is a job for the computer. It’s going to have to be played
person-to-person. It’s my bet that the man’s responsibility-
happy; that danger was always implicit in the one-man
recommendation.”
“The only decent solution is a full complement,” Joan
agreed. “Once the Pentagon can get enough money from
Congress to build a big station.”
“What puzzles me is, why did he call us instead of his
superiors?”
“That’s easy. We process his figures. He trusts us. The
Pentagon thinks we’re infallible, and he’s caught the disease
from them.”
“That’s bad,” I said.
“I’ve never denied it.”
“No, what I mean is that it’s bad that he called us instead
of going through channels. It means that the emergency is at
least as bad as he says it is.”
I thought about it another precious moment longer while
Joan did some quick dialing. As everybody on Earthwith
the possible exception of a few Tibetansalready knew, the
man who rode SV-I rode with three hydrogen bombs im-
mediately under his feetbombs which he could drop with
great precision on any spot on the Earth. Gascoigne was, in
effect, the sum total of American foreign policy; he might
as well have had “Spatial Supremacy” stamped on his
forehead.
“What does the Air Force say?” I asked Joan as she
hung up.
“They say they’re a little worried about Gascoigne. He’s
a very stable man, but they had to let him run a month over
his normal replacement timewhy, they don’t explain. He’s
been turning in badly garbled reports over the last week.
They’re thinking about giving him a dressing down.”
“Thinking! They’d better be careful with that stuff, or