Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

answered his questions. My other guest said very little and spoke slowly with some

difficulty. But I got a very favorable impression of him. He seemed to be a man who

was carrying a load beyond human strength and carrying it heroically.

There followed the longest period in my life. It was actually only a little

longer than a week, but every minute of it had that split-second intensity of

imminent disaster that comes just before a car crash. The President was using the

time to try to avert the need to use the dust. He had two face-to-face television

conferences with the new Fuehrer. The President spoke German fluently, which should

have helped. He spoke three times to the warring peoples themselves, but it is

Page 50

doubtful if very many on the Continent were able to listen, the police regulations

there being what they were.

The Ambassador from the Reich was given a special demonstration of the

effect of the dust. He was flown

out over a deserted stretch of Western prairie and ~ lowed to see what a single

dusting would do to a he] of steers. It should have impressed him and I thu that it

did-nobody could ignore a visual demonstr tion!-but what report he made to his

leader we nev knew.

The British Isles were visited repeatedly during the wait by bombing attacks

as heavy as any of the war was safe enough but I heard about them, and I cou see the

effect on the morale of the officers with who I associated. Not that it frightened

them-it ma~ them coldly angry. The raids were not directed p1 manly at dockyards or

factories, but were ruthless d struction of anything, particularly villages.

“I don’t see what you chaps are waiting for,” a fig commander complained to

me. “What the Jerri need is a dose of their own shrecklichkeit, a lesson their own

Aryan culture.”

I shook my head. “We’ll have to do it our own way He dropped the matter, but

I knew how he and F brother officers felt. They had a standing toast, as s cred as

the toast to the King: “Remember Coventry! Our President had stipulated that the R.

A. F. w not to bomb during the period of negotiation, but th bombers were busy

nevertheless. The continent w showered, night after night, with bales of leaflets,

p~ pared by our own propaganda agents. The first of the called on the people of the

Reich to stop a useless w and promised that the terms of peace would not vindictive.

The second rain of pamphlets showed ph tographs of that herd of steers. The third

was a simf direct warning to get out of cities and to stay out. As Manning put it,

we were calling “Halt!” thr times before firing. I do not think that he or the Pre

dent expected it to work, but we were morally ob gated to try.

The Britishers had installed for me a televisor, of the Simonds-Yarley

nonintercept type, the sort where the receiver must “trigger” the transmitter in

order for the transmission to take place at all. It made assurance of privacy in

diplomatic communication for the first time in history, and was a real help in the

crisis. I had brought along my own technician, one of the F. B. I.’s new corps of

specialists, to handle the scrambler and the trigger.

He called to me one afternoon. “Washington signaling.

I climbed tiredly out of the cabin and down to the booth on the hangar

floor, wondering if it were another false alarm.

It was the President. His lips were white. “Carry out your basic

instructions, Mr. DeFries.”

“Yes, Mr. President!”

The details had been worked out in advance and, once I had accepted a

receipt and token payment from the Commandant for the dust, my duties were finished.

But, at our instance, the British had invited military observers from every

independent nation and from the several provisional governments of occupied nations.

The United States Ambassador designated me as one at the request of Manning.

Our task group was thirteen bombers. One such bomber could have carried all

the dust needed, but it was split up to insure most of it, at least, reaching its