"Grant," he barked, "I'm going to ask you an unofficial question. You don't have to answer it. I have no authority over Z-2 anyway, but this is mighty important to the Navy." "Go ahead, sir!" I told the Admiral, "if I can't answer it I'll tell you why." "Do you believe," the Chief of O.N.I. asked slowly, "that Chalmis could have been inspired by Another Government Agency to make a failure of--" he paused. "Operation Octopus, sir?" "Right! Could Chalmis have deliberately destroyed Alaska and sacrificed his life in the interest of General Groves and the Army's bomb?" Groves was a new name to me but I took it in my stride. I looked the Admiral full in the eye--a thing which Admirals rate along with a snappy "Sir!" as proof of initiative, intelligence and subordination on the part of their inferiors. "I am not at liberty to answer that question, Admiral," I replied. "My orders forbid me to discredit any of the armed forces of the United States. After all, sir!" I added, "we must not forget that Professor Chalmis paid for his loyalty with his life." Ballister's face lighted up with nautical glee. "I knew it! I knew it!" he roared. "By God! I knew there was something wrong the last time I consulted G-2, they were so smug and polite. I might have known that they were cooking up something to get even with the Navy for winning this war in the Pacific. My God! Grant, you have to respect the Army for their fanaticism, if for nothing else. Here is a civilian like Chalmis, a great scientist, proved 100% reliable by all of our tests. We checked him for twelve months before we even approached him on the thorium research. Yet the Army, the damned, stinking, two-timing, gold-bricking, double-crossing, medal-splashing, glory-grabbing, credit-claiming Army, gets next to him on the sly and persuades him to blow himself up rather than let the Navy get ahead with its atomic bomb." I nodded admiringly at his flow of language. "Admiral," I told him, "when I came into this office I had a notion you were just another Washington desk-hero. No man who can express himself with such eloquence can have shirked his sea-duty. Mind you, sir!" I continued, "I do _not_ state that the Army had a hand in this outrage. All I ask is that you give me clearance to the head of Army Intelligence, whoever he is now. They keep shipping them into quote war-zones unquote, so they can qualify for active service pay and allowances, campaign ribbons and citations, to back up a special act of congress for their permanent promotion to the rank of Major-General." "West Point--" Ballister began and emerged panting five minutes later after a personally conducted tour of the United States Military Academy.