The great jump in explosive yield induced by the action of tritium in atomic warheads made possible an aesthetic reduction in the size and weight of the bombs, missiles, and shells devised, allowing a greater number to be carried by smaller implements of delivery like Milo 's projected bombers, and Strangelove's too, with no notable sacrifice in nuclear destructive capability.
The chaplain was up in value and completely safe.
14 Michael Yossarian
"When can I see him?" Michael Yossarian heard his father demand. His father's hair was thicker than his own and curly white, a color for which his brother Adrian was assiduously seeking a chemical formula for tinting; to a youthful, natural gray that would not be youthful on any man Yossarian's age and would not look natural.
"As soon as he's safe," answered M2, in a clean white shirt that was not yet rumpled, wet, or in need of ironing.
"Michael, didn't he just say the chaplain was safe?"
"It's what I thought I heard."
Michael smiled to himself. He pressed his brow against the pane of the glass window in order to gaze down intently at the ice rink below and its colorful kaleidoscope of leisurely skaters, wondering, with a downhearted presentiment of already having missed out on much, if there could possibly be abiding in that pastime rewards he might find diverting if ever he could bring himself to take the trouble to seek them. The reflecting oval of ice was ringed these days with drifting tides of panhandlers and vagrants, with working strollers on lunch and coffee breaks, with mounted policemen on daunting horses. Michael Yossarian would not dance; he could not get into the rhythm. He would not play golf, ski, or play tennis, and he knew already he would never ice-skate.
"I mean safe for us." He heard M2 defend himself plaintively and turned to watch. M2 appeared triumphantly prepared for the question he'd been asked. "He is safe for M amp; M Enterprises and cannot be appropriated by even Mercedes-Benz or the N amp; N Division of Nippon amp; Nippon Enterprises. Even Strangelove is barred. We will patent the chaplain as soon as we find out how he works, and we are looking for a trademark. We are thinking of a halo. Because he is a chaplain, of course, a Day-Glo halo. Maybe one that lights up in the dark, all night long."
"Why not tritium?"
"Tritium is expensive and radioactive. Michael, can you draw a halo?"
"It shouldn't be hard."
"We would want something cheerful but serious."
"I would try," said Michael, smiling again, "to make it serious, and it's hard to picture one that isn't cheerful."
"Where have they got him?" Yossarian wanted to know.
"In the same place, I would guess. I really don't know."
"Does your father know?"
"Do I know if he knows?"
"If you did would you tell me?"
"If he said that I could."
"If he said that you couldn't?"
"I would say I don't know."
"As you're saying right now. At least you're truthful."
"I try."
"Even when you lie. There's a paradox here. We are talking in circles."
"I went to divinity school."
"And what," said Yossarian, "do I tell the chaplain's wife? I'll be seeing her soon. If there's anyone else I can advise her to complain to, I will certainly tell her."
"Who could she find? The police are helpless."
"Strangelove?"
"Oh, no," said M2, turning whiter than customary. "I will have to find out. What you can tell Karen Tappman now-"
"Karen?"
"It's what it says on my prompt sheet. What you can tell Karen Tappman truthfully-"
"I don't think I would lie to her."
"We never choose to be anything but truthful. It's right there in our manual, under Lies. What you must tell Karen Tappman," M2 recited dutifully, "is that he is well and misses her. He looks forward to rejoining her as soon as he is not a danger to himself or the community and his presence in the family and the conjugal bed would not be injurious to her health."
"That's a new fucking wrinkle, isn't it?"
"Please." M2 flinched. "This one happens to be true."
"You would say that even if it weren't?"
"That is perfectly true," admitted M2. "But if tritium starts showing up inside him from that heavy water, he could be radioactive, and we'd all have to keep clear of him anyway."
"M2," said Yossarian harshly, "I'm going to want to talk to the chaplain soon. Has your father seen him? I know what you'll say. You have to find out."
"First, I'll have to find out if I can find out."
"Find out if you can find out if he can arrange it. Strangelove could."
M2 paled again. "You'd go to Strangelove?"
"Strangelove will come to me. And the chaplain won't produce if I tell him not to."
"I must tell my father."
"I've already told him, but he doesn't always hear."
M2 was shaken. "I just thought of something else. Should we be talking about all this in front of Michael? The chaplain is secret now, and I'm not sure I'm authorized to let anyone else hear about him."
"About who?" asked Michael mischievously.
"The chaplain," responded M2.
"What chaplain?"
"Chaplain Albert T. Tappman," said M2. "That friend of your father's from the army who's producing heavy water inside himself without a license and is now secretly in custody while they investigate and examine him while we try to patent him and register a trademark. Do you know about him?"
Michael spoke with a grin. "You mean that friend of my father's from the army who began producing heavy water inside himself illegally and is now-"
"That's the one!" M2 cried, and gaped as though confronted by a specter. "How'd you find out?"
"You just told me," laughed Michael.
"I did it again, didn't I?" blubbered M2, and collapsed with a thump into the chair at his desk in a grieving paroxysm of repentant lamentation. Now his shiny white shirt, which was of synthetic fabric, was rumpled, wet, and in need of ironing, and sopping adumbrations of a fidgety, sweltering anxiety were already darkening the fabric below the armholes of a sleeveless white undershirt he never failed to wear as well. "I just can't keep a secret, can I? My father is still angry with me for telling you about the bomber. He says he could kill me. So is my mother. So are my sisters. But it's your fault too, you know. It's his job to restrain me from telling him secrets like that."
"Like what?" asked Michael.
"Like that one about the bomber."
"What bomber?"
"Our M amp; M E amp; A Sub-Supersonic Invisible and Noiseless Defensive Second-Strike Offensive Attack Bomber. I hope you don't know about it."
"I know about it now."
"How'd you find out?"
"I have my ways," said Michael, and turned to his father with a glower. "Are we in munitions now too?"
Yossarian answered testily. "Somebody is going to have to be in munitions whether we like it or not, they tell me, so it might as well be them, and somebody is going to work with them on this, whether I say yes or no, so it might as well be you and me, and that's the perfect truth."