PART 3

IX

Malone stared at Her Majesty for what seemed like a long time. "Not

thinking at all?" he said at last, weakly. "But I _am_ thinking. At

least, I _think_ I am." He suddenly felt as if he had gone René

Descartes one better. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

Her Majesty regarded Malone for an interminable, silent second. Then

she turned to Lady Barbara. "My dear," she said, "I would like to

speak to Sir Kenneth alone. We will go to my chambers."

Malone, feeling as though his brain had suddenly turned to quince

jelly, followed the two women out of a small door at the rear of the

Throne Room, and into Her Majesty's private apartments. Lady Barbara

left them alone with some reluctance, but she'd evidently been getting

used to following her patient's orders. Which, Malone thought with

admiration, must take a lot of effort for a nurse.

The door closed and he was alone with the Queen. Malone opened his

mouth to speak, but Her Majesty raised a monitory hand. "Please, Sir

Kenneth," she said. "Just a moment. Don't say anything for a little

bit."

Malone shut his mouth. When the minute was up, Her Majesty began to

nod her head, very slowly. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and

calm.

"It's as though you were almost invisible," she said. "I can see you

with my eyes, of course, but mentally you are almost completely

indetectable. Knowing you as well as I do, and being this close to

you, it is just possible for me to detect very faint traces of

activity."

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "I am thinking. I know I am. Maybe

it's not me. Your telepathy might be fading out temporarily, or

something like that. It's possible, isn't it?" He was reasonably sure

it wasn't, but it was a last try at making sense. Her Majesty shook

her head.

"I can still receive Sir Thomas, for instance, quite clearly," she

said. She seemed a little miffed, but the irritation was overpowered

by her worry. "I think, Sir Kenneth, that you just don't know your own

power, that's all. I don't know how, but you've managed somehow to

smother telepathic communication almost completely."

"But not quite?" Malone said. Apparently, he was thinking, but very

weakly. Like a small child, he told himself dismally. Like a small

Elizabethan child.

Her Majesty's face took on a look of faraway concentration. "It's like

looking at a very dim light," she said, "a light just at the threshold

of perception. You might say that you've got to look at such a light

sideways. If you look directly at it, you can't see it. And, of

course, you can't see it at all if you're a long way off." She

blinked. "It's not exactly like that, you understand," she finished.

"But in some ways--"

"I get the idea," Malone said. "Or I think I do. But what's causing

it? Sunspots? Little green men?"

"Not so little," Her Majesty said with some return of her old humor,

"and not green, either. As a matter of fact, _you_ are, Sir Kenneth."

Malone opened his mouth, shut it again and finally managed to say:

"Me?" in a batlike squeal of surprise.

"I don't know how, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty went on, "but you are.

It's ... rather frightening to me, as a matter of fact; I've never

seen such a thing before. I've never even considered it before."

"You?" Malone said. "How about me?" It was like suddenly discovering

that you'd been lifting two-hundred-pound barbells and not knowing it.

"How could I be doing anything like that without knowing anything

about it?"

Her Majesty shook her head. "I haven't the faintest idea," she said.

But Malone, very suddenly, did. He remembered deciding to keep a close

check on his mental processes to make sure those bursts of energy

didn't do anything to him. Subconsciously, he knew, he was still

keeping that watch.

And maybe the watch itself caused the complete blanking of his

telepathic faculties. It was worth a test, at least, he decided. And

it was an easy test to make.

"Listen," he said. He told himself that he would now allow

communication between himself and Her Majesty--and only between those

two. Maybe it wasn't possible to let down the barrier in a selective

way, but he gave it all he had. A long second passed.

"My goodness!" Her Majesty said in pleased surprise. "There you are

again!"

"You can read me?" Malone asked.

"Why ... yes," Her Majesty said. "And I can see just what you're

thinking. I'm afraid, Sir Kenneth, that I don't know whether it's

selective or not. But ... oh. Just a minute. You go right on thinking,

now, just the way you are." Her Majesty's eyes unfocused slightly and

a long time passed, while Malone tried to keep on thinking. But it was

difficult, he told himself, to think about things without having any

things to think about. He felt his mind begin to spin gently with the

rhythm of the last sentence, and he considered slowly the possibility

of thinking about things when there weren't any things thinking about

you. That seemed to make as much sense as anything else, and he was

turning it over and over in his mind when a voice broke in.

* * * * *

"I was contacting Willie," Her Majesty said.

"Ah," Malone said. "Willie. Of course. Very fine for contacting."

Her Majesty frowned. "You remember Willie, don't you?" she said.

"Willie Logan--who used to be a spy for the Russians, just because he

didn't know any better, poor boy?"

"Oh," Malone said. "Logan." He remembered the catatonic youngster who

had used his telepathic powers against the United States until Her

Majesty, the FBI, and Kenneth J. Malone had managed to put matters

right. That had been the first time he'd met Her Majesty; it seemed

like fifty years before.

"Well," Her Majesty said, "Willie and I had a little argument just

now. And I think you'll be interested in it."

"I'm fascinated," Malone said.

"Was he thinking about things or were things thinking about him?"

"Really, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, "you do think about the

silliest notions when you don't watch yourself."

Malone blushed slightly. "Anyhow," he said after a pause, "what was

the argument about?"

"Willie says you aren't here," Her Majesty said. "He can't detect you

at all. Even when I let him take a peek at you through my own

mind--making myself into sort of a relay station, so to speak--Willie

wouldn't believe it. He said I was hallucinating."

"Hallucinating me?" Malone said. "I think I'm flattered. Not many

people would bother."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, rather

severely. "But you do see what this little argument means, don't you?

I think you may assume that your telepathic contact is quite

selective. If Willie can't read you, Sir Kenneth, believe me, nobody

at all can ... unless you let them."

How he had developed this mental shield, he couldn't imagine, unless

his subconscious had done it for him. Good old subconscious, he

thought, always looking out for a person's welfare, preparing little

surprises and things. Though he hoped vaguely that the next surprise,

if there were a next one, would sneak up a little more gently. Being

told flatly that your mind was not in operation was not a very good

way to start an investigation.

Then he thought of something else. "Do you think this ... barrier of

mine will keep out those little bursts of mental energy?" he said.

Her Majesty looked judicious. "I really do," she said. "It does appear

quite impenetrable, Sir Kenneth. I can't understand how you're doing

it. Or why, for that matter."

"Well--" Malone began.

Her Majesty raised a hand. "No," she said. "I'd rather not know, if

you please." Her voice was stern, but just a little shaken. "The

thought of blocking off thought--the only real form of communication

that exists--is, frankly, quite horrible to me. I would rather be

blinded, Sir Kenneth. I truly would."

Malone thought of Dr. Marshall and blushed. Her Majesty peered at him

narrowly, and then smiled.

"You've been talking to my Royal Psychiatrist again, haven't you?" she

said. Malone nodded. "Frankly, Sir Kenneth," she went on, "I think

people pay too much attention to that sort of thing nowadays."

The subject, Malone recognized, was firmly closed. He cleared his

throat and started up another topic. "Let's talk about these energy

bursts," he said. "Do you still pick them up occasionally?"

"Oh, my, yes," Her Majesty said. "And it's not only me. Willie has

been picking them up too. We've had some long talks about it, Willie

and I. It's frightening, in a way, but you must admit that it's very

interesting."

"Fascinating," Malone muttered. "Tell me, have you figured out what

they might be, yet?"

Her Majesty shook her head. "All we know is that they do seem to occur

just before a person intends to make a decision. The burst somehow

appears to influence the decision. But we don't know how, and we don't

know where they come from, or what causes them. Or even why."

"In other words," Malone said, "we know absolutely nothing new."

"I'm afraid not, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. "But Willie and I do

intend to keep working on it. It is important, isn't it?"

"Important," Malone said, "is not the word." He paused. "And now, if

your Majesty will excuse me," he said, "I'll have to go. I have work

to do, and your information has been most helpful."

"You may go, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, returning with what

appeared to be real pleasure to the etiquette of the Elizabethan

Court. "We are grateful that you have done so much, and continue to do

so much, to defend the peace of Our Realm."

"I pledge myself to continue in those efforts which please Your

Majesty," Malone said, and started back for the costume room. Once

he'd changed into his regular clothing again he snapped himself back

to the room he had rented in the Great Universal. He had a great deal

of thinking to do, he told himself, and not much time to do it in.

* * * * *

However, he was alone. That meant he could light up a cigar--something

which, as an FBI Agent, he didn't feel he should do in public. Cigars

just weren't right for FBI Agents, though they were all right for

ordinary detectives like Malone's father. As a matter of fact, he

considered briefly hunting up a vest, putting it on and letting the

cigar ash dribble over it. His father seemed to have gotten a lot of

good ideas that way. But, in the end, he rejected the notion as being

too complicated, and merely sat back in a chair, with an ashtray

conveniently on a table by his side, and smoked and thought.

Now, he knew with reasonable certainty that Andrew J. Burris was wrong

and that he, Malone, was right. The source of all the confusion in the

country was due to psionics, not to psychodrugs and Walt Disney spies.

His first idea was to rush back and tell Burris. However, this looked

like a useless move, and every second he thought about it made it seem

more useless. He simply didn't have enough new evidence to convince

Burris of anything whatever; psychiatric evidence was fine to back up

something else, but on its own it was still too shaky to be accepted

by the courts, in most cases. And Burris thought even more strictly

than the courts in such matters.

Not only that, Malone realized with alarm, but even if he did manage

somehow to convince Burris there was very little chance that Burris

would stay convinced. If his mind could be changed by a burst of wild

mental power--and why not? Malone reflected--then he could be

unconvinced as often as necessary. He could be spun round and round

like a top and never end up facing the way Malone needed him to face.

That left the burden of solving the problem squatting like a

hunchback's hunch squarely on Malone's shoulders. He thought he could

bear the weight for a while, if he could only think of some way of

dislodging it. But the idea of its continuing to squat there forever

was horribly unnerving. "Quasimodo Malone," he muttered, and uttered a

brief prayer of thanks that his father had been spared a classical

education. "Ken" wasn't so bad. "Quasi" would have been awful.

He couldn't think of any way to get a fingerhold on the thing that

weighed him down. Slowly, he went over it in his mind.

Situation: an unidentifiable something is attacking the United States

with an untraceable something else from a completely unknown source.

Problem: how do you go about latching on to anything as downright

nonexistent as all that?

Even the best detective, Malone told himself irritably, needed clues

of some kind. And this thing, whatever it was, was not playing fair.

It didn't go around leaving bloody fingerprints or lipsticked

cigarette butts or packets of paper matches with _Ciro's, Hollywood_,

written on them. It didn't even have an alibi for anything that could

be cracked, or leave tire marks or footprints behind that could be

photographed. Hell, Malone thought disgustedly, it wasn't that the

trail was cold. It just _wasn't_.

Of course, there were ways to get clues, he reflected. He thought of

his father. His father would have gone to the scene of the crime, or

questioned some of the witnesses. But the scene of the crime was

anywhere and everywhere, and most of the witnesses didn't know they

were witnessing anything. Except for Her Majesty, of course--but he'd

already questioned her, and there hadn't been any clues he could

recall in that conversation.

Malone stubbed out his cigar, lit another one absent-mindedly, and

rescued his tie, which was working its slow way around to the side of

his collar. There were, he remembered, three classic divisions of any

crime: method, motive and opportunity. Maybe thinking about those

would lead somewhere.

As an afterthought, he got up, found a pencil and paper with the

hotel's name stamped on them in gold and came back to the chair.

Clearing the ashtray aside, he put the paper on the table and divided

the paper into three vertical columns with the pencil. He headed the

first one _Method_, the second _Motive_ and the third _Opportunity_.

He stared at the paper for a while, and decided with some trepidation

to take the columns one by one. Under _Method_, he put down: "Little

bursts. Who knows cause?" Some more thought gave him another item, and

he set it down under the first one: "Psionic. Look for psionic

people?"

That apparently was all there was to the first column. After a while

he moved to number two, _Motive_. "Confuse things," he wrote with

scarcely a second's reflection. But that didn't seem like enough. A

few minutes more gave him several other items, written down one under

the other. "Disrupt entire US. Set US up for invasion? Martians?

Russians? CK: Is Russia having trble?" That seemed to exhaust the

subject and with some relief he went on. But the title of the next

column nearly stopped him completely.

[Illustration]

_Opportunity._ There wasn't anything he could put down under that one,

Malone told himself, until he knew a great deal more about method. As

things stood at present, the best entry under _Opportunity_ was a

large, tastefully done question mark. He made one, and then sat back

to look at the entire list and see what help it gave him:

_Method_

Little bursts. Who knows cause?

Psionic. Look for psionic people?

_Motive_

Confuse things.

Disrupt entire US.

Set US up for invasion?

Martians?

Russians?

CK: Is Russia having trble?

_Opportunity_

?

Somehow, it didn't seem to be much help, when he thought about it. It

had a lot of information on it, but none of the information seemed to

lead anywhere. It did seem to be established that the purpose was to

confuse or disrupt the United States, but this didn't seem to point to

anybody except a Russian, an alien or a cosmic practical joker. Malone

could see no immediate way of deciding among the trio. However, he

told himself, there are other ways to start investigating a crime.

There must be.

Psychological methods, for instance. People had little gray cells, he

remembered from his childhood reading. Some of the more brainy

fictional detectives never stooped to anything so low as an actual

physical clue. They concentrated solely on finding a pattern in the

crimes that indicated, infallibly, the psychology of the individual.

Once his psychology had been identified, it was only a short step to

actually catching him and putting him in jail until his psychology

changed for the better. Or, of course, until it disappeared entirely

and was buried, along with the rest of him, in a small wood box.

That wasn't Malone's affair. All he had to do was take the first few

steps and actually find the man. And perhaps psychology and pattern

was the place to start. Anyhow, he reflected, he didn't have any other

method that looked even remotely likely to lead to anything except

brain-fag, disappointment, and catalepsy.

But he didn't have enough cases to find a pattern. There must, he

thought, be a way to get some more. After a few seconds he thought of

it.

* * * * *

At first he thought of asking Room Service for all the local and

out-of-state papers, but that, he quickly saw, was a little unwise.

People didn't come to Las Vegas to catch up on the news; they came to

get away from it. A man might read Las Vegas papers, and possibly even

his home town's paper if he couldn't break himself of the pernicious

habit. But nobody on vacation would start reading papers from

everywhere.

There was no sense in causing suspicion, Malone told himself. Instead,

he reached for the phone and called the desk.

"Great Universal, good afternoon," a pleasant voice said in his ear.

Malone blinked. "What time _is_ it?" he said.

"A few minutes before six," the voice said. "In the evening, sir."

"Oh," Malone said. It was later than he'd thought; the list had taken

some time. "This is Kenneth J. Malone," he went on, "in Room--" He

tried to remember the number of his room and failed. It seemed like

four or five days since he'd entered it. "Well, wherever I am," he

said at last, "send up some kind of a car for me and have a taxi

waiting outside."

The voice sounded unperturbed. "Right away, sir," it said. "Will there

be anything else?"

"I guess not," Malone said. "Not now, anyhow." He hung up and stubbed

out the latest in his series of cigars.

The hallway car arrived in a few minutes. It was manned by a muscular

little man with beady eyes and thinning black hair. "You Malone?" he

said when the FBI Agent opened the door.

"Kenneth J.," Malone said. "I called for a car."

"Right outside, Chief," the little man said in a gravelly voice. "Just

hop in and off we go into the wild blue yonder. Right?"

"I guess so," Malone said helplessly. He followed the man outside,

locked his door and climbed into a duplicate of the little car that

had taken him to his room in the first place.

"Step right in, Chief," the little man said. "We're off."

Malone, overcoming an immediate distaste for the chummy little fellow,

climbed in and the car retreated down to the road. It started off

smoothly and they went back toward the lobby. The little man chatted

incessantly and Malone tried not to listen. But there was nothing else

to do except watch the gun-toting "guides" as the car passed them, and

the sight was making him nervous.

"You want anything--special," the driver said, giving Malone a blow in

the ribs that was apparently meant to be subtle, "you just ask for

Murray. Got it?"

"I've got it," Malone said wearily.

"You just pick up the little phone and you ask for Murray," the driver

said. "Maybe you want something a little out of the ordinary--get what

I mean?" Malone moved aside, but not fast enough, and Murray's stone

elbow caught him again. "Something special, extra-nice. For my

friends, pal. You want to be a friend of mine?"

Assurances that friendship with Murray was Malone's dearest ambition

in life managed to fend off further blows until the car pulled to a

stop in the lobby. "Cab's outside, Mr. Malone," Murray said. "You

remember me--hey?"

"I will never, never forget you," Malone said fervently, and got out

in a hurry. He found the cab and the driver, a heavy-set man with a

face that looked as if, somewhere along the line, it had run into a

Waring Blendor and barely escaped, swiveled around to look at him as

he got in.

"Where to, Mac?" he asked sourly.

Malone shrugged. "Center of town," he said. "A nice big newsstand."

The cabbie blinked. "A what?" he said.

"Newsstand," Malone said pleasantly. "All right with you?"

"Everybody's a little crazy, I guess," the cabbie said. "But why do I

always get the real nuts?" He started the cab with a savage jerk and

Malone was carried along the road at dizzying speed. They managed to

make ten blocks before the cab squealed to a stop. Malone peered out

and saw a nice selection of sawhorses piled up in the road, guarded by

two men with guns. The men were dressed in police uniforms and the

cabby, staring at them, uttered one brief and impolite word.

"What's going on?" Malone said.

"Roadblock," the cabbie said. "Thing's going to stay here until Hell

freezes over. Not that they need it. Hell, I passed it on the way in

but I figured they'd take it down pretty quick."

"Roadblock?" Malone said. "What for?"

The cabbie shrugged eloquently. "Who knows?" he said. "You ask

questions, you might get answers you don't like. I don't ask

questions, I live longer."

"But--"

The cops, meanwhile, had advanced toward the car. One of them looked

in. "Who's the passenger?" he said.

The cabbie swore again. "You want me to take loyalty oaths from

people?" he said. "You want to ruin my business? I got a passenger,

how do I know who he is? Maybe he's the Lone Ranger."

"Don't get funny," the cop said. His partner had gone around to the

back of the car.

"What's this, the trunk again?" the cabbie said. "You think maybe I'm

smuggling in showgirls from the edge of town?"

"Ha, ha," the cop said distinctly. "One more joke and it's thirty

days, buster. Just keep cool and nothing will happen."

"Nothing, he calls it," the cabbie said dismally. But he stayed silent

until the second cop came back to rejoin his partner.

"Clean," he said.

"Here, too, I guess," the first cop said, and looked in again. "You,"

he said to Malone. "You a tourist?"

"That's right," Malone said. "Kenneth J. Malone, at the Great

Universal. Arrived this afternoon. What's happening here, officer?"

"I'm asking questions," the cop said. "You're answering them. Outside

of that, you don't have to know a thing." He looked very tough and

official. Malone didn't say anything else.

After a few more seconds they went back to their positions and the

cabbie started the car again. Ten yards past the roadblock he turned

around and looked at Malone. "It's the sheriff's office every time,"

he said. "Now, you take a State cop, he's O.K. because what does he

care? He's got other things to worry about, he don't have to bear down

on hard-working cabbies."

"Sure," Malone said helpfully.

"And the city police--they're right here in the city, they're O.K. I

know them, they know me, nothing goes wrong. Get what I mean?"

"The sheriff's office is the worst, though?" Malone said.

"The worst is nothing compared to those boys," the cabbie said.

"Believe me, every time they can make life tough for a cabbie, they do

it. It's hatred, that's what it is. They hate cabbies. That's the

sheriff's office for you."

"Tough," Malone said. "But the roadblock--what _was_ it for, anyhow?"

The cabbie looked back at the road, avoided an oncoming car with a

casual sweep of the wheel, and sighed gustily. "Mister," he said, "you

don't ask questions, I don't give out answers. Fair?"

There was, after all, nothing else to say. "Fair," Malone told him,

and rode the rest of the way in total silence.

* * * * *

Buying the papers in Las Vegas took more time than Malone had

bargained for. He had to hunt from store to store to get a good,

representative selection, and there were crowds almost everywhere

playing the omnipresent slot-machines. The whir of the machines and

the low undertones and whispers of the bettors combined in the air to

make what Malone considered the single most depressing sound he had

ever heard. It sounded like a factory, old, broken-down and unwanted,

that was geared only to the production of cigarette butts and old

cellophane, ready-crumpled for throwing away. Malone pushed through

the crowds as fast as possible, but nearly an hour had gone by when he

had all his papers and hailed another cab to get him back to the

hotel.

This time, the cabbie had a smiling, shining face. He looked like

Pollyanna, after eight or ten shots at the middleweight title. Malone

beamed right back at him and got in. "Great Universal," he said.

"Hey, that's a nice place," the cabbie said heartily, as they started

off. "I heard there was a couple TV stars there last week and they got

drunk and had a fight. You see that?"

"Just arrived this afternoon," Malone said. "Sorry."

"Oh, don't worry," the cabbie assured him. "Something's always going

on at the Universal. I hear they posted a lot of guards there, just

waiting for something to come up now. Something about some shooting,

but I didn't get the straight story yet. That true?"

"Far as I know," Malone said. "There's a lot of strange things

happening lately, aren't there?"

"Lots," the cabbie said eagerly. He meandered slowly around a couple

of bright-red convertibles. "A guy owned the _Last Stand_, he killed

himself with a gun today. It's in the papers. Listen, Mister, funny

things happen all the time around here. I remember last week there was

a lady in my cab, nice old bat, looked like she wouldn't take off an

earring in public, not among strangers. You know the type. Well, sir,

she asked me to take her on to the Golden Palace, and that's a fair

ride. So on the way down, she--"

Fascinated as he was by the unreeling story of the shy old bat, Malone

interrupted. "I hear there's a roadblock up now, and they're searching

all the cars. Know anything about that?"

The cabbie nodded violently. "Sure, Mister," he said. "Now, it's funny

you should ask. I hit the block once today and I was saying to myself,

I'll bet somebody's going to ask me about this. So when I was in town

I talked around with Si Deeds ... you know Si? Oh, no, you just

arrived today ... anyhow, I figured Si would know."

"And did he?" Malone said.

"Not a thing," the cabbie said. Malone sighed disgustedly and the

cabbie went on: "So I went over and talked to Bob Grindell. I figured,

there was action, Bob would know. And guess what?"

"He didn't know either," Malone said tiredly.

"Bob?" the cabbie said. "Say, Mister, you must be new here for sure,

if you say Bob wouldn't know what was going on. Why, Bob knows more

about this town than guys lived in it twice as long, I'll tell you.

Believe me, he knows."

"And what did he say?" Malone asked.

The cabbie paused. "About what?" he said.

"About the roadblock," Malone said distinctly.

"Oh," the cabbie said. "That. Well, that was a funny thing and no

mistake. There was this fight, see? And Shellenberger got in the

middle of it, see? So when he was dead they had to set up this

roadblock."

Malone restrained himself with some difficulty. "What fight?" he said.

"And who's Shellenberger? And how did he get in the way?"

"Mister," the cabbie said, "you must be new here."

"A remarkable guess," Malone said.

The cabbie nodded. "Sure must be," he said. "Gus Shellenberger's lived

here over ten years now. I drove him around many's the time. Remember

when he used to go out to this motel out on the outskirts there; there

was this doll he was interested in but it never came to much. He said

she wasn't right for his career, you know how guys like that are, they

got to be careful all the time. Never hit the papers or anything--I

mean with the doll and all--but people get to know things. You know.

So with this doll--"

"How long ago did all this happen?" Malone asked.

"The doll?" the cabbie said. "Oh, five-six years. Maybe seven. I

remember it was the year I got a new cab, business was pretty good,

you know. Seven, I guess. Garage made me a price, you know, I had to

be an idiot to turn it down? A nice price. Well, George Lamel who owns

the place, he's an old friend, you know? I did him some favors so he

gives me a nice price. Well, this new cab--"

"Can we get back to the present for a little while?" Malone said.

"There was this fight, and your friend Gus Shellenberger got involved

in it somehow--"

"Oh, that," the cabbie said. "Oh, sure. Well, there was a kind of

chase. Some sheriff's officers were looking for an escaped convict,

and they were chasing him and doing some shooting. And Shellenberger,

he got in the way and got shot accidentally. The criminal, he got

away. But it's kind of a mess, because--"

A loud chorus of sirens effectively stopped all conversation. Two cars

stamped with the insignia of the sheriff's office came into sight and

streaked past, headed for Las Vegas.

"Because Shellenberger was State's attorney, after all," the cabbie

said. "It's not like just anybody got killed."

"And the roadblock?" Malone said.

"For the criminal, I guess," the cabbie said.

Malone nodded heavily. The whole thing smelled rather loudly, he

thought. The "accident" wasn't very plausible to start with. And a

search for an escaped criminal that didn't even involve checking

identification of strangers like Malone wasn't much of a search. The

cops knew who they were looking for.

And Shellenberger hadn't been killed by accident.

The roadblock was down, he noticed. The sheriff's office cars had

apparently carried the cheerful cops back to Las Vegas. Maybe they'd

found their man, Malone thought, and maybe they just didn't care any

more.

"Wouldn't a State's attorney live in Carson City?" he asked after a

while.

"Not old Gus Shellenberger," the cabbie said. "Many's the time I

talked with him and he said he loved this old town. Loved it. Like an

old friend. Why, he used to say to me--"

At that point the Great Universal hove into view. Malone felt

extraordinarily grateful to see it.

* * * * *

He went to his room with the bundle of papers in his hand and locked

himself in. He lit a fresh cigar and started through the papers. Las

Vegas was the one on top, and he gave it a quick going-over. Sure

enough, the suicide of the Golden Palace owner was on page one, along

with a lot of other local news.

_Mayor Resigns Under Council Pressure_, one headline read. On page 3

another story was headlined: _County Attorney Indicted by Grand Jury

in Bribery Case_. And at the bottom of page 1, complete with pictures

of baffled phone operators and linemen, was a double column spread:

_Damage to Phone Relay Station Isolates City Five Hours_.

Carson City, the State Capitol, came in for lots of interesting news,

too. Three headlines caught Malone's attention:

LT.-GOVERNOR MORRIS SWORN IN AS GOVERNOR TWELVE MEMBERS OF

LEGISLATURE RESIGN

Ill Health Given As Reason

STATE'S ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: "NO COMMENT" ON RACKETS

CONNECTION CHARGE.

The next paper was the New York Post. Malone studied the front page

with interest:

MAYOR ORDERS ARREST OF POLICE COMM.

The story on page 3 had a little more detail:

MAYOR AMALFI ORDERS ARREST OF POLICE COMMISSIONER ON

EVIDENCE SHOWING "COLLUSION WITH GAMBLING INTERESTS"

But Malone didn't have time to read the story. Other headlines on

pages 2 and 3 attracted his startled attention:

TWELVE DIE IN BROOKLYN GANG MASSACRE

Ricardo, Numbers Head, Among Slain

"DANGEROUS DAN" SUGRUE LINKED WITH TRUCKER'S UNION

Admits Connection "Gladly"

[Illustration]

HOUSING AUTHORITY DENIES, THEN CONFESSES GRAFT CHARGE

Malone wiped a streaming brow. Apparently all hell was busting loose.

Under the _Post_ was the San Francisco _Examiner_, its crowded front

page filled with all sorts of strange and startling news items. Malone

looked over a few at random. A wildcat waterfront strike had been

called off after the resignation of the union local's president. The

"Nob Hill Mob," which had grown notorious in the past few years, had

been rounded up and captured _in toto_ after what the paper described

only as a "police tipoff." Two headlines caught his special attention:

BERSERK POLICE CAPTAIN KILLS TWO AIDES, SELF: CORRUPTION

HINTED

The second hit closer to home:

FBI ARRESTS THREE STATE SENATORS ON INCOME TAX CHARGE

Malone felt a pang of nostalgia. Conquering it after a brief struggle,

he went on to the next paper. From Los Angeles, its front page showed

that Hollywood, at least, was continuing to hold its own:

LAVISH FUNERAL PLANNED FOR WONDER DOG TOMORROW

But the Washington _Times-Herald_ brought things back to the mess

Malone had expected. All sorts of things were going on:

PRESIDENT ACCEPTS RESIGNATION OF THREE CABINET MEMBERS

New Appointees Not Yet Named

PENTAGON TO INVESTIGATE QUARTER-MASTER CORPS GRAFT

Revelations Hinted In Closed Hearing Thursday

RIOT ON SENATE FLOOR QUELLED BY GUARDS

Sen. Briggs Hospitalized

GENERAL BREGER, MISSILE BASE HEAD, DIES IN TESTING ACCIDENT

Faulty Equipment Blamed

Malone put the papers down with a deep sigh. There was some kind of a

pattern there, he was sure; there had to be. More was happening in the

good old United States inside of twenty-four hours than ordinarily

happened in a couple of months. The big trouble was that some of it

was, doubtless, completely unconnected with the work of Malone's

psychological individual. It was equally certain that some of it

wasn't; no normal workings of chance could account for the spate of

resignations, deaths, arrests of high officials, freak accidents and

everything else he'd just seen.

But there was no way of telling which was which. The only one he was

reasonably sure he could leave out of his calculations was Hollywood's

good old Wonder Dog. And when he looked at the rest all he could see

was that confusion was rampant. Which was exactly what he'd known

before.

He remembered once, when he was a boy, his mother had taken him to an

astronomical observatory, and he had looked at Mars through the big

telescope, hoping to see the canals he'd heard so much about. Sure,

enough, there had been a blurred pattern of some kind. It might have

represented canals--but he'd been completely unable to trace any given

line. It was like looking at a spiderweb through a sheet of frosted

glass.

He needed a clearer view, and there wasn't any way to get it without

finding some more information. Sooner or later, he told himself,

everything would fall into one simple pattern, and he would give a cry

of "Eureka!"

There was, at any rate, no need to go to the scene of the crime. He

was right in the middle of it--and would have been, apparently, no

matter where he'd been. The big question was: where were all the facts

he needed?

He certainly wasn't going to find them all alone in his room, he

decided. Mingling with the Las Vegas crowds might give him some sort

of a lead--and, besides, he had to act like a man on vacation, didn't

he? Satisfied of this, Malone began to change into his dress suit.

People who came to Las Vegas, he told himself while fiddling with what

seemed to be a left-hand-thread cufflink of a peculiarly nasty

disposition, were usually rich. Rich people would be worried about the

way the good old United States was acting up, just like anybody else,

but they'd have access to various sources both of information and

rumor. Rumor was more valuable than might at first appear, Malone

thought sententiously, sneaking up on the cufflink and fastening it

securely. He finished dressing with what was almost an air of hope.

He surveyed himself in the mirror when he was done. Nobody, he told

himself with some assurance, would recognize him as the FBI Agent who

had come into the Golden Palace two years before, clad in Elizabethan

costume and escorting a Queen who had turned out to be a phenomenal

poker player. After all, Las Vegas was a town in which lots of strange

things happened daily, and he was dressed differently, and he'd aged

at least two years in the intervening two years.

He put in a call for a hallway car--carefully refraining from asking

for Murray.

X

"Business, Mr. Malone," the bartender said, "is shot all to hell. The

whole country is shot all to hell."

"I believe it," Malone said.

"Sure," the bartender said. He finished polishing one glass and set to

work on another one. "Look at the place," he went on. "Half full. You

been here two weeks now, and you know how business was when you came.

Now look."

It wasn't necessary, but Malone turned obediently to survey the huge

gambling hall. It was roofed over by a large golden dome that seemed

to make the place look even emptier than it could possibly be. There

were still plenty of people around the various tables, and something

approaching a big crowd clustered around the _chemin de fer_ layout.

But it was possible to breathe in the place, and even move from table

to table without stepping into anybody's pocket. Las Vegas was

definitely sliding downhill at the moment, Malone thought.

The glitter of polished gold and silver ornaments, the low cries of

the various dealers and officials, the buzz of conversation, were all

the same. But under the great dome, Malone told himself sadly, you

could almost see the people leaving, one by one.

"No money around either," the bartender said. "Except maybe for a few

guys like yourself. I mean, people take their chances at the wheel or

the tables, but there's no big betting going on, just nickel-dime

stuff. And no big spending, either. Used to be tips in a place like

this, just tips, would really mount up to something worth while. Now,

nothing." He put the glass and towel down and leaned across the bar.

"You know what I think, Mr. Malone?" he said.

"No," Malone said politely. "What do you think?"

The bartender looked portentous. "I think all the big-money guys have

rushed off home to look after their business and like that," he said,

"everything's going to hell, and what I want to know is: What's wrong

with the country? You're a big businessman, Mr. Malone. You ought to

have some ideas."

Malone paused and looked thoughtful. "I'll tell you what I think," he

said. "I think people have decided that gambling is sinful. Maybe we

all ought to go and get our souls dry-cleaned."

The bartender shook his head. "You always got a little joke, Mr.

Malone," he said. "It's what I like about you. But there must be some

reason for what's happening."

"There must be," Malone agreed. "But I'll be double-roasted for extra

fresh flavor if I know what it is."

His vacation pay, he told himself with a feeling of downright misery,

was already down the drain. He'd been dipping into personal savings to

keep up his front as a big spender, but that couldn't go on

forever--even though he saved money on the front by gambling very

little while he tipped lavishly. And in spite of what he'd spent he

was no closer to an answer than he had been when he'd started.

"Now, you take the stock market," the bartender said, picking up the

glass and towel again and starting to work in a semiautomatic fashion.

"It's going up and down like a regular roller coaster. I know because

I got a few little things going for me there--nothing much, you

understand, but I keep an eye out for developments. It doesn't make

any sense, Mr. Malone. Even the financial columnists can't make sense

out of it."

"Terrible," Malone said.

"And the Government's been cracking down on business everywhere it

can," the bartender went on. "All kinds of violations. I got nothing

against the law, you understand. But that kind of thing don't help

profits any. Look at the Justice Department."

"You look at it," Malone muttered.

"No," the bartender said. "I mean it. They been arresting people all

over the place for swindling on Government contracts, and falsifying

tax records, and graft, and all kinds of things. Listen, every FBI man

in the country must be up to his cute little derby hat in work."

"I'll bet they are," Malone said. He heaved a great sigh. Every one of

them except Kenneth J. Malone was probably hopping full time in an

effort to straighten out the complicated mess everything was getting

into. Of course, he was working, too--but not officially. As far as

the FBI knew, he was on vacation, and they were perfectly willing to

let him stay there.

A nationwide emergency over two weeks old, and getting worse all the

time--and Burris hadn't even so much as called Malone to talk about

the weather. He'd said that Malone was one of his top operatives, but

now that trouble was really piling up there wasn't a peep out of him.

The enemy, whoever they were, were doing a great job, Malone thought

bitterly. Every time Burris decided he might need Malone, apparently,

they pushed a little mental burst at him and turned him around again.

He could just picture Burris looking blankly at an FBI roster and

saying: "Malone? Who's he?"

It wasn't a nice picture. Malone took a deep swallow of his

bourbon-and-water and tried forgetting about it. The bartender, called

by another customer, put the glass and towel down and went to the

other end of the bar. Malone finished his drink very slowly, feeling

more lonely than he could ever remember being before.

* * * * *

At last, though, four-thirty rolled around and he got up from the

plush bar stool and headed for the Universal Joint, the hotel's big

show-room. It was one of the few places in the hotel that was easily

reachable from the front bar on foot, and Malone walked, taking an

unexpected pleasure in this novel form of locomotion. In a few minutes

he was at the great curtained front doors.

He pushed them open. Later, of course, when the Universal Joint was

open to the public, a man in a uniform slightly more impressive than

that of a South American generalissimo would be standing before the

doors to save patrons the unpleasant necessity of opening them for

themselves. But now, in the afternoon, the Universal Joint was closed.

There was no one inside but Primo Palveri, the manager and majority

stockholder of the Great Universal, and the new strip act he was

watching. Malone didn't particularly like the idea of sharing his

conversation with a burlesque stripper, but there was little he could

do about it; he'd waited several days for the appointment already.

As the doors opened he could hear a nasal voice, almost without

over-tones, saying: "Now turn around, baby. Turn around." A pause, and

then another voice, this one female:

"Is this all right, Mr. Palveri? You want me to show you something

else?"

Malone shut the door quietly behind him. The female voice was coming

from the throat of a semi-naked girl about five feet eight, with

bright red hair and a wide, wide smile. She was staring at a chunky

little black-haired man sunk in a chair, whose back was to Malone.

"What else do you do, Sweetheart?" the chunky man said. "Let me see

whatever you do. I want some wide-talent stuff, you know, for the

place. Class."

The girl smiled even wider. Malone was sure her teeth were about to

fall out onto the floor, probably in a neat arrangement that spelled

out _Will You Kiss Me In The Dark Baby_. That would take an awful lot

of teeth, he reflected, but the stripper looked as if she could manage

the job. "I dance and sing," she said. "I could do a dance for you,

but my music is upstairs. You want me to go and get it?"

Palveri shook his head. "How about a song, baby? You mind singing

without a piano?"

"I don't have anything prepared," the girl said, her eyes wide. "I

didn't know this was going to be a special audition. I thought, you

know, just a burlesque audition, so I didn't bring anything."

Palveri sank a little lower in the chair. "O.K., Sweetheart," he said.

"You got a nice shape, you'll fit in the line anyhow. But just sing a

song you know. How about that? If you make it with that, you could get

yourself a featured spot. More dough."

The girl appeared to consider this proposition. "Gee," she said

slowly. "I could do 'God Bless America'. O.K., Mr. Palveri?"

The chunky man sank even deeper toward the floor. "Never mind," he

said. "Go get dressed, tell Tony you got the number five spot in the

line. O.K.?"

"Gee," she said. "Maybe I could work on something and do it for you

some other time, Mr. Palveri?"

He nodded wearily. "Some other time," he said. "Sure."

* * * * *

The girl went off through a door at the left of the club. Malone

threaded his way past tables with chairs piled on top of them until he

came to Palveri's side. The club owner was sitting on a single chair

dragged off the heap that stood on a table next to him. He didn't turn

around. "Mr. Malone," he said, "take another chair, sit down and we'll

talk. O.K.?"

Malone blinked. "How'd you know I was there?" he said. "Much less who

I was?"

"In this business," Palveri said, still without turning, "you learn to

notice things, Mr. Malone. I heard you come in and wait. Who else

would you be?"

Malone took a chair from the pile and set it up next to Palveri's. The

chunky man turned to face him for the first time. Malone took a deep

breath and tried to look hard and tough as he studied the club owner.

Palveri had small, sunken eyes decorated with bluish bags below and

tufted black eyebrows above. The eyes were very cold. The rest of his

face didn't warm things up any; he had an almost lipless slash for a

mouth, a small reddish nose and cheeks that could have used either a

shave or a good sandblasting job.

* * * * *

"You said you wanted to see me," Palveri began after a second. "But

you didn't say what about. What's up, Mr. Malone?"

"I've been looking around," Malone said in what he hoped was a grim,

no-nonsense tone. "Checking things. You know."

"Checking?" Palveri said. "What's this about?"

Malone shrugged. He fished out a cigarette and lit it. "Castelnuovo in

Chicago sent me down," he said. "I've been doing some checking around

for him."

Palveri's eyes narrowed slightly. Malone puffed on the cigarette and

tried to act cool. "You throwing names around to impress me?" the club

owner said at last.

"I'm not throwing names around," Malone said grimly. "Castelnuovo

wants me to look around, that's all."

"Castelnuovo's a big man in Chicago," Palveri said. "He wouldn't send

a guy down without telling me about it."

"He did," Malone said. He thought back to the FBI files on Giacomo

Castelnuovo, which took up a lot of space in Washington, even on

microfilm. "You want proof?" he said. "He's got a scar over his ribs

on the left side--got it from a bullet in '62. He wears a little black

mustache because he thinks he looks like an old-time TV star, but he

doesn't, much. He's got three or four girls on the string, but the

only one he cares about is Carla Bragonzi. He--"

"O.K.," Palveri said. "O.K., O.K. You know him. You're not fooling,

around. But how come he sends you down without telling me?"

Malone shrugged. "I've been here two weeks," he said. "You didn't know

I was around, did you? That's the way Castelnuovo wanted it."

"He thinks I'd cheat him?" Palveri said, his face changing color

slightly. "He thinks I'd dress up for him or drag down? He knows me

better than that."

Malone took a puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure,"

he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted

terrible and he put it out in an ashtray from the chair-covered table.

"You're telling me," Palveri said. "Things are crazy. What I'm

thinking is this: Maybe Castelnuovo wants to keep this place

operating. Maybe he wants to keep me here working for him."

"And if he does?" Malone said.

"If he does, he's going to have to pay for it," Palveri said firmly.

"The place needs dough to keep operating. I've got to have a loan, or

else I'm going under."

"The place is making money," Malone said.

Palveri shook his head vigorously. He reached into a pocket and took

out a gold cigar case. He flipped it open. "Have one," he told Malone.

An FBI Agent, Malone told himself, had no business smoking cigars and

looking undignified. But as a messenger from Castelnuovo, he could do

as he pleased. He almost reached for one before he realized that

maybe, sometime in the future, Palveri would find out who Kenneth J.

Malone really was. And then he'd remember Malone smoking cigars, and

that would be bad for the dignity of the FBI. Reluctantly, he drew his

hand back.

"No, thanks," he said. "Never touch 'em."

"To each his own," Palveri muttered. He took out a cigar, lit it and

returned the case to his pocket. The immediate vicinity became crowded

with smoke. Malone breathed deeply.

"About the money--" Malone said after a second.

Palveri snorted. "The place is making half of what I'm losing," he

said. "You got to see it this way, Malone: the contacts are gone."

"Contacts?" Malone said.

Palveri nodded. "The mayor's resigned, remember?" he said. "You saw

that. Everybody's getting investigated. A couple of weeks ago the

Golden Palace guy knocked himself off, and where does that leave me?

He's my only contact with half the State boys; hell, he ran the whole

string of clubs here, more or less. Castelnuovo knows all that."

"Sure," Malone said. "But you can make new contacts."

"Where?" Palveri said. He flung out his arms. "When nobody knows

what's going to happen tomorrow? I tell you, Malone, it's like a curse

on me."

Malone decided to push the man a little farther. "Castelnuovo," he

said with what he hoped was a steely glint in his eyes, "isn't going

to like a curse ruining business." He took another deep breath of

tobacco smoke.

"Primo Palveri don't like it either," Palveri said. "You think

whatever you like but that's the way things are. It's like Prohibition

except we're losing all the way down the line. Listen, and I'll tell

you something you didn't pick up around town."

"Go ahead," Malone said.

* * * * *

Palveri blew out some more smoke. "You know about the shipments?" he

said. "The stuff from out on the desert?"

Malone nodded. The FBI had a long file on the possibility of

Castelnuovo, through Palveri or someone else in the vicinity, shipping

peyotl buttons from Nevada and New Mexico all over the country. Until

this moment, it had only been a possibility.

"Mike Sand wanted to get in on some of that," Palveri said. "Well,

it's big money, a guy figures he's got to have competition. But it's

business nowadays, not a shooting war. That went out forty years ago."

"So?" Malone said, acting impatient.

"I'm getting there," Palveri said. "I'm getting there. Mike Sand and

his truckers, they tried to high jack a shipment coming through out on

the desert. Now, the Trucker's Union is old and experienced, maybe,

but not as old and experienced as the Mafia. It figures we can take

them, right?"

"It figures," Malone agreed. "But you didn't?"

Palveri looked doleful. "It's like a curse," he said. "Two boys

wounded and one of them dead, right there on the sand. The shipment

gone, and Mike Sand on his way to the East with it. A curse." He

sucked some more at the cigar.

Malone looked thoughtful and concerned. "Things are certainly bad," he

said. "But how's money going to make things any better?"

Palveri almost dropped his cigar. Malone watched it lovingly. "Help?"

the club owner said. "With money I could stay open, I could stay

alive. Listen, I had investments, nice guaranteed stuff: real estate,

some California oil stuff ... you know the kind of thing."

"Sure," Malone said.

"Now that the contacts are gone and everybody's dead or resigned or

being investigated," Palveri said, "what do you think's happened to

all that? Down the drain, Malone."

Malone said: "But--"

"And not only that," Palveri said, waving the cigar. "The club was

going good, and you know I thought about building a second one a

little farther out. A straight investment, get me: an honest one."

Malone nodded as if he knew all about it.

"So I got the foundation in, Malone," Palveri said, "and it's just

sitting there, not doing anything. A whole foundation going to pot

because I can't do anything more with it. Just sitting there because

everything's going to hell with itself."

"In a handbasket," Malone said automatically.

Palveri gave him a violent nod. "You said it, Malone," he added.

"Everything. My men, too." He sighed. "And the contractor after me for

his dough. Good old Harry Seldon, everybody's friend. Sure. Owe him

some money and find out how friendly he is. Talks about nothing but

figures. Ten thousand. Twelve thousand."

"Tough," Malone said. "But what do you mean about your men?"

"Mistakes," Palveri said. "Book-keepers throwing the computers off and

croupiers making mistakes paying off and collecting--and always

mistakes against me, Malone. Always. It's like a curse. Even the hotel

bills--three of them this week were made out too small and the

customer paid up and went before I found out about it."

"It sounds like a curse," Malone said. "Either that or there are spies

in the organization."

"Spies?" Palveri said. "With the checking we do? With the way I've

known some of these guys from childhood? They were little kids with

me, Malone. They stuck with me all the way. And with Castelnuovo,

too," he added hurriedly.

"Sure," Malone said. "But they could still be spies."

Palveri nodded sadly. "I thought of that," he said. "I fired four of

them. Four of my childhood friends, Malone. It was like cutting off an

arm. And all it did was leave me with one arm less. The same mistakes

go on happening."

Malone stood up and heaved a sigh. "Well," he said, "I'll see what I

can do."

"I'd appreciate it, Malone," Palveri said. "And when Primo Palveri

appreciates something, he _appreciates_ it. Get what I mean?"

"Sure," Malone said. "I'll report back and let you know what happens."

Palveri looked just as anxious, but a little hopeful. "I need the

dough," he said. "I really need it."

"With dough," Malone said, "you could fix up what's been happening?"

Palveri shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "But I could stay open long

enough to find out."

Malone went back to the gaming room feeling that he had learned

something, but not being quite sure what. Obviously whatever

organization was mixing everything up was paying just as much

attention to gangsters as to congressmen and businessmen. The simple

justice of this arrangement did not escape Malone, but he failed to

see where it led him.

[Illustration]

He considered the small chance that Palveri would actually call

Castelnuovo and check up on Kenneth J. Malone, but he didn't think it

was probable. Palveri was too desperate to take the chance of making

his boss mad in case Malone's story were true. And, even if the check

were made, Malone felt reasonably confident. It's hard to kill a man

who has a good, accurate sense of precognition and who can teleport

himself out of any danger he might get into. Not impossible, but hard.

Being taken for a ride in the desert, for instance, might be an

interesting experience, but could hardly prove inconvenient to anybody

except the driver of the car and the men holding the guns.

The gaming room wasn't any fuller, he noticed. He wended his way back

to the bar for a bourbon-and-water and greeted the bartender morosely.

The drink came along and he sipped at it quietly, trying to put things

together in his mind. The talk with Palveri, he felt sure, had

provided an essential clue--maybe _the_ essential clue--to what was

going on. But he couldn't find it.

"Mess," he said quietly. "Everything's in a mess. And so what?"

A voice behind him picked that second to say: "Gezundheit." Malone

didn't turn. Instead he looked at the bar mirror, and one glance at

what was reflected there was enough to freeze him as solid as the core

of Pluto.

Lou was there. Lou Gehrig or whatever her name was, the girl behind

the reception desk of the New York offices of the Psychical Research

Society. That, in itself, didn't bother him. The company of a

beautiful girl while drinking was not something Malone actually hated.

But she knew he was an FBI Agent, and she might pick any second to

blat it out in the face of an astonished bartender. This, Malone told

himself, would not be pleasant. He wondered just how to hush her up

without attracting attention. Knock-out pills in her drink? A hand

over her mouth? A sudden stream of unstoppable words?

He had reached no decision when she sat down on the stool beside him,

turned a bright, cheerful smile in his direction and said: "I've

forgotten your name. Mine's Luba Ardanko."

"Oh," Malone said dully. Even the disclosure of what "Lou" stood for

did nothing to raise his spirits.

"I'm always forgetting things," Lou went on. "I've forgotten just

about everything about you."

Malone breathed a long, inaudible sigh of relief. If more people, he

thought, had the brains not to greet FBI Agents by name, rank and

serial number when meeting them in a strange place, there would be

fewer casualties among the FBI.

He realized that Luba was still smiling at him expectantly. "My name's

Malone," he said. "Kenneth Malone. I'm a cookie manufacturer,

remember?"

"Oh," Luba said delightedly. "Sure! I remember last time I met you you

gave me that lovely box of cookies. Modeled on the Seven Dwarfs."

Occasionally, Malone told himself, things moved a little faster than

he liked. "On the Seven Dwarfs," he said. "Oh, sure."

"And I thought the model of Sneezy was awfully cute," she said. "But

don't let's talk about cookies. Let's talk about Martinis."

Malone opened his mouth, tried to think of something clever to say,

and shut it again. Luba Ardanko was, perfectly obviously, altogether

too fast for him. But then, he reflected, I've had a hard day. "All

right," he said at last. "What _about_ Martinis?"

Luba's smile broadened. "I'd like one," she said. "And since you're a

wealthy cookie manufacturer--"

"Be my guest," Malone said. "On the other hand, why not buy your own?

Since they're free as long as you're in the gambling room."

The bartender had approached them silently. "That's right," he said in

a voice that betrayed the fact that he had memorized the entire

speech, word for word. "Drinks are free for those who play the gaming

tables. A courtesy of the Great Universal."

He delivered a Martini and Luba drank it while Malone finished his

bourbon-and-water. "Well," she said, "I suppose we've got to go to the

gambling tables now. If only to be fair."

"A horrible fate," Malone agreed, "but there you are: that's life."

"It certainly is," she said brightly, and moved off. Malone, shaking

his head, went after her and found her standing in front of a roulette

wheel. "I just love roulette," she said, turning. "Don't you? It's so

exciting and expensive."

Malone licked dry lips, said: "Sure," and started to move off.

"Oh, let's just play a little," Luba said.

There was nothing to do but agree. Malone put a small stack of silver

dollars on Red, and the croupier looked up with a bored expression.

There were three other people in the game, including a magnificent old

lady with blue hair who spent her money with a lavish hand. Two weeks

before, she wouldn't even have been noticed. Now the croupier was

bending over backward in an attempt not to show how grateful he was

for the patronage.

The wheel spun around and landed on Number Two, Black. Malone sighed

and fished for more money. He felt his precognitive sense beginning to

come into play and happily decided to ride with it. This time the

stack of silver dollars was larger.

Twenty minutes later he left the table approximately nine hundred

dollars richer. Luba was beaming. "There, now," she said. "Wasn't that

fun?"

"Hysterical," Malone said. He glanced back over his shoulder. The

blue-haired old lady was winning and losing large sums with a speed

and aplomb that was certainly going to make her a twenty-four-hour

legend by the end of the evening. She looked grim and secure, as if

she were undergoing a penance. Malone shrugged and looked away.

"Now," Luba said, "you can take me dancing."

"I can?" Malone said. "I mean, do I? I mean--"

"I mean the Solar Room," Luba said. "I've always wanted to enter on

the arms of a handsome cookie manufacturer. It will make me the

sensation of New York society."

* * * * *

The Solar Room was magnificently expensive. Malone had been there

once, establishing his character as a man of lavish appetites, and had

then avoided the place in deference to his real bankroll. He

remembered it as the kind of place where an order of scrambled eggs

was liable to come in, flaming, on a golden sabre. But Luba wanted the

Solar Room, and Malone was not at all sure she wouldn't use blackmail

if he turned her down. "Fine," he said in a lugubrious tone.

The place shone, when they entered, as if they had come in from the

darkness of midnight. Along with the Universal Joint, it was the pride

and glory of the Great Universal Hotel and no expense had been spared

in the attempt to give it what Primo Palveri called Class. Couples and

foursomes were scattered around at the marble-topped tables, and

red-uniformed waiters scurried around bearing drinks, food and even

occasional plug-in telephones. There seemed to be more of the last

than Malone remembered as usual; people were worrying about

investments and businesses, and even those who had decided to stick it

out grimly at Las Vegas and, _enjoy_ themselves had to check up with

the home folks in order to know when to start pricing windows in high

buildings. Malone wondered how many people were actually getting their

calls through. Since the first breakdown two weeks before, Las Vegas

and virtually every other United States city had suffered

interruptions in telephone service. Las Vegas had had three breakdowns

in two weeks; other cities weren't doing much better, if at all.

Vaguely, Malone began looking around for handbaskets.

"Let's dance," Luba said happily. "They're playing our song."

On a stand at the front of the room a small orchestra was working away

busily. There were two or three couples on the postage-stamp dance

floor, whirling away to the strains of something Malone dimly

remembered as: "My heart's in orbit out in space until I see you

again."

"Our song?" he said.

Luba nodded. "You sang it to me the very first time we met," she said.

"At the cookie-manufacturer's ball. Remember?"

Malone sighed. If Luba wanted to dance, Luba was going to dance. And

so was Malone. He rose and they went to the dance floor. Malone took

her in his arms and for a few bars they danced silently. At the end of

that time they were much closer together than they had been, and

Malone realized that he was somehow managing to enjoy himself.

Thoroughly.

He thought dimly of the stripper he'd seen when he walked in on

Palveri. Like Luba, she had red hair. But somehow, she looked less

attractive undressed than Luba did in a complete wardrobe. Malone

wondered what the funny feeling creeping up his spine was. After a

second he realized that it wasn't love. Luba's hand was tickling him.

He shifted slightly and the hand left, but the funny feeling remained.

Maybe it _was_ love, he thought. He didn't know whether or not to hope

so.

Luba was pressed close to him. He wondered how to open the

conversation, and decided that a sudden passionate declaration would

be more startling than welcome. At last he said: "Thanks for not

tipping my hand."

Luba's whisper caressed his ear. "Don't thank me," she said. "I

enjoyed it."

"Why are you doing this?" Malone said. "Not that I don't appreciate

it, but I thought you were sore."

"Let's just say that your masterful, explosive approach was

irresistible," Luba said.

Malone wondered briefly whether or not they'd turned off the

air-conditioning. If he moved slightly away from Luba, he thought, he

could breathe more easily. But breathing just wasn't worth it. "I will

cheerfully admit," he said, "that I am a ball of fire in the

feathers, as they say. But I didn't realize it was that obvious--even

to a woman of your tender sensitivity."

Somehow, Luba had managed to get even closer to him. "You touch me

deeply," she whispered into his ear.

Malone swallowed hard and tried to take another breath. Just one more,

he thought; that would be all he needed. "What are you doing in Las

Vegas?" he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone. It didn't sound

very casual, though.

"I'm on vacation," Luba said in an off-handed manner. "I won't ask

what you're doing; I can guess pretty well. Besides, you obviously

want to keep it under cover."

"Well," Malone said, "I certainly wouldn't want what I'm doing to be

broadcast aloud to the great American public out there in

television-land." It was a long speech for a man without any breath.

Just one more, Malone told himself, and he could die happy.

"I felt that," Luba said. "You know, Mr. Malone--"

"Call me Ken," Malone said.

"It is silly to be formal now, isn't it?" Luba said. "You know, Ken,

I'm beginning to realize that you are really a very nice person--in

spite of your rather surprising method of attack."

"What's surprising about it?" Malone said. "People do it all the

time."

* * * * *

The orchestra suddenly shifted from the previous slow number to a

rapid fire tune Malone couldn't remember having heard before. "That,"

he announced, "is too fast for me. I'm going to get some fresh air."

Luba nodded, her red hair brushing Malone's cheek silkily. "I'm

coming, too," she said.

Surrounding the Great Universal, Malone remembered, was a small belt

of parkland. He flagged a hallway car--remembering carefully to check

whether or not the driver was the sniggering Murray--and he and Luba

piled in and started out for the park. In the car, he held her hand

silently, feeling a little like a bashful schoolboy and a little like

Sir Kenneth Malone. It was a strange mixture, but he decided that he

liked it.

They got out, standing in the cool darkness of the park. Overhead a

moon and stars were shining. The little hallway car rolled away and

they were alone. Completely alone. Malone swallowed hard.

"Sleuth," Luba said softly in the darkness.

Malone turned to face her.

"Sleuth," she said, "don't you ever take a chance?"

"Chance?" Malone said.

"Damn it," Luba said in a soft, sweet voice, "kiss me, Ken."

Malone had no answer to that--at least, no verbal answer. But then,

one didn't seem to be needed.

When he finally came up for air, he said: "Lou--"

"Yes, Ken?"

"Lou, how long are you going to be here? Or in New York? What I mean

is--"

"I'll be around," Lou said. "I will be going back to New York of

course; after all, Ken, I do have a living to make, such as it is, and

Sir Lewis is expecting me."

"I don't know," Malone said, "but it still sounds funny. A girl like

you working for ... well, for the Psychical Research people. Ghosts

and ectoplasm and all that."

Suddenly Lou wasn't in his arms any more. "Now, wait a minute," she

said. "You seemed to need their information, all right."

"But that was ... oh, well," Malone said. "Never mind. Maybe I'm

silly. It really doesn't matter."

"I guess it doesn't, now," Lou said in a softer tone. "Except that it

does mean I'll be going back to New York pretty soon."

"Oh," Malone said. "But ... look, Lou, maybe we could work something

out. I could tell Sir Lewis I needed you here for something, and then

he'd--"

"My, my," she said. "What it must be like to have all that influence."

"What?" Malone said.

Lou grinned, almost invisibly. "Nothing," she said. "Nothing. But, my

fine feathered Fed, I don't want to be pulled around on somebody

else's string."

"But--"

"I mean it, Ken," Luba said.

Malone shrugged. "Suppose we table it for now, then," he said, "and

get around to it later. At dinner, say ... around nine?"

"And just where," Luba said, "will you be before nine? Making improper

advances to the local contingent of chorines?"

"I will make improper advances," Malone vowed, "only to you, Lou."

Lou's eyes sparkled. "Goody," she said. "I've always wanted to be a

Fallen Woman."

"But I have got some things to do before nine," Malone said. "I've got

to work, too."

"Well, then," Lou said in a suspiciously sweet voice, "suppose I talk

to Sir Lewis Carter, and tell him to keep you in New York? Then--"

"Enough," Malone said. "Nine o'clock."

[Illustration]

XI

Somebody somewhere was wishing all the world "a plague on

both your houses," and making it stick. Confusion is fun in a

comedy--but in the pilot of a plane or an executive of a

nation....

Back in his room, Malone put on a fresh shirt, checked the .44 Magnum

in his shoulder holster, changed jackets, adjusted his hat to the

proper angle, and vanished.

He had, he'd realized, exactly one definite lead. And now he was going

to follow up on it. The Government was apparently falling to pieces;

so was business and so was the Mafia. Nobody Malone had heard of had

gained anything. Except Mike Sand and his truckers. They'd beaten the

Mafia, at least.

Sand was worth a chat. Malone had a way to get in to see him, but he

had to work fast. Otherwise Sand would very possibly know what Malone

was trying to do. And that might easily be dangerous.

He had made his appearance in the darkness beneath one of the bridges

at the southwest side of Central Park, in New York. It was hardly

Malone's idea of perfect comfort, but it did mean safety; there was

very seldom anyone around after dark, and the shadows were thick

enough so that his "appearance" would only mean, to the improbable

passerby, that he had stepped out into the light.

Now he strolled quietly over to Central Park West, and flagged a taxi

heading downtown. He'd expected to run into one of the roving muggers

who still made the Park a trap for the unwary--he'd almost looked

forward to it, in a way--but nobody appeared. It was unusual, but he

didn't have time to wonder about it.

The headquarters for the National Brotherhood of Truckers was east of

Greenwich Village, on First Avenue, so Malone had plenty of time to

think things out while the cab wended its laborious southeast way.

After a few minutes he realized that he would have even more time to

think than he'd planned on.

"Lots of traffic for this time of night," he volunteered.

The cabbie, a fiftyish man with a bald, wrinkled head and surprisingly

bright blue eyes, nodded without turning his head. "Maybe you think

this is bad," he said. "You would not recognize the place an hour

earlier, friend. During the real rush hour, I mean. Things are what

they call _meshuggah_, friend. It means crazy."

"How come?" Malone said.

"The subway is on strike since last week," the cabbie said. "The buses

are also on strike. This means that everybody is using a car. They

can make it faster if they wish to walk, but they use a car. It does

not help matters, believe me."

"I can see that," Malone murmured.

"And the cops are not doing much good either," the cabbie went on,

"since they went on strike sometime last Tuesday."

Malone nodded, and then did a double-take. "Cops?" he said. "On

strike? But that's illegal. They could be arrested."

"You can be funny," the cabbie said. "I am too sad to be funny."

"But--"

"Unless you are from Rhode Island," the cabbie said, "or even farther

away, you are deaf, dumb and blind. Everybody in New York knows what

is going on by this time. I admit that it is not in the newspapers,

but the newspapers do not tell the truth since, as I remember it, the

City Council election of 1924, and then it is an accident, due to the

major's best friend working in the printing plants."

"But cops can't go on strike," Malone said plaintively.

"This," the cabbie said in a judicious tone, "is true. But they do not

give out any parking tickets any more, or any traffic citations

either. They are working on bigger things, they say, and besides all

this there are not so many cops on the force now. They are spread very

thin."

Malone could see what was coming. "Arrests of policemen," he said,

"and resignations."

"And investigations," the cabbie said. "Mayor Amalfi is a good Joe

and does not want anything in the papers until a real strike comes

along, but the word gets out anyhow, as it always does."

"Makes driving tough," Malone said.

"People can make better time on their hands and knees," the cabbie

said, "with the cops pulling a strike. They concentrate on big items

now, and you can even smoke in the subways if you can find a subway

that is running."

Malone stopped to think how much of the city's income depended on

parking tickets and small fines, and realized that a "strike" like the

one the police were pulling might be very effective indeed. And,

unlike the participants in the Boston Police Strike of sixty-odd years

before, these cops would have public sentiment on their side--since

they were keeping actual crime down.

"How long do they think it's going to last?" Malone said.

"It can be over tomorrow," the cabbie said, "but this is not generally

believed in the most influential quarters. Mayor Amalfi and the new

Commissioner try to straighten things out all day long, but the way

things go straightening them out does no good. Something big is in the

wind, friend. I--"

* * * * *

The cab, on Second Avenue and Seventeenth Street, stopped for a

traffic light. Malone felt an itch in the back of his mind, as if his

prescience were trying to warn him of something; he'd felt it for a

little while, he realized, but only now could he pay attention to it.

The door on the driver's side opened suddenly, and so did the door

next to Malone. Two young men, obviously in their early twenties, were

standing in the openings, holding guns that were plainly intended for

immediate use.

The one next to the driver said, in a flat voice: "Don't nobody get

wise. That way nobody gets hurt. Give us--"

That was as far as he got.

When the rear door had opened, Malone had had a full second to prepare

himself, which was plenty of time. The message from his precognitive

powers had come along just in time.

The second gunman thrust his gun into the cab. He seemed almost to be

handing it to Malone politely, and this effect was spoiled only by

Malone's twist of the gunman's wrist, which must have felt as if he'd

put his hand into a loop tied to the axle of a high-speed centrifuge.

The gunman let go of the gun and Malone, spurning it, let it drop.

He didn't need it. His other hand had gone into his coat and come out

again with the .44 Magnum.

The thug at the front of the car had barely realized what was

happening by the time it was all over. Automatic reflexes turned him

away from the driver and toward the source of danger, his gun pointing

toward Malone. But the reflexes gave out as he found himself staring

down a rifled steel tube which, though hardly more than

seven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, must have looked as though a

high-speed locomotive might come roaring out of it at any second.

Malone hardly needed to bark: "_Drop it!_" The revolver hit the seat

next to the cabbie.

"Driver," Malone said in a conversational voice, "can you handle a

gun?"

"Why, it is better than even that I still can," the cabbie said. "I am

in the business myself many years ago, before I see the error of my

ways and buy a taxi with the profits I make. It is a high-pay

business," he went on, "but very insecure."

The cabbie scooped up the weapon by his side, flipped out the cylinder

expertly to check the cartridges, flipped it back in and centered the

muzzle on the gunman who'd dropped the revolver.

"It is more than thirty years since I use one of these," he said

gently, "but I do not forget how to pull the trigger, and at this

range I can hardly miss."

Malone noticed vaguely that he was still holding hands with the second

gunman, and that this one was trying to struggle free. Malone shrugged

and eased off a bit, at the same time shifting his own aim. The .44

Magnum now pointed at gunman number two, and the cabbie was aiming at

gunman number one. The tableau was silent for some seconds.

"Now," Malone said at last, "we wait. Driver, if you would sort of

lean against your horn button, we might be able to speed things up a

little. The light has turned green."

"The local constables," the cabbie said, "do not bother with stalled

cars in traffic these days."

"But," Malone pointed out, "I have a hunch no cop could resist a taxi

which is not only stalled and blocking traffic but is also blatting

its horn continuously. Strike or no strike," he finished

sententiously, "there are things beyond the power of man to ignore."

"Friend," the cabbie said, "you convince me. It is a good move." He

sagged slightly against the horn button, keeping the gun centered at

all times on the man before him.

The horn began to wail horribly.

The first gunman swallowed nervously. "Hey, now, listen," he said,

shouting slightly above the horn. "This wasn't anything. Just a gag,

see? A little gag. We was playing a joke. On a friend."

The driver addressed Malone. "Do you ever see either of these boys

before?"

"Never," Malone said.

"Nor do I," the cabbie said. He eyed the gunman. "We are not your

friend," he said. "Either of us."

"No, no," the gunman said. "Not you. This friend, he ... uh ... owns a

taxi, and we thought this was it. It was kind of a joke, see? A

friendly joke, that's all. Believe me, the gun's not even loaded. Both

of them aren't. Phony bullets, honest. Believe me?"

"Why, naturally I believe you," the cabbie said politely. "I never

doubt the word of a stranger, especially such an honest-appearing

stranger as you seem to be. And since the gun is loaded with false

bullets, as you say, all you have to do is reach over and take it away

from me."

There was a short silence.

"A joke," the gunman said feebly. "Honest, just a joke."

"We believe you," Malone assured him grandly. "As a matter of fact, we

appreciate the joke so much that we want you to tell it to a panel of

twelve citizens, a judge and a couple of lawyers, so they can

appreciate it, too. They get little fun out of life and your joke may

give them a few moments of happiness. Why hide your light under an

alibi?"

The horn continued its dismal wail for a few seconds more before two

patrolmen and a sergeant came up on horses. It took somewhat more time

than that for Malone to convince the sergeant that he didn't have time

to go down to the station to prefer charges. He showed his

identification and the police were suitably impressed.

"Lock 'em up for violating the Sullivan Law," he said. "I'm sure they

don't have licenses for these lovely little guns of theirs."

"Probably not," the sergeant agreed. "There's been an awful lot of

this kind of thing going on lately. But here's an idea: the cabbie

here can come on with us."

The top of the cabbie's head turned pale. "That," he said, "is the

trouble with being a law-abiding citizen such as I have been for

upwards of thirty years. Because I do not want to lose twenty dollars

to these young strangers, I lose twenty dollars' worth of time in a

precinct station, the air of which is very bad for my asthma."

Malone, taking the hint, dug a twenty out of his pockets, and then

added another to it, remembering how much he had spent in Las Vegas,

where his money funneled slowly into the pockets of Primo Palveri. The

cabbie took the money with haste and politeness and stowed it away.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am now prepared to spend the entire night

signing affidavits, if enough affidavits can be dug up." He looked

pleased.

"Mr. Malone," the sergeant said wearily, "people just don't realize

what's going on in this town. We never did have half enough cops, and

now, with so many men resigning and getting arrested and suspended, we

haven't got a quarter enough. People think this strike business is

funny, but if we spent any time fiddling around with traffic and

parking tickets, we'd never have time to stop even crimes like this,

let alone the big jobs. As it is, though, there haven't been a lot of

big ones. Every hood in the city's out to make a couple of bucks--but

that's it so far, thank God."

Malone nodded. "How about the FBI?" he said. "Want them to come in and

help?"

"Mr. Malone," the sergeant said, "the City of New York can take very

good care of itself, without outside interference."

Some day, Malone told himself, good old New York City was going to

secede from the Union and form a new country entirely. Then it would

have a war with New Jersey and probably be wiped right off the map.

Viewing the traffic around him as he hunted for another cab, he wasn't

at all sure that that was a bad idea. He began to wish vaguely that he

had borrowed one of the policemen's horses.

* * * * *

Malone wasn't in the least worried about arriving at Mike Sand's

office late. In the first place, Sand was notorious for sleeping late

and working late to make up for it. His work schedule was somewhere

around forty-five degrees out of phase with the rest of the world,

which made it just about average for the National Brotherhood of

Truckers. It had never agitated for a nine-to-five work day. A man

driving a truck, after all, worked all sorts of odd hours--and the

union officials did the same, maybe just to prove that they were all

good truckers at heart.

The sign over the door read:

National Headquarters

NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD

OF TRUCKERS

Welcome, Brother

Malone pushed at the door and it swung open, revealing a rather

dingy-looking foyer. More Good Old Truckers At Heart, he told himself.

Mike Sand owned a quasi-palatial mansion in Puerto Rico for winter

use, and a two-floor, completely air-conditioned apartment on Fifth

Avenue for summer use. But the Headquarters Building looked dingy

enough to make truckers conscience-stricken about paying back dues.

Behind the reception desk there was a man whose face was the

approximate shape and color of a slightly used waffle. He looked up

from his crossword puzzle as Malone came in, apparently trying to

decide whether or not this new visitor should be greeted with:

"Welcome, Brother!"

Taking pity on his indecision, Malone strode to the desk and said:

"Tell Mike Sand he has a visitor."

The waffle-faced man blinked. "Mr. Sand is busy right now," he said.

"Who wants to talk to him?"

Malone tried to look steely-eyed and tough. "You pick up the

intercom," he said, "and you tell Sand there's a man out here who's in

the cloak-and-suit business."

"The what?"

"Tell him this man is worried about a recent shipment of buttons,"

Malone went on.

"Mister," the waffle-faced man said, "you're nuts."

"So I'm nuts," Malone said. "Make the call."

It was put through. After a few minutes of earnest conversation the

man turned to look at Malone again, dizzied wonder in his eyes. "Mr.

Sand says go right up," he told the FBI Agent in a shocked voice.

"Elevator to the third floor."

Malone went over to the elevator, stepped in and pressed the

third-floor button. As the doors closed, the familiar itch of

precognition began to assail him again. This time he had nothing else

to distract him. He paid very close attention to it as he was carried

slowly and creakily upward.

He looked up. There was an escape-hatch in the top of the car.

Standing on tiptoe, he managed to lift it aside, grasp the edges of

the resulting hole and pull himself up through the hole to the top of

the car. He looked back down, memorizing the elevator, and then pulled

the hatch shut again. There was a small peephole in it, and Malone put

his eye to it and waited.

About twenty seconds later, the car stopped and the doors opened. A

little more time passed, and then a gun, closely followed by a man,

edged around the door frame.

"What the hell," the man said. "The car's empty!"

Another voice said: "Let's cover the stairway."

Two pairs of footsteps receded rapidly down the hall. Malone, gun in

hand, teleported himself back to the previously memorized elevator,

tiptoed to the door and looked out. The two men were standing at the

far end of the hall, posted at either side of the stairwell and

obviously waiting for him to come on up.

Instead, he tiptoed out of the elevator hefting his gun, and came up

silently behind the pair. When he was within ten feet he stopped and

said, very politely: "Drop the guns, boys."

The guns thudded to the floor and the two men turned round.

"All right," Malone said, smiling into their astonished faces. "Now,

let's go on and see Mr. Sand."

[Illustration]

He picked up the guns with his free hand and put them into his coat

pockets. Together, the three men went down toward the lighted office

at the far end of the hall.

"Open it," Malone said as they came to the door. He followed them into

the office. Behind a battered, worm-eaten desk in a dingy room sat a

very surprised-looking Mike Sand.

He was only about five feet six, but he looked as if weighed over two

hundred pounds. He had huge shoulders and a thick neck, and his face

was sleepy-looking. He seemed to have lost a lot of fights in his long

career; Sand, Malone reflected, was nearing fifty now, and he was

beginning to look his age. His short hair, once black, was turning to

iron-gray.

He didn't say anything. Malone smiled at him pleasantly. "These boys

were carrying deadly weapons," he told Sand in a polite voice. "That's

hardly the way to treat a brother." His precognitive warning system

wasn't ringing any alarm bells, but he kept his gun trained on the

pair of thugs as he walked over to Mike Sand's desk and took the two

extra revolvers from his pocket. "You'd better keep these, Sand," he

said. "Your boys don't know how to handle them."

Sand grinned sourly, pulled open a desk drawer and swept the guns into

it with one motion of his ham-like hand. He didn't look at Malone.

"You guys better go downstairs and keep Jerry company," he said. "You

can do crossword puzzles together."

"Now, Mike, we--" one of them began.

Mike Sand snorted. "Go on," he said. "Scram."

"But he was supposed to be in the elevator, and we--"

"Scram," Sand said. It sounded like a curse. The two men got out.

"Like apes in the trees," Sand said heavily. "Ask for bright boys and

what do you get? Everything," he went on dismally, "is going to hell."

* * * * *

That line, Malone reflected, was beginning to have all the persistence

of a bass-bourdon. It droned its melancholy way through anything and

everything else. He signed deeply, thought about a cigar and lit a

cigarette instead. It tasted awful. "About those buttons--" he said.

"I got nothing to do with buttons," Sand said.

"You do with these," Malone said. "A shipment of buttons from the

Nevada desert. You grabbed them from Palveri."

"I got nothing to do with it," Sand said.

Malone looked around and found a chair and an ashtray. He grabbed one

and sat down in the other. "I'm not from Castelnuovo," he said. "Or

Palveri, or any of the Mafia boys. If I were, you'd know it fast

enough."

Sand regarded him from under eyelids made almost entirely of

scar-tissue. "I guess so," he said sourly at last. "But what do you

want to know about the stuff? And who are you, anyhow?"

"The name's Malone," Malone said. "You might say trouble is my

business. Or something like that. I see an opportunity to create a

little trouble--but not for you. That is, if you want to hear some

more about those buttons. Of course, if you had nothing to do with

it--"

"All right," Sand said. "All right. But it was strictly a legitimate

proposition, understand?"

"Sure," Malone said. "Strictly legitimate."

"Well, it was," Sand said defensively. "We got to stop scab trucking,

don't we? And that Palveri was using nonunion boys on the trucks. We

had to stop them; it was a service to the Brotherhood, understand?"

"And the peyotl buttons?" Malone asked.

Sand shrugged. "So we had to confiscate the cargo, didn't we?" he

said. "To teach them a lesson. Nonunion drivers, that's what we're

against."

"And you're for peyotl," Malone said, "so you can make it into peyote

and get enough money to refurbish Brotherhood Headquarters."

"Now, look," Sand said. "You think you're tough and you can get away

with a lot of wisecracks. That's a wrong idea, brother." He didn't

move, but he suddenly seemed set to spring. Malone wondered if, just

maybe, his precognition had blown a fuse.

"O.K., let's forget it," he said. "But I've got some inside lines,

Sand. You didn't get the real shipment."

"Didn't get it?" Sand said with raised eyebrows. "I got it. It's

right where I can put my finger on it now."

"That was the fake," Malone said easily. "They knew you were after a

shipment, Sand, so they suckered you in. They fed your spies with

false information and sent you out after the fake shipment."

"Fake shipment?" Sand said. "It's the real stuff, brother. The real

stuff."

"But not enough of it," Malone said. "Their big shipments are almost

three times what you got. They made one while you were suckered off

with the fake--and they're making another one next week. Interested?"

Sand snorted. "The hell," he said. "Didn't you hear me say I got the

first shipment right where I can put my finger on it?"

"So?" Malone said.

"So I can't get rid of it," Sand said. "What do I want with a new

load? Every day I hold the stuff is dangerous. You never know when

somebody's going to look for it and maybe find it."

"Can't get rid of it?" Malone said. This was a new turn of events.

"What's happening?"

"Everything," Sand said tersely. "Look, you want to sell me some

information--but you don't know the setup. Maybe when I tell you,

you'll stop bothering me." He put his head in his hands, and his

voice, when he spoke again, was muffled. "The contacts are gone," he

said. "With the arrests and the resignations and everything else,

nobody wants to take any chances; the few guys that aren't locked up

are scared they will be. I can't make any kind of a deal for anything.

There just isn't any action."

"Things are tough, huh?" Malone said hopelessly. Apparently even Mike

Sand wasn't going to pan out for him.

"Things are terrible," Sand said. "The locals are having

revolutions--guys there are kicking out the men from National

Headquarters. Nobody knows where he stands any more--a lot of my

organizers have been goofing up and getting arrested for one thing and

another. Like apes in the trees, that's what."

Malone nodded very slowly and took another puff of the cigarette.

"Nothing's going right," he said.

"Listen," Sand said. "You want to hear trouble? My account books are

in duplicate--you know? Just to keep things nice and peaceful and

quiet."

"One for the investigators and one for the money," Malone said.

"Sure," Sand said, preoccupied with trouble. "You know the setup. But

both sets are missing. Both sets." He raised his head, the picture of

witless agony. "I've got an idea where they are, too. I'm just waiting

for the axe to fall."

"O.K.," Malone said. "Where are they?"

"The U. S. Attorney's Office," Sand said dismally. He stared down at

his battered desk and sighed.

Malone stubbed out his cigarette. "So you're not in the market for any

more buttons?" he said.

"All I'm in the market for," Sand said without raising his eyes, "is

a nice, painless way to commit suicide."

* * * * *

Malone walked several blocks without noticing where he was going. He

tried to think things over, and everything seemed to fall into a

pattern that remained, agonizingly, just an inch or so out of his

mental reach. The mental bursts, the trouble the United States was

having, Palveri, Queen Elizabeth, Burris, Mike Sand, Dr. O'Connor, Sir

Lewis Carter and even Luba Ardanko juggled and flowed in his mind like

pieces out of a kaleidoscope. But they refused to form any pattern he

could recognize.

He uttered a short curse and managed to collide with a bulky woman

with frazzled black hair. "Pardon me," he said politely.

"The hell with it," the woman said, looking straight past him, and

went jerkily on her way. Malone blinked and looked around him. There

were a lot of people still on the streets, but they didn't look like

normal New York City people. They were all curiously tense and wary,

as if they were suspicious not only of him and each other, but even

themselves. He caught sight of several illegal-looking bulges beneath

men's armpits, and many heavily sagging pockets. One or two women

appeared to be unduly solicitous of their large and heavy handbags.

But it wasn't his job to enforce the Sullivan Law, he told himself.

Especially while he was on vacation.

A single foot patrolman stood a few feet ahead, guarding a liquor

store with drawn revolver, his eyes scanning the passers-by warily

while he waited for help. Behind him, the smashed plate glass and

broken bottles and the sprawled figure just inside the door told a

fairly complete story.

Down the block, Malone saw several stores that carried _Closed_ or

_Gone Out Of Business_ signs. The whole depressing picture gave him

the feeling that all the tragedies of the 1930-1935 period had somehow

been condensed into the past two weeks.

Ahead there was a chain drugstore, and Malone headed for it. Two

uniformed men wearing Special Police badges were standing near the

door eyeing everyone with suspicion, but Malone managed to get past

them and went on to a telephone booth. He tried dialling the

Washington number of the FBI, but got only a continuous _beep-beep_,

indicating a service delay. Finally he managed to get a special

operator, who told him sorrowfully that calls to Washington were

jamming all available trunk lines.

Malone glanced around to make sure nobody was watching. Then he

teleported himself to his apartment in Washington and, on arriving,

headed for the phone there. Using that one, he dialed again, got

Pelham's sad face on the screen, and asked for Thomas Boyd.

Boyd didn't look any different, Malone thought, though maybe he was a

little more tired. Henry VIII had obviously had a hard day trying to

get his wives to stop nagging him. "Ken," he said. "I thought you were

on vacation. What are you doing calling up the FBI, or do you just

want to feel superior to us poor working slobs?"

"I need some information," Malone said.

Boyd uttered a short, mirthless laugh. "How to beat the tables, you

mean?" he said. "How are things in good old Las Vegas?"

Malone, realizing that with direct-dial phones Boyd had no idea where

he was actually calling from, kept wisely quiet. "How about Burris?"

he said after a second. "Has he come up with any new theories yet?"

"New theories?" Boyd said. "What about?"

"Everything," Malone said. "From all I see in the papers things

haven't been quieting down any. Is it still Brubitsch, Borbitsch and

Garbitsch putting psychodrugs in water-coolers, or has something new

been added?"

"I don't know what the chief thinks," Boyd said. "Things'll straighten

out in a while. We're working on it--twenty-four hours a day, or damn

near, but we're working. While you take a nice, long vacation that--"

"I want you to get me something," Malone said. "Just go and get it and

send it to me at Las Vegas."

"Money?" Boyd said with raised eyebrows.

"Dossiers," Malone said. "On Mike Sand and Primo Palveri."

"Palveri I can understand," Boyd said. "You want to threaten him with

exposure unless he lets you beat the roulette tables. But why Sand?

Ken, are you working on something psionic?"

"Me?" Malone said sweetly. "I'm on vacation."

"The chief won't like--"

"Can you send me the dossiers?" Malone interrupted.

Boyd shook his head very slowly. "Ken, I can't do it without the chief

finding out about it. If you are working on something ... hell, I'd

like to help you. But I don't see how I can. You don't know what

things are like here."

"What are they like?" Malone said.

"The full force is here," Boyd said. "As far as I know, you're the

only vacation leave not canceled yet. And not only that, but we've got

agents in from the Sureté and New Scotland Yard, agents from Belgium

and Germany and Holland and Japan ... Ken, we've even got three MVD

men here working with us."

"It's happening all over?" Malone said.

"All over the world," Boyd said. "Ken, I'm beginning to think we've

got a case of Martian Invaders on our hands. Or something like it." He

paused. "But we're licking them, Ken," he went on. "Slowly but surely,

we're licking them."

"How do you mean?" Malone said.

"Crime is down," Boyd said, "away down. Major crime, I mean--petty

theft, assault, breaking and entering and that sort of thing has gone

away up, but that's to be expected. Everything's going to--"

"Skip the handbasket," Malone said. "But you're working things out?"

"Sooner or later," Boyd said. "Every piece of equipment and every man

in the FBI is working overtime; we can't be stopped forever."

"I'll wave flags," Malone said bitterly. "And I wish I could join

you."

"Believe me," Boyd said, "you don't know when you're well off."

Malone switched off. He looked at his watch; it was ten-thirty.

XII

That made it eight-thirty in Las Vegas. Malone opened his eyes again

in his hotel room there. He had half an hour to spare until his dinner

date with Luba. That gave him plenty of time to shower, shave and

dress, and he felt pleased to have managed the timing so neatly.

Two minutes later, he was soaking in the luxury of a hot tub allowing

the warmth to relax his body while his mind turned over the facts he

had collected. There were a lot of them, but they didn't seem to mean

anything special.

The world, he told himself, was going to hell in a handbasket. That

was all very well and good, but just what was the handbasket made of?

Burris' theory, the more he thought about it, was a pure case of

mental soapsuds, with perhaps a dash of old cotton-candy to make

confusion even worse confounded.

And there wasn't any other theory, was there?

Well, Malone reflected, there was one, or at least a part of one. Her

Majesty had said that everything was somehow tied up with the mental

bursts--and that sounded a lot more probable. Assuming that the bursts

and the rest of the mixups were _not_ connected made, as a matter of

fact, very little sense; it was multiplying hypotheses without reason.

When two unusual things happen, they have at least one definite

connection: they're both unusual. The sensible thing to do, Malone

thought, was to look for more connections.

Which meant asking who was causing the bursts, and why. Her Majesty

had said that she didn't know, and couldn't do it herself. Obviously,

though, some telepath or a team of telepaths was doing the job. And

the only trouble with that, Malone reflected sadly, was that all

telepaths were in the Yucca Flats laboratory.

It was at this point that he sat upright in the tub, splashing water

over the floor and gripping the soap with a strange excitement. Who'd

ever said that _all_ the telepaths were in Yucca Flats? All the ones

so far discovered were--but that, obviously, was an entirely different

matter.

Her majesty didn't know about any others, true. But Malone thought of

his own mind-shield. If he could make himself telepathically

"invisible," why couldn't someone else? Dr. Marshall's theories seemed

to point the other way--but they only went for telepaths like Her

Majesty, who were psychotic. A sane telepath, Malone thought, might

conceivably develop such a mind-shield.

All known telepaths were nuts, he told himself. Now, he began to see

why. He'd started out, two years before, _hunting_ for nuts, and for

idiots. But they wouldn't even know anything about sane telepaths--the

sane ones probably wouldn't even want to communicate with them.

A sane telepath was pretty much of an unknown quantity. But that,

Malone told himself with elation, was exactly what he was looking for.

Could a sane telepath do what an insane one couldn't--and project

thoughts, or at least mental bursts?

He got out of the cooling tub and grabbed for a terry-cloth robe. Not

even bothering about the time, he closed his eyes. When he opened them

again he was in the Yucca Flats apartment of Dr. Thomas O'Connor.

O'Connor wasn't sleeping, exactly. He sat in a chair in his

bare-looking living room, a book open on his lap, his head nodding

slightly. Malone's entrance made no sounds, and O'Connor didn't move

or look around.

"Doctor," Malone said, "is it possible that--"

O'Connor came up off the chair a good foot and a half. He went: "Eee,"

and came down again, still gripping the book. His head turned.

"It's me," Malone said.

"Indeed," O'Connor said. "Indeed indeed. My goodness." He opened his

mouth some more but no words came out of it. "Eee," he said again, at

last, in a conversational tone.

Malone took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I startled you," he said, "but

this is important and it couldn't wait." O'Connor stared blankly at

him. "Dr. O'Connor," Malone said, "it's me. Kenneth J. Malone. I want

to talk to you."

* * * * *

At last O'Connor's expression returned almost to normal. "Mr. Malone,"

he said, "you are undressed."

Malone sighed. "This is important, doctor," he said. "Let's not waste

time with all that kind of thing."

"But, Mr. Malone--" O'Connor began frostily.

"I need some information," Malone said, "and maybe you've got it. What

do you know about telepathic projection?"

"About what?" O'Connor said. "Do you mean nontelepaths receiving some

sort of ... communication from telepaths?"

"Right," Malone said. "Mind-to-mind communication, of course; I'm not

interested in the United States mail or the telephone companies. How

about it, doctor? Is it possible?"

O'Connor gnawed at his lower lip for a second. "There have been cases

reported," he said at last. "Very few have been written up with any

accuracy, and those seem to be confined to close relatives or loved

ones of the person projecting the message."

"Is that necessary?" Malone said. "Isn't it possible that--"

"Further," O'Connor said, getting back into his lecture-room stride,

"I think you'll find that the ... ah ... message so received is one

indicating that the projector of such a message is in dire peril. He

has, for instance, been badly injured, or is rapidly approaching

death, or else he has narrowly escaped death."

"What does that have to do with it?" Malone said. "I mean, why should

all those requirements be necessary?"

O'Connor frowned slightly. "Because," he said, "the amount of psionic

energy necessary for such a feat is tremendous. Usually, it is the

final burst of energy, the outpouring of all the remaining psionic

force immediately before death. And if death does not occur, the

person is at the least greatly weakened; his mind, if it ever does

recover, needs time and rest to do so."

"And he reaches a relative or a loved one," Malone said, "because the

linkage is easier; there's some thought of him in that other mind for

him to 'tune in' on."

"We assume so," O'Connor said.

"Very well, then," Malone said. "I'll assume so, too. But if the

energy is so great, then a person couldn't do this sort of thing very

often."

"Hardly," O'Connor said.

Malone nodded. "It's like ... like giving blood to a blood bank," he

said. "Giving ... oh, three quarts of blood. It might not kill you.

But if it didn't, you'd be weak for a long time."

"Exactly," O'Connor said. "A good analogy, Mr. Malone." Malone looked

at him and felt relieved that he'd managed to get the conversation

onto pure lecture-room science so quickly. O'Connor, easily at home in

that world, had been able to absorb the shock of Malone's sudden

appearance while providing the facts in his own inimitable, frozen

manner.

"So one telepath couldn't go on doing it all the time," he said.

"But--how about several people?"

"Several people?" O'Connor said.

"I mean ... well, let's look at that blood bank again," Malone said.

"You need three quarts of blood. But one person doesn't have to give

it. Suppose twelve people gave half a pint each."

"Ah," O'Connor said. "I see. Or twenty-four people, giving a

quarter-pint each. Or--"

"That's the idea," Malone said hurriedly. "I guess there'd be a point

of diminishing returns, but that's the point. Would something like

that be possible?"

O'Connor thought for what seemed like a long time. "It might," he said

at last. "At least theoretically. But it would take a great deal of

mental co-ordination among the participants. They would all have to be

telepaths, of course."

"In order to mesh their thoughts right on the button, and direct them

properly and at the correct time," Malone said. "Right?"

"Ah ... correct," O'Connor said. "Given that, Mr. Malone, I imagine

that it might possibly be done."

"Wonderful," Malone said.

"However," O'Connor said, apparently glad to throw even a little cold

water on the notion, "it could not be done for very long periods of

time, you understand. It would happen in rather short bursts."

"That's right," Malone said, enjoying the crestfallen look on

O'Connor's face. "That's exactly what I was looking for."

"I'm ... ah ... glad to have been of service," O'Connor said.

"However, Mr. Malone, I should like to request--"

"Oh, don't worry," Malone said. "I won't slam the door." He vanished.

* * * * *

It was eight-fifty. Hurriedly, he rinsed himself off, shaved and put

on his evening clothes. But he was still late--it was two minutes

after nine when he showed up at the door that led off the lobby to the

Universal Joint. Luba was, surprisingly, waiting for him there.

"Ready for a vast feast?" she asked pleasantly.

"In about a minute and a half," Malone said. "Do you mind waiting that

long?"

"Frankly," Luba said, "in five minutes I will be gnawing holes in the

gold paneling around here. And I do want to catch the first floor

show, too. I understand they've got a girl who has--"

"That," Malone said sternly, "should interest me more than it does

you."

"I'm always interested in what the competition is doing," Luba said.

"Nevertheless," Malone began, and stopped. After a second he started

again: "Anyhow, this is important."

[Illustration]

"All right," she said instantly. "What is it?"

He led her away from the door to an alcove in the lobby where they

could talk without being overheard. "Can you get hold of Sir Lewis at

this time of night?" he asked.

"Sir Lewis?" she said. "If ... if it's urgent, I suppose I could."

"It's urgent," Malone said. "I need all the data on telepathic

projection I can get. The scientists have given me some of it--maybe

Psychical Research has some more. I imagine it's all mixed up with

ghosts and ectoplasm, but--"

"Telepathic projection," Luba said. "Is that where a person projects a

thought into somebody else's mind?"

"That's it," Malone said. "Can Sir Lewis get me all the data on that

tonight?"

"Tonight?" Luba said. "It's pretty late and what with sending them

from New York to Nevada--"

"Don't bother about that," Malone said. "Just send 'em to the FBI

Offices in New York. I'll have the boys there make copies and send the

copies on." Instead, he thought, he would teleport to New York

himself. But Luba definitely didn't have to know that.

"He'd have to send the originals," Luba said.

"I'll guarantee their safety," Malone said. "But I need the data right

now."

Luba hesitated.

"Tell him to bill the FBI," Malone said. "Call him collect and he can

bill the phone call, too."

"All right, Ken," Luba said at last. "I'll try."

She went off to make the call, and came back in a few minutes.

"O.K.?" Malone said.

She smiled at him, very gently. "O.K.," she said. "Now let's go in to

dinner, before I get any hungrier and the Great Universal loses some

of its paneling."

Dinner, Malone told himself, was going to be wonderful. He was alone

with Luba, and he was in a fancy, fine, expensive place. He was happy,

and Luba was happy, and everything was going to be perfectly frabjous.

It was. He had no desire whatever, when dinner and the floor show were

over, to leave Luba. Unfortunately, he did have work to do--work that

was more important than anything else he could imagine. He made a

tentative date for the next day, went to his room, and from there

teleported himself to FBI Headquarters, New York.

The agent-in-charge looked up at him. "Hey," he said. "I thought you

were on vacation, Malone."

"How come everybody knows about me being on vacation?" Malone said

sourly.

The agent-in-charge shrugged. "The only leave not canceled?" he said.

"Hell, it was all over the place in five minutes."

"O.K., O.K.," Malone said. "Don't remind me. Is there a package for

me?"

The agent-in-charge produced a large box. "A messenger brought it," he

said. "From the Psychical Research Society," he said. "What is it,

ghosts?"

"Dehydrated," Malone said. "Just add ectoplasm and out they come,

shouting _Boo!_ at everybody."

"Sounds wonderful," the agent-in-charge said. "Can I come to the

party?"

"First," Malone said judiciously, "you'd have to be dead. Of course I

can arrange that--"

"Thanks," the agent-in-charge said, leaving in a hurry. Malone went on

down to his office and opened the box. It contained books, pamphlets

and reports from Sir Lewis, all dealing with some area of telepathic

projection. He spent a few minutes looking them over and trying to

make some connected sense out of them, but finally he gave up and just

sat and thought. The material seemed to be no help at all; it told him

even less than Dr. O'Connor had.

What he needed, he decided, was somebody to talk to. But who? He

couldn't talk to the FBI, and nobody else knew much about what he was

trying to investigate. He thought of Her Majesty and rejected the

notion with a sigh. No, what he needed was somebody smart and quick,

somebody who could be depended on, somebody with training and

knowledge.

And then, very suddenly, he knew who he wanted.

"Well, now, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Let's put everything together and

see what happens."

"Indeed," said Sir Kenneth Malone, "it is high time we did so, Sirrah.

Proceed: I shall attend."

* * * * *

"Let's start from the beginning," Malone said. "We know there's

confusion in all parts of the country--in all parts of the world, I

guess. And we know that confusion is being caused by carefully timed

accidents and errors. We also know that these errors appear to be

accompanied by violent bursts of psionic static--violent energy. And

we know, further, that on three specific occasions, these bursts of

energy were immediately followed by a reversal of policy in the mind

of the person on the receiving end."

"You mean," Sir Kenneth put in, "that these gentlemen changed their

opinions."

"Correct," Malone said. "I refer, of course, to the firm of Brubitsch,

Borbitsch and Garbitsch, Spying Done Cheap."

"Indeed," Sir Kenneth said. "Then the operators of this strange force,

whatever it may prove to be, must have some interest in allowing the

spies' confession?"

"Maybe," Malone said. "Let's leave that for later. To get back to the

beginning of all this: it seems to me to follow that the accidents and

errors which have caused all the confusion throughout the world happen

because somebody's mind is changed just the right amount at the right

time. A man does something he didn't intend to do--or else he forgets

to do it at all."

"Ah," Sir Kenneth said. "We have done those things we ought not to

have done; we have left undone those things we ought to have done. And

you feel, Sirrah, that a telepathic command is the cause of this

confusion?"

"A series of them," Malone said. "But we also know, from Dr. O'Connor,

that it takes a great deal of psychic energy to perform this

particular trick--more than a person can normally afford to expend."

"Marry, now," Sir Kenneth said. "Meseemeth this is not reasonable.

Changing the mind of a man indeed seems a small thing in comparison to

teleportation, or psychokinesis, or levitation or any such witchery.

And yet it take more power than any of these?"

Malone thought for a second. "Sure it does," he said. "I'd say it was

a matter of resistance. Moving an inanimate object is pretty

simple--comparatively, anyhow--because inert matter has no mental

resistance."

"And moving oneself?" Sir Kenneth said.

"There's some resistance there, probably," Malone said. "But you'll

remember that the Fueyo system of training for teleportation involved

overcoming your own mental resistance to the idea."

"True," Sir Kenneth said. "'Tis true. Then let us agree that it takes

great power to effect this change. Where does our course point from

that agreement, Sirrah?"

"Next," Malone said, "we have to do a little supposing. This project

must be handled by a fairly large group, since no individual can do it

alone. This large group has to be telepathic--and not only for the

reasons Dr. O'Connor and I specified."

"And why else?" Sir Kenneth demanded.

"They've also got to know exactly when to make this victim of theirs

change his mind," Malone said. "Right?"

"Correct," Sir Kenneth said.

"We've got to look for a widespread organization of telepaths," Malone

said, "with enough mental discipline to hold onto a tough mental

shield. Strong, trained, sane men."

"A difficult assignment," Sir Kenneth commented.

"Well," Malone said, "suppose you hold on for a second--don't go

away--and let me figure something out."

"I shall wait," sir Kenneth said, "without."

"Without what?" Malone murmured. But there was no time for games. Now,

then, he told himself--and sneezed.

He shook his head, cursed softly and went on.

Now, then....

* * * * *

There was an organization, spread all over the Western world, and with

what were undoubtedly secret branches in the Soviet Union. The

organization had to be an old one--because it had to have trained

telepaths, of a high degree of efficiency. And training took time.

There was something else to consider, too. In order to organize to

such a degree that they could wreak the complete havoc they were

wreaking, the organization couldn't be completely secret; there are

always leaks, always suspicious events, and a society that spent time

covering all of those up would have no time for anything else.

So the organization had to be a known one, in the Western world at

least--a known group, masquerading as something else.

So far, everything made sense. Malone frowned and tried to think.

Where, he wondered, did he go from here?

Maybe this time a list would help. He found a pencil and a piece of

paper, and headed the paper: _Organization_. Then he started putting

down what he knew about it, and what he'd figured out:

1. Large

2. Old

3. Disguised

It sounded, so far, just a little like Frankenstein's Monster wearing

a red wig. But what else did he know about it?

After a second's thought, he murmured: "Nothing," and put the pencil

down.

But that, he realized, wasn't quite true. He knew one more thing about

the organization. He knew they'd probably be immune to the confusion

everybody else was suffering from. The organization would be--had to

be--efficient. It would be composed of intelligent, superbly

co-operative people, who could work together as a unit without in the

least impairing their own individuality.

He reached for the pencil again, and put down:

4. Efficient

He looked at it. Now it didn't remind him so much of the Monster. But

it didn't look terribly familiar, either. Who did he know, he thought,

who was large, old, disguised and efficient?

It sounded like an improbable combination. He set the paper down,

clearing off some of the PRS books to make room for it. And then he

stopped.

The papers the PRS had sent him....

And he'd gotten them so quickly, so efficiently....

They were a large organization....

And an old one....

He looked for a desk phone, found one and grabbed at it frantically.

* * * * *

The girl who answered the phone looked familiar. Malone suddenly

remembered to check the time--it was just after nine. The girl stared

at him. She did not look terribly old, but she was large and she had

to be disguised. There seemed to be a lot of teeth running around in

this case, Malone thought, between the burlesque stripper in Las Vegas

and Miss Dental Display here in New York. Nobody, he told himself,

could have collected that many teeth honestly.

"Psychical Research Society," she said. "Oh, Mr. Malone. Good

morning."

"Sir Lewis," Malone said in a rush. "Sir Lewis Carter. I want to talk

to him. Hurry."

"Sir Lewis Carter?" the girl said very slowly. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr.

Malone, but he won't be in at all today."

"Home number," Malone said desperately. "I've got to."

"Well, I can give you that, Mr. Malone," she said, "but it wouldn't do

you any good, really. Because he went away on his vacation and when he

does that he never tells us where. You know? He won't be back for two

or three weeks," she added as an afterthought.

Malone said: "Oog," and thought for less than a second. "Somebody

official," he said. "Got to talk to somebody official. Now."

"Oh, I can't do that either, Mr. Malone," the toothy girl said. "All

of the executives already left on their vacation. They just left a

skeleton force here at the office."

"They're all gone?" Malone said hollowly.

"That's right," the girl said with great cheer. "As a matter of fact,

I'm in charge now. You know?"

"I'm afraid I do," Malone said. "It's very important, though. You

don't have any idea where any of them went?"

"None at all," she said. "I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Maybe if

you were me you'd ask questions, but I just follow orders and those

were my orders. To take over until they get back. You know? They

didn't tell me where and I just didn't ask."

"Great," Malone said. He wanted to shoot himself. Everything was

obvious now--about twenty-four hours too late. And now, they'd all

gone--for two weeks--or for good.

The girl's rancid voice broke in on his thoughts.

"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said. "I'm sorry, but I just remembered they

left a note for you."

"A note?" Malone said. "For me?"

"Sir Lewis said you might call," the girl said, "and he left a

message. If you'll hold on a minute I'll read it."

Malone waited tensely. The girl found a slip of paper, blinked at it

and read:

"My dear Malone, I'm afraid that what you have deduced is quite

correct; and, as you can see, that leaves us no alternative. Sorry.

Miss Luba A. sends her apologies to you, since she is joining us; my

apologies are also tendered." The girl looked up. "It's signed by Sir

Lewis," she said. "Does that mean anything to you, Mr. Malone?"

"I'm afraid it does," Malone said blankly. "It means entirely too

much."

XIII

After Miss Dental Display had faded from Malone's screen, he just sat

there, looking at the dead, gray front of the visiphone and feeling

about twice as dead and at least three times as gray.

Things, he told himself, were terrible. But even that sentence, which

was a good deal more cheerful than what he actually felt, did nothing

whatever to improve his mood. All of the evidence, after all, had been

practically living on the tip of his nose for God alone knew how long,

and not only had he done nothing about it, he hadn't even seen it.

There was the organization, staring him in the face. There was

Luba--nobody's fool, no starry-eyed dreamer of occult dreams. She was

part of the Psychical Research Society, why hadn't he thought to

wonder why she was connected with it?

And there was his own mind-shield. Why hadn't he wondered whether

other telepaths might not have the same shield?

He thought about Luba and told himself bitterly that from now on she

was Miss Ardanko. Enough, he told himself, was enough. From now on he

was calling her by her last name, formally and distantly. In his own

mind, anyhow.

Facts came tumbling in on him like the side of a mountain falling on a

hapless traveler, during a landslide season. And, Malone told himself,

he had never possessed less hap in all of his ill-starred life.

And then, very suddenly, one more fact arrived, and pushed the rest

out into the black night of Malone's bitter mind. He stood up, pushing

the books away, and closed his eyes. When he opened them he went to

the telephone in his Las Vegas hotel suite, and switched it on. A

smiling operator appeared. Malone wanted to see him die of poison,

slowly.

"Give me Room 4-T," he snapped. "Hurry."

"Room forty?" the operator asked.

"Damn it," Malone said, "I said 4-T and I meant 4-T. Four as in four

and T as in--as in China. And hurry."

"Oh," the operator said. "Yes, sir." He turned away from the screen.

"That would have been Miss Luba Ardanko's room, sir?" he said.

"Right," Malone snapped. "I ... wait a minute. Would have been?"

"That's correct, sir," the operator said. "She checked out, sir, early

this morning. The room is unoccupied."

Malone swallowed hard. It was all true, then. Sir Lewis' note hadn't

simply been one last wave of the red cape before an angry bull. Luba

was one of them.

_Miss Ardanko_, he corrected himself savagely.

"What time?" he said.

The operator consulted an information board before him. "Approximately

one o'clock, sir," he said.

"In the morning?"

"Yes, sir," the clerk said.

Malone closed his eyes. "Thanks," he said.

"You're quite welcome, sir," the operator said. "A courtesy of the

Great Universal Ho--"

Malone cut him off. "Ho, indeed," he said bitterly. "Not to mention ha

and hee--hee and yippe-ki-yay. A great life." He whisked himself back

to New York in a dismal, rainy state of mind. As he sat down again to

the books and papers the door to the room opened.

"You still here?" the agent-in-charge said. "I'm just going off duty

and I came by to check. Don't you ever sleep?"

"I'm on vacation, remember?"

"Some vacation," the a-in-c said. "If you're on special assignment why

not tell the rest of us?"

"I want it to be a surprise," Malone said. "And meantime, I'd

appreciate it if I were left entirely to my own devices."

"Still conjuring up ghosts?" the a-in-c said.

"That," Malone said, "I don't know. I've got some long-distance calls

to make."

* * * * *

He started with the overseas calls, leaving the rest of the United

States time for the sun to get round to them. His first call, which

involved a lot of cursing on Malone's part and much hard work for the

operator, who claimed plaintively that she didn't know how things had

gotten so snarled up, but overseas calls were getting worse and worse,

went to New Scotland Yard in London. After great difficulty, Malone

managed to get Assistant Commissioner C. E. Teal, who promised to

check on the inquiry at once.

It seemed like years before he called back, and Malone leaped to the

phone.

"Yes?" he said.

Teal, red-faced and apparently masticating a stick of gum, said: "I

got C. I. D. Commander Gideon to follow up on that matter, Mr. Malone.

As you know, it's after noon here--"

"And they're all out to lunch," Malone said.

"As a matter of fact," Teal went on, "they seem to have disappeared

entirely. On vacation, that sort of thing. It is rather difficult

attempting any full-scale tracing job just now; our men are terribly

overworked. I imagine you've had reports from the New Scotland Yard

representatives working with you there--"

"Oh, certainly," Malone said. "But the hour; what does that have to do

with anything?"

"I'm afraid I was thinking of our Inspector Ottermole," Teal said. "He

was sent to locate Dr. Carnacki, President of the Psychical Research

Society here. On being told that Dr. Carnacki was 'out to lunch,'

Ottermole investigated every restaurant and eating-place within ten

blocks of the offices. Dr. Carnacki was not present; he, like the rest

of the Society here, appears to have left for places unknown."

"Thorough work," Malone said.

"Ottermole's a good man," Teal said. "We've checked as quickly as

possible, Mr. Malone. I would like to ask you a question in return."

"Ask away," Malone said.

Teal looked worried. "Do you people think this may have anything to do

with the present ... ah ... trouble?" he said. "Things are quite upset

here, as you know; so many members of Parliament have resigned or ...

ah ... died that the realm is being run by a rather shakily assembled

coalition government. There is even some talk of giving executive

power to Her Majesty until a general election can be held."

For one brief moment, Malone thought Teal was talking about Rose

Thompson. Then he recalled Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and felt

better. Things weren't quite as bad as he'd thought.

But they were bad enough. "We simply don't know yet," he said

untruthfully. "But as soon as anything definite comes up, of course,

you'll be informed."

"Thank you, Mr. Malone," Teal said. "Of course, we'll do the same."

And then, still masticating, he switched off.

Paris was next, then Rome, Berlin and a couple more. Every one had the

same result. From Maigret of the Paris Sureté to Poirot in Belgium,

from Berlin's strict officialdom to the cheerful Hollanders, all the

reports were identical. The PRS of each country had gone underground.

Malone buried his face in his hands, thought about a cigar and decided

that even a cigar might make him feel worse. Where were they? What

were they doing now? What did they plan to do?

Where had they gone?

"Out of the everywhere," he heard himself say in a hollow, sepulchral

voice, "into the here."

But where was the here?

He tried to make up his mind whether or not that made sense.

Superficially, it sounded like extremely bad English, but he wasn't

sure of anything any more. Things were getting much too confused.

He close his eyes wearily, and vanished.

When he opened them, he was in his Washington apartment. He went over

to the big couch and sat down, feeling that if he were going to curse

he might as well be comfortable while he did it. But, some minutes

later, when the air was a bright electric blue around him, he didn't

feel any better. Cursing was not the answer.

Nothing seemed to be.

What was his next move?

Where did he go from here?

The more he thought about it, the more his mind spun. He was, he

realized, at an absolute, total dead end.

Oh, there were things he could do. Malone knew that very well. He

could make a lot of noise and go through a lot of waste motion; that

was what it amounted to. He could have all the homes of all the

missing PRS members checked somehow. That would undoubtedly result in

the startling discovery that the PRS members involved weren't home. He

could have their dossiers sent to him, which would clutter everything

with a great many more pieces of paper. But he felt quite sure that

the pieces of paper would do no good at all. In general, he could

raise all hell--and find nothing whatever.

Now, he told himself sadly, he had the evidence to start the FBI in

motion. The only trouble was that he could think of nowhere for them

to go.

And, though he had evidence that might convince Burris--the PRS

members, after all, _had_ done a rather unusual fadeout--he had

nowhere near enough to carry the case into court, much less make a

try at getting the case to stand up once carried in. That was one

thing he couldn't do, he realized, he couldn't issue warrants for the

arrest of anybody at all.

[Illustration]

But, vacation or no vacation, he thought solemnly, he was an FBI

Agent, and his motto was: "There's always a way." No normal method of

tracking down the PRS members, or finding their present whereabouts,

was going to work. They'd been covering themselves for such an

emergency, undoubtedly, for a good many years--and if anyone got

close, a burst of mental energy was quite enough to turn the seeker

aside.

Nobody, Malone told himself grimly, was perfect. There were clues

lying around somewhere; he was sure of that. There had to be. The

problem was simply to figure out where to look, and how to look, and

what to look for.

Somewhere, the clues were sitting quietly and waiting for him to find

them. The thought cheered him slightly, but not very much. He stood up

slowly and went into the kitchen to start heating water for coffee.

There was, he told himself, a long night ahead of him. He sighed

gently. But there was no help for it; the work had to be done--and

done quickly.

But when eight cigars had been reduced to ash, and what seemed like

several gallons of coffee had sloshed their way into Malone's interior

workings, his mind was as blank as a baby's. The lovely, opalescent

dawn began to show in the East, and Malone tendered it some extremely

rude words. Then, Haggard, red-eyed, confused, violently angry, and

not one inch closer to a solution, he fell into a fitful doze on his

couch.

* * * * *

When he awoke, the sun was high in the sky, and outside his window the

cheerful sound of too much traffic floated in the air. Downstairs

somebody was playing a television set too loudly, and the voice

reached Malone's semiaware mind in a great tinny shout:

"The President, taking action on the current crisis, has declared martial

law throughout the nation," a voice said in an important-sounded

monotone. "Exempt from this proclamation are members of the Armed

Services, Special Agents and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The

proclamation, issued this morning, was made public in a special news

conference which--"

Malone ripped out a particularly foul oath and sat up on the couch.

"That," he muttered, "is a fine thing to wake up to." He focused his

eyes, with only slight difficulty, on his watch. The time was a little

after two.

"Later developments will be reported as and when they occur," the

announcer was saying, "and in one hour a special panel of newscasters

will be assembled here to discuss this latest action in the light of

present happenings. Any special rules and regulations will be

broadcast over this station--"

"Shut up," Malone said. He had wasted a lot of time doing nothing but

sleeping, he told himself. This was no time to be listening to

television. He got up and found, to his vague surprise, that he felt a

lot better and clearer-headed than he had been. Maybe the sleep had

actually done him some good.

He yawned, blinked and stretched, and then padded into the bathroom

for a shower and shave. After he'd changed he thought about a morning

or afternoon cup of coffee, but last night's dregs appeared to have

taken up permanent residence in his digestive tract, and he decided

against it at last. He swallowed some orange juice and toast and

then, heaving a great sigh of resignation and brushing crumbs off his

shirt, he teleported himself over to his office.

Now he knew that, sooner or later, he was going to have to talk to

Burris. Burris _had_ to know, even if there was nothing to be done.

And now was just as good--or as bad--a time as any.

He didn't hesitate. He punched the button on his intercom for Burris'

office and then sat back, with his eyes closed, waiting for the

well-known voice.

It didn't come.

Instead, Wolf, the Director's secretary, spoke up.

"Burris isn't in, Malone," he said. "He had to fly to Miami. I can get

a call through to him on the plane, if it's urgent, but he'll be

landing in about fifteen minutes. And he did say he'd call in this

afternoon."

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. O.K. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad

of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through

to a solution, and hand it to Burris on a silver platter. "But why

Miami?" he added.

"Don't you hear about anything any more?" Wolf asked.

"I've been on vacation."

"Oh," Wolf said. "Well, the Governor of Mississippi was assassinated

yesterday, at Miami Beach."

"Ah," Malone said. He thought about it for a second. "Frankly," he

said, "this does not strike me as an irreparable loss to the nation.

Not even to Mississippi."

"You express my views precisely," Wolf said.

"How about the killer?" Malone said. "I gather they haven't got him

yet, or Burris wouldn't be on his way down."

"No," Wolf said. "The killer would be on his way here instead. But you

know how things are--everything's confused. Governor Flarion was

walking along Collins Avenue when somebody fired at him, using a

high-powered rifle with, I guess, a scope sight."

"Professional," Malone commented.

"It looks like it," Wolf said. "And he picked the right time for it,

too--the way things are he was just one more confusion among the rest.

Nobody even heard the sniper's shot; the governor just fell over,

right there in the street. And by the time his bodyguards found out

what had happened, it was impossible even to be sure just which way he

was facing when the shot had been fired."

"And as I remember Collins Avenue--" Malone started.

"Right," Wolf said. "But it's even worse now, with everything going

nuts. Out where Governor Flarion was taking his stroll, there's an

awful lot of it to search. The boys are trying to find somebody who

saw a man acting suspicious in any of the nearby buildings, or heard a

shot, or saw anybody at all lurking or loitering anywhere near to the

scene."

"Lovely," Malone said. "Sounds like a nice complicated job."

"You don't know the half of it," Wolf said. "There's also the Miami

Beach Chamber of Commerce. According to them, Flarion died of a heart

attack, and not even in Miami Beach. Everything happening down there

isn't happening, according to them; Miami Beach is the one unsullied

beauty spot in a mixed-up United States."

"All I can say," Malone offered, "is good luck. This is the saddest

day in American history since the assassination of Huey P. Long."

"Agreed," Wolf said. "Want me to tell Burris you called?"

"Right," Malone said, and switched off.

* * * * *

The assassination of Nemours P. Flarion, he told himself, obviously

meant something. It pointed straight toward some entirely new kind of

answer. Granted, old Nemours P. had been a horrible mistake, a

paranoid, self-centered, would-be, dictator whose final act was quite

in keeping with the rest of his official life. Who else would be in

Miami Beach, far away from his home state, while the President was

declaring nationwide martial law?

But that, Malone told himself, wasn't the point. Or not quite the

point, anyhow.

Maybe some work would dig up more facts. Anyhow, Malone was reasonably

sure that he could reassign himself from vacation time, at least until

he called Burris. And he had work to do; nobody was going to hand him

anything on a silver serving salver.

He punched the intercom again and got the Records office.

"Yes, sir?" a familiar voice said.

"Potter," Malone said, "this is Malone. I want facsimiles of

everything we have on the Psychical Research Society, on Sir Lewis

Carter, and on Luba Ardanko. Both of these last are connected with the

Society."

"You're back on duty, Malone?" Potter said.

"Right," Malone said. "Make that fast, will you?"

Potter nodded. "Right away," he said.

It didn't take long for the facsimile records to arrive, and Malone

went right to work on them. Maybe somewhere in those records was the

clue he had desperately needed. Where was the PRS? What were they

doing now? What did they plan to do?

And why had they started the whole row in the first place?

The PRS, he saw, was even more widely spread than he had thought. It

had branches in almost every major city in the United States, in

Europe, South Africa, South America and Australia. There was even a

small branch society in Greenland. True, the Communist disapproval of

such nonmaterialistic, un-Marxian objectives as Psychical Research

showed up in the fact that there were no registered branches in the

Sino-Soviet bloc. But that, Malone thought, hardly mattered. Maybe in

Russia they called themselves the Lenin Study Group, or the Better

Borschch League. He was fairly sure, from all the evidence, that the

PRS had some kind of organization even behind the Iron Curtain.

Money backing didn't seem to be much of a problem, either. Malone

checked for the supporters of the organization and found a microfilmed

list that ran into the hundreds of thousands of names, most of them

ordinary people who seemed to be interested in spiritualism and the

like, and who donated a few dollars apiece to the PRS. Besides this

mass of small donations, of course, there were a few large ones, from

independently wealthy men who gave support to the organization and

seemed actively interested in its aims.

It wasn't an unusual picture; just an exceptionally big one.

Malone sighed and went on to the personal dossiers.

Sir Lewis Carter himself was a well-known astronomer and

mathematician. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal

Astronomical Society and the Royal Mathematical Society. He had been

knighted for his contributions in higher mathematics only two years

before he had come to live in the United States. Malone went over the

papers dealing with his entry into the country carefully, but they

were all in order and they contained absolutely nothing in the way of

usable clues.

Sir Lewis' books on political and historical philosophy had been

well-received, and he had also written a novel, "But Some Are More

Equal," which, for a few weeks after publication, had managed to claw

its way to the bottom of the best-seller list.

And that was that. Malone tried to figure out whether all this

information did him any good, and the answer came very quickly. The

answer was no. He opened the second dossier.

Luba Ardanko had been born in New York. Her mother had been a woman of

Irish descent named Mary Foley, and had died in '69. Her father had

been a Hungarian named Chris Yorgen Ardanko, and had died in the same

year.

Malone sighed. Somewhere in the dossiers, he was sure, there was a

clue, the basic clue that would tell him everything he needed to know.

His prescience had never been so strong; he knew perfectly well that

he was staring at the biggest, most startling and most complete

disclosure of all. And he couldn't see it.

He stared at the folders for a long minute. What did they tell him?

What was the clue.

And then, very slowly, the soft light of a prodigal sun illuminated

his mind.

"Mr. Malone," Malone said gently, "you are a damned fool. There are

times when it is necessary to discard the impossible after you have

seen that the obscure is the obvious."

He wasn't sure whether that meant anything, or even whether he knew

what he was saying. But, as the entire structure of facts became

clear, and then turned right upside down in his mind and changed into

something else entirely--something that told him not only who, and

where, but also why, he became absolutely sure of one thing.

He knew the final answer.

And it _was_ obvious. Obvious as all hell!

XIV

There was, of course, only one thing to do and only one place to go.

Malone teleported to the New York offices of the FBI and went

immediately downstairs to the garage, where a specially-built Lincoln

awaited him at all times.

One of the mechanics looked up curiously as Malone headed for the car.

"Want a driver?" he said.

Malone thanked his lucky stars that he didn't have to get into any

lengthy and time-consuming argument about whether or not he was on

vacation. "No, thanks," he said. "This is a solo job."

That, he told himself, was for sure. He drove out onto the streets and

into the heavy late-afternoon traffic of New York. The Lincoln handled

smoothly, but Malone didn't press his luck in the traffic which he

thought was even worse than the mess he'd driven through with the

happy cab driver two days before. He wasn't in any hurry now, after

all. He had all the time in the world, and he knew it. They--and, for

once, Malone could put real names to that "they"--would still be

waiting for him when he got there.

_If_ he got there, he thought suddenly, turning a corner and being

confronted with a great mass of automobiles wedged solidly fender to

fender as far as the eye could see. The noise of honking horns was

deafening, and great clouds of smoke rose up to make the scene look

like the circle of Hell devoted to hot-rod drivers. Malone cursed and

sweated until the line began to move, and then cursed and sweated some

more until he was out of the city at last.

It took quite a lot of time. New York traffic, in the past forty-eight

hours, hadn't gotten better; it had gotten a lot worse. He was nearly

exhausted by the time he finally crossed the George Washington Bridge

and headed west. And, while he drove, he began to let his reflexes

take over most of the automotive problems now that New York City was

behind him.

He took all his thoughts from behind the shield that had sheltered

them and arrayed them neatly before him. They were beamed, he told

himself firmly, to one particular group of persons and to no one else.

Everything was perfectly clear; all he had to do now was explain it.

Malone had wondered, over the years, about the detectives in books.

They always managed to wrap everything up in the last chapter, which

was perfectly all right by itself. But they always had a whole crowd

of suspects listening to them, too. Malone knew perfectly well that he

could never manage a setup like that. People would interrupt him.

Things would happen. Two dogs would rush in and start a battle royal

on the floor. There would be an earthquake or an invasion of little

green Venusians, or else somebody would just decide to faint and

cause a furor.

But now, at long last, he realized, he had his chance. Nobody could

interrupt him. And he could explain to his heart's content.

Because the members of the PRS were telepathic. And Kenneth J. Malone,

he thought happily, was not.

Luba, he was sure, would be tuned in on him as he drove toward their

Pennsylvania hiding place. At least, he wanted to think so; it made

things much more pleasant. And he hoped that Luba, or whoever was

really tuned in, would alert everybody else, so they could all hook in

and hear his grand final explanation of everything.

He opened his mind in that one special direction, beaming his thoughts

to nobody else but the group he'd decided on. A second of silence

passed.

And then a sound began. Malone had passed a company of soldiers some

yards back, but he hadn't noticed them particularly; with the country

under martial law, soldiers were going to be as common as tree frogs.

Now, however, something different was happening.

Malone felt the car tremble slightly, and stopped. Past him, rolling

along the side of the highway he was on, came a parade of thirty-ton

tanks. They rumbled and roared their slow, elephantine way down the

highway and, after what seemed about three days, disappeared from

sight. Malone wondered what the tanks were for, and then dismissed it

from his mind. It certainly wasn't very pleasant to think about, no

matter how necessary it turned out to be.

He started up again. There were few cars on the road, although a lot

of them were parked along the sides. A series of _Closed_ signs on

filling stations explained that, and Malone began to be grateful for

the national emergency. It allowed him to drive without much

interference, anyhow.

* * * * *

_And a hearty good afternoon to all, he thought--especially to Miss

Luba Ardanko. I hope she's tuned in ... and, if she isn't, I hope

somebody alerts her. Frankly, I'd rather talk to her than to anyone

else I can think of at the moment. As a matter of fact, it's a little

easier to concentrate if I talk out loud, so I think I'll do that._

He swerved the car at this point, neatly avoiding a broken wooden

crate that crouched in wait for him. "Road hog," he told it bitterly,

and went on.

"Nothing personal," he went on after a second. "I don't care if you're

_all_ listening in, as a matter of fact. And I'm not going to hide

anything." He thought a second, and then added: "Frankly, I'm not sure

I've got anything to hide."

He paused and, in his imagination, he could almost hear Luba's voice.

_I'm listening, Kenneth,_ she said. _Go on._

He fished around in his mind for a second, wondering exactly where to

start. Then he decided, in the best traditions of the detective story,

not to mention "Alice in Wonderland," to start at the beginning.

"The dear old Psychical Research Society," he said, speaking earnestly

to his windshield, "has been going on for a good many years now--since

the 1880's, as a matter of fact. That's a long time and it adds up to

a lot of Psychical Research. A lot of famous and intelligent people

have belonged to the Society. And, with all that, it's hardly

surprising that, after nearly a hundred years of work, something

finally turned up."

At this point, there was another interruption. A couple of sawhorses

blocked the road ahead of Malone. As he stared at them, he felt his

prescience begin to itch. He took out his .44 Magnum and slowed the

car, memorizing the road as he passed it. He stopped the car before

the sawhorses. Three enlisted men carrying M-1 rifles, and a stern,

pale captain, his bars pointing sideways and glittering on his

shoulders, appeared from the sides of the road.

The captain's voice was a military bark. "Out of the car!"

Malone began to obey.

"With your hands up!" the captain snapped. Malone dropped the .44

unobtrusively into his jacket pocket and complied. Then, as he came

out of the car, he teleported himself back to a section of the road

he'd memorized, ten feet behind the car. The four men were gaping,

dumbfounded, as Malone drew his gun and shot them. Then he removed the

sawhorses, got back in his car, reloaded the .44, put it back in his

holster and drove on.

"Now," he said in a thoughtful tone. "Where was I?"

He imagined Luba's voice saying: _You were telling us how, all this

time, it's hardly surprising--_

"Oh, yes," he said. "Well, then. So you solved some of the problems,

you'd set. You learned how to use and control telepathy and

teleportation, maybe, long before scientific boys like Dr. O'Connor

became interested. But you never announced it publicly. You kept the

knowledge all to yourself. 'Is this what the common folk call

telepathy, Lord Bromley?' 'Yes, Lady Bromley.' 'Much too good for

them, isn't it?' And maybe it is, at that; I don't know."

His thoughts, he recognized, were veering slightly. After a second he

got back on the track.

"At any rate," he went on, "you--all of your out there--are

responsible for what's happening to this country and all of Europe and

Asia--and, for all I know, the suburbs of Hell.

"I remember one of the book facsimiles you got me, for instance," he

said. "The writer tried for an 'expose' of the Society, in which he

attempted to prove that Sir Lewis Carter and certain other members

were trying to take over the world and run it to suit themselves,

using their psionic powers to institute a rather horrible type of

dictatorship over the world.

"It was a pretty convincing book in a lot of ways. The author

evidently know a lot about what he was dealing with."

* * * * *

At this point, Malone ran into another roadblock. There had been a

fight of some kind up ahead, and a lot of cars with what looked like

shell-holes in them were piled on one side of the road. The State

Police were working under the confused direction of an Army major to

straighten things out, while a bulldozer pushed the cars off the road

onto the grass bordering it. The major stopped what he was doing and

came to meet Malone as the car stopped.

"Get off the road," the major said surlily.

Malone looked up at him. "I've got some identification here," he said.

"Mind if I get it out?"

The major reached for a gun and held it. "Go ahead," he said. "Don't

try anything funny. It's been hell up and down this road, mister."

Malone flipped out his wallet and showed the identification.

"FBI?" the Major said. "What're you doing out here?"

"Special assignment," Malone said. "Oh ... by the way ... you might

send some men back a ways. There are four dead mean in military

uniforms lying on the road near a couple of sawhorses."

The major stared. "Dead?" he said at last. "Dead how?"

"I shot them," Malone said.

"You--" The major's finger tightened on the trigger of his gun.

"Now wait a minute," Malone said. "I said they were in military

uniforms. I didn't say they were soldiers."

"But--"

"Three enlisted men carrying M-1 rifles?" Malone said. "When the M-1's

out of date? And a captain with his bars on sideways? No, major.

Those were renegades. Looters of some kind; they wanted to kill me and

get the car and any valuables I happened to have."

The major, very slowly, relaxed his grip on the gun and his arm fell

to his side. "You did the smart thing, Mr. Malone," he said.

"And I've got to go on doing it," Malone said. "I'm in a hurry."

He noticed a newspaper fluttering at the side of the road, not too

near the cars. Somehow it made everything seem even more lonely and

strange. The headlines fluttered into sight:

MARTIAL LAW EDICT

"MUST BE OBEYED," SAYS GOVERNOR

But Riots Are Feared In Outlying Towns

MAN AND WIFE CONFESS KILLING OF RELATIVES ABOARD PRIVATE

PLANE:

Force Kin To Drop Off

There was a photo of a woman there, too, and Malone could read just a

little of the caption:

"Obeying the edict of martial law laid down by the President, Miss

Helen A.--"

He wondered vaguely if her last name were Handbasket.

The major was looking at him. "O.K., then," he said.

"I can go on?" Malone said.

The major looked stern. "Drive on," he said.

Malone got the car going; the roadblock was lifted for him and he went

on by.

After a moment, he said: "Pardon the interruption. I trust that all

the devoted listeners to Uncle Kenneth's Happy Hour are still tuned

in."

_Go ahead,_ said Lou's voice.

"All right, let's take a look at what you've been doing. You've caused

people to change their minds about what they've been intending to do.

You can cause all sorts of hell to break loose that way. You have a

lot of people you want to get rid of, so you play on their neuroses

and concoct errors for them to fight. You rig things so that they

quit, or get fired, or lose elections, or get arrested, or just

generally get put out of circulation. Some of the less stable ones

just up and did away with themselves.

"Sometimes, it's individuals who have to go. Sometimes, it's whole

groups or maybe even whole nations. And sometimes it's in between, and

you manage to foul up organizational moves with misplaced papers,

mis-sent messages, errors, changed minds, and everything else you can

think of.

"You know," he went on, "at first I couldn't see any pattern in what

was going on--though I remember telling myself that there was a kind

of justice in the way this thing was just as hard on gangsters as it

was on businessmen and Congressmen.

"The Congressman from Gahoochie County, Arkansas, gets himself in a

jam over fraudulent election returns on the same day that the

accountant for the Truckers Union sends Mike Sands' books to the

Attorney General. Simple justice, I call it.

"And, you know, seen from that viewpoint, this whole caper might come

out looking pretty good. If most of the characters you've taken care

of are just the boys who needed taking care of, I'd say more power to

you--except for one thing. It's all right to get rid of all the fools,

idiots, maniacs, blockheads, morons, psychopaths, paranoids,

timidity-ridden, fear-worshipers, fanatics, thieves, and the rest of

the general, all-round, no-good characters; I'm all for it. But not

this way. Oh, no.

"You've pressed the panic button, that's what you've done.

"You've done more damage in two weeks than all those fumblebrains have

been able to do in several myriads of lifetimes. You've loused up the

economy of this nation and every other civilized nation. You've caused

riots in which innocent people have died; you've caused thousands more

to lose their businesses and their savings. And only God Himself knows

how many more are going to die of starvation and murder before this

thing is over.

"And you can't tell me that _all_ of those people deserve to die."

He slowed down as he came to a small town, and for the first time in

many miles he focused on the road ahead with his full mind. The town,

he saw, looked like a shambles. There were four cars tastefully

arranged on the lawn of what appeared to be the local library. Across

the street, a large drugstore was in flames, and surprised people were

hurrying to put it out. There didn't seem to be any State Police or

Army men around, but they'd passed through; Malone saw a forgotten

overseas cap lying on the road ahead.

With a shock, he realized that he was now in Pennsylvania, close to

where he wanted to go. A signboard told him the town he was looking at

was Milford. It was a mess, and Malone hoped fervently that it was a

mess that could eventually be cleaned up.

The town was a small one, and Malone was glad to get out of it so

quickly.

"That's the kind of thing I mean," he said aloud. Then he paused. "Are

you there, anybody?"

He imagined he heard Luba's voice saying: _Yes, Ken. Yes, I'm here.

Listening to you._

Imagination was fine but, of course, there was no way for them to get

through to him. They were telepathic, but Kenneth J. Malone, he told

himself sadly, was not.

"Hello, out there," he went on. "I hope you've been listening so far,

because there isn't too much more for me to say.

"Just this: you've wrecked my country, and you've wrecked almost all

of the rest of civilization. You've brought my world down around my

ears.

"I have every logical reason to hate your guts. By all the evidence I

have, you are a group of the worst blackguards who ever existed; by

all the evidence, I should be doing everything in my power to

exterminate you.

"But I'm not.

"My prescience tells me that what you've been doing is right and

necessary. I'm damned if I can see it, but there it is. I just hope

you can explain it to me."

XV

Soon, he was in the midst of the countryside. It was, of course,

filled with country. It spread around him in the shape of hills,

birds, trees, flowers, grass, billboards and other distractions to the

passing motorist.

It took Malone better than two hours more to find the place he was

looking for. Long before he found it, he had come to the conclusion

that finding country estates in Pennsylvania was only a shade easier

than finding private homes in the Borough of Brooklyn. In both cases,

he had found himself saddled with the same frantic search down what

seemed likely routes which turned out to lead nowhere. He had found,

in both cases, complete ignorance of the place on the part of local

citizens, and even strong doubts that the place could possibly have

any sort of existence.

The fact that is was growing dark didn't help much, either.

But he found it at last. Rounding a curve in a narrow, blacktop road,

he saw the home behind a grove of trees.

He recognized it instantly.

He had seen it so often that he felt as if he knew it intimately.

[Illustration]

It was a big, rambling, Colonial-type mansion, painted a blinding and

beautiful white, with a broad, pillared porch and a great carved front

door. The front windows were curtained in rich purples, and before the

house was a great front garden, and tall old trees. Malone

half-expected Scarlett O'Hara to come tripping out of the house at any

minute shouting: "Rhett! The children's mush is on fire!" or something

equally inappropriate.

Inside it, however, if Malone were right, was not the magnetic

Scarlett. Inside the house were some of the most important members of

the PRS--and one person who was not a member.

But it was impossible to tell from the outside. Nothing moved on the

well-kept grounds, and the windows didn't show so much as the flutter

of a purple curtain. There was no sound. No cars were parked around

the house--nor, Malone realized, thinking of "Gone With the Wind,"

were there any horses or carriages.

The place looked deserted.

Malone thought he knew better, but it took a few minutes for him to

get up enough courage to go up the long driveway. He stared at the

house. It was an old one, he knew, built long before the Civil War and

originally commanding a huge tract of land. Now, all that remained of

the vast acreage was the small portion that surrounded the house.

But the original family still inhabited it, proud of the house and of

their part in its past. Over the years, Malone knew, they had kept it

up scrupulously, and the place had been both restored and modernized

on the inside without harming the classic outlines of the

hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure.

A fence surrounded the estate, but the front gate was swinging open.

Malone saw it and took a deep breath. Now, he told himself, or never.

He drove the Lincoln through the opening slowly, alert for almost

anything.

There was no disturbance. Thirty yards from the front door he pulled

the car to a cautious stop and got out. He started to walk toward the

building. Each step seemed to take whole minutes, and everything he

had thought raced through his mind again. Nothing seemed to move

anywhere, except Malone himself.

Was he right? Were the people he'd been beaming to really here? Or had

he been led astray by them? Had he been manipulated, in spite of his

shield, as easily as they had manipulated so many others?

That was possible. But it wasn't the only possibility.

Suppose, he thought, that he was perfectly right, and that the group

was waiting inside. And suppose, too, that he'd misunderstood their

motives.

Suppose they were just waiting for him to get a little closer.

Malone kept walking. In just a few steps, he could be close enough so

that a bullet aimed at him from the house hadn't a real chance of

missing him.

And it didn't have to be bullets, either. They might have set a trap,

he thought, and were waiting for him to walk into it. Then they would

hold him prisoner while they devised ways to....

To what?

He didn't know. And that was even worse; it called up horrible terrors

from the darkest depths of Malone's mind. He continued to walk

forward.

Finally he reached the steps that led up to the porch, and took them

one at a time.

He stood on the porch. A long second passed.

He took a step toward the high, wide and handsome oaken door. Then he

took another step, and another.

What was waiting for him inside?

He took a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell button.

The door swung open immediately, and Malone involuntarily stepped

back.

The owner of the house smiled at him from the doorway. Malone let out

his breath in one long sigh of relief.

"I was hoping it would be you," he said weakly. "May I come in?"

"Why, certainly, Malone. Come on in. We've been expecting you, you

know," said Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI.

XVI

Malone sat, quietly relaxed and almost completely at ease, in the

depths of a huge, comfortable, old-fashioned Morris chair. Three

similar chairs were clustered around a squat, massive coffee table,

made of a single slab of dark wood set on short, curved legs. Malone

looked around at the other three with a relaxed feeling of

recognition: Andrew J. Burris, Sir Lewis Carter and Luba Ardanko.

Sir Lewis softly exhaled a cloud of smoke as he removed the briar from

his mouth. "Malone," he asked gently, "how did you know we would be

here?"

"Well," Malone said, "I just ... I mean, it was obvious as soon as

I--" He stopped, frowning. "I had one thing to go on, anyway," he

said. "I figured out the PRS was responsible for all the troubles

because it was so efficient. And then, while I was sitting and staring

at the file reports, it suddenly came to me: the FBI was just as

efficient. So it was obvious."

"What was?" Burris said.

Malone shrugged. "I thought you'd been keeping me on vacation because

your mind was being changed," he said. "Now I can see you were doing

it of your own free will."

"Yes," Sir Lewis said. "But how did you know you'd find us _here_,

Malone?"

There was a shadow in the room, but not a visible one. Malone felt the

chill of sudden danger. Whatever was going to happen, he realized, he

would not be around for the finish. He, Kenneth Joseph Malone, the

cuddly, semi-intrepid FBI Agent he had always known and loved, would

never get out of this deadly situation. If he lived, he would be so

changed that--

He didn't even want to think about it.

"What sort of logic," Sir Lewis was saying, "led you to the belief

that we would all be here, in Andrew's house?"

Malone forced his mind to consider the question. "Well," he began, "it

isn't exactly logic, I guess."

Luba smiled at him. He felt a little reassured, but not much. "You

should have phrased that differently," she said. "It's: 'It isn't

exactly logic. I guess.'"

"Not guess," Sir Lewis said. "You know. Prescience, Malone. Your

precognitive faculty."

"All right," Malone said. "All right. So what?"

"Take it easy," Burris put in. "Relax, Malone. Everything's going to

be all right."

Sir Lewis waved a hand negligently. "Let's continue," he said. "Tell

me, Malone: if you were a mathematics professor, teaching a course in

calculus, how would you grade a paper that had all the answers but

didn't show the work?"

"I never took calculus," Malone said. "But I imagine I'd flunk him."

"Why?" Sir Lewis said.

"Because if he can't back up his answer," Malone said slowly, "then

it's no better than a layman's guess. He has to give reasons for his

answers; otherwise nobody else can understand him."

"Fine," Sir Lewis said. "Perfectly fine. Now--" he puffed at his

pipe--"can you give me a logical reason for arriving at the decision

you made a few hours ago?"

The danger was coming closer, Malone realized. He didn't know what it

was or how to guard himself against it. All he could do was answer,

and play for time.

"While I was driving up here," he said, "I sent you a message. I told

you what I knew and what I believed about the whole world picture as

it stands now. I don't know if you received it, but I--"

Luba spoke without the trace of a smile. "You mean you didn't know?"

she said. "You didn't know I was answering you?"

That was the first pebble of the avalanche, Malone knew suddenly--the

avalanche that was somehow going to destroy him. "You forced your

thoughts into my mind, then," he said as coolly as he could. "Just as

you forced decision on the rest of society."

"Now, dammit, Malone!" Burris said suddenly. "You know those bursts

take a lot of energy, and only last for a fraction of a second!"

Malone blinked. "Then you ... didn't--"

_Of course I didn't force anything on you, Kenneth. I can't. Not all

the power of the entire PRS could force anything through your shield.

But you opened it to me._

It was Luba's mental "voice." Malone opened his mouth, shut it and

then, belatedly, snapped shut the channel through which he'd contacted

her. Luba gave him a wry look, but said nothing. "You mean I'm a

telepath?" Malone asked weakly.

"Certainly," Sir Lewis snapped. "At the moment, you can only pick up

Luba--but you are certainly capable of picking up anyone, eventually.

Just as you learned to teleport, you can learn to be a telepath.

You--"

The room was whirling, but Malone tried to keep his mind steady. "Wait

a minute," he said. "If you received what I sent, then you know I've

got a question to ask."

There was a little silence.

Finally Sir Lewis looked up. "You want to know why you felt we--the

PRS--were innocent of the crimes you want to charge us with. Very

well." He paused. "We have wrecked civilization: granted. We could

have done it more smoothly: granted."

"Then--"

Sir Lewis' face was serious and steady. Malone tensed.

"Malone," Sir Lewis said, "do you think you're the only one with a

mental shield?"

Malone shook his head. "I guess stress--fixity of mind or

purpose--could develop it in anyone," he said. "At least, in some

people."

"Very well," Sir Lewis said. "Now, among the various people of the

world who have, through one necessity or another, managed to develop

such shields--"

Burris broke in impatiently. His words rang, and then echoed in the

old house.

"Some fool," he said flatly, "was going to start the Last War."

* * * * *

"So you had to stop it," Malone said after a long second. "But I still

don't see--"

"Of course you don't," Sir Lewis said. "But you've got to understand

why you don't see it first."

"Because I'm stupid," Malone said.

Luba was shaking her head. Malone turned to face her. "Not stupid,"

she said. "But some people, Kenneth, have certain talents. Others

have--other talents. There's no way of equating these talents; all are

useful, each performs a different function."

"And my talent," Malone said, "is stupidity. But--"

She lit a cigarette daintily. "Not at all," she said. "You've done a

really tremendous job, Kenneth. I was trained ever since I was a baby

to use my psionic abilities--the PRS has known how to train children

in that line ever since 1970. Only Mike Fueyo developed a system for

instruction independently; the boy was, and is, a genius, as you've

noticed."

"Agreed," Malone said. "But--"

"You, however," Luba said, "have the distinction of being the first

human being who has, as an adult, achieved his full powers without

childhood training. In addition, you're the only human being who has

ever developed to the extent you have--in precognition, too."

She puffed on the cigarette. Malone waited.

"But what you don't have," she said at last, very carefully, "is the

ability to reason out the steps you've taken, after you've reached the

proper conclusion."

"Like the calculus student," Malone said. "I flunk." Something inside

him grated over the marrow in his bones. It was as though someone had

decided that the best cure for worry was coarse emery in the joints,

and he, Kenneth J. Malone, had been picked for the first experiment.

"You're not flunking," Luba said. "You're a very long way from

flunking, Kenneth."

Burris cleared his throat suddenly. Malone turned to him. The Head of

the FBI stuck an unlighted cigar into his mouth, chewed it a little,

and then said: "Malone, we've been keeping tabs on you. Your shield

was unbreakable--but we have been able to reach the minds of people

you've talked to: Mike Sands, Primo Palveri, and so on. And Her

Majesty, of course: you opened up a gap in your shield to talk to her,

and you haven't closed it down. Until you started broadcasting here on

the way up, naturally."

"All right," Malone said, waiting with as much patience as possible

for the point.

"I tried to take you off the case," Burris went on, "because Sir Lewis

and the others felt you were getting too close to the truth. Which you

were, Malone, which you were." He lit his cigar and looked obscurely

pleased. "But they didn't know how you'd take it," he said. "They ...

we ... felt that a man who hadn't been trained since childhood to

accept the extrasensory abilities of the human mind couldn't possibly

learn to accept the reality of the job the PRS has to do."

"I still don't," Malone said. "I'm stupid. I flunk. Remember?"

"Now, now," Burris said helplessly. "Not at all, Malone. But we were

worried. I lied to you about those three spies--I put the drug in the

water-cooler. I tried to keep you from learning the Fueyo method of

teleportation. I didn't want you to learn that you were telepathic."

"But I did," Malone said, "And what does that make me?"

"That," Sir Lewis cut in, "is what we're attempting to find out."

Malone felt suitably crushed, but he wasn't sure by what. "I've got

some questions," he said after a second. "I want to know three

things."

"Go ahead," Sir Lewis said.

"One:" Malone said, "How come Her Majesty and the other nutty

telepaths didn't spot you? Two: How come you sent me out on these jobs

when you were afraid I was dangerous? And three: What was it that was

so safe about busting up civilization? How did that save us from the

Last War?"

Sir Lewis nodded. "First," he said, "we've developed a technique of

throwing up a shield and screening it with a surface of innocuous

thoughts--like hiding behind a movie screen. Second ... well, we had

to get the jobs done, Malone. And Andrew thought you were the most

capable, dangerous or not. For one thing, we wanted to get all the

insane telepaths in one place; it's difficult to work when the

atmosphere's full of such telepathic ravings."

"But wrecking the world because of a man with a mind-shield--why not

just work things so his underlings wouldn't obey him?" Malone shook

his head. "That sounds more reasonable."

"It may," Sir Lewis said. "But it wouldn't work. As a matter of fact,

it was tried, and it didn't work. You see, the Sino-Soviet top men

were smart enough to see that their underlings were being tampered

with. And they've developed a system, partly depending on automatic

firing systems, partly on individuals with mind-blocks--that is,

people who aren't being tampered with--which we can't disrupt

directly. So we had to smash them."

"And the United States at the same time," Burris said. "The economic

balance had to be kept; a strong America would be forced in to fill

the power vacuum otherwise, and that would make for an even worse

catastrophe. And if we weren't in trouble, the Sino-Soviet Bloc would

blame their mess on us. And that would start the Last War before

collapse could get started. Right, Malone?"

"I see," Malone said, thinking that he almost did. He told himself he

could feel happy now; the danger--which hadn't been danger to him,

really, but danger from him toward the PRS, toward civilization--was

over. But he didn't feel happy. He didn't feel anything.

"There's a crisis building in New York," Sir Lewis said suddenly,

"that's going to take all our attention. Malone, why don't you ...

well, go home and get some rest? We're going to be busy for a while,

and you'll want to be fresh for the work coming up."

"Sure," Malone said listlessly. "Sure."

As the others rose, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then

he vanished.

XVII

Two hours passed, somehow. Bourbon and soda helped them pass, Malone

discovered; he drank two high-balls slowly, trying not to think about

anything. He felt terrible. After a while he made himself a third

high-ball and started on it. Maybe this would make him feel better.

Maybe he thought, he ought to break out his cigars and celebrate.

But there didn't seem to be very much to celebrate somehow. He felt

like an amoeba on a slide being congratulated on having successfully

conquered the world.

He drank some more bourbon-and-soda. Amoebae, he told himself, didn't

drink bourbon-and-soda. He was better off than an amoeba. He was

happier than an amoeba. But somehow he couldn't imagine any amoeba in

the world, no matter how heart-broken, feeling any worse than Kenneth

J. Malone.

He looked up. There was another amoeba in the room.

Then he frowned. She wasn't an amoeba, he thought. She was the

scientist the amoeba was supposed to fall in love with, so the

scientist could report on everything he did, so all the other

scien--psiontists could know all about him. But whoever heard of a

scien--psiontist--falling in love with an amoeba? Nobody. It was fate.

And fate was awful. Malone had often suspected it, but now he was

sure. Now he was looking at things from the amoeba's side, and fate

was terrible.

"No, Ken," the psiontist said. "It needn't be at all like that."

"Oh, yes, it need," Malone said positively. "It need be even worse.

When I have some more to drink, it'll _be_ even worse. Wait and see."

"Ken," Luba said softly, "you don't have to suffer this way."

"No," Malone said agreeably, "I don't. You could shoot me and then I'd

be dead. Just quit all this amoebing around, O.K.?"

"You're already half shot," Luba said sharply. "Now be quiet and

listen. You're angry because you've fallen in love with me and you're

all choked up over the futility of it all."

"Exactly," Malone said. "Ex-positively-actly. You're a psionic

super-man--woman. You can figure things out in your own little head

instead of just getting along on dum psionic luck like us amoebae.

You're too far above me."

"Ken, listen!" Luba snapped. "Look into my mind. You can link up with

me: go ahead and do it. You can read me clear down to the subconscious

if you want to."

Malone blinked.

"Now, Ken!" Luba said.

Malone looked. For a long time.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, Kenneth J. Malone, alone in his room, was humming

happily to himself as he brushed a few specks of dust from the top of

his best royal blue bowler. He faced the mirror on the wall, puffed on

the cigar clenched between his teeth, and adjusted the bowler to just

the right angle.

There was a knock on the door. He went and opened it, carefully

disposing of the cigar first. "Oh," he said. "What are you doing

here?"

"Just saying hello," Thomas Boyd grinned. "Back at work?"

Boyd didn't know, of course, what had happened. Nor need he ever know.

"Just about," Malone said. "Spending the evening relaxing, though."

"Hm-m-m," Boyd said. "Let me guess. Her name begins with L?"

"It does not," Malone said flatly.

"But--" Boyd began.

Malone cast about in his mind for an explanation. Telling Boyd the

truth--that Luba and Kenneth J. Malone just weren't equals as far as

social intercourse went--would leave him exactly nowhere. But,

somehow, it had to be said. "Tom," he said, "suppose you met a

beautiful girl--charming, wonderful, brilliant."

"Great," Boyd said. "I like it already."

"Suppose she looked about ... oh ... twenty-three," Malone went on.

"Do any more supposing," Boyd said, "and I'll be pawing the ground."

"And then," Malone said, very carefully, "suppose you found out, after

you'd been out with her ... well, when you took her out, say, you met

your grandmother."

"My grandmother," Boyd said virtuously, "doesn't go to joints like

that."

"Use your imagination," Malone snapped. "And suppose your grandmother

recognized the girl as an old schoolmate of hers."

Boyd swallowed hard. "As a what?"

"An old schoolmate," Malone said. "Suppose this girl were so charming

and everything just because she'd had ... oh, ninety years or so to

practice in."

"Malone," Boyd said in a depressed tone, "you can spoil more ideas--"

"Well," Malone said, "would you go out with her again?"

"You kidding?" Boyd said. "Of course not."

"But she's the same girl," Malone said. "You've just found out

something new about her, that's all."

Boyd nodded. "So," he said, "you found out something new about Luba.

Like, maybe, she's ninety years old?"

"No," Malone said. "Nothing like that. Just--something." He remembered

Queen Elizabeth's theory of politeness toward superiors: people, she'd

said, act as if they believed their bosses were superior to them, but

they didn't believe it.

On the other hand, he thought, when a man knows and believes that

someone actually _is_ superior--then, he doesn't mind at all. He can

depend on that superiority to help him. And love, ordinary

man-and-woman love, just can't exist.

Nor, Malone told himself, would anyone want it to. It would, after

all, be damned uncomfortable.

"So who's the girl?" Boyd said. "And where? The clubs are all closed,

and the streets probably aren't very safe just now."

"Barbara Wilson," Malone said, "and Yucca Flats. I ought to be able to

get a fast plane." He shrugged. "Or maybe teleport," he added.

"Sure," Boyd said. "But on a night with so many troubles--"

"Oh, King Henry," Malone said, "hearken. A man who looks as historical

as you do ought to know a little history."

"Such as?" Boyd said, bristling slightly.

"There have always been troubles," Malone said. "In the Eighth

Century, it was Saracens; in the Fourteenth, the Black Death. Then

there was the Reformation, and the Prussians in 1870, and the Spanish

in 1898, and--"

"And?" Boyd said.

Malone took a deep breath. He could almost feel the court dress

flowing over him, as the court manners did. Lady Barbara, after all,

attendant to Her Majesty, would expect a certain character from him.

After a second, he had it.

"In 1914, it was enemy aliens," said Sir Kenneth Malone.

THE END

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