Mike said: "But--" and was silent.
"I knew where you were going to be," Malone said. "You see, I"ve got a few--powers of my own, Mike."
Ramon Otravez said: "He"s kidding. It"s some kind of a trick."
"Shut up," Mike told him.
"It"s no trick," Malone said. "I"ve been waiting for you for quite a while, boys." He paused. "And you can"t move, can you? I"ve taken care of that."
"Some kind of gas," Mike said instantly.
"Gas?" Malone said. "Nope." He shook his head.
"Electricity," Mike said. It sounded desperate. "Some gimmick you"ve got set up back there behind the curtain, to--"
"No gimmick," Malone said. "It"s just that I know a couple of tricks, too--and I"m a little better at them than you are." The next minute was going to be difficult, he knew, but it had to be done. He "froze" the picture of the room in his mind and, at the same time, pictured himself at the other side of the room. He made the effort, and at first nothing happened. Then--
"You can do the Vanish," Mike said, very slowly and softly.
"Oh, I can do more than that," Malone said cheerfully from the other side of the room. "I can do the Vanish, and I can also keep you from doing it. Right?"
It hung in the balance for a second, but Malone was barely worried about the final outcome. He"d beaten the boys, not with scientific gadgetry or trickery, but at their own game. He"d done it simply, easily and completely. And for boys who were sure they were something very special, boys who"d never been beaten on their own grounds before, the shock was considerable.
Malone knew, even before Mike said: "I guess so," in a defeated voice, that he had won.
"Now," he said briskly, "you boys are going to come down to the FBI offices with me. And you"re not going to try any tricks--because you can"t get away with a thing, and you know you can"t. I"ve just proven that to you."
"I guess you have," Mike said.
Malone beckoned the three other men out of the back room and then, under his watchful guidance, the procession started for the street.
XVI
"The only thing we had to worry about," Malone said, pouring some more champagne into the hollow-stemmed gla.s.ses, "was whether the theory would actually prove out in practice. From all we knew, it seemed logical that I could concentrate on the room with the boys in it, and by that concentration prevent them from teleporting out--but there"s a lot we don"t know, too. And it didn"t damage the kids any."
Dorothea relaxed in her chair and looked around at the hotel room walls with contentment. "Mike seemed pretty normal--except that he had that awful _trapped_ feeling."
Malone handed her one of the filled gla.s.ses with an air. He was beginning slowly to feel less like the nervous, uncertain Kenneth J.
Malone and more and more like good old Sir Kenneth Malone. "I can see why he felt trapped," he said. "If a guy"s been unhampered by four walls all the time, even for only a year or so, he"s certainly going to feel penned in when he"s stopped from going through them. Especially when what stops him is just what he has--only more of the same. It might be a little ego-crushing, and just a trifle claustrophobic."
"The main thing is," Dorothea said, "that everybody"s so happy.
Commissioner Fernack, even--with Mr. Burris promising to give him a medal."
"And Lynch," Malone said reflectively. "He"ll get a promotion out of this for sure. And good old Kettleman."
"Kettleman," Dorothea said. "Oh, sure. He"s some kind of social worker, isn"t he? Only we never knew what kind."
"And now he"s getting a scroll from the FBI," Malone said. "A citation for coming up with the essential clue in this case. Even though he didn"t know it _was_ the essential clue. You know," he added reflectively, "one thing puzzles me about that man."
"Yes?"
"Well," Malone said, "he worked in your neighborhood. You knew him."
"Of course I did," Dorothea said. "We all knew Kettleman."
"He said he had a lot of success as a social worker," Malone said. "Now, I"ve met him. And talked with him. And I just can"t picture--"
"Oh," Dorothea said. "We keep him around--kept him around, I mean--as a sort of joke. A pet, or a mascot. Of course, he never did catch on. I don"t suppose he has yet."
Malone laughed. "Nope," he said. "He hasn"t."
"Mike," Dorothea said.
"Mike what?"
"Mike," she repeated. "He"s probably the happiest of all. After Mom and I talked to him for a while, anyhow, and he began to ... to get used to things. Now he"s excited about being an FBI man." She looked worriedly at Malone for a second. "You weren"t kidding about that, were you?" she asked.
She looked very pretty when she was worried, Malone decided. He leaned over and kissed her with great care. After a while he said: "You were saying?"
"Was I?" Dorothea said. "Oh, yes. I was. About Mike being an FBI man."
"Oh," Malone said. "Well, normally you"ve got to be a lawyer or an accountant, but there are a few special cases. And maybe Mike would fit in to the special-case bracket. If he doesn"t--well, he"ll be doing some kind of official work for the Government."
"What about Her Majesty, or whatever she is?" Dorothea asked. "Is she--convinced that teleportation"s no good, the way Mike is?"
Malone looked unhappy. "I wish you hadn"t mentioned it," he said.
"Then what will you do?" Dorothea said.
"Burris has it all down pat," Malone said bitterly. "Since I"m the only one who can predict where she"s going to be, I"m going to be her permanent bodyguard from now on. She"s promised me that she won"t go teleporting all over the place--but we won"t be able to keep her locked up all the time, either. So: whither she goes, I go--first."
"Well," Dorothea said, "don"t feel bad. After all, you did what you set out to do."
"I suppose so," Malone said.
"Sure you did," Dorothea said. "You got the boys. And they won"t feel so bad after they get used to it."
"I suppose not," Malone said. "We had to prove one thing to them, anyway. We can stop them at any time. You see, they"ve got to think about teleporting, and as soon as they do that one of our telepaths--like Her Majesty or me, I guess--will know what they"re thinking. And we can "freeze" them. I mean, I can."
"It sounds all right," Dorothea said.
"Sure," Malone said. "After all, we did them quite a favor--getting them out of all the trouble they"d gotten themselves into."