The colonel is sitting, waiting, under an electric bulb. The bulb is receiving its power from another enlisted man, who sits back in the shadows hand-pedaling the twin generator cranks. It is Eddie’s friend Private Paddy (“Electro”) McGonigle, an Irish lad from New Jersey, one of those million virtuous and adjusted city poor you know from the movies—you’ve seen them dancing, singing, hanging out the washing on the lines, getting drunk at wakes, worrying about their children going bad, I just don’t know any more Faather, he’s a good b’y but he’s runnin’ with a crool crowd, on through every wretched Hollywood lie down to and including this year’s big hit, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. With his crank here young Paddy is practicing another form of Eddie’s gift, though he’s transmitting not receiving. The bulb appears to burn steadily, but this is really a succession of electric peaks and valleys, passing by at a speed that depends on how fast Paddy is cranking. It’s only that the wire inside the bulb unbrightens slow enough before the next peak shows up that fools us into seeing a steady light. It’s really a train of imperceptible light and dark. Usually imperceptible. The message is never conscious on Paddy’s part. It is sent by muscles and skeleton, by that circuit of his body which has learned to work as a source of electrical power.

Right now Eddie Pensiero is shivering and not paying much attention to that light bulb. His own message is interesting enough. Somebody close by, out in the night, is playing a blues on a mouth harp. “Whut’s dat?” Eddie wants to know, standing under the white light behind the silent colonel in his dress uniform, “hey, McGonigle—you hear sump’n?”

“Yeah,” jeers Paddy from behind the generator, “I hear yer dischodge, flyin’ away, wit’ big wings comin’ outa th’ ass end. Dat’s whut I hear! Yuk, yuk!”

“Aw, it’s th’ bunk!” replies Eddie Pensiero. “Y-you don’t hear no dischodge, ya big dumbheaded Mick.”

“Hey, Pensiero, ya know whut a Eye-talian submarine sounds like, on dat new sonar? Huh?”

“Uh… whut?”

“Pinnnggguinea-guinea-guinea wopwopwop! Dat’s whut! Yuk, yuk, yuk!”

“Fuck youse,” sez Eddie, and commences combing the colonel’s silver-black hair.

The moment the comb contacts his head, the colonel begins to speak. “Ordinarily, we’d spend no more than 24 hours on a house-to-house sweep. Sundown to sundown, house to house. There’s a quality of black and gold to either end of it, that way, silhouettes, shaken skies pure as a cyclorama. But these sunsets, out here, I don’t know. Do you suppose something has exploded somewhere? Really—somewhere in the East? Another Krakatoa? Another name at least that exotic… the colors are so different now. Volcanic ash, or any finely-divided substance, suspended in the atmosphere, can diffract the colors strangely. Did you know that, son? Hard to believe, isn’t it? Rather a long taper if you don’t mind, and just short of combable on top. Yes, Private, the colors change, and how! The question is, are they changing according to something? Is the sun’s everyday spectrum being modulated? Not at random, but systematically, by this unknown debris in the prevailing winds? Is there information for us? Deep questions, and disturbing ones.