_Of course I didn't force anything on you, Kenneth. I can't. Not all
the power of the entire PRS could force anything through your shield.
But you opened it to me._
It was Luba's mental "voice." Malone opened his mouth, shut it and
then, belatedly, snapped shut the channel through which he'd contacted
her. Luba gave him a wry look, but said nothing. "You mean I'm a
telepath?" Malone asked weakly.
"Certainly," Sir Lewis snapped. "At the moment, you can only pick up
Luba--but you are certainly capable of picking up anyone, eventually.
Just as you learned to teleport, you can learn to be a telepath.
You--"
The room was whirling, but Malone tried to keep his mind steady. "Wait
a minute," he said. "If you received what I sent, then you know I've
got a question to ask."
There was a little silence.
Finally Sir Lewis looked up. "You want to know why you felt we--the
PRS--were innocent of the crimes you want to charge us with. Very
well." He paused. "We have wrecked civilization: granted. We could
have done it more smoothly: granted."
"Then--"
Sir Lewis' face was serious and steady. Malone tensed.
"Malone," Sir Lewis said, "do you think you're the only one with a
mental shield?"
Malone shook his head. "I guess stress--fixity of mind or
purpose--could develop it in anyone," he said. "At least, in some
people."
"Very well," Sir Lewis said. "Now, among the various people of the
world who have, through one necessity or another, managed to develop
such shields--"
Burris broke in impatiently. His words rang, and then echoed in the
old house.
"Some fool," he said flatly, "was going to start the Last War."
* * * * *
"So you had to stop it," Malone said after a long second. "But I still
don't see--"
"Of course you don't," Sir Lewis said. "But you've got to understand
why you don't see it first."
"Because I'm stupid," Malone said.
Luba was shaking her head. Malone turned to face her. "Not stupid,"
she said. "But some people, Kenneth, have certain talents. Others
have--other talents. There's no way of equating these talents; all are
useful, each performs a different function."
"And my talent," Malone said, "is stupidity. But--"
She lit a cigarette daintily. "Not at all," she said. "You've done a
really tremendous job, Kenneth. I was trained ever since I was a baby
to use my psionic abilities--the PRS has known how to train children
in that line ever since 1970. Only Mike Fueyo developed a system for
instruction independently; the boy was, and is, a genius, as you've
noticed."
"Agreed," Malone said. "But--"
"You, however," Luba said, "have the distinction of being the first
human being who has, as an adult, achieved his full powers without
childhood training. In addition, you're the only human being who has
ever developed to the extent you have--in precognition, too."
She puffed on the cigarette. Malone waited.
"But what you don't have," she said at last, very carefully, "is the
ability to reason out the steps you've taken, after you've reached the
proper conclusion."
"Like the calculus student," Malone said. "I flunk." Something inside
him grated over the marrow in his bones. It was as though someone had
decided that the best cure for worry was coarse emery in the joints,
and he, Kenneth J. Malone, had been picked for the first experiment.
"You're not flunking," Luba said. "You're a very long way from
flunking, Kenneth."
Burris cleared his throat suddenly. Malone turned to him. The Head of
the FBI stuck an unlighted cigar into his mouth, chewed it a little,
and then said: "Malone, we've been keeping tabs on you. Your shield
was unbreakable--but we have been able to reach the minds of people
you've talked to: Mike Sands, Primo Palveri, and so on. And Her
Majesty, of course: you opened up a gap in your shield to talk to her,
and you haven't closed it down. Until you started broadcasting here on
the way up, naturally."
"All right," Malone said, waiting with as much patience as possible
for the point.
"I tried to take you off the case," Burris went on, "because Sir Lewis
and the others felt you were getting too close to the truth. Which you
were, Malone, which you were." He lit his cigar and looked obscurely
pleased. "But they didn't know how you'd take it," he said. "They ...
we ... felt that a man who hadn't been trained since childhood to
accept the extrasensory abilities of the human mind couldn't possibly
learn to accept the reality of the job the PRS has to do."
"I still don't," Malone said. "I'm stupid. I flunk. Remember?"
"Now, now," Burris said helplessly. "Not at all, Malone. But we were
worried. I lied to you about those three spies--I put the drug in the
water-cooler. I tried to keep you from learning the Fueyo method of
teleportation. I didn't want you to learn that you were telepathic."
"But I did," Malone said, "And what does that make me?"
"That," Sir Lewis cut in, "is what we're attempting to find out."
Malone felt suitably crushed, but he wasn't sure by what. "I've got
some questions," he said after a second. "I want to know three
things."
"Go ahead," Sir Lewis said.
"One:" Malone said, "How come Her Majesty and the other nutty
telepaths didn't spot you? Two: How come you sent me out on these jobs
when you were afraid I was dangerous? And three: What was it that was
so safe about busting up civilization? How did that save us from the
Last War?"
Sir Lewis nodded. "First," he said, "we've developed a technique of
throwing up a shield and screening it with a surface of innocuous
thoughts--like hiding behind a movie screen. Second ... well, we had
to get the jobs done, Malone. And Andrew thought you were the most
capable, dangerous or not. For one thing, we wanted to get all the
insane telepaths in one place; it's difficult to work when the
atmosphere's full of such telepathic ravings."
"But wrecking the world because of a man with a mind-shield--why not
just work things so his underlings wouldn't obey him?" Malone shook
his head. "That sounds more reasonable."
"It may," Sir Lewis said. "But it wouldn't work. As a matter of fact,
it was tried, and it didn't work. You see, the Sino-Soviet top men
were smart enough to see that their underlings were being tampered
with. And they've developed a system, partly depending on automatic
firing systems, partly on individuals with mind-blocks--that is,
people who aren't being tampered with--which we can't disrupt
directly. So we had to smash them."
"And the United States at the same time," Burris said. "The economic
balance had to be kept; a strong America would be forced in to fill
the power vacuum otherwise, and that would make for an even worse
catastrophe. And if we weren't in trouble, the Sino-Soviet Bloc would
blame their mess on us. And that would start the Last War before
collapse could get started. Right, Malone?"
"I see," Malone said, thinking that he almost did. He told himself he
could feel happy now; the danger--which hadn't been danger to him,
really, but danger from him toward the PRS, toward civilization--was
over. But he didn't feel happy. He didn't feel anything.
"There's a crisis building in New York," Sir Lewis said suddenly,
"that's going to take all our attention. Malone, why don't you ...
well, go home and get some rest? We're going to be busy for a while,
and you'll want to be fresh for the work coming up."
"Sure," Malone said listlessly. "Sure."
As the others rose, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then
he vanished.