Things, he told himself, were terrible. But even that sentence, which was a good deal more cheerful than what he actually felt, didn’t do anything to improve his mood. All of the evidence, after all, had been practically living on the tip of his nose for nearly twenty-four hours, and not only had he done nothing about it, but he hadn’t even seen it.

Two or three times, for instance, he’d doubted the possibility of teleporting another human being. All his logic had told him it wasn’t so. But, he’d thought, he and Her Majesty had teleported Lou, and so, obviously, his logic was wrong.

No, it wasn’t, he thought now. There would be too much mental resistance, even if the person were unconscious. Teleportation of another human being would be impossible.

Unless, of course, the other human being was able to teleport on her own.

True, she had been no more than semiconscious. She probably couldn’t have teleported on her own. But Malone and Her Majesty had, ever so kindly and ever so mistakenly, helped her, and Lou had managed to teleport to the plane.

And that wasn’t all, he thought dismally. That was far from all.

“Let’s take another for-instance,” he said savagely, in what he thought was a caricature of the Manelli voice. In order for all three to teleport, there had to be perfect synchronization.

Otherwise, they’d have arrived either at different places, or at the same place but at different times.

And perfect synchronization on a psionic level meant telepathy. At least two of the three had to be telepathic. Her Majesty was, of course. Malone wasn’t.

So Lou had to be telepathic, too.