The Forever Man by Gordon R. Dickson Page B

have considered doing, a year previously.
    â€œIt’s this goddamned bird-in-a-gilded-cage life they’ve got me living!” he said. “I could take it if I could only get a taste, just a taste of space, once in a while. If they’d only let me take AndFriend out once a week—once a month, even! If they’d only let me see her!”
    â€œYou might be right,” said the doctor. “But I don’t have any say about that. Have you tried putting in a formal request to visit your former ship?”
    â€œEver since this thing started. Ten months now!” said Jim. “I put in a written request through channels two and three times a week. All they do is come back disapproved.”
    â€œBring the next one to me. I’ll add a letter and sign it,” said the doctor.
    Jim did.
    It came back disapproved.
    He called Mollen and was told that the general could not be reached right now, but that his request to talk to the general would be passed on to the general.
    Mollen did not call back that day or the next.
    Jim called again.
    That day Mollen did not call back, either.
    Jim called again. Still, there was no call-back from Mollen’s office, and Mollen had made no other effort to contact him.
    That night, after one more of the innumerable sessions in Mary’s lab in which Jim was made again to play through the conversation of Raoul’s rescue, saying what Raoul had been heard to say while this was going on, he had a new nightmare.
    This time when he was Raoul, however, on becoming aware of AndFriend and the rest of the Wander Wing that was convoying him back to Base, he broke off his litany of poetry and recitation.
    â€œNo, you don’t!” he howled out the earphones of all their suits, swung La Chasse Gallerie in a hundred and eighty degree turn and headed away from Earth, back into enemy territory.
    The dream changed, without reason but without surprising Jim, as dreams have a habit of doing. He found himself still in his space suit, standing on the observation platform of one of the big command ships on the Frontier, watching in a screen as AndFriend drove across into Laagi territory.
    â€œWhat’re you doing?” Jim shouted at the gunnery command officer, standing next to him and also watching. “There’s a whole flight of Laagi ships coming up on her!”
    â€œOh, I thought they told you,” the gunnery command officer answered cheerfully. “They were through with her in the lab, so they decided to get some use out of her as an unmanned drone to draw Laagi fire, so we can make a study of how the aliens attack. Look at them now, will you? They’re moving in, now. Now they’re really starting to slice her up.”
    â€œUnmanned? No!” cried Jim. His gaze was back on the screen, which now showed AndFriend being killed and destroyed. “Baby, don’t just run straight like that. Cut! Cut and run! Fire back...”
    In his mind’s eye he saw his own empty command chair, with the buttons he could have touched if he was there, the controls he could have used, if he was in the seat. Sweat sprang out all over him; and meanwhile, beside him, the gunnery command officer continued his cheerful chatter about how badly AndFriend was being destroyed, as if it was a game, an entertainment…
    Jim woke, throwing off the bedcovers in one wild movement. The underwear which years of ship’s duty had conditioned him to use as nightwear was glued to him by the perspiration that soaked it. Still caught up in the emotions of seeing AndFriend destroyed while he ached to save her, he stripped off the sodden T shirt and shorts and stumbled into the shower to pour gallons of water on his shaking body. After which he dressed in his running clothes and went out under the unchanging stars to run the streets through the Base until he was limp with exhaustion.
    The next day he went in person to Mollen’s offices.
    The general was out,