Only, for the sake of keeping up morale, it was something he couldn't let the members of his command suspect. The full truth would have made them feel like outcasts, standing before the locked gates of paradise. So he kept the locket well concealed, and only took it out to whisper, "My darling," thirty or forty times a day. If someone had asked him he would have lied without hesitation and insisted that it was a picture of Jayne Mansfield. He was awake now, fully awake and not even the cups of black coffee he'd dreamt about could make more supportable the harsh realities of his command, or keep them at arm's length any longer. Besides, he had merely sniffed the coffee without tasting it and all of the cups had been whisked away out of sight by a dozen agile-fingered memories. Agile-fingered at first and then iron-fisted, and dominated by a pair of silver eagles. The eagles were on the shoulders of his uniform, which was draped across a chair on the opposite side of the room. He found himself wishing that the eagles were maple leaves or, better still, the silver bars of a lieutenant. Hell--why stop there? A private's uniform would have suited him fine. He luxuriated in the thought for a moment, thinking of how nice it would be to hop in a jeep and go calling on his wife, not caring if he was docked a month's pay and given eight days in the guardhouse. If only he could forget for an hour that the I B M's were Top Secret and had to be zealously guarded by high-ranking officers every hour of the day and night. Well, he couldn't and that was that. He had eagles to remind him that his duty was an awesome one and that he ought to feel proud. Probably he did, but when you started thinking in terms of tomorrow you felt humble and unimportant. Target Moon, Target Mars, Interplanetary Guided Missiles. Not yet, but soon. And if one of them exploded on takeoff it would tear out your guts, because you'd know exactly what the big babies cost. You couldn't build them overnight. In addition to the I B M's, there were eight land-based bombers groomed for instant takeoff just south of the missile launching area and the entire base was under the command of a two-star general who did his best to be everywhere at once, but couldn't quite manage it. Clegman often found himself wondering if the general wouldn't have preferred the less complicated duties of a master sergeant if it wouldn't have meant giving up such a massive kind of prestige. A colonel could demote himself in his mind without undergoing quite such an emotional wrench, but it was probably too much to expect of a general. He'd have to suffer in silence and delegate as much authority as he safely could to Clegman, who had earned his eagles the hard way, on a twice almost bombed-out Flat Top.