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                         Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1954.
    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed.


                           CHAIN OF COMMAND


                            [Illustration]


                            By STEPHEN ARR


     By going through channels, George worked up from the
     woodwork to the top brass!


                        Illustrated by ASHMAN

       *       *       *       *       *




"George," Clara said with restrained fury, "the least you could do is
ask him. Are you a mouse or a worm?"

"Well, I have gone out there and moved it every night," George
protested, trying to reason with her without success.

"Yes, and every morning he puts it back. George, so long as that trap
is outside of our front door, I can never have a moment's peace,
worrying about the children. I won't go on like this! You must go out
and talk some sense into him about removing it at once."

"I don't know," George said weakly. "They might not be happy to find
out about us."

"Well, our being here is their own fault, remember that," Clara
snorted. "They deliverately exposed your great-great grandfather
Michael to hard radiations. George," she continued fervidly, "all you
have to do is to go out and ask him. I'm sure he'll agree, and then
we'll have this menace removed from our lives. I simply can _not_ go
on like this another minute!"

That, George knew, was a misstatement. She could go on like this for
hours. He stared at her unhappily.

"Yes, dear," he mumbled finally. "Well, maybe tomorrow."

"No, George," she said firmly. "Now! This morning. The very moment he
comes in."

He looked at her silently, feeling harried and unsure of himself.
After living here so long, they'd observed and learned human customs
and speech--they'd even adopted human names.

"George," she pleaded, "just ask him. Reason with him. Point out to
him that he's just wasting his time." She paused, added, "You're
intelligent--you can think of the right things to say."

"Oh, all right," he said wearily. But once he had said it, he felt
better. At least, he would get it over with, one way or another.

       *       *       *       *       *

As soon as he heard the swish-swish of the broom outside his home, he
got up and walked out of the front door. He saw that the trap was
still off to one side, where he had pushed it the night before.

"Hello," he shouted.

Swish-swish-swish went the broom, busily moving dust from one part of
the room to another, swish-swish-swish. The man looked tremendous from
so close a view, yet George knew that he was just a little, bent, old
man, a small specimen of the species.

George took a deep breath. "_Hello!_" he bellowed with all his
strength.

The janitor stopped swish-swishing and looked around the room
suspiciously.

"_Hello!_" George shrieked. His throat felt raw.

The janitor looked down and saw the mouse. "Hello yourself," he said.
He was an ignorant old man and, when he saw the mouse shouting hello
at him, he assumed right away that it was a mouse shouting hello to
him.

"_The trap!_" the mouse bellowed.

"Stop _shouting_!" the janitor cried, annoyed. He liked to think as he
worked, and he hated loud noises. "What about the trap?"

"My wife doesn't want you to put it by the front door any more,"
George said, still speaking loudly, so that the janitor could hear,
but at least not bellowing so that it tore his throat. "She's afraid
it might hurt the children."

"_Will_ it hurt the children?" the janitor demanded.

"No," George replied. "They know all about traps--but my wife still
wants it removed."

"Sorry," the janitor said, "but my orders are to put a trap by every
mousehole. This is an atomic plant, and they don't want mice."

"They do, too!" George said defiantly. "They brought my
great-great-grandfather Michael here themselves and exposed him to
hard radiations. Otherwise _I_ wouldn't be here."

"I can't help it," the janitor snapped. "I have to obey orders."

"What will I tell my wife?" George shouted.

That stopped the janitor. He had a wife of his own.

"I guess I can take it up with the supervisor," he finally said.

"All right," George shouted. "_Thanks!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

The janitor picked up the trap and moved it over to the front door. He
watched, interested, as George promptly pushed it several inches along
the wall. Then he turned and busily swish-swished more dust around the
room.

"Well, what did he say?" Clara asked George as soon as he came back
into the house.

"Said he'd take it up with the supervisor," George said, settling down
in an armchair.

"George," she ordered, "you get up this instant and make sure that he
really does!"

"Look," George pleaded, "he said he would."

"He may have been lying," Clara said promptly. "You go right up to the
supervisor's room and see."

So, George reluctantly heaved himself out of the chair and ran through
the mouseways in the wall until he came to the mousehole in the
supervisor's room.

At that moment, the janitor came in and the supervisor looked up,
annoyed. He was a fat man, with stubble on his cheek, and he walked
with a waddle.

"There's a mouse in room 112 who doesn't want a trap by his front
door," the janitor said simply.

"You're crazy," the supervisor said.

The janitor shrugged. "What should I tell him?" he asked.

"Tell him to come up here and speak to me himself," the supervisor
said, feeling very clever.

"I'm right here," George cried, stepping out of the mousehole and
neatly side-stepping the mousetrap beside it.

"There he is now," the janitor said, pointing.

"My God!" whispered the supervisor, who'd had some education. "A
hallucination."

"No, a mouse," the old janitor corrected.

"My wife wants the trap removed," George patiently explained. "She's
worried the children might blunder into it."

"Do _you_ see him, too?" the supervisor asked the janitor
incredulously, still whispering.

"Sure," the janitor replied. "He's the one I was telling you about,
from room 112."

The supervisor stood up unsteadily. "I don't feel very well," he said
in a weak voice. "I think that I'd better talk this over with the
Administrative Officer. It's a policy matter."

"You come along, too," he said hastily to the janitor, who had turned
to leave. "I'll need all the support I can get." He waddled out,
followed by the janitor.

"_What should I tell my wife?_" George shouted, but they didn't
answer, so he went down and told his wife that they were discussing it
with the Administrative Officer. And, as anyone could have guessed, a
short time later he pushed his head out of the mousehole in the
Administrative Office.

       *       *       *       *       *

He was a bit late, just in time to see the door close on the
supervisor and the janitor.

So he shouted, "_Hello!_" as loud as he could.

The Administrative Officer looked down and saw him right away. He was
a thin pale man with tired eyes.

"Go away," he said spiritlessly, "I've just told two people that you
don't exist."

"But my wife wants that trap removed--it's dangerous for the
children," George complained.

The Administrative Officer almost shouted to hell with George's
children, but basically he was a decent man, even if an overworked
one, and he caught himself in time.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely, picking up some letters that he had
already read, "but we've got to leave the traps."

"Then what will I tell my wife?" George demanded.

That stopped the Administrative Officer, too. He buried his head in
his hands and thought for a long moment. "Are you sure you _really_
exist?" he asked, finally raising his head from his hands.

"Sure," George said. "Do you want me to bite you to prove it?"

"No, you needn't bother," the Administrative Officer said. And then
he buried his head in his hands again.

"Technically," he said, speaking through his fingers, "it's a security
problem."

With an air of relief, he picked up the phone and called the Security
Officer. There was a bit of spirited conversation and then he hung up.

"He'll be right down," the Administrative Officer told George.

Shortly thereafter, the door violently swung open, and a tall man with
piercing eyes entered. "Hello Bill," he said quickly. "How are you
feeling?"

"Hello, Mike," the Administrative Officer replied. "I feel like hell.
This is George. I just called you about him."

"Hello!" George shouted.

"Hello!" the Security Officer shouted back. "I couldn't find any
record of you in the files. Have you been cleared?" he added with a
note of urgency in his voice. "Fingerprints, A.E.C., C.C.C., C.A.I.,
F.B.I.?"

"No!" George shouted back. "My wife wants the trap by our front door
removed. She thinks it's dangerous for the children."

"Has _she_ been cleared?" the Security Office countered in a loud
voice.

"Why is everybody shouting?" the Administrative Officer asked
peevishly. "I've got a headache."

"No," George answered.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Security Officer's mouth tightened into a thin, grim line. "A
major lapse of security," he snapped. "I'll check into this very
thoroughly."

"Will you remove the trap?" George asked.

"I can't, until you're cleared," the Security Officer said, shaking
his head. "I certainly won't authorize any action that could be later
construed as aiding the entrance of spies or subversives into the
plant."

"How old are you?" the Administrative Officer asked George.

"Fifty-six days," George replied without hesitation.

"Under twelve years," the Administrative Officer pointed out to the
Security Officer. "No clearance required."

"I don't know," the Security Officer said, shaking his head. "There's
no precedent for a case like this. I'll be damned if I'll stick my
neck out and have that trap removed. I know, I'll send a request for
an advisory opinion." He turned and walked toward the door.

"What should I tell my wife?" George called after him.

"Tell her that I'm asking the A.E.C. for an opinion, with carbon
copies to the Defense Dept. and the F.B.I."

"Don't forget Immigration & Naturalization," the Administrative
Officer said. "There might be a question of citizenship."

"The hell there is," George said. "_Lex locis_--I was born here."

"Well," the Security Officer said as he walked out, "one can't be too
careful."

So, George went and told his wife and, the next morning, he was on the
train for Washington. Being telepathic, as all this generation of mice
were, he already had contacted some mice who had an 'in' in the
government buildings.

All the way down on the train, he worried about chasing all those
carbons in the bureaucratic maze of Washington, but he needn't have.

As soon as the Security Officer's report was received, the A.E.C. sent
a battery of psychiatrists to the plant. After the psychiatrists
reported, they, in turn, were sent to another battery of
psychiatrists. After that, the A.E.C. called a top-level conference of
the Defense Dept., F.B.I. (Dept. Just.), Fish & Wildlife (Dept. Int.),
Public Health (Dept. Welf.), Immigration & Naturalization and Alaskan
Affairs. The latter turned out to be a mistake.

       *       *       *       *       *

This had taken two weeks, and George had lingered in the walls,
impatiently waiting for his chance to testify. Of course, he was in
telepathic communication with Clara. He knew that his family were all
well, that Clara had made friends with the janitor, also that the trap
was still there.

The janitor no longer put cheese in it, and he didn't set the spring
any more, but he still followed his orders and so, every morning,
moved it back by the door of the little mousehouse.

A fat Washington mouse guided George to the mousehole in the
conference room. George looked inside and sniffed the smoky air
distastefully.

There were seven men seated at a long table, with a glass of water in
front of each. This was a liquid that even George knew was hardly
designed to lubricate the way to a quick agreement.

"_Bomb_ them, I say," the General cried, smashing his fist down on the
table. "Hit them hard with atomic weapons. Hit them _now_, before
_they_ have a chance to strike first."

"But that's one of our best plants," a civilian from the A.E.C.
protested. "We don't want to blow it up, not for a few paltry mice."

"Couldn't we send them to Alaska?" the man from Alaskan Affairs asked
timidly, wondering what he was doing there.

"How about traps?" the man from Fish and Wildlife said. "We have some
honeys."

"But _that's just it_!" George said in a loud voice, and they all
turned to look at him. "My wife would like that trap by our front door
removed. She's afraid that it might hurt the children."

"_Who_ are _you_?" the man from Immigration & Naturalization demanded
sharply.

"I'm George," George said. "It's my house that has the trap in front
of it."

"What are you doing _here_?" the man from the F.B.I. demanded. "Spying
on a closed meeting!"

"I'm _not_ spying!" George exclaimed. "I just came to ask you to
please remove the trap."

       *       *       *       *       *

The man from the F.B.I. looked at him with something close to pity.
"It's not that simple any more," he said. "Don't you realize what a
threat you comprise?"

"No," George said, scampering up the leg of the table and walking to
its center. "We're not a threat to anybody. We're just mice. It's not
our nature to be a threat to anybody."

Then, as he looked around the table at the seven huge faces that
surrounded him, he immediately saw that they were all scared half to
death because he was a mouse, and he had a sudden premonition that he
would not come out of the meeting alive. So he opened his mind to let
his family and all the other telepathic mice hear everything that was
happening.

"Don't tell me you don't fully realize," the Fish and Wildlife man
demanded sarcastically, trying to hide his terror beneath a blustering
tone, "that from one mouse, your great-great-grandfather Michael,
there must be now at least twelve billion descendants--or six times
the human population of Earth!"

"No, I didn't know," George said, interested despite himself.

"Don't tell me it never occurred to you," the man from the F.B.I.
said, shaking a finger at him, while George could see that he kept the
other hand on the revolver in his pocket, "that you mice have access
to and could destroy every secret file we have!"

"No, it didn't," George said, shrinking from that huge, shaking
finger. "We mice would never destroy anything uselessly."

"Or that you could cut the wires on any plane, tank, vehicle, train or
ship, rendering it completely inoperable!" the General broke in,
slamming a meaty palm down on the table so hard that George was thrown
over on his back.

"Of course it never occurred to me!" George said, climbing rockily
back on his feet. "We mice wouldn't think of such a thing. Don't be
afraid," he pleaded, but it was no use. He could feel the panic in
their breasts.

"Didn't you ever consider that you could cut every cable, telephone
line, power line, and telegraph line from the States to Alaska?" the
man from Alaskan Affairs said, just for the sake of saying something.
Then, to show his bravery and defiance, he took his glass of water and
emptied it on George. It was ice water, and poor George, dripping wet,
began to tremble uncontrollably.

"I suppose you never considered that you could sabotage and blow up
every atomic plant we have," the man from the A.E.C. said, before
George even had a chance to answer Alaskan Affairs. And, working
himself into a rage to overcome his fear, he emptied _his_ glass of
ice water on the trembling mouse.

       *       *       *       *       *

George began to weep. "It _never_ occurred to me," he sobbed. "We mice
aren't like that."

"Nonsense!" the General said. "It's the unchanging law of nature. We
must kill you or you will kill us. And we'll start by killing you!"
The General roared louder than all the rest because he was the most
frightened.

His hand, huge and terrible, swept swiftly down on poor, wet, weeping
George. But the General really didn't know mouse tactics very well,
because George was down the leg of the table and halfway to the
mousehole before the huge hand struck the table with a noisy bang.

And poor George, frightened half out of his wits, scooted into the
mousehole and ran and ran without stopping, through the mouseways as
fast as he could, until he reached the train. But, of course, the
train was no longer moving. All the telepathic mice had cut every
cable, telephone line, power line and telegraph line, had also cut the
wires on every plane, tank, vehicle, train and ship. They also had
destroyed every file in the world.

So George had no alternative but to walk back to the plant, which had
been preserved as a memorial to great-great-grandfather Michael.

       *       *       *       *       *

It took him three weary weeks to make it, and the first thing he
noticed when he got there was the trap in front of the door.
Naturally, there was no bait in it and the spring wasn't set, but the
trap was still there.

"George," Clara said to him the moment after she kissed him, "you must
speak to the janitor about the trap."

So George went outside right away, since he could hear the janitor
swish-swashing the dust around.

"_Hello!_" he shouted.

"Hello yourself," the janitor said. "So you're home again."

"My wife wants the trap moved," George said. "She's afraid the
children might get hurt."

"Sorry," the janitor replied. "My orders were to put a mousetrap by
each mousehole."

"How come you didn't go away with all the other people?" George
shouted up at him.

"Stop shouting," the janitor said. Then, "I'm too old to change," he
added. "Besides, I have a farm down the road."

"But haven't they stopped paying you?" George demanded.

"What's the difference," the janitor countered, "money can't buy
anything any more."

"Well, what will I tell my wife about the trap?" George asked.

The janitor scratched his head. "You might tell her that I'll take it
up with the supervisor, if he ever comes back."

So George went inside and told Clara.

"George," she said, stamping her foot, "I can't go on with that trap
out there! You know that supervisor won't come back, so you've got to
go out and find him."

George, who knew that there weren't many people around anywhere any
more, walked over to his favorite easy chair and sat down. "Clara," he
said, as he picked up a book, "you can leave or stay as you wish, but
there is nothing more that I can do. I've wasted a full month over
that trap without accomplishing a single thing, and I'm not going to
start that business all over again."

                                                          --STEPHEN ARR

       *       *       *       *       *