"So it's the truth. You'll learn, young man, that there are times when the truth is not always the best. You are all right, alive and well—to say nothing of being equipped with a few brilliant ideas for your trouble. Your captors are dead and gone. Mars doesn't really know what happened to their Mardinex, and Terra doesn't really know anything about the incident. You can't be court-martialed for being Absent Without Leave for we need you and your ideas. You haven't been spacewrecked, for no ship is missing."
"How was my absence explained?" asked Guy.
"You were M-12."
"Oh?" said Guy.
"Then it's easy," said Greggor. "Has his first contact been reported yet?"
"No. I see your point. Certainly. Funny, it never has happened this way before and now that it did, I forgot the reality."
"As an M-12 case, he can make the one-year mention in his own right. It will also tend to authenticate other M-12 cases which must be false. Then after the third year—if he hasn't been returned to full duty already—he can make the third-year mention. But instead of decreasing the mention, Guy will increase it."
"Providing it is necessary. After all, we are not trying to establish a fade-out for a man killed in an incident that might lead to total war. This time the man has returned."
"How can we strengthen this contact?"
Kane spoke up cheerfully. "From the stuff in his log, I'd say that the best way would be to promote him a rank for service above and beyond the requirements of his present rank. It will also permit him to skipper a destroyer or lighter craft which was denied him by the Junior Executive's rank. I'll plant his picture in my news sheet with a vague reference to the fact that Guy Maynard has been engaged in experiments at a secret place and that his initial experiments have been so successful that he is being given the command of a small laboratory ship in order that the experiments may be tested in the prime medium."