hat's out of
the question. It's just not possible at all."

Mr. Tucker waited.

General Shorter poured himself another brandy. His back was to the
civilian.

"There's nothing more important, right now, than my job here," he said.
He drank the brandy in a single gulp.

"I don't see how it can wait, General," Mr. Tucker said.

The general's lips were dry. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment
against the alcohol and the cold. He licked his lips. "What's the formal
charge?"

Mr. Tucker bent forward. His voice was soft and curious, as though the
question were his final effort to understand something that puzzled him
for a long time. "What do you think it is, General?"

"What could it be?" the general said sharply. "I follow orders, sir. I
was sent out here to make this planet suitable for human habitation.
This is exactly what I have been doing." His voice was growing
progressively more angry and with an effort he curbed himself. "Put
yourself in my position. I did what any field commander would have done.
It was too late to stop it. I've got--It's a question of the limits of
normal prudence. A matter of interpretation, sir."

The general was in the process of pouring still another drink. The
slender brandy glass broke under the force of his anger. He opened his
palm. Blood trickled from between his fingers.

The general looked up from the hand and fleeting annoyance came and went
before he was recalled to present reality. His eyes met Mr. Tucker's.

Mr. Tucker suddenly shivered as if touched by a wind from beyond the
most distant stars, a wind which whispered: The aliens are among us.

"General," Mr. Tucker said, "the formal charge is murder."

End of Project Gutenberg's General Max Shorter, by Kris Ottman Neville

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