Supermind
from Malone’s screen, he just sat there, looking at the dead, grey
screen of the visiphone and feeling about twice as dead and at least
three times as grey.
Things, he told himself, were terrible. But even that sentence, which
was a good deal more cheerful than what he actually felt, didn’t do
anything to improve his mood. All of the evidence, after all, had been
practically living on the tip of his nose for nearly twenty-four
hours, and not only had he done nothing about it, but he hadn’t even
seen it.
Two or three times, for instance, he’d doubted the possibility of
teleporting another human being. All his logic had told him it wasn’t
so. But, he’d thought, he and Her Majesty had teleported Lou, and so,
obviously, his logic was wrong.
No, it wasn’t, he thought now. There _would_ be too much mental
resistance, even if the person were unconscious. Teleportation of
another human being _would_ be impossible.
Unless, of course, the other human being was able to teleport on her
own.
True, she had been no more than semiconscious. She probably couldn’t
have teleported on her own. But Malone and Her Majesty had, ever so
kindly and ever so mistakenly, helped her, and Lou had managed to
teleport to the plane.
And that wasn’t all, he thought dismally. That was far from all.
“Let’s take another for-instance,” he said savagely, in what he
thought was a caricature of the Manelli voice. In order for all three
to teleport, there had to be perfect synchronization.
Otherwise, they’d have arrived either at different places, or at the
same place but at different times.
And perfect synchronization on a psionic level meant telepathy. At
least two of the three had to be telepathic. Her Majesty was, of
course. Malone wasn’t.
So Lou had to be telepathic, too.
Malone told himself bitterly to quit calling the girl Lou. After the
way she’d deceived him, she didn’t deserve it. Her name was Luba
Garbitsch, and from now on he was going to call her Luba Garbitsch. In
his own mind, anyway.
Facts came tumbling in on him like the side of a mountain, falling on
a hapless traveler during a landslide. And, Malone told himself, he
had never had less help in all of his ill-starred life.
Her Majesty had never, never suspected that Luba Garbitsch was
anything other than the girl she pretended to be. That was negative
evidence, true, and taken alone it meant nothing at all. But when you
added the other facts to it, it showed, with perfect plainness, that
Luba Garbitsch was the fortunate possessor of a mind shield as tough,
as strong and as perfect as any Malone, O’Connor or good old Cartier
Taylor had ever even thought of dreaming up.
And then, very suddenly, another fact arrived, and pushed the rest out
into the black night of Malone’s bitter mind. He punched hard on the
intercom button and got the desk of the agent-in-charge.
“Now what’s wrong?” the A-in-C said. “Ghosts got loose? Or do you want
some help with a beautiful blonde heiress?”
“What would I be doing,” Malone snapped, “with a beautiful blonde
heiress?”
The agent-in-charge looked thoughtful. It was obvious that he had been
saving his one joke up for several hours. “You might be holding her,”
he suggested, “for ransom, of course.”
“That’s not funny,” Malone said. “Nothing is funny any more.”
“Oh, all right,” the A-in-C said. “You Washington boys are just too
good for the rest of us. What’s on your mind?”
“You’ve got a twenty-four-hour watch on Luba Garbitsch, haven’t you?”
Malone said.
“Sure we have,” the A-in-C said. “Boyd said—”
“Yes, I know what he said,” Malone cut in. “Give me a check on those
men. I want to find out where she is right now. Right this minute.”
The agent-in-charge shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “It’s none of my
business. Hang on a second.”
The screen went blank, but it didn’t go silent. Each of the agents, on
a stakeout job like the Garbitsch one, would be carrying personal
communicators, and Malone could hear the voice of the agent-in-charge
as he spoke to them.
He couldn’t make out all the words, and it wasn’t important anyhow.
He’d know soon enough, he kept telling himself; just as soon as the
A-in-C came back and reported.
It seemed like about twelve years before he did.
“She’s all right,” he said. “Nothing to worry about; she’s probably
working late at her office, that’s all. She hasn’t gone home yet.”
“Want to bet?” Malone snapped.
“Don’t tempt me,” the A-in-C said. “I wouldn’t take your money—it’s
probably counterfeit, printed in Washington.”
“I’ll give you ten to one,” Malone said.
“Ten to one, I’ll take,” the A-in-C said rapidly. “Ten to one is like
taking candy from a traffic cop. I’m no amateur, even if I am stuck
away in dull little old New York—and I know the boys I’ve got on
stakeout. I’ll check, and—”
“Let me know when you do,” Malone said. “I’ve got some long-distance
calls to make.”
* * * * *
Forty-five minutes later, he had all the news he needed. Spot checks
on PRS offices on the West Coast, where it wasn’t closing time yet,
showed that all the executive officers had suddenly felt the need of
extended vacations to parts unknown.
That, if not exactly cheering news, was still welcome; Malone had more
backing for his theory.
An overseas call to New Scotland Yard in London took a little more
time, and several arguments with bored overseas operators who,
apparently, had nothing better to do than to confuse the customers.
But Malone finally managed to get Assistant Commissioner C. E. Teal,
who promised to check on Malone’s 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.
It is rather late here, as you must realize—”
“Yes?” Malone said. “And they’ve all gone?”
“Why, no,” Teal said, surprised. “A spot check shows that most of the
executives of the London branch of the Psychical Research Society are
spending quiet evenings in their homes. Our Inspector Ottermole
actually spoke to Dr. Carnacki, the head of the office here.”
“Oh,” Malone said.
“They haven’t skipped,” Teal went on. “Is this in connection with
anything serious, Mr. Malone?”
“Not yet,” Malone said. “But I’ll let you know at once if there are
any further developments. Thanks very much, Mr. Teal.”
“A pleasure, Mr. Malone,” Teal said. “A pleasure.” And then, still
masticating, he switched off.
And that, Malone told himself, was definitely that. Of course the
British PRS hadn’t gone underground; why should they? The British
police weren’t on to them, as Scotland Yard showed. And, no matter
what opinions Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I might hold in the matter,
the FBI had absolutely no jurisdiction in the British Isles.
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 said 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 plain bad English, but he wasn’t sure
of anything any more. Things were getting much too confused.
There was a knock at the door.
Malone, without any hope at all, called: “Come in,” and the door
opened.
The agent-in-charge came in, and dropped a dollar on Malone’s desk.
“So you checked,” Malone said.
“I checked,” the A-in-C said sadly. “The boys went through the entire
damned building. Not a sign of her. Not even a trace.”
“There wouldn’t be one,” Malone said, shoving the dollar back to
waiting hands. “Take the money; I knew what would happen. It was a
sucker bet.”
“Well, I feel like the sucker, all right,” the A-in-C said. “I don’t
know how she did it.”
“I do,” Malone said quietly. “Teleportation.”
The A-in-C whistled. “Well,” he said, “it was a great secret as long
as it was FBI property. But now, friend, all hell is going to bust
loose.”
“It already has,” Malone said hollowly.
“Great,” the A-in-C said. “What now?”
“Now,” Malone said, “I am going to go back to Washington. Take care of
poor little old New York for me.”
He closed his eyes, 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 when the air was
bright blue, some minutes later, 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 would amount to. He could have all the homes of all the
missing PRS members checked. That would result, undoubtedly, in the
discovery that the PRS members involved weren’t in their homes. He
could have their files impounded, which would clutter everything with
a great many more pieces of paper, and none of the pieces of paper
would do any good to him. In general, he could have the entire FBI
chasing all over hell and gone—and finding nothing whatever.
No, it would be a waste of time, he told himself. That much was
certain.
And, though he probably had enough evidence to get the FBI in motion,
he had nowhere near enough to carry the case into court, much less
make a try at getting the case to stand up in court. That was one
thing he couldn’t do, even if he wanted to: issue warrants for arrest
on any basis whatever.
But Malone was an FBI agent, and his motto was: “There’s always a
way.” No normal method of tracking down the PRS members, and finding
their present whereabouts, was going to work. They’d been covering
themselves for such an emergency, undoubtedly, for a good many years
and, due to telepathy, they certainly knew enough not to leave any
clues around, of any kind.
But nobody, Malone told himself, was perfect. There were clues lying
around somewhere, he was sure of that; there had to be. The problem
was, simply, to figure out where to look, and what to look for.
Somewhere, the clues were sitting quietly and waiting for him to find
them. The thought cheered him slightly, but not very much. Instead, he
went into the kitchen and started heating water for coffee. He thought
there might be a long night ahead of him, and sighed gently. But there
was no help for it. The work had to be done, and done quickly.
But when eight cigars had been reduced to ash, and what seemed like
several gallons of coffee had sloshed their way into Malone’s interior
workings, his mind was as blank as a baby’s. The lovely, opalescent
dawn began to show in the East, and Malone swore at it. Then, haggard,
red-eyed, confused, violently angry, and not one inch closer to a
solution, he fell into a fitful doze on his couch.
* * * * *
When he awoke the sun was high in the sky, and outside his window the
cheerful sound of traffic floated in the air. Downstairs somebody was
playing a television set too loudly, and the voice reached Malone’s
semi-aware mind in a great tinny shout:
“And now, the makers of Bon-Ton B-Complex Bolsters—the blanket of
health—present Mother Kohler’s Chit-Chat Hour!”
The invisible audience screamed and howled. Malone ripped out a
particularly foul oath and sat up on the couch. “That,” he muttered,
“is a fine thing to wake up to.” He focused his eyes, with only
slight difficulty, on his watch. The time was exactly noon.