Occasion for Disaster

everything.

  He opened his mind in that one special direction, beaming his thoughtsto nobody else but the group he'd decided on. A second of silencepassed.

  And then a sound began. Malone had passed a company of soldiers someyards back, but he hadn't noticed them particularly; with the countryunder martial law, soldiers were going to be as common as tree frogs.Now, however, something different was happening.

  Malone felt the car tremble slightly, and stopped. Past him, rollingalong the side of the highway he was on, came a parade of thirty-tontanks. They rumbled and roared their slow, elephantine way down thehighway and, after what seemed about three days, disappeared fromsight. Malone wondered what the tanks were for, and then dismissed itfrom his mind. It certainly wasn't very pleasant to think about, nomatter how necessary it turned out to be.

  He started up again. There were few cars on the road, although a lotof them were parked along the sides. A series of _Closed_ signs onfilling stations explained that, and Malone began to be grateful forthe national emergency. It allowed him to drive without muchinterference, anyhow.

  * * * * *

  _And a hearty good afternoon to all, he thought--especially to MissLuba Ardanko. I hope she's tuned in ... and, if she isn't, I hopesomebody alerts her. Frankly, I'd rather talk to her than to anyoneelse I can think of at the moment. As a matter of fact, it's a littleeasier to concentrate if I talk out loud, so I think I'll do that._

  He swerved the car at this point, neatly avoiding a broken woodencrate that crouched in wait for him. "Road hog," he told it bitterly,and went on.

  "Nothing personal," he went on after a second. "I don't care if you're_all_ listening in, as a matter of fact. And I'm not going to hideanything." He thought a second, and then added: "Frankly, I'm not sureI've got anything to hide."

  He paused and, in his imagination, he could almost hear Luba's voice.

  _I'm listening, Kenneth,_ she said. _Go on._

  He fished around in his mind for a second, wondering exactly where tostart. Then he decided, in the best traditions of the detective story,not to mention "Alice in Wonderland," to start at the beginning.

  "The dear old Psychical Research Society," he said, speaking earnestlyto his windshield, "has been going on for a good many years now--sincethe 1880's, as a matter of fact. That's a long time and it adds up toa lot of Psychical Research. A lot of famous and intelligent peoplehave belonged to the Society. And, with all that, it's hardlysurprising that, after nearly a hundred years of work, somethingfinally turned up."

  At this point, there was another interruption. A couple of sawhorsesblocked the road ahead of Malone. As he stared at them, he felt hisprescience begin to itch. He took out his .44 Magnum and slowed thecar, memorizing the road as he passed it. He stopped the car beforethe sawhorses. Three enlisted men carrying M-1 rifles, and a stern,pale captain, his bars pointing sideways and glittering on hisshoulders, appeared from the sides of the road.

  The captain's voice was a military bark. "Out of the car!"

  Malone began to obey.

  "With your hands up!" the captain snapped. Malone dropped the .44unobtrusively into his jacket pocket and complied. Then, as he cameout of the car, he teleported himself back to a section of the roadhe'd memorized, ten feet behind the car. The four men were gaping,dumbfounded, as Malone drew his gun and shot them. Then he removed thesawhorses, got back in his car, reloaded the .44, put it back in hisholster and drove on.

  "Now," he said in a thoughtful tone. "Where was I?"

  He imagined Luba's voice saying: _You were telling us how, all thistime, it's hardly surprising--_

  "Oh, yes," he said. "Well, then. So you solved some of the problems,you'd set. You learned how to use and control telepathy andteleportation, maybe, long before scientific boys like Dr. O'Connorbecame interested. But you never announced it publicly. You kept theknowledge all to yourself. 'Is this what the common folk calltelepathy, Lord Bromley?' 'Yes, Lady Bromley.' 'Much too good forthem, isn't it?' And maybe it is, at that; I don't know."

  His thoughts, he recognized, were veering slightly. After a second hegot back on the track.

  "At any rate," he went on, "you--all of your out there--areresponsible for what's happening to this country and all of Europe andAsia--and, for all I know, the suburbs of Hell.

  "I remember one of the book facsimiles you got me, for instance," hesaid. "The writer tried for an 'expose' of the Society, in which heattempted to prove that Sir Lewis Carter and certain other memberswere trying to take over the world and run it to suit themselves,using their psionic powers to institute a rather horrible type ofdictatorship over the world.

  "It was a pretty convincing book in a lot of ways. The authorevidently know a lot about what he was dealing with."

  * * * * *

  At this point, Malone ran into another roadblock. There had been afight of some kind up ahead, and a lot of cars with what looked likeshell-holes in them were piled on one side of the road. The StatePolice were working under the confused direction of an Army major tostraighten things out, while a bulldozer pushed the cars off the roadonto the grass bordering it. The major stopped what he was doing andcame to meet Malone as the car stopped.

  "Get off the road," the major said surlily.

  Malone looked up at him. "I've got some identification here," he said."Mind if I get it out?"

  The major reached for a gun and held it. "Go ahead," he said. "Don'ttry anything funny. It's been hell up and down this road, mister."

  Malone flipped out his wallet and showed the identification.

  "FBI?" the Major said. "What're you doing out here?"

  "Special assignment," Malone said. "Oh ... by the way ... you mightsend some men back a ways. There are four dead mean in militaryuniforms lying on the road near a couple of sawhorses."

  The major stared. "Dead?" he said at last. "Dead how?"

  "I shot them," Malone said.

  "You--" The major's finger tightened on the trigger of his gun.

  "Now wait a minute," Malone said. "I said they were in militaryuniforms. I didn't say they were soldiers."

  "But--"

  "Three enlisted men carrying M-1 rifles?" Malone said. "When the M-1'sout of date? And a captain with his bars on sideways? No, major.Those were renegades. Looters of some kind; they wanted to kill me andget the car and any valuables I happened to have."

  The major, very slowly, relaxed his grip on the gun and his arm fellto his side. "You did the smart thing, Mr. Malone," he said.

  "And I've got to go on doing it," Malone said. "I'm in a hurry."

  He noticed a newspaper fluttering at the side of the road, not toonear the cars. Somehow it made everything seem even more lonely andstrange. The headlines fluttered into sight:

  MARTIAL LAW EDICT

  "MUST BE OBEYED," SAYS GOVERNOR

  But Riots Are Feared In Outlying Towns

  MAN AND WIFE CONFESS KILLING OF RELATIVES ABOARD PRIVATE PLANE:

  Force Kin To Drop Off

  There was a photo of a woman there, too, and Malone could read just alittle of the caption:

  "Obeying the edict of martial law laid down by the President, MissHelen A.--"

  He wondered vaguely if her last name were Handbasket.

  The major was looking at him. "O.K., then," he said.

  "I can go on?" Malone said.

  The major looked stern. "Drive on," he said.

  Malone got the car going; the roadblock was lifted for him and he wenton by.

  After a moment, he said: "Pardon the interruption. I trust that allthe devoted listeners to Uncle Kenneth's Happy Hour are still tunedin."

  _Go ahead,_ said Lou's voice.

  "All right, let's take a look at what you've been doing. You've causedpeople to change their minds about what they've been intending to do.You can cause all sorts of hell to break loose that way. You have alot of people you want to get rid of, so you play on their neurosesand
concoct errors for them to fight. You rig things so that theyquit, or get fired, or lose elections, or get arrested, or justgenerally get put out of circulation. Some of the less stable onesjust up and did away with themselves.

  "Sometimes, it's individuals who have to go. Sometimes, it's wholegroups or maybe even whole nations. And sometimes it's in between, andyou manage to foul up organizational moves with misplaced papers,mis-sent messages, errors, changed minds, and everything else you canthink of.

  "You know," he went on, "at first I couldn't see any pattern