“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?”
“I know it’s tough, Malone,” Fred went on.
“Is everybody dead?” Malone said. “It can’t be just one person, not from that tone in your voice. Has somebody assassinated the entire senate? Or the president and his cabinet? Or—”
“It’s nothing like that, Malone,” Fred said, in a tone that implied that such occurrences were really rather minor. “It’s the machines.”
“The machines?”
“That’s right,” Fred said grimly. “After we checked them over and found they were in good shape, I asked for samples of both the input and the output of each machine. I wanted to do a thorough job.”