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THE DREADNOUGHT was big, but it was still outgunned by the six Hothri cruisers, especially since they were coming at it from all sides—and above and below, too.

“Out!” the lieutenant bawled. “Those ants need something else to think about!”

But he was talking to their backsides; Papa had kicked his platoon into motion before the lieutenant finished his exclamation point.

They shot into the scout, catching grab-handles and swinging down into their chairs, stretching their shock webbing over themselves, then sitting, hunched over and tense, eyes glittering, watching Papa.

“Any second,” Papa growled, still upright, hanging onto a grab in the ceiling. “They’ll shove off any . . .”

Then a huge boot kicked them all in the seats of their pants and, for a moment, they had weight again—too much weight, as the little vessel shot out of its berth in the dreadnought, spearing straight toward a Hothri cruiser.

“Okay, web off,” Papa said. “We’ll be boarding in a minute.” He didn’t bother with the “if”—if the Hothri didn’t shoot them down before they grappled; if they were still alive when they hit the bigger ship. They all knew that, or thought they did.

But Papa knew it for real. He’d been in a landing ship that got blown. He was the only one who’d had the presence of mind to crack his emergency oxygen, the only one who’d lived—and would keep living, because Papa was a survivor.

Master Sergeant Pepe Stuart, alias Papa, had been a marine for ten years, and had climbed the ladder of noncom rank by the simple process of staying alive when all the other Aristan marines were dying. Of course, he was good, too—a good fighter and a good boss. More importantly, though, he had an instinct for staying alive, and he took his platoon along with him. He knew when to hide and when to hit . . . and where, and how hard. He fought and bled, but he came away—and went back to fight again.

Their ship slammed into the cruiser with a jolt likely to jar his implants loose. Papa turned to yank the hatch open—then stepped back out of the way, because Mulcahy was kneeling right behind him with the cutting torch. He triggered it as Papa stepped clear, and the beam sprang to life, connecting his hands with the side of the Hothri ship. The coherent light heated the armor plate cherry-red, nothing more-but the liquid explosive that sprayed on just behind it began to roar with its continual, directional detonation, blasting the armor plate ahead but nothing behind. Then Mulcahy closed the circle, and the torch winked out. He tossed it aside, leaping to his feet and leveling his rifle—just as the explosion stopped, and the circle of armor fell out with a clang they could feel in their feet, though they couldn’t hear it through their helmets, or the vacuum around them.

But they could hear Papa bellow “In!” through their earphones.

In he went, jumping through the glowing circle with balletic grace, incongruous on a body hurtling like a bullet, which was why the Hothri’s first shot went over his head and his shoulder slammed into the giant cricket’s midriff. It was a big target, a little taller than himself but half again as long, its abdomen sticking out four feet in back, its thorax leaning forward with a grin beneath its black-plate eyes and long arms reaching for him with three-fingered hands—armored hands, natural bug-case armor with razor-sharp serrated fringes along their backs. Its roar echoed around him in the pea soup that the aliens called atmosphere, the murky red they used for light—but the monsters were snapping their helmets closed now as their fog drained into Papa’s ship.

That delay was just what the platoon needed. They were through the hole and all around now, the air staccato with bursts of fire, ripping through Hothri suits and Hothri flesh. Then the monsters rallied with whistling screeches that must have meant fury, and tore into the men. Papa saw a sword-tipped barrel slashing toward his eyes, and he rolled aside, leveling his own rifle and pulling the trigger. The Hothri’s head vanished in a splatter that Papa didn’t stay to see—he had rolled to the side and ducked, just in time, as another Hothri blasted at him with a scatter gun. There was a sharp sting in his shoulder, a reek of methane in his nose, and Papa knew his helmet had been holed. He knew their smog had enough oxygen to keep him going for a little while, though—certainly long enough. He knocked the Hothri’s shotgun up with his rifle barrel, slammed the butt into the cricket’s helmet, then reversed the weapon and pulled the trigger.

Then, the white-hot fury seared through his back, and everything went black.

* * *

He woke up seeing white. For a moment, he panicked, thinking he was blind, and swung his head to yell for help. But he saw a door, and a pale-yellow wall. That steadied him; wherever he was, it wasn’t a ship and it wasn’t Hothri. After all, he was breathing sweet air with no methane or chlorine, though he didn’t have a helmet.

Who did?

Who had taken his suit off him?

Or had they? He looked down and saw a sheet, a blanket—and something in him relaxed. He was in a hospital; he was safe. More importantly, there were the right number of lumps under the blanket—he had both legs. He held up his hands, relieved to see they were both there, then ran them over the rest of his body. Everything was there, everything seemed to be in good order. His back was a long, flaming ache, which must have been why they had him propped on his side, but all his pieces seemed to be right.

The door opened, and a nurse came in. Not worth fighting for, but still awfully good to see. Anyway, she smiled when she saw his eyes open. “Just a second, Sergeant. I’ll get the doctor.” The door closed.

And Papa was tense. If she’d gone for the doctor, there was something she wasn’t supposed to tell him. But what? He was all here!

The door opened again, and the man of medicine came in, wearing long, white coveralls and a nice set of exhaustion lines. Nonetheless, he managed a smile. “Good morning, Sergeant.”

“Good morning, Doc,” Papa answered. “’Which one?”

That brought the doctor up short. “Which what?”

“Which morning?”

“Oh.” The doctor sat down in the bedside chair. “Wednesday, Sergeant.”

Papa stared. “Two whole days? Was I out that long?”

The doctor nodded. “It took us a little while to rebuild your back, Sergeant. New tissue takes time to grow, even when it’s forced.”

“I knew there was something wrong back there. What’d the crickets do to me, Doc?”

“Basically burned your whole upper back. We thought there might have been some damage to your hindbrain, but all your reflexes checked out. How do you feel?”

Papa frowned. “Logy, slow in the head.”

“That’s the hangover from the sedatives. If you find anything unusual in the way you think, any strange surges of emotion, let us know—but we think you’re okay.”

“Think?” All Papa’s defenses went up. “That means you’re not sure.”

“Not yet—but we have every reason to think you’ll recover completely.”

“When?”

The doctor blinked. “Excuse me?”

“How long before you send me back to combat?”

“Oh.” The doctor relaxed. “Can’t say, really. Could be a month, could be six. But figure you’ve got at least thirty days R & R, Sergeant. You’ve earned it.”

“But now, wait a minute, no!” Then, for a second, Papa forgot what he’d wanted to say. But only for a second; he knew that what the doctor had said was wrong somehow, that it wasn’t what Papa should do. “No, now . . . you see . . .” His brain seemed to be working in low gear, as though he were pushing his thoughts through molasses. “See, it’s . . . it’s . . .”

“What is it?” The doctor’s gaze sharpened, weariness falling away. “What, Sergeant?”

What was it? Then Papa remembered. “My pluh . . . platoon. My mmmenn, they nnneeed meee . . . you’ve got to . . .”

There was a black space, then, and he found himself opening his eyes again. The doctor was standing up, his face only a couple of feet away and directly overhead, the ceiling behind him-and there were two nurses, too. How had the second one gotten there? But his brain was still fuzzy, very, and it was a major chore to collect his wits enough to ask what he needed to. But what was that? Oh, yes. “Why . . . nurses?”

“Just in case we need her. And this is Dr. Lakin, Sergeant. She only has to finish her test, now.”

“Test?” Then Papa realized there were gossamer tendrils running from someplace above him to the younger nurse—but no, she was a doctor. Why? He lifted his hands to touch his head, find out where those threads went . . .

The doctor stopped him with a gentle touch. “Please, Sergeant. The test’s almost over; then she’ll remove the threads. But you do need to wait a little longer.”

Papa decided that was okay, if the doctor said so. Obviously, what was being done was what needed to be done, and everything was okay. That meant he could sleep for a while, so he cheerfully slipped back into oblivion.

* * *

When he woke, the door was stained orange. He realized that had to be the rays of the setting sun reflecting off the wall—must be a window behind him. He was amazed at how clearly and quickly he was thinking. That made him realize that he shouldn’t be amazed, which made him remember how slowly his mind had been working when last he woke.

Then he remembered the hat check.

He sat bolt upright and hit the call-bell.

The door opened in two minutes, and a new nurse looked in. “Oh! You’re awake, Sergeant!”

“Yeah.” Papa frowned. “What happened, Nurse?”

She stared, at a total loss. “Happened?”

“They gave me some kind of test.”

She shook her head. “Not on my time. Hold on, I’ll get your doctor.”

Papa wanted to protest that she could look it up in the records, but the door closed, and he had to choose between being a grouchy patient and hitting the call bell, or being grouchy but patient. He chose the latter—after all, he knew what it was like to be just taking orders.

Finally, the door opened and the doctor came in. He still looked exhausted, but now he looked fresh-wakened, too. Papa felt remorse. “Shouldn’t you go home, Doc?”

“Not when I’m needed. They gave me an apartment on the top floor.” The doctor stepped over, pulling out a tiny light, lifted Papa’s eyelid, and blinded him with a pocket-sized beacon. Through the glare, Papa asked, “What happened?”

The doctor snapped off the light, letting go of the eyelid and straightening up, giving Papa a look that weighed how much he could take.

Papa braced himself. “I’ve seen men die, Doc, and I’ve seen the color of my own blood, by the bucket. I can take it.”

The doctor nodded once, satisfied, but he was still braced as he said, “You had a seizure.”

* * *

Not the last one, as it turned out. Papa had another that night, and a third the next day. Then they hit the right pill, and he didn’t have another one for a week. They couldn’t take a chance on fixing the brain damage, because they might have caused more while they were trying—but after that first week, they had him charted well enough to install a little gadget inside his skull, and he never had another one.

“But it might break down, Sergeant. You might run out of power supplies. It might be damaged if you fell.”

Papa braced himself again. “I can take it, Colonel. Hit me straight.“

The colonel’s face was stone, no matter how he felt—probably pretty badly, if he had to glower that way. “You can’t be a Marine any more, Sergeant.”

“What?”

“You can’t.” The colonel braced himself against the man’s anguish. “The gadget might fail in the middle of combat, and you might shake up your whole unit.”

“Shake up Marines?”

“You saw your own sergeant shot when you were a corporal,” the colonel reminded “How did it hit you?”

“I was shaken, but I picked up the pieces and commanded my squad! We finished out the mission!”

“But you might not be lucky enough to have a corporal who is that good.” The colonel shook his head. “Or you might have a seizure during a night attack—and you would do some yelling when it happened, Sergeant. You could give away your platoon’s position.”

That brought Papa up short. Taking a chance on death in battle was one thing—he’d done it every time he went out. But risking his men’s lives was another matter.

“It’s not the end, Sergeant.” The colonel’s voice softened. “There are defense industries. You can still serve.”

“But not in uniform! The Corps has been my life, sir!”

Then Papa sat up straighter, a glint in his eye as the idea hit. “If I can serve out of the Corps, I can serve in it! Give me a desk job, sir! Give me a way to back up the poor rankers who have to go out there!”

The colonel sat frozen, his face still set in concrete while he weighed the chances. There was a time when keeping a disabled man in uniform could have resulted in his accidentally being assigned back to combat. But that couldn’t happen now; once he was coded as a non-combatant, the computers would keep him at a desk. And if he stayed in, he’d have all the fanatic dedication of a convert whereas, if he were cashiered, he’d grow bitter, and might even just sit on the sidelines—or worse.

“All right, Sergeant. You’re back in. But you might not like it.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Papa felt a huge surge of relief, even gratitude. “As long as I can serve.”

Oh, you’ll serve, all right,” the Colonel said. “You’ll serve.”

* * *

Papa ripped the cover off the crate.

“Look,” the delivery man said, “it doesn’t matter whether you like ‘em or not. That’s what the Quartermaster sent, so that’s what you get.”

“Might be.” Papa lifted a rifle out, sighted along the barrel, checked the action, then took out the clip and swapped it for one from his pocket.

The deliveryman frowned. “What do you think you’re doing? That’s not part of the shipment!”

“No, but it’s for the same make and model. What’s the matter, friend? Afraid it won’t work?”

“Me?” The deliveryman stared. “Hell, no! What difference does it make to me? I just deliver ‘em! Come on, now, sign, okay?”

“If it works.”Papa sighted at the target on the other side of his depot and squeezed. The huge cavern filled with the drumming of magnum rounds, then went silent.

The delivery man stared at Papa’s hand, the trigger finger still tight. “What the hell did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Papa, “but the rifle did. It jammed.”

The deliveryman swallowed. “Look, this ain’t no business of mine! I just haul ’em, Sergeant, I don’t make ‘em!”

“You can just haul this crate back, then,” Papa said. “I don’t accept delivery.”

The delivery man began to sweat. “Look, if you don’t sign, they’ll think I’m goldbricking!”

“Not if you give me a different case.”

“I can’t do that,” the delivery man objected. “The rest of the load is for Company D.”

“So?” Papa waved at the back of the truck. “They get this crate, I get one of theirs. Same guns, right?”

“Well, sure, but . . .”

“So you’re giving them what they ordered. What’s the problem?”

“But we’re giving them guns that won’t fire!”

“And it’s okay to give them to us?” Papa hurried on while the delivery man was hung up on common sense. “Let their quartermaster find that out. It’s his worry, not mine—or yours.”

“That makes just enough sense to sound wrong.” The delivery man frowned, eyes straying to his load. “So what do I do if he turns ‘em down?”

“You take ‘em back to Stores, with his note saying why he won’t take delivery.”

“And let his tail get in the sling, not yours?” The deliveryman turned back. “I think I understand how you’re thinking now, Sergeant.”

Papa shrugged. “Maybe nobody’s in a sling. Maybe the quartermaster will send ‘em back to the factory.”

“Come on, Sarge! You know factories don’t take things back!”

“Maybe. Or maybe nobody ever sends ‘em back.” Papa grinned. “Come on, Corporal—take a chance. Start a revolution.”

“Start it? You did that. All I can do is get caught in it! Give me one reason why I should, Sarge—just one!”

“For the guys on the line.”

The delivery man just stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “I did say just one, didn’t I?”

“Want another one?”

“That’ll do.” The deliveryrnan turned away and swung another crate of rifles out of the truck, slamming it down at Papa’s feet. “Have another, Sarge. One for the road.” He picked up the crate of duds and swung them back aboard the truck, then turned to find Papa calmly stripping the packing off one of the rifles from the new crate. “Aw, come on! Don’t tell me you’re not going to accept delivery on that one, too!”

“Oh, sure I will.” The Sergeant slapped a new clip into the rifle and raised it to his shoulder. “Just as soon as I make sure it works.”

* * *

He had to salute; it was a lieutenant. He even had to try to stand up behind his desk, though there wasn’t really room enough.

“At ease.” But the lieutenant’s frown didn’t seem to inspire a relaxed attitude. “What kind of racket are you running, Sergeant?”

“Sir?” Papa kept his eyes on the lieutenant’s, but noticed the quartermaster’s patch on his pocket. Not that he needed it—he knew the clerks from his own brigade.

“All the rejections, Sarge! You keep refusing deliveries!”

“Beg pardon, sir. I’ve never sent anything back.”

“No, but you’ve sent ‘em on to other companies! What’s the matter, Sergeant—didn’t you ever stop to think that every crate of good material you get, is one less for another company?”

“Not my problem,” Papa said, straight-faced.

“No, but you sure as hell make it mine!” The lieutenant’s face reddened.

* * *

“It’s simple.” The captain spread his hands. “You keep rejecting the duds, and instead of each company having a crate or two to scrap, you don’t have any, and all the others have more. Let it go long enough, and the Tenth will be the only company in the battalion whose rifles work.”

Papa dug his heels in while his stomach sank. “Just doing my job right, sir.”

“Yes, you are.” The colonel picked up a stylus and bounced its tip on the desk. “And you know there’s only one thing to do about it, don’t you?”

The sunken stomach turned into a hollow pit, but Papa still didn’t back down, even though visions of civilian clothes flitted through his head. “Yes, sir. I know.”

“Good.” The captain nodded. “Then go back and clean out your desk, Sarge, and move your gear over to company HQ. You just became battalion quartermaster.”

Papa stared, unable to believe his ears. “Sir?”

“What’s the matter?” The captain looked up with a frown. “Don’t understand orders?”

“But, sir. There’s a lieutenant in that job!”

“Good point—you just got promoted. Congratulations, Lieutenant Stuart.”

The room seemed to become a litle unstable. “Uh—Sir! Thank you! I’m . . . I’m . . . But!”

The captain leaned back with a sigh. “‘But,’ Lieutenant?”

“We already have a battalion quartermaster!”

“We developed a sudden and urgent need for him in one of the orbital stations. You’ll just have to manage somehow, Lieutenant. Dis—missed!”

* * *

Alice had been in combat, but she’d only seen one mission—and she’d been terrified every minute, as much by the appearance of the Hothri as by the danger. Then her right arm had been burned off at the elbow. She remembered screaming and blacking out—she remembered, but she tried not to. She remembered waking up, too, seeing what was left of her arm, and screaming again. That time it was the sedative jet that had put her to sleep—and after that, she remembered the counseling, the exercises to get her used to her prosthetic arm, and her amazement at how much it looked and felt like her real one. That was why she hadn’t opted for a graft, of course—she would have felt very strange with arms that didn’t match. The prosthetic felt like the real thing; the only time she knew it wasn’t was when she had to pick up something heavy. The mechanical arm was much stronger than the real one. That had taken some getting used to, and a good many broken drinking glasses.

Now, a year later, she could do everything with it that she’d been able to do before. But it was her right arm, and the Navy didn’t feel like taking chances on a malfunction, so she’d been rotated back to the Reserves, and given a civilian job. All in all, she guessed she was happy about it, but there was always that sneaking guilt.

Well, if she couldn’t be firing a rifle in Arista’s defense, she could at least be making them. She tried to relax into the boredom and let it pass while she let her gaze rove over the tell-tales, watching for red lights. There was scarcely ever any trouble—the robot factory was so completely efficient! Metal roared as the truck dumped into the giant hopper, but the tell-tales said it was all feeding down to the assembly line without trouble.

Something rang like a gong, then clattered, and Alice turned back, alerted. Sure enough, a bar of pig iron had slipped between the truck’s funnel and the hopper. She jumped back, judging its trajectory and stepping aside just in time to avoid its hitting her toes. Then she scooped it up with the prosthetic arm—so much stronger than her real one!—and started to toss it back into the hopper.

But she stopped with a frown, hefting the bar. It felt lighter than it should have. Flesh and blood couldn’t have told the difference, but the circuits in the prosthetic were sensitive to very slight differences in weight and texture. And the pig iron felt wrong. She frowned, looking at it closely, and saw the multitude of tiny, almost microscopic, bubbles, as though the iron were foamed. It didn’t really matter, she supposed—the machines on the assembly line would melt it down or forge the air out of it, wouldn’t they? But it did bother her, that the Company was paying for solid pig iron, but getting foam.

Or maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were paying for foam, and getting what they paid for. She summoned resolve and tossed the pig back into the hopper—it was none of her business. That was what the company had managers for, and she wasn’t about to make a fool out of herself by reporting something they already knew.

But it nagged, and nagged—maybe they didn’t know. She just had to tell someone—but who? Nobody from the company, of course. But who? .

Lunch break came, and with it, Clothilde. Alice had to reconcile pleasure in human conversation with a friend, with her irritation—Clothilde was sure to try to set her up with another man. She always did. Clothilde had finally married, and was now evangelizing with all the fervor of a convert, trying to make sure all her friends were as happy as she.

The trouble was, Alice wasn’t at all sure a man could make her happy. Not judging by the ones she had met, and the few she had dated. She supposed she was just too plain to attract the really good men—and she wasn’t about to settle for anything less.

Sure enough, they’d scarcely sat down before Clothilde started in. “Jerry introduced me to this wonderful friend of his last night, Alice! His old sergeant, who was injured and pushed out before Jerry was.”

Clothilde’s husband was out with an honorable discharge, of course—too badly wounded to be patched up and sent back. Those were the only men around—except for soldiers on leave. Inwardly, Alice sighed and braced herself. She managed a tired smile. “Really? I thought men didn’t like their sergeants.”

“They do after the sergeant’s saved their lives a few times. He thought Lieutenant Stuart was an angel, or maybe a devil.”

“Or both.” Alice smiled. “But I thought you said he was a sergeant.”

“Well, he’s a lieutenant, now. They kept him in, at a desk job—he made too much of a fuss when they tried to discharge him.”

Alice stared. “He was that badly wounded, and he wanted to stay in?”

Clothilde nodded. “Crazy, huh? That’s why I figured you wouldn’t want to date him.”

“No,” Alice said slowly, thrown off balance almost as much by the denial as by the strangeness of the man Clothilde described. “No, I think I might like to meet him.” Then, quickly, “But not a date, of course.”

Clothilde’s eyes lit with the joy of the huntress who had bagged her prey. “Not a date,” she agreed.

* * *

Papa frowned. The tank looked right, drove right, and fired right—but felt wrong. Somehow, he just knew there was something bad about it. “Let me keep it around for a couple of days.”

“Heaven’s seven’s, Lieutenant!” the salesman snapped, exasperated. “If your corps accepted it, you have to accept it.”

Papa’s hackles went up, and his head went down. “Not if I don’t think it will do everything I need, Mr. Snell. No.”

“Oh, come off your high horse! What difference could it make? Who the hell is gonna use a tank in a space war, for crying out loud?”

Papa turned a very unfriendly gaze on the salesman. “Then why is your company making them?”

“Why . . .” the salesman floundered. “Because the Force is buying them!”

“Does that give you the right to make junk?”

“Look, Lieutenant.” Snell drew a deep breath and fought for calm. “I don’t make them. I just sell them.”

“Not to me, you don’t.” Papa turned back and scowled at the tank.

“Quit stalling, Lieutenant!” Snell decided to let the whip show. “There’s a contract! If we deliver them, you have to take what we give you!”

Papa shook his head slowly. “If I had to, they wouldn’t have sent you down here to talk to me into it.”

“Just because you won’t accept perfectly good material . . .”

“The first one shattered its barrel on the third shot,” Papa reminded him, “and the second one lost its left tread in two hours.”

“But they’ll never be used!”

“They might,” Papa said. “We might have to use them. We hope we won’t, because we’ll only need them if the Hothri smash through our defenses and land an invason force. But if we do need them, they have to kill Hothri, not us.”

“They couldn’t possibly kill . . .”

“That one over in Company D, that blew up its breech, killed its whole crew.”

Snell reddened. But he bit his tongue and swallowed, then smiled and said, “We can’t let you keep it if you don’t accept it, Lieutenant.”

“Fine!” Papa waved a hand. “Take it back.” Snell stared. “What?”

“I said, take it back.”

“But if you don’t accept any of our tanks, we’ll lose the contract!”

Papa shrugged. “Not my job.”

Snell clamped his jaw shut and waited till the wave of anger passed, then said, “Two days, Lieutenant. I’ll see you in two days.”

* * *

Alice had never been in Clothilde’s apartment before—but then, Clothilde hadn’t been in it that long, herself. She’d only moved in when she had married Jerry, a few months earlier. Until then, she’d only qualified for a cubicle in the unmarried women’s dorm. Now they qualified for two rooms and a kitchenette, and Clothilde was working toward three.

For the time being, though, the single front room was arranged as both a parlor and a dining room. Jerry was sitting in one armchair, laughing and talking with a man in uniform. They broke off and looked up as Alice came inand the eyes of the man in uniform widened. Then he was out of the chair and helping her off with her coat, all smiles. “Hi. I‘m Pepe Stuart.”

“Lieutenant, this is Alice Biedermann.” Clothilde seemed irritated.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Clothilde! I should have waited to be introduced.” The lieutenant turned toward the closet, but Jerry had caught up with him, chuckling. He took the coat, saying, “No way, Papa. You let the host do his own job, huh? Watch out for him, Miss—he eats pretty girls for breakfast.”

“Lunch,” Papa corrected. “It’s privates I eat for breakfast. Only I’m on a diet, since they kicked me upstairs.” But his eyes were on Alice the whole time. “Pay attention to him, Little Red Riding Hood. I‘m the wolf.”

Alice couldn’t help it; she laughed, and her shyness evaporated. For the first time in her life, she felt pretty.

They had a wonderful evening, talking and laughing well past midnight, and Papa even managed to make his war stories seem funny. When he offered to take her home at the end of the evening, and Jerry started to object, Clothilde caught her husband under the short ribs with an elbow. He said, “Wuff!” and forced a smile as Clothilde said, “Yes, that would be very nice, Lieutenant. Do make sure she gets home safely, now.”

He might not have—but on the way, Alice suddenly realized she was right next to a man who could tell her she was being silly. “All those stories about your job, Lieutenant—l owe you a few about mine.”

“Oh?” No amusement, no belittling—he was instantly interested.

She suspected most of that was politeness, but she tried anyway. “I’m a cyborg, see, and . . . ”

“Uh, problem with definitions.” Papa took her hand. “You’re delightfully organic.”

She glanced at him, almost gratefully, and blushed. “That’s the one that was shot off, Lieutenant.”

Papa stared at it, then squeezed the fingers gently. “Doesn’t feel any different.”

“But it does to me—it’s much more sensitive.”

Papa dropped her hand like a hot rock. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Not at all; I liked it. So what kind of job do you give a girl with a super right arm, Lieutenant?”

He frowned up at her, not understanding. “I give. What kind?”

“Super in a weapons factory. I get to make sure the incoming steel bars feed into the production line properly.”

Suddenly, she knew she had his complete and total attention, but not as a woman. “Do you really!”

“Yes.” She forced a smile. “Every now and then, I have to pick up a pig that drops out, and throw it back in.”

“Noisy but absorbing work.”

“Yes.” She fought to keep the smile. “But since this arm is so much more sensitive, I get a surprise now and then.”

His gaze bored into hers. “Nice surprise?”

Alice shivered. “I don’t know. Just odd, I guess. But every third bar seems to be . . . foam, if that makes sense. Steel foam.”

“Full of bubbles,” Papa grated. “Perfect sense—for the company.”

“But it doesn’t matter, does it? The air gets beaten out in the forges.”

“Sure.” Papa gave her a hard smile. “But the company only gets maybe half the steel it paid for.”

“So the company does lose!”

“No. They just buy more steel, and charge the government a higher price for the finished weapons.”

“But . . . the government doesn’t care, does it?”

Papa shrugged. “You tell me. They could buy three rifles with the money they’re paying for two. Who wins?”

“Well, the Company, I suppose . . .”

“No. The Hothri.”

Alice stared, appalled, the more so because he had finally put into words what she’d been worrying about, herself. “It’s not that important!”

“Oh, yes it is,” Papa said softly. “But what worries me is, what other short cuts is the Company taking?”

“Maybe none,” Alice.said, but her stomach was shrinking into a knot.

“I hope not,” Papa said. “If they do, though, I’d like to know about it.”

She stared at him, and his eyes seemed to be drawing her in, enveloping her, compelling her . . .

She tore her gaze away, looking at the buildings they were passing, recognized the doorway with relief. “This is my dorm, Lieutenant.”

“So I see,” Papa said, with regret.

She turned back to him, forcing a smile and holding out a hand. “Well . . . good night, Lieutenant.”

“Good night.” He ignored the hand, reaching out, almost touching her chin, but not quite. “And if you see anything else funny, let me know, will you?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” she said, feeling chilled inside.

But his sudden smile thawed her as he said, “And that has got to be the world’s worst excuse for getting another date with a pretty lady. So find something wrong fast for me, huh?”

She managed to smile again. “Of course, Lieutenant, if you put it that way. If I can’t find one, I’ll make one.”

“Thanks, Little Red,” he said softly, “but you really should be more careful about wolves.”

She would, Alice decided firmly as she closed the door behind her. She would be very careful about this particular wolf—but maybe not the way he’d meant.

* * *

Papa found the flaw on the morning of the second day, when he tried to start the tank and the gauge read empty. It took him another half-hour to find out that the power plant was still functioning just fine, but with no outlet for the energy it had built up. The linkage had burned out.

“A bomb.” The general seemed very happy about it. “It was a rolling, shooting bomb. It would have killed its whole crew, and half the ratings near it.”

“Sir.” Papa stood at parade rest, eyes carefully focused an inch above the general’s left shoulder,

“Oh, sit down, Lieutenant! You’re not an NCO any more.” The general leaned back, studying Papa as he sat warily in the straight chair before the acre of desk. “You realize you’re creating difficulties, don’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, really?” The general raised one eyebrow. “And may I ask why you think we can’t get enough tanks to man every post?”

“Because General Munitions isn’t producing enough good ones, sir.”

“Not producing.” The general held his gaze steady. “It wouldn’t be because you’re not accepting delivery of the ones they do make, would it?”

“Absolutely not.” Papa shook his head. “A tank that doesn’t work, is the same as no tank at all—maybe worse, if it explodes and kills its crew.”

“Valid.” But the general still held his gaze on Papa. “How do you think we can boost production, Lieutenant?” Papa opened his mouth, but the general added. “Don’t try to say it’s not your problem.”

“Begging the General’s pardon . . . ”

The General didn’t move, but his gaze sharpened to a diamond. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“I’m only responsible for receiving and distributing deliveries of sound equipment, sir. I don’t have anything to do with procurement.”

“I told you not to say it wasn’t your problem!” The general leaned forward, eye narrowing, hands clasped. “But since you insist, we’ll make it your problem.”

“Begging the General’s pardon, but a battalion quartermaster can’t have that kind of responsibility, sir.”

“Very true—so we’re making you quartermaster for the whole Corps.” The General’s hand opened, revealing a new, glittering set of insignia. “Congratulations, Major.”

* * *

That night, Papa came home, touched his doorman, and heard Alice’s voice say, “Grandma, what big ears you have.”

* * *

Grandma’s was crowded for so early on a Wednesday night. Of course, there were always soldiers on leave, but it seemed a little odd that there were so many factory supers in here, too. Alice wondered if it was just her imagination.

But there was no mistaking the one empty table, empty except for a stocky man in uniform. The mere sight of him sent a flood of relief through Alice, and she wended her way over to him with a smile. He stood, aware of her before she’d even seen him, and lit up the room with his grin. He held her chair, and she slipped in, grateful for the anachronistic gallantry. The glow in those eyes warmed him, and he sat down beside her, almost sorry they had business to discuss.

She lowered her eyes, maybe blushing—he couldn’t tell, the lighting was dim—then looked up with a roguish smile. “How did you manage to keep the table clear, Lieutenant?”

Pepe shrugged and pointed to his insignia. “Rank. Keeps ‘em at bay.”

Alice looked, and looked again. “You were promoted.”

“Thanks for noticing.” He grinned. “Things happen fast in wartime.”

Then the jarring note registered, and Alice looked around in surprise, really noticing her surroundings for the first time. “This is an enlisted man’s place!”

“Not officially, no. And as you can see, there are a lot of civilians.”

“Yes, but they’re all rankers, too. Isn’t it wrong for you to be here?”

“Not really.” Papa grinned. “The place is civilian, not under military jurisdiction—and I’m a ranker who made good.”

“Oh.” Alice felt something relax inside, something she hadn’t known was tensed. “You were an enlisted man?”

“Yeah, but they had to promote me to make me a quartermaster. Don’t think they really wanted to, either.”

He made it sound like a joke, but Alice caught the undertone and frowned. “Why not?”

She suddenly had his total attention again, and his eyes devoured hers. “Because I’d been on the line. I knew what faulty weapons meant.”

Alice shifted nervously, and broke the gaze. “Well—that’s what I came to tell you about. You see, Major, I . . . ”

“Yeah, it is a little crowded in here, isn’t it?” he said, too loudly. “Sure, let’s try a restaurant. I’m hungry, too.”

She looked up, startled, then followed his lead, standing “Major, I . . .”

“After all, I did ask you out for dinner,” he said, still too loudly. “We can get cocktails while we’re waiting on the chef.”

She shut up, letting him help her into her coat again, then moving with him toward the door—and wondered, as the crowd seemed to part around him. Then they were outside, and she said, “Is it really that bad?”

“Dunno,” Papa said cheerfully. “Depends on what you were gonna tell me. But it’s a lot harder for the walls to have ears when we’re outdoors. In there, no telling who might have been listening—or with what. So, spill it, Super. Let’s get it out of the way, so we can pay attention to the important things.”

Her heart skipped a beat, and she decided not to ask what the important things were. She’d rather have her illusions. “Okay, Major. One of the bars broke open today, when it fell—and it wasn’t just foam, it was hollow.”

Papa stared at her for a long minute. Then he said, “That’s more than somebody pulling a sharp one on somebody else. That’s collaboration.”

He turned away, frowning as he strode along, and she suddenly felt hurt, locked out. But he turned back to her and said, “Think you could get a promotion?”

“Why—I don’t know,” she said, startled. “I never wanted one, really. I make enough to live on, and . . .” She didn’t finish; she would have had to say, “and I’m safe.”

“Try,” Papa urged. “I’d like to know what happens to that flawed steel. Nothing, I hope. But if the Company’s willing to pay so much for so little, they might have other arrangements going, too.”

“You mean . . . ”

“Nothing.” Papa shook his head. “I don’t mean anything—yet. Too many possibilities. Hopefully, I’m wrong, and all we’re looking at is a little bit of mutual backscratching. But try, okay? You deserve a better job, anyway.”

But I don’t, she thought helplessly.

Papa noticed. He frowned. “Why not? You’re a wonderful woman.”

She turned away. “You don’t know me—yet.”

“Yet,” he agreed, and her heart thawed. “But what could you have done, that would make you think you’re not great?”

Her voice turned flat. “I deserted my unit.”

Papa frowned. “I thought you were invalided out.”

She tossed her head, irritated. “Invalided, deserted—what’s the difference?”

“A lot,” he snapped. “I know.”

She looked up at him, startled. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . . ”

“Of course not.” His smile shone again. “But if it’s not true for me, Alice, it’s not true for you, either.”

He had used her name! She turned away, rattled. “You don’t understand. I was glad I couldn’t go back.”

“Ahhhh.” But there was no judgement in that, only warmth, only sympathy. “Glad they didn’t order you to, huh?”

She nodded, feeling herself sink inside.

“Because you would have had to go, if they had?”

“Yes,” she hissed. Why was he tormenting her like this?

“Then you didn’t desert.”

Alice stopped still for a second, then looked up at him.

“What?”

“You didn’t desert,” Papa explained. “If you’d have gone back if they’d ordered you to, then you didn’t desert.”

Alice turned away and started walking again, numb. “I guess I didn’t, did I?”

“Not a bit,” Papa assured her. “A scared soldier is still a soldier, and I’ve met a lot of ‘em—me included.”

“Thank you, Major,” she murmured. “Thank you very much.”

“My pleasure. So will you apply for a promotion?”

Alice gave a short nod. “Yes.”

“See?” Papa’s voice was full of warmth. “I told you you’re not a deserter.”

She beamed up at him, and her face was filled with sunlight. He let himself drift downward into her eyes, then opened his lips against hers.

After a while, he straightened up, taking a deep breath. “Yes. Well, now. It seems I said something about dinner some while ago, didn’t I?”

“I don’t need it,” she said, beaming up at him.

“Maybe not, but I do.” He took her arm, hooking her hand over his elbow. “Someplace with bright lights, okay?”

“Anything you say, Major.” She floated along on his arm, feeling very sultry.

* * *

“Well, we’re both reasonable men.” The sales manager leaned back, caressing his snifter. “Surely we can come to some kind of accommodation.”

‘Reasonable’ and ‘accommodation’ were both words that rang alarm bells in Papa’s head. With a two-alarm wariness, he said, “I doubt it, Mr. Gleed.”

The sales manager looked pained. “Please, Major Stuart! Certainly we can deal with first names, can’t we?”

“That’s only for personal situations, Mr. Gleed, and this is official. After all, if your STOs won’t detonate, they won’t detonate. And that’s all there is to it.”

“One.” The sales manager held up a finger. “One out of five you tested—at considerable cost to Arista, I might add.”

“That’s one out of five Hothri battleships coming through to blast our cities, Mr. Gleed.”

“A fluke.”The sales manager waved it away. “You happened to get one of the very few duds, Major.”

“All right. Give me five more to test. Only this time, don’t charge the government for them.”

The sales manager reddened. “Major, that would be prohibitively expensive for us.”

“It would be even more expensive for you if those missiles fail when the Hothri blast through.”

The sales manager took a long breath as he sat back, eyeing Papa with a new and different gleam in his eye. He started to say something, caught himself, and said instead, “Our missiles won’t fail when the time comes, Major.”

“Then,” Papa said, “make sure they don’t fail now.”

The sales manager leaned forward again. “Major Stuart, my company has put aside all other projects to develop this surface-to-orbit missile, and the government has an ironclad contract to buy them.”

“True,”Papa agreed, “when the Navy accepts delivery.”

“There is no reason not to!”

“Twenty percent don’t work, Mr. Gleed.”

“Major . . .”Gleed drew a long, shaky breath. “Any delay in processing this sale could be ruinous for General Munitions. We have invested sixty percent of our capital in the development and production of this weapon!”

“Then invest a little more, Mr. Gleed. Fix the detonators.”

* * *

The next week, they had a new detonator in production, and a mugger jumped Papa on his way home.

He liked to walk the mile to his apartment-it was the only exercise he ever got any more. And okay, sure, it was late—it always was when he came home—but not that late.

Still, the kid who jumped him wasn’t worrying about the rules. Papa was walking past the corner park when something hard and rough closed about his throat, yanking him back, and steel flashed in the dark.

Old reflexes took over. Papa kicked back, heard something crack, and the steel went wide as the mugger groaned and loosened his hold—just a little, but enough for Papa to drop down, straightening his legs as he bowed and pulled—sending the mugger flying over his head. Papa hung on to the arm, and the man slammed down on the ground with a howl—then howled again as Papa bent his arm back and yelled for the police.

By the time they got there, the man was very ready to talk. Why not? He’d already told everything, and had been outraged to find out that Papa couldn’t really do anything about the dislocated shoulder.

But he didn’t really have anything worth saying. Someone had paid him five K to beat up Papa—”Want me to kill him, too?” “We’re not fussy.”—and promised him more afterward. Other than that, Papa couldn’t really hold a grudge—the poor guy had been maimed in battle by the Hothri, and couldn’t remember directions for more than a few hours any more. Too proud to go for Vets’ Aid, too, so he eked out a living any way he could. Papa struck a deal. He didn’t press charges, and the mugger went to live in the Vets’ Home.

He didn’t stop walking home. But he did start carrying his sidearm again.

* * *

The foreman called her over as she came in the door, before her clock-chime had even faded. With heart. pounding, she came over. What had the boss-lady found out?

“Bertha’s sick, over in Quality. We can put that trainee on your job; you go fill in for Bertha, okay?”

Alice stared, appalled. “But I don’t know anything about quality control!”

The fore shrugged. “What’s to know? You look at the gadget as it comes along, look at the diagnostics, and let it go by. ‘”

“But how’ll I know if there’s anything wrong with it?”

“Wrong?” The fore’s tone somehow managed to convey both the extreme improbability of the event, coupled with the imbecility of Alice. “The diagnostics will tell you, of course! Now, get going.”

Alice tried for a little bit more information when she arrived at her station, but the other checkpointers only shrugged and said pretty much the same.

“Nothing to tell,” Alberta assured her. “If there’s anything wrong, the screen will light up with red danger calls.”

“But how about if it’s something the machines can’t see?”

Alberta gave her a look that implied there was something wrong with her. “Well, if you see anything wrong that the machines don’t catch, tell me, will ya? It’ll be a first.”

Alice’s face flamed, and she felt as though she were dwindling right there and then, but she plucked up her courage and asked, “Don’t the screens tell you anything else?”

Alberta shrugged. “Well, they’ll light up in yellow if there’s something questionable, and they’ll light up in blue for something that’s wrong but doesn’t matter. So what it comes down to is, you only scrap the item if the screen shows red.”

Alice stared, not believing her ears.

Alberta finally noticed. “Well, it’s not as though we had much choice, lamebrain. After all, each of us has to pass four hundred items each day—and there’s one coming down the line every thirty seconds! How long do you think you’ll keep your job if you stop the line every time there’s a yellow flash?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered. “I really don’t know.”

But she found out very quickly. The yellow letters flashed for every fifth gadget, it seemed, usually in the words “CASTING FLAW,” and the blue showed once an hour. If she had pulled each one, she could never have sent four hundred to packing. Three hundred, maybe, but not four. She almost pulled the first one off the conveyor, but at the last moment, she remembered Pepe telling her to just find out as much as she could for him, so she glanced at the other checkers, to take her cue from them.

Two others had yellow words on their screens, but they stood by, arms folded, looking bored, and reached out at the last second to punch the button that routed the item off to packing. Alice swallowed heavily, and punched her button, too.

Fifteen minutes later, every checker’s screen had flashed yellow at least once, and not a single item had been pulled off the line. Alberta had been right—they didn’t stop for anything but red.

So Alice held back, and let the item go by.

* * *

Papa didn’t like talking to strange admirals.

He sat down at the little table, trying to hide his wariness.

A full admiral didn’t usually meet with a colonel, even a quartermaster, in a restaurant—a small, very expensive restaurant. And certainly not with a civilian in a very expensive suit beside him, a civilian who had iron-gray hair and iron-gray eyes, and whose finger gleamed with a watch worth two months of Papa’s pay.

“Good of you to invite me, sir.”

“Not at all, not at all, Colonel! The top brass should stay in contact with their juniors, don’t you think? Outside the office as well as in.”

Not that Papa had needed any remainder that the admiral could give him orders—he’d just been making sure. “Still an honor, sir.” He turned to the civilian. “Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure?”

The man gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Names don’t matter here.”

They certainly didn’t—not when the man’s face was as well-known as his company’s name—L. C. Lamprey, Chairman of the Board of Industrial Munitions.

“Let’s just say I represent the private sector, Colonel.”

The alarm bell in Papa’s head started clanging, and irritation surged. He decided to go on the offensive. “The people we rely on, yes. The good people in industry who make the armor that protects our boys, the weapons that keep the Hothri from gobbling them up.”

Anger flashed in the civilian’s eyes, and the admiral said, “No, we can’t do without them, Colonel. We’d go naked into battle, if it weren’t for the manufacturers.”

“True, sir.” Inspiration nudged him, and Papa decided to stab. “Of course, it would be much more efficient if the Navy just built its own factories. Fewer middlemen, greater quality control.”

The admiral stared, appalled, and, the civilian’s gaze turned to a glare. “Don’t try to threaten me, Colonel!”

“Me, sir? I don’t have anything to do with policy.”

“Of course not,” the admiral said quickly, but the civilian’s gaze was still carving and slicing. “And the notion is ridiculous. Why, the expense to the Navy would be intolerable.”

“Not really, sir.” Papa began to realize that the idea might be worth exploring. “We’re already paying the same amount to private enterprise—and without their profit margin, we’d actually save money. An amazing amount, in fact.”

“That will be enough!” the civilian snapped.

Papa rounded on him. “I think that’s for the Admiral to say, don’t you, mister? If you want to give orders, find a clerk!”

“That will do, Colonel!” the admiral snapped. “You will treat this man with all due courtesy!”

“That’s what I was doing . . . sir.”

The civilian only narrowed his eyes, but the admiral turned red. “That will be enough impertinence, Colonel! Or I’ll break you out of your job!”

Papa stared at him, then smiled, just a little. “Fine.”

The admiral stared back, then snapped, “I’ll transfer you to the front lines!”

Papa’s eyes glowed. “Thank you—sir!” He rose and saluted. “Have I the Admiral’s dismissal?”

“Don’t be an ass!” the civilian snapped. “Sit down, you fool!”

Papa spun, caught up the man’s snifter, and threw the brandy on his suit.

“Colonel!” the admiral cried, appalled.

But Papa was saying, in cold fury, “Armed Forces personnel do not take orders from any civilians, Mr. Lamprey—especially from men of acceptable physical condition who decline to serve!”

Lamprey’s eyes were as void of emotion as outer space. Slowly, he stood, eye to eye with Papa. “You will regret that insult sorely, Colonel Stuart—sorely, and at great length.”

He turned away and stalked out.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” the Admiral said, in a shocked whisper.

Slowly, Papa turned back to his superior officer. “Oh, yes, sir. But what, may I ask, were the two of you doing?”

“I don’t think that matters, now,” the admiral said, rising slowly. “Report to the stockade, Colonel, and turn yourself in for arrest!”

“Oh, yes, sir, I will,” Papa said softly, “and, of course, I’ll have to make out a full report as to why.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary. My word . . .”

“ . . . will be evidence at my court-martial,” Papa interrupted. “I’ll have to request one, of course.”

The admiral stared. “Do, and you’ll be cashiered!”

“Only if the verdict goes against me,” Papa assured him.

* * *

By the time he got to the stockade, orders from the admiral were waiting, commanding him to return to his duties. The guard could only stare as Papa smiled at the paper, then folded it and turned away. “Uh . . . Colonel?”

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“May I ask, sir—what you needed here?”

“No, Sergeant. Seems it’s not my business to answer.”

* * *

“And that’s ‘checked by hand!’” Alice told Pepe, still seething.

“Yeah, well, at least a human being made the decision.”

“The machine should have made it! They’ve got the sensors, they know what’s wrong! We don’t!”

Papa shrugged. “Then they’d just set the machines to only kick out the code red’s, anyway. They can set the warning levels wherever they want, you know. That much is done by hand.”

“And the hand isn’t a checker’s! What good did I do, Pepe? What good?”

“A lot of good.” His voice was soothing—no, admiring. “You did wonderfully, Alice. You found out about it, and you didn’t blow your cover.”

“Oh, yes, I found out!” she exploded. “And I can’t stand it! You’d think they were manufacturing wallets or something!’”

“Wallets made of bad leather, with pockets that would let the cash fall out,” Papa reminded her.

“Any company that did that would go out of business! And I helped them! What good did I do, Pepe?”

“Let me worry about that,” he reassured.

She looked at his face, and saw the grin of a hunting cat. Even as her heart quailed at the sight, she felt buoyed up. Still, she had to demand, “Can you stop those yellow letters from coming on my screen?”

“Sure.” His eyeteeth showed. “All they have to do is code those flaws for red. By the way, what were these ‘items’ you were checking?”

She took a deep breath and said, “Reflectors. For laser cannon. And they know those reflectors are flawed, but they don’t give a damn!”

“Sure,” Papa shrugged. “What difference does it make to them, if the beam doesn’t come out of the muzzle? They’re not the ones who’re going to be standing in front of a raging Hothri.”

“Not even that,” Alice snapped. “I swear they don’t even think that far! All they can see is, sure, this is wrong, but it’s not my job to fix it, and if I say anything, I’ll just get fired. They don’t even think!”

“Not paid to,” Papa murmured.

“But they’re paid to produce weapons! Ones that work!” Alice scowled. “It makes me wonder, now, about that Hothri who got past my shots to take my arm.” Her breath caught. “I could have sworn I had him dead in my sights—at point-blank range!”

“The rifle spat out a slug, didn’t it?”

“I wonder. I was looking at the Hothri, not my rifle.” Alice drew a long, shuddering breath. “I tell you, Peppy, it makes me so mad I wish I‘d never been promoted!”

Oddly, he found his mispronunciation of his name endearing, not irritating. “Sorry to make you go for it,” he murmured.

“Oh, it’s not your fault. Besides,” she grumbled, “I suppose I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I’d missed a chance to catch this.”

“How did you?” He judged that she had calmed down enough so that it might be safe to ask.

“I saw it myself,” she snapped, “in the test readout from the quality control unit. But the standards are set so low that the program didn’t flag it—and the controller told me if the bosses didn’t care enough to set the specs higher, we shouldn’t, either. Oh!” She jammed her fists into her coat pockets, glaring again. “Just thinking about it makes my blood boil! I tell you, Peppy, if you hadn’t wanted me to take that job, I would have quit right there and then!”

“And they would have just gone right on making more cannons that would quit working in the middle of combat.” Papa shook his head. “No, it’s much better this way. You let me take care of it, angel.”

“Angel!” She stared up at him, the job forgotten.

“Why not? You’re guarding all our kids on the line, out there.”

“But I’m not . . . I can’t . . .”

“Do anything?” Pepe grinned like a wolf. “You already did. But I can’t follow it up until tomorrow, and we both need to eat if we’re going to be able to keep fighting the baddies. What restaurant tonight, Fury?”

She smiled, oddly flattered by the nickname. “How about my place?”

“Oh, no!” Papa grinned. “Don’t trust me in your cottage, Little Red, if I won’t trust myself! Come on, we’ll try Pomona’s!”

And he whirled her away to the high life, or at least as much of it as he could afford. It was a wonderful evening, but she was still disappointed.

* * *

The admiral tried again, of course. Papa had figured that he would—after all, he had his orders, too. The fact that they didn’t come from anybody military was only incidental.

And of course Papa met with him—after all, orders were orders, even if they did come in a plain unmarked envelope. Besides, the embankment was beautiful that time of year. Since it was chilly, though, Papa wore his heavy overcoat, with no valuables, and a wet suit.

“Industry’s good is Arista’s good, Colonel,” the admiral said, “and without the profit incentive, industry is never very productive.”

“True.” Papa had read his history, too. “But if the profit motive gets out of hand, sir, industry lowers costs by cutting quality.”

“Competition will take care of that.”

“Only if there really is free competition, sir. And when all the industry is controlled by three companies, it’s very easy for them to watch what the others are doing, and all produce substantially the same goods at the same price. Not that they would, of course.”

“Of course.” The admiral gave him a whetted glance. “If they start showing losses, though, they’ll stop making weapons.”

“But that’s a purely hypothetical case, isn’t it, sir?”

“Not necessarily.” The admiral turned to face him. “We have to make sure they have a decent profit margin, Colonel. After all, even if only five out of ten rifles fire, that’s still five rifles.”

“Would you want to be holding one of the other five, sir?”

“Of course not,” the admiral said impatiently. “The other five, we throw away. It’s worth it, to keep industry producing.”

“Why not just subsidize them, sir?”

“You know the Senate would never stand for that.” Finally, anger began to show. “They couldn’t see any reason to subsidize a profit-making company!”

Neither could Papa. “Doesn’t that depend on their profit margin, sir? I mean, if they have to cut corners to maintain a healthy percentage, they need a subsidy.”

The admiral was reddening. He couldn’t come right out and say Industrial Munitions was raking in a 50 percent profit margin, but he knew that Papa knew it, too. “What the Senate won’t do, we’ll have to do, Colonel—or the factories will close down, and we won’t have any weapons.”

“I wouldn’t mind paying more, sir, for reliable equipment. If they boost quality control, they won’t have any problem.”

“I don’t think that’s for you to say, Colonel. From now on you will accept at least twenty percent of all weapons and equipment that you consider to be defective! Is that understood?”

Papa wondered if the admiral was on Industrial Munitions’ payroll, or just a stockholder. “No, sir. Not clear at all. I can’t believe an admiral of the Navy would order me to accept defectives.”

“You will do as you are commanded, Colonel—for the good of Arista!”

Papa stared straight into the admiral’s reddened eyes and realized he was going to have to play it by the book—for the good of Arista. “Yes, sir.” He pulled a brace. “I will implement the order the moment I receive it, sir.”

“You have just received it, you impertinent imbecile!”

“Begging the Admiral’s pardon, but orders to the Quartermaster must be cut in triplicate on Form A-394-C, sir, and signed by the senior officer.”

The admiral just stared at him, turning light purple. “Why, you insubordinate, goldbricking, malingering, cowardly lackey! You do as I command you, or there’ll be hell to pay!”

Papa felt the rage churning inside him and kept his face carefully wooden. He decided that there would be hell to pay—and that he would send the admiral the bill.

* * *

The order never arrived, of course, and Papa made sure his staff kept on sending back the defectives. And there was no summons to a court martial—Papa had known there wouldn’t be. But it did shake him, knowing that a full admiral, one of the high command, had sold out to the profiteers. So he did send the admiral the bill.

He stayed late one night, checking out the admiral’s requisitions personally—everything for his own porkbarrel use, down to the aftershave and razorblades, Then he locked himself in the computer room alone, and cut routing slips guaranteeing that every single item that went to that admiral was defective.

It was almost satisfying—but not quite, because he never did hear the admiral squawk. He couldn’t, after all. He’d made sure there was no trail to show who had cut the routing orders.

But he didn’t doubt for a minute that the admiral knew. Especially after the next attack.

* * *

“Biedermann!”

Alice turned away from the time clock and toward the Fore with a thudding heart. Yeah?”

“Boss wants to see you.” The fore jerked her thumb toward the office.

“What for?”

“Not my problem.” The fore shrugged. “I did see all those rejects you’ve been piling up.”

Alice couldn’t pull every code yellow off the line, or she would have been fired for sure—but she had pulled all the blues as well as the reds. “So I’m up for termination.”

“Hope not.” The fore met her gaze. “You have the lowest absenteeism rate of anyone on the shift. Besides, you never come drunk, and you don’t make trouble. No, I hope not. But you’re probably in for a dressing-down.”

“Thanks.”Alice smiled, with warm surprise at the woman’s support. Then she turned toward the office and went in, breathing slowly and deeply.

The under-manager was at her desk, flanked by a clerk who looked up and said, “What’s it about?”

“You tell me,” Alice said.

The under looked up. “Biedermann?”

“Yeah.”

The under looked down at her screen. “You have a lot of rejects, Biedermann.”

“Not much in point in letting the blues go by,” Alice answered. “They’ll just come back to us.”

“But the yellows won’t?”

“I send the yellows for hand-checking.”

“That loses a lot of time, Biedermann—and twenty per cent of your yellows have to be scrapped. You know what you’re costing the company?”

Alice kept her face rigid. “A thousand a day?”

“More like five. Why are you so finnicky, Biedermann?”

“Isn’t that what l‘m there for?”

“Guess so.” The under looked up. “The Company wants better quality control. They want a fore just for that—and you’re it.”

Alice could only stare.

* * *

“But why?” she said to Pepe that night. “You can’t tell me they weren’t trying to foist off duds on the Navy before!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Papa assured her.

She gave him a narrow look. “No, they’d only plan on it! So why all of a sudden this push for high quality?”

“Well,” Papa mused, “it might be because I just rejected a whole shipment of cannons.”

Alice spun to face him, wide-eyed.

Papa shrugged. “After all, I found flawed castings in the breeches of one out of every five—and the three I tested exploded at the breech after a dozen shells. Well, one lasted long enough to make a hundred.”

“How long did that take, ten minutes?”

“About. So I told them to re-check the whole load.” Papa grinned. “You should have seen the salesman’s face!”

“I’ll bet! No wonder they want to boost quality control!”

“Yeah. Saves time and money to do it right the first time. I’II bet you’re going to be getting that load of cannon back, though one piece at a time.”

But Alice wasn’t really listening any more. She turned haunted eyes toward him. “Peppy, I don’t like this. They weren’t supposed to notice me.”

He saw the fear and reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “They won’t. They have no reason to link us up, or even to think about it. So you’re going out with a cashiered soldier. So what? Don’t most of your fellow workers? And even if they did, they wouldn’t dare try anything. Don’t worry, beautiful.”

She looked up at him, startled. “What did you say?”

“I said they wouldn’t try anything. Well, they might fire you, but that’s all. Come on, let’s think of happier things—like shellfish and steak.”

She let him whisk her away to a nice restaurant and a bottle of champagne to celebrate her promotion. She floated through the rest of the evening in a happy daze. He called her “beautiful” twice more that night, the second when he kissed her at her doorway.

She closed the door behind her, hit the lights, and turned to look at herself in the mirror-nose blue with cold, eyes teary, wisps of hair straying from under her hood. Beautiful? No—he had to have been lying.

But she felt very warm inside, anyway.

* * *

Winter had turned the corner, and was heading toward spring—not that Papa would have known it from the weather. It was still dark when he arrived at his office, dark again by the time he started home. But he took quick glances at the stars as he strode along toward home and saw that the spring constellations were peeking over the horizon.

Not that he could do much more than peek. He still walked home, and meant to keep doing it—only fresh air he got anymore—but he had to be alert. That meant no rubbernecking.

His glance roved over the street ahead, the shop doorways, the windows above. Nothing out of the ordinary; nothing suspicious ahead.

Behind was another matter. Two tall, dark figures in Burleigh coats had been following him ever since he had come out of HQ. He slowed down, they slowed down—he sped up, they sped up. Not much chance of mistaking—they were shadowing him.

Of course, they weren’t being that obvious about it. They mingled with the crowd, one on one side of the street, the other on the other, always several people between them and a block behind. If he stopped to look in a shop display, the one visible out of the corner of his eye would already have stopped to read a news screen or pick his way around an icy patch. And every so often, one of them would disappear, but almost instantly, Papa would see a new man way ahead of him.

It sent the thrill of danger coursing through his nerves—good, good! It had been too long since he’d been in combat, too long. He opened his coat, the better to be able to reach the pistol under his arm. The knowledge that he might die, hollowed his stomach—the Colonels of Industry might not be homicidal, but their lieutenants would love to see him dead.

Well, if it happened, it happened. But there was no point in letting the assassins name the time and place when Papa could force the issue. He strolled onward, scanning the street ahead, picking out a good alleyway.

When he came up to it, he lurched aside as though he’d stumbled, into the alley, out of sight—where he sprinted for cover: a worn-out sofa waiting for trash pick-up.

Papa would be the trash man.

He waited about three minutes, long enough for his shadows to realize he might get away, long enough for them to race up behind him.

One of them swung into the alleyway, flashlight stabbing out from his silhouette. Papa squinted against the glare and leveled his pistol, just as the second shadow came up behind the first. “Hold it right there!”

The shadows froze.

“Lower the light,” Papa commanded. “You know who I am, so you know I’m armed. And you know I can see you against the street lights behind you. Lower the light and put your hands up.”

There was a quick, whispered conference, while Papa waited, strung tight as a lyre, ready to duck and dodge to the old armchair in front of the couch. But the flashlight beam dipped, and the two shadows lifted their hands slowly.

“Just so you’re okay, Colonel,” one of the voices said.

“Sure.” Papa smiled without mirth as he slowly stood up, still ready to dodge—but the two silhouettes stood frozen. “All right, now.” He stepped closer, his pistol glinting in the dark. “Put your hands on the wall. Who sent you?”

“Naval Intelligence, Colonel.”

Papa stopped. Then he said, “ID?”

“Inside my coat, on my left.”

“Take it out,” Papa said. “Lay it on the ground and back off.”

Slowly, the shadow did as Papa said.

“Farther back. All right, that’s good enough.” Papa stepped forward and bent down, still keeping his eyes on the two men. He picked up the flat, slick case, flipped it open without looking, and finally took a quick glance down, then back up. That told enough; he looked down, studied the ID, then slowly stood up, lowering his pistol. “All right, boys, you can put ‘em down. I never like to hang up a friend.”

The shadows relaxed visibly. “No problem, sir. We shouldn’t have alarmed you.”

Papa shrugged, stepping into the light to get a good look at the agents’ faces. “You’d have to be almost supernatural to keep me from noticing.”

The taller agent nodded. “An assassination attempt tends to do that.”

“So that’s why you boys were detailed to me?”

“Yes, sir,” said the shorter one. “HQ figured you wouldn’t like the idea of bodyguards, sir.”

“Well, they were damn right!” Papa let some of the irritation show. “I can take care of anything I come up against, myself!”

“Yes, sir. With all respect, sir, there’s a real chance the enemy might send half a dozen men after you, sir.”

No need to say who the enemy was—and Papa had to admit he didn’t like the sound of the odds. But he glowered and said, “I’ve had worse than that in combat.”

“So have I, sir—but I had a spray-rifle and grenades, not just a pistol. “

Papa looked at the man more closely. “You were in combat??

“Both of us, sir,” said the shorter man.

“Rank?”

“Sergeant, then. They booted me up to lieutenant when they put me in Intelligence.”

“They need you a hell of a lot more on the line than down here protecting a broken-down ex-sergeant from bogeymen!”

“We’re hoping to be rotated back, sir. But we realize what we’re doing here is more important.”

“More important?” Papa shouted. “Don’t even think it, Lieutenant! I’m just as expendable as any man on the line! Every soldier has to take his chances.”

“Uh, by your leave, sir.” The shorter agent looked down at the pavement, then up again. “We can’t afford to take chances with your life, sir.”

“Every soldier’s as important as any other, Lieutenant!”

“Yes, sir. That’s why your life is vital,” the taller man said. “I wound up with a rifle that jammed in combat. I used it as a club and got a Hothri rifle, and it worked well enough to save my life—but it was close.”

“They don’t have so many rifles that jam up these days,” the shorter man said, and the taller agreed. “Not since you took over as quartermaster.”

The shorter man nodded. “We figure you’ve saved ten thousand lives, give or take a thousand, Colonel.”

Papa stared, dumbstruck.

“As you said, sir,” the taller one said softly, “no soldier’s life is any less important than any other. That’s why we have to keep you alive.”

“All right, all right!” Papa turned away. “You can stick around. Just don’t get in my way, damn it!”

“Yes, sir. If you can cuss, we’re doing our job.”

Papa snarled and turned away, stomping down the street, feeling sheepish and somewhat ashamed—but underneath it all, secretly elated. His mind churned, reeling over what the Intelligence men had said, reviewing the impossible notion of saving ten thousand lives, feeling humbled and exalted at the same time-and absolutely certain that they had to be wrong, that he couldn’t be that important.

Which is why he didn’t notice the movement in the shadows as he passed the alley . . . didn’t notice until hard hands grabbed him, slamming him against the wall. He shouted and lashed out, but iron fingers seized his arms and yanked them up and back while a gag jammed into his mouth. Another hand darted into his coat, yanked the pistol out, and a voice snapped, “He’s wearing armor.”

“Under the hood, too,” another voice said, and yanked Papa’s cowl back to show the helmet.

“We’ll go for the spine.” A shadow hulked before him, slamming a fist into his belly, another into his jaw. He tried not to fold, but hard hands forced him down, and steel glinted in the night, flourishing high . . .

Guns barked, and the hulking shadow spun away, slamming into the wall. The man who held Papa’s gun fired back, a split second before he whirled and folded. The third one just gave off a tired sigh as he wilted.

Struggling for breath, Papa looked up at the two Intelligence agents, amazed. One of them turned away, checking the assassins, but the other was right there by Papa, holding his arm. “Are you hurt, sir?”

Papa shook his head, trying to wave the man away, trying to unkink his diaphragm long enough to take a breath.

The Intelligence man seemed to understand. “Try to relax, sir.”

Finally, air came in—only a trickle, but enough to start his belly pulling in more.

The taller man came up. “Two dead, but the last one will live. Maybe he can tell us something.”

Papa caught enough breath to say, “Don’t count on it. He probably only knows an electronic voice and a public phone number.”

“Probably,” the taller man agreed, with some regret. “They look to have been professionals.”

“Not as much as you two.” Papa finally straightened up and forced out, “Thanks, Lieutenants. Seems it was something I couldn’t handle.”

“Glad to help, sir.” The taller one’s voice was neutral, but his eyes glowed.

“Just doing our job.” The shorter one actually smiled.

“Glad you were.” But that wasn’t enough. “About my . . . snarling at you, before. Sorry.”

“Perfectly all right, sir,” the shorter one assured him, and the taller one answered, “This is a fine assignment.”

* * *

Alice noticed the discrepancy her first day on the job. The weights on the receipts didn’t match the weights ordered. Not surprising—they were for pig iron.

“If I tell my department head, they’ll suspect me,” she told Papa.

Papa shook his head. “Not with your record. After all, they promoted you because you managed to boost quality control, didn’t they?”

She turned away, frowning. “I’ve been thinking, Peppy.”

“You can get in trouble that way.”

“Oh, be quiet! And listen. It occurred to me as I was going over those purchase orders and receipts that by promoting me to paper-pusher, they got rid of me in quality control.”

Papa nodded. “We do that in the Marines, too. It’s called ‘kicking someone upstairs.’”

“And with me gone, they can start turning out shoddy equipment again.”

“Right. Which means I have to double my scrutiny. As soon as you told me about the promotion offer, I put in for a dozen new privates and some very elaborate diagnostic machinery.”

She looked up at him, astonished.

“Why so surprised?” He smiled, amused. “Just because it takes a dozen soldiers to make up for you.”

“I—I’m flattered.”

“That’s right. Now, about that discrepancy?”

Alice frowned, jolted back to her worry. “You think they’re expecting me to catch it?”

Papa shrugged. “If it’s so obvious that you caught it your first day on the job, and without looking for it, they meant for you to find it.”

Alice lifted her head slowly. “So they’ll be suspicious if I don’t find it.”

“That would be my guess. And, of course, if you tell them and they fire you, then that gets you out of the whole sticky situation.”

“Yes . . .” Then she looked up, startled. “You’d like it that way, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t want you to do anything dangerous, Alice,” Papa said. He stopped and turned to her, slowly. “Not anything dangerous.”

Her heart skipped a beat, but she said, “I won’t, Peppy. Not if I can help it.”

* * *

The under-manager frowned. “Let me see.”

Alice showed her the hard copies. “That’s just the one, ma’am. There are three more current. And I haven’t even checked the histories.”

The department head shoved back her seat and swung around the desk. “I want to see this for myself.”

Alice led the way, the under marching stiffly after her. Alice wasn’t worried about her immediate superior—the woman had lost both real legs in the first Hothri attack, and was rabid at the thought of defective weapons going out to the soldiers. It was the big bosses who worried Alice.

They came down to the loading dock, where a dull-eyed super watched the pig iron roar into the hopper. Alice stepped up, waved to the worker to show it was all right, and punched the button that stopped the dumping. She disengaged the hopper, reached into the truck, and started pulling out pigs, weighing them in her artificial hand. On the fourth one, she nodded, set it aside, and engaged the hopper again. She gave the swab-O sign to the worker, who pressed the green patch, and the roar started up again.

Alice picked up two bars as the under swung up to her. She held the bars up, then dropped them both.

One of them bounced. The other broke.

Alice held up the broken halves. The under took them, staring. Then, outraged, she turned one broken end for Alice to see, and pointed to the myriad of bubbles in the metal, around a hollow core.

* * *

The three Hothri dreadnoughts floated in the void, each surrounded by its six daughter cruisers and thirty-six destroyers—except that they weren’t really floating, but hurtling toward Arista at tremendous velocity.

Well, they had that much advantage, at least. Human ships came in groups of ten—five fingers on each hand. But Hothri squadrons came in sixes. Six fingers total; ships in multiples of six.

Not that Papa could see them, of course. All his eyes saw were yellow blips on a vast wall-screen marked with concentric circles, at whose center was Arista—but memory and imagination provided what the battle monitor couldn’t; in his mind’s eye, he could see the Hothri battlewagons, gleaming in the distant light of Arista’s sun, as they hurtled toward the double cluster of Aristan ships that drifted, waiting for them, grouped around the moon’s two orbital stations.

He sat at the back of the Operations Room, watching over the heads of the dim, low-voiced forms before him. Pools of yellow light on desk-tops showed hard copies; small data screens glowed amber here and there about the room. On a raised dais in its center sat the rear admiral, watching the progress of the battle, ready to respond to any calls from the fleet commander at the site.

But the whole room was dominated by the huge situation screen at its far side, flanked by smaller screens that showed the view from each of the battle stations around the moon. All those showed were the silvery forms of Aristan cruisers and the glints of destroyers; the approaching Hothri fleet wasn’t even a glimmer.

On the screen, the triple yellow cluster approached the two smaller, green clusters steadily, remorselessly-but Papa could envision the Hothri dreadnoughts, oblong and manyhatched, like huge mechanical hives, each with its cruisers and destroyers going before it like so many warrior ants. But those hatches would open to reveal the barrels of cannons, not tunnels.

This was his greatest single privilege of remaining in uniform, his greatest reward for rank—the ability to watch the progress of the battles, to ache with the anxiety of his fellow soldiers, to share the joy of their victory, or the horror of their defeat. Under it all ran the guilt of being safe here on Arista, while they staked their lives on the strategies of their commanders—and the quality of their weapons.

The weapons Papa had allocated to them.

There! On the side screen, a circle of points of light became visible, points that swelled to discernible disks. And on the big screen, the Hothri swarmed down on the battle stations like the pincers of a giant mantis.

Then the screen filled with red streaks as the battle computers strained to track each torpedo, each laser strike. The side screens showed distant flares of light as Hothri ships blew up.

But there were closer flares that filled the screen, then died with supernatural quickness as the computers subtracted them.

“One hit on the eastern Hothri fleet.” A yeoman called out the information; the computer needed all its capacity to track the battle.

“Jones is hit,” a closer yeoman responded. “Screens down . . . Jones is dead.”His voice tightened at the end of the sentence, but showed no more emotion than that.

Papa felt all the agony the man had repressed. Had it been his screen generator that was at fault? His laser cannon that had failed to bring down the torpedo?

On the big screen, the western battle platform was suddenly denuded as half its destroyers, and two cruisers, shot off toward the Hothri line. The side screen boosted magnification, showing them as a circle, tightening around the Hothri dreadnought.

Hothri cruisers scurried to intercept them, and the dreadnought hurled its stings.

“Center and eastern Hothri dividing laterally,” chanted a distant yeoman. “Center and eastern accelerating toward eastern platform.”

Papa’s heart sang—the Hothri had missed a bet! They should have pounced on the western station!

“Western sally force engaged,” the nearby yeoman recited. “Screens down on Wallace . . .. Screens down on Boru . . . Hothri destroyer exploded . . . Second Hothri destroyer exploded . . . Hothri destroyer in to Wallace . . .” His voice caught. “Wallace dead . . .”

“Eastern fleet responding,” called the distant yeoman. “Torpedoes off and away . . . Hothri cruisers’ screens down . . . Nobunaga in toward Hothri cruiser . . .”

Light flared on the side screen.

“Hothri cruiser dead,” the near yeoman said, his voice carefully neutral. “Nobunaga drifting, screens down, controls dark . . .”

And Nobunaga was probably dead, too, Papa realized, with a wrench of anguish. There was little or no chance that some Hothri destroyer would not pick off the wounded ship, almost no chance it would survive the battle.

“Hothri center veering,” called a lieutenant, “top and bottom. Hothri center pinching western fleet . . .”

And the western fleet was down to half its normal strength! They had no choice; they fell back on the orbital platform.

In the screens, columns of light jabbed out from the platform, spearing the Hothri cruisers.

“Hothri cruisers dead one . . . two . . . three “ the lieutenant sang. “Hothri dreadnought accelerating . . . Potemkin accelerating above its plane . . .”

A maze of red lines filled the big screen between the orbital platform and the Potemkin on the one side, and the center Hothri dreadnought on the other—but the dreadnought kept coming, kept coming . . .

“Dreadnought’s screens down!” the lieutenant shouted. “Dreadnought’s screens overloaded! Potemkin accelerating . . .”

Papa’s fists clenched the arms of his chair, sweat broke out on his brow. Potemkin was going to ram the dreadnought, and die with its enemy.

But there was no alternative. It was the only way to save the platform and, with it, the moon.

“Eastern Hothri closing moon-side of platform,” chanted a yeoman. “Porlock and Birmingham accelerating toward upper Hothri cruisers . . . Adelaide accelerating toward southern Hothri . . .”

The orbital platform spat ruby streams toward the Hothri. It was dangerous; if they missed the cricket ships, their beams could scar the moon with new craters—where domes had stood.

“Western Hothri dreadnought dead,” the lieutenant called out. “Hothri dreadnought’s a new star—and Potemkin is dead within it.”

That lieutenant would get a reaming tomorrow, Papa knew, for losing his composure enough to use such colorful language. But he couldn’t blame the man; he, too, mourned and celebrated Potemkin ‘s glorious death.

“Eastern Hothri cruisers dead from platform beams . . . one . . . two . . .” the yeoman recited. “Porlock and Birmingham closing on third cruiser . . . Porlock sustaining damage from enemy destroyers . . . Third cruiser dead . . . Enemy destroyers dead . . .”

“Center Hothri dreadnought withdrawing!” another yeoman cried in triumph.

And so it was; on the big screen, the center pulled back, sucking its cruiser-dots and destroyer-sparks with it.

“Adelaide engaging Hothri cruiser,” another yeoman announced. “Adelaide sustaining damage . . . Hothri sustaining damage . . . Hothri’s screens down . . . Adelaide’s screens down . . . Hothri cruiser dead . . . Route clear to eastern dreadnought . . .”

The right-hand screen filled with ruby light. The big screen showed the eastern platform bonded to the dreadnought by a scarlet column.

“Dreadnought’s screens loaded full,” the yeoman sang. “Dreadnought withdrawing.”

Finally, the rear admiral spoke. “Recommend do not chase,” he said. “Fleet commanders, base recommends, do not chase.”

As they might have, in the flush of victory—and been cut to pieces by the retreating Hothri cruisers.

“Admiral,” a commander said, with full formality, “the battle is ours.”

And the moon was still theirs, too, Papa knew—but the price had been heavy. Cruisers dead, one battleship annihiliated, and he’d lost count of the destroyers. Thousands of men and women gone to glory in a moment of light . . .

How many his fault? How many of his weapons had failed in battle, how many screens?

He’d know tomorrow. Maybe some, maybe none. So he put the thought aside, and let the elation of victory fill him, as he slowly stood, feeling the aches of a body overstressed with tension, and turned to leave the room.

* * *

The weights of iron started almost matching the weights ordered, and Alice relaxed, her faith in Gerta, the Head, validated.

“It’d be asking too much for the weights to match completely, wouldn’t it?” she asked Gerta on the way out of work one day.

“Too much,” Gerta agreed. “But keep track of the shortages, okay? We’ll hit them with a bill at the end of the month, and they can make it up.”

Alice decided that she liked Gerta very much. Liked her enough to bring her news of the shortages she spotted in silicon shipments, and ceramic clay, and a dozen other materials. Then, one lunchtime, Alice overheard some workers talking about a fire in the plastics-casting section, and told Gerta about that, too. Gerta tested the plastics and found some that burned very quickly and brightly. And all the shortages eased, and the incoming plastics started being tested. They developed a great resistance to heat.

So it wasn’t really a surprise when Alice stepped into Gerta’s office one morning and found her packing her personal items.

“So.” Alice’s mouth went dry. “They finally fired you, huh?”

“You could call it that.” But it was a grin Gerta turned on her. “They let me go.”

“ ‘Let you go!’ Those sanctimonious, hypocritical . . .”

“Whoa, whoa!” Gerta held up a hand. “Letting me go to Amalgamated Defense! They heard about me, and asked Industrial Munitions to send me over to clean up their procurement division.”

“Oh.” The anger abated, making Alice aware of a hollowness in her stomach. “I’ll miss you, Gerta.”

“Oh, we’ll still get together now and then.” Gerta grinned. “Because, you see—they’re giving you my job.”

Alice could only stare.

“They asked me who I could recommend,” Gerta explained. “I figured it was the least I could do.”

* * *

“But I don’t want to be a department head!” Alice wailed to Papa. “I don’t like to give orders!”

“You’ll get used to it,” Papa assured her.

“But I hate administration!”

“What do you think you’ve been doing these last two months?”

“Well . . . yes,” Alice admitted, “but that’s different. That’s a detective game, trying to catch all the shortages and profiteers.”

“Then keep playing. It’s your duty to Arista.”

Alice tossed her head impatiently. “Arista’s just a giant ball of dirt. It doesn’t care.”

“All right—it’s your duty to your brothers and sisters on the line.”

Alice was quiet. Papa paced alongside, hearing her footsteps crunch in the snow, waiting.

“You would have to bring that up, wouldn’t you?” She made it an accusation.

Papa nodded, with a cheery grin.

“All right,” she grumped. “I’ll keep playing.”

“Good woman!” He squeezed her shoulder. “Just one thing . . .”

“What’s that?”

He stopped, turning her to face him. “Don’t get caught, huh?”

She let herself drift into his eyes and said, “I’ll play by the rules, Peppy.”

* * *

“I have to what?”

“Attend a board meeting,” her secretary told her patiently. “That’s one of the disadvantages of being a department head—if the directors need information for a meeting, you have to be there to give it.”

“But they could punch it up on a screen.”

“Maybe they figure you’ll see some point they’ve missed.” The secretary shrugged. “Or maybe they just like to have their juniors waiting on them. Either way, you’ve got to go.”

Alice went with her heart in her throat, overwhelmed and feeling very much out of place. What was she, an ordinary line worker, doing in a meeting with the high and mighty? But she sat down, squared her keypad in front of her, and reminded herself that she was wearing a new suit and new hairdo.

It helped.

Of course, the presidents, the dozen vice presidents, and the chairman all outshone her in their quiet, elegant way—outshone her to the point of making her feel insignificant. Their suits must have cost six months of her pay, their styli and jewelry were gold and platinum, and their grooming must have been done by a professional just that morning—and every morning. Nonetheless, she plucked up her courage and waited.

And waited. And waited.

The meeting droned on and on around her, the chairman asking for information that he could have had on his screen in an instant, but getting it from each of the presidents who in turn demanded it from each of their vice presidents. Every now and then, the chairman would state an idea and ask the presidents what they thought of it. As one, they turned to their vice presidents and asked for information, then reported it back to the chairman, who nodded wisely and stated that he was glad to see his opinion supported.

Finally, Alice began to grow impatient. She realized that the chairman was setting not only the tone of the meeting, but also the opinions that were going to come out of it. There was no real opportunity to say “no” or to disagree in the slightest way. She finally began to realize that she was embedded in a ritual, in which the only purpose was to make sure everybody else in the company was doing what the chairman wanted, in the way he wanted it done. It was disguised as discussion, but it was as much an issuing of decrees as any emperor or dictator had ever exercised.

Then, suddenly, it all became ominous.

It started easily enough, with the chairman, Mr. Lamprey, turning to the president of sales and asking, “How’s the competition, doing, Mr. Dunbright?”

“Sales down five percent for Amalgamated, sir, and . . . Mr. Wron, what was the figure for Interstellar?”

“Four percent, sir.”

“Yes, four percent.” Dunbright turned back to the Chairman. “Down nine percent total, sir. That boosts our share of the market to just a little over a third.”

“Not good, but better than last quarter.” Lamprey frowned. “How are their prices?”

“That’s the good part,” Dunbright said, with a gloating smile. “They’ve had to boost prices an average of eight percent.”

“So.” Lamprey nodded, with the ghost of a smile. “We can boost ours five, then.” He turned to the president of production. “You disagree, Mr. Kriegspiel?”

“Oh, not really, sir,” Kriegspiel said quickly. “But wasn’t our market gain due to our underselling the competition?”

“Of course—and we’ll still undersell them. While we’re on the subject, any idea why they had to boost prices?”

“Yes, sir. Cost increase, of course.” Kriegspiel turned to his vice president for cost control. “What did you say was the prime factor in that increase, Immer?”

“Quality control, sir,” Immer answered. “They had to add on personnel, and recycle much more than we did.”

Alice stiffened.

“Nice to know we’re ahead.” But Lamprey frowned.

“How were we able to spend less on quality?”

“We already had the systems in place, sir,” Kriegspiel said proudly, “and at a fraction of the personnel.” He turned to Immer. “What’s our total number in quality control?”

“We don’t have a separate department, sir,” Immer explained. “It’s part of procurement.”

“Procurement?” The chairman frowned. “How did that happen?” He didn’t sound happy about it.

Immer turned an expressionless face to Alice. “Ms. Biedermann, you’re the under-manager for that department. How did quality control come under procurement?”

“Our people caught the discrepancies between weight ordered and weight received, sir,” Alice managed. “We investigated and found that the shortage was due to defects in the materials we were receiving.” She didn’t mention that she was the one who had found out. “And since we were investigating, production routed quality control to us, to do our testing.”

“And you hired more people.” Suddenly, she had the chairman’s full attention—and felt as though she were a butterfly pinned to a board. But she spoke up bravely.

“Yes, sir—we added four checkers. Then, when raw materials improved, we put two of them onto output quality control.”

“I should have thought you would have let those two go.” The chairman’s gaze was a needle through her.

And, meeting his gaze, she suddenly knew that this man didn’t want high quality control, didn’t want to produce sound weapons for soldiers, didn’t want anything that would reduce his profits or slacken the flow of money into his coffers.

She stammered out a reply as best as she was able, and that awful gaze swung off her and back to Irnmer, who assured President Kriegspiel that they’d rectify the situation, and the president assured the chairman that, really, there was no cause to expend monies needlessly—and, finally, the long meeting dragged to a close. Alice pushed herself out of her chair and managed to find her way out into the corridor, numb with the certainty that the chairman, and therefore all the presidents, and the vicepresidents, and the managers, and the under-managers, and almost all of the workers wanted as many defective weapons as possible going into the hands of Aristan soldiers.

* * *

“I couldn’t believe it,” she told Papa that night. “I still can’t. There he was, the chairman of Industrial Munitions, making it very clear to everybody in that room that his company should deliberately produce as many duds as he can get away with!”

Papa scowled. “That makes a lot of sense, Alice. Too much sense.”

Alice hugged herself and shivered. “I could stand it when I thought it was just an accident, Pepe—just a side-effect of their wanting to cut costs and not caring about whether or not the weapons were any good. But to do it deliberately!”

“Of course, he couldn’t come right out and say it,” Pepe mused.

“Of course not! But everybody in that room knew it, oh yes! And knew that their careers depended on doing what he said, too!”

“Sure. The only real purpose of a meeting like that is to make sure everybody knows what he wants, Alice—to make sure they all think the same way.”

“But what about ethics!” she cried.

“Ethics are whatever the chairman says they are.”

Something nudged Alice from inside her head. She looked up, frowning. “You know, this could all just be the way I saw it. I couldn’t prove a word of it. It could all be in me—I could be imagining things.”

“You could,” Pepe said, without emotion.

“I notice you aren’t exactly straining to prove I’m wrong.”

“Not a bit.” Papa agreed. “Mostly because I don’t doubt you for a second. It makes an awful lot of sense, Alice. Too much.”

“Too much?” She peered up at him. “Why ‘too much?’”

“Because Amalgamated and Interstellar are running the same way. Their track records could be copies of Industrial’s. They even cleaned up their quality control almost as soon as Industrial did—and let it go just as quickly, too. When you think of it as their producing as many duds as possible, until I made it clear they couldn’t get away with it, it makes sense. I put the heat on them, and they cleaned up—until I quit snarling so much. Then their dud rate went up again.”

But she caught the hint of something else in his tone. “What else, Peppy? Tell me what else!”

He sighed. “No fooling you, is there?”

“Not a bit.” She swung around in front, blocking him. “What else is there?”

Pepe sighed and said, “There’ve been a couple of tries . . .”

“Not at killing you!”

“Only a couple, I said.” He held up a palm. “I hated to believe that they’d try to assassinate me just to save money on quality control—but if they’re really on the Hothri’s side, it’s easier to believe.”

“On the Hothri’s side!”

“Why else would they want to produce duds? Once the system’s there, they wouldn’t lose money by keeping quality up.”

“But . . . traitors?!”

“Different people believe different things, Alice,” he said softly. “I’ve heard of people who hate the human race, don’t think it should exist.”

She stared at him, then shook her head, faster and faster, trying to deny it.

Papa shook his head, too, but sadly. “They’re there, Alice. Anyway, I’ve read about ’em.” After all, he couldn’t be sure he’d met any.

Alice turned away, walking down the street, numb and silent.

“That’s why we have to stick together,” Papa said. “All the rest of us.”

Alice nodded. “Because we’re not the only ones who are sticking together.”

“Oh?” he asked. “Who else?”

“Amalgamated and Interstellar—or their chairmen, at least. How else could they all be turning out duds, and all have the same prices?”

“By watching each other,” he answered. “Believe me, informal price-fixing is nothing new. They don’t have to get together and agree on a price. They just watch each other and make sure they don’t charge too much more than the other guy.”

“So.” She frowned. “And cost-cutting could work the same way?”

“Sure.” Papa shrugged. “ ‘If General can get away with twenty percent defectives, why can’t we?’ So they set the quality-control monitors lower, and they’re all producing the same.”

“So.” Alice turned away, walking through the swirling snow again. “One man is enough. Just one—if he’s chairman of the board of one of the Big Three.”

“Yes, one would be enough.” Papa matched her pace. “And he could just be pushing for maximum profit, and the hell with everybody else.”

“Could be,” she said, “but he’s not.”

Papa walked along beside her, matching her pace for a while.

Then he said, “How would you explain it?”

“By somebody telling them to produce as many duds as they can get away with,” she answered.

Slowly, Papa nodded. “That makes sense. So you think the chairman is taking orders?”

She swallowed heavily and nodded.

“From whom?” he asked. “One of the admirals?”

“No,” she said. “The Hothri.”

Papa stopped, stunned. Then his mind cleared and he nodded slowly. He didn’t have to ask why.

“There’s got to be evidence,” she said. “I’ll search the computers and find it.”

“Don’t you dare do any such thing! Any file you find would have such a loud alarm on it that you’d be strung up within minutes. No, you let me take it from here, Alice.”

“But I can’t just stand by and . . .”

“Alice.” Papa rounded on her, looking deeply into her eyes, his shoulders hunched, face solemn. “Since you started getting upset about flawed steel, the dud rate from all Arista’s industries has gone down from twenty percent to about five. You have probably saved the lives of almost as many young soldiers as the entire Medical Corps. They haven’t just been standing by—and you’re too valuable to risk.”

She stared up at him.

“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “The other companies cleaned up their quality control almost as quickly as Industrial did. No one suspects you yet.”

She paled. “Yet?”

Pepe nodded, his gaze locked with hers. “I’ve been worried about that. Wouldn’t take the risk. If there was the slightest sign, Alice, I’d ask you to quit.”

“But . . . if they’re really suspicious . . .”She stared at him. “Have they been following us?”

Pepe shook his head. “Believe me—I’d know if they were.”

“That’s right, you’re always so careful. But . . . Pepe!”

Her stare turned to a glare. “You’ve been seeing other women, haven’t you!”

He nodded, slowly and easily, eyes still on hers. “Of course, Alice. Of course. Wouldn’t want them to think I only had one girlfriend—they might start wondering where I get my ideas. As it is, it’s bad enough that I only date the other ones for maybe a month at a time, while I’ve been seeing you for more than a year now. Bad enough—but not too bad. There are always three or four I’m seeing.” He forced a smile. “Of course, I don’t do anything with them, beyond talking—but a shadow wouldn’t know that, would he? He’d never come inside a dorm to a room door”

“And you always see your ladies home,” she breathed. “So that’s why you never stay.”

“Not even for a drink,” he assured her. “Believe me, Alice, that’s the only reason.”

“Well, I wondered . . .”

“Uh, sorry.” Papa actually looked abashed. “Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

She decided not to ask him about kisses. After all, he had to make it look good.

“But it could have turned dangerous for you, see,” Papa said, “if anybody got the idea we were more than friends. As it is, Industrial might have some suspicions about you, but nothing dangerous—and if they do get nasty ideas, we can always pretend to break up.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“To make you safer? Of course I would.” He turned to face her, a pleading look, almost lost. “I know I’d risk losing you—but I’d rather you found another man than an early grave.”

She managed to keep looking sharp while she melted inside. “I won’t find either one! And we won’t need to break up.”

She turned away and marched down the street to keep her knees solid. Papa hurried to catch up.

“Besides,” she reminded him, “we never said we were going together, or anything. Nothing formal.”

“Can we go together?” he asked, very meekly.

She turned a radiant smile on him. “I thought you’d never ask! But we can’t be obvious about it.”

“No,” he confirmed. “That would be too dangerous for you. Nothing formal.”

He turned solemnly, and she waited, scared but thrilled, and he said, “That’s why I can’t propose, either.”

* * *

Peppy had told her not to, but the knowledge of his love inspired her. Besides, Alice was tired of being such a passive link, and perhaps a little guilty, too—she didn’t think she’d really been taking any risks.

Of course, she couldn’t ask Pepe to help her do what he didn’t want her to do—so she went to the technician who serviced her arm.

“You want a what?” He stared, incredulous.

“A video camera,” she repeated, “hooked to a memory chip, inside my arm. I do a lot of paperwork now, Jules. It’d make things a lot easier if I could just point my finger and make a copy.”

Jules sighed and shook his head in wonder. “Well, I must admit it’s a new one. Give me a week, Ms. Biedermann, okay?”

A week was time enough to make friends with her president’s secretary, who was friends with the chairman’s secretary. Then, over a month of lunches, she managed to work in a few questions about the chairman’s business trips. She relayed the information to Pepe and was very surprised when he became upset with her.

“You’re sticking your head into the lion’s mouth!” he stormed. “This isn’t the small time, Alice—these boys play dirty! Please keep out of it!”

Pepe knew that Alice was hurt. He apologized for being so nasty, and he made it up to her-but that only strengthened her resolve. Especially since she was sure he was putting her information to good use.

So she did a little investigating with her data screen—nothing definitely outside her bailiwick, though it was certainly on the border. Records of expense accounts; records of travel accounts—and she copied down the chairman’s expense records while she was busy being numb at the amount anyone trip cost the company. Rank had its privileges—and the private shuttle that was, for all intent, for the chairman’s use only, cost an almighty lot for anyone trip.

But there were two dates he had traveled that weren’t on the accounts—one three years ago, and another only one year ago.

She remembered Pepe’s reaction, and didn’t tell him this time. She decided to wait until she had all the information she could get. That way, Pepe would only get angry with her once. It was quite reassuring to know how upset he could become at the thought of her being in danger. But it was also scary while it lasted.

The anger proved that, if nothing else, he loved her. So she shrugged it off.

Then, one morning, her secretary looked up as she came in, and said, “The chairman wants to see you.”

Alice stood stock-still, every nerve stinging at the thought of danger. “What about?”

The secretary shook her head. “Didn’t say. Just wants you to get in there as soon as you come in.”

It was wrong, Alice knew—he was bypassing channels.

And if it was all that urgent, his secretary should have called her at home. Prudence dictated that she turn around, go out, and get to Pepe as quickly as possible—but curiosity said she might gain some more information with which to hang the chairman.

She went.

Maude, his secretary, looked up and smiled when Alice came in.

“Good morning, Alice. What were you up to last night?” Instantly, Alice relaxed a bit, and smiled back. “Nothing but a good book.”

“Well, you are looking a little pale. Don’t choose such exhausting books, okay, dearie? You can go right in; His Nibs is waiting.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “What’s it about?”

Alice stared. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Hm.” Maude frowned. “Well, I don’t know everything that man has on his mind—but it’s rare, when it involves the help.” She shrugged. “Go on in.”

Alice flashed her a grateful smile and went into the chairman’s office.

The door closed behind her; the office was empty.

Alice frowned, puzzled, and started to turn . . .

A huge pain flared in her head, then was gone—and so was everything else.

An acrid reek seared through her head, and she snapped awake, coughing. When the racking subsided, she became aware of an enormous pain filling her whole head, but pulsing outward from a spot on the back.

“So sorry to jolt you from your slumbers with so bitter a smell.”

She looked up, startled, and the pain pulsed harder. She blinked away tears and saw, through a film of moisture, the chairman standing before her, immaculate in a gray pinstriped suit, fingers caressing a fob on the end of his vest chain. She sat in a pool of light, just barely able to see beyond the chairman’s form. She could make out plain stone blocks and nothing more.

“However, the matter is rather urgent,” the chairman went on. “I really could not wait for you to awaken naturally.”

Alice mustered her courage and tried to stand but jolted against bindings. Looking down, she was astonished to see that she was tied into a chair.

“Quite necessary, I’m afraid,” he said. “because you’re apt to try to move about rather violently when we commence.”

She stared up at him, the first feelings of terror blooming inside.

The chairman stepped up, caught her hand, twisted it over, and slammed it down on the metal arm. Alice cried out.

“Go ahead,” he urged her. “We’re quite alone—and quite far underground, beneath my office. Private elevator, don’t you see.”

He pressed the fob against her wrist and she felt a coolness. It wasn’t a fob—it was a hypodermic jet.

She stared at her wrist, numb, then began to feel very light-headed.

“There’s no point in trying to hold anything back,” he told her. “The drug is very effective. All I have to do is mention a topic and you’ll tell me everything you know about it. More than I want to know, probably. Now—Colonel Pepe Stuart.”

“I met Pepe at a friend’s house. He walked me home, and I told him how I was worried about the bubbles in the pig iron . . .”

On she went, and on and on—but inside, she was horrified to hear herself telling every detail about herself and Pepe, every detail. For once, she was grateful to him for not giving her anything terribly carnal to talk about.

But she babbled everything she’d told him.

“Me,” the chairman suggested, and she was off again, gibbering, babbling. She talked and talked, until it was all told.

Then, as she sat panting, the chairman’s eyes narrowed, and his face paled. He drew a short metallic stick out of a pocket and swung it at her temple.

* * *

Consciousness nudged her, and she thrust it away. But pain bored in, and she had to face the fact that she was once more aware. She was about to force her eyes open when she realized the chairman was talking.

“Those were not the terms of our agreement. You contracted to provide transportation away from Arista whenever I chose!”

A warbling falsetto answered him—Hothri speech. Over the trill came the vocodered words of a translator. “It is no longer expedient to arrange your escape.”

Carefully, Alice opened her eyes the tiniest bit, peeking through her lashes, and could just barely make out his shadow in front of a glowing screen—a screen that showed the image of a Hothri.

“Such an attempt would be detected,” the alien explained, “and it is quite possible that the ship would be eliminated. It could result in the deaths of several Hothri.”

“Then you must risk it!” The chairman’s face was red with anger. “You made a binding commitment!”

Even through the throbbing pain in her head, she felt panic at the thought that she was missing this. Summoning the tiny remnants of her will, she pulled with all her strength. The artificial arm tensed, strained—and the rope that bound it snapped apart.

The chairman didn’t notice. “You contracted for sabotage and information! In return for information regarding weapons research, your agent would deposit bullion in an anonymous account on Aries!”

“Such has been done,” the translator answered over Hothri piping.

Trembling, Alice brought her artificial wrist near her real fingers, and pressed the patch that started the camera. Then she pointed her index finger at the chairman and lowered the arm, resting it on her real one. She hoped he was in the field of view.

“What good are millions on Aries, if I cannot go there to draw them?” the chairman snapped. “In return for my assuring the production of defective weapons, you contracted to provide for my escape!”

“For your escape, when the Hothri conquered Arista,” the alien reminded him. “That event has not yet transpired. When it does, we will happily provide you transportation to Aries.”

“Yes, so that I can provide further services for you there! But do you not realize that I will not be able to do so if you do not remove me from Arista at once? The Navy is alerted to my activities; they will find some manner of proof! No trail can be covered completely! My transmissions to you must have been noted and logged, scrambled or not!”

“Come now, dear Chairman.” The Hothri was enjoying itself. “If you have been discreet, nothing can be proved.”

“Proof is not needed—only grounds for suspicion! They will remove me from office, at the least! I will no longer be able to aid you, in retirement!”

“That is regretable,” the Hothri admitted. “But if so, it is not in our interest to aid you in any way.”

“I have adhered to our agreement!” The chairman began to sound frantic. “I have produced as many defective weapons as I could manage! I have sent you word of every bit of weapons research undertaken!”

“You have indeed,” the Hothri confirmed, “but by your own admission, your usefulness is ended. You can no longer assure defective weapons, or provide information, on Arista; and surely, your disappearance here would confirm suspicion and negate your usefulness on Aries.”

“I will assume another identify on Aries! I will invest heavily in their defense industries; I will rise in their ranks till I am once more privy to secret information!”

“You will not,” the Hothri contradicted. “Your record will not bear scrutiny. No, dear Chairman, I am afraid you can be of no further use to us. Farewell.”

The screen filled with multi-colored snow. The chairman spun away from the screen with a curse.

And saw Alice’s arm pointing at him.

The gun was in his hand before she knew it; the flat, sharp crack filled the room before she could cry out. The tearing pain seared through her chest; but, as consciousness dimmed for good, she saw a rectangle of fire behind the chairman, saw him whirl as the door fell to ashes, and saw a familiar form filling the doorway with flame jolting from his hand.

* * *

The chairman recognized Pepe, and his teeth writhed back in a snarl. The pistol in his hand cracked again, and Papa rocked as the bullet slapped into his armor—but he fired a moment later, and the chairman slammed back against the wall.

Men began firing behind Pepe, and bullet after bullet slapped into the chairman, jolting the body—but Papa was no longer there to see. He had spun aside to kneel by Alice’s chair, knife slitting her bonds. His heart turned over at the sight of the bruise next to her ear, then turned to ice as he saw the red stain around the hole in her chest. He grappled her out of the chair and touched her neck, feeling for the jugular for a pulse . . .

“He’s very dead.” The Intelligence man came up behind Papa. “Must have known we were onto him. But he didn’t guess how quickly we’d picked up his transmission, or recognized it as Hothri encoding.”

Papa didn’t answer.

“Sorry we doubted.” The other Intelligence man came up behind the first. “You were right to make us keep a radio watch on this . . .”

Then he saw Alice, and stopped.

The first Intelligence man reached down to touch Alice’s arm. “She has a camera in there, you know. It’s still on.”

“You can turn it off now,” Papa said.

The Intelligence man reached down to press the switchpoint. “He wasn’t ready for us. He couldn’t guess that we could trace his transmission and find him so fast.”

“Not fast enough,” Papa said.

The Intelligence man frowned at something in Papa’s voice, and looked more closely. When he saw the tears in Papa’s eyes, he shut up. Finally,

* * *

“Ms. Biedermann was buried with full military honors. “

The screen showed Alice’s coffin, draped with a flag, framed by the honor guard firing their salute.

The midday patrons shut up, staring at the screen in mute respect.

“Her heroism in recording the final proof of the chairman’s guilt cannot be overstated.”The picture dissolved into the chairman’s profile, seen from the back, lit by the screen in front of him with its image of the Hothri operator. “Here, again, is the evidence for which she gave her life, evidence of the treachery that cost so many lives.”

The sound came up, and once again Papa heard the damning words, already burned into his brain, but all of which told him, again and again, that he had come too late.

The bartender took one look at his face and lowered the volume. A patron or two looked up to protest, caught the bartender’s tight shake of the head, and turned back to watch the screen, sobered.

The door wheezed open, clicked shut, and the general stepped up to Papa’s table. He stood, staring down at the bulky man hunched over his glass with a half-full bottle by his elbow. Finally, the general said, “Can I sit?”

Papa lifted his head slowly, frowning, then waved toward a chair. “Sure. Why not? It’s a public place.”

The general sat slowly, laying his hat on the table. He waited until Papa looked up at him again, then said, “The Senate met right after the broadcast last night. They talked nonstop till dawn.”

Papa’s mouth quirked into a bitter line. “Talk!”

“They decided not to nationalize the defense industries,” the general said. “It was close, though.”

“I don’t really care,” Papa told him.

“They did decide that all industry would have to be run by very tight government controls,” the general said. “Very tight. They voted to establish a Board of Industry to oversee everything about them, Colonel Stuart. Everything.”

“A little late, don’t you think?”

“They want you to resign your commission,” the general said.

Papa looked up, his mouth a hard, bitter line.

“They want you to head the Industry Board,” the general explained.

For a long, long minute, Papa just sat there, staring. Then, slowly, he relaxed, hunching over the glass again.

“That’s great,” he muttered. “Just great.”

And he took another drink.

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Framed