"But, Sir Lewis—" he said.

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

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

"Oh," Sir Lewis said, "without a that it goes through Accounting."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But you have got some information?" Malone said.

"Certainly," Sir Lewis said. "There is always spirit control."

"Spirit control?" Malone blinked.

"Demonic intervention," Sir Lewis said. "'My name is Legion,' you know."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"FBI Headquarters, on Sixty-ninth Street," Malone said. "And send a statement of expenses along with it. As long as the bill's within reason, don't worry about itemizing; I'll see that it goes through Accounting."

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

Malone blinked. "React?" he said.

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

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

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

"No," he said helplessly, "I'm not."

"It is sneezing, then," she said. "Will I be in the book when it's published?"

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

"The book on sneezing, when you get it published," she said. "I can see it now—the Case of Miss X, a Receptionist."

"There isn't going to be any book," Malone said.

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

"X," Malone said at random, "marks the spot."

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

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

The girl sighed. "I'll treasure it," she said. "My one great moment. Good-by, Mr. ... Malone, isn't it?"

"Ken," Malone said. "Just call me Ken."

"And I'm Lou," the girl said. "Good-by."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He shook his head, discovered that he was on Sixty-ninth Street, and headed for the FBI headquarters. His convictions, he had found, were sometimes an expression of his precognitive powers; he determined to ride with them, at least for a while.

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

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

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

"Why not?" the agent-in-charge asked.

"Because I don't want the things to get loose and run around saying Boo! to everybody," Malone said brightly, and went on.

* * * * *

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

Your Majesty, I'd like to speak to you.



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

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

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

"I'd like to talk to you," Malone said, "Your Majesty."

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

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

"I ... I really don't know," she said. "It's something new, and something ... disturbing. I've never come across anything like it before."

"Like what?" Malone asked.

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

Malone blinked. "Static?" he said.

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

"Sure," Malone said.

"It's like that," she said. "It's a ... a sudden, meaningless, disturbing blare of telepathic energy."

The telephone rang once. Malone ignored it.

"What's causing these disturbances?" he asked.

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

The phone rang again.

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

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

"It doesn't?"

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

"Well?" Malone said.

"And they only appear," Her Majesty said, "when I'm tuned to your mind!"



V

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

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

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

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

"Wouldn't surprise me in the least," Malone said. "Now, about those spies—"

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

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

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

"And they are spies?" Malone said. "Real spies?"

"Oh, they're real enough," Boyd said. "We've known about 'em for years, and I finally decided to pick them up for questioning. Maybe they have something to do with all this mess that's bothering everybody."

"You haven't the faintest idea what you mean," Malone said. "Mess is hardly the word."

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

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

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

"So they've suddenly turned into criminal masterminds," Malone said. "After being under careful surveillance for years—"

"Well, it's possible," Boyd said defensively.

"Almost anything is possible," Malone said.

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

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

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

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

"Well, then," the general said, "why don't you blast him out of there?"

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

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

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

"But they don't," Malone said.

Boyd exploded, "Let me find out for myself, will you? You're spoiling all the fun."

"Well, anyhow," Malone said, "they don't."

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

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

"What is that supposed to mean?" Boyd said.

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

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

"I'll be right down," Malone said.

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

"Very funny," Malone said. "Don't give up the ship."

* * * * *

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

"Why, yes," she said. "That's exactly what I did say."

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

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I do agree that matters are confused enough already. Please go on."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Malone said. "Well, then. Do you mean that I'm the one causing all this ... mental static?"

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

"But—"

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

"Like now?" Malone said.

She shook her head. "Right now," she said, "there isn't any. It only happens every once in a while—every so often, and not continuously."

"Does it happen at regular intervals?" Malone said.

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

"Lovely," Malone said. "And what is it supposed to mean?"

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

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

"That's a very good analogy," Her Majesty said. "If you'll pardon me speaking before you've voiced your thought—"

"Not at all," Malone said. "Go right ahead."

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

"And you don't know what's causing it?" Malone said.

"I don't know," she said.

"Nor what the purpose of it is?" he said.

Her Majesty shook her head slowly. "Sir Kenneth," she said, "I don't even know whether or not there is any purpose."

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

"Well, then—" he started.

The intercom buzzed. Malone jabbed ferociously at the button. "Yes," he said.

"The ghosts are here," the agent-in-charge's voice said.

Malone blinked. "What?" he said.

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

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

"I'll send them down," the agent-in-charge said. "About one minute."

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

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

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

"Now, now, Sir Kenneth," Queen Elizabeth said. "Things aren't quite that bad."

"Oh, yes, they are," Malone said. "They're even worse."

"I'm sure we can find an answer to all your questions," Her Majesty said.

"Sure," Malone said. "Even I can find an answer. But it isn't the right one."

"You can?" Her Majesty said.

"That's right," Malone said. "My answer is: To Hell with everything."

* * * * *

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

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

"Yes," she said. "I know."

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

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

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

"I really don't require an observation panel," Her Majesty said. "If I enter your mind, I can see through your eyes—"

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

"Of course," she said.

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

"Everything?" she said.

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

"Perfectly, Sir Kenneth," she said.

"O.K., then," Malone said. "Let's go." They headed for the door. Malone stopped as he opened it. "And by the way," he said.

"Yes?"

"If you get any more of those—disturbances, let me know."

"At once," Her Majesty promised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

"That's him," Boyd said.

"Hm-m-m," Malone said, trying to look as if he were deciding between the rack and the boiling oil. Brubitsch fidgeted slightly, but he didn't say anything.

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

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

Brubitsch swallowed hard. Malone ignored him.

"Now, just look at him," Boyd said. "He certainly doesn't look like the head of a spy ring, does he?"

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

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

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

"It is surprising," Boyd said.

"But, then," Malone said, "we know he did. There isn't any doubt of that."

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

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

"More than enough," Malone agreed.

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

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

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

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

"The what?" Brubitsch said. "I shot people? Never."

"Oh, sure you did," Boyd said. "The others say you did."

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

"Really?" Malone said. "We think it's true."

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

"You do?" Boyd said. "For what time?"

"For time when murder happened," Brubitsch said. "I was some place else."

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

"I know nothing about time," Brubitsch said, jerking at his collar. "I don't know when they happened."

"Then how can you have an alibi?" Boyd snapped.

"Because I didn't do them!" Brubitsch said tearfully. "If I didn't, then I must have alibi!"

"You'd be surprised," Malone said. "Now, about these murders—"

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

"But your two friends say—" Boyd began.

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

"I am a small child," Brubitsch announced.

"O.K.," Boyd said. "But if you didn't commit any murders, just what have you been doing since you've been in this country as a Soviet agent?"



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

"And what were your activities?"

"Oh, many things," Brubitsch said. "Many, many things. We—"

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

Her Majesty's voice was excited. "Sir Kenneth!" she said. "I just got a tremendous burst of—static!"

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

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

"It's not your mind, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. "Not this time. It's his mind. That sneaky-thinking Brubitsch fellow."

Brubitsch? Malone thought. Now what is that supposed to mean?

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

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

What was going on?

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

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

"Why not?" Boyd said.

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

"Who is?" Malone said.

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

"What were you supposed to look for?" Boyd said.

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

"What do you mean, bad?" Malone said.

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

"What did you do with your information?" Boyd said.

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

"What was it about?" Malone said.

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

"Why not?" Boyd said.

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

Malone sighed. "But you remember the formula," he said. "Don't you?"

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

"We know," Malone said, "You are a small child."

* * * * *

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

"What did Garbitsch do with the information?" Boyd said.

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

"Why not?" Malone said.

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

"Who was your contact in Russia?" Boyd said.

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

"But what was his real name?" Malone said.

"Who knows?" Brubitsch said.

"What else did you do?" Boyd said.

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

"Friends?" Malone said.

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

"I think," Malone murmured sadly, "I know what's coming."

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

"Why?" Boyd said.

"He was suspicious," Brubitsch said. "We were singing the Internationale, and he was suspicious. It is unreasonable."

"Oh, I don't know," Boyd said. "What happened then?"

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

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

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

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

"What do you mean, it's not right?" Malone said.

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

He went on, with some prodding, to tell about the activities of the spy ring. It did not seem to be a very efficient spy ring; Brubitsch's long sad tale of forgotten messages, mixed orders, misplaced documents and strange mishaps was a marvel and a revelation to the listening officers.

"I've never heard anything like it," one of them whispered in a tone of absolute wonder. "They're almost working on our side."

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

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

"Good-bye, small child," Malone said, as two agents led the fat man away. The other two left soon afterward, and Malone and Boyd were alone.

* * * * *

"Think he was telling the truth?" Boyd said.

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

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

"Well?" he asked.

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

"Sounds perfectly lovely," Malone said. "As a matter of fact, I think I know her. I know a lot of girls who always want money."

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

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

"No," she said. "Just that one."

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

He hung up.

"Who've you got in the Observation Room?" Boyd asked.

"Queen Elizabeth I," Malone said. "Her Royal Majesty."

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

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

Unfortunately, it was impossible.

"What's this business about a static explosion?" Boyd said.

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

"If it is a contradiction in terms," Boyd said, "they're your terms."

"Sure," Malone said. "But I don't know what they mean. I don't even know what I mean."

"You're in a bad way," Boyd said, looking sympathetic.

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

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

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

"Borbitsch," Boyd said. "They're saving Garbitsch for a big finish."

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

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

"Well," Malone said in a bored, tired voice. "So this is the one who won't talk."

VI

Midnight.

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

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

"All right," Malone said into the silence. "Now let's see what we've got."

"I think we've got cerebral paresis," Boyd said. "It's been coming on for years."

"Don't be funny," Malone said.

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

"And drink to forget," Malone added. "Sure. But let's try and get some work done."

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

"Let's review the facts," Malone said. "This whole thing started with some inefficiency in Congress."

"And some upheavals elsewhere." Boyd said. "Labor unions, gangster organizations—"

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

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

"But they're true," Her Majesty said.

"Sure they're true," Boyd said. "That's the unbelievable part. They read like farce—and not very good farce at that."

"Oh, I don't know," Malone said. "I think they're pretty funny."

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

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

"Confounded," Boyd said. "John Milton. 'Paradise Lost.' I heard it somewhere...."

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

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

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

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

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

"God only knows," Malone said. "But we're going to have to find out."

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

Her Majesty looked up. "That's a fine idea," she said.

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

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

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

"That's true," Boyd said reflectively. "They did seem to give up pretty fast, even for amateurs."

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

"And the Queen's Own FBI," Malone said, "won't stop until we've finished with this whole affair, once and for all."

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

"We'll work hard," Malone said. "No matter how long it takes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Aha," Malone said. "I've got it. The crime is—"

"High treason," Boyd intoned.

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

"Very high treason," Malone said. "Extremely high."

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

"My goodness," the Queen said. "I never thought of that. Suppose they're not?"

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

"Steps," Boyd said, "must be taken."

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

"Yes, Sir Kenneth?" Boyd said.

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

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

"Sir Thomas," Malone said, "I give you—Her Majesty, the Queen!"

"To the Queen!" Boyd echoed.

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

* * * * *

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

And—

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

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

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

"Bless you," she'd said, "I can't help the way you think, but, as Queen, I do have some control over the way you act."

The funny thing, as far as Malone was concerned, was that the two parts of his personality were becoming more and more alike. He didn't actually believe that Her Majesty was Queen Elizabeth I, and he hoped fervently that he never would. But he did have a great deal of respect for her, and more affection than he had believed possible at first. She was the grandmother Malone had never known; she was good, and kind, and he wanted to keep her happy and contented. There had been nothing at all phony in the solemn toast he had proposed—nor in the righteous indignation he had felt against anyone who was giving Her Majesty even a minute's worth of discomfort.

And Boyd, surprisingly enough, seemed to feel the same way. Malone felt good about that; Her Majesty needed all the loyal supporters she could get.

But all of this was later. At the time, Malone was doing nothing except what came naturally—nor, apparently, was Boyd. After the glasses had been thrown, with a terrifying crash, into the metal wastebasket, and the reverberations of that second had stopped ringing in their ears, a moment of silence had followed.

Then Boyd turned, briskly rubbing his hands. "All right," he said. "Let's get back to work."

Malone looked at the proud, happy look on Her Majesty's face; he saw the glimmer of a tear in the corner of each eye. But he gave no indication that he had noticed anything at all out of the ordinary.

"Fine," he said. "Now, getting on back to the facts, we've established something, anyhow. Some agency is causing flashes of telepathic static all over the place. And those flashes are somehow connected with the confusion that's going on all around us. Somehow, these flashes have an effect on the minds of people."

"And we know at least one manifestation of that effect," Boyd said. "It makes spies blab all their secrets when they're exposed to it."

"These three spies, anyhow," Malone said.

"If 'spies' is the right word," Boyd said.

"O.K.," Malone said. "And now we've got another obvious question."

"It seems to me we've got about twelve," Boyd said.

"I mean: who's doing it?" Malone said. "Who is causing these telepathic flashes?"

"Maybe it's just happening," Boyd said. "Out of thin air."

"Maybe," Malone said. "But let's go on the assumption that there's a human cause. The other way, we can't do a thing except sit back and watch the world go to hell."

Boyd nodded. "It doesn't seem to be the Russians," he said. "Although, of course, it might be a Red herring."

"What do you mean?" Malone said.

"Well," Boyd said, "they might have known we were on to Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch—" He stopped. "You know," he said, "every time I say that name I have to reassure myself that we're not all walking around in the world of Florenz Ziegfeld?"

"Likewise," Malone said. "But go on."

"Sure," Boyd said. "Anyhow, they might have set the three of them up as patsies—just in case we stumbled on to this mess. We can't overlook that possibility."

"Right," Malone said. "It's faint, but it is a possibility. In other words, the agency behind the flashes might be Russian, and it might not be Russian."

"That clears that up nicely," Boyd said. "Next question?"

* * * * *

"The next one," Malone said grimly, "is: what's behind the flashes? Some sort of psionic power is causing them—that much is obvious."

"I'll go along with that," Boyd said. "I have to go along with it. But don't think I like it."

"Nobody likes it," Malone said. "But let's go on. O'Connor isn't any help; he washes his hands of the whole business."

"Lucky man," Boyd said.

"He says that it can't be happening," Malone said, "and if it is we're all screwy. Now, right or wrong, that isn't an opinion that gives us any handle to work with."

"No," Boyd said reflectively. "A certain amount of comfort, to be sure, but no handles."

"Sir Lewis Carter, on the other hand—" Malone said. He fumbled through some of the piles of paper until he had located the ones the President of the Psychical Research Society had sent. "Sir Lewis Carter," he went on, "does seem to be doing some pretty good work. At least, some of the more modern stuff he sent over looks pretty solid. They've been doing quite a bit of research into the subject, and their theories seem to be all right, or nearly all right, to me. Of course, I'm not an expert—"

"Who is?" Boyd said. "Except for O'Connor, of course."

"Well, somebody is," Malone said. "Whoever's doing all this, for instance. And the theories do seem O.K. In most cases, for instance, they agree with O'Connor's work—though they're not in complete agreement."

"I should think so," Boyd said. "O'Connor wouldn't recognize an Astral Plane if TWA were putting them into service."

"I don't mean that sort of thing," Malone said. "There's lots about astral bodies and ghosts, ectoplasm, Transcendental Yoga, theosophy, deros, the Great Pyramid, Atlantis, and other such pediculous pets. That's just silly, as far as I can see. But what they have to say about parapsychology and psionics as such does seem to be reasonably accurate."

"I suppose so," Boyd said tiredly.

"O.K., then," Malone said. "Did anybody notice anything in that pile of stuff that might conceivably have any bearing whatever on our problems?"

"I did," Boyd said. "Or I think I did."

"You both did," Her Majesty said. "And so did I, when I looked through it. But I didn't bother with it. I dismissed it."

"Why?" Malone said.

"Because I don't think it's true," she said. "However, my opinion is really only an opinion." She smiled around at the others.

Malone picked up a thick sheaf of papers from one of the piles of his desk. "Let's get straight what it is we're talking about," he said. "All right?"

"Anything's all right with me," Boyd said. "I'm easy to please."

Malone nodded. "Now, this writer ... what's his name?" he said. He glanced at the copy of the cover page. "'Minds and Morons'," he read. "By Cartier Taylor."

"Great title," Boyd said. "Does he say which is which?"

"Let's get back to serious business," Malone said, giving Boyd a single look. There was silence for a second, and then Malone said: "He mentions something, in the book, that he calls 'telepathic projection.' As far as I understand what he's talking about, that's some method of forcing your thoughts on another person." He glanced over at the Queen. "Now, Your Majesty," he said, "you don't think it's true—and that may only be an opinion, but it's a pretty informed one. It seems to me as if Taylor makes a good case for this 'telepathic projection' of his. Why don't you think so?"

"Because," Her Majesty said flatly, "it doesn't work."

"You've tried it?" Boyd put in.

"I have," she said. "And I have had no success with it at all. It's a complete failure."

* * * * *

"Now, wait a minute," Boyd said. "Just a minute."

"What's the matter?" Malone said. "Have you tried it, and made it work?"

Boyd snorted. "Fat chance," he said. "I just want to look at the thing, that's all." He held out his hand, and Malone gave him the sheaf of papers. Boyd leafed through them slowly, stopping every now and again to consult a page, until he found what he was looking for. "There," he said.

"There, what?" Malone said.

"Listen to this," Boyd said. "'For those who draw the line at demonic possession, I suggest trying telepathic projection. Apparently, it is possible to project one's own thoughts directly into the mind of another—even to the point of taking control of the other's mind. Hypnotism? You tell me, and we'll both know. Ever since the orthodox scientists have come around to accepting hypnotism, I've been chary of it. Maybe there really is an astral body or a soul that a person has stashed about him somewhere—something that he can send out to take control of another human being. But I, personally, prefer the telepathic projection theory. All you have to do is squirt your thoughts across space and spray them all over the fellow's brain. Presto-bingo, he does pretty much what you want him to do.'"

"That's the quote I was thinking of," Malone said.

"Of course it is," Her Majesty said. "But it really doesn't work. I've tried it."

"How have you tried it?" Malone said.

"There were many times, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, "when I wanted someone to do something particular—for me, or for some other person. After all, you must remember that I was in a hospital for a long time. Of course, that represents only a short segment of my life span, but it seemed long to me."

Malone, who was trying to view the years from age fifteen to age sixty-odd as a short segment of anybody's lifetime, remembered with a shock that this was not Rose Thompson speaking. It was Queen Elizabeth I, who had never died.

"That's right, Sir Kenneth," she said kindly. "And in that hospital, there were a number of times when I wanted one of the doctors or nurses to do what I wanted them to. I tried many times, but I never succeeded."

Boyd nodded his head. "Well—" he began.

"Oh, yes, Sir Thomas," Her Majesty said. "What you're thinking is certainly possible. It may even be true."

"What is he thinking?" Malone said.

"He thinks," Her Majesty said, "that I may not have the talent for this particular effect—and perhaps I don't. But, talent or not, I know what's possible and what isn't. And the way Mr. Taylor describes it is simply silly, that's all. And unladylike. Imagine any self-respecting lady 'squirting' her thoughts about in space!"

"Well," Malone said carefully, "aside from its being unladylike—"

"Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, "you are not telepathic. Neither is Sir Thomas."

"I'm nothing," Boyd said. "I don't even exist."

"And it is very difficult to explain to the nontelepath just what Mr. Taylor is implying," Her Majesty went on imperturbably. "Before you could inject any thoughts into anyone else's mind, you'd have to be able to see into that mind. Is that correct?"



"I guess so," Malone said.

"And in order to do that, you'd have to be telepathic," Her Majesty said. "Am I correct?"

"Correct," Malone said.

"Well, then," Her Majesty said with satisfaction, and beamed at him.

A second passed.

"Well, then, what?" Malone said in confusion.

"Telepathy," Her Majesty said patiently, "is an extremely complex affair. It involves a sort of meshing with the mind of this other person. It has nothing—absolutely nothing—in common with this simple 'squirting' of thoughts across space, as if they were orange pips you were trying to put into a wastebasket. No, Sir Kenneth, I cannot believe in what Mr. Taylor says."

"But it's still possible," Malone said.

"Oh," Her Majesty said, "it's certainly possible. But I should think that if any telepaths were around, and if they were changing people's minds by 'squirting' at them, I would know it."

Malone frowned. "Maybe you would at that," he said. "I guess you would."

"Not to mention," Boyd put in, "that if you were going to control everything we've come across like that you'd need an awful lot of telepathic operators."

"That's true," Malone admitted. "And the objections seem to make some sense. But what else is there to go on?"

"I don't know," Boyd said. "I haven't the faintest idea. And I'm rapidly approaching the stage where I don't care."

"Well," Malone said, heaving a sigh, "let's keep looking."

He bent down and picked up another sheaf of copies from the Psychical Research Society.

"After all," he said, without much hope, "you never know."

VII

Malone looked around the office of Andrew J. Burris as if he'd never seen it before. He felt tired, and worn out, and depressed; it had been a long night, and here it was morning and the head of the FBI was talking to him about his report. It was, Malone told himself heavily, a hell of a life.

"Now, Malone," Burris said in a kindly voice, "this is a very interesting report."

"Yes, sir," Malone said automatically.

"A very interesting report indeed, Kenneth," Burris went on, positively bursting with good-fellowship.

"Thank you, sir," Malone said dully.

Burris beamed a little more. "You've done a fine job," he said, "a really fine job. Hardly on the job any time at all, and here you've managed to get all three of the culprits responsible."

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said in sudden panic. "That isn't what I said."

"No?" Burris said, looking a little surprised.

"Not at all," Malone said. "I don't think those three spies have anything to do with this at all. Not a thing."

There was a brief silence, during which Burris' surprise seemed to expand like a gas and fill the room. "But they've confessed," he said at last. "Their job was to try and get information, and also to disrupt our own work here."

"I know all that," Malone said. "But—"

Burris held up a pink, patient hand. Malone stared at it, fascinated. It had five pink, patient fingers on it. "Malone," Burris said slowly, "just what's bothering you? Don't you think those men are spies? Is that it?"

"Spies?" Malone said, slightly confused.

"You know," Burris said. "The men you arrested, Malone. The men you wrote this report about."

Malone blinked and focused on the hand again. It still had five fingers. "Sure they are," he said. "They're spies, all right. And they're caught, and that's that. Except I don't think they're causing all the confusion around here."

"Well, of course they're not," Burris said, the beam of kindliness coming back to his face. "Not any more. You caught them."

"I mean," Malone said desperately, "they never were. Even before I caught them."

"Then why," Burris said with great patience, "did you arrest them?"

"Because they're spies," Malone said. "Besides, I didn't."

"Didn't what?" Burris said, looking confused. He seemed to realize he was still holding up his hand, and dropped it to the desk. Malone felt sad as he watched it go. Now he had nothing to concentrate on except the conversation, and he didn't even want to think about what was happening to that.

"Didn't arrest them," he said. "Tom Boyd did."

"Acting," Burris pointed out gently, "under your orders, Kenneth."

It was the second time Burris had called him Kenneth, Malone realized. It started a small warning bell in the back of his mind. When Burris called him by his first name, Burris was feeling paternal and kindly. And that, Malone thought determinedly, boded Kenneth J. Malone very little good indeed.

"He was under my orders to arrest them because they were spies," he said at last. He wondered if the sentence made any real sense, but shrugged his shoulders and plunged on. "But they're not the real spies," he said. "Not the ones everybody's been looking for."

"Kenneth," Burris said, his voice positively dripping with what Malone thought of as the heavy, Grade A, Government-inspected cream of human kindness, "all the confusion with the computer-secretaries has stopped. Everything is running fine in that department."

"But—" Malone began.

"The technicians," Burris said, hypnotized by this poem of beauty, "aren't making any more mistakes. The information is flowing through beautifully. It's a pleasure to see their reports. Believe me, Kenneth—"

"Call me Chief," Malone said wearily.

Burris blinked. "What?" he said. "Oh. Ha. Indeed. Very well, then: Malone, what more proof do you want?"

"Is that proof?" Malone said. "The spies didn't even confess to that. They—"

"Of course they didn't, Malone," Burris said.

"Of course?" Malone said weakly.

"Look at their confessions," Burris said. "Just look at them, in black and white." He reached for a sheaf of papers and pushed them across the desk. Malone looked at them. They were indeed, he told himself, in black and white. There was no arguing with that. None at all.

* * * * *

"Well?" Burris said after a second.

"I don't see anything about computer-secretaries," Malone said.

"The Russians," Burris began slowly, "are not stupid, Malone. You believe that, don't you?"

"Of course I believe it," Malone said. "Otherwise we wouldn't need an FBI."

Burris frowned. "There are still domestic cases," he said. "Like juvenile delinquents stealing cars inter-state, for instance. If you remember." He paused, then went on: "But the fact remains: Russians are not stupid. Not by a long shot."

"All right," Malone said agreeably.

"Do you really think, then," Burris said instantly, "that a spy ring could be as utterly inefficient as the one described in those confessions?"

"Lots of people are inefficient," Malone said.

"Not spies," Burris said with decision. "Do you really believe that the Russians would send over a bunch of operatives as clodheaded as these are pretending to be?"

"People make mistakes," Malone said weakly.

"Russian spies," Burris said, "do not make mistakes. Or, anyhow, we can't depend on it. We have to depend on the fact that they're operating at peak efficiency, Malone. Peak."

Malone nearly asked: "Where?" but controlled himself at the last minute. Instead, he said: "But the confessions are right there. And, according to the confessions—"

"Do you really believe," Burris said, "that a trio of Soviet agents would confess everything as easily as all that if they didn't intend to get something out of it? Such as, for instance, covering up their methods of doing damage? And do you really believe—"

Malone began to feel as if he were involved in the Athanasian Creed. "I don't think the spies are the real spies," he said stubbornly. "I mean the spies we're all looking for."

"Do you mean to stand there and tell me," Burris went on inexorably, "that you take the word of spies when they tell you about their own activities?"

"Their confessions—"

"Spies can lie, Malone," Burris said gently. "As a matter of fact, they usually do. We have come to depend on it as one of the facts of life."

"But Queen Elizabeth," Malone said stubbornly, "told me they weren't lying." As he finished the sentence, he suddenly realized what it sounded like. "You know Queen Elizabeth," he said chummily.

"The Virgin Queen," Burris said helpfully.

"I wouldn't know," Malone said, feeling uncomfortable. "I mean Rose Thompson. She thinks she's Queen Elizabeth and I just said it that way because—"

"It's all right, Malone," Burris said softly. "I know who you mean."

"Well, then," Malone said. "If Queen Elizabeth says the spies aren't lying, then—"

"Then nothing," Burris said flatly. "Miss Rose Thompson is a nice, sweet, little old lady. I admit that."

"And she's been a lot of help," Malone said.

"I admit that, too," Burris said. "But she is also somewhat battier, Malone, than the entire Order Chiroptera, including Count Dracula and all his happy friends."

"She only thinks she's Queen Elizabeth I," Malone said defensively.

"That," Burris said, "is a large sort of only. Malone, you've got to look at the facts sensibly. Square in the face."

Malone pictured a lot of facts going by with square faces. He didn't like the picture. "All right," he said.

"Things are going wrong in the Congressional computer-secretaries," Burris said. "So I assign you to the case. You come back to me with three spies, and the trouble stops. And what other information have you got?"

"Plenty," Malone said, and stopped for thought. There was a long pause.

"All this business about mysterious psionic faculties," Burris said, "comes direct from the testimony of that sweet little old twitch. Which she is. Dr. O'Connor, for instance, has told you in so many words that there's no such thing as this mysterious force. And if you don't want to take the word of the nation's foremost authority, there's this character from the Psychical Research Society—Carter, or whatever his name is. Carter told you he'd never heard of such a thing."

"But that doesn't mean there isn't such a thing," Malone said.

"Even your own star witness," Burris said, "even the Queen herself, told you it couldn't be done."

"Nevertheless—" Malone began. But he felt puzzled. There was no way, he decided, to finish a sentence that started with nevertheless. It was the wrong kind of word.

"What are you trying to do?" Burris said. "Beat your head against a stone wall?"

Malone realized that that was just what he felt like. Of course, Burris thought the stone wall was his psionic theory. Malone knew that the stone wall was Andrew J. Burris. But it didn't matter, he thought confusedly. Where there's a stone, there's a way.

"I feel," he said carefully, "like a man with a stone head."

"And I don't blame you," Burris said in an understanding tone. "Here you are trying to make evidence to fit your theories. What real evidence is there, Malone, that these three spies ... these three comic-opera spies—are innocent?"

"What evidence is there that they're guilty?" Malone said. "Now, listen, Chief—"

"Don't call me Chief," Burris murmured.

"Another five minutes," Malone said in a sudden rage, "and I won't even call you."

"Malone!" Burris said.

Malone swallowed hard. "Sorry," he said at last. "But isn't it just barely possible that these three spies aren't the real criminals? Suppose you were a spy."

"All right," Burris said. "I'm a spy." Something in his tone made Malone look at him with a sudden suspicion. Burris, he thought, was humoring him.

Is it possible, Malone asked himself, that I am the one who is as a little child?

Little children, he told himself with decision, do not capture Russian spies and then argue about it. They go home, eat supper and go to bed.

* * * * *

He stopped thinking about sleep in a hurry, and got back to the business at hand. "If you were a spy," he said, "and you knew that a lot of other spies had been arrested and charged with the crimes you were committing, what would you do?"

Burris appeared to think deeply. "I would celebrate," he said at last, in a judicious tone.

"I mean, would you just go on with the same crimes?" Malone said.

"What are you talking about, Malone?" Burris said cautiously.

"If you knew we'd arrested Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch," Malone went on doggedly, "you'd lay off for a while, just to make us think we'd caught the right men. Doesn't that make sense?"

"Of course it makes sense," Burris said in what was almost a pitying tone. "But don't push it too far. Malone, I want you to know something."

Malone sighed. "Yes, sir?" he said.

"Contrary to popular opinion," Burris said, "I was not appointed Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation just because I own a Hoover vacuum cleaner."

"Of course not," Malone said, feeling that something of the sort was called for.

"And I think you ought to know by now," Burris went on, "that I wouldn't fall for a trick like that any more than you would. There are obviously more members in this spy ring. Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch are just a start."

"Well, then—" Malone began.

"I'm not going to be taken in by what these three say," Burris said. "But now, Malone, we know what to look for. All we have to do is pretend to be taken in. Get it?"

"Sure," Malone said. "We pretend to be taken in. And in the meantime I can go on looking for—"

"We don't have to look for anything," Burris said calmly.

Malone took a deep breath. Somehow, he told himself, things were not working out very well. "But the other spies—"

"The next time they try anything," Burris said, "we'll be able to reach out and pick them up as easy as falling off a log."

"It's the wrong log!" Malone said.

Burris folded his hands on the desk and looked at them for a second, frowning slightly like a psychiatrist. "Malone," he said at last, "I want you to listen to me. Calmly. Coolly. Collectedly."

Malone shrugged. "All right," he said. "I'm calm and cool."

"And collected," Burris added.

"That, too," Malone said vaguely.

"Malone," Burris began, "you've got to get rid of this idea that everything the FBI investigates these days is somehow linked with psionics. I know you've done a lot of work in that connection—"

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "There are those errors. How did the technicians feed the wrong data into the machines?"

"Errors do happen," Burris said. "If I slip on a banana peel, do I blame psionics? Do I even blame the United Fruit Growers? I do not, Malone. Instead, I tell myself that errors do happen. All the time."

"Now," Malone said, "you've contradicted yourself."

"I have?" Burris said with a look of complete surprise.

"Sure," Malone said. He leaned forward across the desk. "If the errors were just ordinary accidental errors, then how were the spies responsible? And why did they stop after the spies were arrested? When you slip on a banana peel, does it matter whether or not the United Fruit Growers are out on strike?"

"Oh," Burris said.

"You see?" Malone said. "You've gone and contradicted yourself." He felt victorious, but somewhere in the back of his mind was the horrible sensation that someone was about to come up behind him and hit him on the head with a wet sock full of old sand.

A long second passed. Then Burris said: "Oh. Malone, I forgot to give you the analysis report."

That, Malone realized dimly, was supposed to be the wet sock. Fate, he told himself, was against him. Anyhow, something was against him. It was a few seconds before he came to the conclusion that what he had heard didn't really make any sense. "Analysis report?" he said.

"On the water cooler," Burris explained cheerfully.

"There is an analysis report on a water cooler," Malone said. "Everything now becomes as clear as crystal." He heard his voice begin to rise. "You analyzed a water cooler and discovered that it was a Siberian spy in disguise," he said, trying to make himself sound less hysterical.

"No, no," Burris said, pushing at Malone with his palms. "The water in it, Malone. The water in it."

"No Siberian spy," Malone said with decision, "could disguise himself as the water in a water cooler."

"I didn't say that," Burris went on. "But what do you think was in that water cooler, Malone?"

"Water," Malone said. "Cool water."

"Congratulations," Burris said, in the hearty tones usually reserved for announcers on programs where housewives win trips to Nome. "You are just a shade less than ninety-nine point nine nine per cent correct."

"The rest of the water," Malone hazarded, "was warm?"

"The rest of the water," Burris said, "wasn't water. Aside from the usual minerals, there was also a trace of one of the psychodrugs."

* * * * *

The word seemed to hang in mid-air, like somebody's sword. Malone knew perfectly well what the psychodrugs were. Over the past twenty years, a great number of them had been developed by confused and anxious researchers. Some were solids, some liquids and a few gaseous at normal temperatures. Some were weak and some were highly potent. Some were relatively innocuous, and quite a few were as deadly as any of the more common poisons. They could be administered by mouth, by injection, by spray, as drops, grains, whiffs or in any other way conceivable to medical science. But they all had one thing in common. They affected the mental functioning—what seemed to be the personality itself—of the person dosed with them.

The effect of the drugs was, in most cases, highly specific. One might make a normally brave man a craven coward; laboratory tests on that one had presented the interesting spectacle of terrified cats running from surprised, but by no means displeased, experimental mice. Another drug reversed this picture, and made the experimental mice mad with power. They attacked cats in battalions or singly, cheering and almost waving large flags as they went over the top, completely foolhardy in the presence of any danger whatever. Others made man abnormally suspicious and still others disassociated judgment to the point where all decisions were made completely at random.

The FBI had a large file on psychodrugs, Malone knew. But he didn't need the file to see what was coming. He asked the question anyhow, just for the record: "What particular psychodrug was this one?"

"One of the judgment-warpers," Burris said. "Haenlingen's Mixture; it's more or less a new development, but the Russians probably know as much about it as we do. In large doses, the drug affects even the automatic nervous system and throws the involuntary functions out of whack; but it isn't usually used in killing amounts."

"And in the water cooler?" Malone asked.

"There wasn't much of it," Burris said, "but there was enough. The technicians could be depended on to make a great many more mistakes than usual—just how many we can't determine, but the order of magnitude seems about right. It would depend on how much water each one of them drank, of course, and we haven't a chance of getting anything like a precise determination of that now."

"Oh," Malone said. "But it comes out about right, doesn't it?" He felt hopeless.

"Just about," Burris said cheerfully. "And since it was Brubitsch's job to change the cooler jug—"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "I think I see a hole in that."

"Really?" Burris said. He frowned slightly.

Malone nodded. "Sure," he said. "If any of the spies drank the water—their judgment would be warped, too, wouldn't it?"

"So they didn't drink the water," Burris said easily.

"How can we be sure?" Malone asked.

Burris shrugged. "Why do we have to be?" he said. "Malone, you've got to stop pressing so hard on this."

"But a man who didn't drink water all day would be a little conspicuous," Malone said. "After a while, anyhow."

Burris sighed. "The man is a janitor, Kenneth," he said. "Do you know what a janitor is?"

"Don't baby me," Malone snapped.

Burris shrugged. "A janitor doesn't work in the office with the men," he said. "He can drink out of a faucet in the broom closet—or wherever the faucets might be. Nobody would notice. Nobody would think it odd."

Malone said: "But—" and stopped and thought it over. "All right," he went on at last. "But I still insist—"

"Now, Kenneth," Burris said in a voice that dripped oil. "I'll admit that psionics is new and wonderful and you've done a lot of fine work with it. A lot of very fine work indeed. But you can't go around blaming everything on psionics no matter what it is or how much sense it makes."

"I don't," Malone said, injured. "But—"

"But you do," Burris said. "Lately, you've been acting as though magic were loose in the world. As though nothing were dependable any more."

"It's not magic," Malone said.

"But it is," Burris told him, "when you use it as an explanation for anything and everything." He paused, "Kenneth," he said in a more kindly tone, "don't think I blame you. I know how hard you've been working. I know how much time and effort you've put into the gallant fight against this country's enemies."

Malone closed his eyes and turned slightly green. "It was nothing," he said at last. He opened his eyes but nothing had changed. Burris' expression was still kindly and concerned.

"Oh, but it was," Burris said. "Something, I mean. You've been working very hard and you're just not at peak efficiency any more. You need a rest, Kenneth. A nice rest."

"I do not," Malone said indignantly.

"A lovely rest," Burris went on, oblivious. "Somewhere peaceful and quiet, where you can just sit around and think peacefully about peaceful things. Oh, it ought to be wonderful for you, Kenneth. A nice, peaceful, lovely, wonderful vacation."

Through the haze of adjectives, Malone remembered dimly the last time Burris had offered him a vacation in that tone of voice. It had turned out to be one of the toughest cases he'd ever had: the case of the teleporting delinquents.



"Nice?" Malone said. "Peaceful? Lovely? Wonderful? I can see it now."

"What do you mean, Malone?" Burris said.

"What am I going to get?" Malone said. "A nice easy job like arresting all the suspected nose-pickers in Mobile, Alabama?"

Burris choked and recovered quickly. "No," he said. "No, no, no. I mean it. You've earned a vacation, Kenneth, a real vacation. A nice, peaceful—"

"Lovely, wonderful vacation," Malone said. "But—"

"You're one of my best agents," Burris said. "I might almost say you're my top man. My very top man. And because of that I've been overworking you."

"But—"

"Now, now," Burris said, waving a hand vaguely. "I have been overworking you, Kenneth, and I'm sorry. I want to make amends."

"A what?" Malone said, feeling confused again.

"Amends," Burris said. "I want to do something for you."

Malone thought about that for a second. Burris was well-meaning, all right, but from the way the conversation was going it looked very much as if "vacation" weren't going to be the right word.

The right word, he thought dismally, was going to be "rest home." Or possibly even "insane asylum."

"I don't want to stop work," he said grimly. "Really, I don't."

"You'll have lots of time to yourself," Burns said in a wheedling tone.

Malone nodded. "Sure I will," he said. "Until they come and put me in a wet pack."

Burris blinked, but recovered gamely. "You don't have to go swimming," he said, "if you don't want to go swimming. Up in the mountains, for instance—"

"Where there are nice big guards to watch everything," Malone said. "And nuts."

"Guides," Burris said. "But you could just sit around and take things easy."

"All locked up," Malone said. "Sure. I'll love it."

"If you want to go out," Burris said, "you can go out. Anywhere. Just do whatever you feel like doing."

Malone sighed. "O.K.," he said. "When do the men in the white coats arrive?"

"White coats?" Burris said. There was a short silence. "Kenneth," he said, "don't suspect me of trying to do anything to you. This is my way of doing you a favor. It would just be a vacation—going anywhere you want to go, doing anything you want to do."

"Avacado," Malone muttered at random.

Burris stared. "What?"

"Nothing," Malone said shamefacedly. "An old song. It runs through my mind. And when you said that about going where I want to go—"

"An old song with avacados in it?" Burris said.

Malone cleared his throat and burst into shy and slightly hoarse song.

"Avacado go where you go," he piped feebly, "do what you do—"

"Oh," Burris said. "Oh, my."

"Sorry," Malone muttered. He took a breath and waited. A second passed.

"Well, Kenneth," Burris said at last, with an attempt at heartiness, "you can do anything you like. The mountains. The seashore. Hawaii. The Riviera. Just go and forget all about gangsters, spies, counter-espionage, kidnapings, mad telepaths, juvenile teleports and anything else like that."

"You forgot water coolers," Malone said.

Burris nodded. "And water coolers," he said, "by all means. Forget about FBI business. Forget about me. Just relax."

It did sound appealing, Malone told himself. But there was a case to finish, and he was sure Burris was finishing it wrong. He wanted to argue about it some more, but he was fresh out of arguments.

And besides, the idea of being able to forget all about Andrew J. Burris for a little while was almost insidious. Malone liked it more the more he thought about it. Burris went on naming vacation spots and drawing magnificent travel-agency pictures of how wonderful life could be, and after a while Malone left. There just wasn't anything else to say. Burris had given him an order for his vacation pay and another guaranteeing travel expenses. Not, he thought glumly, that he would be expected to buy return tickets. Oh, no. Once he'd been to a place he could teleport back, so there would be no point in taking a plane or a train back from wherever he went.

"And suppose I like planes and trains?" he muttered, going on down the hall. But there was nothing he could do about it. He did think of looking for some sympathy, at least, but he couldn't even get much of that. Tom Boyd had apparently already talked to Burris, and was in full agreement with him.

"After all," Boyd said, "there's the drug in the water—and it looks like pretty solid proof to me, Ken."

"It's not proof of anything," Malone said sourly.

"Sure it is," Boyd said. "Why would anybody put it there otherwise?"

Malone shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "But I'm not surprised you like Burris' theory. Psionics never did make you very happy, did it?"

"Not very," Boyd admitted. "This way, anyhow, I've got something I can cope with. And it makes nice, simple sense. No reason to go and complicate it, Ken. None at all."

* * * * *

Glumly, Malone made his farewells and then teleported himself from the Justice Department Building back to his own apartment. There, slowly and sadly, he began to pack. He hadn't yet decided just where he was going, but that was a minor detail. The important thing was that he was going. If the Director of the FBI tells you that you need a rest cure, Malone thought, you do not argue with him. Argument may result in your vacation being extended indefinitely. And that is not a good thing.

Of course, such a "vacation" wouldn't be the end of the world. Not quite. He could even beat Burris to the gun, hand in his resignation and go into private practice as a lawyer. The name of Malone, he told himself proudly, had not been entirely forgotten in Chicago, by any means. But he didn't feel happy about the idea. He knew, perfectly well, that he didn't want to live by trading on his father's reputation. And besides, he liked being an FBI agent. It had glamour. It had standing.