Supermind
and no ones likes strangers there. Borbitsch was very sad.”
“What did you do with your information?” Boyd said.
“We remembered it,” Brubitsch said. “Or, if we had a scrap of paper,
we saved it for Garbitsch and gave it to him. But I remember once that
I had some paper. It had a formula on it. I do not know what the
formula said.”
“What was it about?” Malone said.
Brubitsch gave a massive shrug. “It was about an X and some numbers,”
he said. “It was not very interesting, but it was a formula, and
Garbitsch would have liked it. Unfortunately, I did not give it to
him.”
“Why not?” Boyd said.
“I am ashamed,” Brubitsch said, looking ashamed. “I was lighting a
cigarette in the afternoon, when I had the formula. It is a very
relaxing thing to smoke a cigarette in the afternoon. It is soothing
to the soul.” He looked very sad. “I was holding the piece of paper in
one hand,” he said. “Unfortunately, the match and the paper came into
contact. I burned my finger. Here.” He stuck out a finger toward
Malone and Boyd, who looked at it without much interest for a second.
“The paper is gone,” he said. “Don’t tell Garbitsch. He is very
inflamed.”
Malone sighed. “But you remember the formula,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Brubitsch shook his massive head very slowly. “It was not very
interesting,” he said. “And I do not have a mathematical mind.”
“We know,” Malone said. “You are a small child.”
“It was terrible,” Brubitsch said. “Garbitsch was not happy about our
activities.”
“What did Garbitsch do with the information?” Boyd said.
“He passed it on,” Brubitsch said. “Every week he would send a
short-wave message to the homeland, in code. Some weeks he did not
send the message.”
“Why not?” Malone said.
“The radio did not work,” Brubitsch said simply. “We received orders
by short-wave, but sometimes we did not receive the orders. The radio
was of very poor quality, and some weeks it refused to send any
messages. On other weeks, it refused to receive any messages.”
“Who was your contact in Russia?” Boyd said.
“A man named X,” Brubitsch said. “Like in the formula.”
“But what was his real name?” Malone said.
“Who knows?” Brubitsch said. “Does it matter?”
“What else did you do?” Boyd said.
“We met twice a week,” Brubitsch said. “Sometimes in Garbitsch’s home,
sometimes in other places. Sometimes we had information. At other
times, we were friends, having a social gathering.”
“Friends?” Malone said.
Brubitsch nodded. “We drank together, talked, played chess. Garbitsch
is the best chess player in the group. I am not very good. But once we
had some trouble.” He paused. “We had been drinking Russian liquors.
They are very strong. We decided to uphold the honor of our country.”
“I think,” Malone murmured sadly, “I know what’s coming.”
“Ah?” Brubitsch said, interested. “At any rate, we decided to honor
our country in song. And a policeman came and talked to us. He took us
down to the police station.”
“Why?” Boyd said.
“He was suspicious,” Brubitsch said. “We were singing the
_Internationale_, and he was suspicious. It is unreasonable.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Boyd said. “What happened then?”
“He took us to the police station,” Brubitsch said, “and then after a
little while he let us go. I do not understand this.”
“It’s all right,” Malone said. “I do.” He drew Boyd aside for a
second, and whispered to him: “The cops were ready to charge these
three clowns with everything in the book. We had a hell of a time
springing them so we could go on watching them. I remember the
stir-up, though I never did know their names until now.”
Boyd nodded, and they returned to Brubitsch, who was staring up at
them with surly eyes.
“It is a secret you are telling him,” Brubitsch said. “That is not
right.”
“What do you mean, it’s not right?” Malone said.
“It is wrong,” Brubitsch went on. “It is not the American way.”
He went on, with some prodding, to tell about the activities of the
spy ring. It did not seem to be a very efficient spy ring; Brubitsch’s
long sad tale of forgotten messages, mixed orders, misplaced documents
and strange mishaps was a marvel and a revelation to the listening
officers. “I’ve never heard anything like it,” one of them whispered
in a tone of absolute wonder. “They’re almost working on our side.”
Over an hour later, Malone turned wearily away from the prisoner. “All
right, Brubitsch,” he said. “I guess that pretty much covers things
for the moment. If we want any more information, though—”
“Call on me,” Brubitsch said sadly. “I am not going anyplace. And I
will give you all the information you desire. But I did not commit any
murders.”
“Goodbye, small child,” Malone said, as two agents led the fat man
away. The other two left soon afterward, and Malone and Boyd were
alone.
“Think he was telling the truth?” Boyd said.
Malone nodded. “Nobody,” he said, “could make up a story like that.”
“I suppose so,” Boyd said, and the phone rang. Malone picked it up.
“Well?” he asked.
“He was telling the truth, all right,” Her Majesty said. “There are a
few more details, of course, like the girl Brubitsch was involved
with, Sir Kenneth. But she doesn’t seem to have anything to do with
the spy ring, and besides, she isn’t a very nice person. She always
wants money.”
“Sounds perfectly lovely,” Malone said. “As a matter of fact, I think
I know her. I know a lot of girls who always want money. It seems to
be in fashion.”
“You don’t know this one, Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said, “and
besides, she wouldn’t be a good influence on you.”
Malone sighed. “How about the static explosions?” he said. “Pick up
any more?”
“No,” she said. “Just that one.”
Malone nodded at the receiver. “All right,” he said. “We’re going to
bring in the second one now. Keep up the good work.”
He hung up.
“Who’ve you got in the observation room?” Boyd asked.
“Queen Elizabeth I,” Malone said. “Her Royal Majesty.”
“Oh,” Boyd said without surprise. “Well, was Brubitsch telling the
truth?”
“He wasn’t holding back anything important,” Malone said, thinking
about the girl. It would be nice to meet a bad influence, he thought
mournfully. It would be nice to go somewhere with a bad influence (a
bad influence, he amended, with a good figure) and forget all about
his job, about the spies, about telepathy, teleportation, psionics and
everything else. It might be restful.
Unfortunately, it was impossible.
“What’s this business about a static explosion?” Boyd said.
“Don’t ask silly questions,” Malone said. “A static explosion is a
contradiction in terms. If something is static, it doesn’t move—
whoever heard of a motionless explosion?”
“If it is a contradiction in terms,” Boyd said, “they’re your terms.”
“Sure,” Malone said. “But I don’t know what they mean. I don’t even
know what I mean.”
“You’re in a bad way,” Boyd said, looking sympathetic.
“I’m in a perfectly terrible way,” Malone said, “and it’s going to get
worse. You wait and see.”
“Of course I’ll wait and see,” Boyd said. “I wouldn’t miss the end of
the world for anything. It ought to be a great spectacle.” He paused.
“Want them to bring in the next one?”
“Sure,” Malone said. “What have we got to lose but our minds? And who
is the next one?”
“Borbitsch,” Boyd said. “They’re saving Garbitsch for a big finish.”
Malone nodded wearily. “Onward,” he said, and picked up the phone. He
punched a number, spoke a few words and hung up.
A minute later, the four FBI agents came back, leading a man. This one
was tall and thin, with the expression of a gloomy, degenerate and
slightly nauseated bloodhound. He was led to the chair and he sat down
in it as if he expected the worst to start happening at once.
“Well,” Malone said in a bored, tired voice. “So this is the one who
won’t talk.”
6
Midnight.
Kenneth J. Malone sat at his desk, in his Washington office,
surrounded by piles of papers covering the desk, spilling off onto the
floor and decorating his lap. He was staring at the papers as if he
expected them to leap up, dance round him and shout the solution to
all his problems at him in trained choral voices. They did nothing at
all.
Seated cross-legged on the rug in the center of the room, and looking
like an impossible combination of the last Henry Tudor and Gautama
Buddha, Thomas Boyd did nothing either. He was staring downward, his
hands folded on his ample lap, wearing an expression of utter, burning
frustration. And on a nearby chair sat the third member of the
company, wearing the calm and patient expression of the gently-born
under all vicissitudes: Queen Elizabeth I.
“All right,” Malone said into the silence. “Now let’s see what we’ve
got.”
“I think we’ve got cerebral paresis,” Boyd said. “It’s been coming on
for years.”
“Don’t be funny,” Malone said.
Boyd gave a short, mirthless bark. “Funny?” he said. “I’m absolutely
hysterical with joy and good humor. I’m out of my mind with
happiness.” He paused. “Anyway,” he finished, “I’m out of my mind.
Which puts me in good company. The entire FBI, Brubitsch, Borbitsch,
Garbitsch, Dr. Thomas O’Connor and Sir Lewis Carter—we’re all out of
our minds. If we weren’t, we’d all move away to the moon.”
“And drink to forget,” Malone added. “Sure. But let’s try and get some
work done.”
“By all means, Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said. Boyd had not included
her in his list of insane people, and she looked slightly miffed. It
was hard for Malone to tell whether she was miffed by the mention of
insanity, or at being left out.
“Let’s review the facts,” Malone said. “This whole thing started with
some inefficiency in Congress.”
“And some upheavals elsewhere,” Boyd said. “Labor unions, gangster
organizations.”
“Just about all over,” Malone said. “And though we’ve found three
spies, it seems pretty obvious that they aren’t causing this.”
“They aren’t causing much of anything,” Boyd said. “Except a lot of
unbelieving laughter further up the FBI line. I don’t think anybody is
going to believe our reports of those interviews.”
“But they’re true,” Her Majesty said.
“Sure they’re true,” Boyd said. “That’s the unbelievable part. They
read like farce, and not very good farce at that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Malone said. “I think they’re pretty funny.”
“Shall we get back to the business at hand?” Her Majesty said gently.
“Ah,” Malone said. “Anyhow, it isn’t the spies. And what we now have
is confusion even worse compounded.”
“Confounded,” Boyd said. “John Milton. _Paradise Lost_, I heard it
somewhere.”
“I don’t mean confounded,” Malone said. “I mean confusion. Anyhow, the
Russian espionage rings in this country seem to be in as bad a state
as the Congress, the labor unions, the syndicates, and all the rest.
And all of them seem to have some sort of weird tie-in to these
flashes of telepathic interference. Right, Your Majesty?”
“I believe so, Sir Kenneth,” she said. The old woman looked tired and
confused. Somehow, a lot of the brightness seemed to have gone out of
her life. “That’s right,” she said. “I didn’t realize there was so
much of it going on. You see, Sir Kenneth, you’re the only one I can
pick up at a distance who has been having these flashes. But now that
I’m here in Washington, I can feel it going on all around me.”
“It may not have anything to do with everything else,” Boyd said.
Malone shook his head. “If it doesn’t,” he said, “it’s the weirdest
coincidence I’ve ever even dreamed about, and my dreams can be pretty
strange. No, it’s got to be tied in. There’s some kind of mental
static that is somehow making all these people goof up.”
“But why?” Boyd said. “What is it being done for? Just fun?”
“God only knows,” Malone said. “But we’re going to have to find out.”