Malone sat, quietly relaxed and almost completely at ease, in the depths of a huge, comfortable, old-fashioned Morris chair. Three similar chairs were clustered with his, around a squat, massive coffee table made of a single slab of dark wood set on short, curved legs. Malone looked around at the other three with a relaxed feeling of recognition: Andrew J. Burris, Sir Lewis Carter, and Luba Vasilovna Garbitsch.
“That mind shield of yours,” Burris was saying, “is functioning very well. We weren’t entirely sure you had actually located us until you pulled into that driveway.”
“I wasn’t entirely sure what I was locating,” Malone said.
“And so it’s over,” Burris said with a satisfied air. “Everything’s over.”
“And just beginning,” Sir Lewis put in. He drew a pipe from an inside pocket and began to fill it.
“And, of course,” Burris said, “just beginning. Things do that; they go round and round in circles. It’s what makes everything so confusing.”
“And so much fun,” Lou said, leaning back in her chair. She didn’t look hostile now, Malone thought; she looked like a cat, wary but content. He decided that he liked this Lou even better than the old one. Lou, at home among her psionic colleagues, was even more than he’d ever thought she could be.
“More what?” she said suddenly. Burris jerked upright a trifle.
“What’s more what?” he said. “Damn it, let’s stick to one thing or the other. As soon as this thing starts mixing talk and thought it confuses me.”
“Never mind,” Lou said. She smiled across the table at Malone.