"Sounds wonderful," the agent-in-charge said. "Can I come to the party?"
"First," Malone said judiciously, "you'd have to be dead. Of course I can arrange that—"
"Thanks," the agent-in-charge said, leaving in a hurry. Malone went on down to his office and opened the box. It contained books, pamphlets and reports from Sir Lewis, all dealing with some area of telepathic projection. He spent a few minutes looking them over and trying to make some connected sense out of them, but finally he gave up and just sat and thought. The material seemed to be no help at all; it told him even less than Dr. O'Connor had.
What he needed, he decided, was somebody to talk to. But who? He couldn't talk to the FBI, and nobody else knew much about what he was trying to investigate. He thought of Her Majesty and rejected the notion with a sigh. No, what he needed was somebody smart and quick, somebody who could be depended on, somebody with training and knowledge.
And then, very suddenly, he knew who he wanted.
"Well, now, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Let's put everything together and see what happens."
"Indeed," said Sir Kenneth Malone, "it is high time we did so, Sirrah. Proceed: I shall attend."
"Let's start from the beginning," Malone said. "We know there's confusion in all parts of the country—in all parts of the world, I guess. And we know that confusion is being caused by carefully timed accidents and errors. We also know that these errors appear to be accompanied by violent bursts of psionic static—violent energy. And we know, further, that on three specific occasions, these bursts of energy were immediately followed by a reversal of policy in the mind of the person on the receiving end."
"You mean," Sir Kenneth put in, "that these gentlemen changed their opinions."