Last Resort Read online

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  Back at Lunar Base I tried to explain to Bronson what had happened.But I found that it was impossible to explain in words. In fact I nolonger entirely understood, myself, what had happened. It wassomething that had occurred--not altogether on the conscious level.Something about my becoming aware, for a time, of the separatemolecules of air within the cabin as extensions of my own body-mind.But I didn't know how to verbalize it.

  Dr. Bronson gave me a thorough physical and a preliminarypsychological exam. The effects of the drug had worn off, but I feltsomehow--changed, I didn't know just how. In fact I wouldn't knowuntil one day two years later, when I dropped a vial ofnitroglycerine, and it miraculously did not go off. Still, Bronsonpronounced me ready and fit for a long vacation, and in a few days Iwas headed back toward Pacific Grove.

  The vacation lasted for a week. Then it was a Sunday evening, and Iwas sitting on the front porch of the white house nursing a highballwhile my wife was upstairs telling Wendy a bedtime story about aprincess who kissed a toad, and it turned into a handsome prince.

  I was sitting there in the evening light, inhaling the scent ofeucalyptus and thinking for the thousandth time about how much betterthis was than bottled oxygen. Then a rented car pulled into thedriveway, and General Bergen got out, wearing civilian clothes. Hecame up to the porch and sat down next to me. He did not pause for anypleasantries.

  "Where's your wife?" he said.

  "Upstairs."

  "Anyone else in the house?"

  "Just my daughter."

  He leaned back and lighted a cigarette. I was about to offer him adrink, but he didn't give me a chance.

  "Official orders. From now on, you're Top Secret. You're wanted backat the Spacemedic Center in Washington. You have twenty-four hours tostraighten out your affairs."

  "_What?_"

  He waved a hand. "I wasn't supposed to tell you this yet. Keep itunder your hat." I noticed that the fingers holding his cigarette weretrembling. "We spent four days going over the hull of your ship--withmicroscopes. Then we found it. The leak. The hole was still there. Itmust have been a micrometeor of high density and tremendous velocity.Burned a hole right through the sealing compound--"

  Once again I tried to organize words to explain what I had not beenable to explain before.

  "But the ship's air did stop leaking. I could never have made itback...."

  "But the _hole_ was still there!" Then his voice faltered. "Don't yousee? My God, what we have yet to learn about psi forces,psychokinesis.... There was nothing to prevent all the air in yourship from leaking out through that pinhole, nothing except--you."

  The general leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, looking out intothe gathering darkness.

  "We've got to find out what this drug _does_," he said.

  "The space program ..." I began.

  "Space program?" He pulled on his cigarette. "Hell. What are rockets,compared to this?"

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