The scene in my waiting room was usual that June morning when I came, a little late, into my office. It was just after graduation and the benches and chairs were filled with young cybernetics engineers, primed by their college instructors to tell us what was wrong with our Company and how it ought to be operated--for a fabulous salary, of course. In the meantime they were waiting for someone to help them solve the hopeless puzzle of our application form--revised and simplified version--or to tell them how to spell "Yes" and "No."

My pretty receptionist sat behind her desk at the far end of the room, where she could guard the bank of glassed interviewing rooms to her right and the hall leading to my office to the left. She looked up alertly as I walked on down the room toward her.

"There's an important letter on your desk, Mr. Kennedy," she called out in a voice louder than necessary as I approached her. I may have looked a little startled. Normally, we do not parade the mechanics of operating our Personnel Department before the applicants. And, too, it was usually reserved for Sara, my secretary, to break the news of what would face me that day.

"It's from the Pentagon," the receptionist prattled on loudly, but her eyes were covertly on the applicants. I got the message then. Lucky applicants! to be hired by a company who has an executive who gets mail from the Pentagon!

"It's marked 'Personal, Private, Confidential, Urgent,' and..." as I approached her desk her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper which could still be heard in the farthest reaches of the room, "and 'Top Secret!'"

"Why don't you get yourself a loud-speaker, girl," I murmured out of one corner of my mouth as I started to pass her desk.

"Aw, give 'em a thrill, boss," she murmured back through ventriloquist lips, and caused me to hesitate in my stride. "Think of all those years of deadly monotony ahead of them if they do get hired."

"All right, all right!" I co-operated a little loudly myself. "Now what does that Pentagon want?" I shrugged impatiently.

I really wasn't very impressed. It was probably a poster they wanted pinned on our bulletin board telling our young men to quit their jobs and join Space Navy to see the universe. Which would be stretching it a bit, because we were still planning that supreme effort which would get us out as far as Jupiter's moons.

"Give the man an Oscar," the receptionist murmured gratefully.

"Maybe the applicants are impressed with my importance," I mumbled, "but my staff doesn't seem to be."

I walked on through the open door into my secretary's office, which was a buffer zone between me and the crude, rough world outside. Sara, alert and grinning as she sat behind her own desk, had also heard the receptionist's announcement. She held up a letter knife, handle toward me.

"You may open it all by yourself," she said with her characteristic burlesque of secretarial concern. "With all those red cautions stamped on it, I didn't dare. It's lying right on top of your desk. You can't miss it."

I grinned back at her. I think Sara likes me. Behind her pose, she may even respect me. On occasion.

I took the knife and went on into my own office. The letter lay on an otherwise clean and polished surface. I couldn't miss it. Before I sat down I slit the envelope and pulled out a single folded sheet.

It wasn't a poster.

I slid my eyes past the quarter page of protocol, file and reference numbers, to the first paragraph. Halfway through the first sentence I sat down in my chair, rather heavily.

Dear Dr. Kennedy:

Pursuant to your application for the position of Staff Psychologist, specializing in the adaptation of Extraterrestrial Beings to Earth Ecology, your appointment is hereby confirmed.

You are ordered to report to Dr. Frederick Kibbie, Director of the Department of Extraterrestrial Life Research, Space Navy, Pentagon, promptly at 900 22-June-annum.

Inasmuch as this appointment automatically constitutes an Acting Commission in Space Navy (pending personal investigation of your sex practices by F.B.I.) failure to comply with this order will be prima facie evidence of willful disobedience of military orders by a commissioned officer in time of war emergency; an act of high treason; the exact penalties to be later fixed by formal Court-Martial.

Cordially yours, and my personal warmest congratulations.

STAR ADMIRAL HERBERT LYTLE Space Navy Personnel Director

I sat and stared through the slits of Venetian blind at the blank wall of our factory production unit across the street while I fumbled with a free hand for a sustaining cigarette.

It was a mistake, of course. Space Navy had got its files mixed up.

In the first place, I was plain Mister, not Doctor.

In the second place, I hadn't made any application to Space Navy for any kind of job.

Third, I wasn't a psychologist, let alone a specialist in the adaptation of Extraterrestrial Beings to Earth Ecology, whatever that might be. Frankly, I didn't see how there could be such a specialist since, so far, we hadn't discovered any Extraterrestrial Beings to adapt. And if we ever did, I wasn't sure who would have to do the adapting--they or us.

Fourth, there wasn't any war emergency, at least not that I'd heard of, and I'd surely have noticed the headlines while I was looking for the funnies.

Fifth, I didn't think it was any of the F.B.I.'s business what I did with my sex life, even if I were going to work for government, which I wasn't.

Sixth, I didn't want a commission in any kind of Navy, Space or Puddle.

Seventh, neither did I wish to be court-martialed for high treason by not showing up in precisely forty-eight hours.

In military style, which seemed to have ticked off the reasons why it must be a mistake. I need only communicate these points to Space Navy to straighten it out. I crushed out my cigarette and reached for the telephone.

Of course I didn't get to Star Admiral Herbert Lytle, who had welcomed me with such warm personal cordiality, but I did get as far as the clerk-yeoman in charge of the department of files handling names beginning in K.

There was a delay, Computer Research expense, while this fellow went to find my file. From three thousand miles away I could visualize his every movement while he searched the files where my dossier ought to be--but wasn't. From my own long experience in personnel offices, I could have told him to arrange a conference of the various department heads to have their staffs look under D for Doctor, Ra for Ralph, or in the Star Admiral's bottom desk drawer, his secretary's IN tray, OUT tray, wastebasket; or in possession of a contingent of shore patrolmen already on their way to arrest me.

But he fooled me. He came back on the wire just after our own switchboard operator had won an argument with the long-distance operator about keeping the line open. The clerk-yeoman didn't radiate the same kind of warm personal cordiality as his boss. He just started talking, rapidly.

"Now you listen here, Dr. Kennedy," he began severely, although he made me feel at home to note his voice did contain those overtones of hysteria which are a trademark among personnel clerks. "We absolutely cannot consider a stay of time in your case. Your personal inconvenience is of small consequence compared with the needs of the United States Government, Space Navy, and our responsibility to keep the Universe under control. This lack of discipline and proper attitude from you civilians--well, now let me tell you right off that the Space Navy cannot be run to suit the whims of--"

"There's-been-a-mistake!" I managed to shout him down.

There was complete silence, catatonic shock silence. It was broken again by the impatient long-distance operator.

"Are you still on the line?" she asked crisply.

"I am," I answered patiently. "I suspect the party at the other end may have fainted."

"This is the busiest time of day," she reproved me. "Other calls are waiting for trunk lines."

"Then tell your company to build more trunks," I suggested reasonably. She was silent. Perhaps she too had fainted.

The clerk-yeoman came back on the wire at that point. Now his voice was slow, ominous. He quoted my social-security number at me. I checked my wallet, found my card among my status symbols, and admitted to him it was my number. He quoted my middle name, without laughing. I confessed to it. He told me my mother's maiden name. I admitted he had me pegged down, but I made another try.

"You've got the right data," I said. "But the wrong man. Somewhere in these United States there must be a Dr. Kennedy who wants that job, and you've got the files mixed up."

There was a gasp at the other end of the line.

"Then why would we have your file at all?" he asked.

"Don't ask me how you should run your office," I snapped back. "Computer Research, where I work, has had a lot of past dealing with the Pentagon. I've had personal brushes with quite a few high-ranking officers in various branches. Doubtless someone, sometime, has run up a dossier on me, and that's the one you've got. But I'm not a Dr. Kennedy. I'm a plain Mr. Kennedy. It makes a difference."

"Certainly it makes a difference." His tone was growing waspish now. "Space Navy does not hand out commissions to any status level below that of doctor. Star Admiral Lytle has given you a commission. Therefore you must be the correct Dr. Kennedy."

"Then Lytle has made the mistake," I said reasonably.

There was a double gasp this time. "I'm to tell Star Admiral Lytle he has made a mistake?" he asked. "Oh, my God," he groaned. "This is what comes of making civilians into commissioned officers. A star admiral does not make mistakes. He cannot make mistakes. The Space Navy does not make mistakes. It cannot make mistakes. You are therefore Dr. Kennedy, the correct Dr. Kennedy, and all this is an evasion, a subterfuge you are using to avoid performing your patriotic duty to your country. I am amazed to find a man who would deny the responsibility and ethics of his status to dodge his country's need."

He paused for breath, and when his voice came again, it was a full octave lower in tone. Apparently he had stuck out his chest, pulled in his stomach and chin.

"You will report at the designated time and place of your own free will," he said slowly. "Or you will report in irons. It makes no difference to me."

He hung up.

The long-distance operator immediately snapped me off the line so her company could be saved the expense of building more trunks.

I hung up too, slowly. I'd better go see Old Stone Face, Mr. Henry Grenoble, the General Manager. He had also had a lot of past dealings with the Pentagon, and at levels higher than my contacts. Maybe he could help.

I pushed back from my desk, stood up, and walked over to stand in the doorway.

"Sara," I said. "Will you call Old Stone Face's secretary and ask if I can see him right away?"

"Trouble, boss?" she asked. And now there was no flippancy in her manner. "That letter?"

"Sara," I said. "You are now looking at Dr. Kennedy, a commissioned officer in Space Navy." I thought for a moment. "I don't know what rank," I added.

For an instant I was afraid she might stand up and salute. But she didn't.

"Then you really are in trouble," she said instead. "I'd better get you in to see him right away."

"Either that or come to visit me when I'm languishing in a dungeon for high treason," I agreed.

CHAPTER TWO

Old Stone Face, at his half acre of desk and surrounded by the rich walnut panels glowing warm in the muted indirect light, was confident that one telephone call would straighten it all out for me. I didn't often ask his help in running my department, to say nothing of my personal affairs, and he seemed glad to demonstrate he could do things I couldn't. He was willing for me to sit down and watch how much weight he could swing around the Pentagon.

But as the series of frustrating telephone calls wore out the long morning, he progressed from high confidence, to exasperation, to self-disciplined patience, to bewilderment, to anger, to defeat.

He sat back finally in his overstuffed chair, beetled his heavy brows, and peered at me suspiciously across the desk.

"You say you didn't apply for the job. Let's say I believe you."

I straightened up from a weary slouch and raised my hand in the scout-oath position.

"Wouldn't have done you any good if you had," he rumbled from somewhere down in the granite façade. "After some of the things you've done to some of those officers, you'd have been turned down like a shot. They all agree with me that the sheer safety of our nation depends on keeping you away from the Pentagon. They emphatically would go far beyond the call of duty to keep you away. After some of the things you've done to them."

"Well, then?" I asked. I might not be exactly flattered, but at least it looked hopeful.

"So they're all hot to intercede until I mention it is Space Navy. Then they cool down a bit."

"But Space Navy still speaks to the rest of them, doesn't it? At the top, of course."

"Then when I mention it is the Extraterrestrial Psychology Department they back off and want no part of trying to spring you. Sandfordwaithe says maybe they need you in that department after all, that no sacrifice is too great for the rest of the Pentagon, if ... He didn't say, if what. Something's going on, and they're as skittish as an old maid in a pool hall." I didn't smile. I have never been accused of being an organization man.

"All those jabbing pool cues..."

"I know, I got the picture," I said sourly. "I'm thinking there's now just forty-four more hours until I'm court-martialed for high treason. I'm practically swinging from the gallows tree, and you're daydreaming about ... Well, so what'm I going to do?"

"Guess you'd better make the trip," he said slowly. "Somehow I think maybe Computer Research wouldn't have to close its doors if you were gone for a day or so. You go see this bird, this Kibbie fellow. You tell him, in person, you're not the man he thought you were. Soon as he sees you, he'll believe it. But it looks like it has to be in person. I can't get even a general or an admiral to so much as call him on the phone."

"And I saw the run-around you got when you tried to get through to Kibbie yourself," I had to admit. "So I suppose I'd better go. On expense account?"

He rared up at that.

"It's your personal neck," he roared. "Why should the company have to pay for saving it?"

"Now, Henry." I looked at him and shook my head sadly.

"Oh, all right. I'll set it up. I was going to, anyway." There was a fleeting crack in the granite of his face. He'd been kidding me--I hoped. He settled back comfortably in his chair.

"I wonder what's going on?" he mused thoughtfully, and put his finger tips together. "There's something they're not telling us. You find out what it is, Ralphie, my boy."

I sprang up out of my chair as if I'd been stung.

"Yeah," I said coldly, bitterly, and stood glaring down at him. "And see if we can't get the job of making a computer to solve it, whatever it is. You couldn't possibly pay my expenses just because it's me; just because of all the years I've worked my heart out for dear old Computer Research."

I whirled around angrily and started for the door. His voice, slow and measured, followed me, stopped me.

"We got a Board of Directors," he was saying. "We got Stockholders. If it took one lousy nickel out of their pockets to save you, they'd see you hang without batting an eye. You know that, well as I do. But now, say, suppose it was my best judgment to send you to Washington to drum up some more business..."

I turned around and stared at him, incredulous. Far down in the glacial ice blue of his eyes I thought I detected the faintest possible gleam of affection.

"You'd better watch that, Henry," I advised professionally, and was astonished to find my throat was tight. "You might turn into a human being if you're not careful."

He stood up and came around the desk. He held out his hand. It was a momentous occasion. In all the years, I couldn't remember ever having shaken hands with him before. Although once, at a séance, he'd let me take hold of his hand--the time I established that he had extrasensory powers. Looking back, now, I wonder if he had some premonition, even then, that I wouldn't be back. I hadn't. Even with all my experience in dealing with the military, I was still thinking it was a little error I could clear up with a few words of explanation once I got to the right person.

It took me an hour to set up the routines of my department to cover my absence for the next couple of days. I had a good assistant who could step in, although I hoped not too perfectly, and with Sara's help...

It took me the next hour to rush over to my bachelor's apartment to throw some overnight things into a bag. And fight off the usual temptation to overload it by reminding myself that there surely must be stores in Washington, just as here.

Another precious hour to get over to the airport. Two more of pulling strings and fighting clerical red tape to get a seat on one of the planes which usually left half empty anyway. The airlines were still running to suit the convenience of the clerks rather than the customers. Once in the air, something less than an hour to fly the three thousand miles across the continent, but more than another hour to get from the Washington airport to the Pentagon building.

That left me thirty-seven hours to find the right department, which was shaving it pretty fine.

Even Space Navy; after another long hassle of my trying to tell them I wasn't Dr. Kennedy, and their stubbornly maintaining that I was; and the still-longer procedures of signing me in and clearing me for low-level security; weren't sure they ought to let me in on the secret of how to find Dr. Frederick Kibbie.

But they were damned sure they would court-martial me if I didn't find him. Something was, indeed, going on.

Security prevents me from Revealing the Word of how to find the Department of Extraterrestrial Life Research in the Pentagon. Not that the top hierarchy of Russia doesn't know where it is down to the square inch, but John Q. Public, who pays the bills, mustn't be told.