“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.