As for a leak from outside, the chances were slight. The general, Dad, Colonel Gibsy, and myself had gone to the White House the week before, there to see the President and Marshal Rexton. I had already convinced Dad that the way to keep this secret was not to share it with anybody; he put on a histrionic exhibition of belligerence and exasperation that got him what we wanted; in the end even Secretary Martinez was bypassed. If the President and Rexton could keep from talking in their sleep for another week, I did not see how we could miss.
A week would be none too soon; Zone Red was spreading. The counterattack they had launched at Pass Christian had not stopped there. The slugs had pushed on and now held the Gulf coast past Pensacola and there were signs that more was to come. Perhaps the slugs were growing tired of our resistance and might decide to waste human raw material by A-bombing the cities we still held. If so, we would find it hard to stop; a radar screen can alert your defenses, but it won’t stop a determined attack.
But I refused to worry about that. One more week—
Colonel Kelly came in, looked around the otherwise empty room, came over and sat down beside me. “How about a drink?” I suggested. “I feel like celebrating.”
He examined the hairy paunch bulging out in front of him and said, “I suppose one more beer wouldn’t put me in any worse shape.”
“Have two beers. Have four—a dozen.” I dialed for him, and told him about the success of the experiments with the apes.
He nodded. “Yes, I had heard. Sounds good.”
” ‘Good’, the man says! Colonel, we are on the one yard line and goal to go. A week from now the game will be won.”
“So?”
“Oh, come now!” I answered, irritated by his manner. “In a short time you’ll be able to put your clothes back on and lead a normal life. Or don’t you think our plans will work?”
“Yes, I think they will work.”
“Then why the crepe-hanging?”
Instead of answering directly he said, “Mr. Nivens, you don’t think that a man with my pot belly enjoys running around without his clothes, do you?”
“I suppose not. As for myself, I’m beginning to find it pleasant. I may hate to have to give it up—saves time and it’s comfortable.”
“You need not worry about having to give it up. This is a permanent change.”
“Huh? I don’t get you. You said our plans would work and now you talk as if Schedule Sun Tan would go on forever.”
“In a modified way, it will.”
I said, “Pardon me? I’m stupid today.”
He dialed for another beer. “Mr. Nivens, I never expected to live to see a military reservation turned into a ruddy nudist camp. Having seen it happen, I never expect to see us change back—because we can’t. Pandora’s box has a one-way lid. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men—”
“Conceded,” I answered. “Things never go back quite to what they were before. Just the same, you are exaggerating. The day after the President rescinds Schedule Sun Tan the suspended blue laws will go into effect and a man without pants will be liable to arrest.”
“I hope not.”
“Huh? Make up your mind.”
“It’s made up for me. Mr. Nivens, as long as there exists a possibility that a slug is alive the polite man must be willing to bare his entire body on request—or risk getting shot. Not just this week and next week but twenty years from now, or a hundred. No, no!” he said, seeing that I was about to interrupt, “I am not disparaging your fine plans—but pardon me if I say that you have been too busy with their details to notice that they are strictly local and temporary. For example—have you made any plans for combing the Amazonian jungles, tree by tree?”
He went on apologetically, “Just a rhetorical inquiry. This globe has nearly sixty million square miles of dry land; we can’t begin to search it and clean out the slugs. Shucks, man, we haven’t made a dent in the rats and we’ve been at that a long time. Titans are trickier and more prolific than rats.”