Read Fail Safe for Free Online

you should have told me tha,t it happened six times a month. It can't be very dangerous if it happens that often."
    "Sir, we never take a chance," Colonel Cascio said. His voice had an odd sharp inflection to it, almost reproving. "Right now we don't know what that object is. We treat it exactly as if it were an enemy vehicle of some sort. If we cannot identify it in a few more minutes or it acts suspiciously we will go to Condition Yellow. If we still are unsatisfied or things occur that complicate the picture we might even go to Condition Green. The last condition, as you know, is Condition Red. We have never gone to Condition Red, for that would mean that we actually considered ourselves at war and would launch weapons, all of our weapons, at the enemy. What all of this machinery assures is that if we do go to war it is not by accident or because of
    the act of some madman. This system is infallible."
    Colonel Cascio was wrong.
    Branching off from the War Room is a warren of powerfully built and beautifully orchestrated rooms. Each room has a function. Each is protected by sheaths of reinforced concrete and a layer of lead. Each is air-conditioned. Each is linked to the War Room by alternate methods of communication. The whole thing is as symmetrical, efficient, and orderly as the mind and muscle of man can make it.
    One room in the warren about the War Room is labeled Presidential Command Net. The door is guarded by an Air Force man twenty-four hours a day. Within the room-of classified length and classified breadth-there are six low, gray, squat machines. Above them is a sign which reads FailSafe Activating Mechanisms. Below that sentence and in heavy raised red letters are the words To be used only at express Presidential order. There are two desks in the room. One of them is in front of the bank of six machines. The other is behind the bank of machines.
    Seated behind each of the desks is an enlisted man whose sole duty is tQ check the mechanical condition of the activation machine. The machines are deliberately not covered. All of the operating parts must be visible to the two inspectors. The air which is forced into the room is triple-filtered so that it is dustless.
    At about the moment that Colonel Cascio said the word "infallible" a sergeant sitting at one of the desks stood up and walked around the bank of machines.
    "Frank, how you fixed for cigarettes?" the ser
    geant asked. "I'm out."
    Frank tossed him a pack of Chesterfields. The sergeant reached to catch them. At that moment in Machine No. 6 a small condenser blew. It was a soundless event. There was a puff of smoke no larger than a walnut that was gone instantly.
    The sergeant sniffed the air. He turned to Frank. "Frank, do you smell something?" he asked. "Like something burning?"
    "Yeah, that's me," Frank said. "You bumming cigarettes all the time and then not paying me back, that burns me."
    They grinned at one another. The sergeant returned to his desk. Things returned to normal... almost. A small shield hid from the sergeant's view the tiny knob of burnt carbon on top of the disabled condenser. No instruments on the table indicated a malfunction.
    Congressman Raskob was a tough man. He regained his composure quickly. Now he was even enjoying the situation. It had something of the elements of politics
    mit.
    "Can you project the fighter planes that are flying toward the unidentified object onto the Big Board?" Raskob asked.
    "Certainly, sir," Colonel Cascio said.
    He moved some levers. A few feet from the red blip a phosphorescent worm began to glow, became more distinct, and then broke itself into six separate blips, all black. They were diminishing the distance between themselves and the red blip at a rate which was perceptible to the human eye.
    "Those are Canadian fighters. They are probably subsonic planes so they will dose the unidentified ohject in a half hour or so."
    "Colonel Cascio, what information do we have on the UFO?"
    Colonel Cascio walked