As a matter of fact, he told himself sadly, he had known.
"Nothing at all wrong?" he said into the mouthpiece. "Not with any of the computers?" He blinked. "Not even one of them?"
"Not a thing," Mitchell said. "I'll be sending a report up to you in a little while. You read it; we put them through every test, and it's all detailed there."
"I'm sure you were very thorough," Malone said helplessly.
"Of course we were," Mitchell said. "Of course. And the machines passed every single test. Every one. Malone, it was beautiful."
"Goody," Malone said at random. "But there's got to be something—"
"There is, Malone," Fred said. "There is. I think there's definitely something odd going on. Something funny. I mean peculiar, not humorous."
"I thought so," Malone put in.
"Right," Fred said. "Malone, try and relax. This is a hard thing to say, and it must be even harder to hear. But—"
"Tell me," Malone said. "Who's dead? Who's been killed?"