“But the important thing here,” Dr. O’Connor said, “is the timing. You see, Charlie was incapable of continued concentration. He could not keep his mind focused on another mind for very long, before he hopped to still another. The actual amount of time concentrated on any given mind at any single given period varied from a minimum of one point three seconds to a maximum of two point six. The timing samples, when plotted graphically over a period of several months, formed a skewed bell curve with a mode at two point oh seconds.”
“Ah,” Malone said, wondering if a skewed ball curve was the same thing as a belled skew curve, and if not, why not?
“It was, in fact,” Dr. O’Connor continued relentlessly, “a sudden variation in those timings which convinced us that there was another telepath somewhere in the vicinity. We were conducting a second set of reading experiments, in precisely the same manner as the first set, and, for the first part of the experiment, our figures were substantially the same. But—” He stopped.
“Yes?” Malone said, shifting his feet and trying to take some weight off his left foot by standing on his right leg. Then he stood on his left leg. It didn’t seem to do any good.
“I should explain,” Dr. O’Connor said, “that we were conducting this series with a new set of test subjects: some of the scientists here at Yucca Flats. We wanted to see if the intelligence quotients of the subjects affected the time of contact which Charlie was able to maintain. Naturally, we picked the men here with the highest IQ’s, the two men we have who are in the top echelon of the creative genius class.” He cleared his throat. “I did not include myself, of course, since I wished to remain an impartial observer, as much as possible.”
“Of course,” Malone said without surprise.
“The other two geniuses,” Dr. O’Connor said, “the other two geniuses both happen to be connected with the project known as Project Isle—an operation whose function I neither know, nor care to know, anything at all about.”
Malone nodded. Project Isle was the non-rocket spaceship. Classified. Top Secret. Ultra Secret. And, he thought, just about anything else you could think of.
“At first,” Dr. O’Connor was saying, “our detector recorded the time periods of—ah—mental invasion as being the same as before. Then, one day, anomalies began to appear. The detector showed that the minds of our subjects were being held for as long as two or three minutes. But the phrases repeated by Charlie during these periods showed that his own contact time remained the same; that is, they fell within the same skewed bell curve as before, and the mode remained constant if nothing but the phrase length were recorded.”
“Hmm,” Malone said, feeling that he ought to be saying something.
Dr. O’Connor didn’t notice him. “At first we thought of errors in the detector machine,” he went on. “That worried us not somewhat, since our understanding of the detector is definitely limited at this time. We do feel that it would be possible to replace some of the electronic components with appropriate symbolization like that already used in the purely psionic sections, but we have, as yet, been unable to determine exactly which electronic components must be replaced by what symbolic components.”
Malone nodded, silently this time. He had the sudden feeling that Dr. O’Connor’s flow of words had broken itself up into a vast sea of alphabet soup, and that he, Malone, was occupied in drowning in it.
“However,” Dr. O’Connor said, breaking what was left of Malone’s train of thought, “young Charlie died soon thereafter, and we decided to go on checking the machine. It was during this period that we found someone else reading the minds of our test subjects—sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for several minutes.”
“Aha,” Malone said. Things were beginning to make sense again. Someone else. That, of course, was the spy.
“I found,” Dr. O’Connor said, “on interrogating the subjects more closely, that they were, in effect, thinking on two levels. They were reading the book mechanically, noting the words and sense, but simply shuttling the material directly into their memories without actually thinking about it. The actual thinking portions of their minds were concentrating on aspects of Project Isle.”
There was a little silence.
“In other words,” Malone said, “someone was spying on them for information about Project Isle?”
“Precisely,” Dr. O’Connor said with a frosty, teacher-to-student smile. “And whoever it was had a much higher concentration time than Charlie had ever attained. He seems to be able to retain contact as long as he can find useful information flowing in the mind being read.”
“Wait a minute,” Malone said. “Wait a minute. If this spy is so clever, how come he didn’t read your mind?”
“It is very likely that he has,” O’Connor said. “What does that have to do with it?”
“Well,” Malone said, “if he knows you and your group are working on telepathy and can detect what he’s doing, why didn’t he just hold off on the minds of those geniuses when they were being tested in your machine?”
Dr. O’Connor frowned. “I’m afraid that I can’t be sure,” he said, and it was clear from his tone that, if Dr. Thomas O’Connor wasn’t sure, no one in the entire world was, had been, or ever would be. “I do have a theory, however,” he said, brightening up a trifle.
Malone waited patiently.
“He must know our limitations,” Dr. O’Connor said at last. “He must be perfectly well aware that there’s not a single thing we can do about him. He must know that we can neither find nor stop him. Why should he worry? He can afford to ignore us—or even bait us. We’re helpless, and he knows it.”
That, Malone thought, was about the most cheerless thought he had heard in sometime.
“You mentioned that you had an insulated room,” the FBI agent said after a while. “Couldn’t you let your men think in there?”
Dr. O’Connor sighed. “The room is shielded against magnetic fields and electro-magnetic radiation. It is perfectly transparent to psionic phenomena, just as it is to gravitational fields.”
“Oh,” Malone said. He realized rapidly that his question had been a little silly to begin with, since the insulated room had been the place where all the tests had been conducted in the first place. “I don’t want to take up too much of your time, Doctor,” he said after a pause, “but there are a couple of other questions.”
“Go right ahead,” Dr. O’Connor said. “I’m sure I’ll be able to help you.”
Malone thought of mentioning how little help the Doctor had been to date, but decided against it. Why antagonize a perfectly good scientist without any reason? Instead, he selected his first question, and asked it. “Have you got any idea how we might lay our hands on another telepath? Preferably one that’s not an imbecile, of course.”
Dr. O’Connor’s expression changed from patient wisdom to irritation. “I wish we could, Mr. Malone. I wish we could. We certainly need one here to help us here with our work—and I’m sure that your work is important, too. But I’m afraid we have no ideas at all about finding another telepath. Finding little Charlie was purely fortuitous—purely, Mr. Malone, fortuitous.”
“Ah,” Malone said. “Sure. Of course.” He thought rapidly and discovered that he couldn’t come up with one more question. As a matter of fact, he’d asked a couple of questions already, and he could barely remember the answers. “Well,” he said, “I guess that’s about it, then, Doctor. If you come across anything else, be sure and let me know.”
He leaned across the desk, extending a hand. “And thanks for your time,” he added.
Dr. O’Connor stood up and shook his hand. “No trouble, I assure you,” he said. “And I’ll certainly give you all the information I can.”
Malone turned and walked out. Surprisingly, he discovered that his feet and legs still worked. He had thought they’d turned to stone in the office long before.
* * * *
It was on the plane back to Washington that Malone got his first in
kling of an idea.
The only telepath that the Westinghouse boys had been able to turn up was Charles O’Neill, the youthful imbecile.
All right, then. Suppose there were another like him. Imbeciles weren’t very difficult to locate. Most of them would be in institutions, and the others would certainly be on record. It might be possible to find someone, anyway, who could be handled and used as a tool to find a telepathic spy.
And—happy thought!—maybe one of them would turn out to be a high- grade imbecile, or even a moron.
Even if they only turned up another imbecile, he thought wearily, at least Dr. O’Connor would have something to work with.
He reported back to Burris when he arrived in Washington, told him about the interview with Dr. O’Connor, and explained what had come to seem a rather feeble brainstorm.
“It doesn’t seem too productive,” Burris said, with a shade of disappointment in his voice, “but we’ll try it.”
At that, it was a better verdict than Malone had tried for. Though, of course, it meant extra work for him.
Orders went out to field agents all over the United States, and, quietly but efficiently, the FBI went to work. Agents began to probe and pry and poke their noses into the files and data sheets of every mental institution in the fifty states—as far, at any rate, as they were able.
And Kenneth J. Malone was in the lead.
There had been some talk of his staying in Washington to collate the reports as they came in, but that had sounded even worse than having to visit hospitals. “You don’t need me to do a job like that,” he’d told Burris. “Let’s face it, Chief: if we find a telepath the agent who finds him will say so. If we don’t, he’ll say that, too. You could get a chimpanzee to collate reports like that.”
Burris looked at him speculatively, and for one horrible second Malone could almost hear him sending out an order to find, and hire, a chimpanzee (after Security clearance, of course, for whatever organizations a chimpanzee could join). But all he said, in what was almost a mild voice, was: “All right, Malone. And don’t call me Chief.”
The very mildness of his tone showed how worried the man was, Malone realized, and he set out for the first hospital on his own list with grim determination written all over his face and a heartbeat that seemed to hammer at him that his country expected every man to do his duty.
“I find my duty hard to do today,” he murmured under his breath. It was all right to tell himself that he had to find a telepath. But how did you go about it? Did you just knock on hospital doors and ask them if they had anybody who could read minds?
“You know,” Malone told himself in a surprised tone, “that isn’t such a bad idea.” It would, at any rate, let him know whether the hospital had any patients who thought they could read minds. From them on, it would probably be simple to apply a test, and separate the telepathic sheep from the psychotic goats.
The image that created in his mind was so odd that Malone, in self- defense, stopped thinking altogether until he’d reached the first hospital, a small place situated in the shrinking countryside West of Washington.
It was called, he knew, the Rice Pavilion.
* * * *
The place was small, and white. It bore a faint resemblance to Monticello, but then that was true, Malone reflected, of eight out of ten public buildings of all sorts. The front door was large and opaque, and Malone went up the winding driveway, climbed a short flight of marble steps, and rapped sharply.
The door opened instantly. “Yes?” said the man inside, a tall, balding fellow wearing doctor’s whites and a sad, bloodhound-like expression.
“Yes,” Malone said automatically. “I mean—my name is Kenneth J. Malone.”
“Mine,” said the bloodhound, “is Blake. Doctor Andrew Blake.” There was a brief pause. “Is there anything we can do for you?” the doctor went on.
“Well,” Malone said, “I’m looking for people who can read minds.”
Blake didn’t seem at all surprised. He nodded quietly. “Of course,” he said. “I understand perfectly.”
“Good,” Malone told him. “You see, I thought I’d have a little trouble finding—”
“Oh, no trouble at all, I assure you,” Blake went on, just as mournfully as ever. “You’ve come to the right place, believe me, Mr.—ah—”
“Malone,” Malone said. “Kenneth J. Frankly, I didn’t think I’d hit the jackpot this early—I mean, you were the first on my list—”
The doctor seemed suddenly to realize that the two of them were standing out on the portico. “Won’t you come inside?” he said, with a friendly gesture. He stepped aside and Malone walked through the doorway.
Just inside it, three men grabbed him.
Malone, surprised by this sudden reception, fought with every ounce of his FBI training. But the three men had his surprise on their side, and three against one was heavy odds for any man, trained or not.
His neck placed firmly between one upper and lower arm, his legs pinioned and his arms flailing wildly, Malone managed to shout: “What the hell is this? What’s going on?”
Dr. Blake was watching the entire operation from a standpoint a few feet away. He didn’t look as if his expression were ever going to change.
“It’s all for your own good, Mr. Malone,” he said calmly. “Please believe me.”
“My God!” Malone said. He caught somebody’s face with one hand and then somebody else grabbed the hand and folded it back with irresistible force. He had one arm free, and he tried to use it—but not for long. “You think I’m nuts!” he shouted, as the three men produced a strait-jacket from somewhere and began to cram him into it. “Wait!” he cried, as the canvas began to cramp him. “You’re wrong! You’re making a terrible mistake!”
“Of course,” Dr. Blake said. “But if you’ll just relax we’ll soon be able to help you—”
The strait-jacket was on. Malone sagged inside it like a rather large and sweaty butterfly rewrapped in a cocoon. Dimly, he realized that he sounded like every other nut in the world. All of them would be sure to tell the doctor and the attendants that they were making a mistake. All of them would claim they were sane.
There was, of course, a slight difference. But how could Malone manage to prove it? The three men held him up.
“Now, now,” Dr. Blake said. “You can walk, Mr. Malone. Suppose you just follow me to your room—”
“My room?” Malone said. “Now, you listen to me, Doctor. If you don’t take this stuff off me at once I promise you the President will hear of it. And I don’t know how he’ll take interference in a vital mission—”
“The President?” Blake asked quietly. “What President, Mr. Malone?”
“The President of the United States, damn it!” Malone shouted.
“Hmm,” Blake said.
That was no good, either, Malone realized. Every nut would have some sort of direct pipeline to the President, or God, or somebody high up. Nuts were like that.
But he was an FBI Agent. A special agent on a vital mission.
He said so.
“Now, now, Mr. Malone,” Blake told him. “Let’s get to your room, shall we, and then we can talk things over.”
“I can prove it!” Malone told him. The three men picked him up. “My identification is in my pocket—”
“Really?” Blake said.
They started moving down the long front hall.
“All you have to do is take this thing off so I can get at my pockets—”
Malone began.
But even he could see that this new plan wasn’t going to work, either.
“Take it off?” Blake said. “Oh, certainly, Mr. Malone. Certainly. Just as soon as we have you comfortably settled.”
It was ridiculous, Malone told himself as the men carried him away. It couldn’t happen: an FBI agent mistaken for a nut, wrapped in a strait- jacket and carried to a padded cell.
Unfortunately, ridiculous or not, it was happening.
; And there was absolutely nothing to do about it.
Malone thought with real longing of his nice, safe desk in Washington. Suddenly he discovered in himself a great desire to sit around and collate reports. But no—he had to be a hero. He had to go and get himself involved.
This, he thought, will teach me a great lesson. The next time I get offered a job a chimpanzee can do, I’ll start eating bananas.
It was at this point in his reflections that he reached a small door. Dr. Blake opened it and the three men carried Malone inside. He was dumped carefully on the floor. Then the door clanged shut.
Alone, Malone told himself bitterly, at last.
* * * *
After a minute or so had gone by he began to think about getting out. He could, it occurred to him, scream for help. But that would only bring more attendants, and very possibly Dr. Blake again, and somehow Malone felt that further conversation with Dr. Blake was not likely to lead to any very rational end.
Sooner or later, he knew, they would have to let him loose.
After all, he was an FBI agent, wasn’t he?
Alone, in a single cheerless cell, caught up in the toils of a strait- jacket, he began to doubt the fact. Maybe Blake was right; maybe they were all right. Maybe he, Kenneth J. Malone, was totally mad.
He told himself firmly that the idea was ridiculous.
But, then, what wasn’t?
The minutes ticked slowly by. After a while the three guards came back, opening the door and filing into the room carefully. Malone, feeling more than ever like something in a cocoon, watched them with interest. They shut the door carefully behind them and stood before him.
“Now, then,” one of them said. “We’re going to take the jacket off, if you promise to be a good boy.”
“Sure,” Malone said. “And when you take my clothing, look in the pockets.”
“The pockets?”
“To find my FBI identification,” Malone said wearily. He only half- believed the idea himself, but half a belief, he told himself confusedly, was better than no mind at all. The attendants nodded solemnly.
“Sure we will,” one of them said, “if you’re a good boy and don’t act up rough on us now. Okay?”
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