"And you feel you should share it with the world," the girl said. "I
quite understand. Tell me, is there anything I can do for you? Or has
your mission been accomplished?"
"My mission?" Malone said.
"Having sneezed twice at me," the girl said, "do you now feel
satisfied? Will you vanish softly and silently away? Or do you want to
sneeze at somebody else?"
"I want the President of the Society," Malone said. "According to my
information, his name is Sir Lewis Carter."
"And if you sneeze at him," the girl said, "yours is going to be mud.
He isn't much on novelty."
"I--"
"Besides which," she said, "he's extremely busy. And I don't think
he'll see you at all. Why don't you go and sneeze at somebody else?
There must be lots of people who would consider themselves honored to
be noticed, especially in such a startling way. Why don't you try and
find one somewhere? Somewhere very far away?"
Malone was beyond speech. He fumbled for his wallet, flipped it open
and showed the girl his identification.
"My, my," she said. "And hasn't the FBI anything better to do? I mean,
can't you go and sneeze at counterfeiters in their lairs, or wherever
they might be?"
"I want to see Sir Lewis Carter," Malone said doggedly.
The girl shrugged and picked up the phone on her desk. It was a
blank-vision device, of course; many office intercoms were. She
dialed, waited and then said: "Sir Lewis, please." Another second went
by. Then she spoke again. "Sir Lewis," she said, "this is Lou, at the
front desk. There's a man here named Malone, who wants to see you."
She waited a second. "I don't know what he wants," she told the phone.
"But he's from the FBI." A second's pause. "That's right, the FBI,"
she said. "All right, Sir Lewis. Right away." She hung up the phone
and turned to watch Malone warily.
"Sir Lewis," she said, "will see you. I couldn't say why. But take the
side corridor to the rear of the suite. His office has his name on it,
and I won't tell you you can't miss it because I have every faith that
you will. Good luck."
Malone blinked. "Look," he said. "I know I startled you, but I didn't
mean to. I--" He started to sneeze, but this time he got his own
handkerchief out in time and muffled the explosion slightly.
"Good work," the girl said approvingly.
* * * * *
There was nothing at all to say to that remark, Malone reflected as he
wended his way down the side corridor. It seemed endless, and kept
branching off unexpectedly. Once he blundered into a large open room
filled with people at desks. A woman who seemed to have a great many
teeth and rather bulbous eyes looked up at him. "Can I help you?" she
said in a fervent whine.
"I sincerely hope not," Malone said, backing away and managing to find
the corridor once more. After what seemed like a long time, and two
more sneezes, he found a small door which was labeled in capital
letters:
THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
SOCIETY
SIR LEWIS CARTER
PRESIDENT
Malone sighed. "Well," he muttered, "they certainly aren't hiding
anything." He pushed at the door, and it swung open.
Sir Lewis was a tall, solidly-built man with a kindly expression. He
wore gray flannel trousers and a brown tweed jacket, which made an
interesting color contrast with his iron-gray hair. His teeth were
clenched so firmly on the bit of a calabash pipe with a meerschaum
bowl that Malone wondered if he could ever get loose. Malone shut the
door behind him, and Sir Lewis rose and extended a hand.
Malone went to the desk and reached across to take the hand. It was
firm and dry. "I'm Kenneth Malone," Malone said.
"Ah, yes," Sir Lewis said. "Pleased to meet you; always happy, of
course, to do whatever I can for your FBI. Not only a duty, so to
speak, but a pleasure. Sit down. Please do sit down."
Malone found a chair at the side of the desk, and sank into it. It was
soft and comfortable. It provided such a contrast to O'Connor's
furnishings that Malone began to wish it was Sir Lewis who was
employed at Yucca Flats. Then he could tell Sir Lewis everything about
the case.
Now, of course, he could only hedge and try to make do without stating
very many facts. "Sir Lewis," he said, "I trust you'll keep this
conversation confidential."
"Naturally," Sir Lewis said. He removed the pipe, stared at it, and
replaced it.
"I can't give you the full details," Malone went on, "but the FBI is
presently engaged in an investigation which requires the specialized
knowledge your organization seems to have."
"FBI?" Sir Lewis said. "Specialized investigation?" He seemed pleased,
but a trifle puzzled. "Dear boy, anything we have is at your disposal,
of course. But I quite fail to see how you can consider us--"
"It's rather an unusual problem," Malone said, feeling that that was
the understatement of the year. "But I understand that your records go
back nearly a century."
"Quite true," Sir Lewis murmured.
"During that time," Malone said, "the Society investigated a great
many supposedly supernatural or supernormal incidents."
"Many of them," Sir Lewis said, "were discovered to be fraudulent, I'm
afraid. The great majority, in fact."
"That's what I'd assume," Malone said. He fished in his pockets, found
a cigarette and lit it. Sir Lewis went on chewing at his unlit pipe.
"What we're interested in," Malone said, "is some description of the
various methods by which these frauds were perpetrated."
"Ah," Sir Lewis said. "The tricks of the trade, so to speak?"
"Exactly," Malone said.
"Well, then," Sir Lewis said. "The luminous gauze, for instance, that
passes for ectoplasm; the various methods of table-lifting; control of
the ouija board--things like that?"
"Not quite that elementary," Malone said. He puffed on the cigarette,
wishing it was a cigar. "We're pretty much up to that kind of thing.
But had it ever occurred to you that many of the methods used by phony
mind-reading acts, for instance, might be used as communication
methods by spies?"
"Why, I believe some have been," Sir Lewis said. "Though I don't know
much about that, of course; there was a case during the First World
War--"
"Exactly," Malone said. He took a deep breath. "It's things like that
we're interested in," he said, and spent the next twenty minutes
slowly approaching his subject. Sir Lewis, apparently fascinated, was
perfectly willing to unbend in any direction, and jotted down notes on
some of Malone's more interesting cases, murmuring: "Most unusual,
most unusual," as he wrote.
The various types of phenomena that the Society had investigated came
into the discussion, and Malone heard quite a lot about the Beyond,
the Great Summerland, Spirit Mediums and the hypothetical existence of
fairies, goblins and elves.
"But, Sir Lewis--" he said.
"I make no claims personally," Sir Lewis said. "But I understand that
there is a large and somewhat vocal group which does make rather
solid-sounding claims in that direction. They say that they have seen
fairies, talked with goblins, danced with the elves."
"They must be very unusual people," Malone said, understating heavily.
"Oh," Sir Lewis said, "without a 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._
[Illustration]
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!"
[Illustration]
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."