Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Tähtien turvatit 2: Aika- ja luonnekuvaus kuningatar Kristiinan ajoilta by Topelius Zacharias Hahnsson Theodolinda Translator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 1485 lines and 66800 words, and 30 pages
The Administrative Officer almost shouted to hell with George's children, but basically he was a decent man, even if an overworked one, and he caught himself in time.
"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, picking up some letters that he had already read, "but we've got to leave the traps."
"Then what will I tell my wife?" George demanded.
"Sure," George said. "Do you want me to bite you to prove it?"
"No, you needn't bother," the Administrative Officer said. And then he buried his head in his hands again.
"Technically," he said, speaking through his fingers, "it's a security problem."
With an air of relief, he picked up the phone and called the Security Officer. There was a bit of spirited conversation and then he hung up.
"He'll be right down," the Administrative Officer told George.
Shortly thereafter, the door violently swung open, and a tall man with piercing eyes entered. "Hello Bill," he said quickly. "How are you feeling?"
"Hello, Mike," the Administrative Officer replied. "I feel like hell. This is George. I just called you about him."
"Hello!" George shouted.
"No!" George shouted back. "My wife wants the trap by our front door removed. She thinks it's dangerous for the children."
"Why is everybody shouting?" the Administrative Officer asked peevishly. "I've got a headache."
"No," George answered.
The Security Officer's mouth tightened into a thin, grim line. "A major lapse of security," he snapped. "I'll check into this very thoroughly."
"Will you remove the trap?" George asked.
"I can't, until you're cleared," the Security Officer said, shaking his head. "I certainly won't authorize any action that could be later construed as aiding the entrance of spies or subversives into the plant."
"How old are you?" the Administrative Officer asked George.
"Fifty-six days," George replied without hesitation.
"Under twelve years," the Administrative Officer pointed out to the Security Officer. "No clearance required."
"I don't know," the Security Officer said, shaking his head. "There's no precedent for a case like this. I'll be damned if I'll stick my neck out and have that trap removed. I know, I'll send a request for an advisory opinion." He turned and walked toward the door.
"What should I tell my wife?" George called after him.
"Don't forget Immigration & Naturalization," the Administrative Officer said. "There might be a question of citizenship."
"Well," the Security Officer said as he walked out, "one can't be too careful."
So, George went and told his wife and, the next morning, he was on the train for Washington. Being telepathic, as all this generation of mice were, he already had contacted some mice who had an 'in' in the government buildings.
All the way down on the train, he worried about chasing all those carbons in the bureaucratic maze of Washington, but he needn't have.
This had taken two weeks, and George had lingered in the walls, impatiently waiting for his chance to testify. Of course, he was in telepathic communication with Clara. He knew that his family were all well, that Clara had made friends with the janitor, also that the trap was still there.
The janitor no longer put cheese in it, and he didn't set the spring any more, but he still followed his orders and so, every morning, moved it back by the door of the little mousehouse.
A fat Washington mouse guided George to the mousehole in the conference room. George looked inside and sniffed the smoky air distastefully.
There were seven men seated at a long table, with a glass of water in front of each. This was a liquid that even George knew was hardly designed to lubricate the way to a quick agreement.
"But that's one of our best plants," a civilian from the A.E.C. protested. "We don't want to blow it up, not for a few paltry mice."
"Couldn't we send them to Alaska?" the man from Alaskan Affairs asked timidly, wondering what he was doing there.
"How about traps?" the man from Fish and Wildlife said. "We have some honeys."
"I'm George," George said. "It's my house that has the trap in front of it."
"No," George said, scampering up the leg of the table and walking to its center. "We're not a threat to anybody. We're just mice. It's not our nature to be a threat to anybody."
Then, as he looked around the table at the seven huge faces that surrounded him, he immediately saw that they were all scared half to death because he was a mouse, and he had a sudden premonition that he would not come out of the meeting alive. So he opened his mind to let his family and all the other telepathic mice hear everything that was happening.
"Don't tell me you don't fully realize," the Fish and Wildlife man demanded sarcastically, trying to hide his terror beneath a blustering tone, "that from one mouse, your great-great-grandfather Michael, there must be now at least twelve billion descendants--or six times the human population of Earth!"
"No, I didn't know," George said, interested despite himself.
"No, it didn't," George said, shrinking from that huge, shaking finger. "We mice would never destroy anything uselessly."
"Or that you could cut the wires on any plane, tank, vehicle, train or ship, rendering it completely inoperable!" the General broke in, slamming a meaty palm down on the table so hard that George was thrown over on his back.
"Of course it never occurred to me!" George said, climbing rockily back on his feet. "We mice wouldn't think of such a thing. Don't be afraid," he pleaded, but it was no use. He could feel the panic in their breasts.
"Didn't you ever consider that you could cut every cable, telephone line, power line, and telegraph line from the States to Alaska?" the man from Alaskan Affairs said, just for the sake of saying something. Then, to show his bravery and defiance, he took his glass of water and emptied it on George. It was ice water, and poor George, dripping wet, began to tremble uncontrollably.
"Nonsense!" the General said. "It's the unchanging law of nature. We must kill you or you will kill us. And we'll start by killing you!" The General roared louder than all the rest because he was the most frightened.
His hand, huge and terrible, swept swiftly down on poor, wet, weeping George. But the General really didn't know mouse tactics very well, because George was down the leg of the table and halfway to the mousehole before the huge hand struck the table with a noisy bang.
And poor George, frightened half out of his wits, scooted into the mousehole and ran and ran without stopping, through the mouseways as fast as he could, until he reached the train. But, of course, the train was no longer moving. All the telepathic mice had cut every cable, telephone line, power line and telegraph line, had also cut the wires on every plane, tank, vehicle, train and ship. They also had destroyed every file in the world.
So George had no alternative but to walk back to the plant, which had been preserved as a memorial to great-great-grandfather Michael.
It took him three weary weeks to make it, and the first thing he noticed when he got there was the trap in front of the door. Naturally, there was no bait in it and the spring wasn't set, but the trap was still there.
"George," Clara said to him the moment after she kissed him, "you must speak to the janitor about the trap."
So George went outside right away, since he could hear the janitor swish-swashing the dust around.
"Hello yourself," the janitor said. "So you're home again."
"My wife wants the trap moved," George said. "She's afraid the children might get hurt."
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page