Randall Garrett

“ Malone said, tentatively: "Because there's nothing to laugh about, sir?"
Burris whirled. "On the head!" he said happily. "You've hit the nail on the head, Kenneth. I knew I could depend on you." His voice grew serious again, and thoughtful. "We're not laughing any more because there's nothing to laugh about. We have orbital satellites, and we've landed on the Moon with an atomic rocket. The planets are the next step, and after that the stars. Man's heritage, Kenneth. The stars. And the stars, Kenneth, belong to Man—not to the Soviets!" ”

“ At one, a poker game was in full swing. Only five were playing; one, by his white-tie-and-tails uniform, was easily recognizable as a house dealer. The other four were all men, one of them in full cowboy regalia. The Tudors descended upon them with great suddenness, and the house dealer looked up and almost lost his cigarette.
"We haven't any money, Your Majesty," Malone whispered.
She smiled up at him sweetly, and then drew him aside. "If you were a telepath," she said, "how would you play poker?"
Malone thought about that for a minute, and then turned to look for Boyd. ”

“ The Queen said: "I'll try one for size." She'd picked up poker lingo, and the basic rules of the game, Malone realized, from the other players—or possibly from someone at the hospital itself, years ago.
He wished she'd picked up something less dangerous instead, like a love of big-game hunting, or stunt-flying.
But no. It had to be poker.
The Queen threw away her seven of spades, showing more sense than Malone had given her credit for at any time during the game. She let the other card fall and didn't look at it.
She smiled up at Malone and Boyd. "Live dangerously," she said gaily. ”

“ Malone took a step forward, but Burris interrupted him. "How about the spy?" he said.
Then his eyes widened. Boyd, standing next to him, leaned suddenly forward. "That's why you mentioned all that about legal immunity because of insanity," he whispered. "Because—"
"No," Barbara said. "No. She couldn't ... she's not—"
They were all looking at Her Majesty, now. She returned them stare for stare, her back stiff and straight and her white hair enhaloed in the room's light. "Sir Kenneth," she said—and her voice was only the least bit unsteady—"they all think I'm the spy." ”

“ O'Connor began, and smiled again, "if your mind were being read, this machine would detect it, supposing that the machine were in operating condition and all of the other qualifications had been met. You see, Mr. Burris, no matter how poor a telepath a man may be, he has some slight ability—even if only very slight—to detect the fact that his mind is being read." ”

“ Malone knew just how she felt.
One of the psychiatrists spoke up suddenly. "I don't understand it," he said. "Logan is completely catatonic. Even if he could read minds, how could he tell Dowson what he'd read? It doesn't make sense."
"In the first place," the Queen said patiently, "Willie isn't catatonic. He's just busy, that's all. He's only a boy, and ... well, he doesn't much like being who he is. So he visits other people's minds, and that way he becomes them for a while. ”

“ Malone, in the first car, wondered briefly about the kind of patients they catered to? People driven mad by vingt-et-un or poker-dice? Neurotic chorus ponies? Gambling czars with delusions of non-persecution?
Sitting in the front seat next to Boyd, he watched the unhappy San Francisco agent manipulating the wheel. In the back seat, Queen Elizabeth Thompson and Lady Barbara, the nurse, were located, and Her Majesty was chattering away like a magpie. ”

“ It was on the plane back to Washington that Malone got his first inkling 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 one 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. ”

“ Burris said. "We won't quarrel about terms."
"Certainly not," Dr. O'Connor said. The smile he turned on Burris was as cold and empty as the inside of Orbital Station One. "What I meant was ... if you will permit me to continue ... that we cannot detect any sort of telepath or mind reader with this device. To be frank, I very much wish that we could; it would make everything a great deal simpler. However, the laws of psionics don't seem to operate that way."
"Well, then," Burris said, "what does the thing do?" His face wore a mask of confusion. Momentarily, Malone felt sorry for his chief. ”

“ But Sir Thomas kept his eyes grimly on the road as he gunned the powerful Lincoln toward the Yucca Flats Labs at eighty miles an hour.
Malone twisted himself around and faced the women in the back seat. Past them, through the rear window of the Lincoln, he could see the second car. It followed them gamely, carrying the newest addition to Sir Kenneth Malone's Collection of Bats.
"Bats?" Her Majesty said suddenly, but gently. "Shame on you, Sir Kenneth. These are poor, sick people. We must do our best to help them—not to think up silly names for them. ”

“ Malone said.
"We can't afford to overlook a thing," Burris said.
Malone sighed. "I know," he said. "But all the same—"
"Don't worry about a thing, Malone," Burris said with a palpably false air of confidence. "You get this Queen Elizabeth of yours out of there and take her to Yucca Flats, too."
Malone considered the possibilities. Maybe they would find more telepaths. Maybe all the telepaths would be nuts. It didn't seem unlikely. Imagine having a talent that nobody would believe you had. It might very easily drive you crazy to be faced with a situation like that. ”

“ Malone said wearily. He sighed and, for the fifth time that day, he asked: "Does Your Majesty have any idea where our spy is now?"
"Well, really, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said with the slightest of hesitations, "it isn't easy, you know. Telepathy has certain laws, just like everything else. After all, even a game has laws. Being telepathic did not help me to play poker—I still had to learn the rules. And telepathy has rules, too. A telepath can easily confuse another telepath by using some of those rules."
"Oh, fine," Malone said. "Well, have you got into contact with his mind yet?" ”

“ He jumps from mind to mind, simply repeating whatever he receives." His face assumed the expression of a man remembering a bad taste in his mouth. "That's how we found him out, Mr. Malone," he said. "It's rather startling to look at a blithering idiot and have him suddenly repeat the very thought that's in your mind."
Malone nodded unhappily. It didn't seem as if O'Connor's information was going to be a lot of help as far as catching a telepath was concerned. An imbecile, apparently, would give himself away if he were a telepath. ”

“ Malone said. "Let's get right down to business, then. The first thing I want to ask you about is this detector of yours. I understand it's too big to carry around—but how about making a smaller model?"
"Smaller?" Dr. O'Connor permitted himself a ghostly chuckle. "I'm afraid that isn't possible, Mr. Malone. I would be happy to let you have a small model of the machine if we had one available—more than happy. I would like to see such a machine myself, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, Mr. Malone—"
"There just isn't one, right?" Malone said. ”

“ It was not an easy job. The inalienable right of a physician to refuse to disclose confidences respecting a patient applied even to idiots, imbeciles, and morons. Not even the FBI could open the private files of a licensed and registered psychiatrist.
But the field agents did the best they could and, considering the circumstances, their best was pretty good.
Malone, meanwhile, put in two weeks sitting glumly at his Washington desk and checking reports as they arrived. They were uniformly depressing. The United States of America contained more subnormal minds than Malone cared to think about. ”

“ Malone said easily.
Boyd broke in. "Listen, Malone," he said, "do you mind telling me what is going on?"
"It's very simple," Malone said. "Miss Thompson here ... pardon me; I mean Queen Elizabeth I ... really is a telepath. That's all. I think I want to lie down somewhere until it goes away."
"Until what goes away?" Miss Wilson said.
Malone stared at her almost without seeing her, if not quite. "Everything," he said. He closed his eyes.
"My goodness," the little old lady said after a second. "Everything's so confused. Poor Mr. Malone is terribly shaken up by everything." ”

“ Malone couldn't get close enough to the fiercely blazing automobile to make even a try for the men in the back seat.
He was sitting quietly on the edge of the rear seat when the Nevada Highway Patrol cars drove up next to them. Barbara Wilson had stopped screaming, but she was still sobbing on Malone's shoulder. "It's all right," he told her, feeling ineffectual.
"I never saw anybody killed before," she said.
"It's all right," Malone said. "Nothing's going to hurt you. I'll protect you." ”

“ In other words, the Yucca Flats plant was infested with a telepathic spy. And how do you go about finding a telepath? Malone sighed. Spies that got information in any of the usual ways were tough enough to locate. A telepathic spy was a lot tougher proposition.
Well, one thing about Andrew J. Burris—he had an answer for everything. Malone thought of what his chief had said: "It takes a thief to catch a thief. And if the Westinghouse machine won't locate a telepathic spy, I know what will." ”

“ He smiled into the video cameras and cleared his throat. "I take it you don't want an explanation of how this machine works. I mean: you don't want a technical exposition, do you?"
"No," Burris said, and added: "Not by any means. Just tell us what it does."
Dr. O'Connor suddenly reminded Malone of a professor he'd had in college for one of the law courses. He had, Malone thought, the same smiling gravity of demeanor, the same condescending attitude of absolute authority. It was clear that Dr. O'Connor lived in a world of his own, a world that was not even touched by the common run of men. ”

“ Dowson said: "Now, Mr. Malone, just what is all this about?" He rubbed his long hands together. "I fail to see the humor of the situation."
"Humor?" Malone said.
"Doctor," Barbara Wilson began, "let me explain. You see—"
"These ridiculous costumes," Dr. Dowson said, waving a hand at them. "You may feel that poking fun at insanity is humorous, Mr. Malone, but let me tell you—"
"It wasn't like that at all," Boyd said.
"And," Dr. Dowson continued in a somewhat louder voice, "wanting to take Mr. Logan away from us. Mr. Logan is a very sick man, Mr. Malone. He should be properly cared for." ”

“ She thinks she's Queen Elizabeth I. She's a telepath, sure, but she's nuts."
"Queen Elizabeth?" Burris said. "Of England?"
"That's right," Malone said. He held his breath.
"Damn it," Burris exploded, "they've already got one."
Malone sighed. "This is another one," he said. "Or, rather, the original one. She also claims she's immortal."
"Lives forever?" Burris said. "You mean like that?"
"Immortal," Malone said. "Right."
Burris nodded. Then he looked worried. "Tell me, Malone," he said. "She isn't, is she?"
"Isn't immortal, you mean?" Malone said. Burris nodded. ”

“ But Boyd shook off the pain and brought out his own .44 as he stepped out of the car. Malone followed him, his gun trained.
From the rear, Her Majesty said: "It's safe to rise now, isn't it?"
"You ought to know," Malone said. "You can tell if they're still alive."
There was silence while Queen Elizabeth frowned for a moment in concentration. A look of pain crossed her face, and then, as her expression smoothed again, she said: "The traitors are dead. All except one, and he's—" She paused. "He's dying," she finished. "He can't hurt you." ”

“ Malone," Barbara Wilson said suddenly. "I—"
"It's all right, child," the Queen said. "He doesn't disturb me. And I do wish you'd call him Sir Kenneth. That's his title, you know."
"Now that's what I mean," Malone said. "Why do you want us to act as if we believe you, when you know we don't?"
"Because that's the way people do act," the Queen said calmly. "Very few people really believe that their so-called superiors are superior. Almost none of them do, in fact."
"Now wait a minute," Boyd began. ”

“ And, at the moment, his tone expressed all the hopelessness of that Old Testament prophet's lamentations.
"We're helpless," he said, looking at the young man with the crisp brown hair who was sitting across the desk. "That's what it is, we're helpless."
Kenneth Malone tried to look dependable. "Just tell me what to do," he said.
"You're a good agent, Kenneth," Burris said. "You're one of the best. That's why you've been picked for this job. ”

“ Her Majesty said with a little trill of laughter, "not you, Sir Kenneth. I meant Mr. Miles."
Sir Thomas Boyd asked: "Mr. Miles?"
"That's right," Her Majesty said. "His name is Barry Miles, and your FBI men found him an hour ago in New Orleans. They're bringing him to Yucca Flats to meet the rest of us; isn't that nice?"
Lady Barbara cleared her throat.
"It really isn't necessary for you to try to get my attention, dear," the Queen said. "After all, I do know what you're thinking."
Lady Barbara blinked. "I still want to suggest, respectfully, about that nap—" she began. ”

“ Boyd said. "Say Judge Dunning," he said. "Good man. Fast worker."
"I don't care who," Malone said. "Just get going, and get us a release for Miss Thompson." He turned back to the doctor. "By the way," he said, "has she got any other name? Besides Elizabeth Tudor, I mean," he added hurriedly.
"Her full name," Dr. Harman said, "is Rose Walker Thompson. She is not Queen Elizabeth I, II, or XXVIII, and she is not immortal."
"But she is," Malone pointed out, "a telepath. And that's why I want her."
"She may," Dr. Harman said, "be a telepath." ”