st."

"There isn't going to be any book," Malone said.

She shook her head. "That's a shame," she said. "I've always wanted to
be a Miss X. It sounds exciting."

"X," Malone said at random, "marks the spot."

"Why, that's the sweetest thing that's been said to me all day," the
girl said. "I thought you could hardly talk, and here you come out
with lovely things like that. But I'll bet you say it to all the
girls."

"I have never said it to anybody before," Malone said flatly. "And I
never will again."

The girl sighed. "I'll treasure it," she said. "My one great moment.
Good-by, Mr. ... Malone, isn't it?"

"Ken," Malone said. "Just call me Ken."

"And I'm Lou," the girl said. "Good-by."

An elevator arrived and Malone ducked into it. Louie? he thought.
Louise? Luke? Of course, there was Sir Lewis Carter, who might be
called Lou. Was he related to the girl?

No, Malone thought wildly. Relations went by last names. There was no
reason for Lou to be related to Sir Lewis. They didn't even look
alike. For instance, he had no desire whatever to make a date with Sir
Lewis Carter, or to take him to a glittering nightclub. And the very
idea of Sir Lewis Carter sitting on the Malone lap was enough to give
him indigestion and spots before the eyes.

Sternly, he told himself to get back to business. The elevator stopped
at the lobby and he got out and started down the street, feeling that
consideration of the Lady Known As Lou was much more pleasant. After
all, what did he have to work with, as far as his job was concerned?

So far, two experts had told him that his theory was full of lovely
little holes. Worse than that, they had told him that mass control of
human beings was impossible, as far as they knew.

And maybe it was impossible, he told himself sadly. Maybe he should
just junk his whole theory and think up a new one. Maybe there was no
psionics involved in the thing at all, and Boyd and O'Connor were
right.

Of course, he had a deep-seated conviction that psionics was somewhere
at the root of everything, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.
A lot of people had deep-seated convictions that they were beetles, or
that the world was flat. And then again, murderers often suffered as a
result of deep-seated convictions.

On the other hand, maybe he had invented a whole new psionic
theory--or, at least, observed some new psionic facts. Maybe they
would call the results Maloneizing, instead of O'Connoriz