The Ninth Configuration Read Free Page B

‘sorry’? The damage is done, you envious swine! How can I eat now, how can I sleep! I’ll be a quivering nervous wreck now, waiting for some covetous kleptomaniacal colonel to come padding up to my bedside and rip away my medal!”
    “If I were to do that,” Kane said soothingly, “you would awaken.”
    “Powerful drugs could be insinuated into my soup.”
    Kane’s eyes brushed over him, then returned to the dossier.
    “The following morning at 0500, subject officer entered his space capsule, but on receiving instruction from Control to begin his countdown, he was heard instead to say, ‘I am sick unto death of being used!’ While being carried out of the capsule, subject officer plainly announced that if ‘nominated’ he ‘would not run, and if elected would spend his term in office vomiting.’ He later expressed his ‘profound conviction’ that going to the moon was ‘naughty, uncouth, and in any case bad for his skin. ’ ”
    Fell’s effort to suppress a giggle attracted a furious glance from Cutshaw. “What’s the matter? You think that’s funny?”
    Cutshaw bolted from his chair and began plucking books from out of the shelves and tossing them to the floor. “Pack up and leave, Hud! I’ve had it!”
    He broke off and stared at the cover of a book in his hand. “What the hell is this: Teilhard de Chardin?” He looked with surprise at other titles on the shelf. “Douay Bible, Thomas a—” Cutshaw shook his head, then walked over to Kane. “Show me a Catholic and I’ll show you a junkie,” he said; then he ripped the psychiatrist’s shirtsleeve from the wrist all the way to the shoulder and scrutinized his arm. Finally he turned to Fell and scowled. “His needle holes are cleverly hidden,” he accused.
    Kane said quietly, “Why won’t you go to the moon?”
    “Why do camels have humps and cobras none? Good Christ, man, don’t ask the heart for reasons! Reasons are dangerous! The truth of the matter is Custer called Sitting Bull a Spic. Now, aren’t you glad you found that out?”
    “Why won’t you go?” persisted Kane.
    “Why should I? What the hell’s up there?”
    “When Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain, did he ever dream that he’d find America?”
    “All he ever dreamed about was compasses. Idiot starts out looking for India and then plants the flag on Pismo Beach.”
    “It’s—”
    “Hud, I’ve seen the moon rocks! They’ve got little bits of glass inside them: isn’t that exciting?”
    “You still haven’t given me a reason, Cutshaw.”
    “Only schmucks dance after dinner,” Cutshaw intoned. “Sheiks sleep.”
    “What does that mean?” asked Kane.
    “How do I know?” yipped Cutshaw defensively. “The voices told me to say that!”
    “Cutshaw—”
    “Wait a minute, wait wait wait!” The astronaut sat in the chair again as his hand flew up to his brow. His eyes pressed tightly shut in thought. “I’m getting a message from the astral plane. It’s Attila the Hun. He wants to know if you’ll accept the charges.”
    “No,” said Fell.
    “You tell him!”
    The door flew open.
    “Dr. Fell, I need attention.”
    An inmate in a beret stood framed in the doorway. In one hand he held a palette, in the other a brush.
    “What’s the problem?” Fell asked.
    “Who but Leslie! Always Leslie!”
    “Captain Leslie Morris Fairbanks,” Fell told Kane.
    The beret quivered with outrage. “Once again he has given me that fiendish Mark of Fairbanks! Look!” He pouted, turning. “I am bleeding!”
    He wasn’t. But slashed into his trouser seat was a very visible F.
    “Is this wound self-inflicted?” asked Fell.
    But the inmate was eying Kane. “You are Colonel Kane?”
    Kane nodded.
    “Charmed. I am Michelangelo Gomez.” Gomez rubbed his paintbrush into the palette. “Your coloring is bilious,” he said.
    “Look out!” cried Fell; but too late: in a lightning movement, Gomez had brushed red paint onto both Kane’s cheeks.
    “There!”