Malone repressed an impulse to scream. "Days?" he said. "I mean ...
well, look, Fred, it's important. Very important. Can't you do the job
any faster?"
Fred gave a little sigh. "Checking and repairing all those machines,"
he said, "is an extremely complex job. Sometimes, Malone, I don't
think you realize quite how complex, and how delicate a job it is to
deal with such a high-order machine. Why--"
"Wait a minute," Malone said. "Check and repair them?"
"Of course," Fred said.
"But I don't want them repaired," Malone said. Seeing the look of
horror on Fred's face, he added hastily: "I only want a report from
you on what's wrong, whether they are actually making errors or not.
And if they are making errors, just what's making them do it. And just
what kind of errors. See?"
Fred nodded very slowly. "But I can't just ... just leave them there,"
he said piteously. "In ... pieces and everything. It isn't right,
Malone. It just isn't right."
"Well, then," Malone said with energy, "you go right ahead and repair
them, if you want to. Fix 'em all up. But you can do that _after_ you
make the report to me, can't you?"
"I--" Fred hesitated. "I had planned to check and repair each machine
on an individual basis--"
"The Congress can allow for a short suspension," Malone said. "Anyhow,
they can now--or as soon as I get the word to them. Suppose you check
all the machines first, and then get around to the repair work."
"It's not the best way," Fred demurred.
Malone discovered that it was his turn to sigh. "Is it the fastest?"
he said.
Fred nodded.
"Then it's the best," Malone said. "How long?"
Fred rolled his eyes to the ceiling and calculated silently for a
second. "Tomorrow morning," he announced, returning his gaze to
Malone.
"Fine," Malone said. "Fine."
"But--"
"Never mind the buts," Malone said hurriedly. "I'll count on hearing
from you tomorrow morning."
"Oh--" Fred said. "All right."
"And if it looks like sabotage," Malone added, "if the errors aren't
caused by normal wear and tear on the machines--you let me know right
away. Phone me. Don't waste an instant."
[Illustration]
"I'll ... I'll start right away," Fred said heavily. He looked sadly
at the mechanism he had been working on, and put his screwdriver down
next to it. It looked to Malone as if he were putting flowers on the
grave of a dear departed. "I'll get a team together," Fred added. He
gave the mechanism and screwdriver one last fond parting look.
Malone looked after him for a second, thinking of nothing in
particular, and then turned in the opposite direction and headed back
toward the elevator. As he walked, he began to feel more and more
pleased with himself. After all, he'd gotten the investigation
started, hadn't he?
And now all he had to do was go back to his office and read some
reports and listen to some interview tapes, and then he could go home.
The reports and the interview tapes didn't exactly sound like fun,
Malone thought, but at the same time they seemed fairly innocent. He
would work his way through them grimly, and maybe he would even
indulge his most secret vice and smoke a cigar or two to make the work
pass more pleasantly. Soon enough, he told himself, they would be
finished with.
Sometimes, though, he regretted the reputation he'd gotten. It had
been bad enough in the old days--the pre-1971 days when Malone had
thought he was just lucky. Burris had called him a Boy Wonder then,
when he'd cracked three difficult cases in a row. Being just lucky had
made it a little tough to live with the Boy Wonder label--after all,
Malone thought, it wasn't actually as if he'd done anything.
But since 1971 and the case of the Telepathic Spy, things had gotten
worse. Much worse. Now Malone wasn't just lucky any more. Instead, he
could teleport and he could even foretell the future a little, in a
dim sort of way. He'd caught the Telepathic Spy that way, and when the
case of the Teleporting Juvenile Delinquents had come up he'd been
assigned to that one too, and he'd cracked it. Now Burris seemed to
think of him as a kind of god, and gave him all the tough dirty jobs.
And if he wasn't just lucky any more, Malone couldn't think of himself
as a Fearless, Heroic FBI Agent, either. He just wasn't the type. He
was--well, talented. That was the word, he told himself: talented. He
had all these talents and they made him look like something
spectacular to Burris and the other FBI men. But he wasn't, really. He
hadn't done anything really tough to get his talents; they'd just
happened to him.
Nobody, though, seemed to believe that. He heaved a little sigh and
stepped into the waiting elevator.
There were, after all, he thought, compensations. He'd had some good
times, and the talents did come in handy. And he did have his pick of
the vacation schedule lately. And he'd met some lovely girls--
And besides, he told himself savagely as the elevator shot upward, he
wasn't going to do anything except return to his office and read some
reports and listen to some tapes. And then he was going to go home and
sleep all night, peacefully. And in the morning Mitchell was going to
call him up and tell him that the computer-secretaries needed nothing
more than a little repair. He'd say they were getting old, and he'd be
a little pathetic about it; but it wouldn't be anything serious.
Malone would send out orders to get the machines repaired, and that
would be that. And then the next case would be something both normal
and exciting, like a bank robbery or a kidnapping involving a gorgeous
blonde who would be so grateful to Malone that--
He had stepped out of the elevator and gone down the corridor without
noticing it. He pushed at his own office door and walked into the
outer room. The train of thought he had been following was very nice,
and sounded very attractive indeed, he told himself.
Unfortunately, he didn't believe it. His prescient ability,
functioning with its usual efficient aplomb, told Malone that things
would not be better, or simpler, in the morning. They would be worse,
and more complicated.
They would be quite a lot worse.
And, as usual, that prescience was perfectly accurate.