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Gunner boy very fairly hung up.
I was beginning to feel very sleepy. For a moment I debated taking a brisk-up pill, but
the mild buzz Connick's liquor had left with me was pleasant enough, and besides, it was getting
late. I went to the hotel suite Candace had reserved for me and crawled into bed.
It only took me a few minutes to fall asleep, but I was faintly aware of an odor. It was
the same hotel the Truce Team was staying at.
I couldn't really be smelling this Arcturan, Knafti. It was just my imagination. That's
what I told myself as I dialed for sleep and drifted off.
The pillow-phone hummed, and Candace's voice said out of it, "Wake up and get decent,
Gunner. I'm coming up."
I managed to sit up, shook my head, and took a few whiffs of amphetamine. As always, it
woke me right up, but at the usual price of feeling that I hadn't had quite enough sleep. Still, I
got into a robe and was in the bathroom fixing breakfast when she knocked on the door. "It's
open," I called. "Want some coffee?"
"Sure, Gunner." She came and stood in the doorway, watching me turn the Hilsch squirt to
full boil and fill two cups. I spooned dry coffee into them and turned the squirt to cold. "Orange
juice?" She took the coffee and shook her head, so I just mixed one glassful, swallowed it, tossed
the glass in the disposal hamper, and took the coffee into the other room. The bed had stripped
itself already; it was now a couch, and I leaned back on it, drinking my coffee. "All right,
honey," I said, "what's the dirt on Connick?"
She hesitated, then opened her bag and took out a photofax and handed it to me. It was a
reproduction of an old steel engraving headed, in antique script, The Army of the United States,
and it said:
Be it known to all men that
DANIEL T. CONNICK
ASIN AJ-32880515
has this date been separated from the service of the United
States for the convenience of the government; and
Be it further known to all men that the conditions of his discharge are
DISHONORABLE
"Well, what do you know!" I said. "You see, honey? There's always something."
Candace finished her coffee, set the cup down neatly on a windowsill, and took out a
cigarette. That was like her: She always did one thing at a time, an orderly sort of mind that I
couldn't match-and couldn't stand, either. Undoubtedly she knew what I was thinking because
undoubtedly she was thinking it, too, but there wasn't any nostalgia in her voice when she said:
"You went and saw him last night, didn't you? . . . And you're still going to knife him?"
I said, "I'm going to see that he is defeated in the election, yes. That's what they pay
me for. Me and some others."
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"No, Gunner," she said, "that's not what M & B pay me for, if that's what you mean,
because there isn't that much money."
I got up and went over beside her. "More coffee? No? Well, I guess I don't want any,
either. Honey-"
Candace stood up, crossed the room, and sat down in a straight-
backed chair. "You wake up all of a sudden, don't you? Don't change the subject. We were talking
about-"
"We were talking," I told her, "about a job that we're paid to do. All right, you've done
one part of it for me-you got me what I wanted on Connick."
I stopped, because she was shaking her head. "I'm not so sure I did."
"How's that?"
"Well, it's not on the fax, but I know why he got his DD. 'Desertion of hazardous duty.'
On the Moon, in the U.N. Space Force. The year was 1998."
I nodded, because I understood what she was talking about. Connick wasn't the only one.
Half the Space Force had cracked up that year. November. A heavy Leonid strike of meteorites and a
solar flare at the same time. The Space Force top brass had decided they had to crack down and
asked the U.S. Army to court-martial every soldier who cut and ran for an underground shelter, and
the Army had felt obliged to comply. "But most of them got Presidential clemency," I said. "He
didn't?"
Candace shook her head. "He didn't apply."
"Um. Well, it's still on record." I dismissed the subject. "Something else. What about
these Children?"
Candace put out her cigarette and stood up. "Why I'm here, Gunner. It was on your list. So-
get dressed."
"For what?"
She grinned. "For my peace of mind, for one thing. Also for investigating the Children,
like you say. I've made you an appointment at the hospital in fifty-five minutes."
You have to remember that I didn't know anything about the Children except rumors. Bless
Haber, he hadn't thought it necessary to explain. And Candace only said, "Wait till we get to the
hospital. You'll see for yourself."
Donnegan General was seven stories of cream-colored ceramic brick, air-controlled, wall-
lighted throughout, tiny asepsis lamps sparkling blue where the ventilation ducts opened. Candace
parked the car in an underground garage and led me to an elevator, then to a waiting room. She
seemed to know her way around very well. She glanced at her watch, told me we were a couple of
minutes early, and pointed to a routing map that was a mural with colored lights showing visitors
the way to whatever might be their destination. It also showed, quite impressively, the size and
scope of Donnegan General. The hospital had twenty-two fully equipped operating rooms, a specimen
and transplant bank, X-ray and radiochemical departments, a cryogenics room, the most complete
prosthesis installation on Earth, a geriatrics section, O.T. rooms beyond number.
And, of all things, a fully equipped and crowded pediatric wing.
I said, "I thought this was a V.A. facility."
"Exactly. Here comes our boy."
A Navy officer was coming in, hand and smile outstretched to Candace. "Hi, good to see
you. And you must be Mr. Gunnarsen."
Candace introduced us as we shook hands. The fellow's name was Commander Whitling; she
called him Tom. He said, "We'll have to move. Since I talked to you, there's been an all-hands
evolution scheduled for eleven-some high brass inspection. I don't want to hurry you, but I'd like
it if we were out of the way. . . this is a little irregular."
"Nice of you to arrange it," I said. "Lead on."
We went up a high-rise elevator and came out on the top floor of the building, into a
corridor covered with murals of Disney and Mother Goose. From a sun deck came the tinkle of a
music box. Three children, chasing each other down the hail, dodged past us, yelling. They made
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