among his engineers since the period of watchful waiting had commenced. At
first, they had tried to keep the essential facts of the plan a close
secret, but it had leaked out, perhaps through some member of the
investigating committee. He admitted to himself now that it had been a
mistake ever to try to keep it secret — Lentz had advised against it, and
the engineers not actually engaged in the change-over were bound to know
that something was up.
He took all of the engineers into confidence at last, under oath of
secrecy. That had helped for a week or more, a week in which they were all
given a spiritual lift by the knowledge, as he had been. Then it had worn
off, the reaction had set in, and the psychological observers had started
disqualifying engineers for duty almost daily. They were even reporting
each other as mentally unstable with great frequency; he might even be
faced with a shortage of psychiatrists if that kept up, he thought to
himself with bitter amusement. His engineers were already standing four
hours in every sixteen. If one more dropped out, he’d put himself on watch.
That would be a relief, to tell himself the truth.
Somehow, some of the civilians around about and the nontechnical employees
were catching onto the secret. That mustn’t go on — if it spread any
farther there might be a nation-wide panic. But how the hell could he stop
it? He couldn’t.
He turned over in bed, rearranged his pillow, and tried once more to get to
sleep. No soap. His head ached, his eyes were balls of pain, and his brain
was a ceaseless grind of useless, repetitive activity, like a disk
recording stuck in one groove.
God! This was unbearable! He wondered if he were cracking up — if he
already had cracked up. This was worse, many times worse, than the old
routine when he had simply acknowledged the danger and tried to forget it
as much as much as possible. Not that the bomb was any different — it was
this five-minutes-to-armistice feeling, this waiting for the curtain to go
up, this race against time with nothing to do to help.
He sat up, switched on his bed lamp, and looked at the clock. Three thirty.
Not so good. He got up, went into his bathroom, and dissolved a sleeping
powder in a glass of whiskey and water, half and half. He gulped it down
and went back to bed. Presently he dozed off.
He was running, fleeing down a long corridor. At the end lay safety — he
knew that, but he was so utterly exhausted that he doubted his ability to
finish the race. The thing pursuing him was catching up; he forced his
leaden, aching legs into greater activity. The thing behind him increased
its pace, and actually touched him. His heart stopped, then pounded again.
He became aware that he was screaming, shrieking in mortal terror.
But he had to reach the end of that corridor; more depended on it than just
himself. He had to. He had to! He had to!
Then the sound hit him, and he realized that he had lost, realized it with
utter despair and utter, bitter defeat. He had failed, the bomb had blown
up.
The sound was the alarm going off; it was seven o’clock. His pajamas were
soaked, dripping with sweat, and his heart still pounded. Every ragged
nerve throughout his body screamed for release. It would take more than a
cold shower to cure this case of the shakes.
He got to the office before the janitor was out of it. He sat there, doing
nothing, until Lentz walked in on him, two hours later. The psychiatrist
came in just as he was taking two small tablets from a box in his desk.
“Easy . . . easy, old man,” Lentz said in a slow voice. “What have you
there?” He came around and gently took possession of the box.
“Just a sedative.”
Lentz studied the inscription on the cover. “How many have you had today?”
“Just two, so far.”
“You don’t need a sedative; you need a walk in the fresh air. Come, take