And Malone thought about answering that one. "Queen Elizabeth told
me," was the literal truth, but somehow it didn't sound like it. And
he couldn't find another answer to give the girl.
"Dorothea," he said, and a voice from nowhere added:
"Will you have another drink?"
"Damn it," Malone exploded, "that's not the question. Drinks have
nothing to do with notebooks. It's notebooks I'm after. Can't you
understand..." Belatedly, he looked up.
There was Ray, the barman. "Oh," he said.
"I just came over," Ray said. "And I figured if you couldn't find your
notebook, maybe you'd like a drink. So long as you're here."
"Ray," Malone said with feeling, "you are an eminently reasonable
fellow. I accept your solution. Nay, more. I endorse your solution.
Wholeheartedly."
Ray went off to mix, and Malone stared after him happily. This was
really a nice place, he reflected; almost as nice as the City Hall Bar
in Chicago, where he'd gone long ago with his father.
But he tore his mind away from the happy past, and concentrated
instead on the miserable present. He decided for the last time that he
was not going to ask Dorothea for the book--not just yet, anyhow.
After all, it wasn't as if he needed the book; he knew his own name,
and he knew Lynch's name, and he knew the names on the second page.
And he didn't see any particular need for a picture of a red Cadillac,
no matter how nicely colored it was.
So, he asked himself, why embarrass everybody by trying to get it
back?
Of course, it _was_ technically a crime to pick pockets, and that went
double or triple for the pockets of FBI agents. But Malone told
himself that he didn't feel like pressing charges, anyhow. And Dorothy
probably didn't make a habit of pocket-picking.
He sighed and glanced at his watch. It was fifteen minutes of six.
Now he knew what his next move was going to be.
He was going to go back to his hotel and change his clothes.
That is, he amended, as soon as he finished the drink that Ray was
setting up in front of him.
11
By the time Malone reached the Hotel New Yorker it was six-twenty.
Malone hadn't reckoned with New York's rush-hour traffic, and, after
seeing it, he still didn't believe it. Finding a cab had been
impossible, and he had started for the subway, hoping that he wouldn't
get lost and end up somewhere in Brooklyn.
But one look at the shrieking mob trying to sardine itself into the
Seventh Avenue subway entrance had convinced him it was better to
walk. Bucking the street crowds was bad enough. Bucking the subway
crowds was something Malone didn't even want to think about.
He let himself into his room, and was taking off his shoes with a
grateful sigh when there was a rap on the door of the bathroom that
connected his room with Boyd's. Malone padded over to the door, his
shoes in one hand. "Tom?" he said.
"You are expecting maybe Titus Moody?" Boyd called.
"Okay," Malone said. "Come on in."
Boyd pushed open the door. He was stripped to the waist, a state of
dress which showed the largest expanse of chest Malone had ever seen,
and he was carrying the small scissors which he used to trim his Henry
VIII beard. He stabbed the scissors toward Malone, who shuffled back
hurriedly.
"Listen," Boyd said. "Did you call the office after you left this
afternoon?"
"No," Malone admitted. "Why? What happened?"
"There was a call for you," Boyd said. "Long distance, just before I
left at five. I came on back to the hotel and waited until I heard you
come in. Thought you might want to know about it."
"I do, I guess," Malone said. "Who from?" Looking at Boyd, a
modern-day Henry VIII, the association was too obvious to be missed.
Malone thought of Good Queen Bess, and wondered why she was calling
him again.
And--more surprising--why she'd called him at FBI headquarters, when
she must have known that he wasn't there.
"Dr. O'Connor," Boyd said.
"Oh," Malone said, somewhat relieved. "At Yucca Flats."
Boyd nodded. "Right," he said.
"You're to call operator nine."
"Thanks." Malone went over to the phone, remembered his shoes and put
them down carefully on the floor. "Anything else of importance?" he
asked.
"On the Cadillacs," Boyd said. "We've got a final report now.
Leibowitz and Hardin finally finished checking the last of them; there
weren't quite as many as we were afraid there were going to be. Red
isn't a very popular color around here."
"Good," Malone said.
"And there isn't a doggone thing on any of 'em," Boyd said. "Oh, we
cleared up a lot of small-time crime, one thing and another, but
that's about all. No such thing as an electro-psionic brain to be
found anywhere in the lot. Leibowitz says he's willing to swear to
it."
Malone sighed. "I didn't think he'd find one," he said.
"You didn't?"
"No," Malone said.
Boyd stabbed at him with the scissors again. "Then why did you cause
all that trouble?" he said.
"Because I thought we might find electro-psionic brains," Malone said
wearily. "Or one, anyhow."
"But you just said--"
Malone picked up the phone, got long distance, and motioned Boyd to
silence in one sweeping series of moves. The long-distance operator
said, "Yes, sir? May we help you?"
"Give me operator nine," Malone said.
There was a buzz, a click, and a new voice which said, "Operator
ni-yun. May we help you?"
"All nine of you?" Malone muttered. "Never mind. This is Kenneth
Malone. I've got a call from Dr. Thomas O'Connor at Yucca Flats.
Please connect me."
There was another buzz, a click and an ungodly howl which was followed
by the voice of operator ni-yun saying, "We are connecting you. There
will be a slight delay. We are sor-ree."
Malone waited. At last there was another small howl, and the screen
lit up. Dr. O'Connor's face, as stern and ascetic as ever, stared
through at Malone.
"I understand you called me," Malone said.
"Ah, yes," Dr. O'Connor said. "It's very good to see you again, Mr.
Malone." He gave Malone a smile good for exchange at your corner
grocery; worth, one icicle.
"It's good to see you too," Malone lied.
"Mr. Burris explained to me what it was that you wanted to talk to me
about," O'Connor said, "Am I to understand that you have actually
found a teleport?"
"Unless my theories are away off," Malone said, "I've done a lot
better than that. I've found eight of them."
"Eight." Dr. O'Connor's smile grew perceptibly warmer. It now stood at
about thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit. "That is really excellent, Mr.
Malone. You have done a fine job."
"Thanks," Malone muttered. He wished that O'Connor didn't make him
feel quite so much like a first-year law student talking to an
egomaniacal professor.
"When can you deliver them?" O'Connor said.
"Well," Malone said carefully, "that depends." O'Connor seemed to
view the teleports as pieces of equipment, he thought. "I can't
deliver them until I catch them," he said. "And that's why I wanted to
talk to you."
"Some slight delay," Dr. O'Connor said, "will be quite
understandable." His face left no doubt that he didn't like the
necessity of understanding anything that was going to keep him and the
eight teleports apart for even thirty seconds longer, now that he knew
about them.
"You see," Malone said, "they're kids. Juvenile delinquents, or
something like that. But they are teleports, that's for sure."
"I see," Dr. O'Connor said.
"So we've got to nab them," Malone said. "And for that I need all the
information I can get."
Dr. O'Connor nodded slowly. "I'll be happy," he said, "to give you any
information I can provide."
Malone took a deep breath, and plunged. "How does this teleportation
bit work, anyhow?" he said.
"You've asked a very delicate question," Dr. O'Connor said. "Actually,
we can't be quite positive." His expression showed just how little he
wanted to make this admission. "However," he went on, brightening,
"there is some evidence which seems to show that it is basically the
same process as psychokinesis. And we do have quite a bit of empirical
data on psychokinesis." He scribbled something on a sheet of paper and
said, "For instance, there's this." He held the paper up to the screen
so that Malone could read it.
It said:
(m*d)/(f*t**2) = 1/k
Malone looked at it for some seconds. At last he said, "It's very
pretty. What the hell is it?"
"This," Dr. O'Connor said, in a condescending tone of voice that
meant, You should have known all along, but you're just hopeless, "is
the basic formula for the phenomenon, where _m_ is the mass in grams,
_d_ is the distance in centimeters, _f_ is the force in dynes, and _t_
is the time in seconds. _K_ is a constant whose value is not yet
known, and the numeral 1 is unity."
Malone said, "Hmm," and stared at the equation again. Somehow, the
explanation was not very helpful. The numeral 1 was unity. He
understood that much, all right, but it didn't seem to do him any
good.
"As you can see," Dr. O'Connor went on, "the greater the force, and
the longer time it is applied, the greater distance any given mass can
be moved. Or, contrariwise, the more mass, the greater mass, that is,
the easier it is to move it any given distance. This is, as you
undoubtedly understand, not at all in contradistinction to physical
phenomena."
"Ah," Malone said, feeling that something was expected of him, but not
being quite sure what.
Dr. O'Connor frowned. "I must admit," he said, "that the uncertainty
as to the constant _k_, and the lack of any real knowledge as to just
what kind of force is being applied, have held up our work so far."
Then his face smoothed out. "Of course, when we have the teleports to
work with, we may derive a full set of laws which--"
"Never mind that now," Malone said.
"But our work is most important, Mr. Malone," Dr. O'Connor said with a
motion of his eyebrows. "As I'm sure you must understand."
"Oh," Malone said, feeling if he'd been caught without his homework,
"of course. But if you don't mind--"
"Yes, Mr. Malone?" Dr. O'Connor said smoothly.
"What I want to know," Malone said, "is this. What are the limitations
of this--uh--phenomenon?"
Dr. O'Connor brightened up thoroughly. "Well, theoretically," he said,
"there do not appear to be any limitations. However, practical
limitations do exist. If the process is at all parallel with
psychokinesis, or with levitation"--he stared at Malone, as if daring
him to say that it wasn't--"if that parallel exists, then the subject
is mentally limited by his own physical strength."