Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
THE STOKER

   AND THE STARS

   BY JOHN A. SENTRY

  When
  you've had your ears pinned
 back in a bowknot, it's sometimes hard
 to remember that an intelligent people
 has no respect for a whipped enemy
 ... but does for a fairly beaten enemy.

   Illustrated by van Dongen

   Know
   him? Yes, I know
 him—

    knew

   him. That
 was twenty years ago.

   Everybody knows
 him now. Everybody
 who passed him on the street knows
 him. Everybody who went to the same
 schools, or even to different schools
 in different towns, knows him now.
 Ask them. But I knew him. I lived
 three feet away from him for a month
 and a half. I shipped with him and
 called him by his first name.

   What was he like? What was he
 thinking, sitting on the edge of his
 bunk with his jaw in his palm and
 his eyes on the stars? What did he
 think he was after?

   Well ... Well, I think he— You
 know, I think I never did know him,
 after all. Not well. Not as well as
 some of those people who're writing
 the books about him seem to.

   I couldn't really describe him to
 you. He had a duffelbag in his hand
 and a packed airsuit on his back. The
 skin of his face had been dried out
 by ship's air, burned by ultraviolet
 and broiled by infra red. The pupils
 of his eyes had little cloudy specks in
 them where the cosmic rays had shot
 through them. But his eyes were
 steady and his body was hard. What
 did he look like? He looked like a
 man.

   It was after the war, and we were
 beaten. There used to be a school of
 thought among us that deplored our
 combativeness; before we had ever
 met any people from off Earth, even,
 you could hear people saying we
 were toughest, cruelest life-form in
 the Universe, unfit to mingle with
 the gentler wiser races in the stars,
 and a sure bet to steal their galaxy
 and corrupt it forever. Where
 these people got their information, I
 don't know.

   We were beaten. We moved out
 beyond Centaurus, and Sirius, and
 then we met the Jeks, the Nosurwey,
 the Lud. We tried Terrestrial know-how,
 we tried Production Miracles,
 we tried patriotism, we tried damning
 the torpedoes and full speed
 ahead ... and we were smashed back
 like mayflies in the wind. We died in
 droves, and we retreated from the
 guttering fires of a dozen planets, we
 dug in, we fought through the last
 ditch, and we were dying on Earth
 itself before Baker mutinied, shot
 Cope, and surrendered the remainder
 of the human race to the wiser, gentler
 races in the stars. That way, we
 lived. That way, we were permitted
 to carry on our little concerns, and
 mind our manners. The Jeks and the
 Lud and the Nosurwey returned to
 their own affairs, and we knew they
 would leave us alone so long as we
 didn't bother them.

   We liked it that way. Understand
 me—we didn't accept it, we didn't
 knuckle under with waiting murder
 in our hearts—we

    liked

   it. We were
 grateful just to be left alone again.
 We were happy we hadn't been
 wiped out like the upstarts the rest
 of the Universe thought us to be.
 When they let us keep our own solar
 system and carry on a trickle of trade
 with the outside, we accepted it for
 the fantastically generous gift it was.
 Too many of our best men were dead
 for us to have any remaining claim
 on these things in our own right. I
 know how it was. I was there, twenty
 years ago. I was a little, pudgy
 man with short breath and a high-pitched
 voice. I was a typical Earthman.

   We were out on a God-forsaken
 landing field on Mars, MacReidie
 and I, loading cargo aboard the

    Serenus

   . MacReidie was First Officer.
 I was Second. The stranger came
 walking up to us.

   "Got a job?" he asked, looking at
 MacReidie.

   Mac looked him over. He saw the
 same things I'd seen. He shook his
 head. "Not for you. The only thing
 we're short on is stokers."

   You wouldn't know. There's no
 such thing as a stoker any more, with
 automatic ships. But the stranger
 knew what Mac meant.

    Serenus

   had what they called an
 electronic drive. She had to run with
 an evacuated engine room. The leaking
 electricity would have broken any
 stray air down to ozone, which eats
 metal and rots lungs. So the engine
 room had the air pumped out of her,
 and the stokers who tended the dials
 and set the cathode attitudes had to
 wear suits, smelling themselves for
 twelve hours at a time and standing
 a good chance of cooking where they
 sat when the drive arced.

    Serenus

   was
 an ugly old tub. At that, we were the
 better of the two interstellar freighters
 the human race had left.

   "You're bound over the border,
 aren't you?"

   MacReidie nodded. "That's right.
 But—"

   "I'll stoke."

   MacReidie looked over toward me
 and frowned. I shrugged my shoulders
 helplessly. I was a little afraid
 of the stranger, too.

   The trouble was the look of him.
 It was the look you saw in the bars
 back on Earth, where the veterans of
 the war sat and stared down into
 their glasses, waiting for night to
 fall so they could go out into the
 alleys and have drunken fights among
 themselves. But he had brought that
 look to Mars, to the landing field,
 and out here there was something
 disquieting about it.

   He'd caught Mac's look and turned
 his head to me. "I'll stoke," he repeated.

   I didn't know what to say. MacReidie
 and I—almost all of the men
 in the Merchant Marine—hadn't
 served in the combat arms. We had
 freighted supplies, and we had seen
 ships dying on the runs—we'd had
 our own brushes with commerce raiders,
 and we'd known enough men
 who joined the combat forces. But
 very few of the men came back, and
 the war this man had fought hadn't
 been the same as ours. He'd commanded
 a fighting ship, somewhere,
 and come to grips with things we
 simply didn't know about. The mark
 was on him, but not on us. I couldn't
 meet his eyes. "O.K. by me," I mumbled
 at last.

   I saw MacReidie's mouth turn
 down at the corners. But he couldn't
 gainsay the man any more than I
 could. MacReidie wasn't a mumbling
 man, so he said angrily: "O.K.,
 bucko, you'll stoke. Go and sign on."

   "Thanks." The stranger walked
 quietly away. He wrapped a hand
 around the cable on a cargo hook and
 rode into the hold on top of some
 freight. Mac spat on the ground and
 went back to supervising his end of
 the loading. I was busy with mine,
 and it wasn't until we'd gotten the

    Serenus

   loaded and buttoned up that
 Mac and I even spoke to each other
 again. Then we talked about the trip.
 We didn't talk about the stranger.

   Daniels, the Third, had signed him
 on and had moved him into the empty
 bunk above mine. We slept all in
 a bunch on the

    Serenus

   —officers and
 crew. Even so, we had to sleep in
 shifts, with the ship's designers giving
 ninety per cent of her space to
 cargo, and eight per cent to power
 and control. That left very little for
 the people, who were crammed in
 any way they could be. I said empty
 bunk. What I meant was, empty during
 my sleep shift. That meant he
 and I'd be sharing work shifts—me
 up in the control blister, parked in
 a soft chair, and him down in the
 engine room, broiling in a suit for
 twelve hours.

   But I ate with him, used the head
 with him; you can call that rubbing
 elbows with greatness, if you want to.

   He was a very quiet man. Quiet in
 the way he moved and talked. When
 we were both climbing into our
 bunks, that first night, I introduced
 myself and he introduced himself.
 Then he heaved himself into his
 bunk, rolled over on his side, fixed
 his straps, and fell asleep. He was
 always friendly toward me, but he
 must have been very tired that first
 night. I often wondered what kind
 of a life he'd lived after the war—what
 he'd done that made him different
 from the men who simply
 grew older in the bars. I wonder,
 now, if he really did do anything
 different. In an odd way, I like to
 think that one day, in a bar, on a
 day that seemed like all the rest to
 him when it began, he suddenly looked
 up with some new thought, put
 down his glass, and walked straight
 to the Earth-Mars shuttle field.

   He might have come from any
 town on Earth. Don't believe the historians
 too much. Don't pay too much
 attention to the Chamber of Commerce
 plaques. When a man's name
 becomes public property, strange
 things happen to the facts.

   It was MacReidie who first found
 out what he'd done during the war.

   I've got to explain about MacReidie.
 He takes his opinions fast
 and strong. He's a good man—is, or
 was; I haven't seen him for a long
 while—but he liked things simple.

   MacReidie said the duffelbag broke
 loose and floated into the middle of
 the bunkroom during acceleration.
 He opened it to see whose it was.
 When he found out, he closed it up
 and strapped it back in its place at
 the foot of the stoker's bunk.

   MacReidie was my relief on the
 bridge. When he came up, he didn't
 relieve me right away. He stood next
 to my chair and looked out through
 the ports.

   "Captain leave any special instructions
 in the Order Book?" he asked.

   "Just the usual. Keep a tight watch
 and proceed cautiously."

   "That new stoker," Mac said.

   "Yeah?"

   "I knew there was something
 wrong with him. He's got an old
 Marine uniform in his duffel."

   I didn't say anything. Mac glanced
 over at me. "Well?"

   "I don't know." I didn't.

   I couldn't say I was surprised. It
 had to be something like that, about
 the stoker. The mark was on him, as
 I've said.

   It was the Marines that did Earth's
 best dying. It had to be. They were
 trained to be the best we had, and
 they believed in their training. They
 were the ones who slashed back the
 deepest when the other side hit us.
 They were the ones who sallied out
 into the doomed spaces between the
 stars and took the war to the other
 side as well as any human force could
 ever hope to. They were always the
 last to leave an abandoned position.
 If Earth had been giving medals to
 members of her forces in the war,
 every man in the Corps would have
 had the Medal of Honor two and
 three times over. Posthumously. I
 don't believe there were ten of them
 left alive when Cope was shot. Cope
 was one of them. They were a kind
 of human being neither MacReidie
 nor I could hope to understand.

   "You don't know," Mac said. "It's
 there. In his duffel. Damn it, we're
 going out to trade with his sworn
 enemies! Why do you suppose he
 wanted to sign on? Why do you suppose
 he's so eager to go!"

   "You think he's going to try to
 start something?"

   "Think! That's exactly what he's
 going for. One last big alley fight.
 One last brawl. When they cut him
 down—do you suppose they'll stop
 with him? They'll kill us, and then
 they'll go in and stamp Earth flat!
 You know it as well as I do."

   "I don't know, Mac," I said. "Go
 easy." I could feel the knots in my
 stomach. I didn't want any trouble.
 Not from the stoker, not from Mac.
 None of us wanted trouble—not
 even Mac, but he'd cause it to get
 rid of it, if you follow what I mean
 about his kind of man.

   Mac hit the viewport with his fist.
 "Easy! Easy—nothing's easy. I hate
 this life," he said in a murderous
 voice. "I don't know why I keep
 signing on. Mars to Centaurus and
 back, back and forth, in an old rust
 tub that's going to blow herself up
 one of these—"

   Daniels called me on the phone
 from Communications. "Turn up
 your Intercom volume," he said.
 "The stoker's jamming the circuit."

   I kicked the selector switch over,
 and this is what I got:

   "

    —so there we were at a million
 per, and the air was gettin' thick. The
 Skipper says 'Cheer up, brave boys,
 we'll—'

   "

   He was singing. He had a terrible
 voice, but he could carry a tune, and
 he was hammering it out at the top
 of his lungs.

   "

    Twas the last cruise of the

   Venus,

    by God you should of seen us! The
 pipes were full of whisky, and just
 to make things risky, the jets
 were ...

   "

   The crew were chuckling into their
 own chest phones. I could hear Daniels
 trying to cut him off. But he
 kept going. I started laughing myself.
 No one's supposed to jam an
 intercom, but it made the crew feel
 good. When the crew feels good, the
 ship runs right, and it had been a
 long time since they'd been happy.

   He went on for another twenty
 minutes. Then his voice thinned out,
 and I heard him cough a little.
 "Daniels," he said, "get a relief
 down here for me.

    Jump to it!

   " He
 said the last part in a Master's voice.
 Daniels didn't ask questions. He sent
 a man on his way down.

   He'd been singing, the stoker had.
 He'd been singing while he worked
 with one arm dead, one sleeve ripped
 open and badly patched because the
 fabric was slippery with blood.
 There'd been a flashover in the drivers.
 By the time his relief got down
 there, he had the insulation back on,
 and the drive was purring along the
 way it should have been. It hadn't
 even missed a beat.

   He went down to sick bay, got the
 arm wrapped, and would have gone
 back on shift if Daniels'd let him.

   Those of us who were going off
 shift found him toying with the
 theremin in the mess compartment.
 He didn't know how to play it, and
 it sounded like a dog howling.

   "Sing, will you!" somebody yelled.
 He grinned and went back to the
 "Good Ship

    Venus

   ." It wasn't good,
 but it was loud. From that, we went
 to "Starways, Farways, and Barways,"
 and "The Freefall Song." Somebody
 started "I Left Her Behind For You,"
 and that got us off into sentimental
 things, the way these sessions would
 sometimes wind up when spacemen
 were far from home. But not since
 the war, we all seemed to realize together.
 We stopped, and looked at
 each other, and we all began drifting
 out of the mess compartment.

   And maybe it got to him, too. It
 may explain something. He and I
 were the last to leave. We went to
 the bunkroom, and he stopped in the
 middle of taking off his shirt. He
 stood there, looking out the porthole,
 and forgot I was there. I heard him
 reciting something, softly, under his
 breath, and I stepped a little closer.
 This is what it was:

  "

   The rockets rise against the skies,

   Slowly; in sunlight gleaming

   With silver hue upon the blue.

   And the universe waits, dreaming.

  "

   For men must go where the flame-winds blow,

   The gas clouds softly plaiting;

   Where stars are spun and worlds begun,

   And men will find them waiting.

  "

   The song that roars where the rocket soars

   Is the song of the stellar flame;

   The dreams of Man and galactic span

   Are equal and much the same.

  "

   What was he thinking of? Make
 your own choice. I think I came close
 to knowing him, at that moment, but
 until human beings turn telepath, no
 man can be sure of another.

   He shook himself like a dog out
 of cold water, and got into his bunk.
 I got into mine, and after a while
 I fell asleep.

   I don't know what MacReidie may
 have told the skipper about the stoker,
 or if he tried to tell him anything.
 The captain was the senior ticket
 holder in the Merchant Service, and
 a good man, in his day. He kept
 mostly to his cabin. And there was
 nothing MacReidie could do on his
 own authority—nothing simple, that
 is. And the stoker had saved the
 ship, and ...

   I think what kept anything from
 happening between MacReidie and
 the stoker, or anyone else and the
 stoker, was that it would have meant
 trouble in the ship. Trouble, confined
 to our little percentage of the ship's
 volume, could seem like something
 much more important than the fate
 of the human race. It may not seem
 that way to you. But as long as no
 one began anything, we could all get
 along. We could have a good trip.

   MacReidie worried, I'm sure. I
 worried, sometimes. But nothing
 happened.

   When we reached Alpha Centaurus,
 and set down at the trading field
 on the second planet, it was the same
 as the other trips we'd made, and the
 same kind of landfall. The Lud factor
 came out of his post after we'd
 waited for a while, and gave us our
 permit to disembark. There was a Jek
 ship at the other end of the field,
 loaded with the cargo we would get
 in exchange for our holdful of
 goods. We had the usual things;
 wine, music tapes, furs, and the like.
 The Jeks had been giving us light
 machinery lately—probably we'd get
 two or three more loads, and then
 they'd begin giving us something
 else.

   But I found that this trip wasn't
 quite the same. I found myself looking
 at the factor's post, and I realized
 for the first time that the Lud hadn't
 built it. It was a leftover from the
 old colonial human government. And
 the city on the horizon—men had
 built it; the touch of our architecture
 was on every building. I wondered
 why it had never occurred to me that
 this was so. It made the landfall different
 from all the others, somehow.
 It gave a new face to the entire
 planet.

   Mac and I and some of the other
 crewmen went down on the field to
 handle the unloading. Jeks on self-propelled
 cargo lifts jockeyed among
 us, scooping up the loads as we unhooked
 the slings, bringing cases of
 machinery from their own ship. They
 sat atop their vehicles, lean and
 aloof, dashing in, whirling, shooting
 across the field to their ship and
 back like wild horsemen on the plains
 of Earth, paying us no notice.

   We were almost through when
 Mac suddenly grabbed my arm.
 "Look!"

   The stoker was coming down on
 one of the cargo slings. He stood
 upright, his booted feet planted wide,
 one arm curled up over his head and
 around the hoist cable. He was in his
 dusty brown Marine uniform, the
 scarlet collar tabs bright as blood at
 his throat, his major's insignia glittering
 at his shoulders, the battle
 stripes on his sleeves.

   The Jeks stopped their lifts. They
 knew that uniform. They sat up in
 their saddles and watched him come
 down. When the sling touched the
 ground, he jumped off quietly and
 walked toward the nearest Jek. They
 all followed him with their eyes.

   "We've got to stop him," Mac
 said, and both of us started toward
 him. His hands were both in plain
 sight, one holding his duffelbag,
 which was swelled out with the bulk
 of his airsuit. He wasn't carrying a
 weapon of any kind. He was walking
 casually, taking his time.

   Mac and I had almost reached him
 when a Jek with insignia on his
 coveralls suddenly jumped down
 from his lift and came forward to
 meet him. It was an odd thing to
 see—the stoker, and the Jek, who
 did not stand as tall. MacReidie and
 I stepped back.

   The Jek was coal black, his scales
 glittering in the cold sunlight, his
 hatchet-face inscrutable. He stopped
 when the stoker was a few paces
 away. The stoker stopped, too. All
 the Jeks were watching him and paying
 no attention to anything else. The
 field might as well have been empty
 except for those two.

   "They'll kill him. They'll kill him
 right now," MacReidie whispered.

   They ought to have. If I'd been
 a Jek, I would have thought that uniform
 was a death warrant. But the
 Jek spoke to him:

   "Are you entitled to wear that?"

   "I was at this planet in '39. I was
 closer to your home world the year
 before that," the stoker said. "I was
 captain of a destroyer. If I'd had a
 cruiser's range, I would have reached
 it." He looked at the Jek. "Where
 were you?"

   "I was here when you were."

   "I want to speak to your ship's
 captain."

   "All right. I'll drive you over."

   The stoker nodded, and they walked
 over to his vehicle together. They
 drove away, toward the Jek ship.

   "All right, let's get back to work,"
 another Jek said to MacReidie and
 myself, and we went back to unloading
 cargo.

   The stoker came back to our ship
 that night, without his duffelbag. He
 found me and said:

   "I'm signing off the ship. Going
 with the Jeks."

   MacReidie was with me. He said
 loudly: "What do you mean, you're
 going with the Jeks?"

   "I signed on their ship," the stoker
 said. "Stoking. They've got a micro-nuclear
 drive. It's been a while since
 I worked with one, but I think I'll
 make out all right, even with the
 screwball way they've got it set up."

   "Huh?"

   The stoker shrugged. "Ships are
 ships, and physics is physics, no matter
 where you go. I'll make out."

   "What kind of a deal did you
 make with them? What do you think
 you're up to?"

   The stoker shook his head. "No
 deal. I signed on as a crewman. I'll
 do a crewman's work for a crewman's
 wages. I thought I'd wander around a
 while. It ought to be interesting," he
 said.

   "On a Jek ship."

   "Anybody's ship. When I get to
 their home world, I'll probably ship
 out with some people from farther
 on. Why not? It's honest work."

   MacReidie had no answer to that.

   "But—" I said.

   "What?" He looked at me as if
 he couldn't understand what might
 be bothering me, but I think perhaps
 he could.

   "Nothing," I said, and that was
 that, except MacReidie was always a
 sourer man from that time up to as
 long as I knew him afterwards. We
 took off in the morning. The stoker
 had already left on the Jek ship, and
 it turned out he'd trained an apprentice
 boy to take his place.

   It was strange how things became
 different for us, little by little after
 that. It was never anything you could
 put your finger on, but the Jeks began
 taking more goods, and giving us
 things we needed when we told them
 we wanted them. After a while,

    Serenus

   was going a little deeper into
 Jek territory, and when she wore out,
 the two replacements let us trade with
 the Lud, too. Then it was the Nosurwey,
 and other people beyond them,
 and things just got better for us,
 somehow.

   We heard about our stoker, occasionally.
 He shipped with the Lud,
 and the Nosurwey, and some people
 beyond them, getting along, going to
 all kinds of places. Pay no attention
 to the precise red lines you see on the
 star maps; nobody knows exactly
 what path he wandered from people
 to people. Nobody could. He just
 kept signing on with whatever ship
 was going deeper into the galaxy,
 going farther and farther. He messed
 with green shipmates and blue ones.
 One and two and three heads, tails,
 six legs—after all, ships are ships
 and they've all got to have something
 to push them along. If a man knows
 his business, why not? A man can
 live on all kinds of food, if he wants
 to get used to it. And any nontoxic
 atmosphere will do, as long as there's
 enough oxygen in it.

   I don't know what he did, to make
 things so much better for us. I don't
 know if he did anything, but stoke
 their ships and, I suppose, fix them
 when they were in trouble. I wonder
 if he sang dirty songs in that bad
 voice of his, to people who couldn't
 possibly understand what the songs
 were about. All I know is, for some
 reason those people slowly began
 treating us with respect. We changed,
 too, I think—I'm not the same man
 I was ... I think—not altogether
 the same; I'm a captain now, with
 master's papers, and you won't find
 me in my cabin very often ... there's
 a kind of joy in standing on a bridge,
 looking out at the stars you're moving
 toward. I wonder if it mightn't
 have kept my old captain out of that
 place he died in, finally, if he'd tried
 it.

   So, I don't know. The older I get,
 the less I know. The thing people remember
 the stoker for—the thing
 that makes him famous, and, I think,
 annoys him—I'm fairly sure is only
 incidental to what he really did. If he
 did anything. If he meant to. I wish
 I could be sure of the exact answer
 he found in the bottom of that last
 glass at the bar before he worked his
 passage to Mars and the

    Serenus

   , and
 began it all.

   So, I can't say what he ought to be
 famous for. But I suppose it's enough
 to know for sure that he was the first
 living being ever to travel all the way
 around the galaxy.

   THE END

   Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from

   Astounding Science Fiction

  February
 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
 copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
 typographical errors have been corrected without note.

Question and Possible Answers:
What is a theme of the story?

 (A) Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
 (B) War changes people.
 (C) The effects of war last through generations.
 (D) Simple actions can mend deep conflict.

Answer:

Output: D


Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from

   The Counterfeit Man More Science Fiction
 Stories by Alan E. Nourse

  published in 1963. Extensive research did
 not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was
 renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected
 without note.

   Meeting

   of the

   Board

   It
   was going to be a bad day. As he pushed his way nervously
 through the crowds toward the Exit Strip, Walter Towne
 turned the dismal prospect over and over in his mind. The
 potential gloominess of this particular day had descended upon
 him the instant the morning buzzer had gone off, making it
 even more tempting than usual just to roll over and forget
 about it all. Twenty minutes later, the water-douse came to
 drag him, drenched and gurgling, back to the cruel cold world.
 He had wolfed down his morning Koffee-Kup with one eye
 on the clock and one eye on his growing sense of impending
 crisis. And now, to make things just a trifle worse, he was
 going to be late again.

   He struggled doggedly across the rumbling Exit strip toward
 the plant entrance. After all, he told himself, why should he be
 so upset? He

    was

   Vice President-in-Charge-of-Production of
 the Robling Titanium Corporation. What could they do to
 him, really? He had rehearsed

    his

   part many times, squaring
 his thin shoulders, looking the union boss straight in the eye
 and saying, "Now, see here, Torkleson—" But he knew, when
 the showdown came, that he wouldn't say any such thing. And
 this was the morning that the showdown would come.

   Oh, not because of the

    lateness

   . Of course Bailey, the shop
 steward, would take his usual delight in bringing that up. But
 this seemed hardly worthy of concern this morning. The reports
 waiting on his desk were what worried him. The sales
 reports. The promotion-draw reports. The royalty reports. The
 anticipated dividend reports. Walter shook his head wearily.
 The shop steward was a goad, annoying, perhaps even infuriating,
 but tolerable. Torkleson was a different matter.

   He pulled his worn overcoat down over frayed shirt sleeves,
 and tried vainly to straighten the celluloid collar that kept
 scooting his tie up under his ear. Once off the moving strip, he
 started up the Robling corridor toward the plant gate. Perhaps
 he would be fortunate. Maybe the reports would be late.
 Maybe his secretary's two neurones would fail to synapse this
 morning, and she'd lose them altogether. And, as long as he
 was dreaming, maybe Bailey would break his neck on the way
 to work. He walked quickly past the workers' lounge, glancing
 in at the groups of men, arguing politics and checking the
 stock market reports before they changed from their neat gray
 business suits to their welding dungarees. Running up the
 stairs to the administrative wing, he paused outside the door
 to punch the time clock. 8:04. Damn. If only Bailey could be
 sick—

   Bailey was not sick. The administrative offices were humming
 with frantic activity as Walter glanced down the rows
 of cubbyholes. In the middle of it all sat Bailey, in his black-and-yellow
 checkered tattersall, smoking a large cigar. His
 feet were planted on his desk top, but he hadn't started on his
 morning Western yet. He was busy glaring, first at the clock,
 then at Walter.

   "Late again, I see," the shop steward growled.

   Walter gulped. "Yes, sir. Just four minutes, this time, sir.
 You know those crowded strips—"

   "So it's

    just

   four minutes now, eh?" Bailey's feet came down
 with a crash. "After last month's fine production record, you
 think four minutes doesn't matter, eh? Think just because
 you're a vice president it's all right to mosey in here whenever
 you feel like it." He glowered. "Well, this is three times this
 month you've been late, Towne. That's a demerit for each
 time, and you know what that means."

   "You wouldn't count four minutes as a whole demerit!"

   Bailey grinned. "Wouldn't I, now! You just add up your
 pay envelope on Friday. Ten cents an hour off for each
 demerit."

   Walter sighed and shuffled back to his desk. Oh, well. It
 could have been worse. They might have fired him like poor
 Cartwright last month. He'd just

    have

   to listen to that morning
 buzzer.

   The reports were on his desk. He picked them up warily.
 Maybe they wouldn't be so bad. He'd had more freedom this
 last month than before, maybe there'd been a policy change.
 Maybe Torkleson was gaining confidence in him. Maybe—

   The reports were worse than he had ever dreamed.

   "

    Towne!

   "

   Walter jumped a foot. Bailey was putting down the visiphone
 receiver. His grin spread unpleasantly from ear to ear.
 "What have you been doing lately? Sabotaging the production
 line?"

   "What's the trouble now?"

   Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The
 boss wants to see you. And you'd better have the right answers,
 too. The boss seems to have a lot of questions."

   Walter rose slowly from his seat. This was it, then. Torkleson
 had already seen the reports. He started for the door, his
 knees shaking.

   It hadn't always been like this, he reflected miserably.
 Time was when things had been very different. It had

    meant

   something to be vice president of a huge industrial firm like
 Robling Titanium. A man could have had a fine house of
 his own, and a 'copter-car, and belong to the Country Club;
 maybe even have a cottage on a lake somewhere.

   Walter could almost remember those days with Robling,
 before the switchover, before that black day when the exchange
 of ten little shares of stock had thrown the Robling
 Titanium Corporation into the hands of strange and unnatural
 owners.

   The door was of heavy stained oak, with bold letters edged
 in gold:

   TITANIUM WORKERS

   OF AMERICA

   Amalgamated Locals

   Daniel P. Torkleson, Secretary

   The secretary flipped down the desk switch and eyed Walter
 with pity. "Mr. Torkleson will see you."

   Walter pushed through the door into the long, handsome
 office. For an instant he felt a pang of nostalgia—the floor-to-ceiling
 windows looking out across the long buildings of the
 Robling plant, the pine paneling, the broad expanse of desk—

   "Well? Don't just stand there. Shut the door and come over
 here." The man behind the desk hoisted his three hundred
 well-dressed pounds and glared at Walter from under flagrant
 eyebrows. Torkleson's whole body quivered as he slammed
 a sheaf of papers down on the desk. "Just what do you think
 you're doing with this company, Towne?"

   Walter swallowed. "I'm production manager of the corporation."

   "And just what does the production manager

    do

   all day?"

   Walter reddened. "He organizes the work of the plant, establishes
 production lines, works with Promotion and Sales,
 integrates Research and Development, operates the planning
 machines."

   "And you think you do a pretty good job of it, eh? Even
 asked for a raise last year!" Torkleson's voice was dangerous.

   Walter spread his hands. "I do my best. I've been doing it
 for thirty years. I should know what I'm doing."

   "

    Then how do you explain these reports?

   " Torkleson threw
 the heap of papers into Walter's arms, and paced up and down
 behind the desk. "

    Look

   at them! Sales at rock bottom. Receipts
 impossible. Big orders canceled. The worst reports in
 seven years, and you say you know your job!"

   "I've been doing everything I could," Walter snapped. "Of
 course the reports are bad, they couldn't help but be. We
 haven't met a production schedule in over two years. No plant
 can keep up production the way the men are working."

   Torkleson's face darkened. He leaned forward slowly. "So
 it's the

    men

   now, is it? Go ahead. Tell me what's wrong with
 the men."

   "Nothing's wrong with the men—if they'd only work. But
 they come in when they please, and leave when they please,
 and spend half their time changing and the other half on
 Koffee-Kup. No company could survive this. But that's only
 half of it—" Walter searched through the reports frantically.
 "This International Jet Transport account—they dropped us
 because we haven't had a new engine in six years. Why? Because
 Research and Development hasn't had any money for
 six years. What can two starved engineers and a second rate
 chemist drag out of an attic laboratory for competition in the
 titanium market?" Walter took a deep breath. "I've warned
 you time and again. Robling had built up accounts over the
 years with fine products and new models. But since the switchover
 seven years ago, you and your board have forced me to
 play the cheap products for the quick profit in order to give
 your men their dividends. Now the bottom's dropped out. We
 couldn't turn a quick profit on the big, important accounts, so
 we had to cancel them. If you had let me manage the company
 the way it should have been run—"

   Torkleson had been slowly turning purple. Now he slammed
 his fist down on the desk. "We should just turn the company
 back to Management again, eh? Just let you have a free hand
 to rob us blind again. Well, it won't work, Towne. Not while
 I'm secretary of this union. We fought long and hard for control
 of this corporation, just the way all the other unions did.
 I know. I was through it all." He sat back smugly, his cheeks
 quivering with emotion. "You might say that I was a national
 leader in the movement. But I did it only for the men. The
 men want their dividends. They own the stock, stock is supposed
 to pay dividends."

   "But they're cutting their own throats," Walter wailed.
 "You can't build a company and make it grow the way I've
 been forced to run it."

   "Details!" Torkleson snorted. "I don't care

    how

   the dividends
 come in. That's your job. My job is to report a dividend
 every six months to the men who own the stock, the men working
 on the production lines."

   Walter nodded bitterly. "And every year the dividend has
 to be higher than the last, or you and your fat friends are
 likely to be thrown out of your jobs—right? No more steaks
 every night. No more private gold-plated Buicks for you boys.
 No more twenty-room mansions in Westchester. No more big
 game hunting in the Rockies. No, you don't have to know
 anything but how to whip a board meeting into a frenzy so
 they'll vote you into office again each year."

   Torkleson's eyes glittered. His voice was very soft. "I've always
 liked you, Walter. So I'm going to pretend I didn't hear
 you." He paused, then continued. "But here on my desk is a
 small bit of white paper. Unless you have my signature on
 that paper on the first of next month, you are out of a job,
 on grounds of incompetence. And I will personally see that
 you go on every White list in the country."

   Walter felt the fight go out of him like a dying wind. He
 knew what the White list meant. No job, anywhere, ever, in
 management. No chance, ever, to join a union. No more
 house, no more weekly pay envelope. He spread his hands
 weakly. "What do you want?" he asked.

   "I want a production plan on my desk within twenty-four
 hours. A plan that will guarantee me a five per cent increase
 in dividends in the next six months. And you'd better move
 fast, because I'm not fooling."

   Back in his cubbyhole downstairs, Walter stared hopelessly
 at the reports. He had known it would come to this sooner or
 later. They all knew it—Hendricks of Promotion, Pendleton
 of Sales, the whole managerial staff.

   It was wrong, all the way down the line. Walter had
 fought it tooth and nail since the day Torkleson had installed
 the moose heads in Walter's old office, and moved him down
 to the cubbyhole, under Bailey's watchful eye. He had argued,
 and battled, and pleaded, and lost. He had watched the company
 deteriorate day by day. Now they blamed him, and
 threatened his job, and he was helpless to do anything about it.

   He stared at the machines, clicking busily against the wall.
 An idea began to form in his head. Helpless?

   Not quite. Not if the others could see it, go along with it.
 It was a repugnant idea. But there was one thing they could
 do that even Torkleson and his fat-jowled crew would understand.

   They could go on strike.

   "It's ridiculous," the lawyer spluttered, staring at the circle
 of men in the room. "How can I give you an opinion on the
 legality of the thing? There isn't any legal precedent that I
 know of." He mopped his bald head with a large white handkerchief.
 "There just hasn't

    been

   a case of a company's management
 striking against its own labor. It—it isn't done. Oh,
 there have been lockouts, but this isn't the same thing at all."

   Walter nodded. "Well, we couldn't very well lock the men
 out, they own the plant. We were thinking more of a lock-

    in

   sort of thing." He turned to Paul Hendricks and the others.
 "We know how the machines operate. They don't. We also
 know that the data we keep in the machines is essential to
 running the business; the machines figure production quotas,
 organize blueprints, prepare distribution lists, test promotion
 schemes. It would take an office full of managerial experts to
 handle even a single phase of the work without the machines."

   The man at the window hissed, and Pendleton quickly
 snapped out the lights. They sat in darkness, hardly daring to
 breathe. Then: "Okay. Just the man next door coming home."

   Pendleton sighed. "You're sure you didn't let them suspect
 anything, Walter? They wouldn't be watching the house?"

   "I don't think so. And you all came alone, at different
 times." He nodded to the window guard, and turned back to
 the lawyer. "So we can't be sure of the legal end. You'd have
 to be on your toes."

   "I still don't see how we could work it," Hendricks objected.
 His heavy face was wrinkled with worry. "Torkleson is no
 fool, and he has a lot of power in the National Association of
 Union Stockholders. All he'd need to do is ask for managers,
 and a dozen companies would throw them to him on loan.
 They'd be able to figure out the machine system and take over
 without losing a day."

   "Not quite." Walter was grinning. "That's why I spoke of
 a lock-in. Before we leave, we throw the machines into feedback,
 every one of them. Lock them into reverberating circuits
 with a code sequence key. Then all they'll do is buzz and sputter
 until the feedback is broken with the key. And the key is
 our secret. It'll tie the Robling office into granny knots, and
 scabs won't be able to get any more data out of the machines
 than Torkleson could. With a lawyer to handle injunctions,
 we've got them strapped."

   "For what?" asked the lawyer.

   Walter turned on him sharply. "For new contracts. Contracts
 to let us manage the company the way it should be managed.
 If they won't do it, they won't get another Titanium
 product off their production lines for the rest of the year, and
 their dividends will

    really

   take a nosedive."

   "That means you'll have to beat Torkleson," said Bates.
 "He'll never go along."

   "Then he'll be left behind."

   Hendricks stood up, brushing off his dungarees. "I'm with
 you, Walter. I've taken all of Torkleson that I want to. And
 I'm sick of the junk we've been trying to sell people."

   The others nodded. Walter rubbed his hands together. "All
 right. Tomorrow we work as usual, until the noon whistle.
 When we go off for lunch, we throw the machines into lock-step.
 Then we just don't come back. But the big thing is to
 keep it quiet until the noon whistle." He turned to the lawyer.
 "Are you with us, Jeff?"

   Jeff Bates shook his head sadly. "I'm with you. I don't know
 why, you haven't got a leg to stand on. But if you want to
 commit suicide, that's all right with me." He picked up his
 briefcase, and started for the door. "I'll have your contract
 demands by tomorrow," he grinned. "See you at the lynching."

   They got down to the details of planning.

   The news hit the afternoon telecasts the following day.
 Headlines screamed:

   MANAGEMENT SABOTAGES ROBLING MACHINES

   OFFICE STRIKERS THREATEN LABOR ECONOMY

   ROBLING LOCK-IN CREATES PANDEMONIUM

   There was a long, indignant statement from Daniel P.
 Torkleson, condemning Towne and his followers for "flagrant
 violation of management contracts and illegal fouling of managerial
 processes." Ben Starkey, President of the Board of
 American Steel, expressed "shock and regret"; the Amalgamated
 Buttonhole Makers held a mass meeting in protest, demanding
 that "the instigators of this unprecedented crime be
 permanently barred from positions in American Industry."

   In Washington, the nation's economists were more cautious
 in their views. Yes, it

    was

   an unprecedented action. Yes, there
 would undoubtedly be repercussions—many industries were
 having managerial troubles; but as for long term effects, it was
 difficult to say just at present.

   On the Robling production lines the workmen blinked at
 each other, and at their machines, and wondered vaguely what
 it was all about.

   Yet in all the upheaval, there was very little expression of
 surprise. Step by step, through the years, economists had been
 watching with wary eyes the growing movement toward union,
 control of industry. Even as far back as the '40's and '50's
 unions, finding themselves oppressed with the administration
 of growing sums of money—pension funds, welfare funds,
 medical insurance funds, accruing union dues—had begun investing
 in corporate stock. It was no news to them that money
 could make money. And what stock more logical to buy than
 stock in their own companies?

   At first it had been a quiet movement. One by one the
 smaller firms had tottered, bled drier and drier by increasing
 production costs, increasing labor demands, and an ever-dwindling
 margin of profit. One by one they had seen their
 stocks tottering as they faced bankruptcy, only to be gobbled
 up by the one ready buyer with plenty of funds to buy with.
 At first, changes had been small and insignificant: boards of
 directors shifted; the men were paid higher wages and worked
 shorter hours; there were tighter management policies; and
 a little less money was spent on extras like Research and
 Development.

   At first—until that fateful night when Daniel P. Torkleson
 of TWA and Jake Squill of Amalgamated Buttonhole Makers
 spent a long evening with beer and cigars in a hotel room, and
 floated the loan that threw steel to the unions. Oil had followed
 with hardly a fight, and as the unions began to feel their oats,
 the changes grew more radical.

   Walter Towne remembered those stormy days well. The
 gradual undercutting of the managerial salaries, the tightening
 up of inter-union collusion to establish the infamous White
 list of Recalcitrant Managers. The shift from hourly wage to
 annual salary for the factory workers, and the change to the
 other pole for the managerial staff. And then, with creeping
 malignancy, the hungry howling of the union bosses for more
 and higher dividends, year after year, moving steadily toward
 the inevitable crisis.

   Until Shop Steward Bailey suddenly found himself in charge
 of a dozen sputtering machines and an empty office.

   Torkleson was waiting to see the shop steward when he
 came in next morning. The union boss's office was crowded
 with TV cameras, newsmen, and puzzled workmen. The floor
 was littered with piles of ominous-looking paper. Torkleson
 was shouting into a telephone, and three lawyers were shouting
 into Torkleson's ear. He spotted Bailey and waved him through
 the crowd into an inner office room. "Well? Did they get them
 fixed?"

   Bailey spread his hands nervously. "The electronics boys
 have been at it since yesterday afternoon. Practically had the
 machines apart on the floor."

   "I know that, stupid," Torkleson roared. "I ordered them
 there. Did they get the machines

    fixed

   ?"

   "Uh—well, no, as a matter of fact—"

   "Well,

    what's holding them up

   ?"

   Bailey's face was a study in misery. "The machines just go
 in circles. The circuits are locked. They just reverberate."

   "Then call American Electronics. Have them send down an
 expert crew."

   Bailey shook his head. "They won't come."

   "They

    what

   ?"

   "They said thanks, but no thanks. They don't want their
 fingers in this pie at all."

   "Wait until I get O'Gilvy on the phone."

   "It won't do any good, sir. They've got their own management
 troubles. They're scared silly of a sympathy strike."

   The door burst open, and a lawyer stuck his head in. "What
 about those injunctions, Dan?"

   "Get them moving," Torkleson howled. "They'll start those
 machines again, or I'll have them in jail so fast—" He turned
 back to Bailey. "What about the production lines?"

   The shop steward's face lighted. "They slipped up, there.
 There was one program that hadn't been coded into the machines
 yet. Just a minor item, but it's a starter. We found it in
 Towne's desk, blueprints all ready, promotion all planned."

   "Good, good," Torkleson breathed. "I have a directors'
 meeting right now, have to get the workers quieted down a
 bit. You put the program through, and give those electronics
 men three more hours to unsnarl this knot, or we throw them
 out of the union." He started for the door. "What were the
 blueprints for?"

   "Trash cans," said Bailey. "Pure titanium-steel trash cans."

   It took Robling Titanium approximately two days to convert
 its entire production line to titanium-steel trash cans. With the
 total resources of the giant plant behind the effort, production
 was phenomenal. In two more days the available markets were
 glutted. Within two weeks, at a conservative estimate, there
 would be a titanium-steel trash can for every man, woman,
 child, and hound dog on the North American continent. The
 jet engines, structural steels, tubing, and other pre-strike products
 piled up in the freight yards, their routing slips and order
 requisitions tied up in the reverberating machines.

   But the machines continued to buzz and sputter.

   The workers grew restive. From the first day, Towne and
 Hendricks and all the others had been picketing the plant,
 until angry crowds of workers had driven them off with shotguns.
 Then they came back in an old, weatherbeaten 'copter
 which hovered over the plant entrance carrying a banner with
 a plaintive message:
   robling titanium unfair to management
   .
 Tomatoes were hurled, fists were shaken, but the 'copter
 remained.

   The third day, Jeff Bates was served with an injunction ordering
 Towne to return to work. It was duly appealed, legal
 machinery began tying itself in knots, and the strikers still
 struck. By the fifth day there was a more serious note.

   "You're going to have to appear, Walter. We can't dodge
 this one."

   "When?"

   "Tomorrow morning. And before a labor-rigged judge, too."
 The little lawyer paced his office nervously. "I don't like it.
 Torkleson's getting desperate. The workers are putting pressure
 on him."

   Walter grinned. "Then Pendleton is doing a good job of
 selling."

   "But you haven't got

    time

   ," the lawyer wailed. "They'll have
 you in jail if you don't start the machines again. They may
 have you in jail if you

    do

   start them, too, but that's another
 bridge. Right now they want those machines going again."

   "We'll see," said Walter. "What time tomorrow?"

   "Ten o'clock." Bates looked up. "And don't try to skip.
 You be there, because

    I

   don't know what to tell them."

   Walter was there a half hour early. Torkleson's legal staff
 glowered from across the room. The judge glowered from
 the bench. Walter closed his eyes with a little smile as the
 charges were read: "—breach of contract, malicious mischief,
 sabotage of the company's machines, conspiring to destroy the
 livelihood of ten thousand workers. Your Honor, we are preparing
 briefs to prove further that these men have formed a
 conspiracy to undermine the economy of the entire nation.
 We appeal to the spirit of orderly justice—"

   Walter yawned as the words went on.

   "Of course, if the defendant will waive his appeals against
 the previous injunctions, and will release the machines that
 were sabotaged, we will be happy to formally withdraw these
 charges."

   There was a rustle of sound through the courtroom. His
 Honor turned to Jeff Bates. "Are you counsel for the defendant?"

   "Yes, sir." Bates mopped his bald scalp. "The defendant
 pleads guilty to all counts."

   The union lawyer dropped his glasses on the table with a
 crash. The judge stared. "Mr. Bates, if you plead guilty, you
 leave me no alternative—"

   "—but to send me to jail," said Walter Towne. "Go ahead.
 Send me to jail. In fact, I

    insist

   upon going to jail."

   The union lawyer's jaw sagged. There was a hurried conference.
 A recess was pleaded. Telephones buzzed. Then:
 "Your Honor, the plaintiff desires to withdraw all charges at
 this time."

   "Objection," Bates exclaimed. "We've already pleaded."

   "—feel sure that a settlement can be effected out of court—"

   The case was thrown out on its ear.

   And still the machines sputtered.

   Back at the plant rumor had it that the machines were permanently
 gutted, and that the plant could never go back into
 production. Conflicting scuttlebutt suggested that persons high
 in uniondom had perpetrated the crisis deliberately, bullying
 Management into the strike for the sole purpose of cutting current
 dividends and selling stock to themselves cheaply. The
 rumors grew easier and easier to believe. The workers came
 to the plants in business suits, it was true, and lounged in the
 finest of lounges, and read the

    Wall Street Journal

   , and felt like
 stockholders. But to face facts, their salaries were not the
 highest. Deduct union dues, pension fees, medical insurance
 fees, and sundry other little items which had formerly been
 paid by well-to-do managements, and very little was left but
 the semi-annual dividend checks. And now the dividends were
 tottering.

   Production lines slowed. There were daily brawls on the
 plant floor, in the lounge and locker rooms. Workers began
 joking about the trash cans; then the humor grew more and
 more remote. Finally, late in the afternoon of the eighth day,
 Bailey was once again in Torkleson's office.

   "Well? Speak up! What's the beef this time?"

   "Sir—the men—I mean, there's been some nasty talk.
 They're tired of making trash cans. No challenge in it. Anyway,
 the stock room is full, and the freight yard is full, and
 the last run of orders we sent out came back because nobody
 wants any more trash cans." Bailey shook his head. "The men
 won't swallow it any more. There's—well, there's been talk
 about having a board meeting."

   Torkleson's ruddy cheeks paled. "Board meeting, huh?"
 He licked his heavy lips. "Now look, Bailey, we've always
 worked well together. I consider you a good friend of mine.
 You've got to get things under control. Tell the men we're
 making progress. Tell them Management is beginning to
 weaken from its original stand. Tell them we expect to have
 the strike broken in another few hours. Tell them anything."

   He waited until Bailey was gone. Then, with a trembling
 hand he lifted the visiphone receiver. "Get me Walter Towne,"
 he said.

   "I'm not an unreasonable man," Torkleson was saying
 miserably, waving his fat paws in the air as he paced back and
 forth in front of the spokesmen for the striking managers.
 "Perhaps we were a little demanding, I concede it! Overenthusiastic
 with our ownership, and all that. But I'm sure we
 can come to some agreement. A hike in wage scale is certainly
 within reason. Perhaps we can even arrange for better company
 houses."

   Walter Towne stifled a yawn. "Perhaps you didn't understand
 us. The men are agitating for a meeting of the board of
 directors. We want to be at that meeting. That's the only thing
 we're interested in right now."

   "But there wasn't anything about a board meeting in the
 contract your lawyer presented."

   "I know, but you rejected that contract. So we tore it up.
 Anyway, we've changed our minds."

   Torkleson sat down, his heavy cheeks quivering. "Gentlemen,
 be reasonable! I can guarantee you your jobs, even give
 you a free hand with the management. So the dividends won't be
 so large—the men will have to get used to that. That's it, we'll
 put it through at the next executive conference, give you—"

   "The board meeting," Walter said gently. "That'll be enough
 for us."

   The union boss swore and slammed his fist on the desk.
 "Walk out in front of those men after what you've done? You're
 fools! Well, I've given you your chance. You'll get your board
 meeting. But you'd better come armed. Because I know how
 to handle this kind of board meeting, and if I have anything
 to say about it, this one will end with a massacre."

   The meeting was held in a huge auditorium in the Robling
 administration building. Since every member of the union
 owned stock in the company, every member had the right to
 vote for members of the board of directors. But in the early
 days of the switchover, the idea of a board of directors smacked
 too strongly of the old system of corporate organization to suit
 the men. The solution had been simple, if a trifle ungainly.
 Everyone who owned stock in Robling Titanium was automatically
 a member of the board of directors, with Torkleson
 as chairman of the board. The stockholders numbered over
 ten thousand.

   They were all present. They were packed in from the wall
 to the stage, and hanging from the rafters. They overflowed
 into the corridors. They jammed the lobby. Ten thousand men
 rose with a howl of anger when Walter Towne walked out on
 the stage. But they quieted down again as Dan Torkleson
 started to speak.

   It was a masterful display of rabble-rousing. Torkleson
 paced the stage, his fat body shaking with agitation, pointing
 a chubby finger again and again at Walter Towne. He pranced
 and he ranted. He paused at just the right times for thunderous
 peals of applause.

   "This morning in my office we offered to compromise with
 these jackals," he cried, "and they rejected compromise. Even
 at the cost of lowering dividends, of taking food from the
 mouths of your wives and children, we made our generous
 offers. They were rejected with scorn. These thieves have one
 desire in mind, my friends, to starve you all, and to destroy
 your company and your jobs. To every appeal they heartlessly
 refused to divulge the key to the lock-in. And now this man—the
 ringleader who keeps the key word buried in secrecy—has
 the temerity to ask an audience with you. You're angry men;
 you want to know the man to blame for our hardship."

   He pointed to Towne with a flourish. "I give you your man.
 Do what you want with him."

   The hall exploded in angry thunder. The first wave of men
 rushed onto the stage as Walter stood up. A tomato whizzed
 past his ear and splattered against the wall. More men clambered
 up on the stage, shouting and shaking their fists.

   Then somebody appeared with a rope.

   Walter gave a sharp nod to the side of the stage. Abruptly
 the roar of the men was drowned in another sound—a soul-rending,
 teeth-grating, bone-rattling screech. The men froze,
 jaws sagging, eyes wide, hardly believing their ears. In the
 instant of silence as the factory whistle died away, Walter
 grabbed the microphone. "You want the code word to start
 the machines again? I'll give it to you before I sit down!"

   The men stared at him, shuffling, a murmur rising. Torkleson
 burst to his feet. "It's a trick!" he howled. "Wait 'til you
 hear their price."

   "We have no price, and no demands," said Walter Towne.
 "We will

    give

   you the code word, and we ask nothing in return
 but that you listen for sixty seconds." He glanced back at
 Torkleson, and then out to the crowd. "You men here are an
 electing body—right? You own this great plant and company,
 top to bottom—right?

    You should all be rich

   , because Robling
 could make you rich. But not one of you out there is rich.
 Only the fat ones on this stage are. But I'll tell you how

    you

   can be rich."

   They listened. Not a peep came from the huge hall. Suddenly,
 Walter Towne was talking their language.

   "You think that since you own the company, times have
 changed. Well, have they? Are you any better off than you
 were? Of course not. Because you haven't learned yet that
 oppression by either side leads to misery for both. You haven't
 learned moderation. And you never will, until you throw out
 the ones who have fought moderation right down to the last
 ditch. You know whom I mean. You know who's grown richer
 and richer since the switchover. Throw him out, and you too
 can be rich." He paused for a deep breath. "You want the code
 word to unlock the machines? All right, I'll give it to you."

   He swung around to point a long finger at the fat man
 sitting there. "The code word is TORKLESON!"

   Much later, Walter Towne and Jeff Bates pried the trophies
 off the wall of the big office. The lawyer shook his head sadly.
 "Pity about Dan Torkleson. Gruesome affair."

   Walter nodded as he struggled down with a moose head.
 "Yes, a pity, but you know the boys when they get upset."

   "I suppose so." The lawyer stopped to rest, panting. "Anyway,
 with the newly elected board of directors, things will be
 different for everybody. You took a long gamble."

   "Not so long. Not when you knew what they wanted to hear.
 It just took a little timing."

   "Still, I didn't think they'd elect you secretary of the union.
 It just doesn't figure."

   Walter Towne chuckled. "Doesn't it? I don't know. Everything's
 been a little screwy since the switchover. And in a
 screwy world like this—" He shrugged, and tossed down the
 moose head. "

    Anything

   figures."

Question and Possible Answers:
What is wrong with the reports?

 (A) Production and sales are down.
 (B) Walter forgot to do them.
 (C) Walter put in false information to make it appear as though the company is thriving.
 (D) Walter did the reports the late.

Answer:

Output: A


Input:
You are provided a story and a multiple-choice question with 4 possible answers (marked by A, B, C, D). Choose the best answer by writing its corresponding letter (either A, B, C, or D).

Story:
SLINGSHOT

   BY

   IRVING W. LANDE

   Illustrated by Emsh

   The slingshot
   was, I believe, one of the few
 weapons of history that wasn't used in the last war.
 That doesn't mean it won't be used in the next!

   "Got a bogey at three o'clock high.
 Range about six hundred miles."
 Johnson spoke casually, but his voice
 in the intercom was thin with tension.

   Captain Paul Coulter, commanding
 Space Fighter 308, 58th Squadron,
 33rd Fighter Wing, glanced up out
 of his canopy in the direction indicated,
 and smiled to himself at the
 instinctive reaction. Nothing there
 but the familiar starry backdrop, the
 moon far down to the left. If the
 light wasn't right, a ship might be
 invisible at half a mile. He squeezed
 the throttle mike button. "Any IFF?"

   "No IFF."

   "O.K., let me know as soon as you
 have his course." Coulter squashed
 out his cigar and began his cockpit
 check, grinning without humor as he
 noticed that his breathing had deepened
 and his palms were moist on
 the controls. He looked down to
 make sure his radio was snug in its
 pocket on his leg; checked the thigh
 harness of his emergency rocket,
 wrapped in its thick belly pad; checked
 the paired tanks of oxygen behind
 him, hanging level from his shoulders
 into their niche in the "cradle."
 He flipped his helmet closed, locked
 it, and opened it again. He tossed
 a sardonic salute at the photograph
 of a young lady who graced the side
 of the cockpit. "Wish us luck, sugar."
 He pressed the mike button again.

   "You got anything yet, Johnny?"

   "He's going our way, Paul. Have
 it exact in a minute."

   Coulter scanned the full arch of
 sky visible through the curving panels
 of the dome, thinking the turgid
 thoughts that always came when action
 was near. His chest was full of
 the familiar weakness—not fear exactly,
 but a tight, helpless feeling
 that grew and grew with the waiting.

   His eyes and hands were busy in
 the familiar procedure, readying the
 ship for combat, checking and re-checking
 the details that could mean
 life and death, but his mind watched
 disembodied, yearning back to earth.

   Sylvia always came back first. Inviting
 smile and outstretched hands.
 Nyloned knees, pink sweater, and
 that clinging, clinging white silk
 skirt. A whirling montage of laughing,
 challenging eyes and tossing sky-black
 hair and soft arms tightening
 around his neck.

   Then Jean, cool and self-possessed
 and slightly disapproving,
 with warmth and humor peeping
 through from underneath when she
 smiled. A lazy, crinkly kind of smile,
 like Christmas lights going on one
 by one. He wished he'd acted more
 grown up that night they watched
 the rain dance at the pueblo. For the
 hundredth time, he went over what
 he remembered of their last date,
 seeing the gleam of her shoulder, and
 the angry disappointment in her eyes;
 hearing again his awkward apologies.
 She was a nice kid. Silently his mouth
 formed the words. "You're a nice
 kid."

    I think she loves me. She was just
 mad because I got drunk.

   The tension of approaching combat
 suddenly blended with the memory,
 welling up into a rush of tenderness
 and affection. He whispered her
 name, and suddenly he knew that if
 he got back he was going to ask her
 to marry him.

   He thought of his father, rocking
 on the porch of the Pennsylvania
 farm, pipe in his mouth, the weathered
 old face serene, as he puffed and
 listened to the radio beside him. He
 wished he'd written him last night,
 instead of joining the usual beer and
 bull session in the wardroom. He
 wished—. He wished.

   "I've got him, Paul. He's got two
 point seven miles of RV on us. Take
 thirty degrees high on two point one
 o'clock for course to IP."

   Automatically he turned the control
 wheel to the right and eased it
 back. The gyros recorded the turn to
 course.

   "Hold 4 G's for one six five seconds,
 then coast two minutes for initial
 point five hundred miles on his
 tail."

   "Right, Johnny. One sixty-five,
 then two minutes." He set the timer,
 advanced the throttle to 4 G's, and
 stepped back an inch as the acceleration
 took him snugly into the cradle.
 The Return-To-Station-Fuel and Relative-Velocity-To-Station
 gauges did
 their usual double takes on a change
 of course, as the ship computer recorded
 the new information. He
 liked those two gauges—the two old
 ladies.

   Mrs. RSF kept track of how much
 more fuel they had than they needed
 to get home. When they were moving
 away from station, she dropped
 in alarmed little jumps, but when
 they were headed home, she inched
 along in serene contentment, or if
 they were coasting, sneaked triumphantly
 back up the dial.

   Mrs. RVS started to get jittery at
 about ten mps away from home, and
 above fifteen, she was trembling
 steadily. He didn't blame the old
 ladies for worrying. With one hour
 of fuel at 5 G's, you didn't fire a
 single squirt unless there was a good
 reason for it. Most of their time on
 a mission was spent free wheeling,
 in the anxiety-laden boredom that
 fighting men have always known.

    Wish the Red was coming in across
 our course.

   It would have taken less
 fuel, and the chase wouldn't have
 taken them so far out. But then
 they'd probably have been spotted,
 and lost the precious element of surprise.

   He blessed the advantage of better
 radar. In this crazy "war," so like
 the dogfights of the first world war,
 the better than two hundred mile
 edge of American radar was more
 often than not the margin of victory.
 The American crews were a little
 sharper, a little better trained, but
 with their stripped down ships, and
 midget crewmen, with no personal
 safety equipment, the Reds could
 accelerate longer and faster, and go
 farther out. You had to get the jump
 on them, or it was just too bad.

   The second hand hit forty-five in
 its third cycle, and he stood loose in
 the cradle as the power died.

    Sixty-two combat missions but the
 government says there's no war.

   His
 mind wandered back over eight years
 in the service. Intelligence tests. Physical
 tests. Psychological tests. Six
 months of emotional adjustment in
 the screep. Primary training. Basic
 and advanced training. The pride and
 excitement of being chosen for space
 fighters. By the time he graduated,
 the United States and Russia each had
 several satellite stations operating, but
 in 1979, the United States had won
 the race for a permanent station on
 the Moon. What a grind it had been,
 bringing in the supplies.

   A year later the Moon station had
 "blown up." No warning. No survivors.
 Just a brand-new medium-sized
 crater. And six months later,
 the new station, almost completed,
 went up again. The diplomats had
 buzzed like hornets, with accusations
 and threats, but nothing could be
 proven—there

    were

   bombs stored at
 the station. The implication was clear
 enough. There wasn't going to be
 any Moon station until one government
 ruled Earth. Or until the United
 States and Russia figured out a way
 to get along with each other. And so
 far, getting along with Russia was
 like trying to get along with an
 octopus.

   Of course there were rumors that
 the psych warfare boys had some
 gimmick cooked up, to turn the
 U. S. S. R. upside down in a revolution,
 the next time power changed
 hands, but he'd been hearing that one
 for years. Still, with four new dictators
 over there in the last eleven
 years, there was always a chance.

   Anyway, he was just a space
 jockey, doing his job in this screwball
 fight out here in the empty reaches.
 Back on Earth, there was no war. The
 statesmen talked, held conferences,
 played international chess as ever.
 Neither side bothered the other's
 satellites, though naturally they were
 on permanent alert. There just wasn't
 going to be any Moon station for a
 while. Nobody knew what there
 might be on the Moon, but if one
 side couldn't have it, then the other
 side wasn't going to have it either.

   And meanwhile, the struggle was
 growing deadlier, month by month,
 each side groping for the stranglehold,
 looking for the edge that would
 give domination of space, or make
 all-out war a good risk. They hadn't
 found it yet, but it was getting bloodier
 out here all the time. For a while,
 it had been a supreme achievement
 just to get a ship out and back, but
 gradually, as the ships improved,
 there was a little margin left over for
 weapons. Back a year ago, the average
 patrol was nothing but a sightseeing
 tour. Not that there was much to see,
 when you'd been out a few times.
 Now, there were Reds around practically
 every mission.

    Thirteen missions to go, after today.

   He wondered if he'd quit at
 seventy-five. Deep inside him, the old
 pride and excitement were still
 strong. He still got a kick out of the
 way the girls looked at the silver
 rocket on his chest. But he didn't
 feel as lucky as he used to. Twenty-nine
 years old, and he was starting
 to feel like an old man. He pictured
 himself lecturing to a group of eager
 kids.

    Had a couple of close calls, those
 last two missions.

   That Red had
 looked easy, the way he was wandering
 around. He hadn't spotted them
 until they were well into their run,
 but when he got started he'd made
 them look like slow motion, just the
 same. If he hadn't tried that harebrained
 sudden deceleration....
 Coulter shook his head at the memory.
 And on the last mission they'd
 been lucky to get a draw. Those boys
 were good shots.

   "We're crossing his track, Paul.
 Turn to nine point five o'clock and
 hold 4 G's for thirty-two seconds,
 starting on the count ... five—four—three—two—one—go!"
 He completed
 the operation in silence, remarking
 to himself how lucky he was
 to have Johnson. The boy loved a
 chase. He navigated like a hungry
 hawk, though you had to admit his
 techniques were a bit irregular.

   Coulter chuckled at the ad lib way
 they operated, remembering the
 courses, the tests, the procedures practiced
 until they could do them backwards
 blindfolded. When they tangled
 with a Red, the Solter co-ordinates
 went out the hatch. They navigated
 by the enemy. There were times
 during a fight when he had no more
 idea of his position than what the
 old ladies told him, and what he
 could see of the Sun, the Earth, and
 the Moon.

   And using "right side up" as a
 basis for navigation. He chuckled
 again. Still, the service had had to
 concede on "right side up," in designing
 the ships, so there was something
 to be said for it. They hadn't
 been able to simulate gravity without
 fouling up the ships so they had
 to call the pilot's head "up." There
 was something comforting about it.
 He'd driven a couple of the experimental
 jobs, one with the cockpit set
 on gimbals, and one where the whole
 ship rotated, and he hadn't cared for
 them at all. Felt disoriented, with
 something nagging at his mind all
 the time, as though the ships had
 been sabotaged. A couple of pilots
 had gone nuts in the "spindizzy,"
 and remembering his own feelings as
 he watched the sky go by, it was easy
 to understand.

   Anyway, "right side up" tied in
 perfectly with the old "clock" system
 Garrity had dug out of those magazines
 he was always reading. Once
 they got used to it, it had turned out
 really handy. Old Doc Hoffman, his
 astrogation prof, would have turned
 purple if he'd ever dreamed they'd
 use such a conglomeration. But
 it worked. And when you were
 in a hurry, it worked in a hurry, and
 that was good enough for Coulter.
 He'd submitted a report on it to
 Colonel Silton.

   "You've got him, Paul. We're
 dead on his tail, five hundred miles
 back, and matching velocity. Turn
 forty-two degrees right, and you're
 lined up right on him." Johnson was
 pleased with the job he'd done.

   Coulter watched the pip move into
 his sightscreen. It settled less than a
 degree off dead center. He made the
 final corrections in course, set the air
 pressure control to eight pounds, and
 locked his helmet.

   "Nice job, Johnny. Let's button
 up. You with us, Guns?"

   Garrity sounded lazy as a well-fed
 tiger. "Ah'm with yew, cap'n."

   Coulter advanced the throttle to
 5 G's. And with the hiss of power,
 SF 308 began the deadly, intricate,
 precarious maneuver called a combat
 pass—a maneuver inherited from the
 aerial dogfight—though it often turned
 into something more like the
 broadside duels of the old sailing
 ships—as the best and least suicidal
 method of killing a spaceship. To
 start on the enemy's tail, just out of
 his radar range. To come up his track
 at 2 mps relative velocity, firing six
 .30 caliber machine guns from fifty
 miles out. In the last three or four
 seconds, to break out just enough to
 clear him, praying that he won't
 break in the same direction.

    And to
 keep on going.

    Four minutes and thirty-four seconds
 to the break.

   Sixty seconds at
 5 G's; one hundred ninety-two seconds
 of free wheeling; and then, if
 they were lucky, the twenty-two frantic
 seconds they were out here for—throwing
 a few pounds of steel slugs
 out before them in one unbroken
 burst, groping out fifty miles into
 the darkness with steel and radar fingers
 to kill a duplicate of themselves.

    This is the worst. These three minutes
 are the worst.

   One hundred
 ninety-two eternal seconds of waiting,
 of deathly silence and deathly
 calm, feeling and hearing nothing
 but the slow pounding of their own
 heartbeats. Each time he got back, it
 faded away, and all he remembered
 was the excitement. But each time
 he went through it, it was worse. Just
 standing and waiting in the silence,
 praying they weren't spotted—staring
 at the unmoving firmament and
 knowing he was a projectile hurtling
 two miles each second straight at a
 clump of metal and flesh that was
 the enemy. Knowing the odds were
 twenty to one against their scoring
 a kill ... unless they ran into him.

   At eighty-five seconds, he corrected
 slightly to center the pip. The momentary
 hiss of the rockets was a
 relief. He heard the muffled yammering
 as Guns fired a short burst
 from the .30's standing out of their
 compartments around the sides of the
 ship. They were practically recoilless,
 but the burst drifted him forward
 against the cradle harness.

   And suddenly the waiting was
 over. The ship filled with vibration
 as Guns opened up.

    Twenty-five seconds
 to target.

   His eyes flicked from
 the sightscreen to the sky ahead,
 looking for the telltale flare of rockets—ready
 to follow like a ferret.

    There he is!

   At eighteen miles
 from target, a tiny blue light flickered
 ahead. He forgot everything but the
 sightscreen, concentrating on keeping
 the pip dead center. The guns hammered
 on. It seemed they'd been firing
 for centuries. At ten-mile range,
 the combat radar kicked the automatics
 in, turning the ship ninety
 degrees to her course in one and a
 half seconds. He heard the lee side
 firing cut out, as Garrity hung on
 with two, then three guns.

   He held it as long as he could.
 Closer than he ever had before. At
 four miles he poured 12 G's for two
 seconds.

   They missed ramming by something
 around a hundred yards. The
 enemy ship flashed across his tail in
 a fraction of a second, already turned
 around and heading up its own track,
 yet it seemed to Paul he could make
 out every detail—the bright red star,
 even the tortured face of the pilot.
 Was there something lopsided in the
 shape of that rocket plume, or was
 he just imagining it in the blur of
 their passing? And did he hear a

    ping

   just at that instant, feel the
 ship vibrate for a second?

   He continued the turn in the direction
 the automatics had started, bringing
 his nose around to watch the
 enemy's track. And as the shape of
 the plume told him the other ship
 was still heading back toward Earth,
 he brought the throttle back up to
 12 G's, trying to overcome the lead
 his pass had given away.

   Guns spoke quietly to Johnson.
 "Let me know when we kill his RV.
 Ah may get another shot at him."

   And Johnny answered, hurt,
 "What do you think I'm doing down
 here—reading one of your magazines?"

   Paul was struggling with hundred-pound
 arms, trying to focus the telescope
 that swiveled over the panel.
 As the field cleared, he could see that
 the plume was flaring unevenly, flickering
 red and orange along one side.
 Quietly and viciously, he was talking
 to himself. "Blow! Blow!"

   And she blew. Like a dirty ragged
 bit of fireworks, throwing tiny handfuls
 of sparks into the blackness.
 Something glowed red for a while,
 and slowly faded.

    There, but for the grace of God....

   Paul shuddered in a confused
 mixture of relief and revulsion.

   He cut back to 4 G's, noting that
 RVS registered about a mile per
 second away from station, and suddenly
 became aware that the red light
 was on for loss of air. The cabin
 pressure gauge read zero, and his
 heart throbbed into his throat as he
 remembered that

    pinging

   sound, just
 as they passed the enemy ship. He
 told Garrity to see if he could locate
 the loss, and any other damage, and
 was shortly startled by a low amazed
 whistle in his earphones.

   "If Ah wasn't lookin' at it, Ah
 wouldn't believe it. Musta been one
 of his shells went right around the
 fuel tank and out again, without hittin'
 it. There's at least three inches of
 tank on a line between the holes! He
 musta been throwin' curves at us.
 Man, cap'n, this is our lucky day!"

   Paul felt no surprise, only relief
 at having the trouble located. The
 reaction to the close call might not
 come till hours later. "This kind of
 luck we can do without. Can you
 patch the holes?"

   "Ah can patch the one where it
 came in, but it musta been explodin'
 on the way out. There's a hole Ah
 could stick mah head through."

   "That's a good idea." Johnson was
 not usually very witty, but this was
 one he couldn't resist.

   "Never mind, Guns. A patch that
 big wouldn't be safe to hold air."

   They were about eighty thousand
 miles out. He set course for Earth at
 about five and a half mps, which
 Johnson calculated to bring them in
 on the station on the "going away"
 side of its orbit, and settled back for
 the tedious two hours of free wheeling.
 For ten or fifteen minutes, the
 interphone crackled with the gregariousness
 born of recent peril, and
 gradually the ship fell silent as each
 man returned to his own private
 thoughts.

   Paul was wondering about the men
 on the other ship—whether any of
 them were still alive. Eighty thousand
 miles to fall. That was a little
 beyond the capacity of an emergency
 rocket—about 2 G's for sixty seconds—even
 if they had them. What a
 way to go home! He wondered what
 he'd do if it happened to him. Would
 he wait out his time, or just unlock
 his helmet.

   Guns' drawl broke into his reverie.
 "Say, cap'n, Ah've been readin' in
 this magazine about a trick they used
 to use, called skip bombin'. They'd
 hang a bomb on the bottom of one
 of these airplanes, and fly along the
 ground, right at what they wanted
 to hit. Then they'd let the bomb go
 and get out of there, and the bomb
 would sail right on into the target.
 You s'pose we could fix this buggy
 up with an A bomb or an H bomb
 we could let go a few hundred miles
 out? Stick a proximity fuse on it, and
 a time fuse, too, in case we missed.
 Just sittin' half a mile apart and
 tradin' shots like we did on that last
 mission is kinda hard on mah nerves,
 and it's startin' to happen too often."

   "Nice work if we could get it.
 I'm not crazy about those broadside
 battles myself. You'd think they'd
 have found something better than
 these thirty caliber popguns by now,
 but the odds say we've got to throw
 as many different chunks of iron as
 we can, to have a chance of hitting
 anything, and even then it's twenty
 to one against us. You wouldn't have
 one chance in a thousand of scoring
 a hit with a bomb at that distance,
 even if they didn't spot it and take
 off. What you'd need would be a
 rocket that could chase them, with
 the bomb for a head. And there's no
 way we could carry that size rocket,
 or fire it if we could. Some day these
 crates will come with men's rooms,
 and we'll have a place to carry something
 like that."

   "How big would a rocket like that
 be?"

   "Five, six feet, by maybe a foot.
 Weigh at least three hundred
 pounds."

   It was five minutes before Guns
 spoke again. "Ah been thinkin',
 cap'n. With a little redecoratin', Ah
 think Ah could get a rocket that size
 in here with me. We could weld a
 rail to one of the gun mounts that
 would hold it up to five or six G's.
 Then after we got away from station,
 Ah could take it outside and mount
 it on the rail."

   "Forget it, lad. If they ever caught
 us pulling a trick like that, they'd
 have us on hydroponic duty for the
 next five years. They just don't want
 us playing around with bombs, till
 the experts get all the angles figured
 out, and build ships to handle them.
 And besides, who do you think will
 rig a bomb like that, without anybody
 finding out? And where do you think
 we'd get a bomb in the first place?
 They don't leave those things lying
 around. Kovacs watches them like a
 mother hen. I think he counts them
 twice a day."

   "Sorry, cap'n. Ah just figured if
 you could get hold of a bomb, Ah
 know a few of the boys who could
 rig the thing up for us and keep
 their mouths shut."

   "Well, forget about it. It's not a
 bad idea, but we haven't any bomb."

   "Right, cap'n."

   But it was Paul who couldn't forget
 about it. All the rest of the way
 back to station, he kept seeing visions
 of a panel sliding aside in the nose
 of a sleek and gleaming ship, while
 a small rocket pushed its deadly snout
 forward, and then streaked off at
 tremendous acceleration.

   Interrogation was brief. The mission
 had turned up nothing new.
 Their kill made eight against seven
 for Doc Miller's crew, and they made
 sure Miller and the boys heard about
 it. They were lightheaded with the
 elation that followed a successful
 mission, swapping insults with the
 rest of the squadron, and reveling in
 the sheer contentment of being back
 safe.

   It wasn't until he got back to his
 stall, and started to write his father
 a long overdue letter, that he remembered
 he had heard Kovacs say he
 was going on leave.

   When he finished the letter, he
 opened the copy of "Lady Chatterley's
 Lover" he had borrowed from
 Rodriguez's limited but colorful library.
 He couldn't keep his mind on
 it. He kept thinking of the armament
 officer.

   Kovacs was a quiet, intelligent kid,
 devoted to his work. Coulter wasn't
 too intimate with him. He wasn't a
 spaceman, for one thing. One of those
 illogical but powerful distinctions
 that sub-divided the men of the station.
 And he was a little too polite to
 be easy company.

   Paul remembered the time he had
 walked into the Muroc Base Officer's
 Club with Marge Halpern on his
 arm. The hunger that had lain undisguised
 on Kovacs' face the moment
 he first saw them. Marge was
 a striking blonde with a direct manner,
 who liked men, especially orbit
 station men. He hadn't thought about
 the incident since then, but the look
 in Kovacs' eyes kept coming back to
 him as he tried to read.

   He wasn't sure how he got there,
 or why, when he found himself walking
 into Colonel Silton's office to ask
 for the leave he'd passed up at his
 fiftieth mission. He'd considered taking
 it several times, but the thought
 of leaving the squadron, even for a
 couple of weeks, had made him feel
 guilty, as though he were quitting.

   Once he had his papers, he started
 to get excited about it. As he cleaned
 up his paper work and packed his
 musette, his hands were fumbling,
 and his mind was full of Sylvia.

   The vastness of Muroc Base was as
 incredible as ever. Row on uncounted
 row of neat buildings, each resting at
 the top of its own hundred-yard
 deep elevator shaft. A pulsing, throbbing
 city, dedicated to the long slow
 struggle to get into space and stay
 there. The service crew eyed them
 with studied indifference, as they
 writhed out of the small hatch and
 stepped to the ground. They drew a
 helijet at operations, and headed immediately
 for Los Angeles.

   Kovacs had been impressed when
 Paul asked if he'd care to room together
 while they were on leave. He
 was quiet on the flight, as he had
 been on the way down, listening contentedly,
 while Paul talked combat
 and women with Bob Parandes, another
 pilot going on leave.

   They parked the helijet at Municipal
 Field and headed for the public
 PV booths, picking up a coterie of
 two dogs and five assorted children
 on the way. The kids followed quietly
 in their wake, ecstatic at the sight of
 their uniforms.

   Paul squared his shoulders, as befitted
 a hero, and tousled a couple of
 uncombed heads as they walked. The
 kids clustered around the booths, as
 Kovacs entered one to locate a hotel
 room, and Paul another, to call
 Sylvia.

   "Honey, I've been so scared you
 weren't coming back. Where are you?
 When will I see you? Why didn't
 you write?..." She sputtered to a
 stop as he held up both hands in
 defense.

   "Whoa, baby. One thing at a time.
 I'm at the airport. You'll see me tonight,
 and I'll tell you the rest then.
 That is, if you're free tonight. And
 tomorrow. And the day after, and
 the day after that. Are you free?"

   Her hesitation was only momentary.
 "Well, I was going out—with
 a girl friend. But she'll understand.
 What's up?"

   He took a deep breath. "I'd like
 to get out of the city for a few days,
 where we can take things easy and
 be away from the crowds. And there
 is another guy I'd like to bring
 along."

   "We could take my helijet out to
 my dad's cottage at—

    What did you
 say?

   "

   It was a ticklish job explaining
 about Kovacs, but when she understood
 that he just wanted to do a
 friend a favor, and she'd still have
 Paul all to herself, she calmed down.
 They made their arrangements quickly,
 and switched off.

   He hesitated a minute before he
 called Marge. She was quite a dish
 to give up. Once she'd seen him with
 Sylvia, he'd be strictly

    persona non
 grata

   —that was for sure. It was an
 unhappy thought. Well, maybe it was
 in a good cause. He shrugged and
 called her.

   She nearly cut him off when she
 first heard his request, but he did
 some fast talking. The idea of several
 days at the cottage intrigued her, and
 when he described how smitten
 Kovacs had been, she brightened up
 and agreed to come. He switched off,
 adjusted the drape of his genuine
 silk scarf, and stepped out of the
 booth.

   Kovacs and the kids were waiting.
 The armament officer had apparently
 been telling them of Paul's exploits.
 They glowed with admiration. The
 oldest boy, about eleven, had true
 worship in his eyes. He hesitated a
 moment, then asked gravely: "Would
 you tell us how you kill a Red, sir?"

   Paul eyed the time-honored weapon
 that dangled from the youngster's
 hand. He bent over and tapped it
 with his finger. His voice was warm
 and confiding, but his eyes were far
 away.

   "I think next we're going to try
 a slingshot," he said.

   THE END

    Transcriber's Note:

   This etext was produced from

    Astounding Science Fiction

   November 1955.
 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
 on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
 have been corrected without note.

   ***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLINGSHOT***

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Question and Possible Answers:
What was the ping that Coulter heard?

 (A) The sound of the lopsided rocket plume in the Red ship
 (B) The sound of an impact in the fuel tanks
 (C) The sound of the cabin depressurizing
 (D) The sound of the Red pilot killing his RV

Answer:

Output: B