Read The Müller-Fokker Effect for Free Online Page A

surgeon to maintain posture and reduce fatigue. What was left of it still looked good that evening, to the cleanup crew.
    ‘That’s the way I’d like to go,’ one remarked. ‘Comfy.’
    Lieutenant Colonel Fouts tried to shut out the screaming and wailing from the other side of the partition; he tried to order his thoughts.
    There was plenty to think about: The government had pulled out of the Mud Flats project and abandoned the attempt to tape a man. National Arsenamid was expected to follow suit. In retrospect, the idea did smell of circle-squaring and perpetual motion, he had to admit. So if Donagon couldn’t take the disappointment and KNOCK OFF THAT NOISE , it only underlined how crazy he was. The Army had kept his leaky dream afloat long enough. Anyway, National Arse would probably find something else for Donagon to do. Design a new cornflake, say, or answer the telephone.
    Fouts himself was off for a few weeks’ badly needed leave, then some new assignment. He checked a few items off his list: files destroyed, diet started, new oak leaves to buy in Frisco, bag packed, desk cleaned out. There remained only the call to Sharp’s next of kin and what else? A Butterfinger candy bar that wouldn’t fit into his luggage.
    ‘O God!’ said the partition. ‘My whole life wasted!
That
close to the Nobel and—ruined! O why have you forsaken me, O my governme…’
    ‘I SAID KNOCK IT OFF!’ Fouts slammed his wastepaper basket against the wall four or five times. It set the plywood quaking and reminded him to return the wastebasket to the supply room. Well, screw that. He had a bus to catch in fifteen minutes. With a start on the candy bar, he dialed Mrs R. E. Sharp.
    She answered too soon, catching him with a mouthful of stickiness. A big swallow, then:
    ‘Mrs Sharp? Mrs Robert Etwall Sharp? Uh, this is Lt Col Fouts, Knighted Stays Army, Mrs Sharp—oh,
Shairp
, is it? Uh, Mrs Shairp, it is…excuse me…my painful duty to inform you that your husband, you know, Robert Shairp, is dead.
    ‘What window-peeper? No, it’s not. No, really, I’m serious. Excuse me, ma’am, PIPE DOWN OVER THERE, YOU MEDICAL EXPERIMENT!
    ‘Did you hear me, ma’am? I said it is my painful etcetera blah blah your husband is dead. The Mud Flats Biomedical Research Project. A joint effort by the Army and National Arsenamid. An accident.
    ‘Yes, we’ve taken care of the body. We’ll be sending you a few personal effects. Oh yes, and if he was a veteran, you get a free flag from the Veteran’s Administration.
    ‘Uh-huh. Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Mrs Shairp. ‘Bye now.’
    Five minutes to go. Donagon moaned. Fouts picked up his bag off the desk.
    The gun was under it.
    He’d found it lying on the laboratory floor after the four lunatics were hauled away. It was evidence, to be sent to the Justice Department. The details of how to send it were in the destroyed files.
    For a moment he stood weighing it, half-looking for a place to hide the thing. Then a wail from the next office reminded him of a reasonable solution. Bag and overcoat in one hand, gun in the other, and candy bar between teeth, he barged into Donagon’s office.
    ‘Goth oo cath bus, Donagon. Thake this thing off my handths, will oo?’
    ‘What? Oh, sure. Thanks, Algie.’ Donagon smiled wanly. Fout’s free hand took the Butterfinger. ‘Sure you know what to do with it, now? It’s evidence, see? You have to…’
    ‘I understand Algie’
Donagon wiped away a tear and winked. ‘Thanks again.’
    ‘Sure. Well. See you.’
    The lieutenant ran from the building, his fat ass waving goodbye to Donagon.
    Marge put down the phone. ‘Your father is dead,’ she said. ‘So stop goose-stepping around the house and go to your room.’
    Many hours, many drinks, later she spoke again, this time to a cigarette table lighter disguised as the vaguest of Oriental gods. ‘Bring him back to me. Please. Whole and alive. I’ll do anything in return.’
    This inferior,