Johnson silently studied the half-cupped hands laying in his lap.
"The hunting lodge in the Andes seemed as good a place as any to live
after mother and father were killed. You might think it was lonesome at
night in the mountains, but it isn't at all. You aren't alone when you
can watch the burning worlds shadow the bow of God...."
I cleared my throat. The poor kid sounded like he would begin spouting
something akin to poetry next.
"So I believe you," I told him. "That doesn't finish it. We have to
convince _them_. I don't like this, but the simplest way would be to
volunteer for their hibitor injection. I've found out Madison and his
crowd don't believe men awake, only assorted dopes."
Johnson deflated his area of the room with his breath intake.
"Okay," he said at last. "I guess so."
* * * * *
When Johnson gave us what we needed to clear the problem, it didn't take
me long to finish processing the rest of the handful of possible loners
we had located. Unlike Johnson, all the rest had _reasons_ for their
self-imposed loneliness. Unlike Meyverik none of their reasons were
associated with the interstellar flight. They instead involved literary
research, swindles, isolated paranoid insanity and other things in
which the government had no interest.
Suddenly I found my job was done and that we had located only the two of
them.
Madison read my final report braced on the edge of my desk, his hand
comradely on my shoulder.
"Good job, Doc," he vouched replacing the papers on my blotter with a
final rustle. "Now I've got news for you. The government wants you to
_test_ these boys for us now that you've found 'em for us."
I closed my jaw. "That's completely out of line--_my_ line. I know you
need a contemporary man for that job."
Madison punched me on the bicep, fast enough to hurt.
"Doc, after this project you know more about contemp' stuff than any
professor who got his degree studying the textbooks _you_ wrote."
It was impossible to dislike Madison except for practiced periods--that
was probably one reason he had his job.
"All right," I growled. "Get your dirty pants off my clean desk and I'll
get out the bottle. We'll--celebrate, huh?"
But you know how I felt, General? You remember how I tried to get out of
it. I felt like I had led in the lambs and now I had to help shear them.
As a part-time historian I can tell you there's a word for that--Judas
goat. Give or take a word.
* * * * *
"It isn't the real thing, Doc," Madison spelled out for me, wearing a
lemon twist of smile.
I looked at the twin banks of gauge-facings and circuit housings in
which centered TV screens picturing either Meyverik or Johnson. Red and
sea-green lights chased each other around the control boards, died, were
born again. On the screens the three color negatives mixed to purple,
shifted through a series of wrong combinations and settled to normal as
the stereo-oscillation echoed, convexed insanely, and deepened to hold.
Video reception is lousy from five hundred thousand miles out.