"Manning—"
He looked up. It was Sweeney, the chief clerk. Manning always thought of him as a man who should've been a first-sergeant somewhere. He was big enough and loud enough, and certainly had temper enough.
"Yes, Mr. Sweeney?"
"Need these damn records right away. They all here? Each reel double-wound with positive and negative both?"
"Yes, sir." Sweeney picked up the bundlesome stack of microfilm reels. "Mr. Sweeney—"
"What is it?"
"Are—are They going to get 'em? All of Earth's Space outpost and military records—everything?"
"After the Joint Chiefs make out emergency recall orders for every last damn unit, they are. They will check each set of orders against every unit record here, all the way from Corps down to each individual ship." Sweeney grunted. "Then they'll burn 'em, positives, negatives, everything ... then when the ships come in, they will destroy them too."
Manning felt something turn over inside him. "General Taylor,—"
"What the hell can Taylor do? Christ, you're better off than he is. Once every ship is back here and busted up, he won't even have a job. Maybe not even a head."