"Yes, sir." Sweeney picked up the bundlesome stack of microfilm reels. "Mr. Sweeney--" "What is it?" "Are--are _They_ going to get 'em? All of Earth's Space outpost and military records--_every_thing?" "After the Joint Chiefs make out emergency recall orders for every last damn unit, they are. They will check each set of orders against every unit record here, all the way from Corps down to each individual ship." Sweeney grunted. "Then they'll burn 'em, positives, negatives, everything ... then when the ships come in, they will destroy them too." Manning felt something turn over inside him. "General Taylor,--" "What the hell can Taylor do? Christ, you're better off than he is. Once every ship is back here and busted up, he won't even have a job. Maybe not even a head." "Every ship. They're all there, Mr. Sweeney. Positives and negatives double-wound on every reel." "They better be. Or _you_ won't have a damn head!" Sweeney turned and steamrollered out of the office, with every existing record past and present of General Taylor's New U. N. World Space Force under one beefy arm. For security reasons, Manning realized, there had been made but a single copy and negative for each of its units. His desk was an old one, practically an antique dating back to the 1940's, and his sonotyper was buried deep in its insides on a wooden shelf that folded out to meet you in an awkward manner when you pushed the desk-top up, over and down. Manning pushed, and with a couple of bronchial grunts produced the sonotyper. He fed in a continuous paper spool, turned on the current, unhooked the compact microphone from the machine's side, and began dictating the rest of his day's work. Something got kicked viciously out of the key-bed. Black, shiny squares of something. All he needed was for the sonotyper to go haywire and start shooting its complex insides all over. He stopped dictating to remove his glasses and dry his streaming eyes. His vision cleared, and for an instant settled on the shiny things that had landed near the front edge of his desk. Hunks of microfilm. He picked them up, held one to the light. Words. He fished in a drawer, found a magnifying glass that was used for half-obliterated old files. He could see the words better, but they were backwards. He had the negative. Impatiently, he grabbed the other square. And read it. And shivered. And again, it wasn't his cold that was bothering him. He would have to call Sweeney right away-- ... _Light Space Brigade, Experimental. Temporary outpost, Callisto. Force: 20 Lancer-type J-88 destroyers. Complement: 600. Commanding: Col. Geofferey Steele_--