found genuinely likeable.
According to the psych boys, she had been--as both Malone and Her
Majesty had theorized--heavily frustrated by being the possessor of a
talent which no one else recognized. Beyond that, the impact of other
minds was disturbing; there was a slight loss of identity which seemed
to be a major factor in every case of telepathic insanity. But the Queen
had compensated for her frustrations in the easiest possible way; she
had simply traded her identity for another one, and had rationalized a
single, over-ruling delusion: that she was Queen Elizabeth I of England,
still alive and wrongfully deprived of her throne.

"It's a beautiful rationalization," one of the psychiatrists said with
more than a trace of admiration in his voice. "Complete and thoroughly
consistent. She's just traded identities--and everything else she
does--_everything_ else--stems logically out of her delusional premise.
Beautiful."

She might have been crazy, Malone realized. But she was a long way from
stupid.

The project was in full swing. The only trouble was that they were no
nearer finding the telepath than they had been three weeks before. With
five completely blank human beings to work with, and the sixth Queen
Elizabeth (Malone heard privately that the last telepath, the girl from
Honolulu, was no better than the first five; she had apparently
regressed into what one of the psychiatrists called a "non-identity
childhood syndrome." Malone didn't know what it meant, but it sounded
terrible.) Malone could see why progress was their most difficult
commodity.

Dr. Harry Gamble, the head of Project Isle, was losing poundage by the
hour with worry. And, Malone reflected, he could ill afford it.

Burris, Malone and Boyd had set themselves up in a temporary office
within the Westinghouse area. The director had left his assistant in
charge in Washington. Nothing, he said over and over again, was as
important as the spy in Project Isle.

Apparently Boyd had come to believe that, too. At any rate, though he
was still truculent, there were no more outbursts of rebellion.

* * * * *

But, on the fourth day:

"What do we do now?" Burris asked.

"Shoot ourselves," Boyd said promptly.

"Now, look here--" Malone began, but he was overruled.

"Boyd," Burris said levelly, "if I hear any more of that sort of
pessimism, you're going to be an exception to the beard rule. One more
crack out of you, a