"Defects," the colonel said coolly. "Several minor, no major. Minor include a tendency to irk his superiors by failure to consult, by failure to keep his opinions to himself. Nothing unusual for the age, of course. Other defects are his size"--the lieutenant sat without moving through all of this--"and his blood type. He's got some rare kind of thing for which plasma is almost never available. That keeps him from front line duty." The colonel stopped, began slowly to light a cigarette. Dundon looked at him oddly. "Nothing else?" The colonel shook his head. Dundon was suddenly flushed. "Wait a minute, son," he said to the lieutenant, and then he took the colonel by the arm and led him briskly into a corner. "What the hell is this?" he hissed angrily, lowly, into the colonel's ear. "This boy looks like one hell of a good officer, what--" The colonel held his finger to his lips, gestured cautiously. "I couldn't tell you in front of him, chief." "Couldn't tell me what? Listen, I'm not goin' to kill a young kid like--" "It's Security. The major defect is Security." Dundon quieted. "What did he do?" "Nothing he did. Chief, you won't like this. But it makes a big difference. You know the way Security is. They checked this boy all the way back to the cradle, found out things about him he doesn't know himself. His history checked all right, no trouble anywhere, except for his father. According to the records, he doesn't have any." Dundon cocked an eyebrow. The lieutenant, unhearing, sat without looking at them. "His mother claims to have married a man named Bruce Hilton in Chicago in 1930. There's no record of the marriage. Also, none of her friends ever met him. She went away from her home town--Evanston--and stayed for a year and came back with a baby, a wedding ring, and a very sad tale of a husband who died. There's no record of the death of any Bruce Hilton. She made up the name obviously. Her maiden name Finnerty." Dundon stared. "So what the hell--" he began, but the colonel cut him off. "So nobody knows. Just the boy's mother and Security. But Security has a special tab for cases like this. They figure like this: suppose the kid gets into a sensitive job, or gets to rank pretty high, and someone finds out about his, well, lack of parentage. You can't figure it. It could mean blackmail, it could mean security risk, or it could mean rumors among officers' wives, and a lot of nonsense like that. I know it doesn't sound like a thing you should hang a guy on, but, well, you know Security. They never take a chance. This kid will get to be a captain, maybe a major, maybe even an L.C. But he has no future in the army." Dundon was looking down studiously at his shoes. "So that's what you wanted," the colonel pursued, "somebody competent, but expendable. Right?" Dundon looked up, his gray eyes filled with disgust. And then he realized that the colonel could not help it, did not like this either, and he patted him on the arm.