ng able to look down on everybody else.

Amy Bankhead conducted me to his office and sat me down to wait for
His Military Excellency to arrive. She filled me in on him, to some
degree. He'd been an absolute nothing before the war; but he had a
reserve commission in the Air Force, and when things began to look
sticky, they'd called him up and put him in a Missile Master control
point, underground somewhere up around Ossining.

He was the duty officer when it happened, and naturally he hadn't
noticed anything like an enemy aircraft, and naturally the
anti-missile missiles were still rusting in their racks all around the
city; but since the place had been operating on sealed ventilation,
the duty complement could stay there until the short half-life
radioisotopes wore themselves out.

And then the Major found out that he was not only in charge of the
fourteen men and women of his division at the center--he was ranking
United States Military Establishment officer farther than the eye
could see. So he beat it, fast as he could, for New York, because what
Army officer doesn't dream about being stationed in New York? And he
set up his Temporary Military Government--and that was nine years ago.

If there hadn't been plenty to go around, I don't suppose he would
have lasted a week--none of these city chiefs would have. But as
things were, he was in on the ground floor, and as newcomers trickled
into the city, his boys already had things nicely organized.

It was a soft touch.

* * * * *

Well, we were about a week getting settled in New York and things were
looking pretty good. Vern calmed me down by pointing out that, after
all, we had to sell Arthur, and hadn't we come out of it plenty okay?

And we had. There was no doubt about it. Not only did we have a fat
price for Arthur, which was useful because there were a lot of things
we would have to buy, but we both had jobs working for the Major.

Vern was his specialist in the care and feeding of Arthur and I was
his chief of office routine--and, as such, I delighted his fussy
little soul, because by adding what I remembered of Navy protocol to
what he was able to teach me of Army routine, we came up with as
snarled a mass of red tape as any field-grade officer in the whole
history of all armed forces had been able to accumulate. Oh, I tell
you, nobody sneezed in New York without a report being made out in
triplicate, with eight endorsemen