Occasion ... for Disaster
his breath in one long sigh of relief.
"I was hoping it would be you," he said weakly. "May I come in?"
"Why, certainly, Malone. Come on in. We've been expecting you, you
know," said Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI.
XVI
Malone sat, quietly relaxed and almost completely at ease, in the
depths of a huge, comfortable, old-fashioned Morris chair. Three
similar chairs were clustered around a squat, massive coffee table,
made of a single slab of dark wood set on short, curved legs. Malone
looked around at the other three with a relaxed feeling of
recognition: Andrew J. Burris, Sir Lewis Carter and Luba Ardanko.
Sir Lewis softly exhaled a cloud of smoke as he removed the briar from
his mouth. "Malone," he asked gently, "how did you know we would be
here?"
"Well," Malone said, "I just ... I mean, it was obvious as soon as
I--" He stopped, frowning. "I had one thing to go on, anyway," he
said. "I figured out the PRS was responsible for all the troubles
because it was so efficient. And then, while I was sitting and staring
at the file reports, it suddenly came to me: the FBI was just as
efficient. So it was obvious."
"What was?" Burris said.
Malone shrugged. "I thought you'd been keeping me on vacation because
your mind was being changed," he said. "Now I can see you were doing
it of your own free will."
"Yes," Sir Lewis said. "But how did you know you'd find us _here_,
Malone?"
There was a shadow in the room, but not a visible one. Malone felt the
chill of sudden danger. Whatever was going to happen, he realized, he
would not be around for the finish. He, Kenneth Joseph Malone, the
cuddly, semi-intrepid FBI Agent he had always known and loved, would
never get out of this deadly situation. If he lived, he would be so
changed that--
He didn't even want to think about it.
"What sort of logic," Sir Lewis was saying, "led you to the belief
that we would all be here, in Andrew's house?"
Malone forced his mind to consider the question. "Well," he began, "it
isn't exactly logic, I guess."
Luba smiled at him. He felt a little reassured, but not much. "You
should have phrased that differently," she said. "It's: 'It isn't
exactly logic. I guess.'"
"Not guess," Sir Lewis said. "You know. Prescience, Malone. Your
precognitive faculty."
"All right," Malone said. "All right. So what?"
"Take it easy," Burris put in. "Relax, Malone. Everything's going to
be all right."
Sir Lewis waved a hand negligently. "Let's continue," he said. "Tell
me, Malone: if you were a mathematics professor, teaching a course in
calculus, how would you grade a paper that had all the answers but
didn't show the work?"
"I never took calculus," Malone said. "But I imagine I'd flunk him."
"Why?" Sir Lewis said.
"Because if he can't back up his answer," Malone said slowly, "then
it's no better than a layman's guess. He has to give reasons for his
answers; otherwise nobody else can understand him."
"Fine," Sir Lewis said. "Perfectly fine. Now--" he puffed at his
pipe--"can you give me a logical reason for arriving at the decision
you made a few hours ago?"
The danger was coming closer, Malone realized. He didn't know what it
was or how to guard himself against it. All he could do was answer,
and play for time.
"While I was driving up here," he said, "I sent you a message. I told
you what I knew and what I believed about the whole world picture as
it stands now. I don't know if you received it, but I--"
Luba spoke without the trace of a smile. "You mean you didn't know?"
she said. "You didn't know I was answering you?"
That was the first pebble of the avalanche, Malone knew suddenly--the
avalanche that was somehow going to destroy him. "You forced your
thoughts into my mind, then," he said as coolly as he could. "Just as
you forced decision on the rest of society."
"Now, dammit, Malone!" Burris said suddenly. "You know those bursts
take a lot of energy, and only last for a fraction of a second!"
Malone blinked. "Then you ... didn't--"
_Of course I didn't force anything on you, Kenneth. I can't. Not all
the power of the entire PRS could force anything through your shield.
But you opened it to me._
It was Luba's mental "voice." Malone opened his mouth, shut it and
then, belatedly, snapped shut the channel through which he'd contacted
her. Luba gave him a wry look, but said nothing. "You mean I'm a
telepath?" Malone asked weakly.
"Certainly," Sir Lewis snapped. "At the moment, you can only pick up
Luba--but you are certainly capable of picking up anyone, eventually.
Just as you learned to teleport, you can learn to be a telepath.
You--"
The room was whirling, but Malone tried to keep his mind steady. "Wait
a minute," he said. "If you received what I sent, then you know I've
got a question to ask."
There was a little silence.
Finally Sir Lewis looked up. "You want to know why you felt we--the
PRS--were innocent of the crimes you want to charge us with. Very
well." He paused. "We have wrecked civilization: granted. We could
have done it more smoothly: granted."
"Then--"
Sir Lewis' face was serious and steady. Malone tensed.
"Malone," Sir Lewis said, "do you think you're the only one with a
mental shield?"
Malone shook his head. "I guess stress--fixity of mind or
purpose--could develop it in anyone," he said. "At least, in some
people."
"Very well," Sir Lewis said. "Now, among the various people of the
world who have, through one necessity or another, managed to develop
such shields--"
Burris broke in impatiently. His words rang, and then echoed in the
old house.
"Some fool," he said flatly, "was going to start the Last War."
* * * * *
"So you had to stop it," Malone said after a long second. "But I still
don't see--"
"Of course you don't," Sir Lewis said. "But you've got to understand
why you don't see it first."
"Because I'm stupid," Malone said.
Luba was shaking her head. Malone turned to face her. "Not stupid,"
she said. "But some people, Kenneth, have certain talents. Others
have--other talents. There's no way of equating these talents; all are
useful, each performs a different function."
"And my talent," Malone said, "is stupidity. But--"
She lit a cigarette daintily. "Not at all," she said. "You've done a
really tremendous job, Kenneth. I was trained ever since I was a baby
to use my psionic abilities--the PRS has known how to train children
in that line ever since 1970. Only Mike Fueyo developed a system for
instruction independently; the boy was, and is, a genius, as you've
noticed."
"Agreed," Malone said. "But--"
"You, however," Luba said, "have the distinction of being the first
human being who has, as an adult, achieved his full powers without
childhood training. In addition, you're the only human being who has
ever developed to the extent you have--in precognition, too."
She puffed on the cigarette. Malone waited.
"But what you don't have," she said at last, very carefully, "is the
ability to reason out the steps you've taken, after you've reached the
proper conclusion."
"Like the calculus student," Malone said. "I flunk." Something inside
him grated over the marrow in his bones. It was as though someone had
decided that the best cure for worry was coarse emery in the joints,
and he, Kenneth J. Malone, had been picked for the first experiment.
"You're not flunking," Luba said. "You're a very long way from
flunking, Kenneth."
Burris cleared his throat suddenly. Malone turned to him. The Head of
the FBI stuck an unlighted cigar into his mouth, chewed it a little,
and then said: "Malone, we've been keeping tabs on you. Your shield
was unbreakable--but we have been able to reach the minds of people
you've talked to: Mike Sands, Primo Palveri, and so on. And Her
Majesty, of course: you opened up a gap in your shield to talk to her,
and you haven't closed it down. Until you started broadcasting here on
the way up, naturally."
"All right," Malone said, waiting with as much patience as possible
for the point.
"I tried to take you off the case," Burris went on, "because Sir Lewis
and the others felt you were getting too close to the truth. Which you
were, Malone, which you were." He lit his cigar and looked obscurely
pleased. "But they didn't know how you'd take it," he said. "They ...
we ... felt that a man who hadn't been trained since childhood to
accept the extrasensory abilities of the human mind couldn't possibly
learn to accept the reality of the job the PRS has to do."
"I still don't," Malone said. "I'm stupid. I flunk. Remember?"
"Now, now," Burris said helplessly. "Not at all, Malone. But we were
worried. I lied to you about those three spies--I put the drug in the
water-cooler. I tried to keep you from learning the Fueyo method of
teleportation. I didn't want you to learn that you were telepathic."
"But I did," Malone said, "And what does that make me?"
"That," Sir Lewis cut in, "is what we're attempting to find out."
Malone felt suitably crushed, but he wasn't sure by what. "I've got
some questions," he said after a second. "I want to know three
things."
"Go ahead," Sir Lewis said.
"One:" Malone said, "How come Her Majesty and the other nutty
telepaths didn't spot you? Two: How come you sent me out on these jobs
when you were afraid I was dangerous? And three: What was it that was
so safe about busting up civilization? How did that save us from the
Last War?"
Sir Lewis nodded. "First," he said, "we've developed a technique of
throwing up a shield and screening it with a surface of innocuous
thoughts--like hiding behind a movie screen. Second ... well, we had
to get the jobs done, Malone. And Andrew thought you were the most
capable, dangerous or not. For one thing, we wanted to get all the
insane telepaths in one place; it's difficult to work when the
atmosphere's full of such telepathic ravings."
"But wrecking the world because of a man with a mind-shield--why not
just work things so his underlings wouldn't obey him?" Malone shook
his head. "That sounds more reasonable."
"It may," Sir Lewis said. "But it wouldn't work. As a matter of fact,
it was tried, and it didn't work. You see, the Sino-Soviet top men
were smart enough to see that their underlings were being tampered
with. And they've developed a system, partly depending on automatic
firing systems, partly on individuals with mind-blocks--that is,
people who aren't being tampered with--which we can't disrupt
directly. So we had to smash them."
"And the United States at the same time," Burris said. "The economic
balance had to be kept; a strong America would be forced in to fill
the power vacuum otherwise, and that would make for an even worse
catastrophe. And if we weren't in trouble, the Sino-Soviet Bloc would
blame their mess on us. And that would start the Last War before
collapse could get started. Right, Malone?"
"I see," Malone said, thinking that he almost did. He told himself he
could feel happy now; the danger--which hadn't been danger to him,
really, but danger from him toward the PRS, toward civilization--was
over. But he didn't feel happy. He didn't feel anything.
"There's a crisis building in New York," Sir Lewis said suddenly,
"that's going to take all our attention. Malone, why don't you ...
well, go home and get some rest? We're going to be busy for a while,
and you'll want to be fresh for the work coming up."
"Sure," Malone said listlessly. "Sure."
As the others rose, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then
he vanished.
XVII
Two hours passed, somehow. Bourbon and soda helped them pass, Malone
discovered; he drank two high-balls slowly, trying not to think about
anything. He felt terrible. After a while he made himself a third