T. L. Sherred

“ AMERICA HAS ATOMIC DEFENSE!
I scanned the two columns of stumbling enthusiastic prose that trailed over on to Page Two. Stein came over and leaned over my shoulder and breathed on my ear as we read. He hadn't seen the sheet, either. It ran something like this:
America, it was learned today, has at last an absolute defense, not only to the atomic bomb, but to every gun, every airplane, every engine, every weapon capable of being used by man. ”

“ The beach is yellow as gold, the sun comes up every day in the east and sets in the west, and I've got for my personal use the biggest, shiniest bar you ever saw in all your life. They ship in draft beer for me all the way from La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Munich, Germany. Every month I get a four-quart keg from Belfast in Ireland, and I've got all the gadgets I need to mix anything a barkeep could dream up. The ice I get from what probably is a six-hundred dollar refrigerator that makes nothing but ice cubes. ”

“ Don't you know who Doctor Kellner is?"
"One big healthy pain!" I snapped at him. "Does he know who I am? I'm Pete Miller, Mister Miller to him or to anyone but my friends. I want my pants!"
Stein wrung his hands and slowed me down as much as I would let him. "You just can't get up and walk out like that!"
"Oh, no?" I came to a full stop and leered at him. "Who's going to stop me?"
That's the trouble with the doctors and lawyers and technical boys; they're so used to talking over people's heads they can't answer a civil question in less than forty syllables. Keep all the secrets in the trade. ”

“ I asked him.
"We," he explained carefully, as to a baby, "is a generic term for the army, the navy, the government, the world in general. As long as you live, as long as you continue to be able to do the things you can do now, a gun or an airplane is so much scrap metal. But—only as long as you live!" ”

“ You know, one of the funniest and yet one of the most pathetic things in the world is the spectacle of someone who has spent his life in mastering a subject, only to find that he has built a sled without runners. Long before we were finished I thought Kellner, for one, was going to eat his tie, stripes and all. ”

“ They ask me every once in a while if I'm all right, if I need women. I tell them I don't, that I'm reconciled with living like I am. And that's true; I want no other woman except Helen, and her I can't have, for devious reasons; my name is just anonymous to the world. Smith talked me into that—his idea was that if no one knew who I was, I'd be just that much harder to find. He explained that there are several other islands set up the same as mine, with almost the same conditions and the same surroundings. He calls it camouflage on a grand scale, and he's the boss. I know I'm not very smart ”

“ Here is one person, Peter Ambrose Miller, one man and only one man, with the ability, the power, to cancel at one stroke every scientific advancement that armament has made in the past three thousand years. ”

“ Morgan went on. "Where would you like to live, gentlemen?" and his glance flicked around the table; "in the best liked or most hated country in the world?"
It mattered not to Five Star, nor to Suggs.
"What difference does it make, Mr. Undersecretary? Speaking for myself and my constituents, I can truthfully say that the opinion of the world matters not one good solitary damn. Who cares what some other country has got to say, if words can't be backed up with action? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I didn't bother going back to Art's. Art was all right, and there was no sense in making trouble for a pal. Harry, now. He was a stinker. Go put the needle in Harry, two blocks away.
While Harry was drawing the beer I walked string straight to the jukebox, clicked in a quarter, and stalked back to the barstool. Turn your back, Pete, just as though you didn't know perfectly well what was going to happen. Now take a tasty sip of your beer, wait for the noise to start.... Take a deep breath, now; Pete Miller, saviour of man's sanity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You try working on the roof line sometime, with the presses grinding and the overhead cranes wailing and the mechanical arms clacking and grabbing at your inner skull while you snap a shiny sheet of steel like an armored pillowcase and shove it into the maw of a hungry greasy ogre. ”

“ I never thought that I would ever sit quietly and listen to someone calmly plot the complete obliteration of my whole life, my whole being. It was like one of these European novels when one sane man tries to live and find another sane person in a world of madness. ”

“ The military mind at its best. First cross up the world by getting a weapon with no defense. Then when someone comes up with a defense for any weapon, including the weapon with no defense, they start turning back flips. ”

“ He spends six weeks out of every eight here with me and the others that form the crew of this little island afloat in the Southern Sea. The food is good, and with no limit to variety and type. We can't be too far from somewhere, because every once in a while we hear a rattle and banging somewhere out to sea. Once we heard what sounded like a full scale battle. I pried it out of Bob Stein that it was just maneuvers, as he called it. I know better. I see nothing but naval craft, and I suspect that they're not always just at the horizon for practice. ”

“ I shook his hand limply and the Old Man was at my elbow to steer me out. Together we paced back through the dark hall, together we stepped quietly out into the black Washington night. Our footsteps echoed softly past the buildings of the past and the future. The car was waiting; Stein, the driver. The heavy door slammed, and the tires hissed me from the pavement.
The Old Man's voice was gentle. "You behaved well, Peter."
"Yeh."
"I was afraid, for a moment, that you were going to kick over the traces. The President is a very important man." ”

“ Probably no one else on the streetcar beside myself noticed there wasn't a single passenger car, truck or bus that passed us. Every car, as we sailed by, stalled and every traffic light we passed either turned three colors or blinked out completely. Most of the moving cars made it to the curb on their momentum. The others stayed where they were. When I got off in front of the City Hall, filthy old hulk that it is, the streetcar stayed immobile at the safety zone, it was a new PCC car, and the insulation poured smoke from under the wheels. ”

“ Art's a good bartender when he wants to be. I held up my empty glass.
"One more, Art. Got the radio section of the paper?"
He handed it to me. "Might be something on the television."
We both laughed. We both feel the same way about television, but he has to have a set in his business for week-end football or baseball games. A big set he has, too, with an extra speaker for the far end of the bar for the short beer trade. I found the program I wanted and showed Art the listing. ”

“ Suggs was his own echo. "Nothing's to prevent them, not a thing in the world. How many times have I come right out and said in public that the only way to keep the world where we want it is to just make sure that no one else is going to get it? How many times?"
Morgan rubbed his cigarette in the ashtray and spoke to the table. "You've said that many times, Senator. That's true, too true. I, on the other hand, have asked you many times if you've thought that the only way to make sure no other nation gets the bomb would be to go right in and make sure. ”

“ The man who is handy with his hands will crack wide open with ridicule, with words used as the lever. The man who is handy with words is a different nut to crack; slap him down with insults while his verbal guard is down. If his temper doesn't snap in the first two minutes, it never will.
So, because I thought it was the right thing to say, and because I didn't like the Senator anyway, I said, "Senator Suggs, you talked plain. That's good. I like men who talk plain. ”

“ Now, Senator, think of yourself and your constituents: is it not far better that Europe and Asia and the world be solaced and comforted by the announcement that we would use our ... Iron Curtain only in our own defense? Would it not be better—how many years, Senator, have there been recorded of universal peace? How many years?"
Some men can sit poker-stiff, yet give the impression of teetering slowly on their heels, slowly counting the horses' teeth. Suggs was a horse trader from away back.
He said, "Mr. Morgan, I say I can appreciate your viewpoint. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Suggs opened his mouth like a thirsty carp and closed it again as Morgan went on.
"Call it what you like, Senator; General Legree will agree with me that this perfect defense—if defense is the word—is equally well the perfect weapon. Right, General?"
Legree pursed pontifical lips for a reply and was annoyed when Morgan paused only momentarily.
"Perfect defense means the nullification of an opposing weapon. Obviously, a weaponless army is no longer anything but a disciplined mob. ”

“ From the open space I had to work in they must have thought I was a ferry-boat, until it dawned on me that all those armed Marines with their backs turned weren't there just for ornament. Peter Valuable Miller. Very, very, queer, I thought, that all those technicians swarming on the carrier deck could be trusted enough to build and fire a Bomb and yet couldn't be allowed to know that there might be a possible defense to that Bomb. I watched Stein scratch his back against a projecting steel rib as the Smith strolled absently out of nowhere. Stein straightened sheepishly, and the old man smiled. ”

“ As long as you're alive a soldier or a sailor might as well be a Zulu; useful for the length he can throw a spear or shoot an arrow, but useless as he now stands. There is no army, apparently, right now that is worth more than its body weight—again, as long as you live. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Suggs shrank up in his chair like a little old kobold, the Generals shifted into easier positions with the old familiar creak of expensive leather, and the man Smith looked right at me with his right eye closed. I'd said what he wanted me to say, but now what? Where did we go from here?
Undersecretary of State Theodore Morgan was one of the career men to be found in State Departments throughout the world, if by that you mean someone who has had the same job for years. The newspapers liked to tee off on him occasionally, using his pseudo-British mannerisms and habits for caricature. ”

“ I let fly. "For the record, I want my pants. I'm certainly no patient in this morgue, and I'm not going to be treated like one, so whatever you or anyone else has got to say to me is not going to be while I'm as bare as a baby. My mind's made up," and I scrunched together ungracefully on the little space that remained on my end of the cot and pulled the sheet over my head. Kid stuff, and we both knew it.
He didn't say anything, although I could feel his eyes boring through the flimsy sheet, and I lay there until I felt the springs creak as he got up and I could hear his footsteps retreating. ”

“ Smith and Bob Stein and I were the last to leave, and Morgan's grip for an old man was firm as we shook hands. "You did an excellent demolition job on the Senator," he said. "You know, Pete, there is one of the few people that have made me regret the job I have."
"Forget it," I told him. "You can get fired. Me, I got seniority in a lifetime job. As far as that carp is concerned, you can consider me your chief steward. I'll run ten miles to take up your grievance with Suggs." ”

“ A little Piper Cub with floats drops the New York Times, the Monitor, and a couple of others every morning—of the newspapers with the least amount of junk. I used to get the Detroit papers, but I found out it took too much mental effort to avoid looking at the Vital Statistics, where they record the marriages and deaths.
I finally learned to play bridge. Euchre doesn't seem the same without a barful of people, and pinochle is not the game that Stein is good at. Bob Stein, the poor guy—although he never says one word about it—takes everything in his stride. ”