by Anthology
"And perhaps--oh, certainly!--a pension. You can rest assured your wife will never want. You see, Mr. Miller, we want to test you, and your ... ability. Perhaps this unbelievable control you have can be duplicated, or understood. That we want to find out. We want to turn inside out all the enormous potential you have. In short we want--we must--have you in strictest custody and under rigid observation. If you like, I can see that you have a military or naval commission of rank commensurate with your importance. And don't think, Mr. Miller, that you're any less important than I've stated. Right now, from this side of the fence, it looks to me that you're the most important thing this side of the invention of the wheel."
I didn't want a commission. I wanted to lead a normal life, and I wanted my wife.
* * * * *
"The Marines, perhaps? Or the Air Corps?"
It wasn't just the Army, or the Navy; it was the system. If I had to be a Sad Sack I'd be a civilian.
"As you like. Agreed?"
I looked at him. "Agreed? What do you want me to say? Agreed. That's a good word for you to use to me."
"You can rest assured--" He saw what must have been on my face, and stopped short. For a long minute we sat there, he thinking his thoughts, and me thinking mine. Mine weren't pleasant. Then he got up and came over to me. "Sorry. This is a pretty big meal to digest all at once. I know how you must feel."
I stared up at him. "Do you?"
Then he turned and left. Later, I don't know when, the young fellow came back alone and took me to my cell. I must have finally gotten to sleep.
The young fellow, who turned out to be a fairly good citizen named Stein, came after me the next day. He wanted me to pack. Pack? All the clothes I had were on my back.
"Toothbrush, things like that. Tell me what you want in the line of clothes and you'll get them. Or anything else, within reason."
"Anything? Anything at all?"
"Well, I said anything reasonable." We didn't have to go any further into that. He knew what I meant.
When it was dark they took us away, Stein and myself. In the back of a mail truck, cramped and silent we rode for what seemed hours. Long before we rattled to a halt I could hear the familiar roars of motors being warmed. The tailgates swung open and a twenty-foot walk put us into a military ship. That meant Selfridge Field. Stein and I sat in the old painful bucket seats, the twin motors blasted and we trundled down the paved strip, a takeoff to nowhere. So long, Miller; so long to your wife and your home and your life. So long, Miller; you're dead and you're gone, and your wife will get a medal.
* * * * *
When I awoke, the cabin was stuffy, and the sun was brassy and hot and high. Stein, already awake, came up with a thermos of coffee and a snack. A peep from the ports didn't tell me where I was, not that it mattered. Somewhere in the west or southwest, on a sandy waste on the far end of a landing strip away from a cluttered group of shacks, we walked long enough to get out the kinks. Then a hurried sandwich from a picnic basket left in the cabin by an invisible steward, and we transferred to a gray amphibian. The next time I had interest enough to look out and down we were over water, and toward the rim of the world we floated for hours. I dozed off again.
Stein woke me up. Wordlessly he passed me a heavy helmet, and the kind of goggles that present a mirrored blankness to the outside world. All this time I had seen none of the crews, even when we had landed. The two of us had strolled alone in a tiny world of our own. When the pilot cut his engines for the landing I had the old style helmet on my head. It was far too big, and hurt my ears. The galloping splash we made puddled the ports high, and we bobbed awkwardly until Stein got his signal from the pilot, who popped out an impersonal arm. From the wing-struts we transferred to a Navy dory, manned by enlisted men commanded by a blank-faced ensign in dungarees. We were both wearing the concealing helmets in the stifling heat, and the ensign's "Eyes Front," did no more than keep the sailors from sneaking curious looks from the corners of their eyes.
* * * * *
The small boat put us alongside what looked like more of a workship than a fighter. It might have been an oiler or a repair-ship, or it might not have even been Navy. But it was Navy clean, and the crew was Navy. Some gold braid, way out of proportion to the size of the ship, met us at the top of the ladder, saluted, God knows why, and led Stein and I to a cabin. Not too big, not too small. I heard the amphibian rev up and take off again, and the deck tilted a trifle beneath us as we gathered way. A yank, and the suffocating helmet was off and I turned to Stein.
"Navy ship?"
He hesitated, then nodded.
"Navy ship."
"No beer, then."
I drew a big grin this time. He was human, all right. "No beer."
Like an oven it was in that cabin. In a shower stall big enough for a midget I splashed away until I got a mouthful of water. Salt. I paddled out of there in a hurry and spent the next two hours trying to get interested in a year-old House and Home. Hours? I spent three solid days looking at that same issue, and others like it. All the sailors on the ship must have had hydroponics or its equivalent on the brain. In between times it cost me thirteen dollars I didn't have to play gin with Stein. Then--
* * * * *
I never did find out his real name. Neither his name, nor his job, nor what his job had to do with me, but he must have been important, from the salutes and attention he got. Maybe he'd just gotten there, maybe he'd been there all the time. He told me, when I bluntly asked him his name and what he did, that his name was Smith, and I still think of him as Smith. When he tapped on the door and stepped into that airless cabin I could smell the fans and the generals and the Federal Building all over again.
"Hello, Mr. Miller," he smiled. "Nice trip?"
"Swell trip," I told him. "Join the Navy and see the world through a piece of plywood nailed over a porthole."
When he sat down on the edge of the chair he was fussy about the crease in his pants. "Mr. Miller, whenever you are above decks, day or night, you will please keep your face concealed with that helmet, or its equivalent, no matter how uncomfortable the weather. Please."
"Since when have I been above decks? Since when have I been out of this two-by-four shack?"
"The shack," he said, "could be smaller, and the weather could be hotter. We'll see that while you're aboard you'll have the freedom of the deck after sunset. And you won't if things go right, be aboard much longer."
My ears went up at that. "No?"
"On the deck, upstairs"--he Was no Navy man, or maybe that was the impression he wanted to give--"are racks of rockets of various sizes. You might have noticed them when you came aboard. No? Well, they have been armed; some with electrical proximity fuses, some with mechanical timing devices, and some have both. They will be sent singly, or in pairs, or in salvos, at a target some little distance away. Your job will be the obvious one. Do you think you can do it?"
"Suppose I don't?"
He stood up. "Then that's what we want to know. Ready?"
I stretched. "As ready as I'll ever be. Let's go and take the air."
"Forget something?" He pointed at the helmet, hanging back of the door.
I didn't like it, but I put it on, and he took me up, up to the rocket racks on the prow. Even through the dark lenses the sun was oddly bright. Smith pointed off to port, where a battered old hull without even a deckhouse or a mast hobbled painfully in the trough of the sea.
"Target."
He jerked a thumb at the racks.
"Rockets."
I knew what they were. I'd seen enough of them sail over my head.
"Ready?"
* * * * *
Yes, I was ready. He made a careless flick of his hand and an order was barked behind me. A clatter and a swoosh, and a cylinder arced gracefully, catching me almost by surprise. I felt that familiar tightening behind my eyes, that familiar tensing and hunching of my shoulders. The propellant was taking the rocket almost out of sight when the fuse fired it
. "Wham!"
Caught that one in midair. Try another. Another "whoosh," and another "wham."
* * * * *
Then they tried it in pairs. Both of the flying darning-needles blew together, in an eccentric sweep of flame. Four, maybe five or six pairs I knocked down short of the target, some so close to us that I imagined I could feel the concussion. They switched to salvos of a dozen at a time and they blew almost in unison. They emptied the racks that way, and I was grimly amused at the queer expression of the officer in charge as the enlisted men refilled the maws of the gaping racks. Smith, the old man, nudged me a little harder than necessary.
"All racks, salvo."
All at once. I tried for a cool breath in that sweaty helmet. "Ready!"
I couldn't pick out any individual sounds. The racks vomited lightning and thunder far too fast for that. The rumble and roar bored itself into a remote corner of my brain while I watched that barnacled hulk and concentrated. I couldn't attempt to think of each rocket, or each shot, individually, so I was forced to try to erect a mental wall and say to myself, "Nothing gets past that line there."
[Illustration]
And nothing did. Just like slamming into a stone wall, every rocket blew up its thrumming roar far short of the target. The racks finally pumped themselves dry, and through the smoke Smith grasped my arm tighter than I liked. I couldn't hear what he was saying, deafened as we all were by the blasts. He steered me back to the cabin and I flipped off drops of sweat with the helmet. I turned unexpectedly and caught the old man staring at me.
"Now what's the matter with you?"
* * * * *
He shook his head and sat down heavily. "You know, Miller, or Pete, if you don't mind, I still don't actually believe what I've just seen."
I borrowed a light from the ubiquitous Stein. His expression told me he'd seen the matinee.
"I don't believe it either, and I'm the one that put on the show." I blew smoke in the air and gave back the lighter. "But that's neither here nor there. When do I get out of this Black Hole of Calcutta?"
"Well...." Smith was undecided. "Where would you like to spend some time when we're through with all this?"
That I hadn't expected. "You mean I have a choice?"
Noncommittally, "Up to a point. How about some island somewhere? Or in the States? Cold or warm? How, for instance, would you feel about Guam or--"
"Watched by the whole Mounted Police?" He nodded.
I didn't care. "Just someplace where no one will bother me; some place where I can play some records of the Boston Pops or Victor Herbert;" (and I guess the nervous strain of all that mental effort in all the noise and smoke was fighting a delaying action) "someplace where I can get all the beer I want, because it looks like I'm going to need plenty. Someplace where I can sit around and take things easy and have someone to--" I cut it short.
He was one of the understanding Smiths, at that. "Yes," he nodded, "we can probably arrange that, too. It may not be...." What else could he say, or what other way was there to say it?
"One more thing," he went on; "one more ... demonstration. This will take some little time to prepare." That, to me, meant one thing, and I liked it not at all. He beat me to the punch.
* * * * *
"This should be what is called the pay-off, the final edition. Come through on this one, and you'll be better off than the gold in Fort Knox. Anything you want, anything that money or goodwill can buy, anything within the resources of a great--and, I assure you, a grateful--nation. Everything--"
"--everything," I finished for him, "except the right to go down to the corner store for a magazine. Everything except what better than me have called the pursuit of happiness."
* * * * *
He knew that was true. "But which is more important; your happiness, or the freedom and happiness of a hundred and seventy millions? Peter, if things political don't change, perhaps the freedom and happiness of over two billion, which, I believe, is the population of this backward planet."
"Yeah." The cigarette was dry, and I stubbed it in an ashtray. "And all this hangs on one person--me. That's your story." My mouth was dry, too.
His smile, I'm afraid, was more than just a little forced. "That's my story, and we're all stuck with it; you, me, all of us. No, you stay here, Stein. Let's see if we can get this over once and for all." Lines came and went on his forehead, as he felt for words.
"Let's try it this way: for the first time in written history as we know it one single deadly new weapon can change the course of the world, perhaps even change the physical course of that world, and the people who in the future will live in it. Speaking personally, as a man and as a reasonable facsimile of a technician, I find it extremely hard, almost impossible, to believe that at the exact psychic moment an apparent complete nullification of that weapon has appeared."
I grunted. "Maybe."
"Maybe. That's what we want to find out. Could you, Peter, if you were in my place, or you in your own place, get a good night's sleep tonight or any other night knowing that problem might have an answer without doing anything about it? Or are you one of these people who believe that there is no problem, that all things will solve themselves? Do you believe that, Stein? Do you think that Peter Ambrose Miller thinks that way?"
No, Stein didn't think that way, and Miller didn't think that way. We all knew that.
"All right," and he rubbed the back of his neck with a tired hand. "We have that weapon now. We, meaning the United States, and the whole wide world, from Andorra to Zanzibar. Now means today, in my lexicon. Tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow, or tomorrow of next year or the year after that, who will be the one to use that weapon? Do you know, Peter? Do you know?"
There was no need for an answer to that.
"And neither does anyone else. Peter, you're insurance. You're the cheapest and best insurance I know of. If! There's that big if. I hate that word. I always have, and I'm going to eliminate 'if,' as far as Peter Ambrose Miller is concerned. Right?"
Of course he was right. Hiroshima could just as well have been Memphis or Moscow or Middletown. And I always had wanted to be rich enough to carry my own insurance....
Before Smith left he told me it might be a month or two before he would see me again.
"These things aren't arranged overnight, you know."
I knew that.
I would be landed, he said, somewhere, someplace, and I'd be my own boss, up to a point. Stein would be with me, and the secrecy routine would still be in effect.... His voice trailed off, and I neither saw nor heard him leave.
* * * * *
Three miserable weeks I spent somewhere in some stinking Southern Pacific mudhole. Cocker spaniel Stein was never out of reach, or sight, and gave me the little attention I wanted. From a distance I occasionally saw Army and Navy. The enlisted men were the ones who brought me not everything I asked for, but enough to get along. Later on, I knew, I'd get the moon on ice if I were actually as valuable as appeared. At that time no one was sure, including some brass who came poking around when they thought I might be asleep. They stayed far away from me, evidently under strict orders to do just that, although they took Stein aside several times and barked importantly at him. I don't think they made much impression on Stein. I was aching for an argument at that stage, and it's just as well they dodged contact. When Smith showed up, with the usual officious body-guard, I was itching to go.
Bikini I'd seen in the newsreels, and this wasn't it. The back forty would have dwarfed it. Just a limp palm or two and an occasional skinny lump of herbiage. Ships of all naval types and a civilian freighter or so spotted themselves at anchor like jagged rocks around the compass. The gray cruiser we were on never once dropped its hook; it paced nervously back and forth, up and down, and I followed, pacing the deck. With Stein at my heels, I saw daylight only through the ports. Only at night did I get to where I could smell the salt breeze free of the stink of paint and Diesel oil. From what I know about ships and their complements
we must have had at least the captain's cabin, or pretty close to its mate. We never saw the captain, or at least he was never around when I was. The buzzing mass of brass and high civilians I knew were there, the old man told me, were and berthed on the big flattop carrier that idled off to port. Only Smith dropped in occasionally to rasp my frayed nerves deeper. With all the activity seething around us, and with only Stein and myself to keep each other company, we were getting cabin fever. I told that to Smith, who soothed me with promises.
"Tomorrow's the day."
"It better be. How are we going to work this, anyway?" I was curious, and I thought I had a right to be. "From what I hear, you better have your holes already dug."
"Too true," he agreed. "The bomb itself will be released from a drone plane, radio-controlled. We will, of course, be far enough from this island and the target installations you might have noticed going up to be out of range of radiations--"
"You hope!"
"--we hope. Your job will be to keep the bomb from detonating, or if that cannot be done, to fire it harmlessly, or as much so as possible. That's what we want to know. Clear?" Of course it was clear. That's what I wanted to know, too.
* * * * *
The sun came up out of the sea as quickly as it always does, and although the cruiser deck was almost bare far off we could see the carrier deck swarming with tiny ants. The odd-angled posts and gadgets we could see sticking up must have belonged to the technical boys, and they must have had plenty of it, if we could see it at that distance. Overhead they must have had at least eight planes of all types, from B-36's to helicopters to Piper Cubs, all dipping and floating and racing madly from one air bubble to another. Smith took time to tell me that, regardless whether the Bomb was fired by Miller or Iron Mike the explosion data would be immensely valuable.
"These things cost money," he said, "and this is killing two birds with one stone." I didn't want to be a bird, and my smile was sickly strained. Smith went off with a wry grin.