If This Goes On Part 9

'Dead colonel into live general, eh! No, Lyle, though I was listed as dead when I went underground. They usually do that when an officer disappears; it looks better. You're dead, too-did you know?'

'Uh, no, I didn't, sir. Not that it matters. This is wonderful, sir!'

'Good.'

'But-I mean, how did you ever-well-' I shut up.

'How did I land here and in charge at that? I've been a Brother since I was your age, Lyle. But I didn't go underground until I had to-none of us do. In my case the pressure for me to join the priesthood became a bit too strong; the Superintendent was quite restless about having a lay officer know too much about the more abstruse branches of physics and chemistry. So I took a short leave and died. Very sad.' He smiled. 'But sit down. I've been meaning to send for you all day, but it's been a busy day. They all are. It wasn't until now that I've had time to listen to the record of your report.'

We sat down and chatted, and I felt that my cup runneth over. Huxley I respected more than any officer I had ever served under. His very presence resolved any residual doubts I might have-if the Cabal was right for him, it was right for me, and never mind the subtleties of doctrine.

At last he said, 'I didn't call you in at this late hour just to chat, Lyle. I've a job for you.'

'Yes, sir?'

'No doubt you've already noticed what a raw militia we have here. This is between ourselves and I'm not criticizing our comrades-every one of them has pledged his life to our cause, a harder thing for them to do than for you and me, and they have all placed themselves under military discipline, a thing still harder. But I haven't enough trained soldiers to handle things properly. They mean well but I am tremendously handicapped in trying to turn the organization into an efficient fighting machine. I'm swamped with administrative details. Will you help me?'

I stood up. '1 shall be honored to serve with the General to the best of my ability.'

'Fine! We'll call you my personal aide for the time being. That's all for tonight, Captain. I'll see you in the morning.'

I was halfway out the door before his parting designation sunk in-then I decided that it was a slip of the tongue.

But it was not. I found my own office the next morning by the fact that a sign had been placed on it reading: 'CAPTAIN LYLE'. From the standpoint of a professional military man there is one good thing about revolutions: the opportunities for swift promotion are excellent . . . even if the pay is inclined to be irregular.

My office adjoined General Huxley's and from then on I almost lived in it-eventually I had a cot installed back of my desk. The very first day I was still fighting my way down a stack of papers in my incoming basket at ten at night. I had promised myself that I would find the bottom, then write a long letter to Judith. But it turned out to be a very short note, as there was a memorandum addressed to me personally, rather than to the General, at the bottom.

It was addressed to 'Legate J. Lyle,' then someone had scratched out 'Legate' and written 'Captain'. It went on:

MEMORANDUM FOR ALL PERSONNEL NEWLY REPORTED.

SUBJECT:Personal Conversion Report 1. You are requested and directed to write out, as fully as possible, all of the events, thoughts, considerations, and incidents which led up to your decision to join our fight for freedom. This account should be as detailed as possible and as subjective as possible. A report written hastily, too briefly, or to superficially will be returned to be expanded and corrected and may be supplemented by hypno examination.

2. This report will be treated as confidential as a whole and any portion of it may be cla.s.sified secret by the writer. You may subst.i.tute letters or numbers for proper names if this will help you to speak freely, but the report must be complete.

3. No time off from regular duties is allotted for this purpose, but this report must be treated as extra-duty of highest priority. A draft of your report will be expected by (here some one had written in a date and hour less than forty-eight hours away; I used some profane expressions under my breath.) BY ORDER OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL.

(s)M. Novak, Col, F.U.S.A. Chief of Psychology

I was considerably annoyed by this demand and decided to write to Judith first anyway. The note didn't go very well-how can one write a love letter when you know that one or more strangers will read it and that one of them will rephrase your tenderest words? Besides that, while writing to Judith, my thoughts kept coming back to that night on the rampart of the Palace when I had first met her. It seemed to me that my own personal conversion, as the nosy Colonel Novak called it, started then. . . although I had begun to have doubts before then. Finally I finished the note, decided not to go to bed at once but to tackle that blasted report.

After a while I noticed that it was one o'clock in the morning and I still hadn't carried my account up to the point where I was admitted to the Brotherhood. I stopped writing rather reluctantly (I found that I had grown interested) and locked it in my desk.

At breakfast the next morning I got Zebadiah aside, showed him the memorandum, and asked him about it. 'What's the big idea?' I asked. 'You work for this particular bra.s.s. Are they still suspicious of us, even after letting us in here?'

Zeb barely glanced at it. 'Oh, that-Shucks, no. Although I might add that a spy, supposing one could get this far, would be bound to be caught when his personal story went through semantic a.n.a.lysis. n.o.body can tell a lie that long and that complicated.'

'But what's it for?'

'What do you care? Write it out-and be sure you do a thorough job. Then turn it in.'

I felt myself grow warm. 'I don't know as I will. I rather think I'll ask the General about it first.'

'Do so, if you want to make a ruddy fool of yourself. But look, John, the psychomathematicians who will read that mess of bilge you will write, won't have the slightest interest in you as an individual. They don't even want to know who you are-a girl goes through your report and deletes all personal names, including your own, if you haven't done so yourself, and subst.i.tutes numbers. . . all this before an a.n.a.lyst sees it. You're just data, that's all; the Chief has some heap big project on the fire-I don't know what it is myself-and he is trying to gather together a large enough statistical universe to be significant.'

I was mollified. 'Well, why don't they say so, then? This memo is just a bald order-irritating.'

Zeb shrugged. 'That is because it was prepared by the semantics division. If the propaganda division had written it, you would have gotten up early and finished the job before breakfast.' He added, 'By the way, I hear you've been promoted. Congratulations.'

'Thanks.' I grinned at him slyly. 'How does it feel to be junior to me, Zeb?'

'Huh? Did they b.u.mp you that far? I thought you were a captain.'

'I am.'

'Well, excuse me for breathing-but I'm a major.'

'Oh. Congratulations.'

'Think nothing of it. You have to be at least a colonel around here, or you make your own bed.'

I was too busy to make my bed very often. More than half the time I slept on the couch in my office and once I went a week without bathing. It was evident at once that the Cabal was bigger and had more complicated ramifications to it than I had ever dreamed and furthermore that it was building to a crescendo. I was too close to the trees to see the woods, even though everything but the utter top-secret, burn-after-reading items pa.s.sed across my desk.

I simply endeavored to keep General Huxley from being smothered in pieces of paper-and found myself smothered instead. The idea was to figure out what he would do, if he had time, and then do it for him. A person who has been trained in the principles of staff or doctrinal command can do this; the trick is to make your mind work like your boss's mind in all routine matters, and to be able to recognize what is routine and what he must pa.s.s on himself. I made my share of mistakes, but apparently not too many for he didn't fire me, and three months later I was a major with the fancy t.i.tle of a.s.sistant chief of staff. Chalk most of it up to the West Point ring, of course-a professional has a great advantage.

I should add that Zeb was a short-tailed colonel by then and acting chief of propaganda, his section chief having been transferred to a regional headquarters I knew only by the code name JERICHO.

But I am getting ahead of my story. I heard from Judith about two weeks later-a pleasant enough note but with the juice pressed out of it through rephrasing. I meant to answer her at once but actually delayed a week-it was so pesky hard to know what to say. I could not possibly tell her any news except that 1 was well and busy. If I had told her I loved her three times in one letter some idiot in cryptography would have examined it for 'pattern' and rejected it completely when he failed to find one.

The mail went to Mexico through a long tunnel, partly artificial but mostly natural, which led right under the international border. A little electric railroad of the sort used in mines ran through this tunnel and carried not only my daily headaches in the way of official mail but also a great deal of freight to supply our fair-sized town. There were a dozen other entrances to G.H.Q. on the Arizona side of the border, but I never knew where any of them were-it was not my pidgin. The whole area overlay a deep layer of Paleozoic limestone and it may well be honeycombed from California to Texas. The area known as G.H.Q. had been in use for more than twenty years as a hideout for refugee brethren. n.o.body knew the extent of the caverns we were in; we simply lighted and used what we needed. It was a favorite sport of us troglodytes-permanent residents were 'trogs'; transients were 'bats' because they flew by night-we trogs liked to go on 'spelling bees', picnics which included a little amateur speleology in the unexplored parts.

It was permitted by regulations, but just barely and subject to stringent safety precautions, for you could break a leg awfully easily in those holes. But the General permitted it because it was necessary; we had only such recreations as we could make ourselves and some of us had not seen daylight in years.

Zeb and Maggie and I went on a number of such outings when I could get away. Maggie always brought another woman along. I protested at first but she pointed out to me that it was necessary in order to avoid gossip . . . mutual chaperonage. She a.s.sured me that she was certain that Judith would not mind, under the circ.u.mstances. It was a different girl each time and it seemed to work out that Zeb always paid a lot of attention to the other girl while I talked with Maggie. I had thought once that Maggie and Zeb would marry, but now I began to wonder. They seemed to suit each other like ham and eggs, but Maggie did not seem jealous and I can only describe Zeb, in honesty, as shameless-that is, if he thought Maggie would care.

One Sat.u.r.day morning Zeb stuck his head in my sweat box and said, 'Spelling bee. Two o'clock. Bring a towel.'

I looked up from a mound of papers. 'I doubt if I can make it,' I answered. 'And why a towel?'

But he was gone. Maggie came through my office later to take the weekly consolidated intelligence report in to the Old Man, but I did not attempt to question her, as Maggie was all business during working hours-the perfect office sergeant. I had lunch at my desk, hoping to finish up, but knowing it was impossible. About a quarter of two I went in to get General Huxley's signature on an item that was to go out that night by hypnoed courier and therefore had to go at once to psycho in order that the courier might be operated. He glanced at it and signed it, then said, 'Sergeant Andy tells me you have a date.'

,'Sergeant Andrews is mistaken,' I said stiffly. 'There are still the weekly reports from Jericho, Nod, and Egypt to be gone over.'

'Place them on my desk and get out. That's an order. I can't have you going stale from overwork.'

I did not tell him that he had not even been to lodge himself in more than a month; I got out.

I dropped the message with Colonel Novak and hurried to where we always met near the women's mess. Maggie was there with the other girl-a blonde named Miriam Booth who was a clerk in Quartermaster's store. I knew her by sight but had never spoken to her. They had our picnic lunch and Zeb arrived while I was being introduced. He was carrying, as usual, the portable flood we would use when we picked out a spot and a blanket to sit on and use as a table. 'Where's yourc towel?' he demanded.

'Were you serious? I forgot it.'

'Run get it. We'll start off along Appian Way. You can catch up. Come on, kids.'

They started off, which left me with nothing but to do as I was told. After grabbing a towel from my room I dogtrotted until I had them in sight, then slowed to a walk, puffing. Desk work had ruined my wind. They heard me and waited.

We were all dressed alike, with the women in trousers and each with a safety line wrapped around the waist and torch clipped to the belt. I had gotten used to women in men's clothes, much as I disliked it-and, after all, it is impractical and quite immodest to climb around in caves wearing skirts.

We left the lighted area by taking a turn that appeared to lead into a blind wall; instead it led into a completely concealed but easily negotiated tunnel. Zeb tied our labyrinth string and started paying it out as soon as we left permanent and marked paths, as required by the standing order; Zeb was always careful about things that mattered.

For perhaps a thousand paces we could see blazes and other indications that others had been this way before, such as a place where someone had worked a narrow squeeze wider with a sledge. Then we left the obvious path and turned into a blind wall. Zeb put down the flood and turned it on. 'Sling your torches. We climb this one.'

'Where are we going?'

'A place Miriam knows about. Give me a leg up, Johnnie.' The climb wasn't much. I got Zeb up all right and the girls could have helped each other up, but we took them up roped, for safety's sake. We picked up our gear and Miriam led us away, each of us using his torch.

We went down the other side and there was another pa.s.sage so well hidden that it could have been missed for ten thousand years. We stopped once while Zeb tied on another ball of string. Shortly Miriam said, 'Slow up, everybody. I think we're there.'

Zeb flashed his torch around, then set up the portable flood and switched it on. He whistled. 'Whew! This is all right!'

Maggie said softly, 'It's lovely.' Miriam just grinned triumphantly.

I agreed with them all. It was a perfect small domed cavern, perhaps eighty feet wide and much longer. How long, I could not tell, as it curved gently away in a gloom-filled turn. But the feature of the place was a quiet, inky-black pool that filled most of the floor. In front of us was a tiny beach of real sand that might have been laid down a million years ago for all I know.

Our voice echoed pleasantly and a little bit spookily in the chamber, being broken up and distorted by stalact.i.tes and curtains hanging from the roof. Zeb walked down to the water's edge, squatted and tested it with his hand. 'Not too cold,' he announced. 'Well, the last one in is a proctor's nark.'

I recognized the old swimming hole call, even though the last time I had heard it, as a boy, it had been 'last one in is a dirty pariah'. But here I could not believe it.

Zeb was already unb.u.t.toning his shirt. I stepped up to him quickly and said privately, 'Zeb! Mixed bathing? You must be joking?'

'Not a bit of it.' He searched my face. 'Why not? What's the matter with you, boy? Afraid someone will make you do penance? They won't, you know. That's all over with.'

'But -'

'But what?'

I could not answer. The only way I could make the words come out would have been in the terms we had been taught in the Church, and I knew that Zeb would laugh at me-in front of the women. Probably they would laugh, too, since they had known and I hadn't. 'But Zeb,' I insisted, 'I can't. You didn't tell me . . . and I don't even have a bathing outfit.'

'Neither do I. Didn't you ever go in raw as a kid-and get paddled for it?' He turned away without waiting for me to answer this enormity and said, 'Are you frail vessels waiting on something?'

'Just for you two to finish your debate,' Maggie answered, coming closer. 'Zeb, I think Mimi and I will use the other side of that boulder. All right?'

'Okay. But wait a second. No diving, you both understand. And a safety man on the bank at all times-John and I will take turns.'

'Pooh!' said Miriam. '1 dove the last time I was here.'

'You weren't with me, that's sure. No diving-or I'll warm your pants where they are tightest.'

She shrugged. 'All right, Colonel Crosspatch. Come on, Mag.' They went on past us and around a boulder half as big as a house. Miriam stopped, looked right at me, and waggled a finger. 'No peeking, now!' I blushed to my ears.

They disappeared and we heard no more of them, except for giggles. I said hurriedly, 'Look. You do as you please-and on your own head be it. But I'm not going in. I'll sit here on the bank and be safety man.'

'Suit yourself. I was going to match you for first duty, but n.o.body is twisting your arm. Pay out a line, though, and have it ready for heaving. Not that we'll need it; both the girls are strong swimmers.'

I said desperately, 'Zeb, I'm sure the General would forbid swimming in these underground pools.'

'That's why we don't mention it. "Never worry the C.O. unnecessarily"-standing orders in Joshua's Army, circa 1400 B.C.' He went right on peeling off his clothes.

I don't know why Miriam warned me not to peek-not that I would!-for when she was undressed she came straight out from behind that boulder, not toward us but toward the water. But the flood light was full on her and she even turned toward us for an instant, then shouted, 'Come on, Maggie! Zeb is going to be last if you hurry.'

I did not want to look and I could not take my eyes off her. I had never seen anything remotely resembling the sight she was in my life-and only once a picture, one in the possession of a boy in my parish school and on that occasion I had gotten only a glimpse and then had promptly reported him.

But I could not stop looking, burning with shame as I was.

Zeb beat Maggie into the water-I don't think she cared. He went into the water quickly, almost breaking his own injunction against diving. Sort of a surface dive I would call it, running into the water and then breaking into a racing start. His powerful crawl was soon overtaking Miriam, who had started to swim toward the far end.

Then Maggie came out from behind the boulder and went into the water. She did not make a major evolution of it, the way Miriam had, but simply walked quickly and with quiet grace into the water. When she was waist deep, she let herself sink forward and struck out in a strong breast stroke, then shifted to a crawl and followed the others, when I could hear but hardly see in the distance.

Again I could not take my eyes away if my eternal soul had depended on it. What is it about the body of a human woman that makes it the most terribly beautiful sight on earth? Is it, as some claim, simply a necessary instinct to make sure that we comply with G.o.d's will and replenish the earth? Or is it some stranger, more wonderful thing?

I found myself quoting: 'How fair and how pleasant art thou, 0 love, for delights!

'This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s to cl.u.s.ters of grapes.'

Then I broke off, ashamed, remembering that the Song of Songs which is Solomon's was a chaste and holy allegory having nothing to do with such things.

I sat down on the sand and tried to compose my soul. After a while I felt better and my heart stopped pounding so hard. When they all came swimming back with Zeb in the lead, racing Miriam, I even managed to throw them a smile. It no longer seemed quite so terrible and as long as they stayed in the water the women were not shockingly exposed. Perhaps evil was truly in the eyes of the beholder-in which case the idea was to keep it out of mine.

Zeb called out, 'Ready to be relieved?'

I answered firmly, 'No. Go ahead and have your fun.'

'Okay.' He turned like a dolphin and started back the other way. Miriam followed him. Maggie came in to where it was shallow, rested her finger tips on the bottom, and held facing me, with just her head and her ivory shoulders out of the inky water, while her waist-length mane of hair floated around her.

'Poor John,' she said softly. 'I'll come out and spell you.'

'Oh, no, really!'

'Are you sure?'

'Quite sure.'

'All right.' She turned, flipped herself over, and started after the others. For one ghostly, magic instant she was partly out of the water.

Maggie came back to my end of the cavern about ten minutes later. 'I'm cold,' she said briefly, climbed out and strode quickly to the protection of the boulder. Somehow she was not naked, but merely unclothed, like Mother Eve. There is a difference-Miriam had been naked.