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Fantascience Digest, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 12, January-February 1940

Page 5

FANTASCIENCE DIGEST                            Page 5
 
   And the General up there. The Old Man, himself, spouting off the same pep talk he'd given the kids for the past two years. What a magnificent talk! What a marvelous, patriotism-inspiring, blood-tingling oration! Lieutenant J wished the words would stick in the General's throat and choke the beast to death. Because when you hear the man say the same words, make the same motions, the catches, the breaks -- over and over again -- then it sounds different.

   When you do anything over and over, for hundreds of times -- it makes a difference. And it makes the war show itself for what it is. No matter how magnificent causes and reasons and rationalizations sound when you first go out, the monotony and the greyness and the wetness quickly enough reduce it to what it really is -- the sordid grabbings of imperialist powers -- from any side -- for any cause.

   So there he was -- up there on Venus, under the clouds, fighting the rebellionists. Maybe they had cause to rebell. It wasn't for him to think.

   And sometimes, while he sat there at the organ, feet and hands mechanically moving up and down, he'd have a strange feeling that something was going to happen. There would be an emptiness inside him filling up with a pressure that came close to exploding. There was something inside that wanted to come out and force his hands to play music that really meant something, instead of the staccato quickstep and the sentimental ballads that was all he knew. But nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happened, and he went on according to the routine. You couldn't change the routine. 

   Only sometimes he wondered why he had that empty feeling inside, and sometimes he felt like something important was going to happen, but nothing ever did. 

   He couldn't know what he wanted. He had never known any good music -- there had never been any written, and if there had, the wars had spoiled it all. 

   It was one day during tht period of time -- the exact day never mattered -- that the summons came from the General. The Old Man himself -- what could he want? What was so unusual and important that the O.M. contacted the Lieutenant personally? Whatever it was, it was fatality; the General would command, and he would perform.

   "It's a test job," the O.M. said, as Lieutenant J stood at ease after saluting. The Lieutenant's face turned to rock. Test jobs were nice if you were tired of living.

   "We have a neutron blast projector. Something new." The General's old-young eyes stared fixedly at Lieutenant J. "Ion blasts are deflected by magnetic fields. Neutron blasts are not. But, for the same reason, you can't push neutrons up to high velocities by magnetic fields, like you do ions. The problem: to generate high velocity neutrons in appreciable quantities. We've done it, and the results are more than appreciable."
 
   "We have a new mole. It has heavy armor, sonic nullifiers, and induction beam converters that will handle any power they can throw short of almost enough to fuse half the planet. The new mole has the neutron blast. The power plant is enough for a battleship. The entire machine is so strong that you have almost an even chance of coming back."

   "Here are your orders." He handed Lieutenant J a paper. "You

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FANTASCIENCE DIGEST Page 5 And the General up there. The Old Man, himself, spouting off the same pep talk he'd given the kids for the past two years. What a magnificent talk! What a marvelous, patriotism-inspiring, blood-tingling oration! Lieutenant J wished the words would stick in the General's throat and choke the beast to death. Because when you hear the man say the same words, make the same motions, the catches, the breaks -- over and over again -- then it sounds different. When you do anything over and over, for hundreds of times -- it makes a difference. And it makes the war show itself for what it is. No matter how magnificent causes and reasons and rationalizations sound when you first go out, the monotony and the greyness and the wetness quickly enough reduce it to what it really is -- the sordid grabbings of imperialist powers -- from any side -- for any cause. So there he was -- up there on Venus, under the clouds, fighting the rebellionists. Maybe they had cause to rebell. It wasn't for him to think. And sometimes, while he sat there at the organ, feet and hands mechanically moving up and down, he'd have a strange feeling that something was going to happen. There would be an emptiness inside him filling up with a pressure that came close to exploding. There was something inside that wanted to come out and force his hands to play music that really meant something, instead of the staccato quickstep and the sentimental ballads that was all he knew. But nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happened, and he went on according to the routine. You couldn't change the routine. Only sometimes he wondered why he had that empty feeling inside, and sometimes he felt like something important was going to happen, but nothing ever did. He couldn't know what he wanted. He had never known any good music -- there had never been any written, and if there had, the wars had spoiled it all. It was one day during tht period of time -- the exact day never mattered -- that the summons came from the General. The Old Man himself -- what could he want? What was so unusual and important that the O.M. contacted the Lieutenant personally? Whatever it was, it was fatality; the General would command, and he would perform. "It's a test job," the O.M. said, as Lieutenant J stood at ease after saluting. The Lieutenant's face turned to rock. Test jobs were nice if you were tired of living. "We have a neutron blast projector. Something new." The General's old-young eyes stared fixedly at Lieutenant J. "Ion blasts are deflected by magnetic fields. Neutron blasts are not. But, for the same reason, you can't push neutrons up to high velocities by magnetic fields, like you do ions. The problem: to generate high velocity neutrons in appreciable quantities. We've done it, and the results are more than appreciable." "We have a new mole. It has heavy armor, sonic nullifiers, and induction beam converters that will handle any power they can throw short of almost enough to fuse half the planet. The new mole has the neutron blast. The power plant is enough for a battleship. The entire machine is so strong that you have almost an even chance of coming back." "Here are your orders." He handed Lieutenant J a paper. "You