It isn't horrible at all._

_It's pretty d.a.m.n good, as a matter of fact._

_The teachers who are resigning, for instance, are the nincomp.o.o.ps who've got to be pruned out so that competent teachers can come in.

And, with the higher salaries, more and more competent men and women are going to be attracted to the job. The universities are going to be freer and better places to work in; they won't be monopolies any more._

"Monopolies?" Lou said.

_In restraint of knowledge,_ Malone thought. _The old monopoly was in restraint of trade, and legal action helped to kill that kind. The monopoly in restraint of knowledge took a little more killing, but you're doing the job quite nicely. And not only in the schools._

_The factional fights are having the same result. Look at the AAAM, for instance. That organization is a monopoly, pure and simple.

Simple, anyhow. And what the factional fights are doing to it is just breaking up the monopoly and letting knowledge free again._

_And then we come to Congress. Senators and representatives are having a terrible time, some of them. There's a fight going on between Furbisher and Deeks because Deeks has discovered some evidence against Furbisher. Who's having the terrible time?_

_All of them?_

_Nope. Furbisher is. Deeks isn't._

_And that's the way it's going all over. The useful, necessary legislation is going through Congress now without being cluttered up by stupid dam bills and water bills and other idiocies that simply clog the works._

_And then, of course, there are the gang wars. Now, I feel as sorry for the Sanitation Department as anybody, but at least they're cleaning the streets for good now. The boys who are dying off and getting sent to hospitals and jails are just the ones who should have been sent away long ago. Everybody knows that, but n.o.body can prove it._

_Except the PRS._

_And the PRS is busy doing just what it can about that proof._

_And all it takes is a few of you. I don't know how many--I don't know how many of you there really are, for that matter. But it must be a fair number to stock all your branches with "top-level" executives and the lower-level men and women who really believe in the PRS blind, and do their best to keep it working._

_There are probably a lot of ways it might work, but the simplest and best way I can think of is this one: there's a clearing-house sort of set-up, and information comes in from various telepathic spies working for the PRS, about various projected activities of the imbecile contingent._

_And, from this information, you figure out the best time and place for lightning to strike, and you select the kind of lightning it's going to be. Here it's a misplaced letter, there some "facts" that aren't facts, and somewhere else a dropped package of secret records.

Somebody goofs--and is exposed._

_Maybe it works on the local-organization level. Maybe there are teams all over the country, all ready to synchronize their minds and jab somebody in the thought processes at just the right time, in just the right way, as soon as they get the word. That's one way of doing it, maybe the best way._

_There are others, but it doesn't really matter how that end of it works. The important thing is that it does work._

_And, when it works, it can certainly create quite a mess. Yes-sirree, Bob. Or Lou, as the case may be._

_I sure hope somebody's picking all this up, because I'd hate to have to explain it again when I get there._

_Are you there, anybody?_

Malone imagined he heard Lou's voice. "Yes, Ken," she said. "Yes, I'm here."

But, of course, there was no way for them to get through to him. They were telepathic, but Kenneth J. Malone wasn't he told himself sadly.

_h.e.l.lo, out there,_ he thought. _I hope you've been listening so far, because there isn't going to be too much more. But there are a couple of things that still need to be cleared up. I've got some answers, but there are others I'm going to need._

_There's Russia, for instance. It does seem to me as if your teams in Russia, whatever they're calling themselves, are having a lot more fun than the U. S. teams. For one thing they've got an easier job._

_In this country, the teams are looking for ways to get rid of the blockheads, and there are a lot of them. In Russia, you don't have to get rid of the blockheads. All you have to do is clear the road for them. And you can do that by fouling up the more intelligent people._

"Intelligent people?" he could hear Lou say.

_Intelligence doesn't mean good sense,_ Malone thought. _I don't doubt that the men who are maintaining Russia's power are intelligent men-- but what they're doing is bad for the world as a whole, in the long run._

_So you foul them up, and leave the blockheads a clear field to run the country into the ground. And that's easier than fouling up the blockheads._

_Sure it is._

_There are fewer intelligent, active people around than there are blockheads._

_Always were._

_And maybe there always will be--but not if the PRS can help it._

_Oh, and by the way,_ Malone thought. _You do know how I spotted you, don't you? You were tuned in then, weren't you?_

_And I don't mean just Lou. I mean all of you._

_In a world of blind men, the man who can see stands out. In a world of the insane, the sane man stands out._

_And in a world where organizations are regularly being confused and fouled up--either as whole organizations, or through your attempts to get rid of individual members--a smooth-running, efficient organization stands out like a sore thumb._

_Frankly, it took me longer to see it than it should have._

_But I've got the answer at last--the main answer. Though, as I say, there are some others I'd like to have._

_Like, for instance, Russia. And exactly what did happen that night in Moscow._

14

At this point Malone suddenly became aware of a sound that was not coming from his own mind. It was coming from somewhere behind his car, and it was a very loud sound. It was, he discovered when he looked back, the siren of a highway patrolman on a motorcycle, coming toward him at imminent risk of life and limb and waving frantically with an unbelievably free hand.

Malone glanced down at the speedometer. With a sigh, he realized that his reflexes had allowed him a little leeway, and that he was going slightly over the legal speed limit for this Virginia highway. He shook his head, eased up on the accelerator, and began to apply the brakes.

By the time he had pulled over to the side of the road, the highway patrolman was coming to a halt behind the big Lincoln. Malone watched him check the number on the rear plate and then walk slowly around to the window on the driver's side. "Can't you hurry?" Malone muttered under his breath. "All this Virginian ease is okay in its place, but--" In the meanwhile he was getting out his identification, and by the time the patrolman reached him he had it in his hand.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Sorry?" the patrolman said, frowning. He had an open, boyish face with freckles and a pug nose. He looked like somebody's kid brother, very dependable but just a little cute. "What for?" he said.

Malone shrugged. "What else?" he said. "Speeding."

"Oh, that," the patrolman said. "Why, don't you worry about that."