ONE OF the surprising things about commanding large forces is that eager, dedicated subordinates are often more trouble than slovenly ones. You must be ever on your guard. The slightest hint can be taken literally and blown all out of proportion.
The problem is as old as the chain of command. A general drops a hint; a colonel makes a suggestion; a major writes a memo; a captain gives an order; a lieutenant barks a command; and… a corporal pulls a trigger. It happened at Corregidor—the Japanese command never intended for the death march to occur. It happened at Mai Lai—when a town was wiped out. And it happened all too often in the course of the Symbiotic Revolution.
“So what’s the verdict, Doc?” General Hastings asked.
“You’ve got to stop smoking, George,” Dr. Cranford said.
“Is that all?”
“Of course not. You really
“Look, Cranford, work is about all I have left.”
“George, the tragedy that took your family happened a year ago. You can’t—”
“Cut it.”
“But a man can’t mourn forever—”
“I take it that I’m healthy,” Hastings said.
“Yes, but you don’t deserve to be. There’s nothing wrong with you now that a little rest and exercise won’t cure.”
“You’ve been telling me that every checkup for the last ten years.”
“Well, why do you bother coming to me if you don’t take my advice? I tell you, working yourself into the ground all the time is going to catch up with you. It’ll shorten your life, George,” Dr. Cranford said.
“It hasn’t yet. Now are you going to sign my flying status papers or not?”
“I don’t have much choice. Air Force regulations are so damned specific about it. I don’t know why you bother—your flight pay is less as a general than it was as a lieutenant-colonel. But your reflexes are perfect. Your eyesight is twenty-twenty. Your blood pressure and electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram and every other damned thing are annoyingly perfect. But George, your life style is going to catch up with you.”
“Just sign the paper. Doc, you’re even more crotchety than usual. Something bugging you?” Hastings asked.
“Nothing except that I’m about to give up my practice and take up faith healing. That seems to be where my gifts lie.”
“Somebody didn’t have the courtesy to die when you told him to?”
“A whole bunch of somebodies. Half of the damned Senate has walked into this office with every organ in their flabby bodies rotting away!
“You know that this is the best-equipped facility in the country. And you know that I wouldn’t tell a man he was going to die unless I ran him through every test known to man, plus a few I thought up myself. And
“People have been getting well?” Hastings said.
“Scads of the bastards! It’s driving me to drink and damned nearly to profanity!”
“So this has been happening to everybody?”
“No. You’ve got to be in Congress to get a special dispensation from whatever God or devil is doing this to me. And seniority seems to help.”
“You’re serious about this?”
“Hell yes, I’m serious! One week I tell a senator to put his affairs in order, and the next week he comes in with his heart beating and his liver working and he’s alive in front of God and everybody!”
“Do you have any theories about it?”
“I thought at first that it was something that we were doing here by accident. Turned the place upside down for months. Checked out every batch of every drug that I’d given any one of them. Nothing. Then I found out that two other doctors at different clinics were doing the same damned thing. The only thing that it correlates with is you’ve got to be a congressman.”
“Well, have you checked out that angle?”
“Of course! The three of us have checked out every item in the Capitol cafeteria. The kind of floor wax they use. The postage stamps. The pencils. Anything that they would all have in common. Hell, I even sent a roll of their toliet paper to the lab. Nothing!
“I figure that God doesn’t want congressmen and hell’s full up!” Cranford said.
“Maybe I can give you a hand finding out what’s behind this.”
“You? Now, I appreciate the offer, but what use is a spook going to be on a medical research program?”
“You’d be surprised. Can you give me some specifics? Like who got cured of what and when?” Hastings said.
“No. I can’t. That’s privileged information, George.”
“Well, you’ve gotten my curiosity up, Doc. Don’t be surprised if somebody with a warrant comes over to pick up your medical records.”
“And don’t be surprised if I tell your process server to go to hell,” Cranford said.
“Here is the analysis of those medical records, sir,” Pendelton said.
“Give it to me verbally, Sergeant.” Hastings leaned back in his padded chair.
“Yes, sir. In the past two years, eighteen U.S. senators and fifty-seven members of the House have had spontaneous remissions of major diseases. The spectrum of the diseases is typical for American males in their age group. In all cases, their internal organs now test out as being equal to those of twenty-year-olds.”
“It almost makes me want to get into politics,” Hastings said. “What else do these particular congressmen have in common?”
“Nothing that’s indicated, sir. The sample seems to be random.”
“Pendelton, I want a very discreet analysis run on these men. Their voting records. The places they visit. The people they know.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get a few men on it.”
“But discreetly. I don’t have to remind you that the Congress has to approve all promotions of general officers.”
Martin Guibedo drove a battered two-ton truck across Death Valley toward five acres of lush greenery growing out of the surrounding desolation. Death Valley had been one of the public parks that had been sold to private interests in the early ‘90s to “distribute the nation’s wealth to the poor” and make a lot of politicians rich.
He parked next to the fountain and waddled, smiling, to the five-story tree house in the center of the garden. “Ach! Pinecroft!” he said to the tree. “So beautiful you’ve grown! You have got to be the prettiest tree my microscalpel ever made!”
The door opened for him, and he went through the huge living room, noting pleasantly that the waterfalls both worked and the cleaning apparatus was doing its job. In the kitchen, an incredibly beautiful woman rose to greet him, smiling.
“Uncle Martin!” she gushed. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Hi, Mona,” Guibedo said uncomfortably.
“Heinrich is in the communications lab, fourth level down on your right.”
