The tyrannosaur staggered in the other direction, spilling its entrails. Its screams took on a ghastly human note. Somebody stopped and picked up Worth. Somebody else came to Herries and gabbled at him. The tyrannosaur stumbled in yards of gut, fell slowly, and struggled, entangling itself.
Even so, it was hard to kill. The cars battered it for half an hour as it lay there, and it hissed at them and beat the ground with its tail. Herries was not sure it had died when he and his men finally left. But the insects had long been busy, and a few of the bones already stood forth clean white.
The phone jangled on Herries’ desk. He picked it up. «Yeh?»
«Yamaguchi in sick bay,» said the voice. «Thought you’d want to know about Worth.»
«Well?»
«Broken lumbar vertebra. He’ll live, possibly without permanent paralysis, but he’ll have to go back for treatment.»
«And be held incommunicado a year, till his contract’s up. I wonder how much of a patriot he’ll be by that time.»
«What?»
«Nothing. Can it wait till tomorrow? Everything’s so disorganized right now, I’d hate to activate the projector.»
«Oh yes. He’s under sedation anyway.» Yamaguchi paused. «And the man who died—»
«Sure. We’ll ship him back too. The government will even supply a nice coffin. I’m sure his girl friend will appreciate that.»
«Do you feel well?» asked Yamaguchi sharply.
«They were going to be married,» said Herries. He took another pull from the fifth of bourbon on his desk. It was getting almost too dark to see the bottle. «Since patriotism nowadays… in the future, I mean… in our own home, sweet home… since patriotism is necessarily equated with necrophilia, in that the loyal citizen is expected to rejoice every time his government comes up with a newer gadget for mass-producing corpses… I am sure the young lady will just love to have a pretty coffin. So much nicer than a mere husband. I’m sure the coffin will be chrome plated.»
«Wait a minute—»
«With tail fins.»
«Look here,» said the doctor, «you’re acting like a case of combat fatigue. I know you’ve had a shock today. Come see me and I’ll give you a tranquilizer.»
«Thanks,» said Herries. «I’ve got one.» He took another swig and forced briskness into his tone. «We’ll send ’em back tomorrow morning, then. Now don’t bother me. I’m composing a letter to explain to the great white father that this wouldn’t have happened if we’d been allowed one stinking little atomic howitzer. Not that I expect to get any results. It’s policy that we aren’t allowed heavy weapons down here, and who ever heard of facts affecting a policy? Why, facts might be un-American.»
He hung up, put the bottle on his lap and his feet on the desk, lit a cigarette and stared out the window. Darkness came sneaking across the compound like smoke. The rain had stopped for a while, and lamps and windows threw broken yellow gleams off puddles, but somehow the gathering night so thick that each light seemed quite alone. There was no else in the headquarters shack this hour. Herries had not turned on his own lights.
To hell with it, he thought. To hell with it.
His cigarette tip waxed and waned as he puffed, like a small dying star. But the smoke didn’t taste right when invisible. Or had he put away so many toasts to dead men that his tongue was numbed? He wasn’t sure. It hardly mattered.
The phone shrilled again. He picked it up, fumble-handed in the murk. «Chief of operations,» he said pleasantly. «To hell with you.»
«What?» Symonds’ voice rattled a bare bit. Then: «I have been trying to find you. What are you doing there this late?»
«I’ll give you three guesses. Playing pinochle? No. Carrying on a sordid affair with a lady iguanodon? No. None of your business? Right! Give that gentleman a box of see-gars.»
«Look here, Mr. Herries,» wasped Symonds, «this is no time for levity. I understand that Matthew Worth was seriously injured today. He was supposed to be on guard duty tonight—the secret shipment. This has disarranged all my plans.»
«Tsk-tsk-tsk. My nose bleeds for you.»
«The schedule of duties must be revised. According to my notes, Worth would have been on guard from midnight until 4 A.M. Since I do not know precisely what other jobs his fellows are assigned to, I cannot single any one of them out to replace him. Will you do so? Select a man who can then sleep later tomorrow morning?»
«Why?» asked Herries.
«Why? Because—because—»
«I know. Because Washington said so. Washington is afraid some nasty dinosaur from what is going to be Russia will sneak in and look at an unguarded crate and hurry home with the information. Sure, I’ll do it. I just wanted to hear you sputter.»
Herries thought he made out an indignant breath sucked past an upper plate. «Very good,» said the clerk. «Make the necessary arrangements for tonight, and we will work out a new rotation of watches tomorrow.»
Herries put the receiver back.
The list of tight-lipped, tight-minded types was somewhere in his desk, he knew vaguely. A copy, rather. Symonds had a copy, and no doubt there would be copies going to the Pentagon and the FBI and the Transoco personnel office and—Well, look at the list, compare it with the work schedule, see who wouldn’t be doing anything of critical importance tomorrow forenoon, and put him on a bit of sentry-go. Simple.
Herries took another swig. He could resign, he thought. He could back out of the whole fantastically stupid, fantastically meaningless operation. He wasn’t compelled to work. Of course, they could hold him for the rest of his contract. It would be a lonesome year. Or maybe not; maybe a few others would trickle in to keep him company. To be sure, he’d then be under surveillance the rest of his life. But who wasn’t, in a century divided between two garrisons?
The trouble was, he thought, there was nothing a man could do about the situation. You could become a peace-at-any-cost pacifist and thereby, effectively, league yourself with the enemy; and the enemy had carried out too many cold massacres for any halfway sane man to stomach. Or you could fight back (thus becoming more and more like what you fought) and hazard planetary incineration against the possibility of a tolerable outcome. It only took one to make a quarrel, and the enemy had long ago elected himself that one. Now, it was probably too late to patch up the quarrel. Even if important men on both sides wished for a disengagement, what could they do against their own fanatics, vested interests, terrified common people… against the whole momentum of history?
Hell take it, thought Herries, we may be damned but why must we be fools in the bargain?
Somewhere a brontosaur hooted, witlessly plowing through a night swamp.
Well, I’d better—No!
Herries stared at the end of his cigarette. It was almost scorching his fingers. At least, he thought, at least he could find out what he was supposed to condone. A look into those crates, which should have held the guns he had begged for, and perhaps some orchestral and scientific instruments… and instead held God knew what piece of Pentagonal-brained idiocy… a look would be more than a blow in Symonds’ smug eye. It would be an assertion that he was Herries, a free man, whose existence had not yet been pointlessly spilled from a splintered skull. He, the individual, would know what the Team planned; and if it turned out to be a crime against reason, he could at the very least resign and sit out whatever followed.
Yes. By the dubious existence of divine mercy, yes.
Again a little rain, just a small warm touch on his face, like tears. Herries splashed to the transceiver building and stood quietly in the sudden flashlight glare. At last, out of blackness, the sentry’s voice came: «Oh, it’s you, sir.»