I shook my head. "I—"
"Keep it," he said. "James Carson from Ancarta is a cover identity, that's all. I tell you, I know."
He didn't look ready to pull a heater. I waited a second. The silence got louder. Then I said: "All right. How do you know?"
The grimace again, twisted and half-humorous. "Why, because you got me recruits," he said. "Because you got me armaments. Because you helped me."
"Doesn't make sense," I said.
"Doesn't it?" He turned away from me for a second. When he turned back he looked more like General Rawlinson Hollerith, and less like a corpse. "You got me fanatics, men who hated the Government."
"Well?"
"They don't think straight," he said. "There isn't room in their minds for any more than that hatred. And they're democratic, just like the rest of us. They vote."
"You set that up," I said. "I had nothing to do with it."
He nodded. "I know," he said. "There are places where democracy just doesn't work. Like an armed force. As long as most of the members think alike, you're all right. But when a new factor comes into the picture—why, nobody knows what he's voting for. It becomes a matter of personal preference—which is no way to run a war."