THE NOSE KNOWS

           "Smith, get over here and give us a hand with this!" West bellowed.

            The old man approached reluctantly. "But I don't know anything about it, Major. I don't know how."

            "You'll learn," Robinson told him. "We need an extra pair of hands, and you're elected."

            "But can't Will...."

            "Get over here!" Robinson lost his temper.

            "Yes, Professor," Smith meekly obeyed.

            It didn't take long for Smith to clumsily make everything infinitely worse.

            "Smith! So help me!" West lunged and grabbed two fists-full of Smith's shirt-front, along with a minor amount of skin.

            "You're hurting me!!!"

            "Don!" John laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

            Don turned on him. "Don't tell me you wouldn't enjoy belting him a good one."

            "As a matter of fact, I would. But it wouldn't accomplish anything. Let's get back to work."

            Don belligerently gave Smith a hard push for good measure.

            Smith staggered but kept his footing.

            "All right, I'll let you go. But someday, Smith, John's kind patience is going to run out. And when it does, beware."

            Major West's last words echoed in Smith's tortured mind as he struggled to fall asleep that night.

            As he drifted away from reality, Robinson's face blazed before him, filling his mental vision, and announcing, "I have just lost my patience." West's face flared to replace it, as a huge unsavory smile swept across it. The two images flipped back and forth, vying for Smith's attention: one face of grim merciless determination, and the other of thrilled pitiless delight. The two transposed faster and faster until they were both replaced by a single still close-up view of a fist, owner unknown, inches away from Smith's nose.

            He screamed mightily and sat up in bed, sweating profusely and trembling violently. He dropped his face into his hands and cried.

            A half-hour later, Smith tiptoed from the elevator across from where John and Don sat in their piloting seats, talking quietly. He regarded them shyly. They noticed.

            "What do you want, Smith?" West demanded irritably.

            Smith winced and backed up two steps.

            "All right, all right." John put out a mediating hand. "What can we do for you, Smith?" he asked evenly.

            "I...I don't know," he whispered tearfully. "I...well, could I talk with you two for a little while?"

            "Sure." Robinson beckoned.

            "Why not." West sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

            Smith walked over to them gingerly, and then sank to the floor between their two chairs, curling his legs under him.

            They both looked at him and waited.

            "I had a nightmare," he began tentatively.

            "Oh?" John asked politely. "What about?"

            "You," Smith said bluntly.

            "Me?"

            "Both of you." He included Don with his eyes.

            "Oh really?" Don wondered. "What were we doing?"

            Smith hesitated. "You were going to beat me."

            "Oh ho ho!" Don grinned his approval. "I like this dream already!"

            John put in, "I don't suppose we have to wonder why you'd have that particular dream now."

            "No." Smith shook his head mournfully. "This afternoon really affected me." He briefly told them of the threatening images in his nightmare, and ended with, "I guess the Major's threat today summarized my worst fears: that your patience might run out, Professor, and that you wouldn't stop him, but join him."

            "Well," John declared, "if you're hoping that I'll say it won't happen, I'm going to have to disappoint you, Smith. I have come close to joining Don a few times already, and I was tempted again today."

            "I know. The Major said he would enjoy it, and got you to admit that you would, too."

            "That's true. So now I suppose you'll label me 'cold and cruel' as you always do him."

            Don sat forward. "But we're not sadistic, Smith. We just want justice."

            "Justice?" Smith answered ruefully. "Is it justice to beat-up a terrified old man?"

            "Actually," John informed him, "the age difference and your cowardice are all that have saved you so far. I keep thinking that there are no doctors and no hospitals out here, if anything were to go wrong. Even a broken nose might not set right without professional help. And that's why I keep stopping Don and sparing you. But someday, Smith, you're going to push me past the point of thinking."

            "And then look out." Don grinned and cracked his knuckles.

            Smith raised uncertain eyes to his face. "Major? Don't you ever have scruples about it, like the Professor does?"

            Don shook his head. "I look at it quite simply, Smith. If a puppy wets on the floor, you smack it on the bottom with a rolled newspaper. After a few times, it learns not to wet on the floor. If Will and Penny were typical kids instead of the model citizens they are, I have a feeling John would spank them."

            John nodded.

            "Are you thinking I should be spanked, Major?" Smith shifted his position on the floor uncomfortably, and eyed both of them uneasily, as if wondering which one might be about to grab him.

            "You're a little old for that," Don commented noncommittally.

            "But we can't say that won't happen, either," John suggested. "And at least then, you wouldn't have to worry about your nose."

            Don chuckled and went on, "But in view of your adulthood, a fist-beating is far more likely."

            John concurred.

            Heartbroken, Smith raised a trembling hand to Don's upper arm and felt the muscle. He shivered. "You're too much stronger than I am."

            Don regarded him without comment.

            Smith touched John's arm muscle with the other hand. He shuddered and whimpered, "Oh no. You mustn't. It's inhumane."

            John stared back at him wordlessly.

            Smith lowered his head to Robinson's side and cried against him. The two men sighed.

            The next day, Smith was again the victim of enforced labor, and was praying mightily not to be the victim of anything else. Robinson and West pretended to be oblivious to Smith's nervous eyes upon them. No one referred to the events of the previous night.

            That is, no one did so until Smith's next disastrous mistake, which made worse of a mess than the one of the previous day.

            Smith screamed the moment that it happened, anticipating the possible results.

            West roared, "That's it!" and charged at him.

            Smith fled to Robinson and clung to him, imploring, "Oh no no! Please, no!!"

            Robinson seized Smith's arms, and held him away from him. "What was it I was supposed to have said? I have just lost my patience!"

            "Oh no! Mercy! Mercy!!"

            Robinson launched Smith toward West, and announced his decision. "Spank him!"

            West caught him and laughed heartily. "It may not be my first choice, John, but it's good enough!"

            Smith's eyes flew between their faces, between the all-too-familiar grim merciless determination, and thrilled pitiless delight. His head spun.

            His body spun, too, as West turned him and dragged him to the nearest large rock, where he promptly sat, yanking Smith across his knee.

            Completely off-balance, Smith fell heavily onto West's lap, accidentally smacking his face hard against the rock. He shrieked as blood spurted.

            "What the...?" West was shocked.

            Robinson ran to them quickly, turned Smith's head gently in his hands, and felt his face carefully. He looked at West in disbelief, and announced the ultimate irony, "His nose is broken."

            Both men stared at each other, remembering the previous night's statement that if they settled for spanking Smith, at least he wouldn't have to worry about his nose. They tried not to laugh, but it was too much. Still staring at each other, they started to crack up, until they fairly hooted.

            The sobbing Smith was spared the spanking.