may be normally wrong."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Boyd said.

"How should I know?" Malone said. "I'm too busy to go around and
around like this. But since you've picked the spies up, I suppose it
won't do any harm to find out if they know anything."

Boyd snorted again. "Thank you," he said, "for your kind permission."

"I'll be right down," Malone said.

"I'll be waiting," Boyd said. "In Interrogation Room 7. You'll
recognize me by the bullet hole in my forehead and the strange South
American poison, hitherto unknown to science, in my esophagus."

"Very funny," Malone said. "Don't give up the ship."

Boyd switched off without a word. Malone shrugged at the blank screen
and pushed his own switch. Then he turned slowly back to Her Majesty,
who was standing, waiting patiently, at the opposite side of the desk.
Interference, he thought, located around him...

"Why yes," she said. "That's exactly what I did say."

Malone blinked. "Your Majesty," he said, "would you mind terribly if I
asked you questions before you answered them? I know you can see them
in my mind, but it's simpler for me to do things the normal way, just
now."

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I do agree that matters are confused
enough already. Please go on."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Malone said. "Well, then. Do you mean that
_I'm_ the one causing all this mental static?"

"Oh, no," she said. "Not at all. It's definitely coming from somewhere
else, and it's beamed at you, or beamed around you."

"But--"

"It's just that I can only pick it up when I'm tuned to your mind,"
she said.

"Like now?" Malone said.

She shook her head. "Right now," she said, "there isn't any. It only
happens every once in awhile, every so often, and not continuously."

"Does it happen at regular intervals?" Malone asked.

"Not as far as I've been able to tell," Her Majesty said. "It just
happens, that's all. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to
it. Except that it did start when you were assigned to this case."

"Lovely," Malone said. "Perfectly lovely. And what is it supposed to
mean?"

"Interference," she said. "Static. Jumble. That's all it means. I just
don't know any more than that, Sir Kenneth; I've never experienced
anything like it in my life. It really does disturb me."

That, Malone told himself, he could believe. It must be an experience,
he told himself, like having someone you were looking at suddenly
dissolve into a ju