Free Alternate Gerrolds by David Gerrold Page A

said ... he said that if for any reason Colonel Peck was unable to carry out the mission...I was to take over and make sure the device was delivered. I asked him if he thought that was likely. He said no, but ... well, the top brass just wanted to cover every possibility, that’s all.”
    “Ah, uh, you can’t be serious,” I stammered.
    “Well, General Donleavy suggested that if I thought I had to do such a thing, I should talk it over with the bombardier and the navigator and maybe the flight engineer. I wouldn’t have said anything, but—” He glanced backward.
    “Uh—you can’t do it,” I said. “You just can’t. The colonel didn’t mean anything by what he said. You saw him. He’s just—I mean, anybody’d feel bad having to do this. You would, wouldn’t you?” I looked to Bogey, alarmed at the way the conversation was going.
    Bogey’s expression was dark. “I’m not going to have any trouble dropping this bomb. I’ve seen the Nazis face-to-face.” He looked to Reagan.
    “Well,” said Reagan. “I guess ... a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
    “Ah, uh, you can’t do this, Colonel. You gotta give him a chance. You do this, you’ll wreck his career—”

    Bogey poked me hard in the shoulder then, and I shut up just as Colonel Peck climbed back into the cockpit. If he’d heard anything, he didn’t show any sign. He glanced around at us with gentle eyes, and I knew he knew.
    “All right, men,” he said. “Let’s talk about it.”
    “Eh?” said Bogey, blandly. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Peck let out his breath in a sigh, glancing downward while he collected his thoughts. When he met our eyes again, his face was grim. “I wanted to have this talk with you before,” he said. “But I realized that there was no safe way to have this talk until we were safely in the air. From here on in, this thing is our responsibility. It’s up to us. We’ve been entrusted by our government with the single most important mission of the war. But I want you to think about something for a moment. There is a law that transcends the laws that mere men can make.”
    I glanced to Bogey, then to Reagan. Bogey’s grim smile revealed nothing of what he was thinking. But everything Reagan was feeling was written on his face so clearly, he could have been a neon sign.
    Peck saw it. He put his hand across the intervening space and laid it on Reagan’s shoulder. “Ronnie, I want you to think about the precedent we’re about to set. We’ll be validating that it’s all right to bomb civilians, to wipe out whole cities. This is the first atomic war. If we do this, it won’t be the last. Yes, I’ve been thinking; maybe the most courageous thing we can do today is not drop this bomb. Maybe we should jettison it into the ocean. It’ll be three months before the next one is ready. But we could take a stand today, that soldiers of the United States will not kill innocent civilians. And if we did that, our government leaders would have three months to change their minds about using the next one. Perhaps they’d think differently if we gave them a reason to reconsider—”
    “And perhaps they’ll just put us in Leavenworth and throw away the key,” said Bogey. “Count me out. I’ve seen enough prisons, thank you.”
    “You’re talking treason, sir,” said Reagan.
    “Yes, in one sense, I guess I am. But is it treasonous to place one’s loyalty to God and all humanity above everything else? If our government is about to do something terribly terribly wrong, shouldn’t we oppose it—just like all those brave men and women who have been trying to
oppose the evils of the Third Reich for so many years? Do two wrongs make a right?”
    “Ahh-h-h,” I stammered. They all looked at me. “I hear the sense of your words, Colonel, but this is the wrong time to have second thoughts. The time to bail out of this mission was before we took off.”
    Peck looked to Bogey. He raised an