“Oh, yes,” Lieutenant Nielson said to the smiling room.
“Oh, yes.”
And look at all the buttons, he thought, laughing to himself.
So stupid.
Georgia.
Nielson accepted the deep blue of sanctity, draping it across his shoulders.
Bird song, somewhere.
Of course.
Three buttons red.
He pushed them.
Three buttons green.
He pushed them.
Four dials.
Riverread.
“Oh-oh. Nielson’s cracked.”
“Three is for me,” Nielson said, and touched his forehead with greatest stealth.
Then he reached for the keyboard again.
Unimaginable associations raced through his mind, produced by unaccountable stimuli.
“Better grab him.
Watch out!”
Gentle hands surround me as I push two are brown for which is for mother, and one is high for all the rest.
“Stop him from shooting off those guns!”
I am lifted into the air, I fly, I fly.
“Is there any hope for that man?” Ellsner asked, after they had locked Nielson in a ward.
“Who knows,” Branch said.
His broad face tightened; knots of muscles pushed out his cheeks.
Suddenly he turned, shouted, and swung his fist wildly at the metal wall.
After it hit, he grunted and grinned sheepishly.
“Silly, isn’t it?
Margraves drinks.
I let off steam by hitting walls.
Let’s go eat.”
The officers ate separate from the crew.
Branch had found that some officers tended to get murdered by psychotic crewmen.
It was best to keep them apart.
During the meal, Branch suddenly turned to Ellsner.
“Boy, I haven’t told you the entire truth.
I said this would go on for two years?
Well, the men won’t last that long.
I don’t know if I can hold this fleet together for two more weeks.”
“What would you suggest?”
“I don’t know,” Branch said.
He still refused to consider surrender, although he knew it was the only realistic answer.
“I’m not sure,” Ellsner said, “but I think there may be a way out of your dilemma.”
The officers stopped eating and looked at him.
“Have you got some superweapons for us?” Margraves asked.
“A disintegrator strapped to your chest’”
“I’m afraid not.
But I think you’ve been so close to the situation that you don’t see it in its true light.
A case of the forest for the trees.”