Supermind Part 22

"Telepathy," Her Majesty said patiently, "is an extremely complex affair. It involves a sort of mes.h.i.+ng with the mind of this other person. It has nothing, absolutely nothing, in common with this simple 'squirting' of thoughts across s.p.a.ce, as if they were orange pips you were trying to put into a wastebasket. No, Sir Kenneth, I cannot believe in what Mr. Taylor says."

"But it's still possible," Malone said.

"Oh," Her Majesty said, "it's certainly possible. But I should think that if any telepaths were around, and if they were changing people's minds by 'squirting' at them, I would know it."

Malone frowned. "Maybe you would at that," he said. "I guess you would."

"Not to mention," Boyd put in, "that if you were going to control everything we've come across like that you'd need an awful lot of telepathic operators."

"That's true," Malone admitted. "And the objections seem to make some sense. But what else is there to go on?"

"I don't know," Boyd said. "I haven't the faintest idea. And I'm rapidly approaching the stage where I don't care."

"Well," Malone said, heaving a sigh, "let's keep looking."

He bent down and picked up another sheaf of copies from the Psychical Research Society.

"After all," he said, without much hope, "you never know."

Malone looked around the office of Andrew J. Burris as if he'd never seen it before. He felt tired, and worn out, and depressed; it had been a long night, and here it was morning and the head of the FBI was giving him instructions. It was, Malone told himself, a h.e.l.l of a life.

"Now, Malone," Burris said, "this is a very ticklish situation. You've got to handle it with great care."

"I can see that," Malone said apprehensively. "It certainly looks ticklish. And unusual."

"Well, we don't want any trouble," Burris said. "We have enough trouble now."

"Sometimes I think we have too much," Malone said.

"That's our job," Burris said, looking grim.

Malone blinked. "What is?" he said.

"Having trouble," Burris said.

There was a short silence. Malone broke it. "Anyhow," he said, "you feel we have enough trouble, so we're trying to make things easy for everybody."

Burris nodded. "I've talked with the president," he said, "and he feels this is the best way to handle matters."

Malone tried to imagine Burris explaining the incredible complexities of the situation to the president, and was torn between relief that he hadn't been there and a curious wish to have heard the scrambled conversation that must have taken place. "The way it seems to me," he said cautiously, "s.h.i.+pping those spies back to Russia is a worse punishment than sending them to the federal pen."

"Maybe it is," Burris said. "Maybe it is. How would you feel if you were being sent to jail?"

"Innocent," Malone said instantly.

"But that isn't the point," Burris went on. "You see, Malone, we don't really have much damaging evidence against those spies, except for their confessions. During all the time we were watching them, we took care that they never did come up with anything dangerous; we weren't fis.h.i.+ng for them but for their superiors, for the rest of the network."

"There doesn't seem to be any more network," Malone said. "Not in this country, anyhow."

"Sure," Burris said. "We know that now, thanks to the confessions, and to Her Majesty. But we can't prosecute on that sort of evidence. You know what a good defense attorney could do with unsupported confessions--and even if we wanted to take the lid off telepathy for the general public, it would be absolute h.e.l.l bringing it into court."

"So," Malone said, "we can't put them in prison, even if we want to."

"Oh, I didn't say that," Burris said hastily. "We could probably win, even against a good defense. But they wouldn't get much time in prison, and we'd only end up deporting them in any case."

Malone fished for a cigarette, lit it and blew out smoke. "So we're going to save the taxpayers some money," he said. "That'll be nice for a change."

"That's right," Burris said, beaming. "We're going to save Federal funds by s.h.i.+pping them back to their motherland now. After all, they did take out their naturalization papers under false names, and their declarations are chockfull of false information. So all it takes is a court order to declare their citizens.h.i.+ps null and void, and hand all three of them back to the Soviets."

"A nice, simple housecleaning," Malone said. "All open and above-board. And the confessions will certainly stand up in a deportation hearing."

"No question of it," Burris said. "But the reason I called you here, Malone, is that there's still one thing bothering me."

Malone blew out some more smoke, thought wistfully about cigars, and said: "What? Everything seems simple enough to me."

Burris frowned and leaned back in his chair. "It's this notion of yours, Malone," he said.

"Notion?"

"About going over there," Burris said. "Now, I can understand your wanting some facts on Moscow, current background and all that sort of thing. So far, everything makes sense."

"Fine," Malone said warily.

"But, after all, Malone," Burris said, "we do have such a thing as the Central Intelligence Agency. They send us reports. That's what they're for. And why you want to ignore the reports and make a trip over there to walk around and see for yourself--"

"It's because of everything that's happening," Malone said.

Burris looked puzzled. "What?" he said.

"Because of all the confusion," Malone said. "Frankly, I can't trust the CIA, or any other branch of the government. I've got to see for myself."

Burris considered this for a second. "It's going to look very peculiar," he said.

Malone shrugged. "Everything looks peculiar," he said. "A little more won't hurt anything. And if I do turn up anything we can use, the whole trip will be worth it."

"But sending an FBI man along with Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch is a little strange," Burris said. "Not to mention Her Majesty."

"There is that," Malone said. "I wonder what our Red friends are going to think of the Queen."

"G.o.d knows," Burris said. "If they take her seriously, they're liable to call her some sort of capitalist deviationist."

"And if they don't take her seriously?" Malone said.

"Then they're going to wonder why she's _pretending_ to be a capitalist deviationist," Burris said.

Malone flicked his cigarette at an ashtray. "You can't win," he said.