"Right. As far as I, and anyone else that has had any contact with you
at all, can tell or even guess, you are absolutely and perfectly
unique."
"You said that before."
"So I did. You know--" and he held my eye steadily--"you're so
completely unique, and so--dangerous, that more than once I have been
personally tempted to arrange your--elimination. From behind."
I couldn't put up more than a weak grin for that. I had wondered about
that, myself. A variation, a deadly one, of the old "if you can't lick
'em, join 'em" theme. And I hadn't been too cooperative.
He went on, slowly. "My personal reactions, for obvious reasons, do
not enter into this. But I think, Peter, that you should consider
those words very seriously before you are tempted to do or say
anything rash."
* * * * *
I agreed that he was probably right, and that it might be better if I
piped a quiet tune. "But that's not the way I operate. As far as I'm
concerned, I'm responsible to myself, and myself alone. If I wanted to
be told what to say and what to think, and when to say it, I would
have stayed in when I got my discharge."
He shrugged. "It might be better for all concerned if you were under
military discipline, although it might not suit your ego. Take, for
example, the two generals you met in Detroit; Generals Hayes and Van
Dorf. They both are regarded as brilliant; they are both regarded as
too mentally precocious to be risked in physical action. They are two
of the most agile minds on the staff."
I took his word for it. "They are still generals to me. And I don't
have to stand at attention, and I don't have to take their orders."
"Exactly," and he reached for the cigarettes again. "It is not going
to do any good by adding more fuel to your mental furnace, but it is
only fair to tell you that the ... elimination thing was more or less
seriously discussed before you left Detroit."
He didn't give me a chance to blow up, but raced on. "General Hayes
and General Van Dorf are sensible men, dealing in material and
sensible things. You are neither practical or sensible, in many ways,
this being one. They, as well equipped as they are, are not prepared
to cope with such a problem presented with such as you. I might add
here, that neither is anyone else. What are you laughing at?"
I couldn't help it. "The military mind at its best. First cross up the
world by getting a weapon with no defense. Then when someone comes up
with a defense for any weapon, including the weapon with no defense,
they start turning back flips."
"Take that idiotic grin off your face." Just the same, he thought it
was rather comic, himself. "Neither of us are in the Armed Forces, so
for the present we can talk and plan freely. If you think, Peter, that
all this can be solved with prejudice and a smart remark, you're very,
very wrong. The worst is yet to come."
I asked him if I'd had a bed of roses, so far. "I don't think I could
be much worse off than I've been so far. How would you like to be
penned up--"
"Penned up?" He snorted disgustedly. "You've had yourself a holiday,
and you can't see it. Try to see the military, the legal point of
view. Here is one person, Peter Ambrose Miller, one man and only one
man, with the ability, the power, to cancel at one stroke every
scientific advancement that armament has made in the past three
thousand years."
"And the big boys don't like it," I mused.
"The little boys, as you use the word, won't like it, either," he
said. "But, that's not the point. Not the point at all. The stem of
the apple is this--what are we going to do with you?"
"We?" I asked him.
"We," he explained carefully, as to a baby, "is a generic term for the
army, the navy, the government, the world in general. As long as you
live, as long as you continue to be able to do the things you can do
now, a gun or an airplane is so much scrap metal. But--only as long as
you live!"
* * * * *