He fumbled out the green capsules again.
"Sir," said Reuben, alarmed.
"Only temporary," May muttered, and swallowed a fourth. "But you're right. You leave them alone. There are big things to be done in your time, not in mine. I told you I needed a young man who could claw his way to the top. Rudolph's a fool. He doesn't need the capsules because he doesn't ask questions. Funny, I thought a coup like the double affair would hit me hard, but I don't feel a thing. It's not like the old days. I used to plan and plan, and when the trap went snap it was better than this stuff. But now I don't feel a thing."
He leaned forward from his chair; the pupils of his eyes were black bullets.
"Do you want to work?" he demanded. "Do you want your world stood on its head and your brains to crack and do the only worth-while job there is to do? Answer me!"
"Sir, I am a loyal May's man. I want to obey your orders and use my ability to the full."
"Good enough," said the general. "You've got brains, you've got push. I'll do the spade work. I won't last long enough to push it through. You'll have to follow. Ever been outside of Denv?"
Reuben stiffened.
"I'm not accusing you of being a spy. It's really all right to go out-side of Denv. I've been outside. There isn't much to see at first—a lot of ground pocked and torn up by shorts and overs from Ellay and us. Farther out, especially east, it's different. Grass, trees, flowers. Places where you could grow food.
"When I went outside, it troubled me. It made me ask questions. I wanted to know how we started. Yes—started. It wasn't always like this.
Somebody built Denv. Am I getting the idea across to you? It wasn't always like this!
"Somebody set up the reactors to breed uranium and make plutonium.
Somebody tooled us up for the missiles. Somebody wired the boards to control them. Somebody started the hydroponics tanks.
"I've dug through the archives. Maybe I found something. I saw mountains of strength reports, ration reports, supply reports, and yet I never got back to the beginning. I found a piece of paper and maybe I understood it and maybe I didn't. It was about the water of the Colorado River and who should get how much of it. How can you divide water in a river? But it could have been the start of Denv, Ellay, and the missile attacks."
The general shook his head, puzzled, and went on: "I don't see clearly what's ahead. I want to make peace between Denv and Ellay, but I don't know how to start or what it will be like. I think it must mean not firing, not even making any more weapons. Maybe it means that some of us, or a lot of us, will go out of Denv and live a different kind of life. That's why I've clawed my way up. That's why I need a young man who can claw with the best of them. Tell me what you think."
"I think," said Reuben measuredly, "it's magnificent—the salvation of Denv. I'll back you to my dying breath if you'll let me."
May smiled tiredly and leaned back in the chair as Reuben tiptoed out.
What luck, Reuben thought—what unbelievable luck to be at a ful-crum of history like this!
He searched the level for Rudolph's apartment and gained admis-sion.
To the general, he said: "Sir, I have to report that your friend May is insane. He has just been raving to me, advocating the destruc-tion of civilization as we know it, and urging me to follow in his foot-steps. I pretended to agree—since I can be of greater service to you if I'm in May's confidence."
"So?" said Rudolph thoughtfully. "Tell me about the double. How did that go wrong?"
"The bunglers were Selene and Almon. Selene because she alarmed me instead of distracting me. Almon because he failed to recognize her incompetence."
"They shall be brainburned. That leaves an eighty-ninth-level va-cancy in my organization, doesn't it?"
"You're very kind, sir, but I think I should remain a May's man—
outwardly. If I earn any rewards, I can wait for them. I presume that May will be elected to wear the five stars. He won't live more than two years after that, at the rate he is taking drugs."
"We can shorten it," grinned Rudolph. "I have pharmacists who can see that his drugs are more than normal strength."
"That would be excellent, sir. When he is too enfeebled to discharge his duties, there may be an attempt to rake up the affair of the double to discredit you. I could then testify that I was your man all along and that May coerced me."
They put their heads together, the two saviors of civilization as they knew it, and conspired ingeniously long into the endless night.
THE REVERSIBLE REVOLUTIONS
J. C. BATTLE, late of the Foreign Legion, Red Army, United States Marines, Invincibles De Bolivia and Coldstream Guards, alias Alexandre de Foma, Christopher Jukes, Burton Macauly and Joseph Hagstrom—
ne Etzel Bernstein—put up his hands.
"No tricks," warned the feminine voice. The ample muzzle of the gun in his back shifted slightly, seemingly from one hand to another. Battle felt his pockets being gone through. "Look out for the left hip," he volunteered. "That gat's on a hair-trigger."
"Thanks," said the feminine voice. He felt the little pencilgun being gingerly removed. "Two Colts," said the voice admiringly, "a police .38, three Mills grenades, pencilgun, brass knuckles, truncheons of lead, leather and rubber, one stiletto, tear-gas gun, shells for same, prussic-acid hypo kit, thuggee's braided cord, sleeve Derringer and a box of stink bombs. Well, you walking armory! Is that all?"
"Quite," said Battle. "Am I being taken for a ride?" He looked up and down the dark street and saw nothing in the way of accomplices.
"Nope. I may decide to drop you here. But before you find out, suppose you tell me how you got on my trail?" The gun jabbed viciously into his back. "Talk!" urged the feminine voice nastily.
"How I got on your trail?" exploded Battle. "Dear lady, I can't see your face, but I assure you that I don't recognize your voice, that I'm not on anybody's trail, that I'm just a soldier of fortune resting up during a slack spell in the trade. And anyway, I don't knock off ladies. We—we have a kind of code."
"Yeah?" asked the voice skeptically. "Let's see your left wrist." Mutely Battle twitched up the cuff and displayed it. Aside from a couple of scars it was fairly ordinary. "What now?" he asked.
"I'll let you know," said the voice. Battle's hand was twisted behind his back, and he felt a cold, stinging liquid running over the disputed wrist.
"What the—?" he began impatiently.
"Oh!" ejaculated the voice, aghast. "I'm sorry! I thought—" The gun relaxed and Battle turned. He could dimly see the girl in the light of the merc lamp far down the deserted street. She appeared to be blushing.
"Here I've gone and taken you apart," she complained, "and you're not even from Breen at all! Let me help you." She began picking up Battle's assorted weapons from the sidewalk where she had deposited them. He stowed them away as she handed them over.
"There," she said. "That must be the last of them."
"The hypo kit," he reminded her. She was holding it, unconsciously, in her left hand. He hefted the shoulder holster under his coat and grunted. "That's better," he said.
"You must think I'm an awful silly," said the girl shyly.
Battle smiled generously as he caught sight of her face. "Not at all," he protested. "I've made the same mistake myself. Only I've not always caught myself in time to realize it." This with a tragic frown and sigh.
"Really?" she breathed. "You must be awfully important —all these guns and things."
"Tools of the trade," he said noncommittally. "My card." He handed her a simple pasteboard bearing the crest of the United States Marines and the legend: