By JIM HARMON

So, General, I came in to tell you I've found the loneliest man in the

world for the Space Force.

How am I supposed to rate his loneliness for you? In Megasorrows or

Kilofears? I suspect I know quite a library on the subject, but you know

more about stripes and bars. Don't try to stop me this time, General.

Now that you mention it, I'm not drunk. I had to have something to back

me up so I stopped off at the dispensary and stole a needle.

I want you to get off my back with that kind of talk. I've got enough

there--it bends me over like I had bad kidneys. It isn't any of King

Kong's little brothers. They over rate the stuff. It isn't the way

you've been riding me either. Never mind what I'm carrying. Whatever it

is--and believe me, it _is_--I have to get rid of it.

Let me tell it, for God's sake.

Then for Security's sake? I thought you would let me tell it, General.

I've been coming in here and giving you pieces of it for months but now

I want to let you be drenched in the whole thing. You're going to take

it all.

There were the two of them, the two lonely men, and I found them for

you.

You remember the way I found them for you.

The intercom on my blond desk made an electronic noise at me and the

words I had been arranging in my mind for the morning letters splattered

into alphabet soup like a printer dropping a prepared slug of type.

Measure for a Loner · 第 2 / 24 题