He picked up the guns with his free hand and put them into his coat pockets. Together, the three men went down toward the lighted office at the far end of the hall.
"Open it," Malone said as they came to the door. He followed them into the office. Behind a battered, worm-eaten desk in a dingy room sat a very surprised-looking Mike Sand.
He was only about five feet six, but he looked as if weighed over two hundred pounds. He had huge shoulders and a thick neck, and his face was sleepy-looking. He seemed to have lost a lot of fights in his long career; Sand, Malone reflected, was nearing fifty now, and he was beginning to look his age. His short hair, once black, was turning to iron-gray.
He didn't say anything. Malone smiled at him pleasantly. "These boys were carrying deadly weapons," he told Sand in a polite voice. "That's hardly the way to treat a brother." His precognitive warning system wasn't ringing any alarm bells, but he kept his gun trained on the pair of thugs as he walked over to Mike Sand's desk and took the two extra revolvers from his pocket. "You'd better keep these, Sand," he said. "Your boys don't know how to handle them."
Sand grinned sourly, pulled open a desk drawer and swept the guns into it with one motion of his ham-like hand. He didn't look at Malone. "You guys better go downstairs and keep Jerry company," he said. "You can do crossword puzzles together."
"Now, Mike, we—" one of them began.
Mike Sand snorted. "Go on," he said. "Scram."
"But he was supposed to be in the elevator, and we—"
"Scram," Sand said. It sounded like a curse. The two men got out. "Like apes in the trees," Sand said heavily. "Ask for bright boys and what do you get? Everything," he went on dismally, "is going to hell."
That line, Malone reflected, was beginning to have all the persistence of a bass-bourdon. It droned its melancholy way through anything and everything else. He signed deeply, thought about a cigar and lit a cigarette instead. It tasted awful. "About those buttons—" he said.
"I got nothing to do with buttons," Sand said.
"You do with these," Malone said. "A shipment of buttons from the Nevada desert. You grabbed them from Palveri."
"I got nothing to do with it," Sand said.
Malone looked around and found a chair and an ashtray. He grabbed one and sat down in the other. "I'm not from Castelnuovo," he said. "Or Palveri, or any of the Mafia boys. If I were, you'd know it fast enough."
Sand regarded him from under eyelids made almost entirely of scar-tissue. "I guess so," he said sourly at last. "But what do you want to know about the stuff? And who are you, anyhow?"
"The name's Malone," Malone said. "You might say trouble is my business. Or something like that. I see an opportunity to create a little trouble—but not for you. That is, if you want to hear some more about those buttons. Of course, if you had nothing to do with it—"
"All right," Sand said. "All right. But it was strictly a legitimate proposition, understand?"
"Sure," Malone said. "Strictly legitimate."
"Well, it was," Sand said defensively. "We got to stop scab trucking, don't we? And that Palveri was using nonunion boys on the trucks. We had to stop them; it was a service to the Brotherhood, understand?"
"And the peyotl buttons?" Malone asked.
Sand shrugged. "So we had to confiscate the cargo, didn't we?" he said. "To teach them a lesson. Nonunion drivers, that's what we're against."
"And you're for peyotl," Malone said, "so you can make it into peyote and get enough money to refurbish Brotherhood Headquarters."
"Now, look," Sand said. "You think you're tough and you can get away with a lot of wisecracks. That's a wrong idea, brother." He didn't move, but he suddenly seemed set to spring. Malone wondered if, just maybe, his precognition had blown a fuse.
"O.K., let's forget it," he said. "But I've got some inside lines, Sand. You didn't get the real shipment."
"Didn't get it?" Sand said with raised eyebrows. "I got it. It's right where I can put my finger on it now."
"That was the fake," Malone said easily. "They knew you were after a shipment, Sand, so they suckered you in. They fed your spies with false information and sent you out after the fake shipment."
"Fake shipment?" Sand said. "It's the real stuff, brother. The real stuff."
"But not enough of it," Malone said. "Their big shipments are almost three times what you got. They made one while you were suckered off with the fake—and they're making another one next week. Interested?"
Sand snorted. "The hell," he said. "Didn't you hear me say I got the first shipment right where I can put my finger on it?"
"So?" Malone said.
"So I can't get rid of it," Sand said. "What do I want with a new load? Every day I hold the stuff is dangerous. You never know when somebody's going to look for it and maybe find it."
"Can't get rid of it?" Malone said. This was a new turn of events. "What's happening?"
"Everything," Sand said tersely. "Look, you want to sell me some information—but you don't know the setup. Maybe when I tell you, you'll stop bothering me." He put his head in his hands, and his voice, when he spoke again, was muffled. "The contacts are gone," he said. "With the arrests and the resignations and everything else, nobody wants to take any chances; the few guys that aren't locked up are scared they will be. I can't make any kind of a deal for anything. There just isn't any action."
"Things are tough, huh?" Malone said hopelessly. Apparently even Mike Sand wasn't going to pan out for him.
"Things are terrible," Sand said. "The locals are having revolutions—guys there are kicking out the men from National Headquarters. Nobody knows where he stands any more—a lot of my organizers have been goofing up and getting arrested for one thing and another. Like apes in the trees, that's what."
Malone nodded very slowly and took another puff of the cigarette. "Nothing's going right," he said.
"Listen," Sand said. "You want to hear trouble? My account books are in duplicate—you know? Just to keep things nice and peaceful and quiet."
"One for the investigators and one for the money," Malone said.
"Sure," Sand said, preoccupied with trouble. "You know the setup. But both sets are missing. Both sets." He raised his head, the picture of witless agony. "I've got an idea where they are, too. I'm just waiting for the axe to fall."
"O.K.," Malone said. "Where are they?"
"The U. S. Attorney's Office," Sand said dismally. He stared down at his battered desk and sighed.
Malone stubbed out his cigarette. "So you're not in the market for any more buttons?" he said.
"All I'm in the market for," Sand said without raising his eyes, "is a nice, painless way to commit suicide."
Malone walked several blocks without noticing where he was going. He tried to think things over, and everything seemed to fall into a pattern that remained, agonizingly, just an inch or so out of his mental reach. The mental bursts, the trouble the United States was having, Palveri, Queen Elizabeth, Burris, Mike Sand, Dr. O'Connor, Sir Lewis Carter and even Luba Ardanko juggled and flowed in his mind like pieces out of a kaleidoscope. But they refused to form any pattern he could recognize.
He uttered a short curse and managed to collide with a bulky woman with frazzled black hair. "Pardon me," he said politely.
"The hell with it," the woman said, looking straight past him, and went jerkily on her way. Malone blinked and looked around him. There were a lot of people still on the streets, but they didn't look like normal New York City people. They were all curiously tense and wary, as if they were suspicious not only of him and each other, but even themselves. He caught sight of several illegal-looking bulges beneath men's armpits, and many heavily sagging pockets. One or two women appeared to be unduly solicitous of their large and heavy handbags. But it wasn't his job to enforce the Sullivan Law, he told himself. Especially while he was on vacation.
A single foot patrolman stood a few feet ahead, guarding a liquor store with drawn revolver, his eyes scanning the passers-by warily while he waited for help. Behind him, the smashed plate glass and broken bottles and the sprawled figure just inside the door told a fairly complete story.
Down the block, Malone saw several stores that carriedClosedorGone Out Of Businesssigns. The whole depressing picture gave him the feeling that all the tragedies of the 1930-1935 period had somehow been condensed into the past two weeks.
Ahead there was a chain drugstore, and Malone headed for it. Two uniformed men wearing Special Police badges were standing near the door eyeing everyone with suspicion, but Malone managed to get past them and went on to a telephone booth. He tried dialling the Washington number of the FBI, but got only a continuousbeep-beep, indicating a service delay. Finally he managed to get a special operator, who told him sorrowfully that calls to Washington were jamming all available trunk lines.
Malone glanced around to make sure nobody was watching. Then he teleported himself to his apartment in Washington and, on arriving, headed for the phone there. Using that one, he dialed again, got Pelham's sad face on the screen, and asked for Thomas Boyd.
Boyd didn't look any different, Malone thought, though maybe he was a little more tired. Henry VIII had obviously had a hard day trying to get his wives to stop nagging him. "Ken," he said. "I thought you were on vacation. What are you doing calling up the FBI, or do you just want to feel superior to us poor working slobs?"
"I need some information," Malone said.
Boyd uttered a short, mirthless laugh. "How to beat the tables, you mean?" he said. "How are things in good old Las Vegas?"
Malone, realizing that with direct-dial phones Boyd had no idea where he was actually calling from, kept wisely quiet. "How about Burris?" he said after a second. "Has he come up with any new theories yet?"
"New theories?" Boyd said. "What about?"
"Everything," Malone said. "From all I see in the papers things haven't been quieting down any. Is it still Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch putting psychodrugs in water-coolers, or has something new been added?"
"I don't know what the chief thinks," Boyd said. "Things'll straighten out in a while. We're working on it—twenty-four hours a day, or damn near, but we're working. While you take a nice, long vacation that—"
"I want you to get me something," Malone said. "Just go and get it and send it to me at Las Vegas."
"Money?" Boyd said with raised eyebrows.
"Dossiers," Malone said. "On Mike Sand and Primo Palveri."
"Palveri I can understand," Boyd said. "You want to threaten him with exposure unless he lets you beat the roulette tables. But why Sand? Ken, are you working on something psionic?"
"Me?" Malone said sweetly. "I'm on vacation."
"The chief won't like—"
"Can you send me the dossiers?" Malone interrupted.
Boyd shook his head very slowly. "Ken, I can't do it without the chief finding out about it. If you are working on something ... hell, I'd like to help you. But I don't see how I can. You don't know what things are like here."
"What are they like?" Malone said.
"The full force is here," Boyd said. "As far as I know, you're the only vacation leave not canceled yet. And not only that, but we've got agents in from the Sureté and New Scotland Yard, agents from Belgium and Germany and Holland and Japan ... Ken, we've even got three MVD men here working with us."
"It's happening all over?" Malone said.
"All over the world," Boyd said. "Ken, I'm beginning to think we've got a case of Martian Invaders on our hands. Or something like it." He paused. "But we're licking them, Ken," he went on. "Slowly but surely, we're licking them."
"How do you mean?" Malone said.
"Crime is down," Boyd said, "away down. Major crime, I mean—petty theft, assault, breaking and entering and that sort of thing has gone away up, but that's to be expected. Everything's going to—"
"Skip the handbasket," Malone said. "But you're working things out?"
"Sooner or later," Boyd said. "Every piece of equipment and every man in the FBI is working overtime; we can't be stopped forever."
"I'll wave flags," Malone said bitterly. "And I wish I could join you."
"Believe me," Boyd said, "you don't know when you're well off."
Malone switched off. He looked at his watch; it was ten-thirty.
That made it eight-thirty in Las Vegas. Malone opened his eyes again in his hotel room there. He had half an hour to spare until his dinner date with Luba. That gave him plenty of time to shower, shave and dress, and he felt pleased to have managed the timing so neatly.
Two minutes later, he was soaking in the luxury of a hot tub allowing the warmth to relax his body while his mind turned over the facts he had collected. There were a lot of them, but they didn't seem to mean anything special.
The world, he told himself, was going to hell in a handbasket. That was all very well and good, but just what was the handbasket made of? Burris' theory, the more he thought about it, was a pure case of mental soapsuds, with perhaps a dash of old cotton-candy to make confusion even worse confounded.
And there wasn't any other theory, was there?
Well, Malone reflected, there was one, or at least a part of one. Her Majesty had said that everything was somehow tied up with the mental bursts—and that sounded a lot more probable. Assuming that the bursts and the rest of the mixups werenotconnected made, as a matter of fact, very little sense; it was multiplying hypotheses without reason. When two unusual things happen, they have at least one definite connection: they're both unusual. The sensible thing to do, Malone thought, was to look for more connections.
Which meant asking who was causing the bursts, and why. Her Majesty had said that she didn't know, and couldn't do it herself. Obviously, though, some telepath or a team of telepaths was doing the job. And the only trouble with that, Malone reflected sadly, was that all telepaths were in the Yucca Flats laboratory.
It was at this point that he sat upright in the tub, splashing water over the floor and gripping the soap with a strange excitement. Who'd ever said thatallthe telepaths were in Yucca Flats? All the ones so far discovered were—but that, obviously, was an entirely different matter.
Her majesty didn't know about any others, true. But Malone thought of his own mind-shield. If he could make himself telepathically "invisible," why couldn't someone else? Dr. Marshall's theories seemed to point the other way—but they only went for telepaths like Her Majesty, who were psychotic. A sane telepath, Malone thought, might conceivably develop such a mind-shield.
All known telepaths were nuts, he told himself. Now, he began to see why. He'd started out, two years before,huntingfor nuts, and for idiots. But they wouldn't even know anything about sane telepaths—the sane ones probably wouldn't even want to communicate with them.
A sane telepath was pretty much of an unknown quantity. But that, Malone told himself with elation, was exactly what he was looking for. Could a sane telepath do what an insane one couldn't—and project thoughts, or at least mental bursts?
He got out of the cooling tub and grabbed for a terry-cloth robe. Not even bothering about the time, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again he was in the Yucca Flats apartment of Dr. Thomas O'Connor.
O'Connor wasn't sleeping, exactly. He sat in a chair in his bare-looking living room, a book open on his lap, his head nodding slightly. Malone's entrance made no sounds, and O'Connor didn't move or look around.
"Doctor," Malone said, "is it possible that—"
O'Connor came up off the chair a good foot and a half. He went: "Eee," and came down again, still gripping the book. His head turned.
"It's me," Malone said.
"Indeed," O'Connor said. "Indeed indeed. My goodness." He opened his mouth some more but no words came out of it. "Eee," he said again, at last, in a conversational tone.
Malone took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I startled you," he said, "but this is important and it couldn't wait." O'Connor stared blankly at him. "Dr. O'Connor," Malone said, "it's me. Kenneth J. Malone. I want to talk to you."
At last O'Connor's expression returned almost to normal. "Mr. Malone," he said, "you are undressed."
Malone sighed. "This is important, doctor," he said. "Let's not waste time with all that kind of thing."
"But, Mr. Malone—" O'Connor began frostily.
"I need some information," Malone said, "and maybe you've got it. What do you know about telepathic projection?"
"About what?" O'Connor said. "Do you mean nontelepaths receiving some sort of ... communication from telepaths?"
"Right," Malone said. "Mind-to-mind communication, of course; I'm not interested in the United States mail or the telephone companies. How about it, doctor? Is it possible?"
O'Connor gnawed at his lower lip for a second. "There have been cases reported," he said at last. "Very few have been written up with any accuracy, and those seem to be confined to close relatives or loved ones of the person projecting the message."
"Is that necessary?" Malone said. "Isn't it possible that—"
"Further," O'Connor said, getting back into his lecture-room stride, "I think you'll find that the ... ah ... message so received is one indicating that the projector of such a message is in dire peril. He has, for instance, been badly injured, or is rapidly approaching death, or else he has narrowly escaped death."
"What does that have to do with it?" Malone said. "I mean, why should all those requirements be necessary?"
O'Connor frowned slightly. "Because," he said, "the amount of psionic energy necessary for such a feat is tremendous. Usually, it is the final burst of energy, the outpouring of all the remaining psionic force immediately before death. And if death does not occur, the person is at the least greatly weakened; his mind, if it ever does recover, needs time and rest to do so."
"And he reaches a relative or a loved one," Malone said, "because the linkage is easier; there's some thought of him in that other mind for him to 'tune in' on."
"We assume so," O'Connor said.
"Very well, then," Malone said. "I'll assume so, too. But if the energy is so great, then a person couldn't do this sort of thing very often."
"Hardly," O'Connor said.
Malone nodded. "It's like ... like giving blood to a blood bank," he said. "Giving ... oh, three quarts of blood. It might not kill you. But if it didn't, you'd be weak for a long time."
"Exactly," O'Connor said. "A good analogy, Mr. Malone." Malone looked at him and felt relieved that he'd managed to get the conversation onto pure lecture-room science so quickly. O'Connor, easily at home in that world, had been able to absorb the shock of Malone's sudden appearance while providing the facts in his own inimitable, frozen manner.
"So one telepath couldn't go on doing it all the time," he said. "But—how about several people?"
"Several people?" O'Connor said.
"I mean ... well, let's look at that blood bank again," Malone said. "You need three quarts of blood. But one person doesn't have to give it. Suppose twelve people gave half a pint each."
"Ah," O'Connor said. "I see. Or twenty-four people, giving a quarter-pint each. Or—"
"That's the idea," Malone said hurriedly. "I guess there'd be a point of diminishing returns, but that's the point. Would something like that be possible?"
O'Connor thought for what seemed like a long time. "It might," he said at last. "At least theoretically. But it would take a great deal of mental co-ordination among the participants. They would all have to be telepaths, of course."
"In order to mesh their thoughts right on the button, and direct them properly and at the correct time," Malone said. "Right?"
"Ah ... correct," O'Connor said. "Given that, Mr. Malone, I imagine that it might possibly be done."
"Wonderful," Malone said.
"However," O'Connor said, apparently glad to throw even a little cold water on the notion, "it could not be done for very long periods of time, you understand. It would happen in rather short bursts."
"That's right," Malone said, enjoying the crestfallen look on O'Connor's face. "That's exactly what I was looking for."
"I'm ... ah ... glad to have been of service," O'Connor said. "However, Mr. Malone, I should like to request—"
"Oh, don't worry," Malone said. "I won't slam the door." He vanished.
It was eight-fifty. Hurriedly, he rinsed himself off, shaved and put on his evening clothes. But he was still late—it was two minutes after nine when he showed up at the door that led off the lobby to the Universal Joint. Luba was, surprisingly, waiting for him there.
"Ready for a vast feast?" she asked pleasantly.
"In about a minute and a half," Malone said. "Do you mind waiting that long?"
"Frankly," Luba said, "in five minutes I will be gnawing holes in the gold paneling around here. And I do want to catch the first floor show, too. I understand they've got a girl who has—"
"That," Malone said sternly, "should interest me more than it does you."
"I'm always interested in what the competition is doing," Luba said.
"Nevertheless," Malone began, and stopped. After a second he started again: "Anyhow, this is important."
"All right," she said instantly. "What is it?"
He led her away from the door to an alcove in the lobby where they could talk without being overheard. "Can you get hold of Sir Lewis at this time of night?" he asked.
"Sir Lewis?" she said. "If ... if it's urgent, I suppose I could."
"It's urgent," Malone said. "I need all the data on telepathic projection I can get. The scientists have given me some of it—maybe Psychical Research has some more. I imagine it's all mixed up with ghosts and ectoplasm, but—"
"Telepathic projection," Luba said. "Is that where a person projects a thought into somebody else's mind?"
"That's it," Malone said. "Can Sir Lewis get me all the data on that tonight?"
"Tonight?" Luba said. "It's pretty late and what with sending them from New York to Nevada—"
"Don't bother about that," Malone said. "Just send 'em to the FBI Offices in New York. I'll have the boys there make copies and send the copies on." Instead, he thought, he would teleport to New York himself. But Luba definitely didn't have to know that.
"He'd have to send the originals," Luba said.
"I'll guarantee their safety," Malone said. "But I need the data right now."
Luba hesitated.
"Tell him to bill the FBI," Malone said. "Call him collect and he can bill the phone call, too."
"All right, Ken," Luba said at last. "I'll try."
She went off to make the call, and came back in a few minutes.
"O.K.?" Malone said.
She smiled at him, very gently. "O.K.," she said. "Now let's go in to dinner, before I get any hungrier and the Great Universal loses some of its paneling."
Dinner, Malone told himself, was going to be wonderful. He was alone with Luba, and he was in a fancy, fine, expensive place. He was happy, and Luba was happy, and everything was going to be perfectly frabjous.
It was. He had no desire whatever, when dinner and the floor show were over, to leave Luba. Unfortunately, he did have work to do—work that was more important than anything else he could imagine. He made a tentative date for the next day, went to his room, and from there teleported himself to FBI Headquarters, New York.
The agent-in-charge looked up at him. "Hey," he said. "I thought you were on vacation, Malone."
"How come everybody knows about me being on vacation?" Malone said sourly.
The agent-in-charge shrugged. "The only leave not canceled?" he said. "Hell, it was all over the place in five minutes."
"O.K., O.K.," Malone said. "Don't remind me. Is there a package for me?"
The agent-in-charge produced a large box. "A messenger brought it," he said. "From the Psychical Research Society," he said. "What is it, ghosts?"
"Dehydrated," Malone said. "Just add ectoplasm and out they come, shoutingBoo!at everybody."
"Sounds wonderful," the agent-in-charge said. "Can I come to the party?"
"First," Malone said judiciously, "you'd have to be dead. Of course I can arrange that—"
"Thanks," the agent-in-charge said, leaving in a hurry. Malone went on down to his office and opened the box. It contained books, pamphlets and reports from Sir Lewis, all dealing with some area of telepathic projection. He spent a few minutes looking them over and trying to make some connected sense out of them, but finally he gave up and just sat and thought. The material seemed to be no help at all; it told him even less than Dr. O'Connor had.
What he needed, he decided, was somebody to talk to. But who? He couldn't talk to the FBI, and nobody else knew much about what he was trying to investigate. He thought of Her Majesty and rejected the notion with a sigh. No, what he needed was somebody smart and quick, somebody who could be depended on, somebody with training and knowledge.
And then, very suddenly, he knew who he wanted.
"Well, now, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Let's put everything together and see what happens."
"Indeed," said Sir Kenneth Malone, "it is high time we did so, Sirrah. Proceed: I shall attend."
"Let's start from the beginning," Malone said. "We know there's confusion in all parts of the country—in all parts of the world, I guess. And we know that confusion is being caused by carefully timed accidents and errors. We also know that these errors appear to be accompanied by violent bursts of psionic static—violent energy. And we know, further, that on three specific occasions, these bursts of energy were immediately followed by a reversal of policy in the mind of the person on the receiving end."
"You mean," Sir Kenneth put in, "that these gentlemen changed their opinions."
"Correct," Malone said. "I refer, of course, to the firm of Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch, Spying Done Cheap."
"Indeed," Sir Kenneth said. "Then the operators of this strange force, whatever it may prove to be, must have some interest in allowing the spies' confession?"
"Maybe," Malone said. "Let's leave that for later. To get back to the beginning of all this: it seems to me to follow that the accidents and errors which have caused all the confusion throughout the world happen because somebody's mind is changed just the right amount at the right time. A man does something he didn't intend to do—or else he forgets to do it at all."
"Ah," Sir Kenneth said. "We have done those things we ought not to have done; we have left undone those things we ought to have done. And you feel, Sirrah, that a telepathic command is the cause of this confusion?"
"A series of them," Malone said. "But we also know, from Dr. O'Connor, that it takes a great deal of psychic energy to perform this particular trick—more than a person can normally afford to expend."
"Marry, now," Sir Kenneth said. "Meseemeth this is not reasonable. Changing the mind of a man indeed seems a small thing in comparison to teleportation, or psychokinesis, or levitation or any such witchery. And yet it take more power than any of these?"
Malone thought for a second. "Sure it does," he said. "I'd say it was a matter of resistance. Moving an inanimate object is pretty simple—comparatively, anyhow—because inert matter has no mental resistance."
"And moving oneself?" Sir Kenneth said.
"There's some resistance there, probably," Malone said. "But you'll remember that the Fueyo system of training for teleportation involved overcoming your own mental resistance to the idea."
"True," Sir Kenneth said. "'Tis true. Then let us agree that it takes great power to effect this change. Where does our course point from that agreement, Sirrah?"
"Next," Malone said, "we have to do a little supposing. This project must be handled by a fairly large group, since no individual can do it alone. This large group has to be telepathic—and not only for the reasons Dr. O'Connor and I specified."
"And why else?" Sir Kenneth demanded.
"They've also got to know exactly when to make this victim of theirs change his mind," Malone said. "Right?"
"Correct," Sir Kenneth said.
"We've got to look for a widespread organization of telepaths," Malone said, "with enough mental discipline to hold onto a tough mental shield. Strong, trained, sane men."
"A difficult assignment," Sir Kenneth commented.
"Well," Malone said, "suppose you hold on for a second—don't go away—and let me figure something out."
"I shall wait," sir Kenneth said, "without."
"Without what?" Malone murmured. But there was no time for games. Now, then, he told himself—and sneezed.
He shook his head, cursed softly and went on.
Now, then....
There was an organization, spread all over the Western world, and with what were undoubtedly secret branches in the Soviet Union. The organization had to be an old one—because it had to have trained telepaths, of a high degree of efficiency. And training took time.
There was something else to consider, too. In order to organize to such a degree that they could wreak the complete havoc they were wreaking, the organization couldn't be completely secret; there are always leaks, always suspicious events, and a society that spent time covering all of those up would have no time for anything else.
So the organization had to be a known one, in the Western world at least—a known group, masquerading as something else.
So far, everything made sense. Malone frowned and tried to think. Where, he wondered, did he go from here?
Maybe this time a list would help. He found a pencil and a piece of paper, and headed the paper:Organization. Then he started putting down what he knew about it, and what he'd figured out:
1. Large2. Old3. Disguised
It sounded, so far, just a little like Frankenstein's Monster wearing a red wig. But what else did he know about it?
After a second's thought, he murmured: "Nothing," and put the pencil down.
But that, he realized, wasn't quite true. He knew one more thing about the organization. He knew they'd probably be immune to the confusion everybody else was suffering from. The organization would be—had to be—efficient. It would be composed of intelligent, superbly co-operative people, who could work together as a unit without in the least impairing their own individuality.
He reached for the pencil again, and put down:
4. Efficient
He looked at it. Now it didn't remind him so much of the Monster. But it didn't look terribly familiar, either. Who did he know, he thought, who was large, old, disguised and efficient?
It sounded like an improbable combination. He set the paper down, clearing off some of the PRS books to make room for it. And then he stopped.
The papers the PRS had sent him....
And he'd gotten them so quickly, so efficiently....
They were a large organization....
And an old one....
He looked for a desk phone, found one and grabbed at it frantically.
The girl who answered the phone looked familiar. Malone suddenly remembered to check the time—it was just after nine. The girl stared at him. She did not look terribly old, but she was large and she had to be disguised. There seemed to be a lot of teeth running around in this case, Malone thought, between the burlesque stripper in Las Vegas and Miss Dental Display here in New York. Nobody, he told himself, could have collected that many teeth honestly.
"Psychical Research Society," she said. "Oh, Mr. Malone. Good morning."
"Sir Lewis," Malone said in a rush. "Sir Lewis Carter. I want to talk to him. Hurry."
"Sir Lewis Carter?" the girl said very slowly. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Malone, but he won't be in at all today."
"Home number," Malone said desperately. "I've got to."
"Well, I can give you that, Mr. Malone," she said, "but it wouldn't do you any good, really. Because he went away on his vacation and when he does that he never tells us where. You know? He won't be back for two or three weeks," she added as an afterthought.
Malone said: "Oog," and thought for less than a second. "Somebody official," he said. "Got to talk to somebody official. Now."
"Oh, I can't do that either, Mr. Malone," the toothy girl said. "All of the executives already left on their vacation. They just left a skeleton force here at the office."
"They're all gone?" Malone said hollowly.
"That's right," the girl said with great cheer. "As a matter of fact, I'm in charge now. You know?"
"I'm afraid I do," Malone said. "It's very important, though. You don't have any idea where any of them went?"
"None at all," she said. "I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Maybe if you were me you'd ask questions, but I just follow orders and those were my orders. To take over until they get back. You know? They didn't tell me where and I just didn't ask."
"Great," Malone said. He wanted to shoot himself. Everything was obvious now—about twenty-four hours too late. And now, they'd all gone—for two weeks—or for good.
The girl's rancid voice broke in on his thoughts.
"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said. "I'm sorry, but I just remembered they left a note for you."
"A note?" Malone said. "For me?"
"Sir Lewis said you might call," the girl said, "and he left a message. If you'll hold on a minute I'll read it."
Malone waited tensely. The girl found a slip of paper, blinked at it and read:
"My dear Malone, I'm afraid that what you have deduced is quite correct; and, as you can see, that leaves us no alternative. Sorry. Miss Luba A. sends her apologies to you, since she is joining us; my apologies are also tendered." The girl looked up. "It's signed by Sir Lewis," she said. "Does that mean anything to you, Mr. Malone?"
"I'm afraid it does," Malone said blankly. "It means entirely too much."
After Miss Dental Display had faded from Malone's screen, he just sat there, looking at the dead, gray front of the visiphone and feeling about twice as dead and at least three times as gray.
Things, he told himself, were terrible. But even that sentence, which was a good deal more cheerful than what he actually felt, did nothing whatever to improve his mood. All of the evidence, after all, had been practically living on the tip of his nose for God alone knew how long, and not only had he done nothing about it, he hadn't even seen it.
There was the organization, staring him in the face. There was Luba—nobody's fool, no starry-eyed dreamer of occult dreams. She was part of the Psychical Research Society, why hadn't he thought to wonder why she was connected with it?
And there was his own mind-shield. Why hadn't he wondered whether other telepaths might not have the same shield?
He thought about Luba and told himself bitterly that from now on she was Miss Ardanko. Enough, he told himself, was enough. From now on he was calling her by her last name, formally and distantly. In his own mind, anyhow.
Facts came tumbling in on him like the side of a mountain falling on a hapless traveler, during a landslide season. And, Malone told himself, he had never possessed less hap in all of his ill-starred life.
And then, very suddenly, one more fact arrived, and pushed the rest out into the black night of Malone's bitter mind. He stood up, pushing the books away, and closed his eyes. When he opened them he went to the telephone in his Las Vegas hotel suite, and switched it on. A smiling operator appeared. Malone wanted to see him die of poison, slowly.
"Give me Room 4-T," he snapped. "Hurry."
"Room forty?" the operator asked.
"Damn it," Malone said, "I said 4-T and I meant 4-T. Four as in four and T as in—as in China. And hurry."
"Oh," the operator said. "Yes, sir." He turned away from the screen. "That would have been Miss Luba Ardanko's room, sir?" he said.
"Right," Malone snapped. "I ... wait a minute. Would have been?"
"That's correct, sir," the operator said. "She checked out, sir, early this morning. The room is unoccupied."
Malone swallowed hard. It was all true, then. Sir Lewis' note hadn't simply been one last wave of the red cape before an angry bull. Luba was one of them.
Miss Ardanko, he corrected himself savagely.
"What time?" he said.
The operator consulted an information board before him. "Approximately one o'clock, sir," he said.
"In the morning?"
"Yes, sir," the clerk said.
Malone closed his eyes. "Thanks," he said.
"You're quite welcome, sir," the operator said. "A courtesy of the Great Universal Ho—"
Malone cut him off. "Ho, indeed," he said bitterly. "Not to mention ha and hee—hee and yippe-ki-yay. A great life." He whisked himself back to New York in a dismal, rainy state of mind. As he sat down again to the books and papers the door to the room opened.
"You still here?" the agent-in-charge said. "I'm just going off duty and I came by to check. Don't you ever sleep?"
"I'm on vacation, remember?"
"Some vacation," the a-in-c said. "If you're on special assignment why not tell the rest of us?"
"I want it to be a surprise," Malone said. "And meantime, I'd appreciate it if I were left entirely to my own devices."
"Still conjuring up ghosts?" the a-in-c said.
"That," Malone said, "I don't know. I've got some long-distance calls to make."
He started with the overseas calls, leaving the rest of the United States time for the sun to get round to them. His first call, which involved a lot of cursing on Malone's part and much hard work for the operator, who claimed plaintively that she didn't know how things had gotten so snarled up, but overseas calls were getting worse and worse, went to New Scotland Yard in London. After great difficulty, Malone managed to get Assistant Commissioner C. E. Teal, who promised to check on the inquiry at once.
It seemed like years before he called back, and Malone leaped to the phone.
"Yes?" he said.
Teal, red-faced and apparently masticating a stick of gum, said: "I got C. I. D. Commander Gideon to follow up on that matter, Mr. Malone. As you know, it's after noon here—"
"And they're all out to lunch," Malone said.
"As a matter of fact," Teal went on, "they seem to have disappeared entirely. On vacation, that sort of thing. It is rather difficult attempting any full-scale tracing job just now; our men are terribly overworked. I imagine you've had reports from the New Scotland Yard representatives working with you there—"
"Oh, certainly," Malone said. "But the hour; what does that have to do with anything?"
"I'm afraid I was thinking of our Inspector Ottermole," Teal said. "He was sent to locate Dr. Carnacki, President of the Psychical Research Society here. On being told that Dr. Carnacki was 'out to lunch,' Ottermole investigated every restaurant and eating-place within ten blocks of the offices. Dr. Carnacki was not present; he, like the rest of the Society here, appears to have left for places unknown."
"Thorough work," Malone said.
"Ottermole's a good man," Teal said. "We've checked as quickly as possible, Mr. Malone. I would like to ask you a question in return."
"Ask away," Malone said.
Teal looked worried. "Do you people think this may have anything to do with the present ... ah ... trouble?" he said. "Things are quite upset here, as you know; so many members of Parliament have resigned or ... ah ... died that the realm is being run by a rather shakily assembled coalition government. There is even some talk of giving executive power to Her Majesty until a general election can be held."
For one brief moment, Malone thought Teal was talking about Rose Thompson. Then he recalled Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and felt better. Things weren't quite as bad as he'd thought.
But they were bad enough. "We simply don't know yet," he said untruthfully. "But as soon as anything definite comes up, of course, you'll be informed."
"Thank you, Mr. Malone," Teal said. "Of course, we'll do the same." And then, still masticating, he switched off.
Paris was next, then Rome, Berlin and a couple more. Every one had the same result. From Maigret of the Paris Sureté to Poirot in Belgium, from Berlin's strict officialdom to the cheerful Hollanders, all the reports were identical. The PRS of each country had gone underground.
Malone buried his face in his hands, thought about a cigar and decided that even a cigar might make him feel worse. Where were they? What were they doing now? What did they plan to do?
Where had they gone?
"Out of the everywhere," he heard himself say in a hollow, sepulchral voice, "into the here."
But where was the here?
He tried to make up his mind whether or not that made sense. Superficially, it sounded like extremely bad English, but he wasn't sure of anything any more. Things were getting much too confused.
He close his eyes wearily, and vanished.
When he opened them, he was in his Washington apartment. He went over to the big couch and sat down, feeling that if he were going to curse he might as well be comfortable while he did it. But, some minutes later, when the air was a bright electric blue around him, he didn't feel any better. Cursing was not the answer.
Nothing seemed to be.
What was his next move?
Where did he go from here?
The more he thought about it, the more his mind spun. He was, he realized, at an absolute, total dead end.
Oh, there were things he could do. Malone knew that very well. He could make a lot of noise and go through a lot of waste motion; that was what it amounted to. He could have all the homes of all the missing PRS members checked somehow. That would undoubtedly result in the startling discovery that the PRS members involved weren't home. He could have their dossiers sent to him, which would clutter everything with a great many more pieces of paper. But he felt quite sure that the pieces of paper would do no good at all. In general, he could raise all hell—and find nothing whatever.
Now, he told himself sadly, he had the evidence to start the FBI in motion. The only trouble was that he could think of nowhere for them to go.
And, though he had evidence that might convince Burris—the PRS members, after all,haddone a rather unusual fadeout—he had nowhere near enough to carry the case into court, much less make a try at getting the case to stand up once carried in. That was one thing he couldn't do, he realized, he couldn't issue warrants for the arrest of anybody at all.