WHEN he turned out the light, the little creeps began coming down the wall again. General Horrey gurgled and fumbled for the bed-lamp chain. Brilliance flooded the room, and they vanished instantly. But the feeling of their presence lingered; it was as if they were watching him from the crack beneath the moulding. He sat up in bed, breathing deeply and glaring at the wall.

His wife's angular body stirred beside him. She rolled over and blinked first at the lamp, then at the general. "I thought you were sleepy, Clement," she challenged with a frown.

He quickly took note of the fact that she hadn't seen them. He tossed her a nervous smile. "I—I thought I'd read awhile," he mumbled.

"Why, you don't even have a book."

He swung his stout body out of bed, padded to the shelf, and returned with a volume of Klausewitz. Her colorless, middle-aged face went slack with hurt.

"Clemen-n-n-nt, on our first night together again?"

Her own boldness caught in her throat. She blushed furiously, flopped herself over, and curled up with her face to the wall. She drew the bedclothes tightly about her neck.

The general smiled a sickly smile. For the first time he noticed that she had taken down her tired brown hair and had tied it loosely behind her head with a thin white ribbon. He tried to frame an apt speech—Really, Nora, aren't we a little old? But he also framed the answer—Yes, if you count the years we've been apart.

He thought briefly: maybe I should tell her about the little creeps that come down from the attic. But he dispelled the notion with a shudder. Telling people about the little creeps had already won him a transfer from the battlefront back to Tokyo. It had also won him a chronic seizure of psychoanalysis, with daily spasms in the staff dispensary. It had won him permission to bring his wife to Japan, on the theory that her presence would have therapeutic value for him. But it might get him a medical discharge if he weren't careful about it.

Nora's bags were still at the airport. If he told her about the little creeps, she wouldn't even have to pack. Still, he could not turn out the light and watch them start crawling down the wall again.

He eased himself back into bed. "Are you asleep, Nora?" he whispered hopefully.

Her head quivered negatively. He watched her glumly for a moment. Horrey was fond of his wife. Lord knows, she has been a patient soul during all those army years—a trifle unimaginative, perhaps — but gentle and devoted. He hated to see her hurt.

Quietly he bent over her and planted a small kiss on her temple. She disregarded it. He caught a faint whiff of perfume. She never wore perfume, and she always rolled her hair at night. Horrey felt suddenly worse. He had not imagined that she would consider their reunion such a special event.

He sighed and turned his attention to Klausewitz. He meant to read until she went to sleep, and then leave the light on all night. He left it on every night. He had even painted the windowpanes black so that the air-raid wardens wouldn't snot it. The little creeps were regular comers, but he had hoped against hope that Nora's presence would drive them away.

Now what was he to do? The bed lamp would eventually have to be explained to Nora. In small matters, particularly those pertaining to his personal behavior, she was a very inquisitive woman.

He attacked Klausewitz fiercely. The dull words danced before his eyes. He devoured each of them like a separate pill that had to be taken. Then he went back and scanned the lines for sense. He found none. He became angry with his mind for its lack of discipline.

"Are you asleep yet?" he breathed.

"How can I go to sleep," she mumbled, "with you whispering at me every two minutes?"

But after a long time she went to sleep. Horrey bent over her and listened to the slow breathing, and watched the slight quiver of her thin lip. Satisfied, he laid the book quietly aside, and eased himself down beneath the covers with a sigh. He was used to sleeping with a light burning two feet from his face. It was reassuring.

General Horrey began to doze. Nora was stirring restlessly, but her presence soothed him. Suddenly she rolled over and snorted impatiently. Horrey kept his eyes closed. Then he heard the rattle of the bed-lamp chain —and the room plunged into darkness.

Stiffness shot through him. His hand twitched toward the lamp. He pulled it back. The darkness pressed upon him. He opened his eyes slowly and watched the night.

Then it happened.

The little creeps began coming down the wall again. They seeped from beneath the moulding and oozed over the plaster in downpouring waves of pale green phosphorescence. Tiny luminous rods, no larger than a pin, they moved like inchworms—arching their bodies and drawing their tails up behind them, then lurching ahead with a mechanical jerk. They marked in ranks, hundreds abreast, and they made concentric contour lines on the wall. In total effect, they reminded him of elite Sturmtruppen goosestepping down the Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse, But theirs was a slow crawl, hardly faster than the secondhand of his watch.

The room was pitch-black save for their faint luminescence. He longed to turn on the light. They hated light. It gobbled them up. But then he would have to explain to Nora.

A great hopelessness came over him, like the desperation of a trapped patrol. His jaw tightened with quiet hate. Every night they plagued him. Real or unreal, they had all but wrecked his career. They were driving him slowly mad. And now they threatened his marital happiness, if he had any.

Slowly he sat up in bed. "I'll fight them," he thought. "I'll let them come for once, and then I'll squash them!" Why hadn't he thought of it before?

He had tried to fight them with booby traps. He had sealed the moulding with putty. He had fumigated the attic. He had sprayed the wall with insecticides. In desperation, he had sprinkled it with holy water. And as a last resort, he had called in a Shinto priest to exorcise the house. Nothing had helped. But he had never stood up and fought them like a man.

The frontal ranks were halfway down the wall now, and an attacking spearhead veered slightly off to the left—strangely—away from the bed. General Horrey arose quietly and tiptoed out of the room. He fumbled in the kitchen cabinets, searching for a spray gun and a fly swatter.

"If Doctor Sikiewitz could see me now!" he thought glumly.

Sikiewitz had been forced to the conclusion that General Horrey was having hallucinations about hallucinations, because Horrey freely admitted that the visions were unreal, and the doctor could not understand a patient who lacked faith in his own apparitions. In Sikiewitz' book, a man was never mad if he thought that he was mad. And Horrey had him puzzled. "You are only imagining that you are imagining," was his ultimate conclusion. "A hypochondriac who only imagines he is a hypochondriac." This tail-in-its-mouth diagnosis impressed the general, but left him bewildered.

"I must be getting worse," he whispered as he carried his weapons back to the bedroom.

He stopped in the doorway to frown. The wall was glowing with them now, but the entire army had swung around to follow the southern spearhead which had become a long thin tendril reaching toward a table in the corner. He hated them fiercely, but fear had left him.

Hate pushed him slowly toward them. Gripping the spray-gun, he advanced. Nora was weaving a small intermittent snore on the bed. He pushed the gun toward the advancing column and worked the plunger furiously. The wall became wet with insecticide. But the little creeps marched impeccably onward, seemingly unaware of the gas attack.

Suppose they jump me, he thought. Suppose the whole swarming glow of them rush over to gnaw me to the bone. "Hellspawns!" he grunted.

He set the spray gun aside and took aim with the swatter. What if it angers them? What if they come at me in a mighty crawling slimy rage?

Whack! The weapon slapped hard against the plaster. A bright spark and a crackle! The swatter's copper screen glowed dull red when he pulled it back. But the little creeps continued their inexorable march. With a nervous moan, he continued belting them—until the wire curled up like wilted wet paper. Each time, the spark. He dropped the useless weapon across the foot of the bed. Nora's snoring broke its cadence; she groaned and tossed. He held his breath until she snored again.

The little creeps were crawling over the top of the corner table now, and the tendril split into two columns. One wriggled its way up the side of the small radio-phonograph combination. The other moved around in back of the chassis. Horrey backed slowly away, amazed at their behavior. Had their objective always been the radio?

He glanced at the moulding. The influx had stopped. The wall was swarming with their thousands, but no new battalions emerged from the woodwork. And the entire army was moving toward the corner.

"I'll wait," he thought. "I'll give them rope, lengthen their supply lines, learn their battle plan." He sat on the edge of the foot locker to watch. Some of the little creeps were marching through a ventilator slit and into the radio chassis: Others were pouring into the side of the record changer. The, lid was up, and he could see them assembling on the turntable. Vaguely, he wondered if any known species of worms laid their eggs in vacuum tubes.

After a few minutes, the last of them had entered the set. The regiment in the record player began climbing the pick-up arm and moving toward the head. They collected there like bright bees swarm. Inspiration struck him. "I'll turn on the set and fry them," he whispered.

But before he could move, their phantom glow began pulsating slightly, growing fainter. Then he saw that they were soaking into the very metal. He covered his face with his hands, groaned, and muttered, "Sikiewitz was right."

A sudden click made him look up. The dial lights came on. The tube filaments cast their faint red glow on the wall behind the set. The turntable creaked once; it was spinning, but the pick-up arm remained on its hook. General Horrey gurgled and backed away. His .45 hung in its usual place on the bedpost. He fumbled and groped and finally got it from the holster. Quietly, he charged a round into the chamber, intending to shoot at the radio. But a faint buzz of static made him hesitate.

"It would be foolish to shoot," came a hissing voice from the loudspeaker. "Then we would have to enter directly into your nervous system. It would be most painful to you."

Cold chills tickled the general's nape. He stood poised in his pajamas, with the gun pointed at the floor. At last he wiped small perspiration from his forehead, and whispered, "I request a parley."

"Granted," hissed the little creeps.

Slowly he advanced toward the set. The open lid of the record-player was a shadowy crocodile's jaw, waiting to devour him. He moved a chair noiselessly in front of it and sat down, placing the automatic beside him. He was stiffly at attention.

"Who are you?" he breathed. There was a brief pause, then: "Our name is 2537 Angstroms." The words were puzzling, but he was more baffled by the very fact of speech itself.

"How do you talk? How do worms speak?"

"By vibrating the phonograph crystal."

"Our analysis has shown that you are the key."

The answer meant nothing to him. "Where do you come from? I fumigated the attic."

"We are speaking from tomorrow."

The general caught his breath. His lip quivered angrily. He was not a man to be trifled with, not even by a phantasmagorical tribe of worms. "Tomorrow, eh?" His military mind groped ahead and found a leading question. "Where were you yesterday?"

"We were at today."

"Ha!" he breathed trimphantly. "But I was here today, and you weren't."

"True. While you are at today, we are at tomorrow."

"You lie!" he purred. "I'm coming to tomorrow pretty soon, and I'll prove you aren't there."

"When you reach tomorrow, it will be your today. But we will still be at tomorrow."

He groped again, and drew a blank. He sat working his jaw angrily. "What are your terms? What do you want? I demand that you leave my apartment!"

"Tomorrow grows out of today," the little creeps muttered ominously. "We demand that you stop spoiling tomorrow."

"Stop spoil—" Horrey began sputtering.

A groan came from the bed. Nora had stopped snoring. "Turndroffdradio," she mumbled sleepily:

There was a brief silence. Then the little creeps whispered again: "Our demands are simple. There are only three of them. Do not fire Yoshigura. Do not listen to General Yaney. Do not approve the bombing of towns along the Amur."

Horrey let an angry silence pass. Could the little creeps be some new secret weapon of the Reds? What could they know of General Yaney? The man was at the front, and Horrey hadn't seen him in months. And he had heard of no requests for strategic attacks along the Amur River. And what of Yoshigura? Yoshigura was only his housekeeper. And he had never thought of firing the man.

"Why?" he finally asked.

"Tomorrow grows out of today. Those are key decisions you must make."

"And if I agree? Will you leave me alone?"

"That depends on day-after-tomorrow."

Horrey snorted. "What if I refuse? What can you do about it?"

"Then we will be forced to go back and change yesterday."

"Turndamndradio off, Clement," came the mumble over the bed. "I'll think it over," the general muttered to the set.

"Turnitoff, Clement."

"There is nothing to think about. We shall return again to see that our demands are met." The radio lights switched off. The little creeps began emerging.

"Who said that?" Nora gasped. "Is somebody else here?" She sat bolt upright in bed.

She jerked on the bed lamp, catching the little creeps in the process of emerging. They seeped quickly back into the metal to escape the light.

"Hah!" Horrey growled triumphantly. "Now you can't get out. You're trapped!"

"What can't get out, Clement? Who's trapped?" Nora's voice was shrill with nervousness.

The radio came on again. "Turn out the light, please," ordered the little creeps.

Nora's hand darted toward the chain, then froze. "Whoo—" "Don't touch it, Nora!" he barked. "Clement! What—"

"Somebody's playing pranks with our radio," he said hastily. "Leave the light on."

"Tell the female to remove the light," the little creeps commanded.

"No!"

"Who called me a female?"

"Very well," said the loudspeaker. "I trust you have an extra fuse." A shower of sparks suddenly sputtered from the back of the set.

The light winked out instantly.

Nora screamed in the darkness, and the general began cursing fluently. The little creeps oozed out of the cabinet and began inching their way up the wall. They were glowing brighter now, and moving faster than be fore.

"Do you see them, Nora?" he shouted hopefully. "See them?" "Who? Where?" she cried. "I don't see anyone, Clement!" "I—I—I—don't see anything!" Her voice was a sobbing wail. "Where are you, Clement?"

"You heard them!" he bellowed. "You've got to see them!" He lifted the automatic and aimed at the head of the column. "They're—rightthere!" He jerked the trigger.

The explosion was shattering. When Nora's scream died out, plaster was sifting to the floor. The little creeps were still writhing from the brief flash of the shot. The bullet had done no damage to them, but they didn't like the light. He laughed wildly and fired again, and again.

When the gun was empty, the little creeps began reassembling. He started out of the room, meaning to replace the fuse and give them a good dose of light. Then he realized that he didn't know the location of the box. He had never bothered to find it.

Nora was moaning occasionally. "You see them?" he panted. "You have just got to see them!"

She didn't answer. He groped to the bed and felt for her arm. "Nora, Nora!" He found the arm and shook it. "Nora, answer me."

Only a moan. She had fainted. He dropped the arm and lumbered to the kitchen for a handful of matches. He began looking for the fuse box, searching each room in turn. By the time he found it in an unusual linen closet, the little creeps had returned to the moulding.

A loud knocking was worrying at the front door. General Horrey ignored it while he shorted the fuse socket with a coin. Since no fire sputtered from the radio, he assumed the short had been a transient one. He found some ammonia in the medicine chest and went to wave it under his wife's nose.

Her first words were: "They're at the door now, Clement!"

"It's all over," he said gently. "Go back to sleep. Would you like a drink?"

"I hear them at the door."

"That's somebody wondering about the shooting. They'll go away. Just relax."

"Who was it, Clement?"

"Didn't you hear them?"

"I thought it was the radio."

"With a microphone? Where were they standing?"

"Not standing, Nora!" he groaned. "Didn't you see them? Answer me!"

She looked worried. "I—I—oh, maybe I did."

His heart leaped with glee. "You did? What did they look like?"

She frowned, as if struggling to remember. "I—I think he was a huge, dark-faced man—standing just outside the window."

General Horrey groaned inwardly. He started to bellow at her that there wasn't any man, but he set his jaw tightly. Let her believe the invention of her own imagination, he thought. It was safer that way.

The knocking ceased for a time, then recurred at the back door. He slipped on a robe and stalked to answer it. A shadow stood on the steps, bowing politely. After a moment of peering into the darkness, he recognized the shadow as his clean-up man —Yoshigura, who lived in his basement.

"All right, what do you want?" he snapped.

Yoshigura's voice as a hesitant purr: "Ah, you shoot at thief, perhaps—Generar sir?"

"Yeah, I shoot at thief perhaps. Go back to bed."

"Ah, ah yes. Sir, you wish servant to bring Yapanese undertaker now perhaps? To care for thief's remains?"

The general snorted impatiently. "It wasn't a burglar; it was only a cat."

"Ahhh, a ca-a-at! Yesss! Perhaps Generar wish Yoshigura to dispose of cat's remains, yes sir?"

"Go back to bed! I missed the damn cat! Is that what you want to hear?"

"Ah so?" Yohigura bowed gravely. "Is too bad. Perhaps cat was only the rittew creeps, yes?"

The General choked and started to slam the door. But he paused, his hand clutching angrily at the knob. When he had first hired Yoshigura, he had called the man upstairs one night before he turned out the light—in the hope that the Japanese would also see the army of glowworms. Yoshigura not only failed to see the little creeps, but he also began treating Horrey with a peculiar and overly familiar deference. Now it was the servant's toothy grin that gave Horrey pause.

"Didn't I tell you to go back to bed?" he growled.

The servant bowed again. "Ah, so? Ah, Yoshigura not sreepy. Is good time for Generar to discuss sarary increase, yes?"

"Salary! Now see here! You go—"

"Ah ah! Is perhaps best Yoshigura should speak to authorities of creep-cats that bother general, yes. Perhaps authorities exterminate creep-cats."

Horrey tightened himself into rigid fury. "Why, you scummy little blackmailer! Pack up and get out. You're through!"

The servant lost his grin. "So! You want Yoshigura to inform big general boss—"

"I don't give a tinker's damn if you do or don't!" he bellowed. "My wife was a witness to it! Now, get out of my house."

Yoshigura looked suddenly frightened. "Ah, is perhaps my mistake—"

"You're damned right it is!" he roared. "I don't go for blackmail, boy. You're fired! And be out of here before noon in the morning."

Yoshigura stiffened. He backed down one step, then bowed. "Is too bad. This time is your mistake, Generar. Yesss." His voice was quietly ominous. He turned and skulked angrily into the darkness.

For a long moment, Horrey stared after him. Something scratchy was gnawing at his throat—a strange dryness. He had just fired Yoshigura! And the little creeps said . . .

He shivered and went back to bed. Nora was miserably frightened. He spent several minutes convincing her that the "burglar" would not return. Then he turned out the light. The little creeps remained in the moulding; they had already spoken their piece.

The smell of frying bacon awoke him. Nora was already in the kitchen. In the gray light of morning, his memory of the little creeps was like the fuzzy recollection of a nightmare.

"Have you had prowlers before?" Nora asked anxiously when he came to the kitchen for breakfast.

He noticed the dark circles under her eyes and guessed that she had remained awake for the rest of the night. "They won't come again," he said. "Don't worry about it." He meant to break the radio and pull out the plug. Then she wouldn't be aware of their presence. Or better still—

"Nora, an electrician's coming today to check the wiring. Let him in, will you?"

It was one of those rare inspirations that struck suddenly. He gloated about it on the way to headquarters. As soon as he was in his office, he called the administrative officer at general mess.

"Colonel, I believe you folks have germicidal lamps in your meat-coolers, don't you? You do? Fine! I need a spare tube. I'll send somebody to pick one up. Thanks."

Chuckling to himself, he made three more calls and finally located a fluorescent fixture. Then he called for an electrician.

"Sergeant, as a personal favor—would you do some work for me today? It's out of the line of duty, so I'll pay you for the service. Pick up a fixture at Terrence's office, and a germicidal lamp at general mess. Install it in my bedroom for me, huh?"

The electrician frowned and scratched his head. "You got a shield with the fixture?"

"What for?"

"You can get radiation burns from them things, sir. Bad on the eyes."

"Why, you can't even see ultraviolet."

"I know sir. You can't see it, but 2537 Angstroms is still hard on the eyes."

"Twenty-five which?"

"Wavelength of the black-light mercury line, sir."

"Oh. Something about that number sounds familiar," Horrey muttered. "Well, if it doesn't have a shield, get a tinker to make you one."

"Yes sir. I'll get on it this afternoon, sir. I'm off duty."

"Thank you, Sergeant."

The General was thoroughly pleased with himself. The ultraviolet lamp wouldn't keep Nora awake, and it could be easily explained as a cold preventer. He hoped fervently that the little creeps would be as sensitive to one kind of light as to another. If so, he would have them permanently beaten.

At nine o'clock, an armed courier brought the reports of yesterday's air-strikes, along with a folder from Intelligence. The intelligence report was entitled "Analysis of New Manchurian-Siberian Power Facilities." Horrey began thumbing through the latter immediately. He had been anxiously awaiting the report for several days.

But after reading for five minutes, the general was becoming slightly nervous. The words "Amur River" occurred a dozen times in the first three pages. His mind drifted to recollections: Do not fire Yoshigura ... Do not approve the bombing of towns along the Amur . . . Tomorrow grows out of today . . . Our analysis has shown that you are the key.

"Nonsense!" he snorted, turning his attention back to the report.

The gist of the whole thing was contained in the second paragraph: "It becomes evident that the Amur hydroelectric stations are working with Siberian steam-turbine installations on a cooperative basis. The two-hundred-mile belt along the river is undergoing considerable industrial expansion. The daytime power-demands of the belt are beyond the combined normal output of Siberian turbines and Manchurian hydroelectrics. Yet, these installations are handling the load. This is accomplished by a supply-timing schedule. At night, during the low demand period, the hydroelectrics are shut down. During this period the turbines take over, while the dams build up head. Then, during the heavy day-loading, they operate together, the hydroelectrics generating at nearly double-duty, thus exhausting the water-head by nightfall."

The general laid the report aside and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. Other staff-members were reading the report. Before the day was over, somebody was going to want a decision. And it would be hard to decide. Because of the cooperative power situation, it would be easy to cripple the "neutral" Siberian industry by blasting the Manchurian dams. But the river was a border. One bomb on the wrong side of the line might bring another nation into the wrong side of the war. The final decision was up to the Commanding General, but Horrey's advice would count as a vote.

"I think I'll abstain," he muttered sarcastically to the ceiling.

"Sir?"

He glanced up to see his WAC secretary standing in the doorway.

"Nothing, Sergeant," he grunted. "You want something?"

"General Yaney to see you, sir."

"Who—?" Horrey felt himself going white.

"General Yaney, sir. He's back from the—" Sergeant Agnes gurgled as a paper clip popped against the seat of her tight-packed skirt. She reddened furiously and rubbed her wound, then glared angrily at the short grinning man who slipped past her, idly flipping a rubber band.

"No girdle, huh?" he whispered. "I thought it was real. Good for you."

Agnes stalked away in a fury. General Yaney closed the door and tossed his hat at Horrey's desk. It skidded into the wastebasket and he left it there.

"Howdy, Clem," he said with a bright grin. "Don't look so petrified. I'm real."

Horrey thawed himself out with a murmur and came around the desk to shake hands. He smiled, but his heart wasn't in it. "How're you, Jim? And what on earth—"

"Am I doing in Tokyo?" Yaney planted his foot on a chair, his elbow on his knee, and his chin on his fist. "Is your sergeant married?" he asked with a wink.

"I don't know, Jim. What are you doing here?"

"What's her name, Clem?"

Horrey snorted. His eyes flickered briefly to Yaney's command-pilot wings. "You're too far back of the lines to date enlisted women, Jim. The M.P.'s would grab her. Let her alone and answer my question."

"Huh! I don't know any WAC generals. Besides, it might be amusing to tangle with the cops. Haven't been run in since I was a second looie."

"Jim, what—?"

"Oh, all right!" General Yaney removed his foot from the chair and sat down. "I came back with that intelligence report, Clem. I know some things that aren't in there."

"You? How come? Since when do you have sources of—"

"I don't. I got the info from the man that wrote the report. We powwowed and decided to keep it off the record so it wouldn't get to Washington."

Horrey returned to his desk, frowning. "What made you do that?" he grunted disapprovingly.

The young air officer went serious. "Look, Clem, I know you're an old timer—everything above-board and all that. But this is something special. If Washington gets it, the State Department might foul the works."

"Better tell me about it."

"It's just this. We know the Amur River is mined—on the Siberian side. The mines are lined up like a bomb pattern. They're set to go off on an impulse from microphonic detonators across the river. If there's an explosion on the south bank, there'll be another explosion on the north bank. If we lay bomb pattern down the south side of the river, another pattern will appear on the north side."

Horrey began sputtering unbelief. "It's true, Clem. They planted the mines secretly. Liquidated the laborers on the job—all except one. One escaped. He was our informant. Do you see what it means?"

Horrey let a long silence prevail. Then he nodded slowly. "If it's true, an enemy camera man could film the raid from up the river. It would look like we violated Siberian territory. Very effective propaganda. But what about their own installations? Won't they destroy—?"

Yaney shook his head gravely. "They've arranged the mines very cleverly. They won't destroy anything important. Just a few thousand Siberian citizens."

Horrey whistled thoughtfully. "I can see how we'd better not risk it."

"Now wait!" Yaney hitched his chair closer to the desk. "If the staff approves my plan, we can turn the tables on them. Show them up before the world. We haven't been using B-76's in low-level attacks. I want to bring two groups of them in on the deck. Buzz up the Amur at fifty feet altitude. It'll be dangerous, but they won't be expecting it. Their heavy guns can't track us that low. Directly above the bomber groups, I'm going to have a flight of camera ships. They'll film the whole operation. Then we'll have them. The films will show the 76's skimming low down the south side. The camera ships will be high enough to catch the real bomb pattern and the phoney one. Then we turn the films over to the U.N.—via an unhappy State Department."

"I don't like it, Jim."

The air force officer straightened. "And I don't like those Keg-VI rocket fighters they're making—north of the Amur. I figured up the score. Clem. It's been costing us more—in money, man-hours, and casualties—to shoot down a Keg-VI than it costs the Reds to make one. And that's a helluva note. Here we've got a chance to strike at the factories without violating anybody's neutrality."

Horrey said nothing. Yaney clapped his thighs and stood up. "Think about it, Clem. I talked the big boss into calling a meeting after lunch. He'll probably notify you in a few minutes. I've got to do some more politicking. See you, chum." He started out, then paused. "Whatchoo say her name was?"

"Agnes," Horrey mumbled absently. "Have a good time."

Yaney stuck up his thumb and departed. Horrey slowly gathered his wits and turned to the sortie-reports. They were full of Keg-VI's and casualties. He shuddered and pushed them aside, then he answered a jangling telephone.

"Your wife, sir," said Sergeant Agnes. Her voice was frosty.

"What's the matter? Is Yaney bothering you?"

He heard her lick her lips nervously. "Uh-yes, he's still here—" "Tell him to beat it."

Agnes was a brave girl. She told Yaney to beat it, General, sir. Horrey heard the officer chuckle and make a highly personal remark.

"Your wife, sir," the flustered girl repeated.

"Put her on."

Nora's voice was tremulous with excitement. "Clement, there are a dozen men parading up and down in front of our house. I'm afraid to go out."

"What? I don't understand!'

"I don't either, Clement. They're carrying signs. In Japanese. And there are six little children; they have signs too. A crowd's gathering."

"Pickets! What in the name of—!" He paused. "Has Yoshigura left yet?"

"Who?" Oh, the servant you fired. Yes, he was gone when I got up."

Horrey cursed inwardly. He knew what was up. Every time an American fired a Japanese, all the offended employee had to do was to take his beef to the local Communists, and the Reds arranged for pickets provided the man would team up with the party. But he had always imagined that Yoshi was a fervent nationalist.

"Don't worry about it, Nora. I'll send a couple of M.P.'s to keep them from bothering the house. We can't run them out of the street, though."

"Do hurry, Clement. I'm worried." She hung up.

"Agnes, get me the provost marshal," he bellowed.

"Yes, sir," she called.

Horrey drummed impatiently on the desk. It looked like a bad day. Pickets!—it was humilitating! Especially the children. Yoshigura didn't even have a wife, but the kids would be carrying signs that read, "HORREY FIRED OUR FATHER" and "HORREY TOOK AWAY OUR BREAD" and "HORREY GROWS FAT WHILE WE STARVE". It was sickening.

"Provost Marshal's Office, Colonel Robin," croaked the phone.

"Colonel?—General Horrey. Could you get me two guards for my front porch? I've got a picket line."

The phone hesitated. "Commie trouble, General? Certainly, sir. I'll supply the guards immediately. But the commanding general has issued a new ruling on this business. Have you seen it?"

"Probably been across my desk," Horrey grunted. "I don't remember it."

"Well, the gist of it is: we're to expose this racket wherever we can. Air it on the radio, in the papers. Did you fire somebody, sir?"

"Yeah. My houseboy tried to blackmail me. But listen, I don't want anything aired, Colonel."

"Blackmail, eh? Well I can see how publicity might be embarrassing in that case. Nevertheless, the commander's rule insists that I take your statement and statements from witnesses. It's not up to me, sir. It'll go to his desk. He'll decide. We're trying to show these Red pickets up for phonies. Tell the people the truth. Why don't you speak to him, sir?"

Horrey paused. "I'm sorry now that I called you, Colonel."

"Well, there's nothing I can . . ."

"I know, I know. All right, I'll make a statement and leave it with my secretary. You can send someone out to get Nora's story."

"Thank you, sir. I'll get the guards right over."

Horrey called Agnes in. She was still blushing, and when she came through the door he caught a glimpse of a leather flight jacket in the anteroom.

"Yaney still out there."

Her blue eyes suffered toward the ceiling. "Ye-e-ss, sir."

"What does he want?"

"I—uh, well—" She wallowed hard. "Mmph! I see. Well, get rid of him somehow."

"He won't go unless I give him a date."

"Then give him one," Horrey growled. ". . . if you want to," he added hastily.

"I'm not supposed to—go with—I mean—"

"Then type yourself a set of orders assigning yourself to his command for the rest of the day. I'll sign them."

"I'd be more fun to be chased by M.P.'s, Clem," drawled Yaney from the doorway. "But then again — 'to my command'—hmmm—"

Even the roots of Agnes' blonde hair turned red. She stuttered helplessly.

"Why don't you get out of here, Yaney," Horrey growled.

The air officer grinned. "Hear your wife's being picketed. I've never met your wife, have I?"

"Then why don't you go meet her. Go anywhere. But just get out of here."

"My, my!" purred Yaney. He backed away. "See you later, honey."

Agnes nodded imperceptibly. "If it's an order, sir." Her voice was acid, but her eyes were pleased.

When Yaney was gone, the general dictated a statement leaving out any mention of the creeping things and using his wife's imaginative description of a burglar. "Yoshigura asked for a salary increase, and threatened to reveal to superior officers that I was firing at what he supposed to be an hallucination," he said. Horrey made it as brief as possible and padded it with no untruths. He was trusting in Nora to confirm it.

A few minutes later, a note came in from the commander ordering a staff meeting for one o'clock—"To discuss intelligence report 73-G." Horrey felt incapable of making a decision on the Amur River targets. He felt incapable of anything more than a stiff drink.

Again, Nora called. "When are the guards coming?" she wanted to know. "The crowd's getting bigger. I'm frightened, Clement."

"They should be there in a few minutes, honey. Don't worry." "All right, but I wish you'd come."

"I'll check with the provost again," he promised, and hung up.

The provost marshal reported that a jeep was on its way. Horrey returned to his sortie reports. He was beginning to wish that he had not fired the servant.

During the lunch hour, he called a driver and cruised in his staff car within a block of the house. There was a crowd all right, but not of alarming size. Pedestrians who wandered past bunched up in the street to stare at the pickets and exchange words with them. There was no disorder, and he caught a glimpse of two white helmets on his porch. Nevertheless, it made him hotly angry. He longed to drive through the rabble with blaring horn, stop at his doorstep, and walk inside with a contemptuous sniff at the Reds. But reason told him to drive on.

"Drive on, Corporal," he sighed. "Officer's Mess, I suppose."

Promptly at one, the staff convened. For purposes of salesmanship, Yaney had reattired himself in smart and proper uniform, discarding the leather jacket and the fifty-mission crush. Horrey had never seen him in any pose but that of a slouching, tobacco-chewing combat officer, and the contrast was startling. His voice had gone polite, and he argued with a quiet eloquence and a scholarliness befitting a Pentagon official. Horrey noticed that the commanding general was impressed.

"Gentlemen," Yaney said quietly. "I will not try to impose upon you the notion that bombing the Amur is politically safe. It is not politically safe. But every decision—however small—has its reflection in the political mirror. We make them every day, down to the least gun-toting dogfaced Gee-Eye, we make them. Who was it that said, 'War is an extension of politics'?"

"Karl von Klausewitz," Horrey grunted automatically.

"Yes. As I said, if we rely upon the State Department to make up our minds on every issue with a political aspect, then it would be militarily wise to move the State Department offices to a dugout just behind the battlelines."

The room laughed. The commanding general spoke with quiet sharp, ness: "Let us have facts, Yaney. We are not here to criticize politicans.

Yaney presented his plan to avoid another nation's entry into the war "We will strike for the southernmost parts of the dams. Even the civilians who witness it from the Siberian bank will be able to see that our aircraft did not cause the explosions on the north bank. Our bomb run will be low enough to clearly define our pattern from the phoney. To me, gentlemen, it seems foolproof. They simply don't anticipate any low-level attacks."

"You'll use delay fusing, I suppose," murmured an officer.

"As short a delay as is safe, sir. We'll want our cameras to catch both the formation and the explosion patterns in the same picture. I can't see how this project should require State Department approval—any more than we need their approval to shoot Russian 'observers' fighting with the ground troops." Yaney nodded that he was finished and sat down.

There was a short silence. The commanding general seemed immersed in deep thought. At last he spoke slowing, distinctly. "We cannot, must not, exceed our authority, gentlemen. We are soldiers of a republic, gentlemen, subject to the nation's will. What we must decide is this: are we offering another nation an excuse it wants to attack us openly? If so, then we must submit the problem to the President. If not, we are free to strike. I want opinions from each of you, before I state my own." He looked slowly around the room. His eyes paused on one man. "General Sorrell, how do you feel about it?"

Sorrell was a cautious officer. "I'm against it, Sir," he said, and stood up to expound.

But the commander waved him down. "Arguments later," he said. "I want a preliminary poll. General Horrey, how about you."

Horrey jumped. He felt his hands quivering. The Yoshigura incident bothered him; an embarrassing situation had grown out of nothing. Tomorrow growing out of today. And the warning

"Well?"

"Uh, may-I reserve my opinion for a moment, sir?" Horrey asked. "I'm still weighing it."

The commander nodded and moved on. "Quinnly?"

"I'm for it, sir."

"Moswell?"

"For it, sir."

"Stinwald?"

"Decidedly against, sir!"

"And now back to you, Horrey. Have you made up your mind yet?" The commander's eyes twinkled teasingly.

"What's the vote, general?" "Two and two. You're the key." "Key—!" Horrey shuddered and sat bolt upright.

"Something wrong?"

They couldn't do this to him, he thought angrily. The damned little creeps telling him how to run his share of the war! The hell with them!

"I go along with General Yaney, sir," he growled.

The Commander chuckled. "Belated, but forceful enough. Well, gentlemen. I'm happy to say I agree with the majority. But the meeting's still open, if the minority wants to change our minds."

Sorrell and Stinwald both shook their heads. The commander looked at the air officer. "Go to it then, Yaney. How soon?"

Yaney blushed. "All the crews in the 650th and 524th groups are on standby. The weather's perfect today, sir, and the wing commander is just waiting for my radiogram. I can get the mission under way without leaving this building."

The commanding general failed to crack the faintest smile. He nodded soberly and stood up. "Good day to you," he murmured, and the men came to their feet as he left the room.

It was finished. Yaney came across the room to thank him for his support, but Horrey only muttered as his hand was wrung. Tomorrow was a fast-growing little petunia indeed, he thought grimly. And the little creeps weren't going to like it very well.

Yaney accompanied him back to his office. "I think I'll go out and look at your pickets, Clem," he said with a grin. "I want a picture of that —to show your grandchildren. Show 'em how Grandpa persecuted the proletariat."

"I don't have any children. How can I—"

"Oh, nuts. I'll speak to your wife about that. Anyway, I'll be there when you get home. I'm taking Agnes off your hands for the afternoon. We're going out and drink your whiskey and eat your chow. And torment your spouse. Be prompt for dinner, old man."

Horrey purpled. Agnes was coming out of the office as they approached. She handed him the orders he had told her to type.

"Where do you think you're going, Sergeant?" he growled, eyeing her handbag.

She looked confused. "But, sir…Generat Yaney said you said I was to go!"

"Well, Jim?"

Yaney grinned. "Say it, Clem, so I won't be a liar."

Horrey sputtered for a moment, then: "All right, beat it, but stay out of trouble. This is Tokyo, not . . ." He signed the transfer order.

"Ain't he chicken?" Yaney said to the sergeant. He took her arm and marched her away.

The phone was ringing when he entered the office. Lacking a secretary, he answered it himself—although a file-clerk was rushing toward it with a handful of papers.

It was the commander himself. "About this picketing business, Horrey. It's just come onto my desk. Would it embarrass you if I released it to the press? It's not your statement so much that's important, but the police checked up on Yoshigura. He doesn't have a family at all, and it's the first opportunity we've had to expose this silly children's picketing for their "father".

Horrey paused. The Red propaganda campaign must be rather important, he though, if the commander was handling such matters personally. He usually left such details to his press staff.

"No more embarrassing than the pickets themselves, I guess, sir." The commander thanked him and hung up. Horrey glanced at his watch. In half an hour, he was supposed to stretch out in Dr. Sikiewitz's office for a session of refined psychic torment. The thought of it made him angry. "Only imagining that I'm imagining, eh?" he muttered. "Well, I won't go." He strode to his desk to begin the afternoon's work.

He was buried in a pile of maps and arguing with his aides when his wife called again. She said only one word: his name.

"What now, Nora?" he growled irritably.

The receiver rattled in his ear as she handed the phone to someone. But there was another level of sound that came to him faintly—shouting, and the rattle of broken glass. Then someone was panting into the phone.

"Howdy, Clem," said Yaney's voice. "Guess I started me a revolution."

"What? What are you talking about? What's that noise, Jim?" Horrey demanded.

"Keep your britches on, old man Don't worry, I called the provost marshal. He's sending up reinforcements."

The general's bellow shook the office furniture. "What the hell have you done?"

"Easy, boy, easy! I'm trying to tell you. Aggie and I got here half an hour ago. Those bums in the street thought I was you. You should have heard what they called me. Maybe you'd understand it. I don't speak—"

"Are you trying to tell me that—"

"E-e-easy boy! No, I'm not trying to tell you that. I . . . conducted myself as an officer and a gentleman. I merely sneered and led Aggie inside."

Horrey heard the sound of two shots in the receiver. "What's that?"

"M.P.s had to shoot another Jap, guess. Anyway, it was when I went back out with a camera that they got rough, Clem. Like I said—pictures or your grandchildren. They didn't want their pictures taken. They got cal nasty. One of 'em threw a rock.

"I even took that. But when they jumped the fence and grabbed my camera, I didn't like it. They busted it on the sidewalk, Clem."

The general breathed ominously into the phone and waited.

"Had a hard time getting that camera, Clem—an f-1.5 German job. Had to knife a Schutstafel major for it: that was the time I bailed out over Belgium—"

"Slip the baloney! What happened?"

"They busted my camera, Clem."

"And so you threw a fist at one of them."

"One! Don't tease me, Clem boy. I laid out four of them before somebody clipped me with a piece of pipe. Boy, I've got a head! The M.P.'s started out to break it up, and the pickets broke for the street. They tried to break through the crowd. Some of the crowd tried to grab them; and some others wanted to help them get away. So we got a riot. Big free-for-all. Everybody's outraged at somebody. Once in a while some crank jumps and bolts for the house, yelling `Banzai'. Still think I'm you, I guess. M.P.'s sit on the steps waiting for help. They just shoot the ones that charge—in the legs. Three Japs kicking on the lawn now. Heh! It's a good fight, Clem."

Horrey scorched his ears with thirty seconds of abuse. "If anything happens to Nora, I'll—"

"Yeh yeh, sure! She's all right, Clem. I'll take care of her. I always pack a Berretta—little seven-millimeter automatic I lifted off an Italian—"

Horrey hung up. He put on his coat and hat and started out of the office. Again the phone rang. He answered it in the anteroom.

"Colonel Robin, sir," grunted the provost marshal. "There's an unfortunate development—"

"Yeah, I've heard about it."

"Tell me, sir—if you'll pardon the inference—is General Yaney, well, is he mentally—"

"He's a killer, Colonel," Horrey growled, wondering why he should defend the man. "He's a combat officer and an ex-fighter pilot. He lives for brawls, and gets paid for it. That's all."

Robin glumphed disapprovingly. "Well—I'd advise you to stay in your office until we get this cleared up, sir. There's something in the wind. All day long there've been Red meetings in the city. yours isn't the only case. I don't know what's afoot, but their rabble-rousers say the allies are about to pull a sneak attack on Russia. Sounds like the fifties doesn't it—before the half war?"

"Where did you hear about this?" Horrey asked coldly. "Does the commanding general know what they're saying?"

"I've sent him a report—"

"Call him immediately, Colonel. This may be more important than you think."

"Sir? Why—we're not going to bomb Russia, are we?"

"Colonel, I couldn't possibly answer that. But call the commander immediately!"

"Yes sir. Let me suggest again, sir, stay away from your house until the trouble's over."

"Yeah." General Horrey dropped the phone in its cradle, readjusted his hat, and paused in the doorway.

"If anyone wants me," he said to a filing clerk, "I'll be at home."

There was a radio in Horrey's staff car. It was tuned to the G.I. station as he climbed into the back seat and ordered the driver to take him home. The announcer was giving a mocking account of the child-pickets in front of his house, and furnishing a description of the riot: "And we see how the Communists have managed to build the firing of a small-time blackmailer into a bloody and brutal demonstration," said the radio. Then it mocked Red claims of an impending attack on Russia.

"Turn it off, Corporal," the general ordered. He was deeply disturbed. How had the Commies known about the Amur raids?—or were they only guessing? It had not been decided until the staff meeting, and yet Robin said that the demonstrators had been at it all day. Was it possible that they had seen the intelligence report and had guessed what the staff's decision would be? Was there a leak somewhere in the intelligence service itself?

Horrey felt somehow that he had walked into a trap. If the Reds knew that the General Staff was aware of the mined river, then they might take counter-measures of some sort. The intelligence report made no mention of the mines, however. Yaney had brought the story orally. If there was a leak, it was bound to be in high places.

A grim and suspicious idea struck him, but he dismissed it immediately.

They were approaching an intersection near Horrey's home, and the driver slowed to a crawl. Two jeepsful of M.P.'s flashed past the corner, and Horrey saw a pedestrian slip around the edge of a building and turn his back while the jeeps went by. The man's hat was pulled low over his eyes. When the police were gone, the man stepped around the corner again. Horrey could see the edge of his sleeve as he stood watching the melee in the next block. There was something familiar about the man.

"Shall I go on, sir?" asked the driver. "It sounds kind of rugged."

There were sounds of shouting, but only an occasional shot. He could not see the riot for the buildings, but few running pedestrians burst pas the corner.

"Pull up to the curb," he murmured. "I'm going to get out for a minute."

The driver looked startled; his eyes protested the impetuousness of it, but he said nothing.

"You have an opinion, Corporal?" Horrey grunted.

"Yes, sir. My .45 is in the glove compartment. Would you care to borrow it?"

Horrey smiled faintly as he climbed out on the sidewalks. "I didn't get my rank for marksmanship, son. Fact is—I couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a paddle." He started away.

"May I come then, sir?"

"If you like." Horrey strode quietly toward the bit of coat-sleeve that protruded around the edge of the building. The man was watching the fight, and his head was turned away is the general drew up beside him. The man was grinning contentedly at the scattered scene of violence. A few were lying in the streets. The fist fights were breaking up, and the combat area was spreading out as the police wielded their clubs. Bruised and bloody battlers were stealing away from the trouble-spot.

General Horrey stared grimly at the hack of Yoshigura's neck. "Enjoying the fight, eh?" he growled in a low voice.

"Ah, yesss. Justice is . . ." The servant's voice trailed off. He looked ground slowly, and his sallow face contorted with shock.

Horrey's red countenance darkened with slow anger. He was not agile, but the Japanese was too surprised to duck the meaty fist that the general threw. The jarring thunk of the blow was most satisfying. Yoshigura fell clumsily and rolled into the gutter. He got to his hands and knees, and blood was draining from his mouth and nose. Horrey congratulated himself for still being able to deliver a good punch at the age of fifty.

"Get up!" he grunted. "I have an idea the cops would like to see you about a matter of espionage." It was only a guess. Living in Horrey's household, the servant might gain access to a lot of small-talk and idle remarks that would give the Reds an insight into staff matters. By careful piecing together of this-and-that, they might even have been able to deduce the staff's decision on the Amur matter before the decision was made.

Yoshigura climbed slowly to his feet, breathing hate. Suddenly he turned and screamed something in Japanese toward the rioters. Horrey wadded into him with a curse. His heavy fists crashed into the servant's body like unimaginative battering rams. Yoshigura went down gasping, and came back up with a knife. He slipped forward, catlike. Three rioters were running toward them, shouting angrily.

Horrey grabbed at the knife-arm as the blade slashed at his tunic. The point dug into the flesh of his side. A gunshot exploded at his elbow, and Yoshigura went down screaming. He clutched a shattered ankle as his foot flopped loosely and turned aside.

"Thanks, son," he grunted to the driver. "Watch those three coming there."

"They're stopping, sir. They see we're armed. Are you hurt badly?"

He examined his slashed tunic, and unbuttoned it to peel back a bloody shirt. There was a ragged, painful gash, but it wasn't deep. "Nothing much," he grunted. "Load this joker in the staff car, Corporal. Take him down to Colonel Robin. I'll call the colonel from the house."

"Uh—sir—"

"What?"

"Do you mean to walk through that brawl, sir?" The driver looked worried.

"Yeah, you can't drive through it. Now hurry."

The driver shrugged and offered his gun. Horrey hesitated, then took it. He started toward his house while the corporal dragged the howling Yoshigura toward the car. The three rioters who had answered the servant's call for help stood fifty feet away, apparently not watching him.

Whistles were still bleating occasionally, but most of the crowd had dispersed, and only a dozen rioters lingered to battle the M.P.s They were not attacking, but only trying to escape encirclement and resist arrest. The area was lightly sprinkled with the bodies of the wounded or dead.

The three men were too immobile to suit the general's ease. He shied away from them and, gun in hand, he started across the street. Suspicion made him look back. One of the men was lowering a pistol on him. Horrey halted. The bullet fanned past his chest. The man crouched and prepared to fire again. The other two darted aside. Fury made a great calmness within him. He stood sideways and lifted his weapon like a duelist. The Japanese tossed two nervous shots at him. Horrey felt their wind, and felt scorn for a man who was even a worse marksman than himself. He took slow aim, then emptied the gun at his assailant. The man dropped and the pistol skidded in the street. Another man dived for it. Horrey moved quickly away.

A small crack came from the direction of the house, and the second man somersaulted and lay still. The third fled. Horrey marched homeward. Yaney was leaning on the gatepost, blowing smoke off the muzzle of a tiny automatic. He grinned.

"'Scuse me for horning in on your fun, Clem."

Horrey thanked him grudgingly. The trouble with Yaney, he thought, was that the man really did regard it as fun. Violence was his meat.

"Where's Nora?" he asked as he trotted up the steps of the American-style house that had once belonged to a small-time Jap industrialist.

"Heh! In bed. Said she was sleepy. Funny time to get sleepy."

Horrey sighed. It was Nora's way of handling any situation with which she couldn't cope. She went to bed, curled up in a knot beneath the covers, and slept until the situation went away. Sometimes she made peculiar noises in her throat and with her lips—smacking sounds that reminded the general of a nursing infant. During such periods, she seemed to lose touch with reality, and behave with a childlike naivete.

And sometimes, the general thought, it would be nice to crawl in and curl up beside her. But he never thought about it at length.

Sergeant Agnes arose nervously as they entered the parlor. She was trying to compromise between Yaney's informality and the presence of her boss. The pretty blonde was obviously uncomfortable in her immediate surroundings. Yaney caught it and laughed.

"Does he make you snap to, baby?"

Agnes eyed her boss miserably and turned bright scarlet. She could neither tell one general to go to hell nor be strictly formal with the other. Horrey pitied her. She was probably the best soldier of the three, he thought. He wanted to tell them both to beat it, but then he would be alone, waiting for darkness and the little creeps.

"Sit down, Agnes," he murmured, with some embarrassment. "This is my home. If you act like we were in the office, I'll shoo you both away."

Agnes sat down, and Yaney crackled. "Come on, baby," he said. "We can take a hint."

"No, no!" Horrey said hurriedly. "I want you to stay, really." Casually, he tossed his tunic across a chair and removed the insignia from his shirt collar.

"Ah, a civilian now," Yaney chortled.

He flushed. He and Yaney wore the same stars, but Yaney's meant something entirely different from his own. Yaney's stars were really scars; he liked to display them only as symbols of a fight he had won by hacking his way up from a low place to a high place. To Horrey, his rank meant that he had a higher obligation in man's quest for a better world, as obligation to authority. Sometimes, he wondered how any change would be wrought in the world when men like Yaney really wanted to fight. He went to care for the wounded, and returned quickly.

"When are you going back to the mainland, Jim?" he asked quietly.

"That depends, Clem." He sat on the arm of Agnes' chair and grinned. "I meant to lead the Amur raid at first. And then I got to thinking. When Russia strikes back at us, the staff will want me here for a powwow."

Horrey stiffened. "What do you mean—'when they strike back'?"

Yaney looked impatiently amused. "Really, Clem—you don't believe all that guff about this raid being safe?"

Horrey stalked forward to loom over him. "What do you know that you didn't tell us?" he demanded.

Yaney frowned. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I told you the whole story, Clem. Isn't that enough to convince you?"

"No, it's not. I thought the camera ships assured—"

Yaney scoffed. "Stop and think! How long will it take to get the camera-ships back from the raid, develop the pictures, televise them to Washington, and finally get them to the U.N. and to the world? And then think how long it will take for Moscow to get a flight of bombers in the air after they get a wire from Siberia."

The general sputtered. "Now wait, Jim—your planes will call back a strike report from the target area. It'll be relayed immediately through here to Washington. Within an hour the story'll be in the newscasts."

"Without pictorial proof, Clem! Migawd, man! Do you think for an instant that an undocumented radio-story will stop the Kremlin from declaring war immediately? Why do you think they planted the mines? They wanted an excuse. Will they wait for us to shatter their excuse? Hein!" He gave Horrey a you-can-do-better-than-that-smile.

Horrey sat down heavily in shocked silence. Yaney laughed at his white face. Agnes was looking from one to the other in mystified silence.

"Lordy, Clem, wake up! Didn't you know what you were voting for? Everybody else knew, I'm sure. Naturally nobody could come right out and say that the staff itself was deciding on a declaration of war."

Horrey choked. "I—I was warned against you," he hissed.

The air officer chuckled. "By Sorrell, I'll bet. Don't take it so hard, Clem! War's inevitable anyway. And now we've got a way of knowing when it'll happen—an advantage we wouldn't have otherwise."

"We won't have it. Who knows, besides us?"

"The air force commander in Europe knows, Clem."

"How?"

"He was my group commander in '43. We're old buddies."

"And you flew over for a Global Strategy meeting two weeks ago!"

"Right. He's on the alert. We talked. As soon as the Kremlin howls war, he'll get thirty groups on the way. And Clem, my own entire command is on the alert—every plane in shape, every crew on standby. I've pulled our punches on the Asian front lately, to conserve striking power. We are ready to deliver—and it won't be T.N.T. We can make our own decisions on atomic weapons now, you know."

"How many—?" Horrey gasped.

"Eighty-six U-bombs and a dozen H's. Plus smaller stuff. Every city of any size gets a dose of Uranium. Big ones get hydrogen. It's blunt, honest, simple."

"Washington will have your skin, Yaney!"

"Maybe. If it does, it'll have yours too, and the C.G.'s. We're talking about the Amur, remember. That was your decision. This other stuff is just hypothetical strategy. And what will Washington do when it's over? Will they point the finger at us and howl—'It's their fault, World, not ours!' Now, wouldn't that be silly!"

"I'm going to fight you, Yaney!"

The air commander stiffened haughtily for a moment. But he relaxed, smiled, and glanced at his watch. "In half an hour, the first squadrons will be over the target. I wish I were with them." Then he grinned at Agnes and added, "If it weren't for present company."

The WAC seemed not to hear him. "I've got a brother in Europe," she said tonelessly.

Yaney shot her an uneasy glance. Then he brightened. "Can you cook, kid? Why don't we get some chow All this war talk gives me an appetite."

She nodded expressionlessly and left for the kitchen. Yaney started to follow. Horrey called him back quietly.

"Jim, we've been friends for a long time. Tell me—doesn't this bother your conscience?"

Yaney stared at him thoughtfully, then shook his head. "You believe in peace, don't you, old man?"

"I do."

"Yeah, that's what they all say, Clem. It's popular to believe. Unfortunately, the believers can't feel it. Now you tell me, Clem—what's the difference between a man and a turnip?"

Horrey's face remained impassive. He said nothing. Yaney answered himself.

"A turnip got to be a turnip by sitting still and not bothering any body. It dealt with its enemies by learning to be unobstrusive and modest. That's why a turnip can't fly an airplane or dance a jig." Yaney winked and strolled off toward the kitchen.

Horrey stood looking after a ma who believed fervently in the institution of war, and Horrey decided he had no comment. He went to cal Robin about Yoshigura. Robin had the servant under questioning.

"It may be possible that other house-servants have been passing snatches of information to the Reds, General," Robin told him. "We're checking. But we're in a bad situation at the moment. We gave the commies three dead martyrs in front of your house. They're not wasting any time exploiting it. They're organizing demonstrations all over the qty. Somebody heaved a grenade through the newspaper window—for mocking the child pickets. Fortunately, they didn't have sense enough to pull the pin."

"Unfortunately, you mean!" Horrey grunted.

"Mmm? Why, sir?"

"Because that means it wasn't tossed by a Red. A party member wouldn't be so stupid, Robin. It means they've got allies outside the party—misguided nationalists, maybe."

"Maybe you're right!" Robin admitted.

"Thank God it's your worry, not mine."

"It may be yours too, sir. I can't leave you more than one guard tonight."

"Don't leave me any!" Horrey snapped, and ended the conversation.

He wandered into the bedroom. Nora was bundled in the bedclothing. She was asleep, but her white, thin face was pinched into a tight frown, and her throat worked slowly as if she were swallowing. Her jaw made a slow chewing motion. Once, while he stared, she shivered from head to toe and made a queer clucking noise with her tongue. Funny, he thought, how a forty-year-old woman could suddenly become an infant.

Or try to be a turnip. But Yaney's homily irritated him. "Haven't I always cried for peace?" he asked himself. "Haven't I favored it in speeches before luncheon clubs, and spoken for it at press club meetings?"

Even the little creeps seemed to want peace.

Then he glanced down at his khaki-covered chest, with its slight paunch, and his pink trousers beneath the waistline. "Then why the hell am I wearing these?" he wondered.

He paused for a moment in the bedroom, then glanced at the ceiling. He grunted in surprise. The sergeant had actually come and installed the germicidal fixture, despite the riot. Evidently he had finished early. Horrey nodded approvingly and went to join the others.

At seven o'clock, the phone rang. It was for Yaney. The command pilot took the phone, listened for a moment, nodded once, and replaced it on the hook with a click of finality. He turned, looking seriously pleased. "It's done, Clem. Strike report's in. Good results."

"The mines, man! What happened?"

Yaney smiled. "As anticipated. Better keep your radio on."

Horrey accepted the situation with quiet resignation. He watched the younger man curiously for a moment, then: "We'd better not leave. I suppose the commander will want us."

Yaney nodded. "As soon as the Kremlin speaks, probably." He glanced at Agnes. "Sorry we can't go out, kid."

Agnes, however, looked relieved. They went to sit in the parlor and wait, smoking nervously, and exchanging quiet talk.

At eight-thirty it came. First the telephone rang. Before Horrey reached it, the radio music faded, and an announcer said: "We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin. American diplomats in Moscow are being handed—"

"You did it, Yaney," Horrey said quietly. "I'm glad I didn't."

The air officer's eyes were sad, but without admission of guilt. "It's for the best, Clem. I'm not sorry."

". . claration of war, according to Moscow Radio," said the announcer.

Horrey went to answer the phone. While he was speaking, the city's sirens began sounding the black-out warning. When he returned to the parlor, they waited expectantly.

"Let's go to headquarters," he said.

Horrey left word with the M.P. on the porch that he was to be called in the event of trouble, and that Nora was to be informed of his whereabouts when she awakened.

"Why can't I stay with her, sir?" Agnes asked.

Horrey paused, then nodded. "I—I'd appreciate it, Sergeant." He corrected himself to say, "Agnes", and then he moved away in embarrassment.

Yaney chuckled. "Tain't fighting that makes the world a raw place," he said. "It's stiff-minded jokers like you, Clem."

The staff meeting was a protracted affair. Horrey expected, and almost hoped, that Yaney would catch it in the neck. But as the officers crowded around the brightly lighted map table and discussed their plans, Yaney was treated with a stiff politeness. Occasionally they gave him a suspicious glance, but somehow their eyes always fell quietly back to the board.

It was as though each man longed to pin the guilt on the air officer, yet realized that the guilt was shared. Only the minority of two prodded him with veiled hints.

Horrey wanted to speak. He wanted to say, "Yaney stood here and told us one thing while he really believed something else." But he never, said it. Yaney would have replied, "You asked for facts, not opinions. You formed your own opinions from the facts of the Amur."

And Yaney was right. He could have suppressed the information about the mines, and gone ahead with the bombing, not even consulting the staff, pretending ignorance. Instead, he had come to his superiors like a soldier. The trouble with Yaney: he would recognize no political authority above the military.

Twice Horrey noticed the commanding general peering at Yaney's blandly innocent face while someone else was speaking, and twice he thought he detected a glimmer of sardonic. amusement in the commander's eyes. Was it as Yaney claimed then—that each man among them, except Horrey, had realized that he had been voting for war or peace? Horrey scorned himself for not thinking the matter out more clearly. He had been, on edge, but there was no excuse.

Once a distant explosion quivered the room, and the commander stepped hastily to the phone. "An explosion at the pumping station, gentlemen," he said upon returning. "Clearly sabotage."

The wave of local troubles had begun.

The group broke up after midnight. Yaney's plan for an immediate, across-the-board air-strike had been approved after only brief meditation. Plans that had been prepared for months were removed from their safes, studied, and amended. A few immediate instructions were sent to field commanders. Yaney sent a two-word message to his command—"Happy Epoch, Gentlemen"—and they would understand.

Horrey went home to his wife at one. He wore his .45 and he cut the flap from the holster. The streets were dark. The streets were full of hate. There was fear in the streets. Henceforth the blackout would be permanently in force.

There was no trouble at his house. Now the world had larger worries than a general who fired his servant. He tiptoed through the darkened parlor, for Agnes was sleeping on the sofa. The bedroom light was on. He paused in the doorway. Nora had arisen, but she was asleep again—stretched out across the bed in a negligee. Tomorrow he would try to arrange passage for her—back to the States. Tokyo was no place for Nora with full-scale war under way. Or did it matter? The States wouldn't be much safer. Still, he would send her back.

A light flickered on in the parlor, and he went out, to see the WAC rubbing sleep from her eyes. She sat on the sofa with her bare feet curled beneath her. For the first time, Horrey noticed that he had a very beautiful secretary. He was glad she smiled at him, even though the smile was formal. He was glad she didn't come to an uneasy attention when he entered.

"I'm sorry Yaney was such a pest," he said softly, and took a chair across the room.

She pressed her hands against her folded shins and stared down at them. The light from the lamp caught in her hair, darkening the shadows on her face. "He wasn't exactly a pest, sir," she said slowly. "It's just—that I don't understand him, I guess. He frightens me."

The general nodded. Men like Yaney always frightened their women, he thought. But their women loved them for it. He could see that the dynamic air officer had done something to this girl's mind and heart; and she was baffled by it. Yaney was a rare bird—a fighter to the core—and the world was suspicious of its rare birds. Once fighters had been common, before men tried to be turnips.

Again he was displeased with Yaney's homily.

"Well, Agnes, I guess you'll have a new boss before too long."

She looked up, frowning. "I don't understand, sir."

"I'm going to the mainland, if I can swing it. And I think I can." "You want to go."

He nodded, looking aside. "I bungled things up. I cast my advice for Yaney's plan. I was too stupid to even see this afternoon's consequences."

Agnes cleared her throat and looked uneasy. A general scolding himself before a sergeant was a new phenomenon. Still, she had the courage to say, "I'm sure you did what you thought was best, sir."

"No, but I—" He stopped. A feeling of uneasiness came over him. "Do you suppose people have convictions of which they aren't even aware? Underlying beliefs that contradict the ones they think they believe?"

"You mean like instincts, sir?" He scarcely heard her. "Maybe—I —did do what I thought was best." Suddenly he shot her a quizzical glance. "Agnes—"

"Yes sir?"

"How would you like to be a turnip?"

She giggled, then frowned peculiarly without erasing the grin. "What a horrible idea!" She cocked her head.

Something in Horrey seemed to come alive. "Tell me, when you were a child, did you ever wish you were something else? A dog maybe, a fish, a butterfly?"

She grinned and blushed. "Sure. I used to wish I was a cat—with long claws, to scratch my big brother."

The general chuckled happily. "But never a turnip?"

"Never a turnip."

"I used to wish I was a chicken-hawk," he confided. "Used to watch them swoop down in the fields, and watch the old hens hide in the brush and cluck."

They shared a moment of solemn silence.

"Yaney's the chicken—hawk, though," he murmured. Then he stood up. "Better get some sleep, child. I'll take you to the spare bedroom. It's not safe to go out. . . ." He paused.

A siren had begun to wail in the distance. Another sprang up to accompany it. While they listened, the city became alive with sound. Small whistles, deep-throated pipes, spinning discs that shrieked—all wailing, all warning—"Let us be afraid together."

The M.P. on the porch needlessly called through the front door. "Air warning, sir!"

"On second thought," said Horrey, "I'll show you the way to the basement. There's a shelter down there. I'll have to wake Nora, I guess." Then he heard her coming down the hall, and in a moment she stood in the doorway, staring about in fright. Her hands were over her ears, screening out the screech of the city.

"What is it, Clement?" She was trembling from head to toe.

Somehow, her terrified appearance saddened him. A child that wanted security. "Oh, probably a Manchurian plane or two," he told her casually, knowing it was a lie. "Nothing to worry about. Might be only a practice warning. If you don't like it, maybe you'd better go down to the basement."

"You come too!" she cried as she hurried away.

He whispered to Agnes, "Go with her. I'll hang around awhile to let her think there's nothing to worry about."

Agnes nodded and moved away. The quickness of her stop spoke of excitement. Strange! She had never felt the teeth of danger, but now there was cause for fear, and she surely saw it. Was not inexperience the catalyst of fear? But the cloak of anticipation had fallen about her, the masking-mantle of a quiet eagerness. Was Yaney right? Beneath the embroidered costume of polite culture, did the heart scorn peace?

He doused the parlor light, and became aware of the bed-lamp's gleam on the floor of the hallway. A river of yellow light, calling him. They were no doubt waiting. He turned toward the basement, then paused a moment, thinking.

He had fired Yoshigura, and men had died. Because they died, others were angry. And the anger would weep the scythe of further death. Anger was resonant, oscillating in the tuned circuit of the social heart long after the initiating pulse had faded. By now they had forgotten Yoshigura, but the echoes of anger would grow.

He had listened to Yaney, called for bombing of the Amur. And war came. And millions would die. What did it matter? Man, only a microcosm.

Or a necrocosm?

He sighed and turn away from the basement. He, Horrey, did have a responsibility for tomorrow, one that belonged to him alone. The responsibility was not the fighter's, not Yaney's, for Yaney could never feel it. He moved toward the bedroom light. The room was warm—warm with the smell of a slow-minded woman whom he loved. Her powder, her creams, her perspiration on the pillow—odors –and the odor of fright.

He stepped toward the lamp, but the voice stopped, him: "You have finally come."

They had infiltrated the radio in darkness while Nora had been asleep earlier in the evening. He stared at it calmly.

"You did not obey."

He folded his arms and stood glowering. "I obeyed the weight of my thoughts," he growled. "How can tomorrow rule its past?"

They were silent awhile, and he wondered if they were prepared to take revenge. The sound of heavy artillery was booming from the outskirts of the city. A familiar sound—almost comforting. Occasionally the speaker croaked static, as if clearing its throat.

Again it spoke, now wearily: "You helped make your tomorrow. Now live in it. We go."

"Who are you?"

"We revealed our name. It is enough. You could not understand." The static faded.

"Wait!" he snapped. "Where are you going?"

"Further back," said the tired voice. "We will try further back, to change the scheme."

"To change yesterday?"

"Yes."

"You have no right!"

A pause, while artillery spoke its gloomy poem in the distance.

"You like your world, Man?"

He straightened proudly. "Men have built it. They dragged their fingers in the earth and lifted up towers of steel, instruments of fury."

It was his world, he thought, and he loved it—if for no other reason than that Man had made it. Man was a king, a small king to be sure, but Horrey believed in Man's right to rule as he saw fit—be it for good or evil. And the creature from tomorrow wanted to change the yesterdays of ten thousand years, to erase the history that had fashioned today. How could he stop them?

The new ceiling fixture? It was there. And the being's name—the words of the electrician . . .

"Your name—that number—what does it mean?" he asked.

The voice was hesitant. "Our matter is your energy. Our energy is your matter. Our universes are related by tensor transformation equations. A wavelength in your system corresponds to a spatial relationship in ours. Our name is our position in space."

Horrey shook his head in mystification. "I can't understand. I thought you were out of tomorrow."

Another pause. "Our world grows out of yours, lies parallel with your tomorrow. We are a part of your five-space tomorrow."

Again Horrey shook his head.

"You have destroyed us." There was a note of anger in the voice now. "Your releases of energy correspond to the appearance of mass in our world-space. We must change your yesterday. Perhaps we shall have to destroy you."

He said nothing.

"Will you remove the light?" they asked. "Or must we force it off again?"

Without hesitation he tugged the chain and plunged the room in blackness.

"If you return the light, we shall afflict you."

The radio clicked off. The little creeps began goose-stepping up the wall again. He watched silently as they came, wave upon wave, like grimy cursing G.I.s flooding over the neutral, pock-marked ground toward the enemy. Running low, crouching over their rifles, bayonets gleaming dully in the dawn. He could not escape the conviction that they were somehow related to human life. They were not little worms, inching their way toward the moulding; of that he was certain. Their appearance in his world could have only a vague mathematical relationship to their appearance in their own world.

But what lay behind the strange and glowing phenomenon.

He let them get clear of the set.

Their phosphorescence made concentric patterns on the wall. The pattern moved as a unit, pulsating with each jerky lurch ahead. He waited until their journey was half completed.

Then he took the calculated risk and pulled the light-cord.

Faint violet suffused the ceiling. The beings stopped. They flattened against the wall as if ironed down by an unseen hand. They glowed more brightly, seemed to swell a little.

"Now change yesterday!" he snarled, backing away.

The glow slowly became a glare, and the room was flooded with the weird light. They were growing larger, flooding together as they absorbed the fleeting quanta.

Our matter is your energy, he remembered. He was bombarding them with their own substance! He backed against the door and suppressed the desire to run. "It's my show," he told himself grimly, "and I'll see it through."

They were no longer differentiated as to units, but had become a single patch of writhing radiation that seemed detached from the wall. It was trying to approach him! And he felt an aura of rage about it. He realized suddenly that he was holding his gun in a trembling fist, while his teeth ground together in expectancy of battle.

Suddenly the process reached saturation.

A high-pitched hum struck him like a blast of supersonic noise from the dive of a high-mach jet-craft. It drove him to his knees, and the gun clattered to the floor. His vision dimmed for a moment.

The humming waned. When he looked again, the breath caught in his throat. The tortured patch of light was gone. In its place was a gaping maw of blackness in which two worlds were fused. Beyond it lay—the world of the little creeps. He was staring into a laboratory. And the beings were watching him, the quietly frantic faces.

"Thought is a form of energy!" he gasped in sudden understanding.

They said nothing, but the leprous faces watched him in terrible accusation. In the center of the lab was a fat metal box from which a coaxial cable ran ceilingward. It too seemed to be watching, from a pair of thick lenses in its face. Behind the lenses, lights were glowing, and Horrey associated it with a projector. Suddenly it spoke.

"My energy is being duplicated from beyond the transform-region. HELP ME. My energy, is being duplicated from . ."

It was a complaint, and the leprous faces turned to stare at it dully for a moment.

"Be silent!" said a voice.

The machine continued its complaint. A man stepped forward and jabbed at a button. The button was labelled "PAIN". The machine shrieked its high-pitched whine, then fell to crying softly.

"Now be silent," growled the voice again.

Horrey fumbled for the doorknob as he staggered to his feet.

"Do not attempt to escape," growled the voice. "We can kill you."

Horrey turned. His face was white and he was panting softly as he searched the group with his eyes, looking for the speaker.

The speaker was an old man, ragged and scrawny as were the others. Horrey stared at his face for a long time, then: "I know you," he said quietly.

The old man said nothing, but there was hate in his eyes, and shame.

The machine, no longer crying, spoke again: "He cannot help what he is. He is a creature of thought energy from your place in the time plane."

"Be silent!" shrieked the old man in fury. "It is not so!"

Horrey's fascination was overpowering his fear.

"You are tomorrow's Yaney," he breathed, staring at the face grown seamy with wrinkles, wizened with self-loathing, twisted with fear.

"No! I am not!" the old one protested wildly.

"You are tomorrow's Yaney. But why have you come back to plague me? Why not plague yourself—the you of your younger days?"

"I am related to Yaney only by tensor transformation!" screamed the old man.

"I'll tell you why you wouldn't haunt yourself!" Horrey bellowed. "Old man Yaney knows young man Yaney won't listen! Not even if he knows the truth!—the truth about the tomorrows he's helping to make."

The old one clapped his hands to his face. "Kill him!" he groaned. "Kill him quickly."

"If I kill him," said the machine, "his counterpart in our world shall also die."

"Kill him!"

"No!"

The old man howled a curse and flung himself at the machine, groping again for the pain-button. Sensing danger, Horrey ducked low and scooped up the gun. He took quick aim, with a steadiness born of desperation.

The gun barked. The old man stiffened, staggered back, clutching at a red blotch on his torn jacket.

There was a scream, but not from the old man. It came from Horrey's basement!

Then the gaunt old man was a crumpled heap on the floor.

"It is hopeless," said the machine, "attempting to change yesterday."

The others were staring dumbly at the fallen old one. Horrey aimed at a lense of the machine.

Then, before he fired, it came—a violet light, flooding through the windows of the bedroom. It grew, and grew, until it surpassed the sun in its brilliance.

"Hell Bomb!"

Horrey threw himself to the floor and covered his eyes against the blaze of light. There was no sound. Even the bark of ack-ack had stopped as the gunners sought refuge. Horrey's skin felt as if the dry blue-flame of a blow-torch were hovering an inch away. The light penetrated the flesh of his hands and the membrane of his lids to fashion a dull red glow. Somewhere someone was screaming.

He counted thirty seconds, and opened his eyes. The maw of blackness between the world-spaces was still there, but beyond it lay only dust—thick dust, coagulating out of nothingness, growing thicker. From whence did it come?

Your energy is our mass . . . the Hell Bomb.

Then the power failed, and the ceiling light fluttered out. With it went the two-world space, vanished with only a pulse of high sound.

Horrey lay waiting for the shock-wave that would follow the explosion. It came as a roar that seemed to vibrate him up from the floor. Powdered glass sprayed over him from the window, and somewhere there was a sound of splintering wood. A section of the roof was buckling.

Then it was over, and he picked himself up wearily, bleeding from a hundred tiny cuts. Outside of the house, a voice was shouting that the bomb had destroyed the far end of the city.

The general picked a sliver of glass out of his face and staggered toward the basement stairway. Nora would be out like a turnip.

But there were already footsteps on the stairs. It was the WAC. "Nora—is she—?"

"All right, but scared," the girl panted. "It's Yaney — something wrong."

"Not dead—?"

She shook her head. Horrey slowly descended the dark stairway. They had lighted a candle. By its light he saw Nora sitting on the floor with her face huddled in her hands.

And then he saw Yaney. The fighter was standing like a statue in the center of the stone floor, his eyes glazed with a schizophrenic dullness, his face was empty as the orb of the moon. Horrey approached him slowly.

"Yaney—snap out of it!"

The man's lips moved. A sound followed—like the wail of an infant. Horrey stared at him quietly for a long time. Then he turned away. The man would have to be committed to an asylum. His mind was gone. There would be a lot like him, the general thought. As the bombs exploded, and the creatures of the psychocosm—the world of the creeps—began to die, there would be a lot of broken minds. It was sad, in a sense.

But it gave him faith. For as the minds began to die, the war would have to end. The psychocosm—where the lab had been—perhaps in a sense it was the conscience of the world. Outside, there was a war to fight—a just war.

"Take care of Nora," he said to the WAC. "I've got to go help at headquarters."

The End