After that I did manage to forget about Zon Twenty temporarily. It was a busy week. The draft quota had gone up, and Personnel Planning had worked out new criteria for classification, and I had to study these to apply them to analysis. This won't make much sense to you unless you've worked in a military headquarters yourself. I worked. I had a dim idea that if I worked hard enough somebody would favorably regard one of my requests to get sent overseas.
I've got to explain something right here. I don't want anybody to get the idea I'm a hero type—a professional volunteer. But I'm a career officer, and overseas duty is the quickest way to tactical unit command, which is important on the record. The lack of it has kept many a perfectly good colonel from getting his first star and making that final big step.
So I worked hard, and of course, sent in another request for transfer, this time under the provisions of a different set of regulations. And I didn't think about Zon Twenty again until about a week later, one afternoon, when the phone rang.
"Personnel Analysis. Colonel Bog—"
He didn't even let me finish. "Well! I've found you again! The man from the past!"
"Oh, no," I said. "Don't tell me. Not Zon Twenty—"
"Yes, it's I, of course! Seems we've had another lucky accident, and been connected again. I was despairing of it for a while. Now, for machine's sake, don't go away this time! I've got to talk to you!"
"It's your dime," I said.
"Dime!" He pounced on it. "That was a monetary unit, when you had money, wasn't it?"