Ballister glanced at a list on his desk. "Her chaplain?" he asked.
"Father Eamon Devalera O'Flaherty, begob and begorra, savin' your riverence," was my reply. "A grand man and a good priest. God rest his soul."
Ballister wriggled in his chair with some discomfort, as though he felt he ought to stand at attention or order a volley fired over the ship's side.
"What about Commander Chalmis?" he inquired, with an air of baiting an elephant-trap for me. "What job did he do?"
"Chalmis was not a commander, sir!" I told him. "He was a civilian. He had some kind of a thorium bomb and the chief job he did was to use it to blow up the ship. The mission was to drop it on Paramushiro before the Army could get going with its uranium bomb. Chalmis got cold feet, sir! when he thought of the carrier instead. He argued that the Navy Department would conclude that thorium was unreliable and drop the atomic project until the end of the war."
Ballister leaned back in his chair and gave careful consideration to the design of his Annapolis Class pin. After a long pause, he swung around in his swivel-chair and faced me squarely.
"Grant," he barked, "I'm going to ask you an unofficial question. You don't have to answer it. I have no authority over Z-2 anyway, but this is mighty important to the Navy."
"Go ahead, sir!" I told the Admiral, "if I can't answer it I'll tell you why."
"Do you believe," the Chief of O.N.I. asked slowly, "that Chalmis could have been inspired by Another Government Agency to make a failure of—" he paused.
"Operation Octopus, sir?"