re were such things. And I did.
And then what happened?"

"You had a year," Burris said, "to get used to the idea of somebody
reading your mind."

"Thanks," Malone said. "Of course, I didn't know it was you."

"It was Her Majesty too," Burris said. "Everybody."

"Good old Malone," Malone said. "The human peep-show."

"Now, that's what we mean," Sir Lewis broke in. "Subconsciously, you
disliked the idea of leaving your thoughts bare to anyone, even a
sweet little old lady. To some extent, you still do. But that will
pass."

"Goody," Malone said.

"The residue is simply not important," Sir Lewis went on. "Your
telepathic talents prove that."

"Oh, fine," Malone said. "Here I am reading minds and teleporting and
all sorts of things. What will the boys back at Headquarters think
now?"

"We'll get to that," Burris said. "But that first case did one more
thing for you. Because you didn't like the idea of leaving your mind
open, you began to develop a shield. That allowed you some sort of
mental privacy."

"And then," Malone said, "I met Mike Fueyo and his little gang of
teleporting juvenile delinquents."

"So that you could develop a psionic ability of your own," Burris
said. "That completed your acceptance. But it took a threat to
solidify that shield. That was step three. When you discovered your
mind was being tampered with--"

"The shield started growing stronger," Malone said. "Sure. Her Majesty
told me that, though she didn't know why."

"Right," Burris said.

"But, wait a minute," Malone said. "How could I do all that without
knowing it? How would I know that some of my thoughts were safe behind
a shield if I didn't know the shield existed and couldn't even tell if
my mind were being read?" He paused. "Does that make sense?" he asked.

"It does," Burris said, "but it shouldn't."

"What?" Malone said.

"Two years ago, you had the answer to that one," Burris said. "Dr.
O'Connor's machine. Remember why it did detect when a person's mind
was being read?"

"Oh," Malone said. "Oh, sure. He said that any human being would know,
subconsciously, whether his mind was being read."

"He did, indeed," Burris said. "And then we came to the fourth step:
to put you in rapport with some psionicist who could teach you how to
control the shield, how to raise and lower it, you might say. To learn
to accept other thoughts, as well as reject them. To learn to accept
your full telepathic talent. That was Lou's job.