well—” Malone started.

“As soon as you quit blocking the ramp,” she said. “Would you mind
terribly if I climbed over your head? Because I do have to get on
board.”

“Now wait a minute,” Malone said. “This isn’t your plane.”

“How do you know?” she said. “Do you own it? Are you flying it away?”

“Well,” Malone said helplessly, “it’s my plane, and there’s nobody
going on it but—”

He paused. A great light seemed to burst in his mind, shedding a
perfectly horrible glow over the wreck of his mental processes. “You
know,” he said in a tentative tone, “we never have been properly
introduced. I only know your name is Lou.”

“That’s what people call me,” the girl said. “For short. I’m Luba
Garbitsch.”

“And I’m Kenneth Malone,” Malone said. “Kenneth J. Malone. Of the
FBI.”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

“Your father—”

“My father is going to Russia,” she said, “and I am going along with
him.”

“Oh,” Malone said. “Sure. Sure. Oh.”

There was a longer silence.

“Can I get on board now?” Luba said.

“There isn’t any hurry,” Malone said. “We’re still waiting for—for
passengers. And this is one of them.” He turned and indicated the
Queen. “This is Her—Rose Thompson. She’ll be traveling along with
us.”

Her Majesty was wearing a broad, broad grin, Malone noticed nervously
as he turned. Undoubtedly she had been tuned in to the whole
conversation, and knew just what had gone on in both minds. But she
only said, “I’m very pleased to meet you, my dear.”

Lou blinked, smiled and stretched out her hand. “Well, then,” she
said. “Hello. And let’s all have a happy trip.”

“By all means,” Malone said. “And the trip seems to be about to
start.”

He could hear the tramping of a lot of feet coming across the field
toward them. He looked and saw that the feet were all neatly attached
to bodies, two to a body. There were Thomas Boyd’s feet, the assorted
twelve feet of six FBI agents, and three pairs that belonged to Alexis
Brubitsch, Ivan Borbitsch and Vasili Garbitsch. Brubitsch looked even
fatter than ever, Borbitsch even thinner. Garbitsch was of an
indeterminate middling shape; he had grey hair and a pair of
pince-nez, and he walked a trifle unevenly, like a duck, with his
hands clasped low in front of him. He was looking down at the ground
as the crowd shoved him along.

When the crowd neared the steps, Luba went over to him. Garbitsch
looked up, with a pleasant, somehow wistful smile on his face. “Hello,
Luba, my child,” he said.

Luba smiled, too. “Hello, Dad,” she said. “All ready to go?”

“Certainly I am ready,” he said. “I am all packed. We take off in a
few minutes. And you, Luba, my child?”

“Fine, Dad,” she said.

She looked down. “They’ve got handcuffs on you,” she said. “Why,
that’s—”

Garbitsch shrugged. He looked even more wistful. “A formality,” he
said. “It makes no difference.”

“Okay,” Boyd said suddenly. “We’ve got to get out of here pretty soon,
and you’ll be taking off. Let’s break it up. Miss Thompson, you and
Luba go aboard. Malone, you follow with the others.”

Malone rounded up Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch and followed the
ladies aboard.

He came back to the door then, and stuck his head out. “The keys,” he
said.

Boyd stared. “What?”

“The keys to the handcuffs,” Malone said. “I’ll need ’em.”

“You’re going to take them off when they get to Russia?” Boyd said.

Malone shook his head. “No,” he said. “Now.”

“But—”

“I think we’ll have plenty of warning if they decide to try anything,
Tom,” Malone said quietly. “Her Majesty, after all, is keeping them
under surveillance.”

Without another word, Boyd tossed up the keys. Malone caught and
pocketed them. “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” he said.
“Meanwhile, you can keep digging on other stuff—what we’ve discussed
and anything it seems to lead into.”

“Right,” Boyd said. “Stay out of trouble, Ken. So long.”

Malone nodded and ducked back into the plane. He unlocked the
handcuffs, and Brubitsch and Borbitsch immediately went and sat down
mournfully together at the back of the plane. Malone looked for Lou,
but she was already seated—with Her Majesty, naturally. He sighed
briefly and sat down, at last, next to the wistful Garbitsch.

“It will be nice to see Russia again,” Garbitsch said. “I hardly hoped
to do so.”

The plane shuddered, roared and took off. Then it settled down to its
normal state of unnatural quiet. Malone sat back and tried to relax.

It was impossible.




7


Red Square was, somehow, disappointing. It was crowded with men and
women, all looking very Russian in an undefined sort of way, and the
big glass windows sparkled from every side. “I know it’s silly,” Luba
said in a baffled voice, “but, somehow, I always expected Red Square
to be red.”

“And why should that be?” the MVD man next to her said. He was a burly
man with a sour expression, as if he had eaten too many onions the day
before.

“Well,” Malone said, “it is Red Square, after all.”

“But red is symbolic only,” the MVD man said surlily. “Is not color.
Only symbol of glorious Russia.”

“I suppose so,” Luba said. “But it’s still disappointing.”

“You expect, perhaps, that we recruit our glorious Red Army from
American Indian tribes?” the MVD man said sourly. “You are
literal-minded bourgeois intellectual. This is not good thing to be.”

“Somehow,” Malone mused, “I didn’t think it was.”

“But this is different,” Luba said. “The Red Army is made up of
Russians. But this is just a square. You could paint it.”

“After all,” Malone offered, “the White House is white, isn’t it?”

“White is cowardly color,” the MVD man pointed out with satisfaction.

“Never mind that,” Malone said. “We call it a white house, and it is a
white house. You call this a red square, and it isn’t even pink. Not
even a little bit pink. It’s just—just—”

“Just building-colored,” Luba put in. Malone turned to her and
executed a small bow.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Think nothing of it,” Luba said.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Malone said. “I will.”

The MVD man hissed like a teakettle and both heads swung round to look
at him again. Her Majesty, who had been admiring some dresses in a
shop window, also turned. “My goodness,” she said. “That’s a terrible
wheeze. Do you take something for it?”

“Is not wheeze,” the MVD man said. “Is noise representing impatience
with arrogance and stupidity of capitalist warmonger conversation.”

“Arrogance?” Luba said.

“Stupidity?” Malone said.

Her Majesty drew herself to her full height. “We do not monger war,”
she said. “Not in the least. We are not mongers.”

The MVD man looked at her, blinked, sighed and looked away. “This
color discussion,” he said, “it is very silly. Look at the Blue Ridge
Mountains, in your country. Are they blue?”

“Well—” Malone said.

“What color, for example, is the Golden Gate Bridge?” the MVD man
continued, with heavy sarcasm. “Is not even a gate. Is a bridge. Is
not golden. But you say we disappoint. No. You disappoint.”

There seemed to be no immediate answer to that, so Malone didn’t try
for one. Instead, he went back to looking at the Square, and beyond it
to where the inverted turnips of the Kremlin gleamed in the moonlight.
The turnips were very pretty, if a little odd for building-tops. But
Red Square, in spite of all its historic associations, seemed to be a
little dull. The buildings were just buildings, and the streets were
filled with Russians. They were not bomb-throwing Russians, bearded
Russians or even “Volga Boatman”-singing Russians. They were just
ordinary, dull Russians of every sort, shade, race, color and previous
condition of servitude.

It was just about what he’d expected after the trip. That hadn’t been
exciting either, he told himself. There had been no incident of any
kind. None of the three spies seemed to be exactly overjoyed about
being sent back to good old Mother Russia, but none seemed inclined to
make much fuss about the matter, either. Malone had blandly told them
that they were being deported, instead of tried, because there was no
evidence that was worth the expense of a trial. And, besides that, he
had particularly emphasized that the FBI did not believe any of the
stories the three men had told.

“They just don’t match up,” he said. “You all told different stories,
and there’s too much disagreement between them. Frankly, we don’t
believe any of them—not yet, we don’t. But mark my words. We’ll find
out the truth some day.”

He’d thought it was a good speech, and Her Majesty had agreed with
him. It had its desired effect, since the plane was the first place
the three had had a chance to meet since their arrest. “Each one knows
that he told the truth,” Her Majesty said, “but nobody knows what the
other two said.”

“That’s what I figured,” Malone said. “They didn’t have a chance to
talk to each other.”

“And so each one is lying his head off to the others,” Her Majesty
said, “and telling them all about how he, too, lied gloriously and
bravely in defense of the Motherland. It’s really very funny.”

“Well,” Malone said, “it makes them happy. And why not?”

Luba, too, had chatted with her father quite a lot of the time. Her
Majesty reported that none of this conversation could possibly be
understood as dangerous or harmful. It was just simple conversation.

Of course, Luba and her father hadn’t talked all the time, and Malone
did have a chance to get a few words in edgewise. Her Majesty made no
report on those conversations, but Malone was comfortably aware that
they did not belong in the harmless class. His relationship with the
girl seemed, he told himself happily, to be improving slightly. Now
and again, he even won a round from her.

As the American plane crossed the border, it was picked up by an
escort of Russian fighter craft, which stuck with them all the way
into Moscow. The fighters didn’t do anything; they were just there,
Malone figured, for insurance. But they made him nervous when he
looked out the window. The trip from the border to Moscow seemed to
take a long time.

Then, at the airfield, a group of MVD men had almost elbowed the
American Embassy delegation out of the way in greeting the
disembarking little band. There was a lot of palaver, in Russian,
English and various scrambled mixtures which nobody understood. The
American delegation greeted Malone, Luba and Her Majesty formally, and
the MVD concentrated on Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch. The three
spies were hustled away, apparently to MVD Headquarters, without much
fuss. Luba said goodbye to her father calmly enough, and Vasili
Garbitsch seemed almost entirely unaffected by his surroundings. As
the plane touched ground, he had said: “Ah, the soil of Mother
Russia,” but, outside of a goodbye or two, those were his last words
before leaving.

One MVD man stayed behind, even after the American delegation had
left. His name, he explained, was Vladimir Josefovitch Petkoff. “It
will be my pleasure to show your group the many historic and
interesting sights of Moskva,” he announced to Malone.

“Pleasure?” Malone said. Petkoff was tall and heavy, and wore a row of
medals that strung out across his chest like a newspaper headline.

“My duty,” Petkoff said flatly, “is my pleasure. That is how we
arrange matters in Russia.”

And so the tour had started, with Red Square. Malone told himself he
didn’t really mind if it weren’t red, but he did think it could at
least look sinister. Unfortunately, the Square did not seem
particularly willing to oblige.

“So this is Red Square,” Malone said, after a long silence.

“You do not sound interested,” Petkoff said in what sounded like a
vaguely ominous voice. “Because it is not painted in capitalistic and
obvious colors, it bores you?”

“Not exactly,” Malone said. “But when you’ve seen one Square, you’ve
seen them all, is how I feel about it. There must be somewhere else to
sight-see.”

“Somewhere?” Petkoff said. “There is everywhere. This is Moskva, the
capital and the greatest city in Mother Russia. That is what we are
told to say.” He lowered his voice. “Personally,” he added, “I come
from Leningrad. I prefer it. But in Moskva one talks only of Moskva.”

“I know just how you feel,” Malone assured him. “I’ve been to San
Francisco.”

“Well, then,” Petkoff said, almost smiling at him. “What is there you
would like to see?”

Malone fished in his pocket for an American cigarette. He’d brought a
carton with him, having once tried Russian makes. They seemed to be
mostly cardboard, both the long filter and the tobacco. He lit the
cigarette and thought for a second. “I don’t suppose,” he said
cautiously, “that we could take a look around inside the Kremlin,
could we?”

“Aha,” Petkoff said. “I see what is in your mind.”

“You do?” Malone said, startled.

“Naturally,” Petkoff said. “You wish to see the tomb of Lenin. It is
famous throughout the world.”

Malone considered that for a minute. “Somehow,” he said cautiously,
“the coffin of Lenin doesn’t exactly sound like a gay start for
sight-seeing.”

Petkoff looked pleased instantly. “I understand,” he said. “Truly I
understand. You, too, feel sad over the death of the great Lenin. How
beautiful! How cultured!”

Malone wondered whether or not to disillusion the man, and decided
against it. “Well, something like that,” he said vaguely.

“I’ll tell you what: is there a restaurant around here where we could
get something to eat?”

“To eat?” Petkoff said, still looking pleased. “You wish to eat?”

“Well,” Malone said, “I’m rather hungry, and I guess the ladies must
be, too.”

“What?” Luba said, returning to the group. She had joined Her Majesty
in viewing the display of dresses. The Queen came scurrying over, too,
through the silent and jostling Russian crowds.

“I was suggesting a restaurant,” Malone said.

“Best idea anybody’s had all day,” Lou said. Her Majesty graciously
consented to agree, and Petkoff beamed like the rising sun.

“My friends,” he said. “My very fine friends—although you are
capitalistic bourgeois intellectuals, thrown aside by the path of
progress—in Moskva we have the finest restaurants in all the world.”

“How about ... oh, Leningrad?” Malone said in a low voice.

“In Leningrad,” Petkoff admitted, “the restaurants are better. But in
Moskva, the restaurants are very good indeed. Much better than one
might expect, if one knows Leningrad.”

“Well,” Malone said, “I suppose we’ve just got to put up with Moscow.”

They went back to the corner, and hailed the long, black,
sleek-looking limousine that had brought them in from the airport. The
two silent men in the front seat of the gleaming Volga sedan were
waiting patiently. Malone, Her Majesty and Lou got into the back,
Petkoff in front. The two men were as still as statues—and rather
unpleasant-looking statues, Malone thought—until Petkoff snapped
something in Russian. Then one of them, at the wheel, said: “_Da,
Tovarishch_.”

The car started down the Moscow streets.

Her Majesty was silent and somewhat abstracted during the ride, just
as she had been during the entire trip so far. She was, Malone knew,
prying into every mind she could touch. He smiled inwardly when he
thought about that.

The MVD, all unbeknownst to itself, was busily carrying around and
protecting the single most dangerous spy in Moscow.

Nobody else spoke, either, until the car was moving along at a good
clip. Petkoff began some small talk then, but it wasn’t very
interesting until he finally managed to edge it around to the subject
he really wanted to talk about.

“By the way, Mr. Malone,” he said, in a voice that sounded as if
Petkoff were trying to establish an offhand manner, and not succeeding
in the least. “It was thoughtful, very thoughtful, of American
government, to return to us those men. Very kind.”

Malone’s expression conveyed nothing but the sheerest good will.
“Well, you know how it is,” he said. “Anything we can do to preserve
peace and amity between our countries—we’ll do it. You know that.
Getting along, coexistence, that sort of thing. Oh, we’re glad to
oblige.”

“I am sure,” Petkoff said darkly. “You realize, of course, that they
are criminals? Deserters from Red Army, embezzlers. Embezzlers of
money.”

Wondering vaguely what else you could be an embezzler of, Malone
nodded. “That’s what your ambassador in Washington said, when we told
him about the deportation order.”

“But Dad’s not an embezzler,” Luba broke in. “Or a deserter, either.
He—”

“We have the records,” Petkoff said.

“But—”

“Ordinarily, Mr. Malone,” Petkoff said pointedly, “we do not find it
the policy of the American government to send back political
refugees.”

“Now, listen,” Lou said. “If you think you can shut me up—”

“That is exactly what I think,” Petkoff said. “Let me assure you that
no offense has been intended.”

Lou opened her mouth and started to say something. Then she shut it
again. “Well,” she said, “I guess this isn’t the time to argue about
it. I’m sorry, Mr. Petkoff.”

The MVD man beamed back at her. “Call me Vladimir,” he said.

Malone broke in hastily. “You see, Major,” he said, “these men are all
embezzlers, as you’ve said yourself. We have the word of your
government on that.”

Petkoff took his eyes off Lou with what seemed real reluctance. “Oh,”
he said. “Yes. Of course you do.”

“Therefore,” Malone said smoothly, “the three are criminals and not
political refugees.”

“Indeed,” Petkoff said blandly. “Very interesting. Your government has
done a good deal of thinking in this matter.”

“Sure we have,” Malone said. “After all, we don’t want to cause any
trouble.”

“No,” Petkoff said, and frowned. “Of course not.”

“Naturally,” Malone said.

After that, there was silence for almost a full minute. Then Major
Petkoff turned to Malone again with a frown. “Wait,” he said.

“Wait?” Malone said.

“The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” Petkoff said, “has no
extradition treaty with your capitalist warmongering country.”

“We’re not warmongers,” Her Majesty put in. Both men ignored her.

“True,” Malone admitted.

“Then there was no reason to send these men back to us,” Petkoff said.

“Oh, no,” Malone said. “There was a very good reason. You see, we
didn’t want them in our country, either.”

“But—”

“And when we found that they’d lied on their naturalization papers,
why, naturally, we took immediate steps. The only steps we could take,
as a matter of fact.”

“The only steps?” Petkoff said. “You could have preferred charges.
This was not done. Why was it not done?”

“That,” Malone said, sidestepping neatly, “is a matter of governmental
policy, Major Petkoff. And I can’t provide any final answer.”

“Ah?” Petkoff said.

“But, after all, a trial would not make sense,” Malone said, now
busily attacking from the side. “You see, at first we thought they
were espionage agents.”

“A foolish conclusion,” Petkoff said uneasily.

Malone nodded. “That’s what we finally realized,” he said. “We
questioned them, but their stories were nonsense, absolute nonsense.
Of course, we had no idea of what foreign government might have
employed them.”

“Of course not,” Petkoff said, shifting slightly in his seat. The car
took a wide curve and swayed slightly, and Malone found himself nearly
in Lou’s lap. The sensation was so pleasant that all conversation was
delayed for a couple of seconds, until the car had righted itself.

“So,” Malone went on when he had straightened out, “we decided to save
ourselves the expense of a trial.”

“Very natural,” Petkoff said. The slight delay had apparently allowed
him to recover his own mental balance. “The capitalist countries think
only of money.”

“Sure,” Malone said agreeably. “Well, anyhow, that’s the way it was.
There was no point, really, in putting them in prison—what for? What
good could it do us?”

“Who knows?” Petkoff said.

“Exactly,” Malone said. “So, since all we wanted to do was get rid of
them, and since we had an easy way to do that, why, we took it, that’s
all, and shipped them here.”

“I see,” Petkoff said. “And the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is
properly grateful.”

“My goodness,” Her Majesty put in, apparently out of an irrepressible
sense of fun. “Maybe we’ll get medals.”

“Medals,” Petkoff said sternly, “are not given to capitalist
agitators.”

“We are not agitated,” Her Majesty said, and folded her hands in her
lap, looking quite satisfied with herself.

Petkoff thought for a second. “And why,” he said, “did you feel that
such elaborate precautions were necessary in returning these men to
us?”

Malone shrugged. “Well, we couldn’t have them just running around all
over the world, could we?” he said. “We felt that here they’d be
properly housed and fed, in their own homeland, even if they didn’t
get a job.”

“They will be properly taken care of,” Petkoff prophesied darkly.

“Now, wait a minute—” Lou began, and then stopped. “Sorry,” she said.

Malone felt sorry for her, but there was nothing he could say to make
things any better. “Exactly,” he told Petkoff with what he hoped was a
smile.

“Ah, well,” Petkoff said. “My friend and colleague, we should cease
this shoptalk. Shoptalk?”

“Quite correct,” Malone said.

“I have studied English a long time,” Petkoff said. “It is not a
logical language.”

“You’re doing very well,” Malone said. Petkoff gave him a military
duck of the head.

“I appreciate your compliments,” he said. “But I fear we are boring
the ladies.”

The major had timed his speech well. At that moment, the ornate Volga
pulled up to a smooth stop before a large, richly decorated building
that glowed brightly under the electric lights of a large sign. The
sign said something incomprehensible in Cyrillic script. Under it, the
building entrance was gilded and carved into fantastic rococo shapes.
Malone stared at the sign, and was about to ask a question about it
when Petkoff spoke.

“Trotkin’s,” he said. “The finest restaurant in all the world—in
Moskva, this is what they say of it.”

“I understand,” Malone said.

“Come,” Petkoff said grandly, and got out of the car. One of the two
silent men leaped out and opened the back door, and Her Majesty, Lou
and Malone climbed out and stood blinking on the sidewalk under the
sign.

Petkoff leaned over and said something to the driver. The second
silent man got back into the car, and it drove away down the street,
turned a corner and disappeared. The party of four started toward the
entrance of the restaurant.

The door swung open before Major Petkoff reached it. A doorman was
holding it, and bowing to each of the four as they passed. He was
dressed in Victorian livery, complete to knee-breeches and lace, and
Malone thought this was rather odd for the classless Russian society.
But the doorman was only the opening note of a great symphony.

Inside, there were tables and chairs—or at least, Malone told
himself, that’s what he thought they were. They were massive wood
affairs, carved into tortuous shapes and gilded or painted in all
sorts of colors that glittered madly under the barrage of several
electric chandeliers.

The chandeliers hung from a frescoed ceiling, and looked much too
heavy. They swayed and tinkled in time to the music that filled the
room, but for a second Malone looked past them at the ceiling. It
appeared to represent some sort of Russian heaven, at the end of the
Five-Year Plan. There were officers and ladies eating grapes,
waltzing, strolling on white puffy clouds, singing, drinking, making
love. There was an awful lot of activity going on up on the ceiling,
and it wasn’t until Malone lowered his gaze that he realized that none
of this activity had been exaggerated.

True, there were no white puffy clouds, and he couldn’t immediately
locate a bunch of grapes anywhere. But there were the musicians, in
the same Victorian outfits as the doorman: three fiddlers, a cellist,
and a man who played piano. “Just like in night-clubs in bourgeois
Paris,” Petkoff said, following Malone’s gaze with every evidence of
pride.

Between the musicians and Malone were a lot of tables and chairs and
ancient, proud-looking waiters who appeared to have been hired when
Trotkin’s had opened—and that, Malone thought, had been a long, long
time ago. He felt like those two ladies, whose names he couldn’t
remember, who said they’d slipped back in time. Officers and their
ladies, the men in glittering uniforms, the ladies in ball dresses of
every imaginable shade, cut, material and degree of exposure, were
waltzing around the room looking very polite and old-world. Others
were sitting at the tables, where candles fluttered, completely
useless in the electric glare. The noise was something terrific, but,
somehow, it was all very well-bred.

The headwaiter was suddenly next to them. He hadn’t walked there, at
least not noticeably; he appeared to have perfected the old-world
manner of the silent servant. Or, of course, Malone thought, the man
might be a teleport.

“Ah, Major Petkoff,” he said, in a silken voice. “It is so good to see
you again. And your friends?”

“Americans,” Petkoff said. “They have come to see the glorious Soviet
Union.”

“Ah,” the headwaiter said. “Your usual table, Major?”

Petkoff nodded. The headwaiter led the party through the dancers,
snaking slowly along until they reached a large table near the
musicians and at the edge of the dance floor. Her Majesty
automatically took the seat nearest the musicians, which she imagined
to be the head of the table. Lou sat at her left hand, and Malone at
her right, his back against a wall. Petkoff took the foot of the
table, called a waiter over, and ordered for the party. He did a
massive job of it, with two waiters, at last, taking down what seemed
to be his entire memoirs, plus the list of all soldiers in the Red
Army below 

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