The ensuing two months had all the endless time-stretching tension of the waiting period while coming into range and before “Commence firing!”—yet we were so busy that each day and each hour was too short. In addition to preparing the still more-miraculous intervention in the Miracle we used the time to whet our usual weapons to greater fineness. Zeb and his boss, Sector General Novak, were detached almost at once. Novak’s orders read “—proceed to BEULAHLAND and take charge of OPERATION BEDROCK.” I cut the orders myself, not trusting them to a clerk, but no one told me where Beulahland might be found on a map.
Huxley himself left when they did and was gone for more than a week, leaving Penoyer as acting C-in-C. He did not tell me why he was leaving, of course, nor where he was going, but I could fill in. Operation Bedrock was a psychological maneuver but the means must be physical—and my boss had once been head of the Department of Applied Miracles at the Point. He may have been the best physicist in the entire Cabal; in any case I could guess with certainty that he intended at the very least to see for himself that the means were adequate and the techniques foolproof. For all I know he may actually have used soldering iron and screwdriver and electronic micrometer himself that week—the General did not mind getting his hands dirty.
I missed Huxley personally. Penoyer was inclined to reverse my decisions on minor matters and waste my time and his on details a top C.O. can’t and should not cope with. But he was gone part of the time, too. There was much coming and going and more than once I had to chase down the senior department head present, tell him that he was acting, and get him to sign where I had initialed. I took to scrawling “I. M. Dumbjohn, Wing General F.U.S.A . . . Acting” as indecipherably as possible on all routine internal papers—I don’t think anybody ever noticed.
Before Zeb left another thing happened which really has nothing to do with the people of the United States and the struggle to regain their freedoms-but my own personal affairs are so tied into this account that I mention it. Perhaps the personal angle really is important; certainly the order under which this journal was started called for it to be “personal” and “subjective”—however I had retained a copy and added to it because I found it helped me to get my own confused thoughts straight while going through a metamorphosis as drastic as that from caterpillar into moth. I am typical, perhaps, of the vast majority, the sort of person who has to have his nose rubbed in a thing before he recognizes it, while Zeb and Maggie and General Huxley were of the elite minority of naturally free souls . . . the original thinkers, the leaders.
I was at my desk, trying to cope with the usual spate of papers, when I received a call to see Zeb’s boss at my earliest convenience. Since he already had his orders, I left word with Huxley’s orderly and hurried over.
He cut short the formalities. “Major, I have a letter for you which Communications sent over for analysis to determine whether it should be rephrased or simply destroyed. However, on the urgent recommendation of one of my division heads I am taking the responsibility of letting you read it without paraphrasing. You will have to read it here.”
I said, “Yes, sir,” feeling quite puzzled.
He handed it to me. It was fairly long and I suppose it could have held half a dozen coded messages, even idea codes that could come through paraphrasing. I don’t remember much of it—just the impact it had on me. It was from Judith.
“My dear John . . . I shall always think of you fondly and I shall never forget what you have done for me . . . never meant for each other . . . Mr. Mendoza has been most considerate. I know you will forgive me . . . he needs me; it must have been fate that brought us together . . . if you ever visit Mexico City, you must think of our home as yours . . . I will always think of you as my strong and wise older brother and I will always be a sister—” There was more, lots more, all of the same sort—I think the process is known as “breaking it gently.”
Novak reached out and took the letter from me. “I didn’t intend for you to have time to memorize it,” he said dryly, then dropped it at once into his desk incinerator. He glanced back at me. “Maybe you had better sit down, Major. Do you smoke?”
I did not sit down, but I was spinning so fast that I accepted the cigarette and let him light it for me. Then I choked on tobacco smoke and the sheer physical discomfort helped to bring me back to reality. I thanked him and got out-went straight to my room, called my office and left word where I could be found if the General really wanted me. But I told my secretary that I was suddenly quite ill and not to disturb me if it could possibly be helped.
I may have been there about an hour—I wouldn’t know-lying face down and doing nothing, not even thinking. There came a gentle tap at the door, then it was pushed open; it was Zeb. “How do you feel?” he said.
“Numb,” I answered. It did not occur to me to wonder how he knew and at the time I had forgotten the “division head” who had prevailed upon Novak to let me see it in the clear.
He came on in, sprawled in a chair, and looked at me. I rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. “don’t let it throw you, Johnnie,” he said quietly. “"Men have died and worms have eaten them-but not for love."”
“You don’t know!”
“No, I don’t,” he agreed. “Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life. Nevertheless on this particular point the statistics are fairly reliable. Try something for me. Visualize Judith in your mind. See her features. Listen to her voice.”
“Huh?”
“Do it.”
I tried, I really tried-and, do you know, I couldn’t. I had never had a picture of her; her face now eluded me.
Zeb was watching me. “You’ll get well,” he said firmly. “Now look here, Johnnie . . . I could have told you. Judith is a very female sort of woman, all gonads and no brain. And she’s quite attractive. Turned loose, she was bound to find a man, as sure as nascent oxygen will recombine. But there is no use in talking to a man in love.”
He stood up. “Johnnie, I’ve got to go. I hate like the mischief to walk out and leave you in the shape you are in, but I’ve already checked out and Grandfather Novak is ready to leave. He’ll eat me out as it is, for holding him up this long. But one more word of advice before I go—”
I waited. “I suggest,” he continued, “that you see a lot of Maggie while I’m away. She’s good medicine.”
He started to leave; I said sharply, “Zeb-what happened to you and Maggie? Something like this?”
He looked back at me sharply. “Huh? No. Not at all the same thing. It wasn’t . . . well, it wasn’t similar.”
“I don’t understand you—I guess I just don’t understand people. You’re urging me to see a lot of Maggie—and I thought she was your girl. Uh, wouldn’t you be jealous?”
He stared at me, laughed, and clapped me on the shoulder. “she’s a free citizen, Johnnie, believe me. If you ever did anything to hurt Maggie, I’d tear off your head and beat you to death with it. Not that you ever would. But jealous of her? No. It doesn’t enter the picture. I think she’s the greatest gal that ever trod shoe leather—but I would rather marry a mountain lioness.”
He left on that, leaving me again with my mouth open. But I took his advice, or Maggie took it for me. Maggie knew all about it—Judith, I mean—and I assumed that Zeb had told her. He hadn’t; it seemed that Judith had written to her first. In any case I didn’t have to look her up; she looked me up right after dinner that night. I talked with her a while and felt much better, so much so that I went back to my office and made up for time lost that afternoon.
Maggie and I made a habit thereafter of taking a walk together after dinner. We went on no more spelling bees; not only was there no time for such during those last days but also neither one of us felt like trying to work up another foursome with Zeb away. Sometimes I could spare only twenty minutes or even less before I would have to be back at my desk-but it was the high point of the day; I looked forward to it.