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 glass 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 glasses 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 sex."
"Sex?" 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."