Robert Heinlein: Sixth Column

"Colonel Calhoun -- of course."

"Of course." Thomas expressed by raised eyebrows and ready agreement an opinion which military courtesy did not permit him to say aloud. Ardmore knew that Thomas was right. Outside of his specialty, Calhoun was a bad-tempered, supercilious, conceited old fool, in Ardmore's opinion. Ardmore had had to intercede already to patch up trouble which Calhoun's arrogance had caused. Scheer worked for Calhoun only because Ardmore had talked with him, calmed him down, and worked on his strong sense of duty.

The situation reminded him of the time when he had worked as press agent for a famous and successful female evangelist. He had signed on as director of public relations, but he had spent two-thirds of his time straightening out the messes caused by the vicious temper of the holy harridan.

"But you have no way of being sure that you will be back in a few days," Thomas persisted. "This is a very dangerous assignment; if you get killed on it, there is no one here who can take over your job."

"Oh, now, that's not true, Thomas. No man is irreplaceable."

"This is no time for false modesty, sir. That may be true in general, but you know that it is not true in this case. There is a strictly limited number to draw from, and you are the only one from whom all of us will take direction. In particular, you are the only one from whom Dr. Calhoun will take direction. That is because you know how to handle him. None of the others would be able to, nor would he be able to handle them."

"That's a pretty strong statement, Thomas."

Thomas said nothing. At length Ardmore went on.

"All right, all right suppose you are right. I've got to have military information. How am I going to get it if I don't go myself?"

Thomas was a little slow in replying. Finally, he said quietly, "I could try it."

"You?" Ardmore looked him over and wondered why he had not considered Thomas. Perhaps because there was nothing about the man to suggest his potential ability to handle such a job -- that, combined with the fact that he was a private, and one did not assign privates to jobs requiring dangerous independent action. Yet perhaps

"Have you ever done any work of that sort?"

"No, but my experience may be specially adapted in a way to such work."

"Oh, yes! Scheer told me something about you. You were a tramp, weren't you, before the army caught up with you?"

"Not a tramp," Thomas corrected gently, "a hobo."

"Sorry -- what's the distinction?"

"A tramp is a bum, a parasite, a man that won't work. A hobo is an itinerant laborer who prefers casual freedom to security. He works for his living, but he won't be tied down to one environment."

"Oh, I see. Hm-m-m -- yes, and I begin to see why you might be especially well adapted to an intelligence job. I suppose it must require a good deal of adaptability and resourcefulness to stay alive as a hobo. But wait a minute, Thomas -- I guess I've more or less taken you for granted; I need to know a great deal more about you, if you are to be entrusted with this job. You know, you don't act like a hobo."

"How does a hobo act?"

"Eh? Oh, well, skip it. But tell me something about your background. How did you happen to take up hoboing?"

Ardmore realized that he had, for the first time, pierced the man's natural reticence. Thomas fumbled for an answer, finally replying, "I suppose it was that I did not like being a lawyer."

"What?"

"Yes. You see, it was like this: I went from the law into social administration. In the course of my work I got an idea that I wanted to write a thesis on migratory labor and decided that in order to understand the subject I would have to experience the conditions under which such people lived."

"I see. And it was while you were doing your laboratory work, as it were, that the army snagged you. "

"Oh, no," Thomas corrected him. "I've been on the road more than ten years. I never went back. You see, I found I liked being a hobo."

The details were rapidly arranged. Thomas wanted nothing in the way of equipment but the clothes he had been wearing when he had stumbled into the Citadel. Ardmore had suggested a bedding roll, but Thomas would have none of it. "It would not be in character," he explained. "I was never a bindlestiff. Bindlestiffs are dirty, and a self-respecting hobo doesn't associate with them. All I want is a good meal in my belly and a small amount of money on my person."

Ardmore's instructions to him were very general. "Almost anything you hear or see will be data for me," he told him. "Cover as much territory as you ran, and try to be back here within a week. If you are gone much longer than that, I will assume that you are dead or imprisoned, and will have to try some other plan.

"Keep your eyes open for some means by which we can establish a permanent service of information. I can't suggest what it is you are to look for in that connection, but keep it in mind. Now as to details: anything and everything about the PanAsians, how they are armed, how they police occupied territory, where they have set up headquarters, particularly their continental headquarters, and, if you can make any sort of estimate, how many of them there are and how they're distributed. That would keep you busy for a year, at least; just the same, be back in a week. "

Ardmore showed Thomas how to operate one of the outer doors of the Citadel; two bars of "Yankee Doodle," breaking off short, and a door appeared in what seemed to be a wall of country rock -- simple, and yet foreign to the Asiatic mind. Then he shook hands with him and wished him good luck.

Ardmore found that Thomas had still one mare surprise for him; when he shook hands, he did so with the grip of the Dekes, Ardmore's own fraternity! Ardmore stood staring at the closed portal, busy arranging his preconceptions.

When he turned around, Calhoun was behind him. He felt somewhat as if he had been caught stealing jam. "Oh, hello, Doctor," he said quickly.

"How do you do, Major," Calhoun replied with deliberation. "May I inquire as to what is going on?"

"Certainly. I've sent Lieutenant Thomas out to reconnoiter. "

"Lieutenant?"

"Brevet lieutenant. I was forced to use him for work fax beyond his rank; I found it expedient to assign him the rank and pay of his new duties."

Calhoun pursued that point no further, but answered with another, in the same faintly critical tone of voice. "I suppose you realize that it jeopardizes all of us to send anyone outside? I am a little surprised that you should act in such a matter without consulting with others."

"I am sorry you feel that way about it, Colonel," Ardmore replied, in a conscious attempt to conciliate the older man, "but I am required to make the final decision in any case, and it is of prime importance to our task that nothing be permitted to distract your attention from your all-important job of research. Have you completed your experiment?" he went on quickly.

"Yes."

"Well?"

"The results were positive. The mice. died."

"How about Wilkie?"

"Oh, Wilkie was unhurt, naturally. That is in accordance with my predictions."

Jefferson Thomas. Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude, University of California, Bachelor of Law, Harvard Law School, professional hobo, private and cook's helper, and now a brevet lieutenant, intelligence, United States army, spent his first night outside shivering on pine needles where dark had overtaken him. Early the next morning he located a ranchhouse.

They fed him, but they were anxious for him to move along. "You never can tell when one of those heathens is going to come snooping around," apologized his host, "and I can't afford to be arrested for harboring refugees. I got the wife and kids to think about." But he followed Thomas out to the road, still talking, his natural garrulity prevailing over his caution. He seemed to take a grim pleasure in bewailing the catastrophe.