Supermind
employed at Yucca Flats. Then he could tell Sir Lewis everything about
the case.
Now, of course, he could only hedge and try to make do without stating
very many facts. “Sir Lewis,” he said, “I trust you’ll keep this
conversation confidential.”
“Naturally,” Sir Lewis said. He removed the pipe, stared at it, and
replaced it.
“I can’t give you the full details,” Malone went on, “but the FBI is
presently engaged in an investigation which requires the specialized
knowledge your organization seems to have.”
“FBI?” Sir Lewis said. “Specialized investigation?” He seemed pleased,
but a trifle puzzled. “Dear boy, anything we have is at your disposal,
of course. But I quite fail to see how you can consider us—”
“It’s rather an unusual problem,” Malone said, feeling that that was
the understatement of the year. “But I understand that your records go
back nearly a century.”
“Quite true,” Sir Lewis murmured.
“During that time,” Malone said, “the Society investigated a great
many supposedly supernatural or supernormal incidents.”
“Many of them,” Sir Lewis said, “were discovered to be fraudulent, I’m
afraid. The great majority, in fact.”
“That’s what I’d assume,” Malone said. He fished in his pockets, found
a cigarette and lit it. Sir Lewis went on chewing at his unlit pipe.
“What we’re interested in,” Malone said, “is some description of the
various methods by which these frauds were perpetrated.”
“Ah,” Sir Lewis said. “The tricks of the trade, so to speak?”
“Exactly,” Malone said.
“Well, then,” Sir Lewis said. “The luminous gauze, for instance, that
passes for ectoplasm; the various methods of table-lifting; control of
the Ouija board—things like that?”
“Not quite that elementary,” Malone said. He puffed on the cigarette,
wishing it was a cigar. “We’re pretty much up to that kind of thing.
But had it ever occurred to you that many of the methods used by phony
mind-reading acts, for instance, might be used as communication
methods by spies?”
“Why, I believe some have been,” Sir Lewis said. “Though I don’t know
much about that, of course; there was a case during the First World
War—”
“Exactly,” Malone said. He took a deep breath. “It’s things like that
we’re interested in,” he said, and spent the next twenty minutes
slowly approaching his subject. Sir Lewis, apparently fascinated, was
perfectly willing to unbend in any direction, and jotted down notes on
some of Malone’s more interesting cases, murmuring: “Most unusual,
most unusual,” as he wrote.
The various types of phenomena that the Society had investigated came
into the discussion, and Malone heard quite a lot about the Beyond,
the Great Summerland, Spirit Mediums and the hypothetical existence of
fairies, goblins and elves.
“But, Sir Lewis—” he said.
“I make no claims personally,” Sir Lewis said. “But I understand that
there is a large and somewhat vocal group which does make rather
solid-sounding claims in that direction. They say that they have seen
fairies, talked with goblins, danced with the elves.”
“They must be very unusual people,” Malone said, understating heavily.
“Oh,” Sir Lewis said, without a trace of irony, “they certainly are.”
Talk like this passed away nearly a half-hour, until Malone finally
felt that it was the right time to introduce some of his real
questions. “Tell me, Sir Lewis,” he said. “Have you had many instances
of a single man, or a small group of men, controlling the actions of a
much larger group? And doing it in such a way that the larger group
doesn’t even know it is being manipulated?”
“Of course I have,” Sir Lewis said. “And so have you. They call it
advertising.”
Malone flicked his cigarette into an ashtray. “I didn’t mean exactly
that,” he said. “Suppose they’re doing it in such a way that the
larger group doesn’t even suspect that manipulation is going on?”
Sir Lewis removed his pipe and frowned at it. “I may be able to give
you a little information,” he said slowly, “but not much.”
“Ah?” Malone said, trying to sound only mildly interested.
“Outside of mob psychology,” Sir Lewis said, “and all that sort of
thing, I really haven’t seen any record of a case of such a thing
happening. And I can’t quite imagine anyone faking it.”
“But you have got some information?” Malone said.
“Certainly,” Sir Lewis said. “There is always spirit control.”
“Spirit control?” Malone blinked.
“Demoniac intervention,” Sir Lewis said. “‘My name is Legion,’ you
know.”
Sir Lewis Legion, Malone thought confusedly, was a rather unusual
name. He took a breath and caught hold of his revolving mind. “How
would you go about that?” he said, a little hopelessly.
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Sir Lewis admitted cheerfully. “But I will
have it looked up for you.” He made a note. “Anything else?”
Malone tried to think. “Yes,” he said at last. “Can you give me a
condensed report on what is known—and I mean _known_—on telepathy
and teleportation?”
“What you want,” Sir Lewis said, “are those cases proven genuine, not
the ones in which we have established fraud, or those still in doubt.”
“Exactly,” Malone said. If he got no other use out of the data, it
would provide a measuring-stick for the Society. The general public
didn’t know that the Government was actually using psionic powers, and
the Society’s theories, checked against actual fact, would provide a
rough index of reliability to use on the Society’s other data.
But spirits, somehow, didn’t seem very likely. Malone sighed and stood
up.
“I’ll have copies made of all the relevant material,” Sir Lewis said,
“from our library and research files. Where do you want the material
sent? I do want to warn you of its bulk; there may be quite a lot of
it.”
“FBI Headquarters, on 69th Street,” Malone said. “And send a statement
of expenses along with it. As long as the bill’s within reason, don’t
worry about itemizing; I’ll see that it goes through Accounting
myself.”
Sir Lewis nodded. “Fine,” he said. “And, if you should have any
difficulties with the material, please let me know. I’ll always be
glad to help.”
“Thanks for your co-operation,” Malone said. He went to the door, and
walked on out.
He blundered back into the same big room again, on his way through the
corridors. The bulbous-eyed woman, who seemed to have inherited a full
set of thirty-two teeth from each of her parents, gave him a friendly
if somewhat crowded smile, but Malone pressed on without a word. After
awhile, he found the reception room again.
The girl behind the desk looked up. “How did he react?” she said.
Malone blinked. “React?” he said.
“When you sneezed at him,” she said. “Because I’ve been thinking it
over, and I’ve got a new theory. You’re doing a survey on how people
act when encountering sneezes. Like Kinsey.”
This girl—Lou something, Malone thought, and with difficulty
refrained from adding “Gehrig”—had an unusual effect, he decided. He
wondered if there were anyone in the world she couldn’t reduce to
paralyzed silence.
“Of course,” she went on, “Kinsey was dealing with sex, and you
aren’t. At least, you aren’t during business hours.” She smiled
politely at Malone.
“No,” he said helplessly, “I’m not.”
“It is sneezing, then,” she said. “Will I be in the book when it’s
published?”
“Book?” Malone said, feeling more and more like a rather low-grade
moron.
“The book on sneezing, when you get it published,” she said. “I can
see it now: _The Case of Miss X, a Receptionist_.”
“There isn’t going to be any book,” Malone said.
She shook her head. “That’s a shame,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to
be a Miss X. It sounds exciting.”
“X,” Malone said at random, “marks the spot.”
“Why, that’s the sweetest thing that’s been said to me all day,” the
girl said. “I thought you could hardly talk, and here you come out
with lovely things like that. But I’ll bet you say it to all the
girls.”
“I have never said it to anybody before,” Malone said flatly. “And I
never will again.”
The girl sighed. “I’ll treasure it,” she said. “My one great moment.
Goodbye, Mr.—Malone, isn’t it?”
“Ken,” Malone said. “Just call me Ken.”
“And I’m Lou,” the girl said. “Goodbye.”
An elevator arrived and Malone ducked into it. Louie? he thought.
Louise? Luke? Of course, there was Sir Lewis Carter, who might be
called Lou. Was he related to the girl?
No, Malone thought wildly. Relations went by last names. There was no
reason for Lou to be related to Sir Lewis. They didn’t even look
alike. For instance, he had no desire whatever to make a date with Sir
Lewis Carter, or to take him to a glittering night-club, or to make him
any whispered propositions. And the very idea of Sir Lewis Carter
sitting on the Malone lap was enough to give him indigestion and spots
before the eyes.
Sternly, he told himself to get back to business. The elevator stopped
at the lobby and he got out and started down the street, feeling that
consideration of the lady known as Lou was much more pleasant. After
all, what did he have to work with, as far as his job was concerned?
So far, two experts had told him that his theory was full of lovely
little holes. Worse than that, they had told him that mass control of
human beings was impossible, as far as they knew.
And maybe it was impossible, he told himself sadly. Maybe he should
just junk his whole theory and think up a new one. Maybe there was no
psionics involved in the thing at all, and Boyd and O’Connor were
right.
Of course, he had a deep-seated conviction that psionics was somewhere
at the root of everything, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
A lot of people had deep-seated convictions that they were beetles, or
that the world was flat And then again, murderers often suffered as a
result of deep-seated convictions of one sort or another.
On the other hand, maybe he had invented a whole new psionic theory
or, at least, observed some new psionic facts. Maybe they would call
the results Malonizing, instead of O’Connorizing. He tried to picture
a man opening a door and saying: “Come out quick, Mr. Frembits is
Malonizing again.”
It didn’t sound very plausible. But, after all, he did have a
deep-seated conviction. He tried to think of a shallow-seated
conviction, and failed. Didn’t convictions ever stand up, anyhow, or
lie down?
He shook his head, discovered that he was on 69th Street, and headed
for the FBI Headquarters. His convictions, he had found, were
sometimes an expression of his precognitive powers; he determined to
ride with them, at least for awhile.
By the time he came to the office of the agent-in-charge, he had
figured out the beginnings of a new line of attack.
“How about the ghosts?” the agent-in-charge asked as he passed.
“They’ll be along,” Malone said. “In a big bundle, addressed to me
personally. And don’t open the bundle.”
“Why not?” the agent-in-charge asked.
“Because I don’t want the things to get loose and run around saying
boo to everybody,” Malone said brightly, and went on.
He opened the door of his private office, went inside and sat down at
the desk there. He took his time about framing a thought, a single,
clear, deliberate thought:
_Your Majesty, I’d like to speak to you._
He hardly had time to finish it. A flash of color appeared in the
room, just a few feet from his desk. The flash resolved itself into a
tiny, grandmotherly-looking woman with a corona of white hair and a
kindly, twinkling expression. She was dressed in the full court
costume of the First Elizabethan period, and this was hardly
surprising to Malone. The little old lady believed, quite firmly, that
she was Queen Elizabeth I, miraculously preserved over all these
centuries. Malone, himself, had practically forgotten that the woman’s