The General Zapped an Angel: New Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction Read Free

mending, and he stepped outside to where the press—swollen by now to almost the entire press corps in Viet Nam—waited, and of course they grabbed him.
    â€œIs it true, General?”
    â€œIs what true?”
    â€œDid you shoot down an angel?”
    â€œYes, I did,” the old warrior stated forthrightly.
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, why?” asked a woman photographer.
    â€œIt was a mistake,” said Old Hell and Hardtack modestly.
    â€œYou mean you didn’t see it?” asked another voice.
    â€œNo, sir. Peripheral, if you know what I mean. I was in the gunship zapping Charlie, and bang—there it was.”
    The press was skeptical. A dozen questions came, all to the point of how he knew that it was an angel.
    â€œYou don’t ask why a river’s a river or a donkey’s a donkey,” Mackenzie said bluntly. “Anyway, we have professional opinion inside.”
    Inside, the professional opinion was divided and angry. All were agreed that the angel was a sign—but what kind of a sign was another matter entirely. Pastor Yager held that it was a sign for peace, calling for an immediate cease-fire. Whitcomb, the Episcopalian, held, however, that it was merely a condemnation of indiscriminate zapping, while the rabbi and the priest held that it was a sign—period. Drummond said that sooner or later the press must be allowed in and that the network men must be permitted to put the dead angel on television. Whitcomb and the rabbi agreed. O’Malley and Yager demurred. General Robert L. Robert of the Engineer Corps arrived with secret information that the whole thing was a put-on by the Russians and that the angel was a robot, but when they attempted to cut the flesh to see whether the angel bled or not, the skin proved to be impenetrable.
    At that moment the angel stirred, just a trifle, yet enough to make the clergy and brass gathered around him leap back to give him room—for that gigantic twenty-foot form, weighing better than half a ton, was one thing dead and something else entirely alive. The angel’s biceps were as thick around as a man’s body, and his great, beautiful head was mounted on a neck almost a yard in diameter. Even the clerics were sufficiently hazy on angelology to be at all certain that even an angel might not resent being shot down. As he stirred a second time, the men around him moved even farther away, and some of the brass nervously loosened their sidearms.
    â€œIf this holy creature is alive,” Rabbi Bernstein said bravely, “then he will have neither hate nor anger toward us. His nature is of love and forgiveness. Don’t you agree with me, Father O’Malley?”
    If only because the Protestant ministers were visibly dubious, Father O’Malley agreed. “By all means. Oh, yes.”
    â€œJust how the hell do you know?” demanded General Drummond, loosening his sidearm. “That thing has the strength of a bulldozer.”
    Not to be outdone by a combination of Catholic and Jew, Whitcomb stepped forward bravely and faced Drummond and said, “That ‘thing,’ as you call it, sir, is one of the Almighty’s blessed angels, and you would do better to see to your immortal soul than to your sidearm.”
    To which Drummond yelled, “Just who the hell do you think you are talking to, mister—just—”
    At that moment the angel sat up, and the men around him leaped away to widen the circle. Several drew their sidearms; others whispered whatever prayers they could remember. The angel, whose eyes were as blue as the skies over Viet Nam when the monsoon is gone and the sun shines through the washed air, paid almost no attention to them at first. He opened one wing and then the other, and his great wings almost filled the hangar. He flexed one arm and then the other, and then he stood up.
    On his feet, he glanced around him, his blue eyes moving steadily from one to another, and