The Project Gutenberg EBook of Project Hush, by Philip Klass

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Title: Project Hush

Author: Philip Klass

Illustrator: Dick Francis

Release Date: June 2, 2010 [EBook #32654]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PROJECT HUSH

By WILLIAM TENN

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
February 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: The biggest job in history and it had to be done with
complete secrecy. It was--which was just the trouble!]

I guess I'm just a stickler, a perfectionist, but if you do a thing, I
always say, you might as well do it right. Everything satisfied me about
the security measures on our assignment except one--the official Army
designation.

Project Hush.

I don't know who thought it up, and I certainly would never ask, but
whoever it was, he should have known better. Damn it, when you want a
project kept secret, you _don't_ give it a designation like that! You
give it something neutral, some name like the Manhattan and Overlord
they used in World War II, which won't excite anybody's curiosity.

But we were stuck with Project Hush and we had to take extra measures to
ensure secrecy. A couple of times a week, everyone on the project had to
report to Psycho for DD & HA--dream detailing and hypnoanalysis--instead
of the usual monthly visit. Naturally, the commanding general of the
heavily fortified research post to which we were attached could not ask
what we were doing, under penalty of court-martial, but he had to be
given further instructions to shut off his imagination like a faucet
every time he heard an explosion. Some idiot in Washington was actually
going to list Project Hush in the military budget by name! It took fast
action, I can tell you, to have it entered under Miscellaneous "X"
Research.

Well, we