Burris said. "I was hoping you'd
come up with something. Your telegram detailed the fight, of course, and
the rest of what's been happening--but I hoped there'd be something
more."

"There isn't," Malone was forced to admit. "All we can do is try to
persuade Her Majesty to tell us--"

"Oh, I know it isn't easy," Burris said. "But it seems to me--"

By the time they'd arrived at the administrative offices of
Westinghouse's psionics research area, Malone found himself wishing that
something would happen. Possibly, he thought, lightning might strike, or
an earthquake swallow everything up. He was, suddenly, profoundly tired
of the entire affair.

VIII

Four days later, he was more than tired. He was exhausted. The six
psychopaths--including Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I--had been housed in
a converted dormitory in the Westinghouse area, together with four
highly nervous and even more highly trained and investigated
psychiatrists from St. Elizabeths in Washington. The Convention of Nuts,
as Malone called it privately, was in full swing. And it was every bit
as strange as he'd thought it was going to be. Unfortunately, five of
the six--Her Majesty being the only exception--were completely out of
contact with the world. The psychiatrists referred to them in worried
tones as "unavailable for therapy," and spent most of their time
brooding over possible ways of bringing them back into the real world
for a while.

Malone stayed away from the five who were completely psychotic. The
weird babblings of fifty-year-old Barry Miles disconcerted him. They
sounded like little Charlie O'Neill's strange semi-connected jabber, but
Westinghouse's Dr. O'Connor said that it seemed to represent another
phenomenon entirely. William Logan's blank face was a memory of horror,
but the constant tinkling giggles of Ardith Parker, the studied and
concentrated way that Gordon Macklin wove meaningless patterns in the
air with his waving fingers, and the rhythmless, melodyless humming that
seemed to be all there was to the personality of Robert Cassiday were
simply too much for Malone. Taken singly, each was frightening and
remote; all together, they wove a picture of insanity that chilled him
more than he wanted to admit.

When the seventh telepath was flown in from Honolulu, Malone didn't even
bother to see her. He let the psychiatrists take over directly, and
simply avoided their sessions.

Queen Elizabeth I, on the other hand, he