A Thought for Tomorrow
By ROBERT E. GILBERT
Illustrated by DAVID STONE
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science FictionNovember 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Lord Potts frowned at the rusty guard of his saber, and the metalimmediately became gold-plated. Potts reined his capricious blackstallion closer to the first sergeant.
"Report!" the first sergeant bellowed.
"Fourth Hussars, all present!"
"Eighth Hussars, all present!"
"Eleventh Hussars, all present!"
"Thirteenth Hussars, all present!"
"Seventeenth Lancers, all present!"
The first sergeant's arm flashed in a vibrating salute. "Sir," he said,"the brigade is formed."
Potts concentrated on the sergeant; but, aside from blue eyes, a blackmustache, and luminous chevrons, the man's appearance remained vague.His uniform had no definite color, except for moments when it blushed abrilliant red, and his headgear expanded and contracted so rapidly thatPotts could not be certain whether he wore a shako or a tam.
"Take your post," Potts said. "Men!" he shouted. "We're going to chargeat those guns!"
"Oh, Oi say!" wailed a small private with scarcely any features but amouth. "Them Russians'll murder us!"
"Yours not to reason why," Potts said. "Draw sabers! Charge!"
The ground quaked under the beat of twenty-four hundred hoofs. As thefirst puffs of smoke billowed from the entrenchments half a league away,Potts remembered that he had forgotten to give orders to the lancers.Should he tell them to couch lances, or lower lances, or aim lances,or—
"P. T. boys, let's go. Out to the door," a bored voice called.
Potts opened his eyes. He sighed. Again he had failed. The dayroom hadhardly changed. The chairs were all pushed together in the center of thefloor, and two patients with brooms swept little ridges of dirt andcigarette butts toward the door. Potts sat slouched in one of the chairsand raised his feet as the sweepers passed.
"Orville Potts, out to the door," the bored voice said.
Potts gave Wilhart a killing look when the big attendant, immaculate inwhite duck trousers and short-sleeved linen shirt, passed through to theporch. Potts wondered why so many of the attendants resembledclean-shaven gorillas.
He arose leisurely from the chair, shuffled around the sweepers, andentered the hall. A pair of huge, gray, faded cotton pants draped hisspindling legs in wrinkled folds, and an equally faded khaki shirt hungfrom his stooped shoulders. Potts had not combed his hair in three days.He pushed the tangled brown mass out of his eyes and threaded betweenthe groups of men that jammed the hall, smoking and waiting to go to theshoe shop, or the paint detail, or psychodrama, or merely waiting.
At the locked door to the stairs, Potts stopped and glared at the sixpatients already assembled.
"Hello, Orville Potts," said another long-armed, barrel-chestedattendant. This one wore a black necktie, and, so far as Potts knew, hadno name but Joe. Potts ignored Joe.
The attendant pulled a ring of keys attached to a long heavy chain fromhis pocket and unlocked the door, when Wilhart brought the rest of theP. T. boys.
"Downstairs, when I call your name," Joe said, and read from the chartsattached to his clip-board.
When his name was called, Potts stepped through to