"I know," Malone said. "Thanks. Can we go on to our hotel now?"
"I guess," the Patrolman said. "Go ahead. We'll take care of the rest
of this. You'll be getting a call later."
"Fine," Malone said. "Trace those hoods, and any connections they
might have had. Get the information to me as soon as possible."
Lieutenant Adams nodded. "You won't have to leave the state, will
you?" he asked. "I don't mean that you _can't_, exactly--hell, you're
FBI. But it'd be easier--"
"Call Burris in Washington," Malone said. "He can get hold of me--and
if the Governor wants to know where we are, or the State's Attorney,
put them in touch with Burris too. Okay?"
"Okay," Lieutenant Adams said. "Sure." He blinked at Malone. "Listen,"
he said. "About those costumes--"
"We're trying to catch Henry VIII for the murder of Anne Boleyn,"
Malone said with a polite smile. "Okay?"
"I was only asking," Lieutenant Adams said. "Can't blame a man for
asking, now, can you?"
Malone climbed into his front seat. "Call me later," he said. The car
started. "Back to the hotel, Sir Thomas," Malone said, and the car
roared off.
7
Yucca Flats, Malone thought, certainly deserved its name. It was about
as flat as land could get, and it contained millions upon millions of
useless yuccas. Perhaps they were good for something, Malone thought,
but they weren't good for _him_.
The place might, of course, have been called Cactus Flats, but the
cacti were neither as big nor as impressive as the yuccas.
Or was that yucci?
Possibly, Malone mused, it was simply yucks.
And whatever it was, there were millions of it. Malone felt he
couldn't stand the sight of another yucca. He was grateful for only
one thing.
It wasn't summer. If the Elizabethans had been forced to drive in
closed cars through the Nevada desert in the summertime, they might
have started a cult of nudity, Malone felt. It was bad enough now, in
what was supposed to be winter.
The sun was certainly bright enough, for one thing. It glared through
the cloudless sky and glanced with blinding force off the road. Sir
Thomas Boyd squinted at it through the rather incongruous sunglasses
he was wearing, while Malone wondered idly if it was the sunglasses,
or the rest of the world, that was an anachronism. But Sir Thomas kept
his eyes grimly on the road as he gunned the powerful Lincoln toward
the Yucca Flats Labs at eighty miles an hour.
Malone twisted himself around and faced the women in the back seat.
Past them, through the rear window of the Lincoln, he could see the
second car. It followed them gamely, carrying the newest addition to
Sir Kenneth Malone's Collection of Bats.
"Bats?" Her Majesty said suddenly, but gently. "Shame on you, Sir
Kenneth. These are poor, sick people. We must do our best to help
them--not to think up silly names for them. For shame!"
"I suppose so," Malone said wearily. He sighed and, for the fifth time
that day, he asked: "Does Your Majesty have any idea where our spy is
now?"
"Well, really, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said with the slightest of
hesitations, "it isn't easy, you know. Telepathy has certain laws,
just like everything else. After all, even a game has laws. Being
telepathic didn't help me to play poker--I still had to learn the
rules. And telepathy has rules, too. A telepath can easily confuse
another telepath by using some of those rules."
"Oh, fine," Malone said. "Well, have you got into contact with his
mind yet?"
"Oh, yes," Her Majesty said happily. "And my goodness, he's certainly
digging up a lot of information, isn't he?"
Malone moaned softly. "But who _is_ he?" he asked after a second.
The Queen stared at the roof of the car in what looked like
concentration. "He hasn't thought of his name yet," she said. "I mean,
at least, if he has, he hasn't mentioned it to me. Really, Sir
Kenneth, you have no idea how difficult all this is."
Malone swallowed with difficulty.
_"Where_ is he, then," said. "Can you tell me that, at least? His
location?"
Her Majesty looked positively desolated with sadness. "I can't be
sure," she said. "I really can't be exactly sure just where he is. He
does keep moving around, I know that. But you have to remember that he
doesn't want me to find him. He certainly doesn't want to be found by
the FBI--would you?"
"Your Majesty," Malone said, "I _am_ the FBI."
"Yes," the Queen said, "but suppose you weren't? He's doing his best
to hide himself, even from me. It's sort of a game he's playing."
"A game!"
Her Majesty looked contrite. "Believe me, Sir Kenneth, the minute I
know exactly where he is, I'll tell you. I promise. Cross my heart and
hope to die--which I can't, of course, being immortal." Nevertheless,
she made an X-mark over her left breast. "All right?"
"All right," Malone said, out of sheer necessity. "Okay. But don't
waste any time telling me. Do it right away. We've _got_ to find that
spy and isolate him somehow."
"Please don't worry yourself, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. "Your
Queen is doing everything she can."
"I know that, Your Majesty," Malone said. "I'm sure of it." Privately,
he wondered just how much even she could do. Then he realized--for
perhaps the ten-thousandth time--that there was no such thing as
wondering privately any more.
"That's quite right, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said sweetly. "And it's
about time you got used to it."
"What's going on?" Boyd said. "More reading minds back there?"
"That's right, Sir Thomas," the Queen said.
"I've about gotten used to it," Boyd said almost cheerfully. "Pretty
soon they'll come and take me away, but I don't mind at all." He
whipped the car around a bend in the road savagely. "Pretty soon
they'll put me with the other sane people and let the bats inherit the
world. But I don't mind at all."
"Sir Thomas!" Her Majesty said in shocked tones.
"Please," Boyd said with a deceptive calmness. "Just Mr. Boyd. Not
even Lieutenant Boyd, or Sergeant Boyd. Just Mr. Boyd. Or, if you
prefer, Tom."
"Sir Thomas," Her Majesty said, "I really can't understand this
sudden--"
"Then don't understand it," Boyd said. "All I know is everybody's
nuts, and I'm sick and tired of it."
A pall of silence fell over the company.
"Look, Tom," Malone began at last.
"Don't you try smoothing me down," Boyd snapped.
Malone's eyebrows rose. "Okay," he said. "I won't smooth you down.
I'll just tell you to shut up, to keep driving--and to show some
respect to Her Majesty."
"I--" Boyd stopped. There was a second of silence.
_"That's_ better," Her Majesty said with satisfaction.
Lady Barbara stretched in the back seat, next to Her Majesty. "This is
certainly a long drive," she said. "Have we got much farther to go?"
"Not too far," Malone said. "We ought to be there soon."
"I--I'm sorry for the way I acted," Barbara said.
"What do you mean, the way you acted?"
"Crying like that," Barbara said with some hesitation. "Making an--
absolute idiot of myself. When that other car--tried to get us."
"Don't worry about it," Malone said. "It was nothing."
"I just--made trouble for you," Barbara said.
Her Majesty touched the girl on the shoulder. "He's not thinking about
the trouble you cause him," she said quietly.
"Of course I'm not," Malone told her. "But I--"
"My dear girl," Her Majesty said, "I believe that Sir Kenneth is, at
least partly, in love with you."
Malone blinked. It was perfectly true--even if he hadn't quite known
it himself until now. Telepaths, he was discovering, were occasionally
handy things to have around.
"In... love...." Barbara said.
"And you, my dear--" Her Majesty began.
"Please, Your Majesty," Lady Barbara said. "No more. Not just now."
The Queen smiled, almost to herself. "Certainly, dear," she said.
The car sped on. In the distance, Malone could see the blot on the
desert that indicated the broad expanse of Yucca Flats Labs. Just the
fact that it could be seen, he knew, didn't mean an awful lot. Malone
had been able to see it for the past fifteen minutes, and it didn't
look as if they'd gained an inch on it. Desert distances are
deceptive.
At long last, however, the main gate of the laboratories hove into
view. Boyd made a left turn off the highway and drove a full seven
miles along the restricted road, right up to the big gate that marked
the entrance of the laboratories themselves. Once again, they were
faced with the army of suspicious guards and security officers.
This time, suspicion was somewhat heightened by the dress of the
visitors. Malone had to explain about six times that the costumes were
part of an FBI arrangement, that he had not stolen his identity cards,
that Boyd's cards were Boyd's, too, and in general that the four of
them were not insane, not spies, and not jokesters out for a lark in
the sunshine.
Malone had expected all of that. He went through the rigmarole
wearily but without any sense of surprise. The one thing he hadn't
been expecting was the man who was waiting for him on the other side
of the gate.
When he'd finished identifying everybody for the fifth or sixth time,
he began to climb back into the car. A familiar voice stopped him
cold.
"Just a minute, Malone," Andrew J. Burris said. He erupted from the
guardhouse like an avenging angel, followed closely by a thin man,
about five feet ten inches in height, with brush-cut brown hair, round
horn-rimmed spectacles, large hands and a small Sir Francis Drake
beard. Malone looked at the two figures blankly.
"Something wrong, Chief?" he said.
Burris came toward the car. The thin gentleman followed him, walking
with an odd bouncing step that must have been acquired, Malone
thought, over years of treading on rubber eggs. "I don't know," Burris
said when he'd reached the door. "When I was in Washington, I seemed
to know--but when I get out here in this desert, everything just goes
haywire." He rubbed at his forehead.
Then he looked into the car. "Hello, Boyd," he said pleasantly.
"Hello, Chief," Boyd said.
Burris blinked. "Boyd, you look like Henry VIII," he said with only
the faintest trace of surprise.
"Doesn't he, though?" Her Majesty said from the rear seat. "I've
noticed that resemblance myself."
Burris gave her a tiny smile. "Oh," he said. "Hello, Your Majesty.
I'm--"
"Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI," the Queen finished for him.
"Yes, I know. It's very nice to meet you at last. I've seen you on
television, and over the video phone. You photograph badly, you know."
"I do?" Burris said pleasantly. It was obvious that he was keeping
himself under very tight control.
Malone felt remotely sorry for the man--but only remotely. Burris
might as well know, he thought, what they had all been going through
the past several days.
Her Majesty was saying something about the honorable estate of
knighthood, and the Queen's list. Malone began paying attention when
she came to:"--and I hereby dub thee--" She stopped suddenly, turned
and said: "Sir Kenneth, give me your weapon."
Malone hesitated for a long, long second. But Burris' eye was on him,
and he could interpret the look without much trouble. There was only
one thing for him to do. He pulled out his .44, ejected the cartridges
in his palm (and reminded himself to reload the gun as soon as he got
it back), and handed the weapon to the Queen, butt foremost.
She took the butt of the revolver in her right hand, leaned out the
window of the car, and said in a fine, distinct voice: "Kneel,
Andrew."
Malone watched with wide, astonished eyes as Andrew J. Burris,
Director of the FBI, went to one knee in a low and solemn
genuflection. Queen Elizabeth Thompson nodded her satisfaction.
She tapped Burris gently on each shoulder with the muzzle of the gun.
"I knight thee Sir Andrew," she said. She cleared her throat. "My,
this desert air is dry.... Rise, Sir Andrew, and know that you are
henceforth Knight Commander of the Queen's Own FBI."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Burris said humbly.
He rose to his feet silently. The Queen withdrew into the car again
and handed the gun back to Malone. He thumbed the cartridges into the
chambers of the cylinder and listened dumbly.
"Your Majesty," Burris said, "this is Dr. Harry Gamble, the head of
Project Isle. Dr. Gamble, this is Her Majesty the Queen; Lady Barbara
Wilson, her--uh--her lady-in-waiting; Sir Kenneth Malone; and King--I
mean Sir Thomas Boyd." He gave the four a single bright impartial
smile. Then he tore his eyes away from the others, and bent his gaze
on Sir Kenneth Malone. "Come over here a minute, Malone," he said,
jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "I want to talk to you."
Malone climbed out of the car and went around to meet Burris. He felt
just a little worried as he followed the Director away from the car.
True, he had sent Burris a long telegram the night before, in code.
But he hadn't expected the man to show up in Yucca Flats. There didn't
seem to be any reason for it.
And when there isn't any reason, Malone told himself sagely, it's a
bad one.
"What's the trouble, Chief?" he asked.
Burris sighed. "None so far," he said quietly. "I got a report from
the Nevada State Patrol, and ran it through R&I. They identified the
men you killed, all right--but it didn't do us any good. They're hired
hoods."
"Who hired them?" Malone said.
Burris shrugged. "Somebody with money," he said. "Hell, men like that
would kill their own grandmothers if the price were right--you know
that. We can't trace them back any farther."
Malone nodded. That was, he had to admit, bad news. But then, when had
he last had any good news?
"We're nowhere near our telepathic spy," Burris said. "We haven't come
any closer than we were when we started. Have you got anything?
Anything at all, no matter how small?"
"Not that I know of, sir," Malone said.
"What about the little old lady--what's her name? Thompson. Anything
from her?"
Malone hesitated. "She has a close fix on the spy, sir," he said
slowly, "but she doesn't seem able to identify him right away."
"What else does she want?" Burris said. "We've made her Queen and
given her a full retinue in costume; we've let her play roulette and
poker with Government money. Does she want to hold a mass execution?
If she does, I can supply some Congressmen, Malone. I'm sure it could
be arranged." He looked at the agent narrowly. "I might even be able
to supply an FBI man or two," he added.
Malone swallowed hard. "I'm trying the best I can, sir," he said.
"What about the others?"
Burris looked even unhappier than usual. "Come along," he said. "I'll
show you."
When they got back to the car, Dr. Gamble was talking spiritedly with
Her Majesty about Roger Bacon. "Before my time, of course," the Queen
was saying, "but I'm sure he was a most interesting man. Now when dear
old Marlowe wrote his _Faust_, he and I had several long discussions
about such matters. Alchemy, Doctor--"
Burris interrupted with: "I beg your pardon, Your Majesty, but we must
get on. Perhaps you'll be able to continue your--ah--audience later."
He turned to Boyd. "Sir Thomas," he said with an effort, "drive
directly to the Westinghouse buildings. Over that way." He pointed.
"Dr. Gamble will ride with you, and the rest of us will follow in the
second car. Let's move."
He stepped back as the project head got into the car, and watched it
roar off. Then he and Malone went to the second car, another FBI
Lincoln. Two agents were sitting in the back seat, with a still figure
between them.
With a shock, Malone recognized William Logan and the agents he'd
detailed to watch the telepath. Logan's face did not seem to have
changed expression since Malone had seen it last, and he wondered
wildly if perhaps it had to be dusted once a week.
He got in behind the wheel and Burris slid in next to him.
"Westinghouse," Burris said. "And let's get there in a hurry."
"Right," Malone said, and started the car.
"We just haven't had a single lead," Burris said. "I was hoping you'd
come up with something. Your telegram detailed the fight, of course,
and the rest of what's been happening--but I hoped there'd be
something more."
"There isn't," Malone was forced to admit. "All we can do is try to
persuade Her Majesty to tell us--"
"Oh, I know it isn't easy," Burris said. "But it seems to me...."
By the time they'd arrived at the administrative offices of
Westinghouse's psionics research area, Malone found himself wishing
that something would happen. Possibly, he thought, lightning might
strike, or an earthquake swallow everything up. He was, suddenly,
profoundly tired of the entire affair.
8
Four days later, he was more than tired. He was exhausted. The six
psychopaths--including Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I--had been housed
in a converted dormitory in the Westinghouse area, together with four
highly nervous and even more highly trained and investigated
psychiatrists from St. Elizabeths in Washington. The Convention of
Nuts, as Malone called it privately, was in full swing.
And it was every bit as strange as he'd thought it was going to be.
Unfortunately, five of the six (Her Majesty being the only exception)
were completely out of contact with the world. The psychiatrists
referred to them in worried tones as "unavailable for therapy," and
spent most of their time brooding over possible ways of bringing them
back into the real world for a while, at least far enough so that they
could be spoken with.
Malone stayed away from the five who were completely psychotic. The
weird babblings of fifty-year-old Barry Miles disconcerted him. They
sounded like little Charlie O'Neill's strange semi-connected jabber,
but Westinghouse's Dr. O'Connor said that it seemed to represent
another phenomenon entirely. William Logan's blank face was a memory
of horror, but the constant tinkling giggles of Ardith Parker, the
studied and concentrated way that Gordon Macklin wove meaningless
patterns in the air with his waving fingers, and the rhythmless,
melodyless humming that seemed to be all there was to the personality
of Robert Cassiday were simply too much for Malone. Taken singly, each
was frightening and remote; all together, they wove a picture of
insanity that chilled him more than he wanted to admit.
When the seventh telepath was flown in from Honolulu, Malone didn't
even bother to see her. He let the psychiatrists take over directly,
and simply avoided their sessions.
Queen Elizabeth I, on the other hand, he found genuinely likeable.
According to the psych boys, she had been (as both Malone and Her
Majesty had theorized) heavily frustrated by being the possessor of a
talent which no one else recognized. Beyond that, the impact of other
minds was disturbing; there was a slight loss of identity which seemed
to be a major factor in every case of telepathic insanity. But the
Queen had compensated for her frustrations in the easiest possible
way; she had simply traded her identity for another one, and had
rationalized a single, overruling delusion: that she was Queen
Elizabeth I of England, still alive and wrongfully deprived of her
throne.
"It's a beautiful rationalization," one of the psychiatrists said with
more than a trace of admiration in his voice. "Complete and thoroughly
consistent. She's just traded identities--and everything else she
does--_everything_ else--stems logically out of her delusional
premise. Beautiful."
She may have been crazy, Malone realized. But she was a long way from
stupid.
The project was in full swing. The only trouble was that they were no
nearer finding the telepath than they had been three weeks before.
With five completely blank human beings to work with, and the sixth
Queen Elizabeth (Malone heard privately that the last telepath, the
girl from Honolulu, was no better than the first five; she had
apparently regressed into what one of the psychiatrists called a "non-
identity childhood syndrome." Malone didn't know what it meant, but it
sounded terrible.)--with that crew, Malone could see why progress was
their most difficult commodity.
Dr. Harry Gamble, the head of Project Isle, was losing poundage by the
hour with worry. And, Malone reflected, he could ill afford it.
Burris, Malone and Boyd had set themselves up in a temporary office
within the Westinghouse area. The Director had left his assistant in
charge in Washington. Nothing, he said over and over again, was as
important as the spy in Project Isle.
Apparently Boyd had come to believe that, too. At any rate, though he
was still truculent, there were no more outbursts of rebellion.
But, on the fourth day:
"What do we do now?" Burris asked.
"Shoot ourselves," Boyd said promptly.
"Now, look here--" Malone began, but he was overruled.
"Boyd," Burris said levelly, "if I hear any more of that sort of
pessimism, you're going to be an exception to the beard rule. One more
crack out of you, and you can go out and buy yourself a razor."
Boyd put his hand over his chin protectively, and said nothing at all.
"Wait a minute," Malone said. "Aren't there any _sane_ telepaths in
the world?"
"We can't find any," Burris said. "We--"
There was a knock at the office door. "Who's there?" Burris called.
"Dr. Gamble," said the man's surprisingly baritone voice.
Burris called: "Come in, Doctor," and the door opened. Dr. Gamble's
lean face looked almost haggard.
"Mr. Burris," he said, extending his arms a trifle, "can't anything be
done?" Malone had seen Gamble speaking before, and had wondered if it
would be possible for the man to talk with his hands tied behind his
back. Apparently it wouldn't be. "We feel that we are approaching a
critical stage in Project Isle," the scientist said, enclosing one
fist within the other hand. "If anything more gets out to the Soviets,
we might as well publish our findings--" a wide, outflung gesture of
both arms--"in the newspapers."
Burris stepped back. "We're doing the best we can, Dr. Gamble," he
said. All things considered, his obvious try at radiating confidence
was nearly successful. "After all," he went on, "we know a great deal
more than we did four days ago. Miss Thompson has assured us that the
spy is right here, within the compound of Yucca Flats Labs. We've
bottled everything up in this compound, and I'm confident that no
information is at present getting through to the Soviet Government.
Miss Thompson agrees with me."
"Miss Thompson?" Gamble said, one hand at his bearded chin.
"The Queen," Burris said.
Gamble nodded and two fingers touched his forehead. "Ah," he said. "Of
course." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "But we can't keep
everybody who's here now locked up forever. Sooner or later we'll have
to let them--" His left hand described the gesture of a man tossing
away a wad of paper--"go." His hands fell to his sides. "We're lost,
unless we can find that spy."
"We'll find him," Burris said with a show of great confidence.
"But--"
"Give her time," Burris said. "Give her time. Remember her mental
condition."
Boyd looked up. "Rome," he said in an absent fashion, "wasn't built in
a daze."
Burris glared at him, but said nothing. Malone filled the
conversational hole with what he thought would be nice, and hopeful,
and untrue.
"We know he's someone on the reservation, so we'll catch him
eventually," he said. "And as long as his information isn't getting
into Soviet hands, we're safe." He glanced at his wristwatch.