I turned to Dr. Horn, a little embarrassed. ‘Well, sir, we understand these things - a shock to the boy, of course. But I’ll find you a volunteer. Trust me.’
The man was as pleased as a fourth-year cadet in June Week, but he still wouldn’t show it. Stiffly he said: ‘Just so, Lieutenant - Major, I mean. Or Captain. Tomorrow will do splendidly.’
Tomorrow! Oh, that wonderful day! For I saw Dr. Horn do just as he had promised ... and I, I alone among them all, I saw what it meant. A weapon? Nonsense, it was much, much more than that!
There was the matter of finding volunteers. Trust me for that, as I had told Dr. Horn. There was the latrine orderly in Able Company - AWOL, he was; and when I explained to him what a court-martial would do, he volunteered with blinding speed. Didn’t even ask what he was volunteering for. We needed two; my executive officer, I am proud to say, volunteered to be the second. A courageous man, typical of the very best leadership type.
We arrived in Dr. Horn’s laboratory; the men were strapped in place and anesthetized - at my request; I wanted to maintain security, so naturally I couldn’t let them know what was happening. Just before he went under the exec whispered, ‘Sir - no Korea?’
‘I promise, Captain,’ I said solemnly, and before his eyes I ripped up the transfer recommendation I had written the night before. He went to sleep a happy man.
Biz, buzz, crackle - I don’t understand these scientific things. But when the electric sparks had stopped flashing and the whiney, droney sounds had died away, Dr. Horn gave them each a shot of something, one at a time.
The latrine orderly opened his eyes. I stepped before him. ‘Name, rank and serial number!’
‘Sir,’ he said crisply, ‘Lefferts, Robert T., Captain, A.U.S., Serial Number 0-3339615!’
Good heavens! But I made sure, with a test question: ‘Where is it you don’t want to be transferred?’
“Why - why, Korea, sir. Please, sir! Not there! I’ll volunteer for your test, I’ll-‘
I nodded to Dr. Horn, and another needle put him back to sleep.
Then - the body that was my exec. The body opened its eyes. ‘Cunnel, suh! I changin’ my mind. I’ll take the guard-house, suh, only -’
‘At ease!’ I commanded, and nodded to Dr. Horn.
There was no doubt about it. ‘You really did it’
He nodded. ‘Just so, Lieutenant. I really did.’
As he switched them back again, I began to realize what it all meant.
In my office I got on the phone. ‘Crash priority!’ I ordered. ‘The Pentagon! General Follansbee, priority and classified; ask him to stand by for scrambler!’
I slapped the field phone into its case. A weapon? Oh, we had the world by the tail, a weapon was nothing by comparison. I confess I was floating on a cloud of pure joy. I saw my eagles within my grasp, perhaps in a year or less my first star - there was nothing the Army would deny the officer who could give them what I had to give!
A rattle and a crash, and Van Pelt thumped into my room, his face smeared, one hand clutching a melting chocolate bar. ‘Colonel Windermere!’ he gasped. ‘You let Horn make his test! But that’s all he’s been waiting for! He -’
It was unbearable. ‘O’Hare!’ I roared. Sergeant O’Hare appeared, looking uncomfortable. ‘How dare you let this man in here without my permission? Don’t you realize I’m making a classified scrambler call to the Pentagon?’
O’Hare said weakly, ‘Sir, he -’
‘Get him out of here!‘
‘Yessir!’ The fat little man kicked up a fuss, but O’Hare was much bigger than he. All the same, Van Pelt gave him a tussle. He was yelling something, all upset; but my call to the Pentagon came through, and I frankly didn’t listen.
‘General Follansbee? Windermere here, sir. Please scramble!’ I slapped the button that scrambled the call from my end. In a moment I heard the General’s voice come through in clear; but anyone tapping in on the scrambled circuit would hear nothing but electronic garbage.
I gave him a quick, concise account of what I had seen. He was irritated at first - disappointed. As I thought he would be.
‘Change them around, Windermere?’ he complained in a high-pitched voice. ‘Why, what’s the use of changing them around? Do you see any strategic value in that? Might confuse them a little, I suppose - if we could get a couple of the enemy commanders. Good God, is that all there is to it? I was looking for something bigger, Windermere, something of more immediate tactical advantage. That Van Pelt must learn not to waste the time of high Army officers!’
‘Sir,’ I said. ‘General Follansbee, may I point out something? Suppose - suppose, sir, that Khrushchev or someone should visit the States. Suppose, for instance, that we surrounded him, him and his whole entourage. Switched them all. Put our own men in their bodies, you see?’
‘What!’ He was thinking I was insane, you could tell it. ‘Colonel Windermere, what are you talking about?’
‘It would work, sir,’ I said persuasively. ‘Believe me, I’ve seen it. But suppose we couldn’t do that. What about a Polish U.N. envoy, eh? Get him, put one of G-2’s operatives inside his body. Do you follow me, sir? No question about whose Intelligence would get the facts in a case like that, is there, sir? Or - maybe we wouldn’t want to do anything like that in peacetime; but what about in war? Take a couple of their prisoners, sir, put our own men in their bodies. Exchange the prisoners!’
Well, I went on; and I won’t say I convinced him of anything. But by the time he hung up, he was thinking pretty hard.
And I had an appointment to see him in the Pentagon the following day. Once I was on the spot, I knew I was in; for he wouldn’t take the responsibility of passing up a thing like this alone, he’d call a staff meeting; and somewhere on the staff somebody would understand.
I could feel the stars on my shoulders already....
‘What is it, O’Hare?’ I demanded.
I was becoming very irritated with the man; he was sticking his head in the door, looking very worried. Well, that was reasonable; I was quite close to giving him something to worry about.
‘Sir - it’s that Van Pelt.’ He swallowed, and looked a little foolish. ‘I - I don’t know if he’s nuts or what, sir, but he says…He says that Dr. Horn wants to live forever! He says all Horn was waiting for was to make a test on a human being. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but he says that now that you’ve given Horn his test, sir, Horn’s going to grab the first man he sees and, uh, steal his body. Does that make sense, sir?’
Did it make sense?
I shoved him out of the way, stopping only to grab my side-arm.
It made all the sense in the world. It was just what you’d expect of a man like Horn, he’d take an invention like this and use it to steal other people’s bodies, to prolong his own worthless, nearly senile existence in a younger body!
And if that happened, what would become of my general’s star?
Oh, I knew just the way Horn’s mind would work. Steal a body; smash the machine; get away. Could we trace him? Impossible; there was no test in the world, no fingerprints, no eye-retina charts, no blood-type classifications that could distinguish John Smith from Horn inhabiting John Smith. It was the obvious thing to do; it had occurred to me at once.
Van Pelt had gone blundering in, conquering his cowardice. His objective was to try to stop Horn, I supposed, but what was the effect of his mad rush into the laboratory? Why, to furnish Horn with a body! And if one was not enough, there would be others; for there were the men of my own detachment, standing guard, going about their duties; it would not be impossible for Horn to lure one inside. He would not wait. No, for the chance that his own body would wear out on him in a moment, any moment, was very great - old, worn, and now subject to the pounding of a new hope and excitement, it might collapse like the bombed-out hulk of a barracks, at the lightest touch.