President is a very important man."
"Yeh."
"You are, too. Right now, probably the most important man in theworld. You took it very well."
"Yeh."
"Is that all you have to say?"
I looked out the window. "Yeh," and he fell quiet.
Stein got us to the airport, and there was waiting an Army ship forthe three of us. I might have been able to see the Monument or theCapitol when we were airborne. I don't know. I didn't look.
Later I asked Stein where we were going. He didn't know. I prodded theOld Man out of a doze. I wished I could sleep.
He hesitated. Then, "West. Far west."
"West." I thought that over. "How much out of your way would it be tofly over Detroit?"
"You couldn't see much."
I knew that. "How much out of your way?"
Not too much. He nodded to Stein, who got up and went forward. Afterhe came back and sat down the plane slipped on one wing andstraightened on its new course. No one said anything more after that.
We hit Detroit about five thousand feet, the sun just coming up fromLake Ste. Clair. Smith was right. Although I craned my neck I couldn'tsee much. I picked up Gratiot, using the Penobscot Tower for alandmark, and followed it to Mack, and out Mack. I could just pickout the dogleg at Connors, and imagined I could see the traffic lightat Chalmers. I had to imagine hard. The way we were flying, the bodyand the wing hid where I'd lived, where--the cigarette I had in myfist tasted dry, and so did my mouth, so I threw it down and closed myeyes and tried to sleep. Somewhere around Nebraska we landed for fuel.
* * * * *
Maybe it was Kansas. It was flat, and hot, and dry. The Old Man andStein and I got out to stretch. There was no shade, no trees, no greenoasis for the traveler. The olive drab tanker that pulled up to pumpgas into our wing tanks was plastered with "No Smoking" tabs, and wewalked away before the hose was fully unreeled. Off to our right wasthe only shade, back of the landing strip, a great gray hangar gluttedwith shiny-nosed, finny monsters. Out of the acrid half-pleasant reekof high-octane, we stood smoking idly, watching the denimed air-crewsclamber flylike over the jutting wings. From the post buildings off tothe right jounced a dusty motorcycle. We watched it twist to a jerkingstop at our refueling ship, and the soldier that dismounted bobbed insalute to the two pilots watching the gassing operation. Two motionsonly they used; one to return the salute and another to point us outin the shadow of the hangar. The soldier shaded his eyes from the sunto peer in our direction, calculated the distance with his eye, andthen roared his motorcycle almost to our feet.
"Post Commander's compliments," he barked. "And will the gentlemenplease report at once to the Colonel's office?"
The Old Man eyed the motorcycle and the empty sidecar. He looked atStein.
"Better stay here," he said thoughtfully. "If I need you, I'll comeback." He climbed awkwardly into the sidecar, and the soldier, after ahesitant acceptance, kicked the starter. The Old Man gripped the sidesfirmly as they bounced away in the baking breeze, and Stein lookedabsently at his watch. It was close to noon.
At twelve-thirty the gas truck rolled ponderously back to its den. Atone, our two pilots struck out across the strip for the postbuildings, shimmering in the heat. At one-thirty, I turned to Stein,who had been biting his nails for an hour.
"Enough is enough," I said. "Who finds out what--you or I?"
He hesitated, and strained his eyes. The Old Man, nor anyone, was notin sight. The post might have been alone in the Sahara. He chewed hislip.
"Me, I guess." He knew better than to argue with me, in my mood. "I'llbe back. Ten minutes," and he started for the post. He got no furtherthan half the distance when an olive sedan, a big one, raced towardus. It stopped for Stein, sucked him into the front seat, whirled backpast me to our plane standing patiently, and dumped out our twopilots. A final abrupt bounding spin brought it to the hangar. The OldMan leaned out of the back door.
"In, quick," he snapped.
I got in, and the soldier driver still had the sedan in second gearwhen we got to our ship. One motor was already coughing, and as weclambered into the cabin the starter caught the second. Bothpropellers vanished into a silvered arc, and without a preparatorywarmup we slewed around and slammed back in the bucket seats in apounding takeoff. Stein went forward to the pilot's cabin, and Iturned, half-angrily, to the Smith. His face was etched withbitterness. Something was wrong, something seriously wrong.
"What's up?" I asked. "What's the big hurry?"
He flicked a sidelong glance at me, and his brows almost met. Helooked mad, raving mad.
"Well?" I said. "Cat got your tongue?" I noticed then that he wasfraying and twisting a newspaper. I hadn't seen a newspaper for whatseemed years. Stein came back and sat on the edge of the seat. What inblazes was the matter?
Smith said something unprintable. That didn't sound right, coming fromthat refined face. I raised my eyebrows.
"Leak," he ended succinctly. "There's been a leak. The word's out!"
That was a surprise. A big one.
"And it's thanks to you!"
"Me?"
He flipped the newspaper at me. I caught it in midair, and there itwas, smeared all over the face of the Kansas City _Sentinel_. Great,black, tall shrieking streamer heads:
AMERICA HAS ATOMIC DEFENSE!
I scanned the two columns of stumbling enthusiastic prose that trailedover on to Page Two. Stein came over and leaned over my shoulder andbreathed on my ear as we read. He hadn't seen the sheet, either. Itran 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. Neither admitted nor denied at this early date by even the highest government officials, it was learned by our staff late last night that America's latest step forward....
Column after column of stuff like that. When the reporter got throughburbling, he did have a few facts that were accurate. He did say itwas my doing that set off the last atomic bomb test; he did say that Iwas apparently invulnerable to violence powered by electrical orinternal combustion engines; he did say what I could do, and what Ihad done, and how often. He didn't say who I was, or what I lookedlike, or where I'd come from, or what I did or didn't know.
Sprinkled through the story--and I followed it back to Page 32 and thepictures rehashed of the traffic jam in Detroit--were references to T.Sylvester Colquhoun, the boy who dumped the original plate of beans.He attested this and swore to that. Whoever he was, wherever he gothis information, he--there was his picture on Page 32, big as life andtwice as obnoxious; Mr. Whom and the van Dyke.
Guiltily I handed the paper over to Stein, who turned back to thefront page and started again from the beginning. I tried to carrythings off in the nonchalant manner, but I couldn't. I had to watchthe Old Man light a cigarette with fumbling fingers, take a fewsnorting puffs, and crush it viciously under his heel. Miller and histemper.
Whom--or T. Sylvester Colquhoun--had, quite obviously, a grudgeagainst the short left that had given him his concussion. According tothe _Sentinel_, he had babbled a bit when he was released from thehospital, and an alert newshawk had trailed him to his home andbluffed him into spilling the whole story. He had sense enough, atthat late stage of the game, to keep my name out of it, if he everknew it. The reporter had gone to his editor with the story, who hadlaughed incredulously at first, and then checked Kellner at thelaboratory. Kellner had clammed up, and when the now suspicious editorhad tried to check Colquhoun's tale personally, Colquhoun hadvanished. A snooping neighbor had noted the license of the car thathad taken him away. The Highway Department--the editor must havemoved fast and decisively--showed the license plate as issued to a manthe editor knew personally as a special agent of the Kansas CityBranch of the FBI.
Then hell began to pop. Repeated long-distance calls to Washington ranhim up against a stone
wall. The answers he got convinced him thatthere was something to Colquhoun's wild tale, something weird and yetsomething that had a germ of truth. (Half of this, understand, was inthe _Sentinel_. The other half I picked up later on, adding two andtwo.) As he was sitting mulling things over it was his turn to get acall from Washington. The State Department was on the line; Morgan,the Under Secretary.
Morgan fairly yelled at him. "Where did you get that information?What's the idea?" and so on. That clinched it for the editor. Then itwas he knew.
Morgan made his mistake there. He began to threaten, and the editorhit the ceiling. Hit it hard, because he stretched things a little. Hestretched it more than just a little.
He said, "Furthermore, that's on the