We were losing ground everywhere; that I knew before they finished treating my hands. Ours was a holding action only; our methods were effective only in stopping the spread of the infection and not fully effective in that. To fight them directly we would have to fight our own people, bomb our own cities, with no certainty of killing the humps. What we needed was a selective weapon, one that would kill slugs but not men, or something that would disable humans or render unconscious without killing and thereby permit us to rescue our compatriots. No such weapon was available, though the scientists were all busy on the problem, from the comedy team of McIlvaine & Vargas down to the lowliest bottle-washer in the Bureau of Standards. A "sleep" gas would have been perfect, but it is lucky that no such gas was known before the invasion, or the slugs could have used it against us; it would have cut both ways. It must be remembered that the slugs then had as much, or more, of the military potential of the United States at their disposal as had the free men.

Stalemate-with time on the side of the enemy. There were the fools who wanted to H-bomb the cities of the Mississippi Valley right out of existence, like curing a lip cancer by cutting off the head, but they were offset by their twins who had not seen slugs, did not believe in slugs, and felt that the whole matter was a violation of states' rights and Schedule Sun Tan a tyrannical Washington plot. These second sort were fewer each day, not because they changed their minds but because the Vigilantes were awfully eager.

Then there was the tertium quid, the flexible mind, the "reasonable" man who hardly had a mind to change-he favored negotiation; he thought we could "do business" with the titans. One such committee, a delegation from the caucus of the opposition party in Congress, actually attempted negotiation. Bypassing the State Department they got in touch via a linkage rigged across Zone Amber with the Governor of Missouri, and were assured of safe conduct and diplomatic immunity-"guarantees" from a titan, but they accepted them; they went to St. Louis-and never came back. They sent messages back; I saw one such, a good rousing speech adding up to, "Come on in; the water is fine!"

Do steers sign treaties with meat packers?

North America was still the only known center of infection. The only action by the United Nations, other than placing the space stations at our disposal, was to remove temporarily to Geneva. No aggression by any other nation was involved and it was even argued that the slugs-if they existed-were technically an epidemic disease rather than a potential source of war and therefore of no interest to the Security Council. It was voted, with twenty-three nations abstaining, to define it as "civil disorder" and to urge each member nation to give such aid as it saw fit to the legitimate governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

What each might have "seen fit" was academic; we did not know what to ask for.

It remained a creeping war, a silent war, with battles lost before we knew they were joined. After the debacle of Schedule Counter Blast, conventional weapons were hardly used, except in police action in Zone Amber-which was now a double no-man's-land on each side of Zone Red, from the trackless Canadian forests to the Mexican deserts. It was almost deserted in the daytime of any life larger than birds and mice, save for our own patrols. At night our scouts drew back and the dogs came through-and other things, perhaps.

At the time Mary and I arrived back only one atom bomb had been used in the entire war and that against a flying saucer that landed near San Francisco just south of Burlingame. Its destruction was according to doctrine, but the doctrine was now under criticism; the saucer should have been captured for study, so it was argued, if we were to learn enough about our foe to fight successfully. I found my sympathies with those who wanted to shoot first and study later.

By the time the dose of tempus was beginning to wear off I had a picture of the United States in a shape that I had not imagined even when I was in saturated Kansas City-a country undergoing a Terror. Friend might shoot friend, or wife denounce husband. Rumor of a titan could drum up a mob on any street, with Old Judge Lynch baying in their van. To rap on a door at night was to invite a blast through the door rather than a friendly response. Honest folk stayed home; at night the dogs were out-and others.

The fact that most of the rumored discoveries of slugs were baseless made the rumors no less dangerous. It was not exhibitionism which caused many people to prefer outright nudity to the tight and scanty clothing permitted under Schedule Sun Tan; even the skimpiest clothing invited a doubtful second look, a suspicion that might be decided too abruptly. The head-and-spine armor was never worn now; the slugs had faked it and used it almost at once. And there had been the case of a girl in Seattle; she had been dressed in sandals and a big purse, nothing else-but a Vigilante who apparently had developed a nose for the enemy followed her and noticed that she never, under any circumstances, moved the purse from her right hand, even when she opened it to make change.

She lived, for he burned her arm off at the wrist, and I suppose that she had a new one grafted on; the supply of such spare parts was almost a glut. The slug was alive, too, when the Vigilante opened the purse– but not for long.

When I came across this in the briefing I realized with a shudder that I had not been too safe even in carrying my shorts through the streets; any slug-sized burden was open to suspicion.

The drug had worn off by the time I scanned this incident and I was back in contact with my surroundings. I mentioned the matter to the nurse. "Mustn't worry," she told me. "It does no good. Now flex the fingers of your right hand, please."

I flexed them, while she helped the doctor spray on surrogate skin. I noticed that she was taking no chances; she wore no bra at all and her so-to-speak shorts were actually more of a G-string. The doctor was dressed about the same. "Wear gloves for rough work," the doctor cautioned, "and come back next week."

I thanked them and went to the operations office. I looked for Mary first, but found that she was busy in Cosmetics.

Chapter 25

Hands all right?" the Old Man asked when they let me in.

"They'll do. False skin for a week. They do a graft job on my ear tomorrow."

He looked vexed. "I forgot your ear. There's no time for a graft to heal; Cosmetics will have to fake one for you."

"The ear doesn't matter," I told him, "but why bother to fake it? Impersonation job?"

"Not exactly. Now that you've been briefed, what do you think of the situation?"

I wondered what answer he was fishing for. "Not good," I conceded. "Everybody watching everybody else. Might as well be behind the Curtain. Shucks," I admitted, going overboard, "this is worse. You can usually bribe a communist, but what bribe can you offer a slug?"

"Hmm-" he commented. "That's an interesting thought. What would constitute a bribe inducement to a titan?"

"Look, that was a rhetorical question. I-"

"And my restatement of it was not rhetorical; we'll farm it out for theoretical investigation."

"Grabbing at straws these days, aren't you?"

"Precisely. Now about the rest of your comment; would you say that it was easier to penetrate and maintain surveillance in the Soviet Union or in Zone Red. Which would you rather tackle?"

I eyed him suspiciously. "There's a catch in this. You don't let a man pick his assignment."

"I asked you for a professional opinion."