There was another pistol under the dead man's coat, in a
shoulder-holster; a queer thing with a thick round barrel, like an old
percussion pepper-box, and a diaphragm instead of a muzzle. Probably
projected ultrasonic waves. He holstered his own Colt and pocketed the
unknown weapon. There was a black plastileather-bound notebook. It was
full of notes. Chemical formulae, yes, and some stuff on sonics; that
tied in with the queer pistol. He pocketed that. He'd look both over,
when he had time and privacy, two scarce commodities in the Army....
* * * * *
At that moment, there was a sudden rushing overhead, and an instant
later, the barrage began falling beyond the crest of the ridge. He
looked at his watch, blinked, and looked again. That barrage was due at
0550; according to his watch, it was 0726. That was another mystery, to
go with the question of who the dead man was, where he had come from,
and how he'd gotten hold of Benson's pistol. Yes, and how that tank had
gotten blown up. Benson was sure he had used his last grenade back at
the supply-dump.
The hell with it; he'd worry about all that later. The attack was due
any minute, now, and there would be fleeing Commies coming up the valley
ahead, of the UN advance. He'd better get himself placed before they
started coming in on him.
He stopped thinking about the multiple mystery, a solution to which
seemed to dance maddeningly just out of his mental reach, and found
himself a place among the rocks to wait, and while he waited, he looked
over the plastileather-bound notebook. In civil life, he had been a
high school chemistry teacher, but the stuff in this book was utterly
new to him. Some of it he could understand readily enough; the rest of
it he could dig out for himself. Stuff about some kind of a carbonated
soft-drink, and about a couple of unbelievable-looking long-chain
molecules....
After a while, fugitive Communists began coming up the valley to make
their stand.
Benson put away the notebook, picked up his carbine, and cuddled the
stock to his cheek....
THE END
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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