“Um,” the huxley said.
“Naturally, I made full reports. Nobody has known what to do. But when I got my dighting slip a couple of times ago, in the space marked ‘Purpose,’ besides the usual rubber-stamped ‘To reduce interservice tension’ somebody had written in: ‘To find out from Air their solution of the neonatal pig nutrition problem.’
“So I knew my dighting opposite number in Air was not only supposed to reduce intergroup tension, but also I was supposed to find out from him how Air got its newborn pigs to eat.” She looked down, fidgeting with the clasp of her musette bag.
“Go on,” said the huxley with a touch of severity. “I can’t help you unless you give me your full confidence.”
“Is it true that the dighting system was set up by a group of psychologists after they’d made a survey of interservice tension? After they’d found that Marine was feuding with Air, and Air with Infantry, and Infantry with Navy, to such an extent that it was cutting down overall Defense efficiency? They thought that sex relations would be the best of all ways of cutting down hostility and replacing it with friendly feelings, so they started the dighting plan?”
“You know the answers to those questions as well as I do,” the huxley replied frostily. “The tone of your voice when you asked them shows that they are to be answered with ‘Yes.’ You’re stalling, Major Briggs.”
“It’s so unpleasant… What do you want me to tell you?”
“Go on in detail with what happened after you got your blue dighting slip.”
She shot a glance at him, flushed, looked away again, and began talking rapidly. “The slip was for next Tuesday. I hate Air for dighting, but I thought it would be all right. You know how it is—there’s a particular sort of kick in feeling oneself change from a cold sort of loathing into being eager and excited and in love with it. After one’s had one’s Watson, I mean.
“I went to the neutral area Tuesday afternoon. He was in the room when I got there, sitting in a chair with his big feet spread out in front of him, wearing one of those loathsome leather jackets. He stood up politely when he saw me, but I knew he’d just about as soon cut my throat as look at me, since I was Marine. We were both armed, naturally.”
“What did he look like?” the huxley broke in.
“I really didn’t notice. Just that he was Air. Well, anyway, we had a drink together. I’ve heard they put cannabis in the drinks they serve you in the neutral areas, and it might be true. I didn’t feel nearly so hostile to him after I’d finished my drink. I even managed to smile, and he managed to smile back. He said, We might as well get started, don’t you think?’ So I went in the head.
“I took off my things and left my gun on the bench beside the wash basin. I gave myself my Watson in the thigh.”
“The usual Watson?” the huxley asked as she halted. “Oestric and anticoncipient injected subcutaneously from a sterile ampule?”
“Yes. He’d had his Watson too, the priapic, because when I got back…” She began to cry.
“What happened after you got back?” the huxley queried after she had cried for a while.
“I just wasn’t any good. No good at all. The Watson might have been so much water for all the effect it had. Finally he got sore. He said, ‘What’s the matter with you? I might have known anything Marine was in would get loused up.’ “
“That made me angry, but I was too upset to defend myself. ‘Tension reduction!’ he said. ‘This is a fine way to promote interservice harmony. I’m not only not going to sign the checking-out sheet, I’m going to file a complaint against you to your group.’”
“Oh, my,” said the huxley.
“Yes, wasn’t it terrible? I said, ‘If you file a complaint, I’ll file a countercharge. You didn’t reduce my tension, either.’
“We argued about it for a while. He said that if I filed countercharges there’d be a trial and I’d have to take Pentothal and then the truth would come out. He said it wasn’t his fault! He’d been ready.
“I knew that was true, so I began to plead with him. I reminded him of the cold war, and how the enemy were about to take Venus, when all we had was Mars. I talked to him about loyalty to Defense and I asked him how he’d feel if he was kicked out of Air. And finally, after what seemed like hours, he said he wouldn’t file charges. I guess he felt sorry for me. He even agreed to sign the checking-out sheet.
“That was that. I went back to the head and put on my clothes and we both went out. We left the room at different times, though, because we were too angry to smile at each other and look happy. Even as it was, I think some of the neutral-area personnel suspected us.”
“Is that what’s been worrying you?” the huxley asked when she seemed to have finished.
“Well… I can trust you, can’t I? You really won’t tell?”
“Certainly I won’t. Anything told to a huxley is a privileged communication. The first amendment applies to us, if to no other profession.”
“Yes. I remember there was a Supreme Court decision about freedom of speech…” She swallowed, choked, and swallowed again. “When I got my next dighting slip,” she said bravely, “I was so upset I applied for a gyn. I hoped the doctor would say there was something physically wrong with me, but he said I was in swell shape. He said, A girl like you ought to be mighty good at keeping interservice tension down.’ So there wasn’t any help there.
“Then I went to a huxley, the huxley I was telling you a-bout. It talked philosophy to me. That wasn’t any help either. So—finally—well, I stole an extra Watson from the lab.”
There was a silence. When she saw that the huxley seemed to have digested her revelation without undue strain, she went on, “I mean, an extra Watson beyond the one I was issued. I couldn’t endure the thought of going through another dight like the one before. There was quite a fuss about the ampule’s being missing. The dighting drugs are under strict control. But they never did find out who’d taken it.”
“And did it help you? The double portion of oestric?” the huxley asked. It was prodding at the top buttons of its waistcoat with one forefinger, rather in the manner of one who is not quite certain he feels an itch.
“Yes, it did. Everything went off well. He—the man—said I was a nice girl, and Marine was a good service, next to Infantry, of course. He was Infantry. I had a fine time myself, and last week when I got a request sheet from Infantry asking for some pig pedigrees, I went ahead and initialed it..That tension reduction does work. I’ve been feeling awfully jittery, though. And yesterday I got another blue dighting slip.
“What am I to do? I can’t steal another Watson. They’ve tightened up the controls. And even if I could, I don’t think one extra would be enough. This time I think it would take two.”
She put her head down on the arm of her chair, gulping desperately.
“You don’t think you’d be all right with just one Watson?” the huxley asked after an interval. “After all, people used to dight habitually without any Watsons at all.”
“That wasn’t interservice dighting. No, I don’t think I’d be all right. You see, this time it’s with Air again. I’m supposed to try to find out about porcine nutrition. And I’ve always particularly hated Air.”
She twisted nervously at the control of her hearing aid. The huxley gave a slight jump. “Ah—well, of course you might resign,” it said in a barely audible voice.
Sonya— in the course of a long-continued struggle there is always a good deal of cultural contamination, and if there were girls named Sonya, Olga, and Tatiana in Defense, there were girls named Shirley and Mary Beth to be found on the enemy’s side—Sonya gave him an incredulous glance. “You must be joking. I think it’s in very poor taste. I didn’t tell you my difficulties for you to make fun of me.”