Memoirs Found In a Bathtub Read Online Free Page A

they wink! But when do they wink? Do you know when? I bet you don’t! And that’s the kind of material I have to work with around here! At night! They wink, they cower under cover of night!!”
    He roared like a lion. I stood at attention, straight as an arrow, waiting for the storm to pass. But it was not passing. Kashenblade, puffed up and purple to the top of his bald head, shook the room with his bellow, shook the Building itself.
    “And the spiral nebulae?! Well?! Don’t tell me you don’t know what that means! SPY-ral!! And the expanding universe, the retreating galaxies! Where are they going? What are they running from? And the Doppler shift to the red!! Highly suspicious—no, more! A clear admission of guilt!!”
    He gave me a withering look, sat back and said in a voice cold with contempt:
    “Moron!”
    “Now just a minute—” I flared up.
    “What? What was that?! Just a minute—? Ah yes, the password! Good, good. Just a minute … the password, yes, that’s better…”
    And he attacked the buttons—the machines rattled like rain on a tin roof, green and gold ribbons spun out and coiled on the desk. The old man read them avidly.
    “Good!” he concluded, clutching them in his fists. “Your Mission. Conduct an on-the-spot investigation. Verify. Search. Destroy. Incite. Inform. Over and out. On the n th day n th hour sector n subsector n rendezvous with N. Stop. Salary group under cryptonym Bareback. Voucher for unlimited oxygen. Payment by weight for denunciations, and sporadic. Report regularly. Your contact is Pyra-LiP, your cover Lyra-PiP. When you fall in action, posthumous decoration with the Order of the Top Secret, full honors, salutes, memorial plaque, and a written recommendation in your dossier. Any questions?”
    “But if I don’t fall in action?” I asked.
    An indulgent smile spread across the general’s face.
    “A wise guy,” he said. “I had to get a wise guy. Very funny. Okay, so much for the jokes. You have your Mission now. Do you know, do you understand what that is?” His lofty brow unwrinkled, the golden medals on his chest gleamed. “A Mission—it’s a wonderful thing! And Special—a Special Mission! Words fail me! Go, go my boy, God be with you, and keep on your toes!”
    “I’ll do my best,” I said, “But what exactly is the assignment?”
    He pressed several buttons, phones rang, he silenced them. The purple pate slowly turned pink. He eyed me benevolently, like a father.
    “Oh,” he said, “extremely hazardous. But remember, it is not for me! I am not sending you! The Country! The Common Good! Yes, yes … you, I know … it’ll be hard, no picnic, a tough nut to crack… You’ll see! Tough, but it must be done, because … because…”
    “Our Duty,” I prompted.
    He beamed. He rose. The medals on his chest swayed and jingled like bells, a hush fell over the machines, the phones grew silent and the lights dimmed. He approached me, he gave me his powerful, hairy hand, the hand of an old soldier. His eyes bored right through me, the bushy brows knitted in a solemn squint. Thus we stood, united by a handshake, the Commander in Chief and the secret agent.
    “Our Duty!” were his words. “Well said, my boy! Our Duty! Take care!”
    I saluted, about-faced, exited, hearing on the way out how he sipped his cold coffee. Kashenblade—now there was a man.

2
    Still a little dazed by my conversation with the Chief, I entered the main office. The secretaries were all busy putting on lipstick and stirring coffee. A wad of papers tumbled out of the mail chute: my orders, signed by General Kashenblade. One clerk stamped them “classified” and handed them to another, who put them on index cards, which in turn were filed away, retrieved, coded by machine—then the key was destroyed, all the original papers burned, the ashes sifted, registered and sealed in an envelope bearing my number, and the envelope was dispatched by pneumatic tube to an unknown vault. But I