She wagged her tail hesitantly, lowered her head and looked up at them ... I do want to do right, to please everybody, everybody, but. .. Then she followed the master into the ship.
The locks rumbled shut. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. She took her place, flat on her side, take-off position. The master snapped the flat plastic sheet over her, covering head and all and, in a few minutes, they roared off.
Afterward he opened the parchment bag. She knew what was in it. She knew he knew too, but she knew by the smell. He opened it and dumped out the head and the hands. His face was tight and his mouth stiff.
She saw him almost put the big head out the waste chute, but he didn’t. He took it in to the place where he kept good heads and some odd paws or hoofs, and he put it by the others there.
Even she knew this head was different. The others were all slant-browed like she was and most had jutting snouts. This one seemed bigger than the big ones, with its heavy, ruffed fur and huge eye staring, and more grand than any of them, more terrible . . . and yet a flat face, with a delicate, black nose and tender lips.
The tenderest lips of all.
TRIGGERMAN
by J. F. Bone
The ideal of the brotherhood of man is hardly new. But the purely practical, businesslike necessity for immediate and enduring Peace on Earth—an Earth equipped with space missiles and atomic weapons—is original with this generation.
The development of modern warfare, of rockets, radio-actives, and robot controls, has been taken for granted in science fiction for some time—and with it the recognition that international rock-tossing is just too extravagant an entertainment for modern man.
Stemming perhaps from this basic “One World or None” philosophy, and/or from the conflicts of science vs. security (and space goals vs. defense needs), a certain tradition of military-mind-mocking has grown up in s-f. Though here too history is overtaking us. Or at least General Douglas Mac-Arthur has caught up with Planet Stories and the bug-eyed monsters. “Because of the recent development of science, the countries of the world must unite,” True Space Secrets quotes him as saying. “They must make a common front against attack by people from other planets!”
It is slightly less startling, but still of interest, to note that in a book full of animal-heroes (a dog, a cat, a mouse, a bear), it’s the story about the General that was written by a professor of veterinary medicine.
General Alastair French was probably the most important man in the Western Hemisphere from the hours of 0800 to 1600. Yet all he did was sit in a windowless room buried deeply underground, facing a desk that stood against a wall. The wall was studded with built-in mechanisms. A line of twenty-four-hour clocks was inset near the ceiling, showing the corresponding times in all time zones on Earth. Two huge TV screens below the clocks were flanked by loudspeaker systems. The desk was bare except for three telephones of different colors—red, blue, and white—and a polished plastic slab inset with a number of white buttons framing a larger one whose red surface was the color of fresh blood. A thick carpet, a chair of peculiar design with broad flat arms, and an ashtray completed the furnishings. Warmed and humidified air circulated through the room from concealed grilles at floor level. The walls of the room were painted a soft restful gray that softened the indirect lighting. The door was steel and equipped with a time lock.
The exact location of the room and the Center that served it was probably the best kept secret in the Western world. Ivan would probably give a good percentage of the Soviet tax take to know precisely where it was, just as the West would give a similar amount to know where Ivan’s Center was located. Yet despite the fact that its location was remote, the man behind the desk was in intimate contact with every major military point in the Western Alliance. The red telephone was a direct connection to the White House. The blue was a line that reached to the headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to the emergency Capitol hidden in the hills of West Virginia. And the white telephone connected by priority lines with every military center and base in the world that was under Allied control.
General French was that awesome individual often joked about by TV comics who didn’t know that he really existed. He was the man who could push the button that would start World War III!
French was aware of his responsibilities and took them seriously. By nature he was a serious man, but, after three years of living with ultimate responsibility, it was no longer the crushing burden that it had been at first when the Psychological Board selected him as one of the most inherently stable men on Earth. He was not ordinarily a happy man; his job, and the steadily deteriorating world situation precluded that, but this day was a bright exception. The winter morning had been extraordinarily beautiful, and he loved beauty with the passion of an artist. A flaming sunrise had lighted the whole eastern sky with golden glory, and the crisp cold air stimulated his senses to appreciate it. It was much too lovely for thoughts of war and death.
He opened the door of the room precisely at 0800, as he had done for three years, and watched a round, pink-cheeked man in a gray suit rise from the chair behind the desk. Kleinmeister, he thought, neither looked like a general nor like a potential executioner of half the world. He was a Santa Claus without a beard. But appearances were deceiving. Hans Kleinmeister could, without regret, kill half the world if he thought it was necessary. The two men shook hands, a ritual gesture that marked the changing of the guard, and French sank into the padded chair behind the desk.
“It’s a beautiful day outside, Hans,” he remarked as he settled his stocky, compact body into the automatically adjusting plastifoam. “I envy you the pleasure of it.”
“I don’t envy you, Al,” Kleinmeister said. “I’m just glad it’s all over for another twenty-four hours. This waiting gets on the nerves.” Kleinmeister grinned as he left the room. The steel door thudded into place behind him and the time lock clicked. For the next eight hours French would be alone.
He sighed. It was too bad that he had to be confined indoors on a day like this one promised to be, but there was no help for it. He shifted luxuriously in the chair. It was the most comfortable seat that the mind and ingenuity of man could contrive. It had to be. The man who sat in it must have every comfort. He must want for nothing. And above all he must not be irritated or annoyed. His brain must be free to evaluate and decide—and nothing must distract the functioning of that brain. Physical comfort was a means to that end—and the chair provided it. French felt soothed in the gentle caress of the upholstery.
The familiar feeling of detachment swept over him as he checked the room. Nominally, he was responsible to the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but practically he was responsible to no one. No hand but his could set in motion the forces of massive retaliation that had hung over aggression for the past twenty years. Without his sanction, no intercontinental or intermediate-range missile could leave its rack. He was the final authority, the ultimate judge, and the executioner if need be—a position thrust upon him after years of intensive tests and screening. In this room he was as close to being a god as any man had been since the beginning of time.
French shrugged and touched one of the white buttons on the panel.
“Yes sir?” an inquiring voice came from one of the speakers. “A magazine and a cup of coffee,” said General French. “What magazine, sir?”