a
grateful--nation. Everything--"

"--everything," I finished for him, "except the right to go down to
the corner store for a magazine. Everything except what better than
me have called the pursuit of happiness."

* * * * *

He knew that was true. "But which is more important; your happiness,
or the freedom and happiness of a hundred and seventy millions? Peter,
if things political don't change, perhaps the freedom and happiness of
over two billion, which, I believe, is the population of this backward
planet."

"Yeah." The cigarette was dry, and I stubbed it in an ashtray. "And
all this hangs on one person--me. That's your story." My mouth was
dry, too.

His smile, I'm afraid, was more than just a little forced. "That's my
story, and we're all stuck with it; you, me, all of us. No, you stay
here, Stein. Let's see if we can get this over once and for all."
Lines came and went on his forehead, as he felt for words.

"Let's try it this way: for the first time in written history as we
know it one single deadly new weapon can change the course of the
world, perhaps even change the physical course of that world, and the
people who in the future will live in it. Speaking personally, as a
man and as a reasonable facsimile of a technician, I find it extremely
hard, almost impossible, to believe that at the exact psychic moment
an apparent complete nullification of that weapon has appeared."

I grunted. "Maybe."

"Maybe. That's what we want to find out. Could you, Peter, if you were
in my place, or you in your own place, get a good night's sleep
tonight or any other night knowing that problem might have an answer
without doing anything about it? Or are you one of these people who
believe that there is no problem, that all things will solve
themselves? Do you believe that, Stein? Do you think that Peter
Ambrose Miller thinks that way?"

No, Stein didn't think that way, and Miller didn't think that way. We
all knew that.

"All right," and he rubbed the back of his neck with a tired hand. "We
have that weapon now. We, meaning the United States, and the whole
wide world, from Andorra to Zanzibar. Now means today, in my lexicon.
Tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow, or tomorrow of next year or the year
after that, who will be the one to use that weapon? Do you know,
Peter? Do you know?"

There was no need for an answer to that.

"And neither does anyone else. Peter, you're insurance. You're th