Very Truly Yours, Herman Spottsworth
Subdivision Three Stockade
Halcyon
Dear Boss:
Lieutenant Major Roggo Furl informs me that I’m permitted to write you an uncensored letter. Boss, I’m in the dregs of despair. Please take good care of Joanie.
It’s cold here in the stockade. The food stinks. The other prisoners are all Halcyonian military deserters. Get me out of here!
But I better calm down and try to tell you what happened from the beginning. As I already told you, I decided to try and sell General Multacni a life insurance policy. It took me two hours working my way through the chain of command before I could even get to see the General. When I finally did, I found myself facing a huge figure in military uniform—huge even by Halcyonian standards. General Multacni is probably nine feet tall.
At first he was courteous. He listened politely, taking time out every now and then to direct a bombing raid by radio, while I explained to him exactly what life insurance was and what he could expect from the Terran policy. Like everyone else on Halcyon, he said he didn’t need life insurance.
“See here, sir,” I said, translator polite but not obsequious. “War is dangerous business. You never know when your number is going to be up.”
The General’s office rumbled with laughter as he said, “Mr. Terran—” they all call me that “—I’m indestructible.” As you probably know, that’s a typical military career man’s attitude. They all think they are indestructible. The other fellow will die in the trenches or the raids, not them. Even on Earth we have trouble selling our policies to the military.
I tried a different tack, the one approved for military customers on Earth. “Well, General,” I said, “someday this war is going to be over. Someday you’re going to retire to a farm somewhere in the good rich land around Rmpldecroidesanspertxkle. You’ll raise chickens—” which the translator translated to the Halcyonian equivalent, of course “—and bounce your little grandchildren on your knee. And then, way off in the dim future, General, years and years from now after you’ve lived a rich, full life, you’re going to succumb to natural causes. And, if not sooner—and we certainly hope it won’t be sooner—that’s when your family will need this insurance policy I have for you.”
“The war isn’t going to end,” General Multacni told me.
“But someday, when your side is victorious, and—”
“Victorious?” His translator buzzed, repeating the word syllable for syllable.
“What is that?”
“When you win the war.”
“Win it? But we’re not going to win it, Mr. Terran.”
“Things can’t be that bad,” I consoled the General giving him my best you’re-down-in-the-dumps-now-but-wait-till-later smile. “Maybe the enemy has you on the run just now, but you’ll emerge victorious—you’ll win—in the end.” Of course, I would have told the same thing to General Multacni’s opposite number in the opposing camp. I’m no authority on Halcyonian military matters, but under the circumstances it seemed the correct thing to say.
General Multacni stood up. “I must consider this interview at an end, Mr. Terran,” he said frostily. “And I advise you to keep such subversive thoughts to yourself in the future. I’m a broad-minded Halcyonian, but—” And the General let his voice trail off ominously.
I figured he had battle fatigue, boss. Nobody could talk like that in his right mind, not even a general on a planet which is engaging in warfare almost constantly. Anyhow, I had to find out. Wandering through the military reservation on my way back to Rmpl, I chanced upon a non-commissioned officer’s club. Here was the place to find out once and for all! I would speak to the NCO’s who probably had families and probably were in danger of shipping out to the warfronts at any time.
I went inside and I spoke. Maybe I made too much like a soap box orator, I don’t know. I don’t know. I told them they would need insurance during the war, and after the war. I told them our policies would give them solace in these trying times, mitigating some of their worries during the necessary horrors of their struggle for existence. When finished, there wasn’t a sound in the whole vast room. Boss, I thought we had them. I brought out a pad of policies and was ready to start scribbling names.
Then the military police came in and arrested me.
You know the rest. How I was taken to the subdivision stockades, given a medical exam (for some reason, a small slice of flesh was taken from my rump. I won’t miss it, but I couldn’t sit down for two days), told that I was being held under the provisions of article seven of some kind of code of military justice. Me, subversive. When all I want to do is sell insurance policies. Boss, please get me the heck off this nutty planet.