His busy fingers flew through the clay, shaping odd, flat bits and clay parts that were dropped almost aimlessly into the open hemisphere in front of him.
Miss Abercrombie stood at his shoulder as Thaddeus hunched over the table just as he had done the previous day. From time to time she glanced at her watch. The maze of clay strips grew and as Funston finished shaping the other half hemisphere of clay, she broke the tense silence.
“Time to go back now, Mr. Funston. You can work some more tomorrow.” She looked at the men and nodded her head.
The two psychiatrists went to Thaddeus’ side as he put the upper lid of clay carefully in place. Funston stood up and the doctors escorted him from the shack.
There was a moment of hushed silence and then pandemonium burst. The experts converged on the clay ball, instruments blossoming from nowhere and cameras clicking.
For two hours they studied and gently probed the mass of child’s clay and photographed it from every angle.
Then they left for the concrete observatory bunker, several miles down range where Thaddeus and the psychiatrists waited inside a ring of stony-faced military policemen.
“I told you this whole thing was asinine,” Thurgood snarled as the scientific teams trooped into the bunker.
Thaddeus Funston stared out over the heads of the MPs through the open door, looking uprange over the heat-shimmering desert. He gave a sudden cry, shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his face.
A brilliance a hundred times brighter than the glaring Nevada sun lit the dim interior of the bunker and the pneumatically-operated door slammed shut just before the wave of the blast hit the structure.
Six hours and a jet plane trip later, Thaddeus, once again in his strait jacket, sat between his armed escorts in a small room in the Pentagon. Through the window he could see the hurried bustle of traffic over the Potomac and beyond, the domed roof of the Capitol.
In the conference room next door, the joint chiefs of staff were closeted with a gray-faced and bone-weary Colonel Thurgood and his baker’s dozen of AEC brains. Scraps of the hot and scornful talk drifted across a half- opened transom into the room where Thaddeus Funston sat in a neatly-tied bundle.
In the conference room, a red-faced, four-star general cast a chilling glance at the rumpled figure of Colonel Thurgood.
“I’ve listened to some silly stories in my life, colonel,” the general said coldly, “but this takes the cake. You come in here with an insane asylum inmate in a strait jacket and you have the colossal gall to sit there and tell me that this poor soul has made not one, but two atomic devices out of modeling clay and then has detonated them.”
The general paused.
“Why don’t you just tell me, colonel, that he can also make spaceships out of sponge rubber?” the general added bitingly.
In the next room, Thaddeus Funston stared out over the sweeping panorama of the Washington landscape. He stared hard.
In the distance, a white cloud began billowing up from the base of the Washington Monument, and with an ear-shattering, glass-splintering roar, the great shaft rose majestically from its base and vanished into space on a tail of flame.
MEDAL OF HONOR
by Mack Reynolds
According to tradition, the man who held the Galactic Medal of Honor could do no wrong. In a strange way, Captain Don Mathers was to learn that this was true.
Don Mathers snapped to attention, snapped a crisp salute to his superior, said, “Sub-lieutenant Donal Mathers reporting, sir.”
The Commodore looked up at him, returned the salute, looked down at the report on the desk. He murmured, “Mathers, One Man Scout V-102. Sector A22-K223.”
“Yes, sir,” Don said.
The Commodore looked up at him again. “You’ve been out only five days, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir, on the third day I seemed to be developing trouble in my fuel injectors. I stuck it out for a couple of days, but then decided I’d better come in for a check.” Don Mathers added, “As per instructions, sir.”
“Ummm, of course. In a Scout you can hardly make repairs in space. If you have any doubts at all about your craft, orders are to return to base. It happens to every pilot at one time or another.”
“Yes, sir.”
“However, Lieutenant, it has happened to you four times out of your last six patrols.”
Don Mathers said nothing. His face remained expressionless.
“The mechanics report that they could find nothing wrong with your engines, Lieutenant.”
“Sometimes, sir, whatever is wrong fixes itself. Possibly a spot of bad fuel. It finally burns out and you’re back on good fuel again. But by that time you’re also back to the base.”
The Commodore said impatiently, “I don’t need a lesson in the shortcomings of the One Man Scout, Lieutenant. I piloted one for nearly five years. I know their shortcomings—and those of their pilots.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
The Commodore looked down at the ball of his thumb. “You’re out in space for anywhere from two weeks to a month. All alone. You’re looking for Kraden ships which practically never turn up. In military history the only remotely similar situation I can think of were the pilots of World War One pursuit planes, in the early years of the war, when they still flew singly, not in formation. But even they were up there alone for only a couple of hours or so.”
“Yes, sir,” Don said meaninglessly.
The Commodore said, “We, here at command, figure on you fellows getting a touch of space cafard once in a while and, ah, imagining something wrong in the engines and coming in. But,” here the Commodore cleared his throat, “four times out of six? Are you sure you don’t need a psych, Lieutenant?”
Don Mathers flushed. “No, sir, I don’t think so.”
The Commodore’s voice went militarily expressionless. “Very well, Lieutenant. You’ll have the customary three weeks leave before going out again. Dismissed.”
Don saluted snappily, wheeled and marched from the office.
Outside, in the corridor, he muttered a curse. What did that chairborne brass hat know about space cafard? About the depthless blackness, the wretchedness of free fall, the tides of primitive terror that swept you when the animal realization hit that you were away, away, away from the environment that gave you birth. That you were alone, alone, alone. A million, a million-million miles from your nearest fellow human. Space cafard, in a craft little larger than a good-sized closet! What did the Commodore know about it?
Don Mathers had conveniently forgotten the other’s claim to five years’ service in the Scouts.
He made his way from Space Command Headquarters, Third Division, to Harry’s Nuevo Mexico Bar. He found the place empty at this time of the day and climbed onto a stool.
Harry said, “Hi, Lootenant, thought you were due for a patrol. How come you’re back so soon?”
Don said coldly, “You prying into security subjects, Harry?”
“Well, gee, no Lootenant. You know me. I know all the boys. I was just making conversation.”
“Look, how about some more credit, Harry? I don’t have any pay coming up for a week.”
