u leave--" Burris began, and the hope disappeared. "When you
leave," he went on, "please do one little favor for me. Just one
little favor, because I'm an old, tired man and I'm not used to things
any more."

"Sure," Malone said. "Anything, Chief."

"Don't call me--"

"Sorry," Malone said.

Burris breathed heavily. "When you leave," he said, "please, please
use the door."

"But--"

"Malone," Burris said, "I've tried. I've really tried. Believe me.
I've tried to get used to the fact that you can teleport. But--"

"It's useful," Malone said, "in my work."

"I can see that," Burris said. "And I don't want you to, well, to stop
doing it. By no means. It's just that it sort of unnerves me, if you
see what I mean. No matter how useful it is for the FBI to have an
agent who can go instantaneously from one place to another, it
unnerves me." He sighed. "I can't get used to seeing you disappear
like an overdried soap bubble, Malone. It does something to me, here."
He placed a hand directly over his sternum and sighed again.

"I can understand that," Malone said. "It unnerved me, too, the first
time I saw it. I thought I was going crazy, when that kid--Mike
Fueyo--winked out like a light. But then we got him, and some FBI
agents besides me have learned the trick." He stopped there, wondering
if he'd been tactful. After all, it took a latent ability to learn
teleportation, and some people had it, while others didn't. Malone,
along with a few other agents, did. Burris evidently didn't, so he
couldn't teleport, no matter how hard he tried or how many lessons he
took.

"Well," Burris said, "I'm still unnerved. So please, Malone, when you
come in here, or go out, use the door. All right?"

"Yes, sir," Malone said. He turned and went out. As he opened the
door, he could almost hear Burris' sigh of relief. Then he banged it
shut behind him and, feeling that he might as well continue with his
spacebound existence, walked all the way to the elevator, and rode it
downstairs to the FBI laboratories.

The labs, highly efficient and divided into dozens of departments,
covered several floors. Malone passed through the Fingerprint section,
filled with technicians doing strange things to great charts and
slides, and frowning over tiny pieces of material and photographs.
Then came Forgery Detection, involving many more technicians, many
more slides and charts and tiny pieces of things and photographs, and
even a witness or two sit