"You'll be seeing me again."
"Yes, sir," said Toby. He didn't sound at all surprised.
* * * * *
When he got back In the car alone, the general counted the models on theseat beside him--one rocket-launcher, one A-gun. He said, "Riley, howare we fixed for gas?"
"Pretty good, sir," came the reply. "We can make the city okay, sir."
"Fill up before you get there," the General told him. "We're going righton through to Washington tonight."
"But, sir, I haven't notified the motor pool at Governor's Island," theSergeant protested.
"Damn the motor pool!" the General exploded. "I'll take care of them.Now get going; we've got a long drive ahead."
The big car gathered speed through the thickening night snow.
The General slept most of the way, after he and the Sergeant stopped fordinner at a Howard Johnson restaurant on Route One, just north of NewBrunswick. After a shower, a change into uniform and breakfast, he wasin sound operating shape when he reached his office at the Pentagon thenext morning.
He arranged for a round-the-clock guard of Angus MacReedy's house,ordered investigation of the model-maker's record, had a copy of thecomplete file on the possible enemy weapon forwarded to Long Island byspecial messenger. Then he summoned a special meeting of top-echelonOrdnance brass and produced the models of the XT-101, the self-reloadingrocket launcher and the improved A-gun.
If such a Broadway-Hollywood term as _sensational_ could be used in anyconnection with a Pentagon conference, the General's meeting with hiscolleagues might have qualified for it. Experts were quick to understandthe practicability of the models, quick to recast their plansaccordingly.
Within the week, he was summoned before the Combined Chiefs andcommended by that body for his clear-sightedness in cutting Gordianknots of the most baffling order. There was talk of a third star andappointment as Chief of Ordnance once the somewhat-doddering incumbentwas retired, come June. He was a sort of brown-haired white-haired boy.He was interviewed by representatives of three national newsweeklies.
Though he wore his new honors gracefully, actually the General wasthoroughly uncomfortable. He was far more concerned with the safety ofthe country than with his own advancement; and his ego was much toosolidly-based to permit him enjoyment of honors that were not rightfullyhis.
The worst of it was that he couldn't explain. If he told his superiorsthat his "inspirations" came from the intuitive head of a toy-soldiermaker on Long Island who even denied his intuition in the name oflogic--not only would his own career be permanently damaged, but thevalue of MacReedy's models would be suspected. So much so that theymight be disregarded entirely--thus retying the Gordian knots that werestymying the armament program.
MacReedy's file was laid on his desk one morning by a plump WACsecretary. It was exactly as the model-maker had stated: he wasAmerican-born, only child of a Scottish engineer and a German-Americanwoman from Wisconsin. He held an engineering degree from a smallpolytechnical institute in upstate New York.
His war-record was exemplary. At the time of his wound in CentralFrance, MacReedy had been a captain in the Combat Engineers, wearer of asilver star won at Anzio. There was a complete medical-report on thewound and treatment, whose technical jargon was too much for theGeneral. All he could gather was that it was a head-wound and braininjury, which had rendered the model-maker unfit for Army duty.
He took the report to his opposite number in the Medical Corps, a manwhose abilities in brain-surgery were mentioned in hushed voices atJohns Hopkins. Over a highball he told the whole story for the firsttime, hoping it wouldn't be received with hoots.
It wasn't. The white-haired surgeon looked long and meditatively at hisdrink. Then he said, "Kermit, I can't begin to account for it; I havemuddled around in the human brain enough to know that what we like tocall our scientific knowledge is at best empirical. You say this man hadhis ability _before_ he was wounded?"
"He built a Sherman tank two years before we did," said the General."Yet he claims the whole process is purely logical."
"Logic!" exclaimed the brain-man with a scorn that matched the General'sown on the subject. "Logic is hindsight, Kermit. When our brains, bysome intuitive process of progressive thought, reach a desired point,our egos reach backward to give the process a sort of order we calllogic. Actually we seldom know how we get where we do; but we're toodamned conceited to admit it.
"What in hell do we know about the brain?" he went on. "I knew aperfectly healthy young girl once, who was killed when she was standingbeside her horse--the horse sneezed, jerked his head up, and jolted theside of her jaw. Yet back in seventeen eighty-one, when Arnold orderedthe massacre at Fort Griswold, one old rebel was bayonetted, had hisskull smashed open so that his brains were oozing out on the ground. Herecovered and lived for forty years afterward, sane as you please. Andthey didn't have fellows like me, not then. If they had, he'd probablyhave died on the operating table."
"In other words you don't know," said the General.
"I don't know, Kermit," replied the other. "Another drink?"
* * * * *
The next day the international situation showed signs of seriousdeterioration, and the General took a plane to New York. All the way uphe thought of something else the Surgeon-General had said to him--"Onething I have learned, it isn't exactly in my province, but I've run intoit enough to make an observation.
"Whenever I've met anyone with what might be called a specialgift--psychic or what have you--I've found them scared to death of it.Damned if I know why...."
He ruminated a little before continuing. "You'd think they'd bedelighted--but they aren't. They either run to religion, and try todrown it in ritual--or they try to explain it away by somerationalization. Like your friend."
"Then you're willing to accept the fact he has a supernatural gift?" theGeneral asked.
The brain-man shrugged and said, "Supernatural--supernormal--he's gotsomething, if what you tell me is true. Can you think of a better 'ole?"
4
When he was driven up to the Long Island chalet early that afternoon,the General was pleased to see a command car parked unobtrusively offthe road, a sentry sitting in an impromptu sentry-box made of pine bows,that commanded a good view of the approaches. At least, he thought,_They_ wouldn't find MacReedy easy to get at. According to the reportshe had seen there had been no further attempts.
Toby opened the door. He said, "Hello, General, this is fine. We weregoing to send you a message tonight."
The General shook hands and said, "Progress?" and, when the boy noddedexcitedly, "Why aren't you in school?"
"It's after three o'clock," was the devastating reply, as Toby led himtoward the cellar stairs. The General wondered briefly how much he hadmanaged to forget in his fifty-two years.
Angus MacReedy was working at his carving table with a blow-up of thespy-pictures tacked to the cellar wall in front of him, a pile ofrough-sketched plans on the table. He rose and said, "I was just doing alittle polishing, General. But you hit it about right."
"Good," said the General. "Got it solved?"
"I think so," said the model-maker. "Take a look."
It was an eerie-looking item--a sort of stove-pipe mounted on a disc,surrounded by a flock of flying buttresses. Frowning the General peeredat it, then looked at the blow-ups on the walls. From the correct angle,the similarity was ominously unmistakable. He said, "What in hell is it,Captain?"
MacReedy grinned. "Looks weird, doesn't it? It had me stumped for thebetter part of a week. There's only one thing it could be and that'swhat it is. Look...."
He picked up a sort of miniature torpedo from the work-table, dropped itdown the stove-pipe. The thing worked like a trench-mortar. Some springin the base of the tube sent the rocket flying in a high arc to smackthe opposite wall and drop to the floor.
"It's a mobile rocket-launcher," he said needlessly. "I'd lay odds itcan be used for atomic warhe
ads."
"Good Lord!" cried the General. His mind was in a racing turmoil. Theproblem with the Nazi V-1 and V-2 weapons during World War Two had beenthe immobility of their launching platforms. If _They_ had managed toget around it....
He thought of an insuperable obstacle, said, "But what about back-blast?Don't tell me they've found a metal able to stand up under the heat oflaunching."
"I doubt it," replied MacReedy seriously. "They use this barrel to giveher a boost like a trench-mortar shell. My hunch is the rocket doesn'tfire until she's well off the