"Mmmm . . . I don't have enough data. Tell me; are there slugs behind the Curtain?"

"That," he answered, "is just what I would like to find out."

I realized suddenly that Mary had been right; agents should not marry. If this job were ever finished, I wanted to hire out to count sheep for a rich insomniac or, something equally soft. "This time of year," I said, "I think I'd want to enter through Canton. Unless you were figuring on a drop?"

"What makes you think I want you to go into the USSR?" he asked. "We might find out what we want to know quicker and easier in Zone Red."

"Huh?"

"Certainly. If there is infection anywhere but in this continent, the titans in Zone Red must know about it. Why go half around the globe to find out?"

I put aside the plans I had been forming to be a Hindu merchant, travelling with his wife, and thought about what he was saying. Could be . . . could be. "How in the devil can Zone Red be penetrated now?" I asked. "Do I wear a plastic imitation slug on my shoulder blades? They'd catch me the first time I was called on for direct conference. Or before."

"Don't be a defeatist. Four agents have gone in already."

"And come back?"

"Well, no, not exactly. That's the rub."

"And you want me to be the fifth? Have you decided that I've cluttered up the payroll long enough?"

"I think the others used the wrong tactics-"

"Obviously!"

"The trick is to convince them that you are a renegade. Got any ideas?"

The idea was overwhelming, so much so that I did not answer at once. Finally I burst out, "Why not start me easy? Can't I impersonate a Panama pimp for a while? Or practice being an ax murderer? I have to get into the mood for this."

"Easy," he said. "It may not be practical-"

"Hmmph!"

"But you might bring it off. You've had more experience with their ways than any agent I've got. You must be rested up, aside from that little singe you got on your fingers. Or maybe we should drop you near Moscow and let you take a direct look. Think it over. Don't get into a fret about it for maybe another day."

"Thanks. Thank you too much." I changed the subject. "What have you got planned for Mary?"

"Why don't you stick to your own business?"

"I'm married to her."

"Yes."

"Well, for the love of Pete! Is that all you've got to say? Don't you even want to wish me luck?"

"It strikes me," he said slowly, "that you have had all the luck one man could ask for. You have my blessing, for whatever it's worth."

"Oh. Well, thanks." I am slow in some ways, but I plead the excuse that I had had much on my mind-up to that moment it had not occurred to me that the Old Man might have had something directly to do with Mary's leave and mine falling together so conveniently. I said, "Look here. Dad-"

"Huh?" It was the second time I had called him that in a month; it seemed to put him on the defensive.

"You meant for Mary and me to marry all along. You planned it that way."

"Eh? Don't be ridiculous. I believe in free will, son-and free choices."

"Provided the choice suits you."

"See here, we discussed this once before-"

"I know we did. Never mind; I'm hardly in a position to be angry about it. It's just that I feel like a prize stallion being led into the pen. Why did you do it? It wasn't sentiment about 'young love' and such twaddle; I know you better than that."

"I did not do anything, I tell you. As for approving of it-well, the race must go on, so they tell me. If it doesn't, everything else we do is pointless-even this war."

"Like that, eh? You would send two agents on leave in the middle of a battle-to catch yourself a grandson?" I did a rapid summing up and added, "I'll bet you used a slide rule."

He colored. "I don't know what you are talking about. You both were entitled to leave; the rest was accidental."

"Hmm! Accidents don't happen; not around you. Never mind; I'm a willing victim. Now about the job; give me a bit longer to size up the possibilities, if you really mean to let me pick my own method. Meantime, I'll see Cosmetics about a rubber ear."

I did not see a man about an ear, not then, for, as I was heading into Cosmetics, I met Mary coming out. I had not intended to let myself be surprised into endearments around the Section, but I was caught off guard. "Darling! They fixed you!"

She turned slowly around and let me look. "Good job, isn't it?"

It was a good job. I could not tell that her hair had ever been burned. Besides that, they had done a make-up job on her shoulders over the temporary skin that was quite convincing, but I had expected that. It was the hair that fooled me. I touched it gently and examined the hair line on the left side. "They must have taken it all off and started fresh."

"No, they simply matched it."

"Now you've got your favorite gun cache back."

"Like this?" she said, dimpling. She adjusted her curls with her left hand-then suddenly she had a gun in each hand. And again I did not know where the second one had come from.

"That's papa's good girl! If you ever have to, you can make a living as a night-club magician. But seriously, don't let a Vigilante catch you doing that trick; he might get jumpy."

"One won't catch me," she assured me solemnly. I wondered about the verb. We went to the staff lounge and found a quiet place to talk. We did not order drinks; we did not seem to need such. We talked over the situation and found that each had been briefed. I did not tell Mary about my proposed assignment, and, if she had one, she did not mention it; we were back with the Section and indoctrinated habits are hard to break.

"Mary," I said suddenly, "are you pregnant?"

"It's too early to tell, dear," she answered, searching my eyes. "Do you want me to be?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll try very hard to be."

Chapter 26

We finally decided to attempt to penetrate the Curtain rather than Zone Red. The evaluation group had advised that there was no chance of impersonating a renegade; their advice would not have stopped the Old Man, but it agreed with his opinion and mine. The question hinged on, "How does a man get to be a renegade? Why do the titans trust him?"

The question answers itself; a slug knows its host's mind. Verbal guarantees would mean nothing to a titan-but if the titan, through once possessing a man's mind, knows that he is a natural renegade, a man who can be had, then it may suit the slug's purposes to let him be renegade rather than host. But first the slug had to plumb the vileness in the man's mind and be sure of its quality.

We did not know this as fact but as logical necessity. Human logic-but it had to be slug logic, too, since it fitted what the slugs could and could not do. As for me, it was not possible even under deep hypnotic instruction to pass myself off to a slug in possession of my mind as a candidate for renegade. So the psycho lads decided-and to which I said "Amen!"; it saved me from telling the Old Man that I would not volunteer to let myself be caught by a slug and it saved him from rigging some damned logical necessity which would force me into "volunteering".

It may seem illogical that titans would "free" a host even though they knew that the host was the sort who could be owned. But the advantages to them show up through analogy: the commissars will not willingly let any of their slave-citizens escape; nevertheless they send out thousands of fifth columnists into the territory of free men. Once outside, these agents can choose freedom and many do, but most of them don't-as we all know too well. They prefer slavery.

In the renegades the slugs had a supply of "trustworthy" fifth columnists-"trustworthy" is not the right word but the English language has no word for this form of vileness. That Zone Green was being penetrated by renegades was certain-but it is hard to tell a fifth columnist from a custard head; it always has been. The ratio of damn fools to villains is high.