Out Like a Light by Gordon Randall Garrett (snow like ashes TXT) 📕

anything! Preferably, I want both--the truth and some explanations. If possible. For three days, now, this area has been haunted by the Silent Spooks. They've been stealing everything they could carry off! They've got the whole city in an uproar!"

"Well," Malone said. "Not exactly. The papers--"

"I know," Burris said. "You've kept it out of the news. That's fine, and I appreciate it, Malone. I really do. But I can't sit around and appreciate it much longer. You've got to get those boys!" He bounced off the desk and stood up again. "The longer they keep this up," he said, "the harder it's going to be to square everything with the courts. Those kids may end up getting killed! And how would that be?"

"Terrible," Malone said honestly.

"Something," Burris summed up, "has to be done."

Malone thought for a second. "Chief," he said at last, "if you can think of any way to nab them, I'll certainly be grateful."

"Oh," Burris said. "Oh. No. No, Malone. This is your baby." He leaned over and clapped Malone on the shoulder. "I have faith in you," he said. "You cleared up that nutty telepath case and you can clear this one up, too. But you've got to do it soon!"

"I'm working on it," Malone said helplessly. "We might get a lead any time now."

"Good," Burris said. "Meanwhile, let's sit down and see if we can't figure out a way to pacify the local bigwigs."

Malone sighed wearily.

* * * * *

An hour later, he was even more tired. Letting himself into his room at the hotel, he felt completely exhausted. He had spent most of the hour tactfully trying to get away from Burris. It had not been the world's easiest job.

Dorothea Fueyo was sitting on the couch, waiting for him.

Immediately, he felt much better.

"You're late," Dorothea said accusingly. "I had to come up with the duplicate key you gave me. And what are the bellboys going to think?"

"They're going to think you had a duplicate key," Malone said. "Anyhow, I'm sorry. I got delayed at the office. Burris came to town--delivering seventeen ultimatums, forty-nine conflicting sets of orders and a rousing lecture."

"I could have come up to your office, then," Dorothea said, "instead of compromising my reputation by sneaking up to your hotel room."

"And what about my reputation?" Malone said. "Besides, the office is no place for what I have in mind."

"Why, Mr. Malone!"

Malone ignored the comment. "Did you bring the notebook?" he said.

"Certainly." Dorothea handed a black, plastic-bound notebook over to Malone. "But what's all this with a notebook? Going to keep score?"

"Not exactly," Malone said. He took the notebook and leafed through it idly. It was not Mike Fueyo's book; the boy himself had that now, and there was little chance of getting it back again. This one belonged to Dorothea--but, Malone thought, it could serve the same purpose.

"What I have in mind," he said, "is something Mike said the other night, just before the cops barged in. He said something about having tried to teach you the Vanish. And that's why I asked you to come here. Did he teach you?"

"Well, he tried," Dorothea said. "But I couldn't do anything with it. I haven't got the Talent, Mike says." She paused. "Is that why you figured I had a notebook like his?"

"Sure," Malone said. "It's the only thing that makes sense. Mike's notebook was full of symbols--and that was all they could be. Symbols. If you see what I mean."

"Not exactly," Dorothea said.

"Symbolism--anyhow, that's what Dr. O'Connor says--is one of the primary factors in psionics."

"Dr.... oh, yes," Dorothea said. "Westinghouse. I've heard about him."

"Good," Malone said. "Anyhow, I decided the pictures in Mike's notebook were just that--symbols. Things he wanted. And the little squiggles after the names were symbols, too. You know," Malone said, "the boy's pretty smart. Nobody else that I know of has ever figured out a way to teach psionics--at least, not on that level. But Mike has."

"He's a good boy," Dorothea said. "Basically."

"Fine," Malone said. "Anyhow, if that were true, then the notebook was some sort of guide. And if he tried to teach you the technique, then you had to have a notebook, too. Clear?"

"Perfectly," Dorothea said, "so what do you want me to do?"

"Teach me," Malone said.

There was a silence.

"That's silly," Dorothea said. "How can I teach you something I can't do myself? Besides, how do you know you have the Talent?"

"As far as the second question goes, I don't know. But I can try, can't I? And as far as the first question goes, that might not be so simple. But I think it can be done--if you remember what Mike tried to teach you."

"Oh, I can remember all of that," she said, "but it's just that it didn't do me any good. I couldn't use it."

"A man who's paralyzed from the waist," Malone said hopefully, "can't play football. But if he knows how the game's played, he can teach others--anyhow, he can teach the fundamentals. Want to try?"

Dorothea smiled. "All right, Ken," she said. "It's a great idea, at that: the blind teaching the possibly-blind to read. Give me the notebook, and I'll explain the first principles. Later, you'll have to get a notebook of your own, because these symbols are very personalized."

Malone grinned and pulled a black book from his pocket. "I thought they might be," he said. "I've already got one. Let's go."

* * * * *

[Illustration]

Sweating, Malone stared grimly at the picture he had drawn on a page of his notebook. He'd been trying the stunt for four days, and so far all he had achieved was a nice profusion of perspiration. He was beginning to feel like an ad for a Turkish bath.

"No, Ken," Dorothea said patiently. "No. You can't do it that way. You've got to visualize it. That's how Mike could find red Cadillacs so easily. All he had to do was--"

"I know," Malone said, impatiently. "That's what the pictures are for. But I'm no artist. This doesn't even look much like my office."

"It doesn't have to, Ken," Dorothea said. "All it has to do is give you enough details to enable you to visualize your destination. The better your memory is, the less detail you need. But you've got to grasp the whole area in your mind."

Malone lifted his eyes from the book and stared into the darkness outside the window without seeing it. Midnight had come and gone a long time ago, and he was still working.

"If I don't crack this case pretty soon," he muttered, "Burris is going to find a special new assignment for me--like investigating the social life of a deserted space station."

"Now, that's just what's bothering you," Dorothea said. "Get your mind off Burris. You can't teleport when your mind is occupied with other things."

"Then how did the kids hop around so much during the fight at the warehouse?"

"Plenty of practice," Dorothea said. "They've been doing it longer than you have. It's like playing the piano. The beginner has to concentrate, but the expert can play a piece he's familiar with and hold a conversation at the same time. Now stop worrying--and start concentrating."

Malone looked at the book again. With an effort, he forced everything out of his mind except the picture. Burris' face came back once or twice, but he managed to get rid of it. He looked at the lopsided drawings that represented various items in the room, and made himself concentrate solely on visualizing the objects themselves and their surroundings.

Then, as the picture became clearer and achieved more reality, he began going over the other mental exercises that Dorothea had taught him.

He heard a clock tick.

It was gone.

There was nothing but the picture, and the room it stood for ... nothing ... nothing....

The lights went out.

* * * * *

Malone blinked and jerked his head up from the notebook. "What hap--" he began.

And then he stopped.

He was no longer in his hotel room at the Statler-Hilton. He was standing in the middle of his office at FBI headquarters, Washington, D.C.

It had worked!

Malone walked over to the wall switch and turned on the lights in the darkened room. He looked around. He was definitely in his office.

He was a teleport.

He blinked and wondered briefly if he were dreaming. He pinched himself, said: "Ow," and decided that the pain offered no certain proof.

But he didn't feel like part of a dream.

He felt real. So did the office.

Just as he had promised Dorothea, he went to the phone and dialed the Statler-Hilton.

It took a minute for the long-distance circuits to connect him with Manhattan. Then the pretty operator at the hotel was smiling at him from the screen. "Statler-Hilton Hotel," she said. "May we help you?"

"Ring Room 814," Malone said. "I'm probably asleep in it."

"What?" the operator said.

"Never mind," Malone said. "Just ring it."

"Yes, sir." The screen went blank.

The screen stayed blank for a long time.

And then the operator was back. "I'm sorry, sir," she said. "That room doesn't answer."

"You're sure?" Malone said.

"Certainly."

"Try it again," Malone said.

The operator did so. She returned with the same answer.

Malone frowned and hung up. It didn't sound right. Even a dream was supposed to make more sense than this was making. There was something wrong.

He had to get back to the hotel room.

There was only one trouble. He didn't have a picture of the room in his notebook.

Dorothea had said that it was almost impossible to go to a place one hadn't been to before. Mike Fueyo had been able to pick up any red Cadillac in the city because he'd concentrated solely on the symbol of a red Cadillac. But he never knew which Cadillac he'd end up at.

Malone closed his eyes and tried to remember the hotel room. He half-wished he had a photograph of it, but Dorothea had told him that photos wouldn't work. They were too complete; they required no effort of the mind. Only a symbol would do.

Of course, the job could be done without a symbol by somebody who'd had plenty of practice. But Malone had made exactly one jump. Could he do it the second time with nothing to work with except his own recollection and visualization of the room?

He didn't know, but he was certainly going to try. He had to.

Something was wrong; something had happened to Dorothea.

He tried to imagine what it could be, and then realized that such thoughts were only delaying him by distracting his mind from its main job.

He kept his eyes tightly closed and tried to form the picture in his mind. The couch--there. The dresser--over there. The easy-chair, the rug, the walls, the table--wait a minute: he was losing the couch. There. Now. The table, the desk--all there. In color. And in detail.

Slowly they came, and he held them in place, visualizing his hotel room just as he had visualized his office minutes before. He concentrated. Harder. Harder. Harder. HAR--

"Sir Kenneth!" a voice said. "Will you please stop standing there with your eyes closed and help me with this poor child? She's fainted."

Malone's eyes popped open, but for a minute he wasn't entirely sure he'd opened them. His visualization blended almost perfectly with the reality of the room around him. There was only one jarring difference.

He had certainly never visualized the richly-dressed figure of Queen Elizabeth I standing in the center of the room.

"Now, now," she said. "Thinking like that can only lead to confusion. Come over here and help me."

* * * * *

Dorothea was on the couch. Between them, they managed to wake her gently, and she sat up and stared around at them and the room. "I'm sorry," she said dazedly. "It's just that I didn't expect you to turn into a little old lady in Elizabethan costume. Just a bit disconcerting." She blinked. "By the way, who is she?"

"This," Malone said with a sense of some foreboding, "is Queen Elizabeth I."

"She's dead," Dorothea said decisively.

"Not really, my dear," the Queen said. "Actually, you see ... well, it's too long