Read Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane for Free Online Page B

it!”
    Kane looked down at the file. Once more he began to read: “On the following…”
    “Isn’t it beautiful?”
    Kane again looked up. Cutshaw was holding his medal, fondly admiring it, head bent over. It looked to Kane like St. Christopher. “Yes,” said Kane, “it is.”
    “There, I knew it!” raged Cutshaw. “You were looking at it!”
    “No.”
    “Yes, you were! ”
    “Then, I’m sorry.”
    “ Sure, you’re sorry!” fumed the astronaut. “What good is ‘sorry’? The damage is done, you envious swine! How can I eat! How can I sleep! I’ll be a quivering, nervous wreck waiting for you to make your move! For a kleptomaniac colonel to come padding up to my bedside and rip away my medal!”
    “If I were to try something like that you would awaken,” reasoned Kane.
    Cutshaw would have none of it. “Powerful drugs,” he gritted, “could be insinuated into my soup. You could—” Kane, he suddenly noticed, was staring at the mouse. “Aha! You want the mouse! Here, Hud, take him! Leave me the medal!”
    “I do not want the mouse or the medal,” said Kane.
    “Who the hell offered them?” Cutshaw rebutted, smoothly pocketing the mouse. “Now read! And eat your heart out!”
    Kane’s eyes brushed over him, then returned to the dossier. “The following morning at—”
    “Your hands are very large,” interrupted the astronaut.
    The comment drew Fell’s attention to the Colonel’s hands. Yes, noted the medic; they are rather large.
    “I know,” said Kane mildly.
    “Congratulations!” rasped Cutshaw. “Now spare me the interruptions and get on with my therapy. I haven’t got all day. There are mice to be fed!”
    Kane resumed his reading: “The following morning at 0500, subject officer entered his space capsule, but on receiving instructions from Control to begin his countdown, was heard instead to say, ‘I am sick unto the death of being used! ’ While being carried out of the capsule, subject officer plainly announced that if ‘nominated’ he ‘would not run, and if elected would not serve.’ He later expressed his ‘profound conviction’ that going to the Moon was ‘naughty, not suave,’ and in any case bad for his skin. Political affiliation: Anarchist; professes to hate officers…” Here, Kane looked up, puzzlement prowling his eyebrows. “Cutshaw, you are an officer.”
    “That’s all very well for you to say; you’re sane! ” responded Cutshaw.
    “Aren’t you? ” parried Kane.
    “If I were, would I still be sitting here playing ‘Youth Wants To Know’ with a pansy?”
    Fell slurped from his coffee mug, staring at Kane’s back with a physician’s eye; at his hands clenching the desk edge. The “Little Flower,” he judged, had rather powerful muscles, and they presently seemed to be operating under some sort of massive restraint.
    “Why,” tempered Kane, “do you hate officers, son?”
    “Why do camels have humps and snakes not? Don’t ask the heart for reasons, Hud!” Cutshaw leaped up. “Just pack up and leave!”
    “Why won’t you go to the Moon?”
    Cutshaw sat down again like a flash. “So you’re staying!”
    “Yes, I’m staying.”
    Cutshaw leaned forward portentously. “Schmucks dance after dinner; sheiks sleep,” he intoned; then leaned back.
    “Meaning what?”
    “How do I know? The voices told me to say that!”
    “Cutshaw—”
    “Wait! Wait-wait-wait!” The astronaut’s hand flew to his brow as his eyes pressed tightly shut in thought. “I’m getting a message for—‘H.A.’! Is there an ‘H.A.’ here with us tonight?”
    “No,” sighed Kane and “Wrong!” pounced Cutshaw. “‘Horse’s Ass’ will do quite nicely.” Then with a “Shhhh!”—waving Kane to silence—he closed his eyes in groping frown again. “Attila! It’s Attila the Hun! Wants to know if you’ll accept the charges!”
    “What is the message?”
    “He wants a ball of ‘Silly Putty’ and a ‘Batman Is a Fag’ sticker.”
    “Why