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"If we thought you were going to do that | wouldn't even be here, "| said. "| have these reports here and descriptions of the device. I'll leave them with you. If you think you can work these into your development program, I'll have the material itself sent over and then it's out of our hands completely. Farm it out to wherever you want it developed. Offer your defense contractor the right to patent it. Never tell them where you got it or what its origin might be. As far as we're concerned whoever comes up with the night viewers you ultimately contract with to build can own the whole product and slap their name on it. All we want to do is get this thing developed. That's it. " | handed them across in a bundle, and he flipped through them as if he were my old college professor looking at a term paper, hrumphing, grunting, and nodding at every page. "That's more about how they handled the alien at Wright Field than about the eyepieces themselves, "| said. "Because in reality, they didn't know what made the thing tick and they didn't really want to tear it apart." "Basically, that's exactly what happened, "| said. "At first they didn't know how it was supposed to work. Or maybe they thought it would turn human beings blind or something. They were that afraid. After a while, they just let it stay in dead storage and hoped someone else would take it off their hands. " "| need to read this material more thoroughly and see where we can slip your night vision into the project without causing a ripple on the surface, " Dr. Fredericks explained. "At Fort Belvoir, " he answered, "teams here are taught to keep their own thoughts to themselves. If you tell them this is a piece of foreign technology our intelligence boys got from some other country and we're supposed to make it disappear into what we're doing, that's the story. " "Nobody asks questions under any circumstances, " he said. "It would move along faster and create its own little development bureaucracy if we had the budget to turn it into a crash development project with a real development phase deadline. " "It's just like Santa's workshop on the first day of winter. None of the elves looks up from his workbench until it's done. Then the next project comes along and everybody forgets. By the time the troops are wearing these things in the field and they're handing out the gold watches over a prime rib at the Potomac Inn, night vision is just one big happy memory with the details rewritten to fit the view of history that serves the moment. No one will ever even guess, Colonel Corso, " he said. "From the moment your boys hand the material over, it goes into the developmental soup at Fort Belvoir and comes out the other end as a weapon in the field. " | stood up and closed my briefcase while he walked around his desk. "So what are you going to recommend to General Trudeau?" he asked. "I'd like to suggest we send the device over, you come up with the budget you need, and General Trudeau finds the allocation, "| said. "It was a pleasure not meeting you, Dr. Fredericks, "| told him. "Of course, there will be a liaison over in Army R&D who will officially be placed in charge of night vision development. He will report to General Trudeau and anything | need to know I'll find out from the general. | look forward to seeing the development reports as they come out. Congratulations on your new piece of technology. And congratulations to the company who winds up with this defense contract. " 58 "And you don't want me talking about this or trying to sniff around for any information, " he said. "May |?" Dr. Fredericks asked, reaching for the reports I'd spread out on the arm of the leather chair. "So they just threw it in a package?" he asked. "And that'd be you, " Dr. Fredericks said. "Actually, "| told him, "that'd be you, if you want it. " "How easy will that be?" | asked. "Nobody asks any questions?" | pushed. "Then what happens?" | asked. "And you?" he said. "Congratulations, indeed, " Dr. Fredericks said.