"Uh, yes. But don't have him use an ape, boss."

"Why not?"

"Well-they're too human."

"Damn it, bub, you can't make an omelet-"

"-without breaking eggs. Okay, okay, but I don't have to like it. Anyhow, we'll find out."

I could see that he did not like what he was thinking. "I hope it turns out that you are wrong. Yes, sir, I surely do. It has been hard enough to get their shirts off; I'd hate like the very deuce to try to get 'em to take off their drawers as well." He looked worried.

"Well, maybe it won't be necessary."

"I hope not."

"By the way, we're moving back to the old nest."

"How about the New Philadelphia hide-out?" I asked.

"We'll keep both. This war may go on a long time."

"Speaking of such, what have you got for me now?"

"Well, now, as I said, this is likely to prove a long war. Why don't you take some leave? Indefinite-I'll call you back when I need you."

"You always have," I pointed out. "Is Mary going on leave?"

"What's that got to do with it?"

"I asked you a straight question. Boss."

"Mary is on duty, with the President."

"Why? She's done her job, and nobly. You aren't depending on her being able to smell out a slug, not if I know you. You don't need her as a guard; she's too good an agent to waste on such work."

"See here-when did you get so big that you are telling me how to use other agents? Answer that and make it good."

"Oh, skip it, skip it," I told him, my temper very much out of hand. "Let it lay that if Mary isn't taking leave, I don't want leave-and none of your business why."

"That's a nice girl."

"Did I say she wasn't? Keep your nose out of my affairs. In the meantime, give me a job to do."

"I say you need to take leave."

"So you can make damn sure that I don't have any free time when Mary has? What is this? A YWCA?

"I say you need leave because you are worn out."

"Hunh!"

"You are a fair-to-good agent when you are in shape. Right now you aren't; you've been through too much. No, shut up and listen: I send you out on a simple assignment. Penetrate an occupied city, look it over and see everything there is to see and report back by a certain time. What do you do? You are so jittery that you hang around in the suburbs and are afraid to go downtown. You don't keep your eyes open and you damn near get caught three times. Then when you do head back, you get so nervy that you burn out your ship and fail to get back in time to be of any use. Your nerve is shot and your judgment with it. Take leave-sick leave, in fact."

I stood there with my ears burning. He did not directly blame me for the failure of Schedule Counter Blast but he might as well have. I felt that it was unfair-and yet I knew that there was truth in it. My nerves used to be like rock, and now my hands trembled when I tried to strike a cigarette.

Nevertheless he let me have an assignment-the first and only time I have ever won an argument with him.

A hell of an assignment-I spent the next several days lecturing to brass, answering fool questions about what titans eat for lunch, explaining how to tackle a man who was possessed. I was billed as an "expert" but half the time my pupils seemed sure that they knew more about slugs than I did.

Why do people cherish their preconceptions? Riddle me that.

Chapter 21

Operation Parasite seemed to come to a dead stop during this period. The titans continued to hold Zone Red, but they could not break out without being spotted. And we did not try to break in for the good reason that every slug held one of our own people as hostage. It was a situation which might go on for a long time.

The United Nations were no help. The President wanted a simple act of cooperation-Schedule Bare Back on a global scale. They hemmed and hawed and sent the matter to committee for investigation. The plain truth was they did not believe us; that was always the enemy's great advantage-only the burned believed in the fire.

Some nations were safe from the slugs through their own customs. A Finn who did not strip down and climb into a steam bath, in company, every day or so would have been conspicuous. The Japanese, too, were casual about undressing. The South Seas were relatively safe, as were large parts of Africa. France had gone enthusiastically nudist, on weekends at least, right after World War III-a slug would have a tough time hiding in France.

But in countries where the body-modesty taboo meant something a slug could stay hidden until his host began to stink. The United States itself, Canada-England, most particularly England. "Aren't you getting excited over nothing, old chap? Take off my weskit? Now, really!"

They flew three slugs (with apes) to London; I understand that the King wanted to set an example as the President had, but the Prime Minister, egged on by the Archbishop of Canterbury, would not let him. The Archbishop had not even bothered to look; moral behavior was more important than mundane peril. Nothing about this appeared in the news and the story may not be true, but English skin was not exposed to the cold stares of neighbors.

The Cominform propaganda system began to blast us as soon as they had worked out a new line. The whole thing was an "American Imperialist fantasy" intended to "enslave the workers"; the "mad dogs of capitalism" were at it again.

I wondered why the titans had not attacked Russia first; Stalinism seemed tailor-made for them. On second thought, I wondered if they had. On third thought I wondered what difference it would make; the people behind the Curtain had had their minds enslaved and parasites riding them for three generations. There might not be two kopeks difference between a commissar with a slug and a commissar without a slug.

There would be one change: their intermittent purges would take a different form; a "deviationist" would be "liquidated" by plastering a titan on his neck. It wouldn't be necessary to send him to the gas chamber.

Except when the Old Man picked me to work with him I was not close to the center of things; I saw the war with the titans as a man sees hurricanes-his small piece only. I did not see the Old Man soon and I got my assignments from Oldfield, his deputy. Consequently I did not know of it when Mary was relieved from special duty with the President. I ran into her in the lounge of the Section offices. "Mary!" I yelped and fell over my feet getting to her.

She gave me that long, slow, sweet smile and moved over to make room for me. "Hello, darling!" she whispered. She did not ask me what I had been doing, nor scold me that I had not been in touch with her, nor even comment on how long it had been. Mary always let the water over the dam take care of itself.

Not me-I babbled. "This is wonderful! I thought you were still tucking the President into his beddy-bye. How long have you been here? Do you have to go back right away? Say, can I dial you a drink–no, you've got one." I started to dial for an old-fashioned and discovered that Mary had already done so; it popped out almost into my hand. "Huh? How'd this get here?"

"I ordered it when you came in the door."

"You did? Mary, did I tell you that you are wonderful?"

"No."

"Very well, then, I will: You're wonderful."

"Thank you."

I went on, "This calls for a celebration! How long are you free? Say, couldn't you possibly get some leave? They can't expect you to be on duty twenty-four hours a day, week after week, with no time off. I think I'll go right straight to the Old Man and tell him just what-"

"I'm on leave, Sam."

"-just what I think of that sort of-Huh?"

"I'm on leave now."

"You are? For how long?"