Cue for Quiet

character."

  "Right. As far as I, and anyone else that has had any contact with youat all, can tell or even guess, you are absolutely and perfectlyunique."

  "You said that before."

  "So I did. You know--" and he held my eye steadily--"you're socompletely unique, and so--dangerous, that more than once I have beenpersonally tempted to arrange your--elimination. From behind."

  I couldn't put up more than a weak grin for that. I had wondered aboutthat, myself. A variation, a deadly one, of the old "if you can't lick'em, join 'em" theme. And I hadn't been too cooperative.

  He went on, slowly. "My personal reactions, for obvious reasons, donot enter into this. But I think, Peter, that you should considerthose words very seriously before you are tempted to do or sayanything rash."

  * * * * *

  I agreed that he was probably right, and that it might be better if Ipiped a quiet tune. "But that's not the way I operate. As far as I'mconcerned, I'm responsible to myself, and myself alone. If I wanted tobe told what to say and what to think, and when to say it, I wouldhave stayed in when I got my discharge."

  He shrugged. "It might be better for all concerned if you were undermilitary discipline, although it might not suit your ego. Take, forexample, the two generals you met in Detroit; Generals Hayes and VanDorf. They both are regarded as brilliant; they are both regarded astoo mentally precocious to be risked in physical action. They are twoof the most agile minds on the staff."

  I took his word for it. "They are still generals to me. And I don'thave to stand at attention, and I don't have to take their orders."

  "Exactly," and he reached for the cigarettes again. "It is not goingto do any good by adding more fuel to your mental furnace, but it isonly fair to tell you that the ... elimination thing was more or lessseriously discussed before you left Detroit."

  He didn't give me a chance to blow up, but raced on. "General Hayesand General Van Dorf are sensible men, dealing in material andsensible things. You are neither practical or sensible, in many ways,this being one. They, as well equipped as they are, are not preparedto cope with such a problem presented with such as you. I might addhere, that neither is anyone else. What are you laughing at?"

  I couldn't help it. "The military mind at its best. First cross up theworld by getting a weapon with no defense. Then when someone comes upwith a defense for any weapon, including the weapon with no defense,they start turning back flips."

  "Take that idiotic grin off your face." Just the same, he thought itwas rather comic, himself. "Neither of us are in the Armed Forces, sofor the present we can talk and plan freely. If you think, Peter, thatall this can be solved with prejudice and a smart remark, you're very,very wrong. The worst is yet to come."

  I asked him if I'd had a bed of roses, so far. "I don't think I couldbe much worse off than I've been so far. How would you like to bepenned up--"

  "Penned up?" He snorted disgustedly. "You've had yourself a holiday,and you can't see it. Try to see the military, the legal point ofview. Here is one person, Peter Ambrose Miller, one man and only oneman, with the ability, the power, to cancel at one stroke everyscientific advancement that armament has made in the past threethousand years."

  "And the big boys don't like it," I mused.

  "The little boys, as you use the word, won't like it, either," hesaid. "But, that's not the point. Not the point at all. The stem ofthe apple is this--what are we going to do with you?"

  "We?" I asked him.

  "We," he explained carefully, as to a baby, "is a generic term for thearmy, the navy, the government, the world in general. As long as youlive, as long as you continue to be able to do the things you can donow, a gun or an airplane is so much scrap metal. But--only as long asyou live!"

  * * * * *

  That I didn't like. "You mean that--"

  "Exactly what I said. As long as you're alive a soldier or a sailormight as well be a Zulu; useful for the length he can throw a spear orshoot 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."

  "Do you have to harp on that?"

  "Why not? Do you want to live forever, or do you expect to?"

  He had me there. You bet I wanted to live forever. "Well?"

  He yanked pensively at his upper lip. "Two solutions; one, announceyou to the world with a clang of cymbals and a roll of drums. Two,bury you someplace. Oh, figuratively speaking," he added hastily as hesaw my face.

  "Solution one sounds good to me," I told him. "I could go home then."

  He made it quite clear that Solution One was only theoretical; he wasfirm about that. "Outside of rewriting all the peace treaties inexistence, do you remember how our Congress huddled over the Bomb? Canyou see Congress allowing you, can you see the General Staff agreeingto share you with, for example, a United Nations Commission? Can you?"

  No, I couldn't.

  "So," with a regretful sigh, "Solution One leaves only Solution Two.We'll grant that you must be kept under cover."

  I wondered if Stein was somewhere at the earphones of a tape recorder.For someone with as big a job as the old man likely had, it seemedthat we were talking fairly freely. He went on.

  "And that Solution Two has within itself another unsolved problem; whowatches you, and who watches the watchers?"

  That didn't matter to me, and I said so.

  "I suppose not to you, but it would matter to the army, and it wouldmatter to the navy, and when J. Edgar Hoover gets around to thinkingabout it, it will matter to the FBI."

  "So what? Would I get a choice?"

  * * * * *

  He was curious for a moment. "Would you want one?"

  "Maybe, maybe not. I had a uniform once. The FBI go to college andtake off their hats in the house, but they're still cops, and I don'tlike cops. Don't look at me like that; you wouldn't like cops either,if you made less than a couple of hundred a week. Nobody does. So I'mprejudiced against everybody, and just what difference does it make?"

  "Not a great deal. I was just curious." He was honest, anyway. "Butyou can see the possibilities, or the lack of them."

  "Look," and I got up to take as many steps as the cabin would allow."This is where we came in. We could talk all day and get no further.All I want to know is this--what's going to happen to me, and when,and where?"

  He followed me with his steady eyes. "Well, at the immediate moment,I'm afraid that--" He hesitated.

  "I'm afraid that, quick like a bunny, you're going to have one solidheadache if we don't quit using the same words over and over again.Here I am stuck in the middle of all the water in the world, and I'mtired, and I'm disgusted, and I'm starting to get mad. You're tryingto smother my head in a pillow, I've got nothing but a first-classrun-around from you and everyone I've seen, who has been one man namedBob Stein. I see nothing, I know less, I get cold shoulders and hotpromises."

  I sailed right on, not giving him a chance to slide in one word. "Why,there must be ten thousand men and maybe some women right upstairs,and who knows how many within a few miles from here, and do I get toeven pass the time of day with any of them? Do I? You bet your sweetlife I don't!"

  "There aren't any women within miles of here, except nurses, and maybea reporter, and I'm not sure about that."

  "Nurses and reporters are human, aren't they?"

  Had he found a chink in the armor? He frowned. "Is it women you want?"

  "Sure, I want women!" I flared at him. "I want a million of them! Iwant Esther Williams and Minnie Mouse and anyone else that looks goodto me. But I don't want them on a silver platter with a gilt chain. Iwant them when I want them--my wife and the waitress at Art's, and thebeer I used to drink would taste a lot better than the beer you saidI'd get and never seen!"

  * * * * *

  The Smith stood up and I sat down. "Women and beer. Anything else?"

&n
bsp; "Sure," I snapped at him. "Women and beer and traffic piled up onGratiot and the same double feature at all the movies in town--" I gota look at him. I felt silly. "All right, take out the needle. Youwin."

  He was a gentleman. He didn't laugh. "Win? Yes, I suppose I win."Before I could think of anything else to say, he was gone.

  PART II

  Smith knocked early the next morning when Stein was still