"May I raise ... five thousand?"
"The ante's ten, ma'am," the dealer said softly.
Without looking, Her Majesty removed a ten-dollar chip from the pile before her and sent it spinning to the middle of the table.
The dealer opened his mouth, but said nothing. Malone, meanwhile, was peering over the Queen's shoulder.
She held a pair of nines, a four, a three and a Jack.
The man to the left of the dealer announced glumly: "Can't open."
The next man grinned. "Open for twenty," he said.
Malone closed his eyes. He heard the cowboy say: "I'm in," and he opened his eyes again. The Queen was pushing two ten-dollar chips toward the center of the table.
The next man dropped, and the dealer looked round the table. "How many?"
The man who couldn't open took three cards. The man who'd opened for twenty stood pat. Malone shuddered invisibly. That, he figured, meant at least a straight. And Queen Elizabeth Thompson was going in against a straight or better with a pair of nines, Jack high.
For the first time, it was borne in on Malone that being a telepath did not necessarily mean that you were a good poker player. Even if you knew what every other person at the table held, you could still make a whole lot of stupid mistakes.
He looked nervously at Queen Elizabeth, but her face was serene. Apparently she'd been following the thoughts of the poker players, and not concentrating on him at all. That was a relief. He felt, for the first time in days, as if he could think freely.
The cowboy said: "Two," and took them. It was Her Majesty's turn.
"I'll take two," she said, and threw away the three and four. It left her with the nine of spades and the nine of hearts, and the Jack of diamonds.
These were joined, in a matter of seconds, by two bright new cards: the six of clubs and the three of hearts.
Malone closed his eyes. Oh, well, he thought.
It was only thirty bucks down the drain. Practically nothing.
Of course Her Majesty dropped at once; knowing what the other players held, she knew she couldn't beat them after the draw. But she did like to take long chances, Malone thought miserably. Imagine trying to fill a full house on one pair!
Slowly, as the minutes passed, the pile of chips before Her Majesty dwindled. Once Malone saw her win with two pair against a reckless man trying to fill a straight on the other side of the table. But whatever was going on, Her Majesty's face was as calm as if she were asleep.
Malone's worked overtime. If the Queen hadn't been losing so obviously, the dealer might have mistaken the play of naked emotion across his visage for a series of particularly obvious signals.
An hour went by. Barbara left to find a ladies' lounge where she could sit down and try to relax. Fascinated in a horrible sort of way, both Malone and Boyd stood, rooted to the spot, while hand after hand went by and the ten thousand dollars dwindled to half that, to a quarter, and even less—
Her Majesty, it seemed, was a mighty poor poker player.
The ante had been raised by this time. Her Majesty was losing one hundred dollars a hand, even before the betting began. But she showed not the slightest indication to stop.
"We've got to get up in the morning," Malone announced to no one in particular, when he thought he couldn't possibly stand another half hour of the game.
"So we do," Her Majesty said with a little regretful sigh. "Very well, then. Just one more hand."
"It's a shame to lose you," the cowboy said to her, quite sincerely. He had been winning steadily ever since Her Majesty sat down, and Malone thought that the man should, by this time, be awfully grateful to the United States Government. Somehow, he doubted that this gratitude existed.
Malone wondered if she should be allowed to stay for one more hand. There was, he estimated, about two thousand dollars in front of her. Then he wondered how he was going to stop her.
The cards were dealt.
The first man said quietly: "Open for two hundred."
Malone looked at the Queen's hand. It contained the Ace, King, Queen and ten of clubs—and the seven of spades.
Oh, no, he thought.She couldn't possibly be thinking of filling a flush.
He knew perfectly well that she was.
The second man said: "And raise two hundred."
The Queen equably tossed—counting, Malone thought, the ante—five hundred into the pot.
The cowboy muttered to himself for a second, and finally shoved in his money.
"I think I'll raise it another five hundred," the Queen said calmly.
Malone wanted to die of shock. Unfortunately, he remained alive and watching. He was the last man, after some debate internal, to shove a total of one thousand dollars into the pot.
"Cards?" said the dealer.
The first man said: "One."
It was too much to hope for, Malone thought. If that first man were trying to fill a straight or a flush, maybe he wouldn't make it. And maybe something final would happen to all the other players. But that was the only way he could see for Her Majesty to win.
The card was dealt. The second man stood pat and Malone's green tinge became obvious to the veriest dunce. The cowboy, on Her Majesty's right, asked for a card, received it and sat back without a trace of expression.
The Queen said: "I'll try one for size." She'd picked up poker lingo, and the basic rules of the game, Malone realized, from the other players—or possibly from someone at the hospital itself, years ago.
He wished she'd picked up something less dangerous instead, like a love of big-game hunting, or stunt-flying.
But no. It had to be poker.
The Queen threw away her seven of spades, showing more sense than Malone had given her credit for at any time during the game. She let the other card fall and didn't look at it.
She smiled up at Malone and Boyd. "Live dangerously," she said gaily.
Malone gave her a hollow laugh.
The last man drew one card, too, and the betting began.
The Queen's remaining thousand was gone before an eye could notice it. She turned to Boyd.
"Sir Thomas," she said. "Another five thousand, please. At once."
Boyd said nothing at all, but marched off. Malone noticed, however, that his step was neither as springy nor as confident as it had been before. For himself, Malone was sure that he could not walk at all.
Maybe, he thought hopefully, the floor would open up and swallow them all. He tried to imagine explaining the loss of twenty thousand dollars to Burris and some congressmen, and after that he watched the floor narrowly, hoping for the smallest hint of a crack in the palazzo marble.
"May I raise the whole five thousand?" the Queen said.
"It's O.K. with me," the dealer said. "How about the rest of you?"
The four grunts he got expressed a suppressed eagerness. The Queen took the new chips Boyd had brought her and shoved them into the center of the table with a fine, careless gesture of her hand. She smiled gaily at everybody. "Seeing me?" she said.
Everybody was.
"Well, you see, it was this way," Malone muttered to himself, rehearsing. He half-thought that one of the others would raise again, but no one did. After all, each of them must be convinced that he held a great hand, and though raising had gone on throughout the hand, each must now be afraid of going the least little bit too far and scaring the others out.
"Mr. Congressman," Malone muttered, "there's this game called poker. You play it with cards and money. Chiefly money."
That wasn't any good.
"You've been called," the dealer said to the first man, who'd opened the hand a year or so before.
"Why, sure," the player said, and laid down a pair of aces, a pair of threes—and a four. One of the threes, and the four, were clubs. That reduced the already improbable chances of the Queen's coming up with a flush.
"Sorry," said the second man, and laid down a straight with a single gesture. The straight was nine-high and there were no clubs in it. Malone felt devoutly thankful for that.
The second man reached for the money but, under the popeyed gaze of the dealer, the fifth man laid down another straight—this one ten-high. The nine was a club. Malone felt the odds go down, right in his own stomach.
And now the cowboy put down his cards. The King of diamonds. The King of hearts. The Jack of diamonds. The Jack of spades. And—the Jack of hearts.
Full house. "Well," said the cowboy. "I suppose that does it."
The Queen said: "Please. One moment."
The cowboy stopped halfway in his reach for the enormous pile of chips. The Queen laid down her four clubs—Ace, King, Queen and ten—and for the first time flipped over her fifth card.
It was the Jack of clubs.
"My God," the cowboy said, and it sounded like a prayer. "A royal flush."
"Naturally," the Queen said. "What else?"
Her Majesty calmly scooped up the tremendous pile of chips. The cowboy's hands fell away. Five mouths were open around the table.
Her Majesty stood up. She smiled sweetly at the men around the table. "Thank you very much, gentlemen," she said. She handed the chips to Malone, who took them in nerveless fingers. "Sir Kenneth," she said, "I hereby appoint you temporary Chancellor of the Exchequer—at least until Parliament convenes."
There was, Malone thought, at least thirty-five thousand dollars in the pile. He could think of nothing to say.
So, instead of using up words, he went and cashed in the chips. For once, he realized, the Government had made money on an investment. It was probably the first time since 1775.
Malone thought vaguely that the Government ought to make more investments like the one he was cashing in. If it did, the National Debt could be wiped out in a matter of days.
He brought the money back. Boyd and the Queen were waiting for him, but Barbara was still in the ladies' lounge. "She's on the way out," the Queen informed him, and, sure enough, in a minute they saw the figure approaching them. Malone smiled at her, and, tentatively, she smiled back. They began the long march to the exit of the club, slowly and regally, though not by choice.
The crowd, it seemed, wouldn't let them go. Malone never found out, then or later, how the news of Her Majesty's winnings had gone through the place so fast, but everyone seemed to know about it. The Queen was the recipient of several low bows and a few drunken curtsies, and, when they reached the front door at last, the doorman said in a most respectful tone: "Good evening, Your Majesty."
The Queen positively beamed at him. So, to his own great surprise, did Sir Kenneth Malone.
Outside, it was about four in the morning. They climbed into the car and headed back toward the hotel.
Malone was the first to speak. "How did you know that was a Jack of clubs?" he said in a strangled sort of voice.
The little old lady said calmly: "He was cheating."
"The dealer?" Malone asked.
The little old lady nodded.
"Inyourfavor?"
"He couldn't have been cheating," Boyd said at the same instant. "Why would he want to give you all that money?"
The little old lady shook her head. "He didn't want to give it to me," she said. "He wanted to give it to the man in the cowboy's suit. His name is Elliott, by the way—Bernard L. Elliott. And he comes from Weehawken. But he pretends to be a Westerner so nobody will be suspicious of him. He and the dealer are in cahoots ... isn't that the word?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Boyd said. "That's the word." His tone was awed and respectful, and the little old lady gave a nod and became Queen Elizabeth I once more.
"Well," she said, "the dealer and Mr. Elliott were in cahoots, and the dealer wanted to give the hand to Mr. Elliott. But he made a mistake, and dealt the Jack of clubs to me. I watched him, and, of course, I knew what he was thinking. The rest was easy."
"My God," Malone said. "Easy."
Barbara said: "Did she win?"
"She won," Malone said with what he felt was positively magnificent understatement.
"Good," Barbara said, and lost interest at once.
Malone had seen the lights of a car in the rear-view mirror a few minutes before. When he looked now, the lights were still there—but the fact just didn't register until, a couple of blocks later, the car began to pull around them on the left. It was a Buick, while Boyd's was a new Lincoln, but the edge wasn't too apparent yet.
Malone spotted the gun barrel protruding from the Buick and yelled just before the first shot went off.
Boyd, at the wheel, didn't even bother to look. His reflexes took over and he slammed his foot down on the brake. The specially-built FBI Lincoln slowed down instantly. The shotgun blast splattered the glass of the curved windshield all over—but none of it came into the car itself.
Malone already had his hand on the butt of the .44 Magnum under his left armpit, and he even had time to be grateful, for once, that it wasn't a smallsword. The women were in the back seat, frozen, and he yelled: "Duck!" and felt, rather than saw, both of them sink down onto the floor of the car.
The Buick had slowed down, too, and the gun barrel was swiveling back for a second shot. Malone felt naked and unprotected. The Buick and the Lincoln were even on the road now.
Malone had his revolver out. He fired the first shot without even realizing fully that he'd done so, and he heard a piercing scream from Barbara in the back seat. He had no time to look back.
A .44 Magnum is not, by any means, a small gun. As hand guns go—revolvers and automatics—it is about as large as a gun can get to be. An ordinary car has absolutely no chance against it.
Much less the glass in an ordinary car.
The first slug drilled its way through the window glass as though it were not there, and slammed its way through an even more unprotected obstacle, the frontal bones of the triggerman's skull. The second slug from Malone's gun missed the hole the first slug had made by something less than an inch.
The big, apelike thug who was holding the shotgun had a chance to pull the trigger once more, but he wasn't aiming very well. The blast merely scored the paint off the top of the Lincoln.
The rear window of the Buick was open, and Malone caught sight of another glint of blued steel from the corner of his eye. There was no time to shift aim—not with bullets flying like swallows on the way to Capistrano. Malone thought faster than he had ever imagined himself capable of doing, and decided to aim for the driver.
Evidently the man in the rear seat of the Buick had had the same inspiration. Malone blasted two more high-velocity lead slugs at the driver of the big Buick, and at the same time the man in the Buick's rear seat fired at Boyd.
But Boyd had shifted tactics. He'd hit the brakes. Now he came down hard on the accelerator instead.
The chorus of shrieks from the Lincoln's back seat increased slightly in volume. Barbara, Malone knew, wasn't badly hurt; she hadn't even stopped for breath since the first shot had been fired. Anybody who could scream like that, he told himself, had to be healthy.
As the Lincoln leaped ahead, Malone pulled the trigger of his .44 twice more. The heavy, high-speed chunks of streamlined copper-coated lead leaped from the muzzle of the gun and slammed into the driver of the Buick without wasting any time. The Buick slewed across the highway.
The two shots fired by the man in the back seat went past Malone's head with awhizz, missing both him and Boyd by a margin too narrow to think about.
But those were the last shots. The only difference between the FBI and the Enemy seemed to be determination and practice.
The Buick spun into a flat sideskid, swiveled on its wheels and slammed into the ditch at the side of the road, turning over and over, making a horrible noise, as it broke up.
Boyd slowed the car again, just as there was a sudden blast of fire. The Buick had burst into flame and was spitting heat and smoke and fire in all directions. Malone sent one more bullet after it in a last flurry of action—saving his last one for possible later emergencies.
Boyd jammed on the brakes and the Lincoln came to a screaming halt. In silence he and Malone watched the burning Buick roll over and over into the desert beyond the shoulder.
"My God," Boyd said. "My ears!"
Malone understood at once. The blast from his own still-smoking .44 had roared past Boyd's head during the gun battle. No wonder the man's ears hurt. It was a wonder he wasn't altogether deaf.
But Boyd shook off the pain and brought out his own .44 as he stepped out of the car. Malone followed him, his gun trained.
From the rear, Her Majesty said: "It's safe to rise now, isn't it?"
"You ought to know," Malone said. "You can tell if they're still alive."
There was silence while Queen Elizabeth frowned for a moment in concentration. A look of pain crossed her face, and then, as her expression smoothed again, she said: "The traitors are dead. All except one, and he's—" She paused. "He's dying," she finished. "He can't hurt you."
There was no need for further battle. Malone reholstered his .44 and turned to Boyd. "Tom, call the State Police," he said. "Get 'em down here fast."
He waited while Boyd climbed back under the wheel and began punching buttons on the dashboard. Then Malone went toward the burning Buick.
He tried to drag the men out, but it wasn't any use. The first two, in the front seat, had the kind of holes in them people talked about throwing elephants through. Head and chest had been hit.
Malone couldn't get close enough to the fiercely blazing automobile to make even a try for the men in the back seat.
He was sitting quietly on the edge of the rear seat when the Nevada Highway Patrol cars drove up next to them. Barbara Wilson had stopped screaming, but she was still sobbing on Malone's shoulder. "It's all right," he told her, feeling ineffectual.
"I never saw anybody killed before," she said.
"It's all right," Malone said. "Nothing's going to hurt you. I'll protect you."
He wondered if he meant it, and found, to his surprise, that he did. Barbara Wilson sniffled and looked up at him. "Mr. Malone—"
"Ken," he said.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Ken—I'm so afraid. I saw the hole in one of the men's heads, when you fired ... it was—"
"Don't think about it," Malone said. To him, the job had been an unpleasant occurrence, but a job, that was all. He could see, though, how it might affect people who were new to it.
"You're so brave," she said.
Malone tightened his arm around the girl's shoulder. "Just depend on me," he said. "You'll be all right if you—"
The State Trooper walked up then, and looked at them. "Mr. Malone?" he said. He seemed to be taken slightly aback at the costuming.
"That's right," Malone said. He pulled out his ID card and the little golden badge. The State Patrolman looked at them, and looked back at Malone.
"What's with the getup?" he said.
"FBI," Malone said, hoping his voice carried conviction. "Official business."
"In costume?"
"Never mind about the details," Malone snapped.
"He's an FBI agent, sir," Barbara said.
"And what are you?" the Patrolman said. "Lady Jane Grey?"
"I'm a nurse," Barbara said. "A psychiatric nurse."
"For nuts?"
"For disturbed patients."
The patrolman thought that over. "You've got the identity cards and stuff," he said at last. "Maybe you've got a reason to dress up. How would I know? I'm only a State Patrolman."
"Let's cut the monologue," Malone said savagely, "and get to business."
The patrolman stared. Then he said: "All right, sir. Yes, sir. I'm Lieutenant Adams, Mr. Malone. Suppose you tell me what happened?"
Carefully and concisely, Malone told him the story of the Buick that had pulled up beside them, and what had happened afterward.
Meanwhile, the other cops had been looking over the wreck. When Malone had finished his story, Lieutenant Adams flipped his notebook shut and looked over toward them. "I guess it's O.K., sir," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's justifiable homicide. Self-defense. Any reason why they'd want to kill you?"
Malone thought about the Golden Palace. That might be a reason—but it might not. And why burden an innocent State Patrolman with the facts of FBI life?
"Official," he said. "Your chief will get the report."
The patrolman nodded. "I'll have to take a deposition tomorrow, but—"
"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 youcan'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. O.K.?"
"O.K.," 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. "O.K.?"
"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.
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 forhim.
The place might, of course, have been called Cactus Flats, but the cacti were neither as big nor as impressive as the yuccas.
"I knight thee Sir Andrew...."
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 did not 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 whoishe?" 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. "Whereis he, then?" he 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, "Iamthe 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. "O.K. But don't waste any time telling me. Do it right away. We'vegotto 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. "O.K.," 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'sbetter," 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 remaining cartridge 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 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 at 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—"
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.
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.
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, over-ruling 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—everythingelse—stems logically out of her delusional premise. Beautiful."
She might 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.) 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 anysanetelepaths 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 wrist watch.
Dr. Gamble said: "But—"
"My, my," Malone said. "Almost lunchtime. I have to go over and have lunch with Her Majesty. Maybe she's dug up something more."
"I hope so," Dr. Gamble said, apparently successfully deflected. "I do hope so."