"Well, since you're so determined," said Zon Twenty, "one more word of advice. The dictator and all his followers were afterwards imprisoned by what populace remained. Small wonder, since they were mainly responsible for all the carnage. It was a pretty horrible thing. They were slowly and most savagely tortured continuously for nearly two decades. So if you mean to be there, at Great Slave Lake, I suggest you arrange to be on the right side."
"Don't worry," I said. "I'll arrange it somehow. Larry Boggs is going to live through this, if anybody is—"
"What's that? What's that you said?"
"I said I'm going to live through this—"
"No, no, the name. Boggs. Is that your name?"
"Certainly that's my name. Colonel Lawrence E. Boggs, United States Army, and—"
He was laughing. He was laughing loudly, uproariously, and, I thought, hollowly.
The background noise in the receiver had been steadily getting worse. Now it swelled, like an angry sea. Interference of some sort snarled and crackled. A sick feeling began to grow like fungus in my stomach.
Suddenly his voice came through again. He was still laughing. "Generalissimo Lawrence E. Boggs survived all right Colonel, he—"
All the noise cut away suddenly. There was a pinpoint of silence.