Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net A Thought for Tomorrow By ROBERT E. GILBERT Illustrated by DAVID STONE [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [Sidenote: _Any intolerable problem has a way out--the more impossible, the likelier it is sometimes!_] Lord Potts frowned at the rusty guard of his saber, and the metal immediately became gold-plated. Potts reined his capricious black stallion closer to the first sergeant. "Report!" the first sergeant bellowed. "Fourth Hussars, all present!" "Eighth Hussars, all present!" "Eleventh Hussars, all present!" "Thirteenth Hussars, all present!" "Seventeenth Lancers, all present!" The first sergeant's arm flashed in a vibrating salute. "Sir," he said, "the brigade is formed." Potts concentrated on the sergeant; but, aside from blue eyes, a black mustache, and luminous chevrons, the man's appearance remained vague. His uniform had no definite color, except for moments when it blushed a brilliant red, and his headgear expanded and contracted so rapidly that Potts could not be certain whether he wore a shako or a tam. "Take your post," Potts said. "Men!" he shouted. "We're going to charge at those guns!" "Oh, Oi say!" wailed a small private with scarcely any features but a mouth. "Them Russians'll murder us!" "Yours not to reason why," Potts said. "Draw sabers! Charge!" The ground quaked under the beat of twenty-four hundred hoofs. As the first puffs of smoke billowed from the entrenchments half a league away, Potts remembered that he had forgotten to give orders to the lancers. Should he tell them to couch lances, or lower lances, or aim lances, or-- * * * * * "P. T. boys, let's go. Out to the door," a bored voice called. Potts opened his eyes. He sighed. Again he had failed. The dayroom had hardly changed. The chairs were all pushed together in the center of the floor, and two patients with brooms swept little ridges of dirt and cigarette butts toward the door. Potts sat slouched in one of the chairs and raised his feet as the sweepers passed. "Orville Potts, out to the door," the bored voice said. Potts gave Wilhart a killing look when the big attendant, immaculate in white duck trousers and short-sleeved linen shirt, passed through to the porch. Potts wondered why so many of the attendants resembled clean-shaven gorillas.