Occasion ... for Disaster
even with the elevated sidewalk. The bellman pushed a stud on the
walkway rail and a gate swung open. Malone stepped out and waited
while luggage was unloaded. The courtesy of the Great Universal Hotel
was not free, of course; Malone got rid of some more silver dollars.
He fished in his pockets, found one lone crumpled ten-dollar bill and
arranged it neatly and visibly in his right hand.
"I notice you've got a lot of guides in the halls," he said as the
bellman eyed the ten-spot. "Do that many people get lost in here?"
"Well, not really, sir," the bellman said. "Not really. That's for
the--what they call the protection of our guests. A courtesy."
"Protection?" Malone said. He had noticed, he recalled, odd bulges
beneath the left armpits of the guides. "Protection from what?" he
asked, keeping a firm, loving grip on the bill. "There are a lot more
guides than you'd expect, aren't there?"
The bellman shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Well, sir," he said
at last in an uneasy manner, "I guess it's because of the politics
around here. I mean, it's sort of confused."
"Confused how?" Malone said, waving the bill ever so slightly.
The bellman appeared to be hypnotized by its green color. "It's the
governor shooting himself," he said at last. "And the Legislature
wants to impeach the Lieutenant-governor, and the City Council of Las
Vegas is having trouble with the Mayor, and the County Sheriff is
having a feud with the State Police, and--Sir, it's all sort of
confused right now. But it isn't serious." He grinned hopefully.
Malone sighed and let go of the ten. It stayed fluttering in the air
for perhaps a tenth of a second, and disappeared. "I'm sure it isn't,"
Malone said. "Just forget I asked you."
The bellman's hand went to his pocket and came out again empty. "Asked
me, sir?" he said. "Asked me what?"
* * * * *
The next fifteen minutes were busy ones. Malone made himself quickly
at home, keeping his eyes open for hidden TV cameras or other forms of
bugging. Satisfied at last that he was entirely alone, he took a deep
breath, closed his eyes and teleported himself to Yucca Flats.
This time, he didn't land in Dr. O'Connor's office. Instead, he opened
his eyes in the hallway in the nearby building that housed the
psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists who were working
with the telepaths Malone and the FBI had unearthed two years before.
Apparently, telepathy was turning out to be more a curse than a
blessing. Of the seven known telepaths in the world, only Her Majesty
retained anything like the degree of sanity necessary for
communication. The psych men who were working with the other six had
been trying to establish some kind of rapport, but their efforts so
far had been as fruitless as a petrified tree.
Malone went down the hallway until he came to a door near the end. He
looked at the sign painted on the opaqued glass for a second:
ALAN MARSHALL, M.D.
CHIEF OF STAFF
PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
With a slight sigh, he pushed open the door and went in.
Dr. Marshall was a tall, balding man with a light-brown brush mustache
and a pleasant smile. He wore thick glasses but he didn't look at all
scholarly; instead, he looked rather like Alec Guinness made up for a
role as a Naval lieutenant. He rose as Malone entered, and stretched a
hand across the desk. "Glad to see you, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Very
glad."
Malone shook hands and raised his eyebrows. "_Sir_ Kenneth?" he said.
Dr. Marshall shrugged slightly. "She prefers it," he said. "And since
there's no telling whose mind she might look into--" He smiled. "After
all," he finished, "why not?"
"Tell me, doctor," Malone said. "Don't you ever get uneasy about the
fact that Her Majesty can look into your mind? I mean, it has
disturbed some people."
"Not at all," Marshall said. "Not in the least. After all, Sir
Kenneth, it's all a matter of adjustment. Simple adjustment and no
more." He paused, then added: "Like sex."
"Sex?" Malone said in a voice he hoped was calm.
"Cultural mores," Marshall said. "That sort of thing. Nothing,
really." He sat down. "Make yourself comfortable," he told Malone. "As
a matter of fact, the delusion Her Majesty suffers from has its
compensations for the psychiatrist. Where else could I be appointed
Royal Psychiatrist, Advisor to the Crown, and Earl Marshal?"
Malone looked around, found a comfortable chair and dropped into it.
"I suppose so," he said. "It must be sort of fun, in a way."
"Oh, it is," Marshall said. "Of course, it can get to be specifically
troublesome; all cases can. I remember a girl who'd managed to get
herself married to the wrong man--she was trying to escape her mother,
or some such thing. And she'd moved into this apartment where her
next-door neighbor, a nice woman really, had rather strange sexual
tendencies. Well, what with those problems, and the husband himself--a
rather ill-tempered brute, but a nice fellow basically--and her
eventually meeting Mr. Right, which was inevitable--"
"I'm sure it was very troublesome," Malone put in.
"Extremely," Marshall said. "Worked out in the end, though. Ah ...
most of them do seem to, when we're lucky. When things break right."
"And when they don't?" Malone said.
Marshall shook his head slowly and rubbed at his forehead with two
fingers. "We do what we can," he said. "It's an infant science. I
remember one rather unhappy case--started at a summer theatre, but the
complications didn't stop there. As I recall, there were something
like seven women and three men involved deeply before it began to
straighten itself out. My patient was a young boy. Ah ... he had
actually precipitated the situation, or was convinced that he had. All
basically nice people, by the way. All of them. But the kind of thing
they managed to get mixed up in--"
"I'm sure it was interesting," Malone said. "But--"
"Oh, they're all interesting," Marshall said. "But for sheer
complexity ... well, this is an unusual sort of case, the one I'm
thinking about now. I remember it began with a girl named Ned--"
"Dr. Marshall," Malone said desperately, "I'd like to hear about a
girl named Ned. I really would. It doesn't even sound probable."
"Ah?" Dr. Marshall said. "I'd like to tell you--"
"Unfortunately," Malone went on doggedly, "there is some business I've
got to talk over."
Dr. Marshall's disappointment was evident for less than a second.
"Yes, Sir Kenneth?" he said.
Malone took a deep breath. "It's about Her Majesty's mental state," he
said. "I understand that a lot of it is complicated, and I probably
wouldn't understand it. But can you give me as much as you think I can
digest?"
Marshall nodded slowly. "Ah ... you must understand that psychiatrists
differ," he said. "We appear to run in schools--like fish, which is
neither here nor there. But what I tell you might not be in accord
with a psychiatrist from another school, Sir Kenneth."
"O.K.," Malone said. "Shoot."
"An extremely interesting slang word, by the way," Marshall said.
"'Shoot.' Superficially an invitation to violence. I wonder--" A
glance from Malone was sufficient. "Getting back to the track,
however," he went on, "I should begin by saying that Her Majesty
appears to have suffered a shock of traumatic proportions early in
life. That might be the telepathic faculty itself coming to the
fore--or, rather, the realization that others did not share her
faculty. That she was, in fact, in communication with a world which
could never reach her on her own deepest and most important level." He
paused. "Are you following me so far?" he asked.
"Gamely," Malone admitted. "In other words, when she couldn't
communicate, she went into this traumatic shock."
"Nor exactly," Marshall said. "We must understand what communication
is. Basically, Sir Kenneth, we can understand it as a substitute for
sexual activity. That is, in its deepest sense. It is this attack on
the deepest levels of the psychic organism that results in the trauma;
and has results of its own, by the way, which succeed in stabilizing
the traumatic shock on several levels."
Malone blinked. "That last part began to get me a little," he said.
"Can we go over it again, just the tune this time and leave out the
harmony?"
Marshall smiled. "Certainly," he said. "Remember that Her Majesty has
been locked up in institutions since early adolescence. Because of
this--a direct result of the original psychosis--she has been
deprived, not only of the communication which serves as a sublimation
for sexual activity, but, in fact, any normal sexual activity. Her
identification of herself with the Virgin Queen is far from
accidental, Sir Kenneth."
The idea that conservation was sex was a new and somewhat frightening
one to Malone, but he stuck to it grimly. "No sex," Malone said.
"That's the basic trouble."
Marshall nodded. "It always is," he said. "In one form or another, Sir
Kenneth; it is at the root of such problems at all times. But in Her
Majesty's case the psychosis has become stabilized; she is the Virgin
Queen, and therefore her failure to become part of the normal sexual
activity of her group has a reason. It is accepted on that basis by
her own psyche."
"I see," Malone said. "Or, anyhow, I think I do. But how about
changes? Could she get worse or better? Could she start lying to
people--for the fun of it, or for reasons of her own?"
"Changes in her psychic state don't seem very probable," Marshall
said. "In theory, of course, anything is possible; but in fact, I have
observed and worked with Her Majesty and no such change has occurred.
You may take that as definite."
"And the lying?" Malone said.
Marshall frowned slightly. "I've just explained," he said, "that Her
Majesty has been blocked in the direction of communication--that is,
in the direction of one of her most important sexual sublimations.
Such communication as she can have, therefore, is to be highly
treasured by her; it provides the nearest thing to sex that she may
have. As the Virgin Queen, she may still certainly _converse_ in any
way possible. She would not injure that valuable possession and right
by falsifying it. It's quite impossible, Sir Kenneth. Quite
impossible."
This did not make Malone feel any better. It removed one of the two
possibilities--but it left him with no vacation, and the most
complicated case he had ever dreamed of sitting squarely in his lap
and making rude faces at him.
He had to solve the case--and he had nobody but himself to depend on.
"You're sure?" he said.
"Perfectly sure, Sir Kenneth," Marshall said.
Malone sighed. "Well, then," he said, "can I see Her Majesty?" He knew
perfectly well that he didn't have to ask Marshall's permission--or
anybody else's. But it seemed more polite, somehow.
"She's receiving Dr. Sheldon Lord in audience just at the moment,"
Marshall said. "I don't see why you shouldn't go on to the Throne
Room, though. He's giving her some psychological tests, but they ought
to be finished in a minute or two."
"Fine," Malone said. "How about court dress? Got anything here that
might fit me?"
Marshall nodded. "We've got a pretty complete line of court costume
now," he said. "I should say it was the most complete in
existence--except possibly for the TV historical companies. Down the
hall, three doors farther on, you'll find the dressing room."
* * * * *
Malone thanked Dr. Marshall and went out slowly. He didn't really mind
the court dress or the Elizabethan etiquette Her Majesty liked to
preserve; as a matter of fact, he was rather fond of it. There had
been some complaints about expense when the Throne Room and the