Occasion for Disaster Part 28

The clerk, apparently undecided as to whether or not to offer congratulations, settled for consulting his registry and then stabbing at a b.u.t.ton on a huge and complex board at his right. A key slid out of a slot and the clerk handed it to Malone with a rather strained smile. "10-Q," he said.

"You're very welcome," Malone said in his most unctuous tones. He took the key.

The clerk blinked. "The bellman will take you to your rooms, sir," he said in a good imitation of his original voice. "There are maps of the building at intervals along the halls, and if you find that you have become lost you have only to ask one of the hall guides to show you the proper directions."

"My, my," Malone said.

The clerk cleared his throat. "If you wish to use one of the cars," he went on in a slightly more unsteady voice, "simply insert your key in the slot beneath one of the wall maps, and a car will be at your service."

Malone shook his head and gave a deep sigh. "What," he said, "will they think of next?"

Satisfied with that for an exit line, he turned and found that the bellman had already taken his luggage from the robot redcap and put it aboard a small electric car. Malone got in beside him and the bellman started the vehicle down the hallway. It rolled along on soft, silent tires. It, too, was gilded. It didn't move very fast, Malone thought, but it certainly beat walking.

Each hallway which radiated out from the central section beneath the Tower was built like a small-edition city street. The little cars scooted up and down the two center lanes while pedestrians, poor benighted souls, kept to the side walkways. Every so often Malone saw one, walking along the raised walkway and holding the rail along the outside that was meant to keep guests of every stage of drunkenness from falling into the road. At the intersections, small, j.a.panese-style bridges crossed over the roadway. On these, Malone saw uniformed men standing motionless, one to a bridge. They all looked identical, and each one had a small gold stripe sewn to the chest of the red uniform. Malone read the letters on the stripe as they pa.s.sed the third man. It said: _Guide_.

"Now, you live in Q-wing, sir," the bellman was saying in a nasal, but rather pleasant voice as Malone looked away. "You're not far from the Tower Lobby, so you won't have a lot to remember. It's not like living along, say, the D-E Pa.s.sageway out near 20 or 23."

"I'm sure it isn't," Malone said politely.

"No," the bellman said, "you got it simple. This here is Q-Yellow--see the yellow stripe on the wall?"

Malone looked. There was a yellow stripe on the wall. "I see it," he said.

"So all you got to do," the bellman said, "is follow Q-Yellow to the Tower Lobby." He acted as if he had demonstrated a Euclidean proposition flawlessly. "Got it?" he asked.

"Very simple," Malone said.

"O.K.," the bellman said. "Now, the gaming rooms--"

Malone listened with about a fifth of an ear while the bellman went on spinning out incredibly complex directions for getting around in the quasi-city that was the Great Universal. At one point he thought he caught the man saying that an elephant ramp took guests past the resplendent gla.s.s rest rooms to the roots of the roulette wheel, but that didn't sound even remotely plausible when he considered it. At last the bellman announced:

"Here we are, sir. Right to your door. A courtesy of the friendly Great Universal Hotel."

He pulled over to the side, pushed a b.u.t.ton on the sidewalk, and the little car's body elevated itself on hydraulic pistons until it was even with the elevated sidewalk. The bellman pushed a stud on the walkway rail and a gate swung open. Malone stepped out and waited while luggage was unloaded. The courtesy of the Great Universal Hotel was not free, of course; Malone got rid of some more silver dollars.

He fished in his pockets, found one lone crumpled ten-dollar bill and arranged it neatly and visibly in his right hand.

"I notice you've got a lot of guides in the halls," he said as the bellman eyed the ten-spot. "Do that many people get lost in here?"

"Well, not really, sir," the bellman said. "Not really. That's for the--what they call the protection of our guests. A courtesy."

"Protection?" Malone said. He had noticed, he recalled, odd bulges beneath the left armpits of the guides. "Protection from what?" he asked, keeping a firm, loving grip on the bill. "There are a lot more guides than you'd expect, aren't there?"

The bellman shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Well, sir," he said at last in an uneasy manner, "I guess it's because of the politics around here. I mean, it's sort of confused."

"Confused how?" Malone said, waving the bill ever so slightly.

The bellman appeared to be hypnotized by its green color. "It's the governor shooting himself," he said at last. "And the Legislature wants to impeach the Lieutenant-governor, and the City Council of Las Vegas is having trouble with the Mayor, and the County Sheriff is having a feud with the State Police, and--Sir, it's all sort of confused right now. But it isn't serious." He grinned hopefully.

Malone sighed and let go of the ten. It stayed fluttering in the air for perhaps a tenth of a second, and disappeared. "I'm sure it isn't,"

Malone said. "Just forget I asked you."

The bellman's hand went to his pocket and came out again empty. "Asked me, sir?" he said. "Asked me what?"

The next fifteen minutes were busy ones. Malone made himself quickly at home, keeping his eyes open for hidden TV cameras or other forms of bugging. Satisfied at last that he was entirely alone, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and teleported himself to Yucca Flats.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This time, he didn't land in Dr. O'Connor's office. Instead, he opened his eyes in the hallway in the nearby building that housed the psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists who were working with the telepaths Malone and the FBI had unearthed two years before.

Apparently, telepathy was turning out to be more a curse than a blessing. Of the seven known telepaths in the world, only Her Majesty retained anything like the degree of sanity necessary for communication. The psych men who were working with the other six had been trying to establish some kind of rapport, but their efforts so far had been as fruitless as a petrified tree.

Malone went down the hallway until he came to a door near the end. He looked at the sign painted on the opaqued gla.s.s for a second:

ALAN MARSHALL, M.D.

CHIEF OF STAFF PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT

With a slight sigh, he pushed open the door and went in.

Dr. Marshall was a tall, balding man with a light-brown brush mustache and a pleasant smile. He wore thick gla.s.ses but he didn't look at all scholarly; instead, he looked rather like Alec Guinness made up for a role as a Naval lieutenant. He rose as Malone entered, and stretched a hand across the desk. "Glad to see you, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Very glad."

Malone shook hands and raised his eyebrows. "_Sir_ Kenneth?" he said.

Dr. Marshall shrugged slightly. "She prefers it," he said. "And since there's no telling whose mind she might look into--" He smiled. "After all," he finished, "why not?"

"Tell me, doctor," Malone said. "Don't you ever get uneasy about the fact that Her Majesty can look into your mind? I mean, it has disturbed some people."

"Not at all," Marshall said. "Not in the least. After all, Sir Kenneth, it's all a matter of adjustment. Simple adjustment and no more." He paused, then added: "Like s.e.x."

"s.e.x?" Malone said in a voice he hoped was calm.

"Cultural mores," Marshall said. "That sort of thing. Nothing, really." He sat down. "Make yourself comfortable," he told Malone. "As a matter of fact, the delusion Her Majesty suffers from has its compensations for the psychiatrist. Where else could I be appointed Royal Psychiatrist, Advisor to the Crown, and Earl Marshal?"

Malone looked around, found a comfortable chair and dropped into it.

"I suppose so," he said. "It must be sort of fun, in a way."

"Oh, it is," Marshall said. "Of course, it can get to be specifically troublesome; all cases can. I remember a girl who'd managed to get herself married to the wrong man--she was trying to escape her mother, or some such thing. And she'd moved into this apartment where her next-door neighbor, a nice woman really, had rather strange s.e.xual tendencies. Well, what with those problems, and the husband himself--a rather ill-tempered brute, but a nice fellow basically--and her eventually meeting Mr. Right, which was inevitable--"

"I'm sure it was very troublesome," Malone put in.

"Extremely," Marshall said. "Worked out in the end, though. Ah ...

most of them do seem to, when we're lucky. When things break right."

"And when they don't?" Malone said.