Battlestar Troopers
A Battlestar Galactica Fanfic by Paul Robison 
(Crossover with Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers)

Battlestar Galactica is the property of Glen A. Larson and Universal
Productions (c) 1978
The novel Starships Troopers is the property of the estate of Robert A.
Heinlein, (c) 1959, G. Putnam's Sons, N.Y., N.Y.

Spoiler: Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein, G. Putnam's Sons,
N.Y., N.Y, 1959, All Rights Reserved.

All material herein used without permission of the creator(s). No
monetary gain is intended.

Chapter 1

Come on, you apes!  You wanna live forever?
     ---World War I platoon sergeant, 1918

     Drops always scare the poggies out of me.  I've had the injections,
of course, and hypnotic preparation, so it stands to reason that I can't
really be afraid.  The ship's psychiatrist has scanned my brain waves and
asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it's not
fear, it's not anything important---it's just like the trembling of an
eager race equine in the starting gate.
     I wouldn't know anything about that; I've never been a race equine. 
But the fact is:  I'm scared silly, every time.
     At Delta-minus-thirty, after we had mustered in the drop room of the
Galactica, our platoon leader inspected us.  He wasn't our regular
platoon leader, because Lieutenant Charka had bought it on our last drop;
he was really the platoon sergeant, Career Sergeant Croft.  Croft held
dual citizenship to two Colonies---Caprica and Leo---a man who looked
like an angel, but I've seen him tackle two berserk privates so big he
had to reach up to grab them, crack their heads together, step back out
of the way while they fell.
     Off duty he wasn't bad---for a sergeant.  You could even comment on
his gross eating habits and he wouldn't even bat an eye. Recruits
couldn't, obviously, but anybody who had made at least one combat drop.
     But right now he was on duty.  We had all each inspected our combat
gear (look, it's your own neck---see?), the acting platoon sergeant had
gone over us carefully after he mustered us, and now Croft went over us
again, his face mean, his eyes missing nothing.  He stopped by the man in
front of me, pushed the button on his belt that gave readings on his
physicals.  "Fall out!"
     "But, Sarge, I'm sicker 'n a daggit.  The Med-Tech said..."
     Croft interrupted.  "'But Sarge!'" he snapped. "The Med-Tech ain't
makin' a drop---and neither are you, with a degree and a half of fever. 
You think I got time to chat with you, just before a drop?  Fall out!"
     Starbuck left us, looking sad and mad---and I felt bad, too. 
Because of the Lieutenant buying it, last drop, and people moving up, I
was assistant section leader, second section, this drop, and now I was
going to have a hole in my section and no way to fill it.  That's not
good; it means a man can run into something sticky, call for help, and
have nobody to help him.
     Croft didn't downcheck anybody else.  Presently, he stepped out in
front of us, looked over us and shook his head sadly.  "What a bunch of
daggits!" he growled.  "Maybe if you'd buy it this drop, they could start
over and build the kind of outfit the Lieutenant expected you to be.  But
probably not---with the sort of recruits we get these days."  He suddenly
straightened up, shouted, "I just want to remind you siminoids that each
and every one of you has cost the Colonies, counting weapons, armor,
ammo, instrumentation, and training, everything including the way you
overeat---has cost, on the hoof, better 'n half a million cubits.  Add in
the thirty half-cubits you are actually worth and that runs to quite a
sum."  He glared at us.  "So bring it back!  We can spare you, but we
can't spare that fancy suit you're wearing.  I don't want any heroes in
this outfit; the Lieutenant wouldn't like it.  You got a job to do, you
go down, you do it, and you keep your ears open for recall and you show
up for retrieval on the bounce and by the numbers.  Get me?"
     He glared again.  "You're supposed to know the plan.  But some of
you ain't got any minds to hypnotize, so I'll sketch it out.  You'll be
dropped in two skirmish lines, calculated two-thousand maxim intervals.
Get your bearing on me as soon as you hit, get your bearing and distance
on your squad mates, both sides, while you take cover.  You've wasted ten
microcentons already, so you smash-and-destroy whatever's at hand until
the flankers hit dirt."  (He was talking about me---as assistant section
leader, I was going to be left flanker, with nobody at my elbow.  I began
to tremble.)
     "Once they hit---straighten out those lines!---equalize those
intervals!  Drop what you're doing and do it!  Twelve microns.  Then
advance by leapfrog, odd and even, assistant section leaders minding the
count and guiding the envelopment." He looked at me.  "If you've done
this properly---which I doubt---the flanks will make contact as recall
sounds....at which time, home you go.  Any questions?"
     There weren't any; there never were.  He went on.  "One more
world---This is just a raid, not a battle.  It's a demonstration of
firepower and frightfulness.  Our mission is to let the enemy know that
we could have destroyed their city---but didn't---that that they aren't
safe even though we refrain from total bombing.  You'll take no
prisoners.  You'll kill only when you can't help it.  But the entire area
we hit is to be smashed.  I don't want to see any of you loafers back
aboard here with unexploded bombs.  Get me?"  He glanced at the time.
"Blue Platoon has got a reputation to uphold.  The Lieutenant told me
before he bought it to tell you that he will always have his eye on you
every mili-centon....and that he expects your names to shine!"
     Croft glanced over at Sergeant Tigh, first section leader.  "Five
minutes for the Father," he stated.  Some of the boys dropped out of
ranks, went over and knelt in front of Tigh, and not necessarily those of
his religious sect---Otoris, Scoptsis, Atheists, Zidis, whoever wanted a
word with him before a droop, he was there.  I've heard tell that there
used to be military outfits whose chaplains did not fight alongside the
others, but I've never been able to see how that could work.  I mean, how
can a chaplain bestow the blessings of the Lords of Kobol on something
he's not willing to do himself?  In any case, in the Colonial Infantry,
everybody drops, and everybody fights---chaplain and cook and the Old
Man's writer.  Once we went down the tube, there wouldn't be a Blue left
aboard---except Starbuck, of course, and that not his fault.
     I didn't go over.  I was always afraid somebody would see me shake
if I did, and, anyhow, the Father could bless me just as handily from
where he was.  But he came over to me as the last stragglers stood up and
pressed his helmet against mine to speak privately.  "Apollo," he said
quietly, "this is your first drop as a non-com."
     "Yep." I wasn't really a non-com, anymore than Croft was really an
officer.
     "Just this, Apollo.  Don't buy a farm.  You know your job; do it. 
Just do it.  Don't try to win a medal."
     "Uh, thanks, Father.  I shan't."
     He added something gently in a language I didn't know, patted me on
the shoulder, and hurried back to his section.  Croft called out,
"Tenn---shut!" and we all snapped to.
     "Platoon!"
     "Section!" Tigh and Croft echoed.
     "By sections---port and starboard---prepare for drop!"
     "Section!  Man your capsules!  Move!"
     "Squad"---I had to wait while squads four and five manned their
capsules and moved on down the firing tube before my capsule showed up on
the port track and I could climb into it.  I wondered if those old timers
got the shakes as they climbed into the capsules.  Or was it just me? 
Croft checked each man as he was sealed in and he sealed me in himself. 
As he did so, he leaned toward me and said, "Don't goof off, Apollo. 
This is just like a drill."
     The top closed on me and I was alone.  "Just like a drill," he says! 
I began to shake uncontrollably.
     Then, in my earphones, I heard Croft from the center-line tube: 
"Bridge!  Blue Platoon...ready for drop!"
     "Seventeen microns, Lieutenant!" I heard the ship captain's cheerful
contralto replying---and I resented her calling Croft "Lieutenant."  To
be sure, our lieutenant was dead and maybe Croft would get his
commission...but we were still Blue Platoon."
     She added, "Good luck, boys!"
     "Thanks, Captain."
     "Brace yourselves!  Five seconds!"
     "I was strapped all over---belly, forehead, shins.  But I shook
worse than ever.

*****

     It's better after you unload.  Until you do, you sit there in total
darkness, wrapped like a mummy against the acceleration, barely able to
breathe---and knowing that there is just nitrine around you in the
capsule even if you could get your helmet open, which you can't---and
knowing that the capsule is surrounded by the firing tube anyhow and if
the ship gets hit before they fire you, you haven't got a prayer, you'll
just die there, unable to move, helpless.  It's that endless wait in the
dark that causes the shakes---thinking that they've forgotten you...the
ship has been hulled and stayed in orbit, dead, and soon you'll buy it,
too, unable to move, chocking.  Or it's a crash orbit and you'll buy it
that way, if you don't roast on the way down.
     Then the ship's breaking program hit us and I stopped shaking. 
Eight gees, I would say, or maybe ten.  When a female pilot handles a
ship there is nothing comfortable about it; you're going to have bruises
every place you're strapped.  Yes, yes, I know  they make better pilots
than men do; their reactions are faster, and they can tolerate more gee. 
They can get in faster, get out faster, and thereby improve everybody's
chances, yours and theirs.  But that still doesn't make it fun to be
slammed against your spine at ten times your proper weight.
     But I must admit that Captain Brie knows her trade.  There was no
fiddling round once the Galactica stopped braking.  At once I heard her
snap, "Alpha tube....fire!"  and there were two recoil bumps as Croft and
his acting platoon sergeant unloaded-and immediately:  "Theta and Gamma
tubes---automatic fire!' and the rest of us started to unload.
     Bump! and your capsule jerks ahead one place---bump!---and it jerks
again, precisely like cartridges feeding into the chamber of an old-style
numo.  Well, that's just what we were...only the barrels of the gun were
twin launching tubes built into a spaceship troop carrier and each
cartridge was a capsule big enough (barely!) to hold a warrior with all
his field equipment.
     Bump!----I was used to number three spot, out early; now I was
Tail-End, last out after three squads.  It makes for a tedious wait, even
with a capsule being fire every micron; I tried to count the
bumps---bump! (twelve) bump! (thirteen) bump! (fourteen-with an odd sound
to it, the empty one Starbuck should have been in) bump!---
     And clang!---it's my turn as my capsule slams into the firing
chamber---then WHAMBO! the explosion hits with a force that makes the
Captain's braking maneuver feel like a love tap.
     Then suddenly nothing.
     Nothing at all.  No sound, no pressure, no weight.  Floating in
darkness...free fall, maybe thirty microns up, above the effective
atmosphere, falling weightlessly toward the surface of a planet you've
never seen.  But I'm not shaking now; it's the wait beforehand that
wears.  Once you unload, you can't get hurt---because if anything goes
wrong, it'll happen so fast that you'll buy it without noticing that
you're dead, hardly.
     Almost at once I felt the capsule twist and sway, then steady down
so that my weight was on my back....weight that built up quickly until I
was at my full weight (0.87 gee, we had been told) for that planet as the
capsule reached terminal velocity for the thin upper atmosphere.  A pilot
who's a real artist (and the Captain was) will approach and brake so that
your launching speed as you shoot out of the tube places you just dead in
space relative to the rotational speed of the planet at that latitude. 
The loaded capsules are heavy; they punch through the high, thin winds of
the upper atmosphere without being blown out too far from position---but
just the same a platoon is bound to disperse on the way down, lose some
of the perfect formation in which it unloads.  A sloppy pilot can make
this still worse, scatter a strike group over so much terrain that it
can't make rendezvous for retrieval, much less carry out its mission.  An
infantryman can fight only if somebody else delivers him to his zone; in
a way I suppose pilots are just as essential as we are.
     I could tell from the gentle way my capsule entered the atmosphere
that the Captain had laid us down with as near zero lateral vector as you
could ask for.  I felt happy---not only a tight formation when we hit and
no time wasted, but also a pilot who puts you down properly is a pilot
who is smart and precise on retrieval.
     The outer shell burned away and sloughed off---unevenly, for I
tumbled.  Then the rest of it went and I straightened out.  The
turbulence brakes of the second shell bit in and the ride got
rough----and still rougher as they burned off one at a time and the
second shell fell to pieces.  One of the things that helps a Colonial
Trooper to live long enough to draw a pension is that the skins peeling
off his capsule not only slow him down, they also fill the sky over the
target area with so much junk that radar picks up reflections from dozens
of targets for each man in the drop, any one of which could be a man, or
a bomb, or anything.  It's enough to give a ballistic computer nervous
breakdowns---and does.
     To add to the fun you r ship lays a series of dummy eggs in the
seconds immediately following your drop, dummies that will fall faster
because they don't slough.  They get under you, blow up, throw out
"window," even operate as transponders, rocket sideways, and do other
things to add to the confusion of your reception committee on the ground.
     Meanwhile, your ship is locked firmly on the directional beacon of
your platoon leader, ignoring the radar "noise" it has created and
following you in, computing your impact for future use.
     When the second shell was gone, the third shell automatically opened
my first ribbon chute.  It didn't last long, but it wasn't expected to;
one good, hard jerk at several gee and it went its way and I went mine. 
The second chute lasted a little bit longer and the third chute lasted
quite a while; it began to be rather too warm inside the capsule and I
started thinking about landing.
     The third shell peeled off when its last chute was gone and now I
had nothing around me but my suit armor and a plastic egg.  I was still
strapped inside it, unable to move; it was time to decide how and where I
was going to ground.  Without moving my arms (I couldn't) I thumbed the
switch for a proximity reading and read it when it flashed on in the
instrument reflector inside my helmet in front of my forehead.
     A maxim and eight-tenths----A little closer than I liked, especially
without company.  The inner egg had reached steady speed, no more help to
be gained by staying inside it, and its skin temperature indicated that
it would not open automatically for a while yet.....so I flipped a switch
with my other thumb and got rid of it.
     The first charge cut all the straps; ;the second charge exploded the
plastic egg away from me in eight separate pieces---and I was outdoors,
sitting on air, and could see! Better still, the eight discarded pieces
were metal-coated (except for the small bit I had taken proximity reading
through) and would give back the same reflection as an armored man.  Any
radar viewer, alive or cybernetic, would now have a sad time sorting me
out from the junk nearest me, not to mention the thousands of other bits
and pieces for miles on each side, above and below me.  Part of a mobile
infantryman's training is to let him see, from the ground and both by eye
and by radar, just how confusing a drop is to the forces on the
ground---because you feel awful naked up there.  It's easy to panic and
either open a chute too soon and become a sitting duck (do ducks really
sit---if so, why?) or fail to open it and break your ankles, likewise
backbone and skull.
     So I stretched, getting the kinks out, and looked around--- then
doubled up again and straightened out in a swan dive face down and took a
good look.  It was night down there, as planned, but infrared snoopers
let you size up terrain quite well after you're used to them.  The river
that cut diagonally through the city was almost below me and coming up
fast, shining out clearly with a higher temperature than the land.  I
didn't care which side of it I landed on but I didn't want to land in it;
it would slow me down.
     I noticed a flash off to the right about my altitude; some
unfriendly native below had burned what was probably a piece of my egg. 
So I fired my first chute at once, intending if possible to jerk myself
right off his screen as he followed the targets down in closing range.  I
braced for the shock, rode it, then floated down for about twenty
microcentons before unloading the chute---not wishing to call attention
to myself in still another way by not falling at the speed of the other
stuff around me.
     I must have worked, since I wasn't burned.
     About six hundred maxims up I shot the second chute....saw very
quickly that I was being carried over into the river, found that I was
going to pass about a hundred maxims up over a flat-roofed warehouse or
some such by the river.....blew the chute free and came in for a good
enough, if rather bouncy, landing by the roof by means of the suit's jump
jets.  I was scanning for Sergeant Croft's beacon as I hit.
     And found that I was on the wrong side of the river; Croft's star
showed up on the compass ring inside my helmet far south of where it
should have been----I was too far north.  I trotted toward the river side
of the roof as I took a range and bearing on the squad leader next to me,
found that he was over a mile out of position, called, "Boomer! dress
your line!" tossed a bomb behind him as I stepped off the building and
across the river. Storm answered as I could have expected----Storm
should've had my spot but he didn't want to give up his squad;
nevertheless, he didn't fancy taking orders from me.
     The warehouse went up behind me and the blast hit me while I was
still over the river, instead of being shielded by the buildings on the
far side as I should've been.  It darn near tumbled my gyros and I came
close to tumbling myself.  I had set that bomb for fifteen seconds....or
had I?  I suddenly realized that I had let myself get excited, the worst
thing you can do once your feet touch land.  "Just like a drill," that
was the way, just as Croft had warned me.  Take your time and do it
right, even if it takes another half-microcenton.
     As I hit I took another reading on Boomer and told him again to
realign his squad.  He didn't answer but he was already doing it.  I let
it ride.  As long as Boomer did his job, I could afford to swallow his
surliness---for now.  But back aboard ship (if Croft kept me on as
assistant section leader) we would eventually have to pick a quiet spot
and find out who was boss.  He was a career corporal and I was just a
term lance acting as corporal, but he was under me and you can't afford
to take any lip under those circumstances.  Not permanently.
     But I didn't have time to think about it; while I was jumping the
river I had spotted a juicy target and I wanted to get it before somebody
else noticed it----a lovely big group of what looked like public
buildings on a hill.  Temples, maybe...or a palace.  They were miles
outside the area we were sweeping, but one rule of a smash & run is to
expend at least half your ammo outside your sweep area; that way the
enemy is kept confused as to where you actually are---that and keep
moving, do everything fast.  You're always heavily outnumbered; surprise
and speed are what saves you.
     I was already unloading my rocket launcher while I was checking on
Boomer and telling him for the second time to straighten up.  Croft's
voice reached me right on top of that on the all-hands circuit: 
"Platoon!  By leapfrog!  Forward!"
     My XO, Sergeant Croft, echoed, "By leapfrog!  Odd numbers! 
Advance!"
     That left me with nothing to worry about for twenty seconds, so I
jumped up on the building nearest me, raised the launcher to my shoulder,
found the target and pulled the first trigger to let the rocket have a
look at its target---pulled the second trigger and kissed it on its way,
jumped back to the ground.  "Second section, even numbers!" I called
out...waited for the count in my mind and ordered, "Advance!"
     That left me with nothing to worry about for twenty seconds, so I
jumped up on the building nearest me, raised the launcher to my shoulder,
found the target and pulled the first trigger to let the rocket have a
look at its target---pulled the second trigger and kissed it on its way,
jumped back to the ground.  "Second section, even numbers!" I called
out...waited for the count in my mind and ordered, "Advance!"
     And did so myself, hopping over the next row of buildings, and,
while I was in the air, fanning the first row of the riverfront with a
hand-flamer.  They seemed to be wood construction, and it looked like
time to start a good fire---with luck, some of those warehouses would
house oil products, or even explosives.  As I hit, the Y-rack on my
shoulders launched two small H.E. bombs a couple of hundred yards each
way to my right and left flanks, but I never saw what they did as just
then my first rocket hit----that unmistakable (if you've ever seen one)
brilliance of an atomic explosion.  It was just a peewee, of course, less
than two kilotons nominal yield, with tamper and implosion squeeze to
produce results from a less-than-critical mass---but then, who wants to
be bunkmates with a cosmic catastrophe?  It was enough to clean off that
hilltop and make everybody in the city take shelter against fallout. 
Better still, any of the local yokels how happened to be outdoors and
looking that way wouldn't be seeing anything for a couple of
hours----meaning me. The flash hadn't dazzled me, nor would it dazzle any
of us; our face bowls are heavily leaded, we wear snoopers over our
eyes---and we're trained to duck and take it on the armor if we do happen
to be looking the wrong way.
     So I merely blinked hard---opened my eyes and stared straight at a
local citizen just coming out of an opening in the building ahead of me. 
He looked at me, I looked at him, and he started to raise something---a
weapon, I suppose---as Croft yelled out, "Odd numbers!  Advance!"
     I didn't have time to fool with him; I was a good five hundred yards
short of where I should have been by then.  I still had the hand flamer
in my left hand; I toasted him and jumped over the building he had been
coming out of, as I started to count.  A hand flamer is primarily for
incendiary work but it's a good defensive anti-personnel weapon in tight
quarters; you don't' have to aim it much.
     Between excitement and anxiety to catch up I jumped too high and too
wide.  It's always a temptation to get the most out of your jump
gear---but don't do it!  It leaves you hanging in the air for microns, a
big fat target.  The way to advance is to skim over each building as you
come to it, barely clearing it, and taking full advantage of cover while
you're down---and never stay in one place more than a microcenton or two,
never give 'em time to target in on you.  Be somewhere else, anywhere. 
Keep moving.
     This one I goofed---too much for one row of buildings, too little
for the row beyond it; I found myself coming down on a roof.  But not a
nice flat one where I might've tarried three microns to launch another
peewee A-Rocket; this roof was a jungle of pipes and stanchions and
assorted ironmongery----a factory, maybe, or some sort of chemical works. 
No place to land.  Worse, still, half a dozen natives were up there. 
These geezers are humanoid, eight or nine feet tall; much skinnier than
Colonial humans are, and with a higher body temperature; they don't wear
any clothes and they stand out in a set of snoopers like a neon sign. 
They look still funnier in daylight with your bare eyes but I would
rather fight them than the arachnoids----those Bugs make me queasy.
     If these gallmonging snitrods were up there thirty seconds earlier
when my rocket hit, then they couldn't see me, or anything.  But I
couldn't be certain and didn't want to tangle with them in any case; it
wasn't that kind of a raid.  So I jumped again while I was still in the
air, scattering a handful of ten-second fire pills to keep them busy,
grounded, jumped again at once, and called out, "Second section!  Even
numbers!...Advance!" and kept right on going to close the gap, while
trying to spot, every time I jumped, something worth expending a rocket
on.  I had three more of the little A-rockets and I certainly didn't
intend to take any back with me.  But I had pounded into me that you must
get your cubits' worth with atomic weapons---it was only the second time
that I had been allowed to carry them.
      Right now I was trying to spot their waterworks; a direct hit on it
could make the whole city uninhabitable, force them to evacuate it
without directly killing anyone---just the sort of nuisance we had been
sent down to commit.  It should---according to the map we had studied
under hypnosis---be about three miles upstream from where I was.
     But I couldn't see it; my jumps didn't take me high enough, maybe. 
I was tempted to go higher but I remembered what Throttle had said about
not trying for a medal, and stick to doctrine.  I set the Y-rack launcher
on automatic and let it lob a couple of little bombs every time I hit.  I
set fire to things more or less at random in between, and tried to find
the waterworks, or some other worthwhile target.
     Well, there was something up there at the proper range---waterworks
or whatever, it was big.  So I hopped on top of the tallest building near
me, took a bead on it, and let fly.  As I bounced down, I heard Croft: 
"Apollo! Dillon!  Start bending in the flanks!"
     I acknowledged and heard  Dillon acknowledge and switched my beacon
to blinker so that Dillon could pick me out for certain, took a range and
bearing on his blinker while I called out, "Second Section!  Curve in and
envelop!  Squad leaders acknowledge!"
     Fourth and fifth squads answered, "Wilco"; Dillon said, "We're
already doin' it---pick up your feet."
     Dillon's beacon showed the right flank to be almost ahead of me and
a good fifteen maxims away.  Golly! Boomer was right: I would have to
pick up my feet or I would never close the gap in time---and me with a
couple of hundredweight of ammo and sundry nastiness still on me that I
had just had to find time to use up.  We had landed in a 'V' formation,
with Croft at the bottom of the V and Dillon and myself at the end of the
two arms; now we had to close it into a circle around the retrieval
rendezvous....which meant that Dillon and I had to cover more ground than
the others and still do our full share of damage.
     At least the leapfrog advance was over with once we started to
encircle; I could stop counting and concentrate on speed.  It was getting
to be less healthy to be anywhere, even moving fast.  We had started with
the enormous advantage of surprise, reached the ground without being hit
(at least I hoped nobody had been hit coming in), and had been rampaging
in among them in a fashion that let us fire at will without fear of
hitting their own people in shooting at us----if they could find us to
shoot at, at all, (I'm no games-theory expert but I doubt if any computer
could've analyzed what we were doing in time to predict where we would be
next.)
     Nevertheless, the home defenses were beginning to fight back,
coordinated or not.  I took a couple of near misses with explosives,
close enough to rattle my teeth even inside armor and once I was brushed
by some sort of beam that made my hair stand on end and half paralyzed me
for a moment---as if I had hit a funny bone, but all over.  If the suit
hadn't already been told to jump, I guess I wouldn't have got out of
there.
     Things like that make you pause to wonder why you ever took up
soldiering-only I was too busy to pause for anything.  Twice, jumping
blind over buildings, I landed right in the middle of a group of
them---jumped at once while fanning wildly about me with the hand flamer.
     Spurred on this way, I closed about half of my share of the gap,
maybe four miles, in minimum time but without doing much more than casual
damage.  My Y-rack had gone empty two jumps back; finding myself alone in
sort of a courtyard I stopped to put my reserve H.E. bombs into it while
I took a bearing on Boomer---found that I was far enough out in front of
the flank squad to think about expending my last two A-rockets.  I jumped
to the top of the tallest building in the neighborhood.
     It was getting light enough to see; I flipped the snoopers up onto
my forehead and made a fast scan with bare eyes, looking for anything
behind us worth shooting at, anything at all; I had no time to be choosy.
     There was something on the horizon in the direction of their
spacedrome----administration and control, maybe, or possibly even a
battlestar.  Almost in line and about half as far away was an enormous
structure which I couldn't identify even that loosely.  The range to the
spacedrome was extreme, but I let the rocket see it, said, "Go find it,
baby!" and twisted its tail---slapped the last one in, sent it toward the
nearer target, and jumped.
     That building took a direct hit just as I left it.  Either a skinny
had judged (correctly) that it was worth one of their buildings to try
for one of us, or one of my own mates was getting mighty careless with
fireworks.  Either way, I didn't want to jump from that spot, even a
skimmer; I decided to go through the next couple of buildings instead of
over.  So I grabbed the heavy flamer off my back as I hit and flipped the
snoopers down over my eyes, tackled a wall in front of me with a knife
beam at full power.  A section of wall fell away and I charged in.
     And backed out even faster.
     I didn't know what it was I had cracked open.  A congregation in
church---a skinny flophouse---maybe even their defense headquarters.  All
I knew was that it was a very big room filled with more skinnies than I
wanted to see in my whole life.
     Probably not a church, for somebody took a shot at me as I popped
back out----just a slug that bounced off my armor, made my ears ring, and
staggered me without hurting me.  But it reminded me that I wasn't
supposed to leave without giving them a souvenir of my visit, I grabbed
the first thing on my belt and lobbed it in....and heard it start to
squawk.  As they kept telling you in Basic, doing something constructive
at once is better than figuring out the best thing to do hours later.
     By sheer chance I had done the right thing.  This was a special
bomb, one each issued to us for this mission with instructions to use
them if we found ways to make them effective.  The squawking I heard as I
threw it was the bomb shouting in skinny talk (free translation):  "I'm a
thirty-micron bomb!  I'm a thirty micron-bomb!  Twenty-nine!...twenty
-eight!...twenty-seven!----"
     It was supposed to frazzle their nerves.  Maybe it did; it certainly
frazzled mine.  Kinder to shoot a man.  I didn't wait for the countdown;
I jumped, while I wondered whether they would find enough doors and
windows to swarm out in time.
     I got a bearing on Dillon's blinker at the top of the jump and one
on Boomer as I grounded.  I was falling behind again---time to hurry.
     But three mili-centons later, we had closed the gap; I had Dillon on
my left flank a half-maxim away.  He reported it to Croft.  We heard
Croft's relaxed growl to the entire platoon:  "Circle is closed, but the
beacon is not down yet.  Move forward slowly and mill around, make a
little more trouble---but mind the lad on each side of you; don't make
trouble for him.  Good job, so far---don't spoil it.  Platoon!  By
sections....Muster!"
     It looked like a good job to me, too; much of the city was burning,
and, although it was almost full light now, it was hard to tell whether
bare eyes were better than snoopers, the smoke was so thick. Croft, our
section leader, sounded off:  "Second section, call off!"
     I echoed, "Squads four, five, and six---call off and report!"  The
assortment of safe circuits we had available in the new model comm units
certainly speeded things up; Croft could talk to anybody or to his
section leaders; a section leader could call his whole section, or his
non-coms; and the platoon could muster twice as fast, when seconds
matter.  I listened to the fourth squad call off while I inventoried my
remaining firepower and lobbed one bomb toward a skinny that poked his
head around a corner.  He left and so did I---"Mill around," the boss man
had said.
     The fourth squad bumbled the call off until the squad leader
remembered to fill in with Starbuck's number; the fifth squad clicked off
like an adding machine and I began to feel good...when the call off
stopped after number four in Dillon's squad.  I called out, "Dillon,
where's Greenbean?"
     "Shut up!" he said.  "Number six!  Call off!"
     "Six!" Jolly answered.
     "Seven!"
     "Sixth squad, Greenbean missing," Dillon completed it.  "Squad
leader out for pickup."
     "One man absent," I reported to Croft.  "Greenbean, squad six."
     "Missing or dead?"
     "I don't know.  Squad leader and assistant section leader dropping
out for pickup."
     "Apollo, you let Dillon take it."
     But I didn't hear him, so I didn't answer.  I heard him report to
Croft and I heard Croft cuss.  Now look, I wasn't bucking for a Star of
Kobol---it's the assistant section leader's business to make pickup; he's
the chaser, the last man in, dispensable.  The squad leaders have other
work to do.  As you've no doubt gathered by now the assistant section
leader isn't necessary as long as the section leader is alive.
     Right that moment I was felling unusually expendable, almost
expended, because I was hearing the sweetest sound in the universe, the
beacon the retrieval boat would land on, sounding our recall.  The beacon
is a robot rocket, fired ahead of the retrieval shuttle, just a spike
that buries itself in the ground and starts broadcasting that welcome,
welcome music.  The retrieval shuttle homes in on it automatically three
mili-centons later and you had better be on hand, because the bus can't
wait and there won't be another one along.
     But you don't walk away on another cap trooper, not while there's a
chance he's still alive-not in Blue Platoon.  Not in any outfit of the
Colonial Infantry.  You try to make pickup.
     I heard Croft order:  "Heads up, guys!  Close to retrieval and
interdict!  On the bounce!"
     And I heard the beacon's sweet voice: "---to the eternal glory of
the Twelve Colonies of Mankind, to the ever-lasting glory of the Colonial
Infantry, shines the name of Asterion!" and I wanted to hear it so bad I
could taste it.
     Instead, I was headed the other way, closing in on Dillon's beacon
and expending what I had left of bombs and fire pills and anything else
that would weigh me down.  "Dillon!  You got his beacon?"
     "Yes. Go back, Useless!"
     "I've got you by eye now.  Where is he?"
     "Right ahead of me, maybe quarter mile.  Scram!  He's my man!"
     I didn't answer; I simply cut left oblique to reach Dillon about
where he said Greenbean was.
     And found Dillon standing over him, a couple of skinnies flamed down
and more running away.  I lit beside him.  "Let's get him out of his
armor---the shuttle'll be down any micro-centon!'
     "Negative!  He's too badly hurt!"
     I looked and saw that it was true-there was actually a hole in his
armor and blood coming out.  And I was stumped.  To make a wounded pickup
you get him out of his armor...then you simply pick him up in your
arms----no trouble in a powered suit---and bounce away from there.  A
bare man weighs less than the ammo and stuff you've expended.  "What'll
we do?"
     "We carry him," Dillon said grimly.  "Grab ahold the left side of
his belt."  He grabbed the right side, we manhandled Greenbean to his
feet.  "Lock on!  Now...by the numbers, stand by to jump----one---two!"
     And jump we did.  But not far, not well.  One man alone couldn't
have gotten him off the ground, for an armored suit is too heavy.  But
split it between two men and it can be done.
     We jumped---and we jumped-and again, and again, with Dillon calling
it and both of us steadying and catching Greenbean on each grounding. 
His gyros seemed to be out.
     We heard the beacon cut off as the retrieval shuttle landed on
it---I saw it land....and it was too far away.  We heard the acting
platoon sergeant call out:  "In succession, prepare to embark!"
     And Croft called out, "Belay that order!"
     We broke at last into the open and saw the shuttle resting on its
landing legs, heard the ululation of its takeoff warning---saw the
platoon still on the ground around it, in interdiction circle, crouching
behind the shield they'd formed.
     Heard Croft shout, "In succession, man the shuttle---move!"
     And we were still too far away!  I could see them peel off from the
first squad, swarm into the shuttle as the interdiction circle tightened.
     And a single figure broke out of the circle, came toward us at a
speed possible only to a command suit.
     Croft caught us while we were in the air, grabbed Greenbean by his
Y-rack and helped us lift.
     Three jumps got us to the shuttle.  Everybody else was inside, but
the hatch remained open.  We got him in and sealed it while the shuttle
pilot screamed that we had made her miss her rendezvous and now we had
all bought it!  Croft paid no attention to her; we laid Greenbean down
and lay down beside him.  As the blast hit us, Croft was saying to
himself, "All present, Lieutenant.  Three men hurt---but all present!"
     I'll say this for Captain Brie; they don't make any better pilots. 
A rendezvous, shuttle to battlestar in orbit, is precisely calculated.  I
don't know how, but it is, and you don't change it.  You can't.
     Only she did.  She saw in her scope that the shuttle had failed to
ignite its thrusters on time; she braked back, picked up speed
again---and matched and took us in, just by eye and touch, no time to
computer it.  If the Lords of Kobol ever need an assistant to keep the
stars on their courses, I know where they can look.
     Greenbean died on the way up.

*****
 
Chapter 2

Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of
humanity that (a) man lives or is able to preserve himself above the
animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.
                    ----Adolf Hitler

     I never really planned on joining up.
     And I certainly did not plan on the Infantry!  I would rather have
taken ten lashes in the public square of  Caprica City and have my father
tell me that I was a disgrace to a proud bloodline.
     Oh, I had mentioned to my father late in my senior year in high
school that I was thinking over the idea of volunteering for Colonial
Service.  I suppose every kid does, when his eighteenth birthday heaves
into sight---and mine was the secton I graduated.  Of course, most of
them just think about it, toy with the idea a little, then go do
something else---go to college, or get a job, or something.  I suppose it
would've been that way with me...if my best chum had not, with dead
seriousness, planned to join up.
     Zac and I had done everything together in high school---eyed the
girls together, double-dated together, been on the debate team together,
pushed ergons together in his home lab.  I wasn't much on ergonic theory
myself, but I'm a neat hand with an exometric lever; Zac supplied the
skull sweat and I carried out his instructions.  It was fun; anything we
did together was fun.  Zac's folks didn't have anything like the wealth
my father had, but it didn't matter between us.  When my father bought me
a Maximotors hovermobile for my fourteenth birthday, it was Zac's as much
as it was mine; contrariwise, his basement lab was mine.
     So when Zac told me that he was not going straight on with school,
but serve a term first, it gave me to pause.  He really meant it; he
seemed to think that it was natural and right and obvious.
     So I told him I was joining up, too.
     He gave me an odd look.  "Your old man'll eat you alive just for
thinkin' 'bout that."
     "Well he can't stop me."  And he couldn't, not legally.  It's the
first complete choice anybody gets (and maybe his last); when a boy, or a
girl, reaches his eighteenth birthday, he or she can volunteer and nobody
else has any say in the matter.
     "Bet he can. He's a buritician."  Zac changed the subject.
     So I took it up with my father, tentatively, edging into it
sideways.
     He put down his newspaper and fumarello and stared at me.  "What
kind of felgercarb....? Are you insane?!"
     I told him it wasn't any kind of felgercarb and I wasn't insane.
     "It sounds to me like you are."  He sighed.  "And yet....I should
have been expecting it; it's a predictable stage in a boy's growing up. 
I remember when you learned to walk and weren't a baby any
longer----frankly, you were a little hellion for quite a while.  You
broke one of your mother's Aerian vases-deliberately, I'm quite
sure....but you were too young to know that it was valuable, so all you
got was having your hand spatted. I remember the day you swiped one of my
fumarellos, and how sick it made you.  Your mother and I carefully
avoided noticing that you couldn't eat dinner that night and I've never
mentioned it to you until now....boys have to try such things and
discover for themselves that the vices of men are not for them.  We
watched when you turned the corner on adolescence and started noticing
that girls were different---and wonderful."
     He sighed again.  "All normal stages.  And the last one, right at
the end of adolescence, is when a boy decides to join up and wear a
pretty uniform.  Or decides that he is in love, love such as no man has
ever experienced before, and that he just has to get married right away. 
Or both."  He smiled grimly.  "With me it was both.  But I got over each
of them in time not to make a fool out of myself and ruin my life."
     "But, Father, I wouldn't ruin my life.  Just a term of service---not
career."
     "Let's table that for right now.  Listen and let me tell you what
you are going to do---because you want to.  In the first place, this
family has stayed out of politics and cultivated its own garden for over
a hundred yahrens---I see no reason for you to break that superb record. 
I supposed it's the influence of that fellow at your high school---what's
his name? You know the one I mean."
     He meant our instructor in History and Moral Philosophy---a veteran,
naturally.  "Cain."
     "Hmmph, a silly name, but fitting.  Scorpian, no doubt.  It ought to
be against the law to use the schools as undercover recruiting stations. 
I think I'm going to write a pretty sharp epistle about it---a taxpayer
has some rights!"
     "But, Father, he doesn't do that at all! He---"  I stopped, not
knowing how to describe it.  Cain had a snotty, superior manner; he acted
as if none of us was really good enough to volunteer for service.  I
didn't like him.  "Uh, if anything, he discourages it."
     "Hmmmph!  Do you know how to lead an ovine?  Never mind.  When you
graduate, you're going to study business at Umbra; you know that.  After
that, you will go on to the Libran Academy and you'll travel a bit along
with it, meet some of our distributors, find out how business is done
elsewhere.  Then you'll come home and go to work.  You'll start with the
usual menial job, stock clerk or something, just for form's sake....but
you'll be an executive before you can catch your breath, because I'm not
getting any younger and the quicker you can pick up the load, the better. 
As soon as you're able and willing, you'll be boss.  There!  How does
that strike you as a program?  As compared with wasting two years of your
life."
     I said nothing.  None of it was news to me; I'd thought about it. 
Father stood up and put a hand on my shoulder.  "Son, don't assume I
don't sympathize with you; I do.  But look at the real facts. If there
were a war, naturally I'd be the first to cheer you on---and, of course,
to put my business on a war footing.  But there isn't, and praise the
Lords of Kobol there never will be again.  We've outgrown wars.  Our
Colonies are now peaceful and happy and we enjoy good relations with
other nations.  So what is this so-called 'Colonial Service'? Parasitism,
pure and simple.  A functionless organ, utterly obsolete, living on the
taxpayers.  A decidedly expensive way for inferior people who otherwise
would be unemployed to live at public expense for a term of years, then
give themselves airs for the rest of their lives.  Is that what you want
to do?"
     "Zac isn't inferior!"
     "No.  You're right; he's a fine boy....but misguided." He frowned
and then smiled.  "Son, I had intended to keep something as a surprise
for you---a graduation present.  But I'm going to tell you now so that
you can put this nonsense out of your mind more easily.  Not that I am
afraid of what you might do; I have confidence in your basic good sense,
even at your tender years.  But you are troubled., I know---and this will
clear it away.  Can you guess what it is?"
     "Uh, no."
     He grinned.  "A vacation trip to Naytar."
     I must've looked stunned.  "I---I had no idea..."
     "I meant to surprise you, and I see I did.  I know how you kids feel
about travel, though it beats me what anybody sees in it after the first
time out.  But this is a good time for you to do it---by yourself, I
forgot to mention----and get it out of your system.....because you'll be
hard-pressed to get in even a week on Cimtar once you take up your
responsibilities."  He picked up his paper. "No, don't thank me.  Just
run along and  let me finish my paper---I've got some gentlemen coming in
this evening, shortly.  Business."
     I ran along. I guess he thought that really settled it...and I
suppose I did, too.  Naytar!  And on my own!  But I didn't tell Zac about
it; I had a sneaking suspicion that he would regard it as a bribe.  Well,
maybe it was.  Instead, I simply told him that my father and I seemed to
have different ideas about it.
     "Yeah," he answered, "so does mine.  But it's my life."
     I thought about it during the last session of our class in History
and Moral Philosophy. H & M.P. was different from other courses in that
everybody had to take it but nobody had to pass it---and Cain never
seemed to care whether he got through to us or not.  He would just point
at you with the stump of his left arm (he never bothered with names) and
snap a question.  Then the argument would start.
     But on the last day he seemed to be trying to find out what we had
learned.  One girl told him bluntly:  "My mother says that violence never
solves anything."
     "Does she?" Cain looked at her bleakly.  "I'm sure the city fathers
of Thantara would be glad to know that.  Why doesn't your mother tell
them so?  Or why don't you?"
     They had tangled before---since you couldn't flunk the course, it
wasn't necessary to keep Cain buttered up.  She said shrilly, "You're
making fun of me!  Everybody knows that Thantara was destroyed!"
     "You seemed unaware of it," he said grimly.  "Since you do know it,
wouldn't you say that violence had settled their destinies rather
thoroughly?  However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was
heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea----a practice I shall always
follow.  Anyone who clings to the historically untrue---and thoroughly
immoral---doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would advise
you to conjure up the ghosts of General Triphis and of Squire Gothos and
let them debate it.  The ghost of Colonel Greene could referee, and the
jury might well be the Icegout, the Lesser Claycloud, and the Nightfury
Howler.  Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than
has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its
worst.  Beings that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with
their lives and freedom."
     He sighed.  "Another yahren, another class----and, for me, another
failure.  One can lead a child to knowledge, but one cannot make him
think."  Suddenly, he pointed his stump at me.  "You!  What is the moral
difference, if any, between warrior and citizen?"
     "The difference," I answered carefully, "lies in the field of civic
virtue.  A warrior accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the
body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his
life.  The citizen does not."
     "The exact words of the book," he said scornfully.  "But do you
understand it?  Do you believe it?"
     "Uh, I don't know, sir."
     "You most assuredly do not!  I doubt if any of you here would
recognize 'civic virtue' if it came up and bit you on the astrum!" He
glanced at his chronopiece.  "And that is all, a final all.  Perhaps we
shall meet again under happier circumstances.  Dismissed."

*****

     Graduation right after that and three days later my birthday
followed in less than a week by Zac's birthday---and I still hadn't told
Zac that I wasn't joining up.  I'm sure he assumed that I would not, but
we didn't discuss it out loud....embarrassing.  I simply arranged to meet
him the day after his birthday and we went down to the recruiting office
together.
     On the steps of the Colonial Building, we ran into Sheba, a
classmate of ours and one of the nice things about being a member of a
race with two sexes.  Sheba wasn't my girl-she wasn't anybody's girl; she
never made two dates in a row with the same boy and treated all of us
with equal sweetness and rather impersonally.  But I knew her pretty
well, as she often came over and used our swimming pool, because it was
Aquacade length---sometimes with one boy, sometimes with another.  Or
alone, as Mother urged her to---Mother considered her "a good influence." 
For once she was right.
     She saw us and waited, dimpling.  "Hi, fellows!"
     "Hello," I answered.  "What brings you here?"
     "Can't you guess?  Today's my birthday."
     "Huh?  Happy returns!"
     "So I'm joining up."
     "Oh...." I think Zac was as surprised as I was.  But Sheba was like
that.  She never gossiped and she kept her own affairs to herself.  "No
foolin'?" I added, brilliantly.
     "Why should I be folling?  I'm going to helm a battlestar---at least
that's what I'm gonna try for."
     "No reason why you shouldn't make it," Zac said quickly.  He was
right---I know now just how right he was.  Sheba was small and neat,
perfect health and perfect reflexes---she could make competitive diving
routine look easy and she was quick at mathematics.  Me, I tapered off
with a "C" in Numerical Engineering and a "B" in business arithmetic; she
took every math class our school offered and tutored advance course on
the side.  But it had never occurred to me to wonder why.  Fact was,
little Sheba was so ornamental that you just never thought about her
being useful.
     "We---Uh, I," said Zac, "am here to join up, too."
     "And me," I agreed. "Both of us." No, I hadn't made any decision; my
mouth was leading its own life.
     "Oh, wonderful!"
     "And I'm going to buck for space pilot, too," I added firmly."
     She didn't laugh.  She answered very seriously, "Oh, how grand! 
Perhaps in training we'll run into each other.  I hope so."
     "Collision courses?" asked Zac.  "That's a no-good way to pilot."
     "Don't be silly, Zac.  On the ground, of course.  Are you going to
be a pilot, too?"
     "Me?" Zac answered.  "I'm no landram driver.  You know me---Starside
R&D, if they'll have me.  Egronics."
     " 'Landram driver' indeed!  I hope they stick you out on Arcta and
let you freeze.  No, I don't---good luck!  Let's go in, shall we?"
     The recruiting station was inside a railing in the rotunda.  A Fleet
sergeant sat at a desk there, in dress uniform, gaudy as a circus.  His
chest was loaded with ribbons I couldn't read.  But his right arm was off
so short that his tunic had been tailored without any sleeve at
all....and when you came up to the rail, you could see that he had no
legs.
     It didn't seem to bother him.  Zac said, "Good morning.  I want to
join up."
     "Me, too," I added.
     He ignored us.  He managed to bow while sitting down and said, "Good
morning, young lady.  What can I do for you?"
     "I want to join up, too."
     He smiled.  "Good girl!  If you'll just scoot up to room 201 and ask
for Colonel Bludger, she'll take care of you." He looked her up and down. 
"Helmsman?"
     "If possible."
     "You look like one.  Well, see Bludger."
     She left, with thanks to him and a see-you-later to us; he turned
his attention to us, sized us up with a total absence of the pleasure he
had shown in little Sheba.  "So?" he said.  "For what?  Labor
battalions?"
     "Oh, no!' I said. "I'm going to be a pilot."
     He stared at me and simply turned his eyes away.  "And you?"
     "I'm interested in the Research and Development Corps," Zac said
soberly, "especially ergonics.  I understand the chances are pretty
good."
     "They are if you can cut it," the Fleet Sergeant said grimly, "and
not if you don't have what it takes, both in preparation and ability. 
Look, boys, have you any idea why they have me out here in front?"
     I didn't understand him.  Zac said, "Why?"
     "Because the Quorum of Twelve doesn't care one bucket of felgercarb
whether you join or not!  Because it has become stylish, with some
Colonists----too many Colonists----to serve a term and earn a franchise
and be able to wear a ribbon in your lapel which says that you're a
veteran----whether you've seen combat or not.  But if you want to serve
and I can't talk you out of it, then we've got to take you, because
that's your right as a Colonist.  It is written that everybody, male or
female, shall have his born right to pay his service and assume full
citizenship---but the facts are that we are getting hard-pushed to find
things for all the volunteers to do that aren't just glorified K.P.  You
can't all be true warriors; we don't need that many and most of the
volunteers aren't number-one warrior material anyhow.  Got any ideas what
it takes to make warrior?"
     "No,' I admitted.
     "Most people think that all it takes is two hands, two feet, and a
weak mind.  Maybe so, for cannon fodder.  But a private warrior is a
specialist so highly skilled that he would rate 'master' in any other
trade; we can't afford stupid ones.  So for those who insist on serving
their term---but haven't got what we want and must have----we've had to
think up a whole list of dirty, nasty, dangerous jobs that will either
run 'em home with their astrums between their legs and their terms
incomplete...or at the very least make them remember for the rest of
their lives that their citizenship is valuable to them because they've
paid a high price for it.  Take that young lady who was just here---wants
to be a helmsman, probably on a battlestar.  I hope she makes it; we
always need good helmsmen, not enough of 'em.  Maybe she will. But if she
misses, she may wind up on Corrobor, her pretty eyes red from never
seeing anything but artificial light and her knuckles callused from hard,
dirty work."
     I wanted to tell him that the least Sheba could get was a computer
programmer for the sky watch; she really was a whiz at math.  But he was
talking.
     "So they put me out here to discourage you boys.  Look at this."  He
shoved his chair around to make sure that we could see that he was
legless.  "Let's assume that you don't wind up driving tunnel-borers on
Cimtar or playing human guinea pig for new diseases through sheer lack of
talent; suppose we do make a fighting man out of you.  Take a look at
me---this is what you may buy...if you don't buy the whole farm and cause
your folks to receive a 'deeply regret' comp-u-gram.  Which is more
likely, because these days, in training or in combat, there aren't many
wounded.  If you buy at all, they'll likely throw in a coffin---I'm the
rare exception; I was lucky...though maybe you wouldn't call it luck."
     He paused, and then added, "So, why don't you boys go home, go to
college, and then go be chemists or insurance brokers or whatever?  A
term of service isn't a kiddies' camp, it's either real military service,
rough and dangerous even.  Not a vacation.  Not a romantic getaway. 
Well?"
     Zac said, "I'm here to join up."
     "Me too."
     "You realize that you're not allowed to choose your service?"
     That caught Zac off guard.  "I thought---They told us we could state
our preferences."
     "Yes, you can, you can.  And that's the last choice you'll make
until the end of your term.  The placement officer pays attention to your
choice, too.  First thing he does is to check whether there's any demand
for left-handed glass blowers this week----that being what you think
would make you happy.  Having reluctantly conceded that there is a need
for your choice---probably at the bottom of the South Caprican Sea---he
then tests you for innate ability and preparation.  About once in twenty
times he is forced to admit that everything matches and you get the
job...until some practical joker gives you dispatch orders to do
something very different.  But the other nineteen times he turns you down
and decides that you are just the man they need to field-test survival
equipment on Freo." He added meditatively, "It's mighty chilly on Freo. 
And it's amazing how experimental equipment fails to work.  Have to have
real field tests, though---laboratories just never get all the answers."
     "I can qualify for ergonics," Zac said firmly, "if there are jobs
open in it."
     "So?  And how about you, bub?"
     I hesitated---and suddenly realized that, if I didn't take a swing
at it, I would wonder all my life whether I was anything but a
buritician's son.  "I'm going to chance it."
     "Well, don't say I didn't warn you.  Got your birth certificates
with you?  And let's see your identicards."
     Ten mili-centons later, still not sworn in, we were on the top floor
being prodded and poked and fluoroscoped.  I decided that the idea of a
physical examination is that, if you aren't ill, then they do their
damnedest to make you ill.  If the attempt fails, you're in.
     I asked one of the med-techs what percentage of the victims flunked
the physical.  He looked startled.  "We can't fail anyone.  It's against
the law."
     "Huh?  I mean, excuse me, Doctor?  Then what's the point of this
goose-flesh parade?"
     "The purpose is," he answered, hauling off and hitting me in the
knee with a hammer (I kicked him, but not hard), "to find out what duties
you are physically able to perform.  But if you came in here in a
wheelchair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on
enrolling, they would find something silly enough to match.  Counting the
fuzz on a tahran by touch, maybe.  The only way you can fail is by having
the psych-meds decide that you're not able to understand the oath."
     "Oh.  Uh....Doctor, were you already a doctor when you enlisted?  Or
did they decide you should be a doctor and sent you to medical school?"
     "Me?" He seemed shocked.  "Young man, do I look that silly?  I'm a
civilian employee."
     "Oh.  Sorry sir."
     "No offense.  But military service is for insects.  Trust me, I see
'me go, I see 'em come back---when they do come back, I see what's done
to them.  And for what?  A purely nominal political privilege that pays
not one cubit and that most of them aren't competent to use wisely
anyhow.  Now if they would let medical men run things---but never mind
that; you might think I was talking treason, free speech or not.  But,
young man, if you've got savvy enough to count to ten, you'll back out
while you still can.  Here, take these papers back to the recruiting
sergeant---and remember what I said."
     I went back to the rotunda.  Zac was there by now.  The Fleet
Sergeant looked over my papers and said glumly, "Apparently you are both
almost insufferably health---except for holes in the head.  One moment,
while I get some witnesses."  He punched a button and two female clerks
came out, one old battle-ax, one kinda cute.
     He pointed to our physical examination forms, our birth
certificates, and out identicards, said formally:  "I invite and require
you, each and severally, to examine these exhibits, determine what they
are, and to determine, each independently, what relation, if any, each
document bears to these two men standing here in your presence."
     They treated it as a dull routine, which I'm sure it was;
nevertheless, they scrutinized every document, they took our fingerprints
(again!) and the cute one put a jeweler's loupe in her eye and compare
prints from birth to now.  She did the same with signatures.  I began to
doubt if I was myself.
     The Fleet Sergeant added, "Did you find exhibits relating to their
present competence to take the oath of enrollment?  If so, what?"
     "We found," the older one said, "appended to each record of physical
examination a duly certified conclusion by an authorized and delegated
board of psychiatrists stating that each of them is mentally competent to
take the oath and that neither one is under the influence of alcohol,
narcotics, other disabling drugs, nor of hypnosis."
     "Very good."  He turned to us.  "Repeat after me---
     "I, being of legal age, of my own free will..."
     " 'I' we each echoed, " 'being of legal age, of my own free
will....'"
     "---without coercion, promise, or inducement of any sort, after
having been duly advised and warned of the meaning and consequences of
this oath.....
     "....do now enroll in the Service of the Twelve Colonies of Mankind
for a term of not less than two years and as much longer as may be
required by the needs of the Service..."
     (I gulped a little over that part.  I had always thought of a "term"
as two years, even though I knew better, because that's the way people
talk about it.  Why, we were signing up for life.)
     "I swear to uphold and defend the Quorum of the Twelve and the
Twelve Colonies of Mankind against all its enemies, to protect and defend
the liberties and privileges of all Colonists and lawful residents of the
Twelve Colonies and associated settlements and territories, to perform
such duties of any lawful nature as may be assigned to me by lawful
direct or delegated authority---
     "----and to obey all lawful orders of the Supreme Commandant of the
Colonial Service and of all officers or delegated persons placed over
me----
     "----and to require such obedience from all members of the Service
or other persons or non-human beings lawfully placed under my orders---
     "----and, upon being honorably discharged at the completion of my
full term of active service or upon being placed on inactive retired
status after having completed such full term, to carry out all duties and
obligations and to enjoy all privileges of Colonial citizenship including
but not limited to the duty, obligation and privilege of exercising
sovereign franchise for the rest of my natural life unless stripped of
honor by verdict, finally sustained, of court of my sovereign powers."
     (Whew!) Cain had analyzed the Service oath for us in History and
Moral Philosophy and had made us study it phrase by phrase----but you
don't really feel the size of the thing until it comes rolling over you,
all in one ungainly piece, as heavily and unstoppable as Juggernaut's
carriage.
     At least it made me realize that I was no longer a civilian, with my
shirttail out and nothing on my mind. I didn't know yet what I was, but I
knew what I wasn't.
     "This I swear upon the Lords of Kobol!" we both ended and Zac
crossed himself and so did the cute one.
     After that there were more signatures and fingerprints, all five of
us, and flat likenesses of Zac and me were snapped then and there and
embossed into our papers.  The Fleet Sergeant finally looked up.  "Why,
it's 'way past the break for lunch.  Time for chow, lads."
     I swallowed hard.  "Uh....Sergeant?"
     "Eh?  Speak up."
     "Could I flash my folks from here?  Tell them what I---Tell them how
it came out?"
     "We can do better than that."
     "Sir?"
     "You go on forty-eight hours leave now."  He grinned coldly.  "Do
you know what happens if you don't come back?"
     "Uh...we'll be shot for desertion?"
     "Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Except that your papers get marked, Term
not completed satisfactorily, and you never, never get another chance. 
This is our cooling-off period, during which we shake out the overgrown
babies who didn't really mean it and should never have taken the oath. 
It saves the Colonies money and it saves a power of grief for such kids
and their parents----the neighbors needn't guess.  You don't even have to
tell your parents." He shoved his chair away from his desk.  "So I'll see
you at noon day after tomorrow.  If I see you.  Fetch your personal
effects."
     It was a crumbly leave.  Father stormed at me, then stopped speaking
to me.  Mother took to her bed.  When I finally left, an hour earlier
than I had to, nobody saw me off by the morning cook and the servants.
     I stopped in front of the recruiting sergeant's desk, thought about
saluting and decided I didn't know how.  He looked up.  "Oh.  Here are
your papers.  Take them up to room 201; they'll start you through the
mill.  Knock and walk in."
     Two days later I knew I was not going to be a pilot.  Some of the
things the examiners wrote about me were: ----insufficient intuitive
grasp of spatial relationships....insufficient mathematical
talent....deficient mathematical preparation....reaction time
adequate.....eyesight good.  I'm glad they put in those last two; I was
beginning to feel that counting on my fingers was my speed.
     The placement officer let me list my lesser preferences, in order,
and I caught four more days of the wildest aptitude tests I've ever heard
of.  I mean to say, what do they find out when a stenographer jumps on
her chair and screams, "Snakes," when there is no snake, just a harmless
piece of plastic hose?
     The written and oral tests were mostly just as silly, but they
seemed happy with them, so I took them.  The thing I did most carefully
was to list my preferences.  Naturally I listed all of the Colonial Fleet
jobs (other than pilot) at the top; whether I went as power-room
technician or as a cook, I knew that I preferred any Fleet job to any
Infantry job---I wanted to travel.
     Next I listed Intelligence---a spy gets around, too, and I figured
that it couldn't possibly be dull.  (I was wrong, but never mind.)  After
that came a long list; psych warfare, chem. warfare, bio-warfare, combat
ecology (What in Hades was that?  Well, it sure sounded interesting
enough), logistics corps ( a simple mistake; I had studied logic for the
debate team and "logistics" turns out to have two entirely separate
meanings), and a dozen others.  Clear at the bottom, with some
hesitation, I put Daggit Corps, and Infantry.
     I didn't bother to list the various non-combat corps, because, if I
wasn't picked for a combat corps, I didn't care whether they used me as
an experimental animal, or appointed me chief gravedigger for the
Necropolis of the Radiant Amazons on Mal IV----either one was a booby
prize.
     Corsh, the placement officer, sent for me a sectan after I was sworn
in.  He was actually a retired psych-warfare major, on active duty for
procurement, but he wore mufti and insisted on being called just "Corsh"
and you could relax and take it easy with him.  He had my list of
preferences and the reports on all my tests and I saw that he was holding
my high school transcript----which pleased me, for I had done all right
in school; I had stood high enough without standing so high as to be
marked as a greasy grind, having never failed any classes and dropped out
of only one, and I had been a rather big man around school, otherwise;
swimming team, debate team, track squad, class treasurer, silver medal in
the annual literacy contest, chairman of the homecoming committee, stuff
like that.  A well-rounded record and it's all down in the transcript.
     He looked up as I came in, said, "Sit down, Apollo," and looked back
at the transcript, then put it down.  "You like daggits?" 
     "Huh?  Yes, sir."
     "How well do you like them?  Did your daggit sleep on your bed?  By
the way, where is your daggit now?"
     "Why, I don't happen to have a daggit just at present.  But when I
did---well, no, he didn't sleep on my bed.  You see, Mother didn't allow
daggits in the house."
     "But didn't you sneak him in?"
     "Uh---" I thought of trying to explain Mother's
not-angry-but-terribly-terribly-hurt routine when you tried to buck her
on something she'd made her mind up about.  But I gave us.  "No, sir."
     "Mmmm......have you ever seen a neodaggit?"
     "Uh, once, sir.  They exhibited one at the Caprica City Theater two
years ago.  But the Colonial Kennel Association made trouble for them."
     "Let me tell you how it is with a Daggit team.  A neodaggit is not
just a talking daggit."
     "I couldn't understand that neo at the C.C.T.  Do they really talk?"
     "They talk.  You simply have to train your ear to their accent. 
Their mouths can't shape 'b', 'm,' 'p', or 'v' and you have to get used
to their equivalents-something like the handicap of a split palate but
with different epistles.  No matter, their speech is as clear as any
human speech.  But a neodaggit is not a talking daggit; he is not a
daggit at all, he is an artificially mutated symbiote derived from daggit
stock.  A neo, a trained Lambda, is about six times as bright as a
daggit, say about as intelligent as a human moron---except that the
comparison is unfair to the neo; a moron is a defective, whereas a neo is
a stable genius in his own line of work."
     Corsh scowled.  "Provided, that is, that he has his symbiote. 
That's the rub.  Mmmm.....you're not old enough ever to have been
married, but you've seen marriage, your own parents, at least.  Can you
imagine being married to a Lambda?"
     "Huh?  No.  No, I can't."
     "The emotional relationship between the daggit-man and the
man-daggit in the Daggit team is a great deal closer and much more
important than is the emotional relationship in most marriages.  If the
master is killed, we kill the neodaggit---at once!  It is all that we can
do for the poor thing.  A mercy killing.  If the neodaggit is
killed....well, we can't kill the man even though it would be the
simplest solution.  Instead, we restrain him and hospitalize him and
slowly put him back together."  He picked up a stylus, made a mark.  "I
don't think we can risk assigning a boy to Daggit who didn't outwit his
mother to have his daggit sleep with him.  So let's consider something
else."
     It was not until then that I realized I must've already flunked
every choice on my list above Daggit Corps----and now I had just flunked
it, too. I was so startled that I almost missed his next remark.  Colonel
Corsh said meditatively, with no expression and as if he were talking
about someone else, long dead and far away:  "I was once half of a Daggit
team.  When my Lambda became a casualty, they kept me under sedation for
six sectans, then rehabilitated me for other work.  Apollo, these classes
you've taken---why didn't you study something useful?"
     "Sir?"
     "Too late now.  Forget it.  Mmm....your instructor in History and
Moral Philosophy seems to think well of you."
     "He does?" I was shocked.  "What did he say?"
     Corsh smiled.  "He says that you are not stupid, merely ignorant and
prejudiced by your environment.  From him that is high praise---I know
him."
     It didn't sound like praise to me!  That stuck-up stiff-necked
old---
     "And," Corsh went on, "a boy who gets a 'C-minus' in Appreciation of
Holovision can't be all bad.  I think we'll accept Cain's recommendation. 
How would you like to be an infantryman?"

*****

     I came out of the Colonial Building feeling subdued yet not really
unhappy.  At least I was a warrior; I had papers in my pocket to prove
it.  I hadn't been classed as too dumb and useless for anything but
make-work.
     It was a few minutes after the end of the working day and the
building was empty save for a skeleton night staff and a few stragglers. 
I ran into a man in the rotunda who was just leaving; his face looked
familiar but I couldn't place him.
     But he caught my eye and recognized me. "Evening!" he said briskly. 
"Haven't you shipped out yet?"
     And then I recognized him---the Fleet Sergeant who had sworn us in. 
I guess my chin dropped; this man was in civilian clothes, was walking
around on two legs and had two arms.  "Uh, good evening, Sergeant," I
mumbled.
     He understood my expression perfectly, glanced down at himself and
smiled easily.  "Relax, lad.  I don't have to put on my horror show after
working hours-and I don't.  Have you been placed yet?"
     "I just got my orders."
     "For what?"
     "Colonial Infantry."
     His face broke in a big grin of delight and he shoved out his hand. 
"My outfit!  Shake, son!  We'll make a man of you---or kill you trying,
whichever comes first."
     "It's a good choice?" I said doubtfully.
     " 'A good choice'?  Son, it's the only choice.  The Colonial
Infantry is the Army.  All the others are either button pushing or
professors, along merely to hand us the saw; we do the work."  He shook
his hands again and added, "Drop me a card---'Fleet Sergeant Joran,
Colonial Building,' that'll reach me.  Good luck!" And he was off,
shoulders back, heels clicking, head up.
     I looked at my hand.  The hand he offered me was the one that wasn't
there, his right hand.  Yet it had felt like flesh and had shaken mine
firmly.  I had read about these powered prosthetics, but it is startling
when you first run across them.
     I went back to the hotel where recruits were temporarily billeted
during placement----we didn't even have uniforms yet, just plain
coveralls we wore during the day and our own clothes after centons.  I
went to my room and started packing, as I was shipping out early in the
morning---packing to send stuff home, I mean; Corsh had cautioned me not
to take anything along but family photographs and possibly a musical
instrument if I played one (which I didn't).  Zac had shipped out three
days earlier, having gotten the R&D assignment he wanted.  I was just as
glad, as he would've been just too confounded understanding about the
billet I had drawn.  Little Sheba had shipped out, too, with the rank of
cadet midshipman (probationary)----she was going to be a helmsman all
right, if she could cut it---and I suspected that she could.
     My temporary roomie came in while I was packing.  "Got your orders?"
he asked.
     "Yup."
     "What?"
     "Colonial Infantry."
     "The Infantry?  Oh, you poor stupid clown!  I feel sorry for you, I
really do."
     I straightened up and said angrily, "Shut up!  The Colonial Infantry
is the best outfit in the Army---it is the Army!  The rest of you rotten
crasodies are just along to hand us the saw----we do the work."
     He laughed. "You'll find out!"
     "You want a mouthful of knuckles?"
        
Chapter 3

     I did basic at Camp Columbia on the northern prairies, along with a
couple of thousand other victims----and I do mean "Camp" as the only
permanent buildings there were used for equipment storage.  We slept and
ate in tents; we lived outdoors---if you call that "living," which I
didn't, at the time I was used to a warm climate; it seemed to me that
Caprica's North Pole was just five microns north of camp and getting
closer.  Ice Age returning, without a doubt.
     But exercise will keep you warm and they saw to it that we got
plenty of that.
     The first morning we were there they woke us up before daybreak.  I
had trouble adjusting to the change in time zones and it seemed to me
that I had just got to sleep; I couldn't believe that anyone seriously
intended that I should get up in the middle of the night.
     But they did mean it.  A speaker somewhere was blaring out a
military march, fit to wake the dead, and a hairy nuisance who had come
charging down the company street yelling, "Everybody out!  Show a leg! 
On the bounce!" came marauding back again just as I had pulled the covers
over my head, tipped over my cot and dumped me on the cold hard ground.
     It was an impersonal attention; he didn't even wait to see if I hit.
     Ten mili-centons later, dressed in trousers, undershirt, and shoes,
I was lined up with the others in ragged ranks for setting -up exercises
just as the twin suns rose over the eastern horizon.  Facing us was a
big, broad-shouldered, mean-looking man, dressed just as we were---except
that while I looked and felt like a poor job of embalming, his chin was
shaved blue, his trousers were sharply creased, you could have used his
shoes for mirrors, and his manner was alert, wide-awake, relaxed, and
rested.  You got the impression that he never needed to sleep---just
ten-thousand-micron checkups and dust him off occasionally.
     He bellowed, "C'pnee!  Atten...shut!  I am Career Ship's Sergeant
Tolan, your company commander.  When you speak to me, you will salute and
say, 'Sir'----you will salute and 'sir' anyone who carries an
instructor's baton...." He was carrying a swagger cane and now made a
quick reverse moulinet with it to show what he meant by an instructor's
baton; I had noticed men carrying them when we had arrived the night
before and had intended to get one myself---they looked smart.  Now I
changed my mind.  "---because we don't have enough officers around here
for you to practice on.  You'll practice on us.  All right---which one of
you siminoids sneezed?"
     No answer....
     "WHICH ONE OF YOU SIMINOIDS SNEEZED!?"
     "I did," a voice answered.
     " 'I did' what?"
     "I sneezed."
     " 'I sneezed,' SIR!"
     "I sneezed, sir. I'm cold, sir."
     "Oho!' Tolan strode up to the man who had sneezed, shoved the
ferrule of the swagger cane a mili-metron under his nose and demanded,
"Name?"
     "Starbuck....sir."
     "Starbuck..." Tolan repeated as if the word were somehow
distasteful, even shameful. "I suppose some night on patrol you're going
to sneeze just because you've got a runny nose?"
     "I hope not, sir."
     "So do I.  But you're cold.  Hmm....we'll fix that." He pointed with
his stick.  "See that armory over there?" I looked and could see nothing
but prairie except for one building that seemed to be almost on the
skyline.  
     "Fall out.  Run around it.  Run, I said.  Fast! Pacus! Pace him."
     "By your command, sir!"  One of the five or six other baton carriers
took out after Starbuck, caught up with him easily, cracked him across
the tight of his pants with the baton.  Tolan turned back to the rest of
us, still shivering at attention.  He walked up and down, looked us over,
and seemed awfully unhappy.  At last he stepped out in front of us, shook
his head, and said, apparently to himself but he had a voice that
carried:  "To think that this had to happen to me!"
     He looked at us.  "You daggits---No, not 'daggits'; you don't rate
that much.  You pitiful mob of sickly siminoids.....you sunken-chested,
slack-bellied, drooling refugees from apron strings.  In my whole life, I
never saw such a disgraceful huddle of momma's spoiled little darlings
in---you, there!  Suck up the gut!  Eyes front!  I'm talking to you!"
     I pulled in my belly, even though I was not sure he had addressed
me.  He went on and on and I began to forget my goose flesh in hearing
him storm.  He never once repeated himself and he never used either
profanity or obscenity.  (I learned later that he saved those for very
special occasions, which this wasn't.)  But he described our
shortcomings, physical, mental, moral, and genetic, in great and
insulting detail.
     But somehow I was not insulted; I became greatly interested in
studying his command of language.  I wished that we had him on our debate
team.
     At last he stopped and seemed about to cry.  "I can't stand it," he
said bitterly.  "I've just got to work some of it off---I had a better
set of toy soldiers when I was six yahrens old.  ALL RIGHT!  Is there any
one of you bilge rats who thinks he can whip me?  Is there a man in the
crowd?  Speak up!"
     There was a short silence to which I contributed.  I didn't have any
doubt at all that he could whip me; I was convinced.
     I heard a voice far down the line, the tall end, "Ah reckon ah
can....suh."
     Tolan looked happy.  "Good!  Step out here where I can see you." 
The recruit did so and he was impressive, at least three inches taller
than Sergeant Tolan and broader across the shoulders.  "What's your name,
warrior?"
     "Bootes, suh---and ah weigh two-hundred and ten pounds an' theah
ain't any of it 'slack-bellied.'"
     "Any particular way you'd like to fight?"
     "Suh, you jus' pick youah own method of dyin'.  A'hmm not fussy."
     "Okay, no rules.  Start whenever you like."  Tolan tossed his baton
aside.
     It started---and it was over.  The big recruit was sitting on the
ground, holding his left wrist in his right hand.  He didn't say
anything.
     Tolan bent over him.  "Awww, did I break it?"
     "Ah reckon you did....suh."
     "Tough.  You shouldn't have hurried me.  Do you know where the
dispensary is?  Never mind---Funky!  Take Bootes over to the dispensary." 
As they left, Tolan slapped him on the right shoulder and said quietly,
"Let's try it again in a sectar or so.  I'll show you what happened."  I
think it was meant to be a private remark but they were standing about
six feet in front of where I was slowly freezing solid.
     Tolan stepped back and called out, "Okay, we've got one man in this
company, at least.  I feel better.  Do we have another one?  Do we have
too more?  Any of you scrofulous bufoids think you can stand up to me?" 
He looked back and forth along our ranks.  "Spineless---oh, oh! Yes? Step
out."
     Two men who'd been side by side in ranks stepped out together; I
supposed they'd arranged it in whispers right there, but they also were
far down the tall end, so I didn't hear.  Tolan smiled at them. "Names,
please."
     "Gunny."
        "What about him?"
     The man called Gunny spoke rapidly to the other recruit and said
politely, "Sorry about that, sir. He's from Gemon.  Doesn't speak much
Colonial Standard yet, sir."
     "I am called Jaesan, sir," the second man supplied.
     "Ah, what the frak?  Lots of 'em don't speak much of it when they
get here----I should know, I spoke Piconese when I was a recruit myself. 
Tell Gunny not to worry, he'll pick it up.  But he understands what we're
going to do?"
     "Yes, sir," agreed Jaesan."
     "Certainly, sir.  He understands Colonial Standard, he just can't
speak it fluently."
     "All right.  Where did you two pick up those face scars? Serga?"
     "No, sir. Thega Settlement."
     "Okay, whatever." Tolan had picked up his baton after fighting
Bootes; he twirled it and asked, "Perhaps you'd each like to borrow one
of these?"
     "It would not be fair to you, sir," Gunny answered carefully.  "Bare
hands, if you please."
     "Suit yourself.  Though I might fool you.  Thega Settlement, eh? 
Rules?"
     "How can there be rules, sir, with three?"
     "An interesting point.  Well, let's agree that if eyes are gouged
out they must be handed back when it's over.  And tell your corps buddy
that I'm ready now.  Start when you like."  Tolan tossed his baton away;
someone caught it.
     "You joke, sir.  We will not gouge eyes."
     "No eye gouging, agree.  'Fire when ready.'"
     "Please?"
     "Come on and fight!  Or get back into ranks!"
     Now I'm not sure that I saw it happen this way; I may have learned
part of it later, in training.  But here's what I think happened:  The
two moved out on each side of our company commander until they had him
completely flanked but well out of contact.  From this position, there's
a choice of four basic moves for the man working alone, moves that take
advantage of his personal mobility and of the superior coordination of
one man as compared with two---Sergeant Tolan says (correctly) that any
group is weaker than a man alone unless they're perfectly trained to work
together.  For example, Tolan could've feinted at one of them, bounced
fast to the other with a disabler, such as a broken kneecap----then
finished off the first at his leisure.
     Instead, he let them attack.  Jaesan came at him fast, intending to
body check and knock him to the ground, I think, while Gunny would follow
through from above, maybe with his boots.  That's the way it appeared to
start.
     And here's what I think I saw.  Jaesan never reached him with that
body check.  Sergeant Tolan whirled to face him, while kicking out and
getting Gunny in the belly----and then Jaesan was sailing through the
air, his lunge helped along with a hearty assist from Tolan.
     But all I'm sure of is that the fight started and then there were
two Gemonese boys sleeping soundly, almost end to end, one face down and
one face up, and Tolan was standing over them, not even breathing hard. 
"Funky," he said, "No, Funky left, didn't he?  Anrus!  Let's have the
water bucket, then stick 'em back into their sockets.  Who's got my
toothpick?"
     A few moments later, the two were conscious, wet, and back in ranks. 
Tolan looked at us and inquired gently.  "Anybody else?  Or shall we get
on with setting-up exercises?"
     I didn't expect anybody else and I doubt if he did.  But from down
on the left flank, where the shorties hung out, a boy stepped out of
ranks, came front and center.  Tolan looked down at him.  "Just you?  Or
do you want a partner?"
     "Just myself, sir."
     "As you say.  Name?"
     "Aerric, sir."
     Tolan's eyes widened.  "I know a Commander Aerric.  Any relation?"
     "I have the honor to be his son, sir. I'm named after him."
     "Aha!  Well!  Level Theta?"
     "No, sir.  Not yet."
     "I'm glad you qualified that.  Well, Aerric, are we going to use the
contest rules are shall I send for the ambulance?"
     "By your command, sir.  But I think, if I may be permitted an
opinion, that contest rules would be more prudent."
     "I don't know just how you mean that, but I agree."  Tolan tossed
his badge of authority aside, then, so help me, they back off, faced each
other, and bowed.
     After that, they circled around each other in a half-crouch, making
tentative passes with their hands, and looking like a couple of roosters.
     Suddenly they touched----and the little chap was down on the ground
and Sergeant Tolan was flying through the air over his head.  But he
didn't land with the dull, breath-paralyzing thud that Jaesan had; he lit
rolling and was on his feet as fast as Aerric was and facing him. 
"HYYAAAAA!" Tolan yelled and grinned.
     "Thank you," Aerric answered and returned the grin.
     They touched again almost without a pause and I thought the Sergeant
was going to fly again.  He didn't; he slithered straight in, there was a
confusion of arms and legs and when the motion slowed down you could see
that Tolan was attacking Aerric's left foot in his right ear---a poor
fit.
     Aerric slapped the ground with a free hand; Tolan let him up at
once.  They again bowed to each other.
     "Another fall, sir?"
     "Sorry.  We've got work to do.  Some other time, eh?  For fun....and
honor.  Perhaps I should've told you; your honorable father trained me."
     "So I had already surmised, sir.  Another time it is."
     Tolan slapped him hard on the shoulder.  "Back in the ranks,
warrior.  C'pnee!"
     Then, for twenty mili-centons, we went through calisthenics that
left he as dripping hot as I had been shivering cold.  Tolan led it
himself, doing it all with us and shouting the count.  He hadn't been
mussed that I could see; he wasn't breathing hard as we finished.  He
never let the exercises after that morning (we never saw him again before
breakfast; rank has its privileges), but he did that morning, and when it
was over and we were all bushed, he led us at a trot to the mess tent,
shouting at us the whole way to "Step it up! On the bounce! You're
dragging your tails!"
     We always trotted everywhere at Camp Columbia.  I never did find out
who Tusken was, but he must've been a trackman.
     Bootes was already in the mess tent, with a cast on his wrist but
thumb and fingers showing.  I heard him say, "Naw, just a greenstick
fractchuh---ah've played a whole quahtuh with wuss.  But you wait---ah'll
fix him."
     I had my doubts.  Aerric, maybe---but not that big siminoid.  He
simply didn't know when he was outclassed.  I disliked Tolan from the
first moment I laid eyes on him.  But he had style.
     Breakfast was all right---all the meals were all right; there was
none of that nonsense some boarding schools have of making your life
miserable at the table.  If you wanted to slump down and shovel it in
with both hands, nobody bothered you---which was good, as meals were
practically the only time somebody wasn't riding you.  The menu for
breakfast wasn't anything like what I had been used to at home and the
civilians that waited on us slapped the food around in a fashion that
would have made Mother grow pale and leave for her room----but it was hot
and it was plentiful and the cooking was okay if plain.  I ate about four
times what I normally do and washed it down with mug after mug of coffee
with cream and lots of sugar----I would have eaten a shark without
stopping to skin him.
     Starbuck showed up with Corporal Giles behind him as I was staring
on seconds.  They stopped for a moment at a table where Tolan was eating
alone, then Starbuck slumped onto a vacant stool by mine.  He looked
mighty seedy---pale, exhausted, and his breath rasping.  I said, "Here,
let me pour you some java."
     He shook his head.
     "You better eat," I insisted.  "Some scrambled eggs---they'll go
down easily."
     "Can't eat?  Oh, that dirty so-and-so." He began cussing out Tolan
in a low, almost expressionless monotone.  "All I asked him was to let me
go lie down and skip breakfast.  Giles wouldn't let me---said I had to
see the company commander.  So I did and I told him I was sick.  I told
him.  He just felt my cheek and counted my pulse and told me sick call
was at 0900 centons.  Wouldn't let me go back to my tent.  Oh, that
galmonging snitrod!  I'll make mushies out of his corpse!  I swear it!"
     I spooned out some eggs for him anyway and poured java.  Presently
he began to eat.  Sergeant Tolan got up to leave while most of us were
still eating, and stopped by our table.  "Starbuck."
     "Uh? Yes, sir."
     "At oh-nine-hundred muster for sick call and see the doctor."
     Starbuck's jaw muscles twitched.  He answered slowly, "I don't need
any pills---sir. I'll get by."
     "Oh-nine-hundred.  It is so ordered." He left.
     Starbuck started his monotonous chant again.  Finally he slowed
down, took a bite of eggs and said somewhat more loudly, "I can't help
wondering what kind of a mother produced that. I'd just like to have a
look at her, that's all.  Did he ever have a mother?"
     It was a rhetorical question but it got answered.  At the head of
our table, several stools away, was one of the tutor-corporals.  He'd
finished eating and was smoking and picking his teeth, simultaneously; he
had evidently been listening. "Starbuck---"
     "Uh---sir?"
     "Don't you know about sergeants?"
     "Well....I'm learning."
     "They don't have mothers.  Just ask any trained private."  He blew
smoke toward us.  "They reproduce by fission....like all bacteria."


Chapter 4

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can
indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All
men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear
overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood. 
               ----George S. Patton     

     Two weeks after we got there they took our cots away from us.  That
is to say that we had the dubious pleasure of folding them, carrying them
four microns, and stowing them in a warehouse.  By then it didn't matter;
the ground seemed much warmer and quite soft---especially when the alert
sounded in the middle of the night and we had to scramble out and play
soldier.  Which it did about three times a week.  But I could get back to
sleep after one of those mock exercises at once; I had learned to sleep
any place, any time---sitting up, standing up, even marching in ranks.  I
could even sleep through evening parade standing at attention, enjoy the
music without being waked by it---and wake instantly at the command to
pass in review.
     I made a very important discovery at Camp Columbia.  Happiness
consists in getting enough sleep.  Just that, nothing more.  All the
wealthy, unhappy people you've ever met take sleeping pills; Colonial
Infantrymen don't need them.  Give a trooper a bunk and time to sack out
in it and he's as happy as a worm in an apple-asleep.
     Theoretically, you were given eight full hours of sack time every
night and about an hour and a half after evening chow for your own use. 
But in fact your night sack time was subject to alerts, to night duty, to
field marches, and to acts of the Lords and the whims of those over you,
and your evenings, if not ruined by awkward squad or extra duty for minor
offenses, were likely to be taken up by shining shoes, doing laundry,
swapping haircuts (some of us got to be pretty fair barbers but a clean
sweep like a billiard ball was acceptable and anybody can do that)---not
to mention a thousand other chores having to do with equipment, person
and the demands of sergeants.  For example we learned to answer morning
roll call with:  "Bathed!" meaning you had taken at least one bath since
last reveille.  A man might lie about it and get away with it (I did, a
couple of times) but at least one in our company who pulled that dodge in
the face of convincing evidence that he was not recently bathed got
scrubbed with stiff brushes and floor soap by his squadmates while a
tutor-corporal chaperoned and made helpful suggestions.
     But if you didn't have more urgent things to do after supper, you
could write a epistle, loaf, gossip, discuss the myriad mental and moral
shortcomings of sergeants and, dearest of all, talk about the female of
the species (we became convinced that there were no such creatures, just
mythology created by inflamed imaginations----one boy in our  company
claimed to have seen a girl, over at regimental headquarters; he was
unanimously judged a liar and a braggart).  Or you could play cards.  I
learned, the hard way, not to draw to an inside straight and I've never
done it since.  In fact, I haven't played cards since.
     Or, if you actually did have twenty minutes of your very own, you
could sleep.  This was a choice very highly thought of; we were always
several sectans minus on sleep.  
     I may have given the impression that boot camp was made harder than
necessary.  This is not correct.
     It was made as hard as possible and on purpose.
     It was the firm opinion of every recruit that this was sheer
meanness, calculated sadism, fiendish delight of witless morons in making
other people suffer.
     It wasn't.  It was too scheduled, too intellectual, too efficiently
and impersonally organized to be cruelty for the sick pleasure of
cruelty; it was planned like surgery for purposes as unimpassioned as
those of a surgeon.  I admit that some of the instructors may have
enjoyed it but I don't know what they did---and I do know (now) that the
psych officers tried to weed out any bullies in selecting tutors.  They
looked for skilled and dedicated craftsmen to follow the art of making
things as tough as possible for a recruit; a bully is too stupid, himself
too emotionally involved and too likely to grow tired of his fun and
slack off, to be efficient.
     Still, there may have been bullies among them.  But I've heard that
some surgeons (and not necessarily bad ones) enjoy the cutting and the
blood which accompanies the human art of surgery.
     That's what it was:  surgery.  Its immediate purpose was to get rid
of, run right out of the outfit, those recruits who were too soft or too
babyish to ever to make Colonial Infantrymen.  It accomplished that, in
droves.  (They darn near ran me out.)  Our company shrank to platoon size
in the first six weeks.  Some of them were dropped without prejudice and
allowed, if they wished, to sweat out their terms in the non-combatant
services; others got Bad Conduct Discharges, or Unsatisfactory
Performance Discharges, or Medical Discharges.
     Usually you don't know why a man left unless you saw him leave and
he volunteered the information.  But some of them got fed up, said so
loudly, and resigned, forfeiting forever their chances of franchise. 
Some, especially the older men, simply couldn't stand the pace physically
no matter how hard they tried.  I remember one, a nice old geezer named
Adar, must've been thirty-five; they carried him away in a stretcher
while he was shouting feebly that it wasn't fair!---and that he'd be
back.
     It was sort of sad, because we liked Adar and he did try---so we
looked the other way and figured we'd never see him again, that he was a
cinch for a medical discharge and civilian clothes.  Only I did see him
again long after.  He had refused discharge (you don't have to accept a
medical) and wound up as third cook in a troop transport.  He remembered
me and wanted to talk old times, as proud of being an alumnus of Camp
Columbia as Father is of his Umbra accent---he felt that he was a little
bit better than the ordinary Fleet man.  Well, maybe he was.
     But, much more important than the purpose of carrying away the fat
quickly and saving the government the training costs of those who would
never cut it, was the prime purpose of making sure as was humanly
possible that no trooper ever climbed into a capsule for a combat drop
unless he was prepared for it---fit, resolute, disciplined, and skilled. 
If he's not, it's not fair to the Colonies, it's certainly not fair to
his teammates, and worst of all it's not fair to him.
     But was boot camp more cruelly hard than was necessary?
     All I can say to that is this:  The next time I have to make a
combat drop, I want the men on my flanks to be graduates of Camp Columbia
or its Cimtarian equivalent.  Otherwise, I'll refuse to enter the
capsule.

*****

     But I certainly thought it was a bunch of crumby, vicious felgercarb
at the time.  Little things... When we were there a week, we were issued
undress maroons for parade to supplement the fatigues we had been
wearing.  (Dress and full dress uniforms came much later.)  I took my
tunic back to the issue shed and complained to the supply sergeant. 
Since he was only a supply sergeant and rather fatherly in manner I
thought of him as a semi-civilian---I didn't know how, as of then, to
read the ribbons on his chest or I wouldn't have dared to speak to him. 
"Sergeant, this tunic is too large.  My company commander says it fits
like a tent."
     He looked at the garment, didn't touch it.  "Really?"
     "Yeah.  I want one that fits."
     He still didn't stir.  "Let me wise you up, sonny boy.  There are
just two sizes in this army---too large and too small."
     "But my company commander...."
     "No doubt."
     "But what am I going to do?"
     "Oh, it's advice you want!  Well, I've got that in stock---new
issue, just today.  Mmm....tell you what I'll do.  Here's a needle and
I'll even give you a spool of thread.  You won't need a pair of scissors;
a razor blade is better.  Now you tight 'em plenty across the hips but
leave cloth to loose 'em again across the shoulders; you'll need it
later."
     Sergeant Tolan's only comment on my tailoring was:  "You can do
better than that.  Two centons extra duty."
     So I did better than that by the next parade.
     Those first six sectans were all hardening up and hazing, with lots
of parade drill and lots or route march.  Eventually, as files dropped
out and went home or elsewhere, we reached the point where we could do
fifty maxims in ten centons on the level---which is good mileage for a
good equine in case you've never used your legs.  We rested, not by
stopping, but by changing pace, slow march, quick march, and trot. 
Sometimes we went out the full distance, bivouacked and ate field
rations, slept in sleeping bags and marched back the next day.
     One day we started out on an ordinary day's march, no bed bags on
our shoulders, no rations.  When we didn't stop for lunch, I wasn't
surprised, as I had already learned to sneak sugar and hard bread and
such out of the mess tent and conceal it about my person, but when we
kept on marching away from camp in the afternoon I began to wonder.  But
I had learned not to ask silly questions.
     We halted shortly before dark, three companies, now somewhat
abbreviated.  We formed a battalion parade and marched through it,
without music, guards were mounted, and we were dismissed.  I immediately
looked up Corporal-Tutor Giles because he was a little easier to deal
with than the others....and because I felt a certain amount of
responsibility; I happened to be, at the time, a recruit-corporal myself. 
These boot chevrons didn't mean much---mostly the privilege of being
chewed out for whatever your squad did as well as for what you did
yourself---and they could vanish as quickly as they appeared.   Tolan had
tried out all of the older men as temporary non-coms first and I had
inherited a brassard with chevrons on it a couple of days before when our
squad leader had folded up and gone to life station.
     I said, "Corporal Giles, what's the straight word?  When is chow
call?"
     He grinned at me.  "I've got a couple of mushies on me.  Want me to
split 'em with you?"
     "Huh?  Oh, no, sir. Thank you."  (I had considerably more than a
couple of mushies; I was learning.) "No chow call?"
     "They didn't tell me either, sonny.  But I don't say any copters
approaching.  Now if I was you, I'd round up my squad and figure things
out.  Maybe one of you can hit a lepus with a rock."
     "Yes, sir.  But---Well, are we staying here all night?  We don't
have our bedrolls."
     His eyebrows shot up. "No bedrolls?  Well, I do declare!" He seemed
to think it over.  "Mmm....ever seen sheep huddle together in a
snowstorm?"
     "No, sir."
     "Try it.  They don't freeze, maybe you won't.  Or if you don't care
for company, you might walk around all night.  Nobody'll bother you, as
long as you stay inside the posted guards.  You won't freeze if you keep
moving.  Of course, you may be a little tired tomorrow."  He grinned
again.
     I saluted and went back to my squad.  We divvied up, share and share
alike---and I came out with less food than I had started; some of those
idiots either hadn't sneaked out anything to eat, or had eaten all they
had while we marched.  But a few mushies and a couple of prunes will do a
lot to keep your stomach's sounding alert.
     The sheep trick works, too; our whole section, three squads, did it
together.  I don't recommend it as a way to sleep; you are either in the
outer layer, frozen on one side and trying to worm your way inside, or
you are inside, fairly warm but with everybody else trying to shove his
elbows, feet, and halitosis on you.  You migrate from one condition to
the other all night long, never quite waking up and never really sound
asleep.  All this makes a night about a hundred yahrens long.
     We turned out at dawn to the familiar shout of:  "Up you come!  On
the bounce!" encouraged by tutors' batons applied smartly on fundaments
sticking out of the piles...and then we did setting-up exercises.  I felt
like a corpse and didn't see how I could touch my toes.  But I did,
though it hurt, and twenty minutes later, when we hit the trail I merely
felt elderly.  Sergeant Tolan wasn't even mussed and somehow the
scoundrel had managed to shave.
     The suns had warmed our backs as we marched and Tolan started us
singing oldies at first like "The Regiment of Sambor and Jesser" and
"Boxes" and "Tunnels of Cargon" and then our own "Colonial Trooper's
Polka" which moves you into quickstep and pulls you on into a trot. 
Sergeant Tolan couldn't carry a tune in a sack; all he had was a loud
voice.  But Bootes had a sure, strong lead and could hold the rest of us
in the teeth of Tolan's terrible false notes.  We all felt cocky and
covered with spines.
     But we didn't feel cocky fifty miles later.  It had been a long
night; it was an endless day---and Tolan chewed us out for the way we
looked on parade and several boots got gigged for failing to shave in the
nine whole minutes between the time we fell out after the march and fell
back in again for parade.  Several recruits resigned that evening and I
thought about it but didn't because I had those silly boot chevrons and
hadn't been busted yet.
     That night there was a two-centon alert.
     But eventually I learned to appreciate the homey luxury of two or
three dozen warm bodies to snuggle up to, because sectans later they
dumped me down raw naked in a primitive area of the Caprican Rockies and
I had to make my way forty maxims through the mountains.  I made
it----and hated the army every metron of the way.
     I wasn't in too bad shape when I checked in, though.  A couple of
lepuses had failed to stay as alert as I was, so I didn't go entirely
hungry....nor entirely naked.  I had a nice warm thick coat of lepus fat
and dirt on my body and moccasins on my feet----the lepuses having no
further use for their skins.  It's amazing what you can do with a flake
of rock if you have to----I guess our cave man ancestors weren't such
dummies as we usually think.
     The others made it, too, those who were still around to try and
didn't resign than take the rest---all except two boys who died trying. 
Then we all went back into the mountains and spent thirteen days finding
them, working with copters overhead to direct us and all the best
communication gear to help us and our instructors in powered command
suits to supervise and check rumors----because the Colonial Infantry
doesn't abandon its own while there's any shred of hope.
     Then we buried them with full honors to the strains of "So Say We
All" and with the posthumous rank of PFC, the first of our boot regiment
to go that high---because a trooper isn't necessarily expected to stay
alive (dying is part of his trade)....but they care a lot about how you
die.  It has to be heads up, on the bounce, and still trying.
     Bootes was one of them; the other was a Tauron boy I didn't know. 
They weren't the first to die in training; they weren't the last.

*****

Chapter 5

     Caning and other crude punishments may satisfy some urge to wring
the necks of troublemakers. But the Constitution that prohibits cruel and
unusual punishment does so for a reason: to guard against government
intimidation.
     Imagine living without that protection.  
          ----USA Today, 5 April 1994


     But that was after we'd left Camp Columbia and a lot had happened in
between.  Combat training, mostly---combat drill and combat exercises and
combat maneuvers, using everything from bare hands to simulated nuclear
weapons.  I hadn't known there were so many different ways to fight. 
Hands and feet to start with---and if you think those aren't weapons, you
haven't seen Sergeant Tolan and Captain Omega, our battalion commander,
demonstrate foot-boxing, or had little Aerric work you over with just his
hands and a toothy grin----Tolan made Aerric a tutor  for that purpose at
once and required us to take his orders, although we didn't have to
salute him and say, "sir."
     As our ranks thinned down Tolan quit bothering with formations
himself, except parade, and spent more and more time in personal
instruction, supplementing the corporal-tutors.  He was sudden death with
anything but he loved knives, and made and balanced his own, instead of
using the perfectly good general-issue ones.  He mellowed quite a bit as
a personal teacher, too, becoming merely unbearable instead of downright
disgusting----he could be quite patient with silly questions.
     Once, during one of the two-mili-centon rest periods that were
scattered sparsely through each day's work, one of the boys, a kid named
Kyle---asked, "Sergeant?  I guess this knife throwing is fun....but why
do we have to learn it?  What possible use is it?"
     "Well," answered Tolan, "suppose all you have is a knife?  Or maybe
not even a knife?  What do you do?   Just say your prayers and die?  Or
wade in and make him buy it anyhow?  Son, this is real---it's not a
bilyarks game you can concede if you find yourself too far behind."
     "But that's just what I mean, sir.  Suppose you're not armed at all? 
Or just one of those ovine-stickers, say?  And the man you're up against
has all kinds of dangerous weapons?  There's nothing you can do about it;
he's got you licked on showdown."
     Tolan said almost gently, "You've got it all wrong, son.  There's no
such thing as a 'dangerous weapon.'"
     "Huh? Sir?"
     "There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. 
We're trying to teach you to be dangerous----to the enemy.  Dangerous
even without a knife.  Deadly as long as you still have one hand or foot
and are still alive.  Now, about the case you just mentioned; I'm you and
all you have is a knife.  That target behind me----the one you've been
missing, number three----is a sentry, armed with everything but an
S-bomb.  You've got to get him....quietly, at once, and without letting
him call for help."  Tolan turned slightly---thunk!---a knife he hadn't
even had in his hand was quivering in the center of target number three. 
"You see?  Best to carry two knives---but get him you must, even
barehanded."
     "Um...."
     "Something still troubling you?  Speak up.  That's what I'm here
for, to answer your questions."
     "Um, yes, sir.  You said the sentry didn't have any S-Bomb.  But he
does have an S-bomb; that's just the point.  Well, at least we have, if
we're the sentry....and any sentry we're up against is likely to have
them, too.  I don't mean the sentry; I mean the side he's on."
     "I understood you."
     "Well....you see, sir?  If we can use an S-Bombl---and, as you said,
it's no billyarks game; it's real, it's war and nobody's kidding
around---isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds,
throwing knives, and maybe getting yourself killed.....and even losing
the war....when you've got a real weapon you can use to win?  What's the
point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with ancient weapons when
one professor type can do so much more just by pressing a button?"
     Tolan didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all.  Then he
said softly, "Are you happy in the Infantry, Kyle?  You can resign, you
know."
     Kyle muttered something; Tolan said, "Speak up!"
     "I'm not eager to resign, sir.  I'm going to sweat out my term."
     "I see.  Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant's not
really qualified to answer....and one you've got no business asking me. 
You're s'posed to know the answer before you enlist.  Or you should.  Did
your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?"
     "What?  Sure----yes, sir."
     "Then you've heard the answer.  But I'll give you my
own---unofficial---views on it.  If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson,
would you cut its head off?"
     "No, sir!"
     "Of course not."  You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when
it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an S-bomb as it would be
to spank a baby with an ax.  War is not violence and killing, pure and
simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose.  The purpose of war is
to support your government's decisions by force.  The purpose is never to
kill the enemy just to be killing him....but to make him do what you want
to do.  Not killing...but controlled and purposeful violence.  But it's
not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control.  It's
never a soldier's business to decide where or when or how---or why---he
fights; that belongs to the buriticians and the generals.  The
buriticians decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and
tell us where and when and how.  We supply the violence; other
people----'older and wiser heads,' as they say----supply the control. 
Which is how it should be.  That's the best answer I can give you.  If it
doesn't satisfy you, I'll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental
commander.  If he can't convince you----then go home and be a civilian! 
Because in that case you will certainly never make warrior!"
     Tolan bounced to his feet.  "I think you've kept me talking just to
goldbrick. Up you come, warriors!  On the bounce!  Man stations, on
target---Kyle, you first. This time I want you to throw that knife south
of you.  South, get it?  Not north.  The target's due south of you and I
want that knife to go in a general southerly directions, at least.  I
know you won't hit the target but see if you can't scare it a little. 
Don't slice your ear off, don't let go of it and cut somebody behind
you----just keep what tiny mind you have fixed on the idea of 'south'! 
Ready---on target!  Let fly!"
     KyleKyle missed it again.
     We trained with sticks and we trained with wire (lots of nasty
things you can improvise with a piece of wire) and we learned what can be
done with really modern weapons and how to do it and how to service and
maintain the equipment---simulated nuclear weapons and infantry rockets
and various sorts of gas and poison and incendiary and demolition.  As
well as other things maybe best not discussed.  But we learned a lot of
"ancient" weapons, too.  Bayonets on dummy guns for example, and guns
that weren't dummies, too, but were almost identical to the infantry
rifle of the Sixth Millennium----much like the sporting rifles used in
hunting game, except that we fired nothing but solid slugs,
alloy-jacketed lead bullets, both on targets on measured ranges and at
surprise targets on booby-trapped skirmish runs.  This was supposed to
prepare us to learn to use any armed weapon and to train us to be on the
bounce, alert, ready for anything.  Well, I suppose it did.  I'm pretty
sure it did.
     We used these rifles in field exercises to simulate a lot of
deadlier and nastier aimed weapons, too.  We used a lot of simulation; we
had to.  An "explosive" bomb or grenade, against materiel or personnel,
would explode just enough to put out a lot of black smoke; another sort
of gave off a gas that would make you sneeze and weep---that told you
that you were dead or paralyzed....and was nasty enough to make you
careful about anti-gas precautions, to say nothing of the chewing out you
got if you were caught by it.
     We got still less sleep; more than half the exercises were held at
night, with snoopers and radar and audio gear and such.
     The rifles used to simulate aimed weapons were loaded with banks
except one in five hundred rounds at random, which was a real bullet. 
Dangerous?  Yes and no.  It's dangerous just to be alive....and a
nonexplosive bullet probably won't kill you unless it hits you in the
head or the heart and maybe not then.  When that one-in-five-hundred "for
real" did was to give us a deep interest in taking cover, especially as
we knew that some of the rifles were being fired by instructors who were
crack shots and actually trying their best to hit you----if the round
happened not to be a blank.  They assured us that they would not
intentionally shoot a man in the head----but accidents do happen.
     This friendly assurance wasn't very reassuring.  That 500th bullet
turned tedious exercises into large-scale Scorpian Roulette;  you stop
being bored the very first time you hear a slug go wheet! past your ear
before you hear the crack of the rifle.
     But we did slack down anyhow and word came down from the top that if
we didn't get on the bounce, the incidence of real ones would be changed
to one in a hundred----and if that didn't work, one in fifty.  I don't
know whether a change was made or not---no way to tell----but I do know
we tightened up again, because a boy in the next company got creased
across his buttocks with a live one, producing an amazing scar and a lot
of half-witty comments and a renewed interest in all hands in taking
cover.  We laughed at this kid for getting shot where he did....but we
all knew it could have been his head....or our own heads.
     The tutors who weren't firing rifles didn't take cover.  They put on
white shirts and walked around upright with their silly canes, apparently
calmly certain that even a recruit wouldn't shoot a tutor
deliberately---which may have been overconfidence on the part of some of
them.  Still, the chances were five hundred to one that even a shot aimed
with murderous intent wouldn't be live and the safety factor increased
still higher because the recruit probably couldn't shoot that well
anyhow.  A rifle is not an easy weapon; it's got no target-seeking
qualities at all----I understand that even back in the days when wars
were fought and decided with just such rifles it used to take several
thousand fired shots to average killing one man.  This seems impossible
but the military histories agree that it's true---apparently most shots
weren't really aimed but simply acted to force the enemy to keep his head
down and interfere with his shooting.
     At any rate, we had tutors wounded or killed by rifle-fire.  No
trainees were killed, either, by rifle bullets; the deaths were all from
other weapons or things----some of which could turn around and bite you
if you didn't do things by the book.  One boy did manage to break his
neck taking cover too enthusiastically when they first started shooting
at him----but no bullet touched him.
     However, by a chain reaction, this matter of rifle bullets and
taking cover brought me to my lowest ebb at Camp Columbia.  In the first
place I'd been busted out of my boot chevrons, not over what I did but
over something one of my squad did when I wasn't even around....which I
pointed out.  Giles told me to button my lip.  So I went to see Tolan
about it.  He told me coldly that I was responsible for what my men did,
regardless...and tacked on six centons of extra duty besides busting me
for having spoken to him about it without Giles's permission.  Then I got
a epistle that upset me a lot; my mother finally wrote to me.  Then I
sprained a shoulder in my first drill with powered armor (they've got
those practice suits rigged so that the instructor can cause casualties
in the suit at will, by radio control; I got dumped and hurt my shoulder)
and this put me on light duty with too much time to think at a time when
I had many reasons, it seemed to me, to feel sorry for myself.
     Because of "light duty" I was orderly that day in the battalion
commander's office. I was eager, at first, for I had never been there
before and wanted to make a good impression.  I discovered that Captain
Omega didn't want zeal; he wanted me to sit still, say nothing, and not
bother him.  This left me time to sympathize with myself, for I didn't
dare go to sleep.
     Then suddenly, shortly after lunch, I wasn't a bit sleepy; Sergeant
Tolan came in, followed by three men.  Tolan was smart and neat as usual
but the expression on his face made him look like Death on a pale equine
and he had a mark on his right eye that looked as if it might be shaping
up into a shiner----which was impossible, of course.  Of the other three,
the one in the middle was Kyle.  He was dirty---well, the company had
been on a field exercise; they don't scrub those prairies and you spend a
lot of your time snuggling up to the dirt.  But his lip was split and
there was blood on his chin and on his shirt and his cap was missing.  He
looked wild-eyed.
     The men on each side of him were boots.  They each had rifles.  Kyle
did not.  One of them was from my squad, a kid named Jaster.  He seemed
excited and pleased, and slipped me a wink when nobody was looking.
     Captain Omega looked surprised.  "What is this, Sergeant?"
     Tolan stood frozen straight and spoke as if he were reciting
something by rote.  "Sir, Eta Company Commander reports to the Battalion
Commander.  Discipline.  Article nine-one-oh-seven.  Disregard of
tactical command and doctrine, the team being in simulated combat. 
Article nine-one-two-oh.  Disobedience of orders, same conditions."
     Captain Omega looked puzzled.  "You are bringing this to me,
Sergeant?  Officially?"
     I don't see how a man can manage to look as embarrassed as Tolan
looked and still have no expression of any sort in his face or voice. 
"Sir. If the Captain pleases.  The man refused administrative discipline. 
He insisted on seeing the Battalion Commander."
     "I see.  A bedroll lawyer.  Well, I still don't understand it,
Sergeant, but that's technically his privilege.  What was the tactical
command and doctrine?"
     "A 'freeze' sir."  I glanced at Kyle, thinking: Oh, frak!  He's
gonna get it.  In a "freeze" you hit dirt, taking any cover you can,
fast, and then freeze---don't move at all, not even twitch an eyebrow,
until released.  Or you can freeze when you're already in cover.  They
tell stories about men who had been hit while in freeze...and had died
slowly but without ever making a sound or move.
     Omega's brows shot up.  "Second part?"
     "Same thing, sir.  After breaking freeze, failing to return to it on
being so ordered."
     Captain Omega looked grim.  "Name?"
     Tolan answered.  "Kyle, sir.  Recruit Private
R-P-seven-nine-six-oh-nine-two-four."
     "Very well.  Kyle, you are deprived of all privileges for thirty
days and restricted to your tent when not on duty or at meals, subject
only to sanitary necessities.  You will serve three centons extra duty
each day under the Corporal of the Guard, one centon to be served just
before taps, one centon just before reveille, one centon at the time of
the midday meal and in place of it.  Your evening meal will be bread and
water---as much bread as you can eat.  You will serve ten centons extra
duty each Sunday, the time to be adjusted to permit you to attend worship
period services if you so elect."
     (I thought:  Oh my! He threw the book.)
     Captain Omega went on; Kyle, the only reason you're getting off so
lightly is that I'm not allowed to give you any more than that without
convening a tribunal....and I don't want to spoil your company's records. 
Dismissed."  He dropped his eyes back to the papers on his desk, the
incident already forgotten....
     ....and Kyle yelled, "You didn't hear my side of it!" 
     The Captain looked up.  "My apologies, warrior.  You have a side?"
     "You're damn right I do!  Sergeant Tolan's got it in for me!  He's
been riding me, riding me, riding me, all day long from the time I got
here!  He...."
     "That's his job," the Captain said coldly.  "Are you denying the two
charges against you?"
     "No, but---He didn't tell you I was lying on an anthill."
     Omega looked disgusted.  "So, you would get yourself killed and
perhaps your teammates as well because of a few little ants?"
     "Not 'just a few'---there were hundreds of 'em.  Stingers."
     "So?  Young man, let me put you straight.  Had it been a nest of
venomous quickstrikes you would still have been expected-and
required---to freeze."  Omega paused.  "What do you have to say in your
own defense?"
     Kyle's mouth was open.  "He hit me!  He laid hands on me!  The whole
bunch of 'em are always strutting around with those silly batons,
whackin' you across the astrum, punchin' you between the shoulders and
tellin' you to brace up---and I put up with it.  But he hit me with his
hands---he knocked me down to the ground and yelled, 'Freeze! you stupid
snitrod!  How about that?"
     Captain Omega looked down at his hands, looked up again at Kyle. 
"Young man, you're under a false impression that is very common among
civilians.  You think that your superior officers are not permitted to
'lay hands on you' as you put it.  Under purely societal conditions, it
is true---say if we happened to run across each other in a theater or a
shop.  I would have no more right, as long as you treated me with the
respect due my rank, to slap your face than you have to slap mine.  But
in the line of duty, the rule is entirely different---"
     The Captain swung around in his chair and pointed at some loose-leaf
books.  "There are the laws under which you live.  You can search every
article in those books, every courtmartial case which has arisen under
them, and you'll not find one word which says, or implies, that your
superior officer may not 'lay hands on you' or strike you in any other
manner in line of duty.  Kyle, I could crack your jaw---and I simply
would be responsible to my own superior officers as to the appropriate
necessity of the act.  But I would not be responsible to you.  I could do
more than that.  There are circumstances under which a superior officer,
commissioned or not, is not only permitted but required to kill an
officer or a man under him, without delay and perhaps without
warning----and, far from being punished, be commended.  To put a stop to
cowardly behavior before the enemy, for example."
     The Captain tapped on his desk.  "Now about those batons---they've
got two uses.  First, they mark the men in authority.  Second, we expect
them to be used on you, to touch you up and keep you on the bounce.  You
can't possibly be hurt with one, not the way they are used; at most they
sting a little.  But they save thousands of words.  Say you don't turn
out on the bounce at reveille.  No doubt the duty corporal could cajole
you, say 'pretty please with sugar on it,' inquire if you'd like
breakfast in bed this morning---if we could spare one career corporal
just to nursemaid you.  We can't, so he gives your bedroll a whack and
trots on down the line, applying the spur where needed. Of course he
could simply kick you, which would be just as legal and nearly as
effective.  But the general in charge of training and discipline thinks
that it is more dignified, both for the duty corporal and for you, to
snap a late sleeper out of his fog with the impersonal rod of authority. 
And so do I.  Not that it matters what you or I think about it; this is
the way we do it."
     Captain Omega sighed.  "Kyle, I've explained these matters to you
because it's useless to punish a man unless he knows why he's being
punished.  You've been a bad boy---I say 'boy' because you quite
evidently aren't a man, yet, although we'll keep trying---a surprisingly
bad boy in view of the stage of your training.  Nothing you've said is
any defense, or even any mitigation; you don't seem to know the score nor
have any idea of your duty as a soldier.  So tell me in your own words
why you feel mistreated; I want to get you straightened out.  There might
even be something in your favor, though I confess that I cannot imagine
what it could be."
     I had sneaked a look or two at Kyle's face while the Captain was
chewing him out---somehow, his quiet, mild words were a worse chewing-out
than any Tolan had ever given us.  Kyle's expression had gone from
indignation to blank astonishment to sullenness.
     "Speak up!" Omega added sharply.
     "Uh...well, we were ordered to freeze and I hit the dirt and I found
I was on this anthill.  So I got to my knees to move over a couple of
feet, and I was hit from behind and knocked flat and he yelled at
me---and I bounced up and popped him one and he...."
     "HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!" Captain Omegal was out his chair and standing
ten metrons tall, though he's hardly taller than I am.  He stared at
Kyle.
     "You....struck...your....company commander?"
     "Huh?  I said so.  But he hit me first.  From behind.  I didn't even
see him.  I don't take that off anybody.  I popped him and then he hit me
again and then...."
     "Shut up!"
     Kyle stopped.  Then he added, "I just want out of this shitty
outfit."
     "We can arrange that," Omega said icily.  "And quickly, too."
     "Just gimme a piece of paper.  I'm resigning."
     "One centon.  Sergeant Tolan."
     "Yes, sir."  Tolan hadn't said a word for a long time.  He just
stood, eyes front and rigid as a statue, nothing moving but his twitching
jaw muscles.  I looked at him now and saw it certainly was a shiner....a
beauty.  Kyle must've caught him just right.  But he hadn't said anything
about it and Captain Omega hadn't asked....maybe he'd just assumed Tolan
had run into a door and would explain it if he felt like it, later.
     "Have the pertinent articles been published to your company, as
required?"
     "Yes, sir.  Published and logged, every Sunday morning."
     "I know they have.  I asked simply for the record."
     Just before worship call every Sunday they lined us up and read
aloud the disciplinary articles out of the Laws and Regulations of the
Colonial Military.  They were posted on the bulletin board, too, outside
the orderly tent.  Nobody paid them much mind---it was just another
drill; you could stand still and sleep through it.  About the only thing
we noticed, if we noticed anything, was what we called "the thirty-one
ways to crash-land."  After all, the instructors see to it that you soak
up all the regulations you need to know through your skin.  The
"crash-landings" were a worn-out joke, like reveille oil" and "tent
jacks"....they were the thirty-one capital offenses.  Now and then
somebody boasted, or accused somebody else, of having found a
thirty-second way---always something preposterous and usually obscene.
     "Striking a superior officer---!"
     It suddenly wasn't funny anymore.  Popping Tolan? Hang a man for
that?  Why, almost everybody in the company had taken a swing at Sergeant
Tolan and some of us had even landed...when he was instructing us in
hand-to-hand combat.  He would take us on after the other instructors had
worked us over and we were just beginning to feel cocky and pretty good
at it----then he would put the polish on.  Why, shucks, I once saw Aerric
knock him unconscious.  Giles threw water on him and Tolan got up and
grinned and shook hands---and threw Aerric right over the horizon.
     Captain Omega looked around, motioned at me.  "You.  Flash
regimental headquarters."
     I did it, all thumbs, stepped back when an officer's face came on
and let the Captain take the call.  "Adjutant," the face said.
     Omega said crisply, "Second Battalion Commander's respects to the
Regimental Commander.  I request and require an officer to sit as a
tribunal."
     The face said, "When do you need him, Omega?"
     "As quickly as you can get him here."
     "Right away.  I'm pretty sure Brightswitch is in his HQ.  Article
and name?"
     Captain Omega identified Kyle and quoted an article number.  The
face on the screen whistled and looked grim.  "On the bounce, Omega.  If
I can't get Brightswitch, I'll be over myself---just as soon as I tell
the Old Man."
     Captain Omega turned to Tolan.  "This escort---are they witnesses?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "Did his section leader see it?"
     Tolan barely hesitated.  "I think so, sir."
     "Get him.  Anybody out that way in a powdered suit?"
     "Yes, sir."
     Tolan used the phone while Omega said to Kyle, "What witnesses do
you wish to call in your defense?"
     "Huh? I don't need any witnesses, he knows what he did!  Just hand
me a piece of paper---I'm getting out of here."
     "All in good time."
     In very fast time, it seemed to me.  Less than five mili-centons
later Corporal Giles came bouncing up in a command suit, carrying
Corporal Anrus in his arms.  He dropped Anrus and bounced away as
Lieutenant Brightswitch came in.  He said, "Afternoon, Cap'n.  Accused
and witness here?"
     "All set.  Take it, Brightswitch."
     "Recorder on?"
     "It is now."
     "Very well.  Kyle, step forward."  Kyle did so, looking puzzled and
as if his nerve was beginning to crack.  Lieutenant Brightswitch said
briskly:  "Field Tribunal, convened by order of Major Reese, commanding
Third Training Regiment, Camp Tusken, under General Order Number Four,
issued by the Commanding General.  Training and Discipline Command,
pursuant to the Laws and Regulations of the Colonial Military, Twelve
Colonies of Mankind.  Remanding officer:  Captain Omega, M.I., assigned
to and commanding Second Battalion, Third Regiment.  Accused:  Kyle,
House of Salor,  Recruit Private RP7960924.  Article 9080.  Charge: 
Striking his superior officer, the Twelve Colonies of Mankind then being
in a state of emergency."
     The thing that got me was how fast it went.  I found myself suddenly
appointed a "tribunal officer" and directed to "remove" the witnesses and
have them ready.  I didn't know how I would "remove" Sergeant Tolan if he
didn't feel like it, but he gathered Anrus and the two boots up by eye
and they all went outside, out of earshot.  Tolan separated himself from
the others and simply waited; Anrus sat down on the ground and rolled a
fumarellol---which he had to put out; he was the first one called.  In
less than twenty minutes all three of them had testified, all telling
much the same story Kyle had.  Tolan wasn't called at all.
     Lieutenant Brightswitch said to Kyle, "Do you wish to cross-examine
the witnesses?  The Tribunal shall assist you, if you require it."
      "No."
     "Stand at attention and say 'sir' when you address the Tribunal."
     "No, sir." He added, "I want a protector."
     "The Law forbids protectors in field tribunals.  Do you wish to
testify in your own defense?  You are not required to do so, and, in view
of the evidence so far, the Tribunal will take no judicial notice if you
choose not to do so.  But you are warned that any testimony that you give
may be used against you and that you will be subject to
cross-examination."
     Kyle shrugged.  "I've got nothing to say.  What good would it do
me?"
     "The Tribunal repeats:  Will you testify in your own defense?"
     "Uh, no, sir."
     "The Tribunal must demand of you one technical question.  Was the
article under which you are charged published to you before the time of
the alleged offense of which you stand accused?  You may answer yes, or
no, or stand mute---but you are responsible for your answer under Article
9167 which relates to lying under pledge."
     The accused stood mute.
     "Very well, the Tribunal will reread the article of the charge aloud
to you and again ask you that question. 'Article 9080:  Any person in the
Colonial Military who strikes or assaults, or attempts to strike or
assault..."
     "Oh, I suppose they did.  They read a lot of stuff, every Sunday
morning---a whole long list of things you couldn't do."
     "Was or was not that particular article read to you?"
     "Uh....yes, sir.  It was."
     "Very well.  Having declined to testify, do you have any statement
to make in mitigation or extenuation?"
     "Sir?"
     "Do you wish to tell the Tribunal anything about it?  Any
circumstance which you think might possibly affect the evidence already
given?  Or anything which might lessen the alleged offense?  Such things
as being ill, or under drugs or medication.  You are not under oath at
this point; you may say anything at all which you think may help you. 
What the Tribunal is trying to find out is this:  Does anything about
this matter strike you as being unjust?  If so, why?"
     "Huh?  Of course it's unjust!  Everything about it is unjust!  He
hit me first!  You heard 'em---he hit me first!"
     "Will that be all?"
     "Huh?  Yes, sir.  Isn't it enough?"
     "The tribunal is completed.  Recruit Private Kyle, House of Salor,
and Planet of Caprica, stand forth!"  Lieutenant Brightswitch had been
standing at attention the whole time; now Captain Omega stood up.  The
place suddenly felt chilly.
     "Private Kyle, you are found guilty as charged."
     My stomach did a flip-flop.  They were going to do it to him....they
were going to do the "Foul Cruelty" to Kyle.  And I had eaten breakfast
beside him just this morning.
     "The Tribunal sentences you," he went on, while I felt sick, "to ten
lashes and Bad Conduct Discharge."
     Kyle gulped.  "I want to resign!"
     "The Tribunal does not permit you to resign.  The Tribunal wishes to
add that your punishment is light simply because this Tribunal possesses
no jurisdiction to assign greater punishment.  The authority which
remanded you specified a field tribunal---why it so chose, this Tribunal
will not speculate.  But had you been remanded for general tribunal, it
seems certain that the evidence before this Tribunal would have caused a
general tribunal to sentence you to hang by the neck until dead.  You are
very lucky---and the remanding authority has been most merciful." 
Lieutenant Brightswitch paused, then went on.  "The sentence will be
carried out at the earliest centon after the convening authority has
reviewed and approved the record, if it does so approve.  Tribunal is
concluded.  Remove and confine him."
     The last was addressed to me, but I didn't actually have to do
anything about it, other than phone the guard tent and then get a receipt
for him when they took him away.
     At afternoon sick call Captain Omega took me off orderly and sent me
to see the doctor, who sent me back to duty.  I got back to my company
just in time to dress and fall in for parade----and to get gigged by
Tolan for "spots on uniform."  Well, he had a bigger spot over one eye
but I didn't mention it.
     Somebody had set up a big post in the parade ground just back of
where the adjutant stood.  When it came time to publish the orders,
instead of "routine order of the day" or other trivia, they published
Kyle's tribunal.
     Then they marched him out, between two armed guards, with his hands
cuffed together in front of him.
     I had never seen a caning.  Back in Caprica City, while they do it
in public of course, they do it in back of the Colonial Building---and
Father had given me strict orders to stay away from there.  I tried
disobeying him once....but it was postponed and I never tried to see one
again.
     Once is too many.
     The guards lifted his arms and hooked the manacles over a big hook
high up on the post.  Then they took his shirt off and it turned out that
it was fixed so that it could come off and he didn't have an undershirt. 
The adjutant said crisply, "The sentence of the Tribunal will now be
carried out!"
     A corporal-tutor from some other battalion stepped forward with the
whip.  The Sergeant of the Guard made the count.
     It's a slow count, five seconds between each one and it seems much
longer.  Kyle didn't let out a peep until the third, then he sobbed.
     The next thing I knew I was staring up at Corporal Giles.  He was
slapping me and looking intently at me.  He stopped and asked, "Okay now? 
All right, back in ranks.  On the bounce; we're about to pass in review." 
We did so and marched back to our company areas.  I didn't eat much
dinner but neither did a lot of them.
     Nobody said a word to me about fainting.  I found out later that I
wasn't the only one....a couple of dozen of us had passed out.

*****

Chapter 6

     Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither
is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom
is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue
over them -- and then, the opportunity to choose.
               ---C. Wright Mills


     It was the night after Kyle was kicked out that I reached my lowest
slump at Camp Columbia.  I couldn't sleep---and you have to have been
through boot camp to understand just how far down a recruit has to sink
before that can happen.  But I hadn't had any real exercise all day so I
wasn't physically tired, and my shoulder still hurt even though I had
been marked "duty," and I had that epistle from Mother preying on my
mind, and every time I closed my eyes I would hear that crack! and see
Kyle slump against the whipping post.
     I wasn't fretted about losing my boot chevrons.  That no longer
mattered at all because I was ready to resign, determined to.  If it
hadn't been the middle of the night, and no pen and paper handy, I would
have done so right then.
     Kyle had made a bad mistake, one that lasted all of half a second. 
And it really had been just a mistake, too, because while he hated the
outfit (who didn't?), he had been trying to sweat it out and win his
franchise; he meant to go into politics---he talked a lot about how, when
he got his citizenship,  "There'll be some changes made---you wait and
see."
     He would never be in public office now; he had taken his finger off
his number for a single instant and he was through.
     If it could happen to him, it could happen to me.  Suppose I
slipped?  Next day or next sectan? Not even allowed to resign...but
drummed out with the flesh peeled from my back?
     Time to admit that I was wrong and Father was right, time to put in
that little piece of paper and slink home and tell Father that I was
ready to go to Umbra and then go to work in the business---if he would
still let me.  Time to see Sergeant Tolan, first thing in the morning,
and tell him that I had had it.  But not until morning, because you don't
wake Sergeant Tolan except for something you're certain that he will
class as an emergency---believe me, you don't!  Not Sergeant Tolan.
     Sergeant Tolan----
     He worried me as much as Kyle's case did.  After the tribunal was
over and Kyle had been taken away, he stayed behind and said to Captain
Omega, "May I speak with the Battalion Commander, sir?"
     "Certainly, I was intending to ask you to stay behind for a word. 
Sit down."
     Tolan flicked his eyes my way and the Captain looked at me and I
didn't have to be told to get out; I faded.  There was nobody in the
outer office, just a couple of civilian clerks.  I didn't dare go outside
because the Captain might want me; I found a chair back of a row of files
and sat down.
     I could hear them talking, through the partition I had my head
against.  BHQ was a building rather than a tent, since it housed
permanent communication and recording equipment, but it was a "minimum
field building," a shack; the inner partitions weren't much.  I doubt if
the civilians could hear as they each were wearing transcriber phones and
were bent over typers----besides, they didn't matter.  I didn't mean to
eavesdrop.  Uh, well, maybe I did.
     Tolan said:  "Sire, I request transfer to a combat team."
     Omega answered:  "I can't hear you, Tolan.  My tin ear is bothering
me again.
     Tolan:  "I'm quite serious, sir.  This isn't my sort of duty."
     Omega said testily:  "Quit bellyaching your troubles to me,
Sergeant.  At least wait until we've disposed of duty matters.  What in
Kobol happened?"
     Tolan said stiffly, "Captain, that boy didn't rate ten lashes."
     Omega answered, "That's absolutely right.  He didn't. And we both
know who goofed---don't we?"
     "Yes, sir.  We do."
     "You know even better than I do that these kids are wild animals at
this stage.  You know when it's safe to turn your back on them and when
it's not.  You know the doctrine and the standing orders about article
nine-oh-eight-oh----you must never give them a chance to violate it.  Of
course, some of them are going to try it----if they weren't aggressive
they wouldn't be material for the C.I.  They're docile in ranks; it's
safe enough to turn your back when they're eating, or sleeping, or
sitting on their astrums and being lectured.  But get them out in the
field in a combat exercise, or anything that gets them keyed up and full
of adrenalin, and they're as explosive as a hatful of solonite.  You know
that, all you tutors know that; you're trained---trained to watch for it,
trained to snuff it out before it happens.  Explain to me how it was
possible for an untrained recruit to hang a mouse on your eye?  He should
never have laid a hand on you; you should have knocked him cold when you
saw what he was up to.  So why weren't you on the bounce?  Are you
slowing down?"
     "I don't know," Tolan answered slowly.  "I guess I must be."
     "Hmpfh!  If so, a combat team is the last place for you.  But it's
not true.  Or wasn't true the last time you and I worked out together,
three days ago.  So what slipped?"
     Tolan was slow in answering.  "I think I had him tagged in my mind
as one of the safe ones."
     "There are no such."
     "Yes, sir.  But he was so earnest, so doggedly determined to sweat
it out---he didn't have any aptitude but he kept on trying---that I must
have done that, subconsciously," Tolan was silent, then added, "I guess
it's because I liked him."
     Omega snorted.  "You're a tutor.  You're not supposed to like a
man."
     "I know it, sir.  But I do.  They're a nice bunch of kids.  We've
dumped all the real twerps by now----Kyle's only shortcoming, aside from
being clumsy, was that he thought he knew all the answers.  I didn't mind
that; I knew it all at that age myself.  The twerps have gone home and
those that are left are eager, anxious to please, and on the bounce---as
cute as a litter of daggits.  A lot of them will make soldiers."
     "So that was the soft spot.  You liked him....so you failed to clip
him in time.  So he winds up with a tribunal, and the cane and a B.C.D.
Nice."
     Tolan said earnestly, "I wish to Kobol there were some was for me to
take that caning myself, sir."
     "You'd have to take your turn, I outrank you.  What do you think
I've been wishing the past centon?  What do you think I was afraid of
from the moment I saw you come in here sporting a shiner?  I did my best
to brush it off with administrative punishment and the young fool
wouldn't let well enough alone.  But I never thought he would be crazy
enough to blurt it out that he'd hung one on you----he's stupid; you
should have eased him out of the outfit sectans ago....instead of nursing
him along until he got into trouble.  But blurt it out he did, to me, in
front of witnesses, forcing me to take official notice of it----and that
licked us.  No way to get it off the record, no way to avoid a tribunal
....just to go through the whole dreary mess and take our medicine, and
wind up with one more civilian who'll be against us the rest of his days. 
Because he has to be caned; neither you nor I can take it for him, even
though the fault was ours.  Because the regiment has to see what happens
when nine-oh-eight-oh is violated.  Our fault....but his lumps."
     "My fault, Captain.  That's why I want to be transferred.  Uh, sir,
I think it's best for the outfit."
     "Do you?  But I decide what's best for my battalion, not you,
Sergeant.  Tolan, who do you think pulled your name out of the hat?  And
why?  Think back twelve yahrens.  You were a corporal, remember?  Where
were you?"
     "Here, as you know quite well, Captain.  Right here on this same
godforsaken prairie----and I wish I had never come back to it!"
     "As we all do.  But it happens to be the most important and the most
delicate work in the Army---turning unspanked young cubs into warriors. 
Who was the worst unspanked young cub in your section?"
     "Mmmm...."Tolan answered slowly.  "I wouldn't go so far as to say
you were the worst, Captain."
     "You wouldn't, eh?  But you'd have to think hard to name another
candidate.  I hated your guts, 'Corporal' Tolan."
     Tolan sounded surprised, and a little hurt.  "You did, Captain?  I
didn't hate you---I rather liked you."
     "So?  Well, 'hate' is another luxury a tutor cannot afford.  We
mustn't hate them, we mustn't like them; we must teach them.  But if you
liked me then----mmmm, it seemed to me that you had very strange ways of
showing it.  Do you still like me?  Don't answer that; I don't care
whether you do or not---or rather, I don't want to know, whichever it is. 
Never mind; I despised you then and I used to dream about ways to get
you.  But you were always on the bounce and never gave me a chance to buy
a nine-oh-eight-oh tribunal of my own.  So here I am, thanks to you.  Now
to handle your request:  You used to have one order that you gave to me
over and over again when I was a boot. I got so I loathed it almost more
than anything else you did or said.  Do you remember it?  I do and now
I'll give it back to you:  "Warrior, shut up and be a warrior!"
     "Yes, sir."
     "Don't go yet.  This weary mess isn't all loss; any regiment of
boots needs a stern lesson in the meaning of nine-oh-eight-oh, as we both
know.  They haven't yet learned to think, they won't read, and they
rarely listen---but they can see....and young Kyle's misfortune may save
one of his mates, some day, from swinging by the neck until he's dead,
dead, dead.  But I'm sorry the object lesson had to come from my
battalion and I certainly don't intend to let this battalion supply
another one.  You get your instructors together and warn them.  For about
twenty-four hours those kids will be in a state of shock.  Then they'll
turn sullen and the tension will build.  Along about Thursday or Friday
some boy who is about to flunk out anyhow will start thinking over the
fact that Kyle didn't get so very much, not even the number of lashes for
drunken driving....and he's going to start brooding that it might be
worth it, to take a swing at the instructor he hates worst. 
Sergeant----that blow must never land?  Understand me?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "I want them to be eight times as cautious as they have been.  I
want them to keep their distance, I want them to have eyes in the backs
of their heads.   I want them to be as alert as a mouse at a felus show. 
Giles----you have a special word with Giles; he has a tendency to
fraternize."
     "I'll straighten Giles out, sir."
     "See that you do.  Because when the next kid starts swinging, it's
got to be stop-punched---not muffed, like today.  The boy has got to be
knocked out cold and the tutor must do so without ever being touched
himself----or I'll damned well break him for incompetence.  Let them know
that.  They've got to teach those kids that it's not merely  expensive
but impossible to violate nine-oh-eight-oh....that even trying it wins a
short nap, a bucket of water in the face, and a very sore jaw---and
nothing else."
     "Yes, sir.  By your command."
     "I will not only break the instructor who slips, I will personally
take him 'way out on the prairie and give him lumps....because I will not
have another of my boys strung up to that whipping post through
sloppiness on the part of his tutors.  Dismissed."
     "Yes, sir.  Good afternoon, Captain."
     "What's good about it?  Tolan----"
     "Yes, sir."
     "If you're not too busy this evening, why don't you bring your soft
shoes and your pads over to officer's row and we'll go waltzing Matilda? 
Saw about 2100 centons?"
     "By your command."
     "That's not a command, that's an invitation.  If you really are
slowing down, maybe I'll be able to kick your shoulder blades off."
     'Uh, would the Captain care to put a small bet on it?"
     "Huh?  With me sitting here at this desk getting swivel-chair
spread?  I will not!  Not unless you agree to fight with one foot in a
bucket of concrete.  Seriously, Tolan, we've had a miserable day and it's
going to be worse before it gets better.  If you and I work up a good
sweat and swap a few lumps, maybe we'll be able to sleep tonight despite
all of mother's little darlings."
     'I'll be there, Captain. Don't eat too much dinner----I need to work
off a couple of matters myself."
     "I'm not going to dinner; I'm going to sit right here and sweat out
this quarterly report....which the Regimental Commander is graciously
pleased to see right after his dinner....and which somebody whose name I
won't mention has put me two hours behind on.  So I may be a few
mili-centons late for our waltz.  Go 'way now, Tolan, and don't bother
me.  See you later."
     Sergeant Tolan had left so abruptly that I barely had time to bend
over and tie my shoe and thereby be out of sight behind the file case as
he passed through the outer office.  Captain Omega was already shouting,
"Orderly!  Orderly!  ORDERLY!----do I have to call you three times? 
What's your name?  Put yourself down for a centon's extra duty, full kit. 
Find the company commanders of E, F, and G, my compliments and I'll be
pleased to see them before parade.  Then bounce over to my tent and fetch
me a clean dress uniform, cap, sidearms, shoes, ribbons---no medals.  Lay
it out for me here.  Then make afternoon sick call----if you can scratch
with that arm, as I've seen you doing, your shoulder can't be too sore. 
You've got thirteen mili-centons until sick call---on the bounce,
warrior!"
     I made it....by catching two of them in the senior tutors'
turbo-wash (an orderly can go anywhere) and the third at his desk; the
orders you get aren't impossible, they merely seem so because they nearly
are.  I was laying out Captain Omega's uniform for parade as sick call
sounded.  Without looking up he growled, "Belay that extra duty. 
Dismissed."  So I got home just in time to catch extra duty for "Uniform. 
Untidy in, Two Particulars" and see the sickening end of Kyle's time in
the C.I.
     So I had plenty to think about as I lay awake that night.  I had
known that Sergeant Tolan worked hard, but it had never occurred to me
that he could possibly be other than completely and smugly self-satisfied
with what he did.  He looked so smug, so self-assured, so at peace with
the world and with himself.
     The idea that this invincible robot could feel that he had failed,
could feel so deeply and so personally disgraced that he wanted to run
away, hide his face among strangers, and offer the excuse that his
leaving would be "best for the outfit," shook me up as much, and in a way
even more, than seeing Kyle caned.
     To have Captain Omega agree with him---as to the seriousness of the
failure, I mean....and then rub his nose in it, chew him out!  Well!  I
mean really.  Sergeants don't get chewed out; sergeants do the chewing. 
A law of nature.
     But I had to admit that what Sergeant Tolan had taken, and
swallowed, was so completely humiliating and withering as to make the
worst I had ever heard or overheard from a sergeant sound like a love
sonnet.  And yet the Captain hadn't even raised his voice.
     The whole incident was so preposterously unlikely that I was never
even tempted to mention it to anyone else.
     And Captain Omega himself----Officers we didn't' see very often. 
They showed up for evening parade, sauntering over at the last moment and
doing nothing that would work up a sweat; they inspected once a week,
making private comments to sergeants, comments that invariably meant
grief for somebody else, not them; and they decided each week what
company had won the honor of guarding the regimental colors.  Aside from
that, they popped up occasionally on flash inspections, creased,
immaculate, remote, and smelling faintly of cologne---and went away
again.
     One or more of them did always accompany us on route marches and
twice Captain Omega had demonstrated his virtuosity at footboxing.  But
officers didn't work, not real work, and they had no worries because
sergeants were under them, not over them.
     But it appeared that Captain Omega worked so hard that he skipped
meals, was kept so busy with something or other that he complained of
lack of exercise and would waste his own free time just to work up a
sweat.
     As for worries, he had honestly seemed to be even more upset at what
had happened to Kyle than Tolan had been.  And yet he hadn't even known
Kyle by sight; he had been forced to ask his name.
     I had an unsettling feeling that I had been completely mistaken as
to the very nature of the world I was in, as if every part of it was
something wildly different from what it appeared to be---like discovering
that your own mother isn't anyone you've ever seen before, but a stranger
in a rubber mask.
     But I was sure of one thing:  I didn't even want to find out what
the C.I. really was.  If it was so tough that even the
gods-that-be---sergeants and officers----were made unhappy by it, it was
certainly too tough for Apollo!  How could you keep from making mistakes
in an outfit you didn't understand?  I didn't want to swing by my neck
till I was dead, dead, dead!  I didn't even want to risk being
caned....even though the doctor stands by to make certain that it doesn't
do you any permanent injury.  Nobody in our family had ever been caned
(except paddlings in school, of course, which isn't at all the same
thing).  There were no criminals in our family on either side, none who
had even been accused of crime.  We were a proud family; the only thing
we lacked was citizenship and Father regarded that as no real honor, a
vain and useless thing.  But if I were caned---Well, he'd probably have a
stroke.
     And yet Kyle hadn't done anything that I hadn't thought about doing
a thousand times.  Why hadn't I?  Timid, I guess.  I knew that those
instructors, any one of them, could beat the tar out of me, so I had
buttoned my lip and hadn't tried it.  No guts, Apollo.  At least Kyle had
had guts.  I didn't have....and a man with no guts had no business in the
Army in the first place.
     Besides that, Captain Omega hadn't even considered it to be Kyle's
fault.  Even if I didn't buy a 9080, through lack of guts, what day would
I do something other than a 9080----something not my fault----and wind up
slumped against the whipping post anyhow?
     Time to get out, Apollo, while you're still ahead.
     My mother's epistle simply confirmed by decision.  I had been able
to harden my heart to my parents as long as they were refusing me---but
when they softened, I couldn't stand it.  Or when Mother softened, at
least.  She had written:


     --but I am afraid I must tell you that your father will still not
permit your name to be mentioned.  But, dearest, that is his way of
grieving, since he cannot cry.  You must understand, my darling baby,
that he loves you more than life itself---more than he does me---and that
you have hurt him very deeply.  He tells the world you are a grown man,
capable of  making your own decisions, and that he is proud of you.  But
that is his own pride speaking, the bitter hurt of a proud man who has
been wounded deep in his heart by the one he loves best.  You must
understand, Apollo, that he does not speak of you and has not written to
you because he cannot---not yet, not till his grief becomes bearable. 
When it has, I will know it, and then I will intercede for you---and we
will all be together again.
     Myself?  How could anything her baby boy does anger his mother?  You
can hurt me, but you cannot make me love you the less.  Wherever you are,
whatever you choose to do, you are always my little boy who bangs his
knee and comes running to my lap for comfort.  My lap has shrunk, or
perhaps you have grown (though I have never believed it), but
nonetheless, it will always be waiting, when you need it. Little boys
never get over needing their mother's laps---do they, darling?  I hope
not.  I hope that you will write and tell me so.
     But I must add that, in view of the terribly long time that you have
not written, it is probably best (until I let you know otherwise) for you
to write to me care of your Aunt Nora.  She will pass it on to me at
once---and without causing any more upset.  You understand? 
          A thousand kisses to my baby
          Your Loving Mother


     I understood, all right---and if Father could not cry, I could.  I
did.
     And at last, I got to sleep....and was awakened at once by an alert. 
We bounced out to the bombing range, the whole regiment, and ran through
a simulated exercise, without ammo.  We were wearing full unarmored kit
otherwise, including ear-plug receivers, and we had no more than extended
when the word came to freeze.
     We held that freeze for at least a centon----and I mean we held it,
barely breathing.  A mouse tiptoeing past would have sounded noisy. 
Something did go past and ran right over me, a gulphog, I think.  I never
twitched.  We got awfully cold holding that freeze, but I didn't care; I
knew it was my last.

*****

     I didn't even hear reveille the next morning; for the first time in
sectans I had to be whacked out of my sack and barely made formation for
morning jerks.  There was no point in trying to resign before breakfast
anyhow, since I had to see Tolan as the first step.  But he wasn't at
breakfast.  I did ask Giles's permission to see the C.C. and he said,
"Sure.  Help yourself," and didn't ask me why.
     But you can't see a man who's not there.  We started on a route
march after breakfast and I still hadn't laid eyes on him.  It was
out-and-back, with lunch feted out to us by copter---an unexpected
luxury, since failure to issue field rations before marching usually
meant practice starvation except for whatever you had cached...and I
hadn't; too much on my mind.
     Sergeant Tolan came out with the rations and he held mail call in
the field---which was not an unexpected luxury.  I'll say this for the
C.I.; they might chop off your food, water, sleep, or anything else,
without warning, but they never held up a person's mail a mili-centon
longer than circumstances required.  That was yours, and they got it to
you by the first transportation available and you could read it at your
earliest break, even on maneuvers.  This hadn't been too important for
me, as (aside from a couple of epistles from Zac) I hadn't had anything
but junk mail until Mother wrote to me.
     I didn't even gather around when Tolan handed it out; I figured now
on not speaking to him until he got in---no point in giving him reason to
notice me until we were actually in reach of headquarters.  So I was
surprised when he called my name and held up a epistle.  I bounced over
and took it.
     And was surprised again---it was from Cain, my high school tutor in
History and Moral Philosophy.  I would sooner have expected a epistle
from the Ninth Lord of Kobol.
     Then, when I read it, it still seemed like a mistake.  I had to
check the address and the return address to convince myself that he had
written it and had meant it for me.


My Dear Boy,
     I would have written to you much sooner to express my delight and
pride in learning that you had not only volunteered to serve your
Colonies, but also had chosen my own service.  But not to express
surprise; it's what I expected of you---except, possibly, the additional
and very personal bonus that you chose the C.I.  This is the sort of
consummation, which does not happen too often, that nevertheless makes
all of a tutor's efforts worthwhile.  We necessarily sift a great many
pebbles, much sand, for each nugget---but the nuggets are the reward.
     By now the reason I did not write at once is obvious to you.  Many
young me, not necessarily through any reprehensible fault, are dropped
during recruit training.  I have waited (I have kept in touch through my
own connects) until you had 'sweated it out' past the hump (how well we
all know that hump!) and were certain, barring accidents or illness, of
completing your training and your term.
     You are now going through the hardest part of your service---not the
hardest physically (though physical hardship will never trouble you
again; you now have its measure), but the hardest spiritually...the deep,
soul-turning readjustments and re-evaluations necessary to metamorphize a
potential citizen into one in being.  Or, rather, I should say; you have
already gone through the hardest part, despite all the tribulations you
still have ahead of you and all the hurdles, each higher than the last,
which you still must clear.  But it is that "hump" that counts---and,
knowing you, Apollo, I know that I've waited long enough to be sure that
you are just your "hump"---or you would be home now.
     When you reached that spiritual mountaintop you felt something, a
new something.  Perhaps you haven't words for it (I know I didn't, when I
was a boot).  So perhaps you will permit an older comrade to lend you the
words, since it often helps to have discrete words.  Simply this:  The
noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body
between his loved home and the war's desolation.  The words are not mine,
of course, as you will recognize.  Basic truths cannot change and once a
man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how
much the world changes, to reformulate them.  This is an immutable, true
everywhere, throughout all time, for all men and their home planets.
     Let me hear from you, please, if you can spare some of your precious
sack time to write an occasional epistle.  And if you should happen to
run across any of my former mates, give them my warmest greetings.
     Good luck, trooper.  You've made me proud.

Cain, House Of Eban, Planet Of Caprica
                    Lt. Col. C.I., rtd.


     The signature was as amazing as the epistle itself.  The Juggernaut
was a short colonel?  Why, our regional commander was but a mere major.
Cain had never used any sort of rank around school.  We had supposed (if
we thought about it at all) that he must have been a corporal or some
such who had been let out when he lost his hand and had been fixed up
with a soft job of teaching a course that didn't have to be passed, or
even taught---just audited.  Of course we had known that he was a veteran
since History and Moral Philosophy must be taught by a citizen.  But a
C.I.?  He didn't look it. Prissy, faintly scornful, a dancing-master
type---not one of us siminoids.
     But that was the way he had signed himself.
     I spent the whole long hike back to camp thinking about that amazing
epistle.  It didn't sound in the least like anything he had ever said in
class.  Oh, I didn't mean it contradicted anything he had told us in
class; it was just entirely different in tone.  Since when does a short
colonel call a recruit private "comrade?"
     When he was plain "Cain" and I was one of the kids who had to take
his course he hardly seemed to see me---except when he got me sore by
implying that I had too much money and not enough sense.  (So my old man
could have bought the school and given it to me for Yuletime---is that
illegal?  It was none of his business.)
     He had been droning along about "value," comparing the Theory of
Collectivization with the orthodox "use" theory.  Cain had said, "Of
course, the Collectivist definition of value is ridiculous.  All the work
one cares to add will not turn a mud pie into an apple tart; it remains a
mud pie, value zero.  By corollary, unskillful work can easily subtract
value; an untalented cook can turn wholesome dough and fresh green
apples, valuable already, into an inedible mess, value zero.  Conversely,
a great chef can fashion of those same materials a confection of greater
value than a commonplace apple tart, with no more effort than an ordinary
cook uses to prepare a mushie.
     "These kitchen allegories demolish the Collectivist theory of
value---the fallacy from which the entire magnificent fraud of
collectivism derives---and illustrate the truth of the common-sense
definition as measured in terms of us."
     Cain had waved his stumped hand at us.  "Nevertheless----wake up,
back there!----nevertheless, the disheveled old mystic of The Cubit
Mystique, turgid, tortured, confused, and neurotic, unscientific,
illogical, this pompous fraud Marrax, nevertheless had a glimmering of a
very important truth.  If he had possessed an analytical mind, he might
have formulated the first adequate definition of value...and our colonies
might have been saved endless grief.
     "Or might not," he added.  "You!"
     I had sat up with a jerk.
     "If you can't listen, perhaps you can tell the class whether 'value'
is relative or an absolute?"
     I had been listening; I just didn't see any reason not to listen
with my eyes closed and spine relaxed.  But his question caught me out; I
hadn't read that day's assignment.  "An absolute," I answered, guessing.
     "That is incorrect," he said coldly.  "'Value' has no meaning other
than in relation to intelligent beings.  The value of a thing is always
relative to a particular person, is completely personal, and different in
quantity for each living human---'market value' is a fiction, all of
which must be quantitatively different, otherwise trade would be
impossible."  (I had wondered what Father would have said he had heard
"market value" called a "fiction"---snort in disgust, I'm sure.)
     "This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a
human being; first, what he can do with something, its use to him....and
second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him.  There is an old song
which asserts 'the best things in life are free.'  Not true!  Utter
felgercarb!  This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence
and collapse of democracy on all our twelve colonies during the Fourth
Millennium; those noble experiments failed because the people had been
led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they
wanted....and get it, without blood, sweat, and tears.
     "Nothing of value is free.  Even the breath of life is purchased at
birth only through gasping effort and pain."  He had still been looking
at me and added, "If you boys and girls had to sweat for your toys the
way a newly born baby has to struggle to live you would be happier....and
much richer.  As it is, with some of you, I pity the poverty of your
wealth.  You!  I've just awarded you the prize for the hundred-metron
dash. Does it make you happy?"
     "Uh, I suppose it would."
     "No dodging, please.  You have the prize----here, I'll write it out: 
'Grand prize for the championship, one-hundred-metron sprint.' He had
actually come back to my seat and pinned it on my chest.  "There!  Are
you happy?  You value it---or don't you?"
     I was sore.  First it was that dirty crack about rich kids----a
typical sneer of those who haven't got it---and now this farce.  I ripped
it off and chucked it at him.
     Cain had looked surprised.  "It doesn't make you happy?"
     "You know darn well I placed fourth!"
     "Exactly!  The prize for first place is worthless to you....because
you haven't earned it.  But you enjoy a modest satisfaction in placing
fourth; you earned it.  I trust that some of the somnambulists here
understood this little morality play.  I fancy that the poet who wrote
that song meant to imply that the best things in life must be purchased
other than with cubits----which is true---just as the literal meaning of
his words is false.  The best things in life are beyond cubits; their
price is agony and sweat and devotion....and the price demanded for the
most precious of things in life is life itself----ultimate cost for
perfect value."

*****

     I mulled over things I had heard Cain---Colonel Cain----say, as well
as his extraordinary epistle, while we went swinging back toward camp. 
Then I stopped thinking because the band dropped back near out position
in column and we sang for a while, "The Galaxy Far, Far Away," and then
"O Brave New World" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
     It's nice to have the band play; it picks you right up when your
astrum is dragging the prairie.  We hadn't had anything but canned music
at first and that only for parade and calls.  But the powers-that-be had
found out early who could play and who couldn't; instruments were
provided and a regimental band was organized, all our own---even the
director and the drum major were boots.
     It didn't mean they got out of anything.  On no!  It just meant they
were allowed and encouraged to do it on their own time, practicing
evenings and Sundays and such----and that they got to strut and
countermarch and show off at parade instead of being in ranks with their
platoons.  A lot of things that we did were run that way.  Our priest,
for example, was a boot.  He was older than most of us and had been
ordained in some obscure little sect I had never heard of.  But he put a
lot of passion into his preaching whether his theology was orthodox or
not (don't ask me) and he was certainly in a position to understand the
problems of a recruit.  And the singing was fun.  Besides, there was
nowhere else to go on Sunday morning between morning police and lunch.
     The band suffered a lot of attrition, but somehow they always kept
it afloat.  The camp owned four sets of pipes and some Virgonese
uniforms, donated by Felar of Virgonopolis whose son had been killed in
training----and one of us boots turned out to be a piper; he had learned
in the Virgon Youth Pioneers.  Pretty soon we had four pipers, maybe not
good, but loud.  Pipes seem very odd when you first hear them, and a tyro
practicing can set your teeth on edge---it sounds and looks as if he had
a felus under his arm, its tail in his mouth, and biting it.
     But they grow on you.  The first time our pipers kicked their heels
out in front of the band, skirling away at "Starean Dead," my hair stood
up so straight it lifted my cap.  It gets you---makes tears.
     We couldn't take a parade band out on route march, of course,
because no special allowances were made for the band.  Fesian wind-harps
and Planet Stainlesses had to stay behind because a boy in the band had
to carry a full kit, same as everybody, and could only manage an
instrument small enough to add to his load.  But the C.I. has band
instruments which I don't believe anybody else has, such as a little box
bigger than a harmonica, an electric gadget which does an amazing job of
faking a big horn and is played the same way.  Comes band call when
you're headed for the horizon, each bandsman sheds his kit without
stopping, his squadmates split it up, and he trots to the column position
of the color company and starts blasting.  
     It helps.
     The band drifted aft, almost out of earshot, and we stopped signing
because your own singing drowns out the band when it's too far away.
     I suddenly realized I felt good.
     I tried to think of why I did.  Because we would be in after a
couple of hours and I could resign?
     No.  When I had decided to resign, it had indeed given me a measure
of peace, quieted down my awful jitters and let me go to sleep.  But this
was something else---and no reason for it that I could see.
     Then I knew.  I had passed my hump!
     I was over the "hump" that Colonel Cain had written about.  I
actually walked over it and started down, swinging easily.  The prairie
through there was flat as a snapjack, but just the same I had been
plodding wearily uphill all the way our and about halfway back.  Then, at
some point---I think it was while we were singing---I had passed the hump
and it was all downhill.  My kit felt lighter and I was no longer
worried.
     When we got in, I didn't speak to Sergeant Tolan; I no longer needed
to.  Instead, he spoke to me, motioned me to him as we fell out.
     "Yes, sir?"
     "This is a personal question...so don't answer it unless you feel
like it."  He stopped, and I wondered if he suspected that I had
overheard his chewing-out, and shivered.
     "At mail call today," he said, "you got a epistle.   I
noticed---purely by accident, none of my business---the name on the
return address.  It's a fairly common name, some places, but---this is
the personal question you need not answer----by any chance does the
person who wrote that epistle have his left hand off at the wrist?"
     I guess my chin dropped. " How did you know?  Sir?"
     "I was nearby when it happened.  It is Colonel Cain, Right?"
     "Yes, sir."  I added, "He was my high school tutor in History and
Moral Philosophy."
     I think that was the only time I ever impressed Sergeant Tolan, even
faintly. His eyebrows went up an eighth of an inch and his eyes widened
slightly.  "So?  You were extraordinarily fortunate."  He added.  "When
you answer his epistle---if you don't mind---you might say that Ship's
Sergeant Tolan sends his respects."
     "Yes, sir.  Oh...I think maybe he sent you a message, sir."
     "What?"
     "Uh, I'm not certain."  I took out the epistle, read just:  " '---if
you should happen to run across any of my former kinsmen, give them my
warmest greetings.' Is that for you, sir?"
     Tolan pondered it, his eyes looking through me, somewhere else. 
"Eh?  Yes, it is.  For me among others.  Thanks very much."  Then
suddenly it was over and he said briskly, "Nine mili-centons to parade. 
And you still have to turbo-wash and change.  On the bounce, warrior."

*****

Chapter 7
.........

Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military
conditions, let
them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:--
   (1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law? 
   (2) Which of the two generals has most ability? 
   (3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth? 
   (4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced? 
   (5) Which army is stronger? 
   (6) On which side are officers and men more highly trained? 
   (7) In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and
punishment?

     ----Sun Tzu, The Art of War


     I'm not going to talk much more about my boot training.  Mostly it
was simple work, but I was squared away---'nuff said.
     But I do want to mention a little about powered suits, partly
because I was fascinated by them and also because that was what led me
into trouble---No complaints----I rated what I got.
     A C.I. lives by his suit the way a daggit man lives by and with and
on his daggit partner.  Without powered armor, we would be just another
"infantry," not the Colonial Infantry; it's half our power.  (The other
half is the battlestars that drop us and the capsules we drop in.)  Our
suits give us better eyes, better ears, stronger back (to carry heavier
weapons and more ammo), better legs, more intelligence ("intelligence" in
the military meaning; a man in a suit can be just as stupid as anybody
else-only he'd better not be), more firepower, greater endurance, less
vulnerability.
     A suit isn't a space suit---although it can serve as one.  It is not
primarily armor---although the ancient Knights of Kobol were not armored
as well as we are.  It isn't a landram---but a single C.I. private could
take on a squadron of those things and knock them off unassisted if
anybody was silly enough to put landrams against C.I.  A suit is not a
ship, but it can fly a little----on the other hand neither spaceships nor
atmosphere craft can fight against a man in a suit except by saturation
bombing of the area he's in (like burning down a house to get one flea!). 
Contrawise, we can do many things that no ship---air, submersible, or
space---can do.
     There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in
impersonal wholesale, via ships and missiles of one sort or another,
catastrophes so widespread, so unselective, that the war is over because
that nation or planet has ceased to exist.  What we do is entirely
different.  We make war as personal as a punch in the nose.  We can be
selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the
specified point at a designated time---we've never been told to go down
and kill or capture all left-handed redheads in a particular area, but if
they tell us to, we can.  We will.
     We are the boys who go to a particular place, at H-centon, occupy a
designated terrain, stand on it, dig the enemy out of their holes, force
them then and there to surrender or die.  We're the bloody infantry, the
doughboy, the duckfoot, the warrior who goes where the enemy is and takes
him on in person.  We've been doing it, with changes in weapons but very
little change in our trade, at least since five thousand yahrens ago when
the foot sloggers of the Second Lord of Kobol forced the Balans to cry
"Uncle!"
     Maybe they'll be able to get along without us someday.  Maybe some
mad scientist with myopia, a bulging forehead, and a cybernetic mind will
devise a weapon that can go down a hole, pick out the opposition, and
force it to surrender or die---without killing that gang of your own
people they've got imprisoned down there.  I wouldn't know; I'm not a
scientist, I'm a C.I.  In the meantime, until they build a machine to
replace us, my kinsmen can handle that job...and I might be some help on
it, too.
     But, while they have not yet built a machine to replace us, they've
surely thought up some honeys to help us.  The suit, in particular.
     No need to describe what it looks like, since it's been pictured so
often.  Suited up, you look like a big steel siminoid, armed with
siminoid-sized weapons.  (This may be why a sergeant generally opens his
remarks with "You siminoids----" However, it seems more likely that the
sergeants on mother Kobol used the same honorific.)
     But the suits are considerably stronger than a siminoid.  If a C.I.
in a suit swapped hugs with a siminoid, the siminoid would be dead,
crushed; the C.I. and the suit wouldn't be mussed.
     The "muscles," the pseudo-musculature, get all the publicity, but
it's the control of all that power which merits it.  The real genius in
the design is that you don't have to control the suit; you just wear it,
like your clothes, like skin.  Any sort of ship you have to learn to
pilot; it takes a long time, a new full set of reflexes, a different and
artificial way of thinking.  Even riding a bicycle demands an acquired
skill, very different from walking, whereas a spaceship----oh, both!  I
won't live that long.  Spaceships are for acrobats who are also
mathematicians.
     But a suit you just wear.
     Two thousand laxars of it, maybe, in full kit---yet the very first
time you are fitted into one you can immediately walk, run, jump, lie
down, pick up an egg without breaking it (takes a trifle of practice, but
anything improves with practice), dance a jig (if you can dance a jig,
that is, without a suit)---and jump right over the house next door and
come down to a feather landing.
     The secret lies in negative feedback and amplification.  
     Don't ask me to sketch the circuitry of a suit; I can't.  But I
understand that some very good concert xaphoonist can't build a xaphoon,
either.  I can do field maintenance and field repairs and check off the
three hundred and forty-seven items from "cold" to ready to wear, and
that's a dumb C.I. is expected to do.  But if my suit gets really sick, I
call the doctor---a doctor of science (ergonomechanical engineering) who
is a staff Fleet officer, usually a lieutenant (read "captain" for our
ranks), and is part of the ship's company of a Battlestar---or who is
reluctantly assigned to a regimental headquarters at Camp Columbia, a
fate-worse-than-death to a Fleet man.
     But if you really are interested in the prints and stereos and
schematics of a suit's physiology, you can find most of it, the
unclassified part, in any fairly large public library.  For the small
amount that's classified, you must look up a reliable enemy
agent----"reliable" I say, because spies are a tricky lot; he's likely to
sell you the parts you could get free from the public library.
     But here's how it works, minus the diagrams.  The inside of the suit
is a mass of pressure receptors, hundreds of them.  You push with the
heel of your hand; the suit feels it, amplifies it, pushes with you to
take the pressure off the receptors that gave the order to push.  That's
confusing, but negative feedback is always a confusing idea the first
time, even though your body has been doing it ever since you quit kicking
helplessly as a baby.  Young children are still learning it; that's why
they're clumsy.  Adolescents and adults do it without knowing they ever
learned it----and a man with Kattai syndrome has damaged his circuits for
it.
     The suit has feedback which causes it to match any motion you make,
exactly---but with great force.
     Controlled force....force controlled without your having to think
about it.  You jump, that heavy suit jumps, but higher than you can jump
in your skin.  Jump really hard and the suit's jets cut in, amplifying
what the suit's leg "muscles" did, giving you a three-turbo shove, the
axis of pressure of which passes through your center of mass.  So you
jump over that house next door.  Which makes you come down as fast as you
went up....which the suit notes through your proximity & closing gear (a
sort of simple-minded radar resembling a proximity fuse)_ and therefore
cuts in the jets again just the right amount to cushion your landing
without your having to think about it.
     And that's the beauty of a powered suit:  you don't have to think
about it.  You don't have to drive it, fly it, conn it, operate it; you
just wear it and it takes orders directly from your muscles and does for
you what your muscles are trying to do.  This leaves you with your whole
mind free to handle your weapons and notice what's going on around
you...which is supremely important to a trooper who wants to die in bed. 
If you load a mud foot down with a lot of gadgets that he's got to watch,
somebody a lot more simply equipped....say with a stone ax....will sneak
up and beat his head in while he's trying to read a vernier.
     Your "eyes" and "ears" are rigged to help you without cluttering up
your attention, too.  Say you have three audio circuits, common in a
marauder suit.  The frequency control to maintain tactical security is
very complex, at least two frequencies for each circuit both of which are
necessary for any signal at all and each of which wobbles under the
control of a bariesium clock timed to a micromicrocenton with the other
end---but all this is no concern of yours.  You want Alpha Circuit to
your squad leader, you bite down once---Beta Circuit, bite down
twice---and so forth.  The mike is taped to your throat, the plugs are in
your ears and can't be jarred out; just talk.  Besides that, outside
mikes on each side of your helmet give you binaural hearing for your
immediate surroundings just as if your head were bare----or you can
suppress any noisy neighbors and not miss what your platoon leader is
saying simply by turning your head.
     Since your head is the one part of your body not involved in the
pressure receptors controlling the suit's muscles, you use your
head---your jaw muscles, your chin, your neck---to switch things for you
and thereby leave your hands free to fight.  A chin plate handles all
visual displays the way the jaw switch handles the audios.  All displays
are thrown on a mirror in front of your forehead from where the work is
actually going on in front of your forehead from where the work is
actually going on above and back of your head.  All this helmet gear
makes you look like a hydrocephalic gorilla but, with luck, the enemy
won't live long enough to be offended by your appearance, and it is a
very convenient arrangement; you can flip through your several types of
radar displays quicker than you can change channels to avoid a
commercial---catch a range & bearing, locate your boss, check your flank
men, whatever.
     If you toss your head like an equine bothered by a fly, your
infrared snoopers go up on your forehead---toss it again, they come down. 
If you let go of your rocket launcher, the suit snaps it back until you
need it again.  No point in discussing water nipples, air supply, gyros,
etc.---the point to all the arrangements is the same:  to leave you to
follow your trade, slaughter.
     Of course, these things do require practice and you do practice
until picking the right circuit is automatic as brushing your teeth and
so on.
     But, in general, powered armor doesn't require practice; it simply
does it for you, just the way you were doing it, only better.  All but
one thing---you can't scratch where it itches.  If I ever find a suit
that'll let me scratch between my shoulder blades, I'll marry it.
     There are three main types of C.I. armor:  centurion, gladiator, and
raider.  Raider suits are very fast and very long-range, but lightly
armed.  Gladiator suits are heavy on go juice and jump juice, are fast
and can jump high; they have three times as much comm. & radar gear as
other suits, and a dead-reckoning tracker, inertial.  Centurions are for
those guys in ranks with the sleepy look---the executioners.

*****

     As I may have said, I fell in love with powered armor, even though
my first crack at it gave me a stained shoulder.  Any day thereafter that
my section was allowed to practice in suits was a big day for me.  The
day I goofed I had simulated sergeant's chevrons as a simulated section
leader and was armed with simulated S-bomb rockets to use in simulated
darkness against a simulated enemy.  That was the trouble; everything was
simulated---but you're required to behave as if it is all real.
     We were retreating---"advancing toward the rear," I mean---and one
of the instructors cut the power on one of my men, by radio control,
making him a helpless casualty.  Per C.I. doctrine, I ordered the pickup,
felt rather cocky that I had managed to get the order out before my
number two cut out to do it anyhow, turned to do the next thing I had to
do, which was to lay down a simulated solonite commotion to discourage
the simulated enemy overtaking us.
     Our flank was swinging; I was supposed to fire it sort of diagonally
but with the needed spacing to protect my own men from blast while still
putting it in close enough to trouble the bandits.  On the bounce, of
course.  The movement over the land and the problem itself had been
discussed ahead of time; we were still green---the only variations
supposed to be left in where casualties.
     Doctrine required me to locate exactly, by radar beacon, my own men
who could be affected by the blast.  But this all had to be done fast and
I wasn't too sharp at reading those little radar displays anyhow.  I
cheated just a touch---flipped my snoopers up and looked, bare eyes in
broad daylight.  I left plenty of room.  Shucks, I could see the only man
affected, half a metron away, and all I had was just a little bitty H.E.
rocket, intended to make a lot of smoke and not much else.  So I picked a
spot by eye, took the rocket launcher and let fly.
     Then I bounced away, feeling smug---no seconds lost.
     And had my power cut in the air.  This doesn't hurt you; it's a
delayed action, executed by your landing.  I grounded and there I stuck,
squatting, held upright by gyros but unable to move.  You don't repeat
not move when surrounded by a tone of metal with your power dead.
     Instead I cussed to myself---I hadn't thought that they would
declare me a casualty when I was supposed to be leading the problem. 
Frack, felgercarb, and shit!
     I should've known that Sergeant Tolan would be monitoring the
section leader.
     He bounced over to me, spoke to me privately on the face-to-face. 
He suggested that I might be able to get a job sweeping floors since I
was too stupid, careless and clumsy to handle dirty dishes.  He discussed
my past and probable future and several other things that I didn't want
to hear about.  He ended by saying tonelessly, "How would you like to
have Colonel Cain see what you've done?"
     Then he left me.  I waited there, crouched over, for two hours until
the drill was over.  The suit, which had been feather-light, real
seven-league boots, felt like an Iron Maiden.  At last he returned for
me, restored power, and we bounded together at top speed to BHQ.
     Captain Omega said less but it cut more.
     Then he paused and added in that flat voice officers use when
quoting regulations:  "You may demand a tribunal if such be your choice. 
How say you?"
     I gulped and said, "No, sir!"  Until that moment I hadn't realized
just how much trouble I was in.
     Captain Omega seemed to relax slightly.  "Then we'll see what the
Regimental Commander has to say.  Sergeant, escort the prisoner."  We
walked rapidly over to RHQ and for the first time I met the Regimental
Commander face to face---and by then I was sure that I was going to catch
a tribunal no matter what.  But I remembered sharply how Kyle had talked
himself into one so I said nothing.
     Major Reese said a total of five words to me.  After hearing
Sergeant Tolan, he said three of them:  "Is that correct?"
     I said, "Yes, sir," which ended my part of it.
     Major Reese said, to Sergeant Tolan:  "Is there any possibility of
salvaging this man?"
     Captain Omega answered, "I believe so, sir."
     Major Reese said, "Then we'll try administrative punishment," turned
to me and said:
     "Five lashes."

*****

     Well, they certainly didn't keep me dangling.  Fifteen mili-centons
later, the doctor had completed checking my heart and the Sergeant of the
Guard was outfitting me with that special shirt which comes off without
having to be pulled over the hands---zippered from the neck down the
arms.  Assembly for parade had just sounded.  I was feeling detached,
unreal....which I have learned is just one way of having my chips jarred. 
The nightmare hallucination....
     Tolan came into the guard tent just as the call ended.  He glanced
at the Sergeant of the Guard---Corporal Giles----and Giles went out. 
Tolan stepped up to me, slipped something into my hand.  "Bite on that,"
he said quietly.  "It's coated with a mild narcotic that'll help you get
through the pain."
     It was a rubber mouthpiece such as we used to avoid broken teeth in
hand-to-hand combat drills.  Tolan left, I put it in my mouth.  Then they
handcuffed me and marched me out.
     The order read:  "---in simulated combat, gross negligence which
would in action have caused the death of a teammate."  Then they peeled
off my shirt and strung me up.
     Now here's a very odd thing:  A caning isn't as hard to take as it
is to watch. I don't mean it's a picnic.  It hurts worse than anything
else I've ever had happen to me, and the waits between strokes are worse
than the strokes themselves.  But the mouthpiece did help and the only
yelp I let out never got past it.
     Here's the second odd thing.  Nobody even mentioned it to me, not
even other boots.  So far as I could see, Tolan and the tutors treated me
exactly the same afterwards as they had before.  From the instant the
doctor painted the marks and told me to go back to duty, it was all done
with, completely.  I even managed to eat a little at dinner that night
and pretend to take part on the jawing at the table.
     Another thing about administrative punishment:  There's no permanent
black mark.  Those records are destroyed at the end of boot training and
you start clean.  The only record is where it counts most.
     You don't forget it.

*****

Chapter 8

I think war is a dangerous place.
          ---George W. Bush


     There were other canings, but damn few.  Kyle was the only man in
our regiment to be caned by sentence of tribunal; the others were
administrative punishment, like mine, and for lashes it was necessary to
go all the way up to the Regimental Commander---which a subordinate
commander finds distasteful, to put it bluntly.  Even then, Major Reese
was much more likely to kick the man out, "Undesirable Discharge," than
to have the whipping post erected.  In a way, an administrative caning is
the mildest sort of a compliment; it means that your superiors think that
there's a faint possibility that you just might have the character
eventually to make a soldier and a citizen, unlikely as it seems at the
moment.
     I was the only one to get the maximum administrative punishment;
none of the others got more than three lashes.  Nobody else came as close
as I did to putting on civilian clothes but still squeaked by.  This is a
social distinction of sorts.  I don't recommend it.
     But we had another case, much worse than mine or Kyle's---a really
sickening one.  Once they erected gallows.
     Now, looked, get this straight.  This case didn't really have
anything to do with the Army.  The crime didn't take place at Camp
Columbia and the placement officer who accepted this boy for C.I. should
turn in his uniform.
     He deserted, only two days after we arrived at Columbia. 
Ridiculous, of course, but nothing about the case made sense---why didn't
he resign?  Desertion, naturally, is one of the "thirty-one crash
landings" but the Army doesn't invoke the death penalty for it unless
there are special circumstances, such as "in the face of the enemy" or
something else that turns it into a highly informal way of resigning into
something that can't be ignored.
     The Army makes no effort to find deserters and bring them back. 
This makes the hardest kind of sense.  We're all volunteers; we're C.I.
because we want to be, we're proud to be C.I. and the C.I. is proud of
us.  If a man doesn't feel that way about it, from his callused feet to
his hairy ears, I don't want him on my flank when trouble starts.  If I
buy a piece of it, I want men all around me who will pick me up because
they're C.I. and I'm C.I. and my skin means as much to them as my own.  I
don't want any artificial soldiers, dragging their astrums and ducking
out when the party gets rough.  It's a whole lot safer to have a blank
file on your flank than to have an alleged warrior who is nursing the
"draftee" syndrome.  So if they run, let 'em run; it's a waste of time
and money to fetch 'em back.
     Of course most of them do come back, though it may take them
yahrens----in which case the Army tiredly lets them have their fifty
lashes instead of hanging them, and turns them loose.  I suppose it must
wear on a man's nerves to be a fugitive when everybody else is either a
citizen or a legal resident, even when Security isn't trying to find him. 
"The wicked flee when no man pursueth."  The temptation to turn yourself
in, take your lumps, and breathe easily again must get to be
overpowering.
     But this boy didn't turn himself in.  He was gone four months and I
doubt if his own company remembered him, since he had been with them only
a couple of days; he was probably just a name without a face, the
"Sydell" who had to be reported, day after day, as absent without leave
on the morning muster.
      Then he killed a baby girl.
     He was tried and convicted by a local tribunal but identity check
showed that he was an undischarged warrior; the Department had to be
notified and our commanding general at once intervened.  He was returned
to us, since military law and jurisdiction take precedence over civil
code.
     Why did the general bother?  Why didn't he let the local constable
do the job?
     Was it to "teach us a lesson"?
     No, not at all. I'm quite sure that our general did not think that
any of his boys needed to be nauseated in order not to kill any baby
girls.  By now I believe that he would have spared us the sight---had it
been possible.
     We did learn a lesson, though nobody mentioned it at the time and it
is one that takes a long time to sink in until it becomes second nature:
     The C.I. will take care of its own---no matter what.
     Sydell belonged to us; he was still on our payroll.  Even though we
didn't want him, even though we should never have had him, even though we
would've been happy to disclaim him, he was a member of our regiment.  We
couldn't brush him off and let a constable a thousand metrons away handle
it.  If it has to be done, a man---a real man---shoots his own daggit
himself; he doesn't hire a proxy who may bungle it.
     The regimental records said that Sydell was ours, so taking care of
him was our duty.
     That evening we marched to the parade grounds at slow march, sixty
beats to the minute (hard to keep step, when you're used to a hundred and
forty), while the band played "Dirge for the Unmourned."  Then Sydell was
marched out, dressed in full C.I. full dress just as we were, and the
band played "Poor Condemned Man" while they stripped off every trace of
insignia, leaving him in a maroon and light blue suit that was no longer
a uniform.  The drums held a sustained roll and it was all over.
     We passed in review and on home at a fast trot.  I don't think
anybody fainted, and I don't think anybody quite got sick, even though
most of us didn't eat much dinner that night and I've never heard the
mess tent so quiet.  But, grisly as it was (it was the first time I had
seen death, first time for most of us), it was not the shock that Kyle's
caning was---I mean, you couldn't put yourself in Sydell's place; you
didn't have any feeling of:  "It could've been me."  Not counting the
technical matter of desertion, Sydell had committed at least four capital
crimes; if his victim had lived, he still would have hanged for at least
four capital crimes; if his victim had lived, he would still have hanged
for any one of the other three---kidnapping, demand of ransom, criminal
neglect, etc.
     I had no sympathy for him and still haven't.  That old saw about "To
understand is to forgive all" is a lot of felgercarb.  Some things, the
more you loathe them.  My sympathy is reserved for Vela, whom I had never
seen, and for her parents, who would never again see their little girl.
     As the band put away their instruments that night we started thirty
days o mourning for Vela and of disgrace for us, with our colors draped
in black, no music at parade, no singing on route march.  Only once did I
hear anybody complain and another boot promptly asked him how he would
like a full set of lumps?  Certainly it hadn't been our fault---but our
business was to guard little girls, not kill them.  Our regiment had been
dishonored; we had to clean it.  We were disgraced and we felt disgraced.
     That night I tried to figure out how things could be kept from
happening.  Of course, they hardly ever do nowadays---but even once is
one time too many.  I never did reach an answer that satisfied me.  This
Sydell---he looked like anybody else, and his behavior and record
couldn't have been too odd or he would never have reached Camp Columbia
in the first place.  I suppose he was one of those pathological
personalities you read about---no way to spot them.
     If there was no way to keep it from happening once, there was only
one sure way to keep it from happening twice.  Which we had used.
     If Sydell had understood what he was doing (which seemed incredible)
then he got what was coming to him....except that it seemed a shame that
he hadn't suffered as much as had little Vela---he practically hadn't
suffered at all.
     We shoot mad daggits, don't we?
     Yes, but being crazy that way is a sickness....
     I couldn't see but two possibilities.  Either he couldn't be
cured---in which case he was better off dead for his own sake and for the
safety of others---or he could be cured, made sane.  In which case (it
seemed to me) if he ever became sane enough for civilized society...and
thought over what he had done while he was "sick"---what could be left
for him but suicide?  How could he live with himself?
     And supposed he escaped before he was cured and did the same thing
again?  And maybe again?  How do you explain that to bereaved parents? 
In view of his record?
     I couldn't see but one answer.
     I found myself mulling over a discussion in our class in History and
Moral Philosophy.  Cain was talking about the disorders that preceded the
Era of Darkness in the Colonies, from 3500 C. to 5629.  According to him,
there was a time just before they went down the drain when such crimes as
Sydell's were as common as daggit-fights.  The Era of Darkness was not
just on Caprica----it affected Virgon and Sagittara, too, as well as the
other Colonies and scattered human settlements throughout the Star
System.  But it reached its peak on Caprica before things went to pieces.
     "Law-abiding people," Cain had told us, "hardly dared go into a
public place after dark.  To do so was to risk attack by lupus packs of
children, armed with chains, knives, homemade guns, bludgeons....to be
hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life, probably---or
even killed.  This went on for yahrens, right up to the war between the
Colonies and the Cylon Alliance.  Murder, drug addiction, larceny,
assault, and vandalism were commonplace.  Nor were parks the only
places---these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school
grounds, even inside school buildings.  But parks were so notoriously
unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark."
     I had tried to imagine such things happening in our schools.  I
simply couldn't.  Nor in our parks.  A park was a place for fun, not for
getting hurt.  As for getting killed in one---"Tutor, didn't they have
any Security?  Or tribunals?"
     "They had more people in Security than we have today.  And more
tribunals.  All overworked."
     "I guess I don't get it."  If a boy in Caprica City had done
anything half that bad....well, he and his father would've been caned
side by side.  But such things just didn't happen.
     Cain then demanded of me, "Define a 'juvenile delinquent.'"
     "Uh, one of those kids....the ones who used to beat up people."
     "No, no, no, no."
     "Huh?  But the book said...."
     "My apologies.   Your textbook does so state.  But calling a tail a
leg does not make the name fit."  'Juvenile delinquent' is a
contradiction in terms, one which gives a clue to their problem and their
failure to solve it.  Have you ever raised a pup?"
     "Yes, sir."
     "Did you housebreak him?"
     "Err..yes, sir.  Eventually."  It was my slowness in this that
caused Mother to rule that daggits must stay out of the house.
     "Ah, yes.  When your pup made mistakes, were you angry?"
     "What?  He didn't know any better; he was just a pup."
     "What did you do?"
     "I scolded him and rubbed his nose in it and paddled him."
     "Surely he could not understand your words?"
     "No, but he could tell I was sore at him!"
     "But you just said that you were not angry."
     Cain had an infuriating way of getting a person confused.  "No, but
I had to make him think I was.  He had to learn, didn't he?"
     "Conceded.  But, having made it clear to him that you disapproved,
how could you be so cruel as to spank him as well?  You said the poor
beastie didn't know that he was doing wrong.  Yet you inflicted pain. 
Justify yourself?  Or are you a sadist?"
     I didn't know what a sadist was....but I knew pups.  "Tutor, you
have to!  You scold him so that he knows he's in trouble, you rub his
nose in it so that he will know what trouble you mean, you paddle him so
that he darn well won't do it again-and you have to do it right away?  It
doesn't do a bit of good to punish him later; you'll just confuse him. 
Even so, he won't learn from one lesson, so you watch and catch him again
and paddle him even harder.  Pretty soon he learns.  But it's a waste of
breath just to scold him."  Then I added, "I guess you've never raised
pups."
     "Many.  I'm raising a daggit now---by your methods.  Let's get back
to those juvenile criminals.  The most vicious averaged somewhat younger
than you here in the class....and they often started their lawless
careers much younger.  Let us never forget that pup.  These children were
often caught; Security arrested batches each day.  Were they scolded? 
Yes, often scathingly.  Were their noses rubbed in it?  Rarely.  News
organs and officials usually kept their names secret----in many places
the law so ordered for criminals under eighteen yahrens.  Were they
spanked?  Indeed not!  Many had never been spanked as small children;
there was a widespread belief that spanking, or any punishment involving
pain, did a child permanent psychic damage."
     (I had reflected that Father had never heard of that theory.)
     "Corporal punishment in schools was forbidden by law," he had gone
on.  "Caning was lawful as sentence of tribunal only in one small hamlet,
Solaira, and there only for a few crimes and was rarely invoked; it was
regarded as 'cruel and unusual punishment.'"  Cain had mused aloud, "I do
not understand objections to 'cruel and unusual' punishment.  While an
adjudicator should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the
criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment----and pain is the
essential mechanism built into us by millions of yahrens of evolution
which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. 
Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survival
mechanism?  However, that period was loaded with pre-scientific
pseudo-psychological felgercarb.
     "As for 'unusual,' punishment must be unusual for it serves no
purpose otherwise."  He then pointed his stump at another boy.  "What
would happen if a pup were spanked every centon?"
     "Uh...probably drive him crazy!"
     "Most likely.  It certainly will not teach him anything.  How long
has it been since the principal of this school last had to switch a
pupil?"
     "Uh, I'm not sure.  About two yahrens.  The kid that swiped---"
     "That will do.  Long enough.  It means that such punishment is so
unusual as to be significant, to deter, to instruct.  Back to these young
criminals....They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly
were not caned for their crimes.  The usual sequence was:  for a first
offense, a warning---a scolding, often without tribunal.  After several
offenses, a sentence of confinement but with sentence suspended and the
youngster placed on probation.  A boy might be arrested many times and
convicted several times before he was punished---and then it would be
merely confinement, with others like him from whom he learned still more
criminal habits.  If he kept out of major trouble while confined, he
could usually evade most of even that mild punishment, be given
probation---'paroled' in the parlance of the times.
     "This astonishing sequence could go on for yahrens while his crimes
increased in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever,
aside from rare dull-but-comfortable confinements.  Then suddenly,
usually by law on his eighteenth birthday, this so-called 'juvenile
delinquent' becomes an adult criminal---and sometimes wound up in only
sectons or sectars in a death cell awaiting execution for murder. 
You...."
     He had singled me out again.  "Suppose you merely scolded your pup,
never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house...and
occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into
the house with a warning not to do it again.  Then one day you notice
that he is a grown daggit and still not housebroken---whereupon you whip
out a pistol and shoot him dead.  What say you to that?"
     "It's the craziest way to raise a daggit I ever heard of!"
     "Or, a child for that matter.  Whose fault would it be?"
     "Uh....why, mine, I guess."
     "Agreed.  But I'm not guessing."
     "Tutor," a girl blurted out, "but why? Why didn't they spank little
kids when they needed it and use a good dose of the strap on any older
ones who deserved it....the sort of lesson they wouldn't forget!  I mean
ones who did things really bad.  Why not?"
     "I don't know," he had answered grimly, "except that the time-tested
method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of
the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class
who called themselves 'social workers' or sometimes 'child
psychologists.'  It was too simple for them, apparently, since anybody
could do it, using only the patience and firmness needed in training a
pup.  I have sometimes wondered if they cherished a vested interest in
disorder---but that's unlikely; adults almost always act from conscious
'highest motives' no matter what their behavior."
     "But----good Kobol!" the girl answered. "I didn't like being spanked
any more than any kid does, but when I needed it, my mama delivered.  The
only time I ever got a switching in school I got another one when I got
home---and that was yahrens and yahrens ago.  I don't ever expect to be
hauled up in front of a judge and sentenced to a caning; you behave
yourself and such things don't happen.  I don't see anything wrong with
our system; it's a lot better than not being able to walk outdoors for
fear of your life---why, that's horrible!"
     "That's right.  But, young lady, the tragic wrongness of what those
well-meaning people did, contrasted with what they thought they were
doing, goes very deep.  They had no scientific theory of morals.  They
did have a theory of morals and they tried to live by it (I should not
have sneered at their motives), but their theory was wrong---half of it
fuzzy-headed wishful thinking, half of it rationalized charlatanry.  The
more earnest they were, the farther they were led astray.  They assumed
that Man has a moral instinct."
     "Sir? I thought---But he does!  I have."
     "No, my dear, you have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully
trained one.  Man has no moral instinct.  He's not born with moral sense. 
You weren't born with it, I was not---and a pup has none.  We acquire
moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of
the mind.  These unfortunate juvenile criminals were born with none, even
as you and I, and they had no chance to acquire any; their experiences
did not permit it.  What is 'moral sense'?  It's an elaboration of the
survival instinct.  The survival instinct his human nature itself, and
every aspect of our personalities derives from it.  Anything that
conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate
the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations.  This
truth is mathematically demonstrable, everywhere verifiable; it's the
single eternal imperative controlling everything we do.
     "But the survival instinct," he went on, "can be cultivated into
more subtle motivations, motivations more complex than the blind, brute
urge of the individual to stay alive.  Young lady, what you miscalled
your 'moral instinct' was the instilling in you by your elders of the
truth that survival can have stronger imperatives than that of your own
personal survival.  Survival of your family, for example.  Of your
children, when you have them. Of the Colonies, if you struggle that high
up the scale.  And so on up.  A scientifically verifiable theory of
morals must be rooted in the individual's survival instinct----and
nowhere else!----and more correctly describe the hierarchy of survival,
note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.
     "We've got such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any
level.  Self-interest, love of family, duty to the Colonies,
responsibility toward the human race---we're even developing an exact
ethic for extra-human relations.  But all moral problems can be
illustrated by one misquotation: 'Greater love hath no man than a mother
felus dying to defend her kittens.'  Once you understand the problem
facing that cat and how she solved it, you'll then be ready to examine
yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are able to climb.
     "These juvenile criminals hit a low level.  Born with only the
survival instinct, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty
to a peer group, a street gang.  But the do-gooders attempted to 'appeal
to their better natures,' to 'reach them,' to 'spark their moral sense.'
Felgercarb!  They had no 'better natures'; experience taught them what
they were doing was the way to survive.  The pup never got his spanking;
therefore what he did with pleasure and success must be 'moral.'
     "The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation
to group that self-interest has to an individual.  Nobody preached duty
to these kids in a way they could understand---that is, with a spanking. 
But the society they were in told them endlessly about their 'rights.'
     "The results should have been predictable, since a human being has
no natural rights of any nature."
     Cain paused.   Somebody took the bait.  "Sir?  How about 'life,
liberty, and they pursuit of happiness'?"
     "Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that
magnificent poetry.  Life?  What 'right' to life has a man who is
suffocating in a leaky spacesuit?  Space itself will not hearken to his
cries.  What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his
children?  If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter
of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only
alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'?  And is it
'right'?  As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged
themselves to buy liberty with their lives.  Liberty is never
unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or
it always vanishes.  Of all the so-called natural human rights that have
ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free
of cost.
     "The third 'right'? ---the pursuit of happiness'?  It is indeed
unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition
which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore.  Cast me into a
dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue
happiness' as long as my brain lives....but neither gods nor saints, nor
wise men or subtle drugs, can insure that I'll catch it."
     Cain then turned to me.  "I told you that 'juvenile delinquent' is a
contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is
an adult virtue---indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when,
he acquires his knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the
self-love he was born with.  There never was, there cannot be, a
'juvenile delinquent.' But for every juvenile criminal there are always
one or more adult delinquents---people of mature yahrens who either do
not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail.
     "And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an
admirable culture.  The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were
symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as
such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'.....and lost track of their
duties.  No civilization, so constituted, can endure."

*****

     I wondered how Colonel Cain would've classified Sydell.  Was he a
juvenile criminal who merited pity even though you had to get rid of him? 
Or was he an adult delinquent who deserved nothing but contempt?
     I didn't know.  I would never know.  The one thing I was sure of was
that he would never again kill any little girls.
     That suited me.  I fell asleep.

*****

Chapter 9

"In a man to man fight the winner is the one who puts an extra round in
his magazine"
          Field Marshal Erwin Rommel


     When we had done all that a mud foot can do in flat country, we
moved into some rough mountains to do still rougher things----the
Caprican Rockies between Goodhope Mountain and Mount Raysa.  Camp
Sergeant LeCerta was much like Camp Columbia (aside from its rugged
setting) but it was much smaller.  Well, the Third Regiment was much
smaller now, too---less than four hundred whereas we had started out with
more than two thousand.  Eta Company was now organized as a single
platoon and the battalion paraded as if it were a company.  But we were
still called "Eta Company" and Tolan was "Company Commander," not platoon
leader. 
     What the sweat-down meant, really, was much more personal
instruction; we had more corporal-tutors than we had squads and Sergeant
Tolan, with only fifty men on his mind, instead of the two hundred and
sixty he had started with, kept his Argus eyes on each one of us all the
time----even when he wasn't there.  At least, if you goofed, it turned
out he was standing right behind you.
     However, the chewing-out you got had almost a friendly quality, in a
horrid sort of way, because we'd changed, too, as well as the
regiment---the one-in-five who was left was almost a warrior and Tolan
seemed to be trying to make him into one, instead of running him over the
hill.
     We saw a lot more of Captain Omega, too; he now spent most of his
time teaching us, instead of behind a desk, and he knew all of us by name
and face and seemed to have a card file in his mind of exactly what
progress each man had made on every weapon, every piece of
equipment----not to mention your extra-duty status, medical record, and
whether you had had an epistle from home lately.
     He wasn't as severe with us as Tolan was; his words were milder and
it took a really stupid stunt to take that friendly grin off his
face---but don't let that fool you; there was beryl armor under the grin. 
I never did figure out which one was the better warrior, Tolan or Captain
Omega----I mean, if you took away the insignia and thought of them as
privates.  Unquestionably they were both better warriors than any of the
other tutors---but which was best?  Tolan did everything with precision
and style, as if he were on parade; Captain Omega did the same thing with
dash and gusto, as if it were a game.  The results were about the
same---and it never turned out to be as easy as Captain Omega made it
look.
     We needed the abundance of tutors.  Jumping a suit (as I've said)
was easy on flat ground.  Well, the suit jumps just as high and just as
easily in the mountains---but it makes a lot of difference when you have
to jump up a vertical granite wall, between two close-set fir trees, and
override your turbo control at the last instant.  We had three major
casualties in suit practice in broken country, two dead and one medical
retirement.
     But that rock wall is even tougher without a suit, tackled with
lines and pitons.  I didn't really see what use alpine drill was to a
trooper but I had learned to keep my mouth shut and try to learn what
they shoved at us.  I learned it and it wasn't too hard.  If anybody had
told me, a year earlier, that I could scale a solid chunk of rock, as
flat and as perpendicular as a blank wall of a building, using only a
hammer, some silly little steel pins, and a chunk of clothesline, I
would've laughed in his face; I'm a sea-level type.  Correction:  I used
to be a sea-level type.  There had been some changes made.
     Just how much I had changed I began to find out.  At Camp Sergeant
LeCerta we had liberty---to go to town, I mean.  Oh, we had "liberty"
after the sectar at Camp Columbia, too.  This meant that, on a Sunday
afternoon, if you weren't in the duty platoon, you could check out at the
orderly tent and walk just as far away from camp as you wished, bearing
in mind that you had to be back for evening muster.  But there was
nothing within walking distance, if you don't count lepuses---no girls,
no theaters, no dance halls, et cetera.
     Nevertheless, liberty, even at Camp Columbia, was no mean privilege;
sometimes it can be very important indeed to be able to go so far away
that you can't see a tent, a sergeant, not even the ugly faces of your
best friends among the boots....not to have to be on the bounce about
anything, have time to take out your soul and look at it.  You could lose
that privilege in several degrees; you could be restricted to camp....or
you could be restricted to your own company street, which meant that you
couldn't go to the library nor to what was misleadingly called the
"recreation" tent (mostly some bug-a-loo sets and similar wild
excitements)....or you could be under close restriction, required to stay
in your tent when your presence was not needed elsewhere.
     This last sort didn't mean much in itself since it was usually added
to extra duty so demanding that you didn't have any time in your tent
other than for sleep anyhow; it was s decoration added like a cherry on
top of a dish of ice cream to notify you and the world that you had
pulled not some everyday goof-off but something unbecoming of a member of
the C.I. and were thereby unfit to associate with other troopers until
you had washed away the sin.
     But at Camp LeCerta we could go into town---duty status, conduct
status, etc., permitting  Shuttles ran to Fair Havens every Sunday
morning, right after divine services (which were moved up to thirty
mili-centons before breakfast) and came back again just before supper and
again just before taps.  The instructors could even spend Saturday night
in town, or cop a three-day-pass, duty permitting.
     I had no sooner stepped out of the shuttle, my first pass, than I
realized, in part, that I had changed.  Apollo didn't fit in any longer. 
Civilian life, that is.  It all seemed amazingly complex and unbelievably
untidy.
     I'm not running down Fair Havens.  It's one of Caprica's most
beautiful cities, and in a lovely setting to boot; the people are
charming and they're accustomed to having the C.I. in town and they make
a trooper feel welcome.  There's a social center for us downtown, where
they have dances for us every sectan and see to it that junior hostesses
are on hand to dance with, and senior hostesses to make sure that a shy
boy (me, to my amazement---but you try a few sectars with nothing female
around by lady lepuses) gets introduced and has a partner's feet to step
on.
     But I didn't go to the social center that first pass.  Mostly I
stood around and gawked---at beautiful buildings, at display windows
filled with all manner of unnecessary things (and not a weapon among
them), at all those people running around, or even strolling, doing
exactly as they pleased and no two of them dressed alike---and at girls.
     Especially at girls. I hadn't realized just how wonderful they were. 
Look, I've approved of girls from the time I first noticed that the
difference was more than that they dressed differently.  So far as I
remember I never did go through that period boys are supposed to go
through when they know that girls are different but dislike them; I've
always like girls.
     But that day I realized that I had long been taking them for
granted.
     Girls are simply wonderful.  Just to stand on a corner and watch
them going past is delightful.  They don't walk. At least not what we do
when we walk.  I don't know how to describe it, but it's much more
complex and utterly delightful.  They don't move just their feet;
everything moves and in different directions....and all of it graceful.
     I might've been standing there yet if a constable hadn't come by. 
He sized us up and said, "Howdy, boys.  Enjoying yourselves?"
     I quickly read the ribbons on his chest and was impressed.  "Yes,
sir!"
     "You don't have to say 'sir' to me.  Not much to do here.  Why don't
you go to the hospitality center?" He gave us the address, pointed the
direction and we started that way---Jolly, Bojay and myself.  He called
after us, "Have a good time, boys....and stay out of trouble."  Which was
exactly what Sergeant Tolan had said to us as we climbed into the
shuttle.
     But we didn't go there.  Jolly had lived in Melphis when he was a
small boy and wanted to take a look at his old home town.  He had money
and offered to pay our shuttle fares if we'd go with him.  I didn't mind
and it was all right; shuttles ran every twenty mili-centons and our
passes were not restricted to Fair Havens.  Bojay decided to go along,
too.
     Melphis wasn't so very different from Fair Havens and the girls were
just as plentiful; I loved it.  But Melphis wasn't quite as used to
having C.I. around in droves and we picked a poor spot to eat dinner, one
where we weren't quite so welcome---a bar-restaurant, down by the
spacedrome.
     Now, look, we weren't drinking.  Well, Jolly had one repeat one
ambrosia with his dinner but he was never anything but friendly and nice. 
That's how he got his name.
     We were the only uniforms in the place; most of the other customers
were aliens and independent space pilots----Melphis handles an awful lot
of ships.  I hadn't known it at the time but traders don't like us.  Part
of it has to do with the fact that their guilds have tried and tried to
get their trade classed as equivalent to Colonial Service, without
success---but I understand that some of it goes way back in history,
centuries.
     There were some young fellows there, too, about our age---the right
age to serve a term, only they weren't----long-haired and sloppy and kind
of dirty-looking.  Well, say about the way I looked, I suppose, before I
enlisted.
     Presently we started noticing that at the table behind us, two of
those young twerps and to traders (to judge by clothes) were passing
remarks that were intended for us to overhear.  I won't try to repeat
them.
     We didn't say anything.  Presently, when the remarks were even more
personal and the laughs louder and everybody else in the place was
keeping quiet and listening, Jolly whispered to me, "Let's got out of
here."
     I caught Bojay's eyes; he nodded.  We had no score to settle; it was
one of those pay-as-you-get-it places.  We got up and left.
     They followed us out.
     Bojay whispered to me, "Watch it."  We kept on walking, didn't look
back.
     They charged us.
     I gave my man a side-neck chop as I pivoted and let him fall past
me, swung to help my kinsmen.  But it was over.  Four in, four down. 
Jolly had handled two of them and Bojay had sort of wrapped the other one
around a lamppost from throwing him a little too hard.
     Somebody, the proprietor, I guess, must have called Security as we
stood up to leave, since they arrived almost at once while we were
standing around wondering what to do with the meat---two constables; it
was that sort of neighborhood.
     The senior of them wanted us to prefer charges, but none of us was
willing----Tolan had told us to "stay out of trouble." Bojay looked bland
and about fifteen yahrens old and said, "I guess they stumbled."
     "So I see," agreed the constable and toed a knife away from the
outflung hand of my man, put against the curb and snapped the blade. 
"Well, you boys had better run along...father uptown."
     We left.  I was glad that neither Jolly nor Bojay wanted to make
anything of it.  It's a mighty serious thing, a civilian assaulting a
member of the Armed Forces, but what the frak?---the books balanced. 
They jumped us, they got their lumps.  It came out evenly.
     But it's a good thing we never go on pass armed....and have been
trained to disable without killing.  Because every bit of it happened by
reflex.  I didn't believe that they would jump us until they already had,
and I didn't do any thinking about it until it was over.
     But that's how I learned for the first time just how much I'd
changed.
     We walked back to the station and caught a shuttle to Fair Haven.

*****

     We started practice drops as soon as we moved to Camp LeCerta---a
platoon at a time, in rotation (a full platoon, that is.....a company),
would shuttle down to the field north of Timaeus, go aboard, space, make
a drop, go through an exercise, and home on a beacon.  A day's work. 
With eight companies that gave us more than a drop each sectan, and then
it gave us a little more than a drop each sectan as attrition continued,
whereupon the drops got tougher----over mountains, into the arctic ice,
into the Caprican Outback, and, before we graduated, onto the bleak
surface of Caprica's sole moon, Jadon, where your capsule is placed only
a hundred metrons up and explodes as it ejects---and you have to look
sharp and land with only your suit (no air, no parachute) and a bad
landing can spill your air and kill you.
     Some of the attrition was from casualties, deaths or injuries, and
some of it was just from refusing to enter the capsule----which some did,
and that was that; they weren't even chewed out; they were just motioned
aside and that night they were paid off.  Even a man who'd made several
drops might get the panic and refuse----and the instructors were just
gentle with him, treated him the way you do a friend who's ill and won't
get well.
     I never quite refused to enter the capsule....but I certainly
learned about the shakes.  I always got them, I was scared silly every
time.  I still am.
     But you're not a full Colonial Trooper unless you drop.
     They tell a story, probably not true, about a Colonial Trooper who
was sightseeing on Leo.  He visited Ahr Jairus, looked down at Pelagius's
sarcophagus and said to a Leonese guard there:  "Who's he?"
     The Leonese was properly scandalized.  "You don't know?  This is the
tomb of Pelagius! Pelagius----the greatest warlord adventurer who ever
lived!"
     The Colonial Trooper thought about it.  Then he asked, "So?  Where
were his drops?"
     It is almost certainly not true, because there's a big sign outside
that tells you who exactly Pelagius was.  But that's how Colonial
Troopers feel about it.

*****

     Eventually we graduated.
     I can see that I've left out almost everything.  Not a word about
most of our weapons, nothing about the first time we dropped everything
and fought a forest fire for three days, no mention of the practice alert
that was a real one, only we didn't know it until it was over, nor about
the day the cook tent blew away---in fact not any mention of weather and,
trust me, weather is important to a warrior, rain and mud especially. 
But though weather is important while it happens it seems to me to be
pretty dull to look back on.  You can take descriptions of most any sort
of weather out of an almanac and stick them in just (about) anywhere;
they'll probably fit.
     The regiment had started with 2009 men; we graduated 187----of the
others, fourteen were dead (one executed and his name struck) and the
rest resigned, dropped, transferred, medical discharge---you name it. 
Major Reese made a short speech, we each got a certificate, we passed in
review for the last time, and the regiment was disbanded, its colors to
be cased until they would be needed (three sectans later) to tell another
couple of thousand civilians that they were an outfit, not a mob.
     I was a "trained warrior," entitled to put "TP" in front of my
serial number instead of "RP." Big day.
     The biggest I'd ever had.

*****

Chapter 10

     That is, I thought I was a "trained warrior" until I reported to my
ship.  Any law against having a wrong opinion?
     I see that I didn't make any mention of how the Twelve Colonies
moved from "peace" to a "state of emergency" and then on into "war."  I
didn't notice it too closely myself.  When I enrolled, it was "peace,"
the normal condition, at least so people think (who ever expects anything
else?).  Then, while I was at Columbia, it became a "state of emergency"
but I still didn't notice it, as what Corporal      Giles thought about
my haircut, uniform, combat drill, and kit was much more important---and
what Sergeant Tolan thought about such matters was overwhelmingly
important.  In any case, "emergency" is still "peace."
     "Peace" is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to
military casualties which do not achieve page-one, lead-story
prominence---unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the
casualties.  But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant
that there was no fighting going on, I've been unable to find out about
it.  When I reported to my first outfit, Kappa Company, Third Regiment,
First C.I. Division, and shipped with them in the Atlantia (with that
misleading certificate in my kit), the fighting had already been going on
for several yahrens.
     The historians can't seem to settle whether to call this one "The
Third Space War" (or the "Fourth), or whether "The First Interstellar
War" fits it better.  We just call it "The Bug War" if we call it
anything, which we usually don't, and, in any case the historians date
the beginning of the "war" after the time I joined my first outfit and
ship.  Everything up to then and still later were "incidents," "patrols,"
or "police actions."  However, you're just as dead if you buy a farm in
an "incident" as you are if you buy it in a declared war.
     But, to tell the truth, a warrior doesn't notice a war much more
than a civilian does, except his own tiny piece of it and that just on
the days that it's happening.  The rest of the time he's much more
concerned with sack time, the vagaries of sergeants, and the chances of
wheedling the cook between meals.  However, when Bojay and Jolly and I
joined them at Jadon Base, each of the Kappas had made more than one
combat droop; they were warriors and we weren't.  We weren't hazed for
it---at least I wasn't----and the sergeants and corporals were amazingly
easy to deal with after the calculated frightfulness of tutors.
     It took a little while to discover that this comparatively gentle
treatment simply meant that we were nobody, hardly worth chewing out,
until we'd proved it in a drop----a real drop---that we might possibly
replace the real Kappas who'd fought and bought it and whose bunks we now
occupied.
     Let me tell you how green I was.  While the Atlantia was still at
Jadon Base, I happened to come across my section leader just as he was
about to hit dirt, all slicked up in dress uniform.  He was wearing in
his left ear lobe a rather small earring, a tiny gold skull beautifully
made and under it was a whole bundle of little gold bones, almost too
small to see.
     Back home, I had always worn earrings and other jewelry when I went
out on a date----I had some beautiful ear clips, rubies as big as the end
of my little finger which had belonged to my mother's grandfather.  I
like jewelry and had rather resented being required to leave it all
behind when I went to Basic....but here was a type of jewelry which was
apparently okay to wear with uniform. My ears weren't pierced---Mother
didn't approve of it, for boys----but I could still have the jeweler
mount it on a clip....and I still had some money left from pay call at
graduation and was anxious to spend it before it tarnished.  "Unh,
Sergeant?  Where do you get earrings like that one?  Pretty neat."
     He didn't look scornful, he didn't even smile.  He just said.  "You
like it?"
     "I certainly do!"  The plain raw gold pointed up the gold braid and
piping of the uniform even better than gems would've done.  I was
thinking that a pair would be still handsomer, with just crossbones
instead of all that felgercarb at the bottom.  "Does the PX carry them?"
     "No, the PX here never sells them."  He added, "At least I don't
think you'll ever be able to buy one here....I hope.  But I tell you
what....when we reach a place where you can buy one of your own, I'll see
to it you know about it.  That's a promise."
     "Uh, thanks!"
     "Don't mention it."
     I saw several of the tiny skulls thereafter, some with more "bones,"
some with fewer; my guess had been correct, this was jewelry permitted
with uniform, when on pass at least.  Then I got my own chance to "buy"
one almost immediately thereafter and discovered that the prices were
unreasonably high, for such plain ornaments.
     It was Operation Bughouse, the First Battle of Amamroth in the
history books, soon after the Caprican city of Kendor was smeared.  It
took the loss of Kendor to make the groundhogs realize that anything was
going on, because people who haven't been out really don't believe in
life-forms other than man, nor deep down where it counts.  I know I
hadn't, and I'd been space happy since I was a pup.
     But Kendor really stirred up the civilians and inspired loud screams
to bring all our forces home, from everywhere, orbit them around all
twelve planets shoulder to shoulder and interdict the space all twelve
colonies occupy.  This is silly, of course; one does not win a war by
defense but by attack---no "Defense Department" ever won a war; see the
histories.  But it seems to be a standard civilian reaction to scream for
defensive tactics as soon as they do notice a war.  Then they want to run
the war----like a passenger trying to grab the controls away from the
pilot in an emergency.
     However, nobody asked my opinion at the time; I was told.  Quite
aside from the impossibility of dragging the troops home in view of our
treaty obligations and what it would do to the outlying Colonial colonies
and to our allies, we were awfully busy doing something else not to wit:
carrying the war to the Bugs.  I suppose I noticed the destruction of
Kendor much less than most civilians did.  We were already a couple of
parsecs away under Marron drive and the news didn't reach us until we got
it from another ship after we came out of drive.
     I remember thinking, "Gods, that's horrible!" and feeling sorry for
the one Kendorian in the ship.  But Kendor wasn't my home and Caprica was
a long way off and I was very busy, as to the attack on Carillon, the
Bugs' home planet, was mounted immediately after that and we spent the
time to rendezvous strapped in our bunks, doped and unconscious, with the
internal-gravity field of the Atlantia off, to save power and give
greater speed.
     The loss of Kendor did mean a great deal to me; it changed my life
enormously, but this I didn't know until many sectars later.
     When it came time to drop onto Amamroth, I was assigned to PFC Thane
as a supernumerary.  He managed to conceal his pleasure at the news and
as soon as the platoon sergeant was out of earshot, he said, "Listen,
boot, you stick close behind me and stay out of my way.  You go slowing
me down, I break your silly neck."
     I just nodded.  I was beginning to realize that this was not a
practice drop.
     Then I had the shakes for a while and then we were down----     
     Operation Bughouse should have been called "Operation Madhouse." 
Everything went wrong.  It had been planned as an all-out move to bring
the enemy to their knees, occupy their capital and the key points of
their home planet, and end the war.  Instead, it damn near lost the war.
     I am not criticizing General Tragg.  I don't know whether it's true
that he demanded more troops and more support and allowed himself to be
overruled by the Sky Marshal-in-Chief----or not.  Nor was it any of my
business.  Furthermore, I doubt if some of the smart second-guessers know
all the facts.
     What I do know is that the General dropped with us and commanded us
on the ground, and, when the situation became impossible, he personally
led the diversionary attack that allowed quite a few of us (including me)
to be retrieved----and, in so doing, bought his farm.  He's radioactive
debris on Amamroth and it's much too late to tribunal him, so why talk
about it?
     I do have one comment to make to any armchair strategist who's never
made a drop.  Yes, I agree that the Bugs' planet possibly could've been
plastered with S-bombs until it was surfaced with radioactive glass.  But
would that have won the war?  The Bugs aren't like us.  The
Pseudo-Arachnids aren't even like crawlons.  They're arthropods who
happen to look like a madman's conception of a giant, intelligent
crawlon, but their organization, psychological and economic, is more like
that of ants or termites; they're communal entities, the definitive
tyranny of the hive.  Blasting the surface of their planet would've
killed warriors and workers; it would not have killed the brain caste and
the queens....I doubt if anybody can be sure that even a direct hit with
a burrowing S-rocket would kill a queen; we don't know how far down they
are.  Nor am I anxious to find out; none of the boys who went down those
holes came up again.
     So suppose we did ruin the productive surface of Amamroth?  They
still would have ships and colonies and other planets, same as we have,
and their HQ is still intact---so unless they surrender, the war isn't
over.  We didn't have nova bombs at that time; we couldn't crack Amamroth
open.  If they absorbed the punishment and didn't surrender, the war was
still on.
     Can they surrender?  I wonder....
     Their warriors can't.  Their workers can't fight (and you can waste
a lot of time and ammo shooting up workers who wouldn't say boo!) and
their warrior caste can't surrender.  But don't make the mistake of
thinking that the Bugs are just stupid insects because they look the way
they do and don't know how to surrender.  Their warriors are smart,
skilled, and aggressive----smarter than you are, by the only universal
rule, if the Bug shoots first.  You can burn off one leg, two legs, three
legs, and he just keeps on coming; burn off four on one side and he
topples over---but keeps on shooting.  You've got to spot the nerve case
and hit it....whereupon he'll trot right on past you, shooting at
nothing, until he crashes into a wall or something.
     The drop was a shambles from the start.  Fifty battlestars were in
our piece of it and they were supposed to come out of Marron drive and
into reaction drive so perfectly coordinated that they could hit orbit
and drop us, in formation, and where we were supposed to hit, without
even making one planet circuit to dress up their own formation.  I
suppose this is difficult.  Shucks, I know it is.  But when it slips, it
leaves the C.I. holding the bag.
     We were lucky at that, because the Atlantia and every Fleet file in
her bought it before we ever hit the ground. In that tight, fast
formation (4.7 microns/microcenton orbital speed is not a stroll) she
collided with the Pacifica and both battlestars were destroyed.  We were
lucky to get out of her tubes---those of us who did get out, for she was
still firing capsules as she was rammed.  But I wasn't aware of it; I was
inside my cocoon, headed for the ground.  I suppose our company commander
knew that our Battlestar had been lost (and half his Kappas with it)
since he was out first and would know when he suddenly lost touch, over
the command circuit, with the battlestar's captain.
     But there's no way to ask him, because he wasn't retrieved.  All I
ever had was a gradually dawning realization that things were in a mess.
     The next eighteen centons were a nightmare.  I shan't tell much
about it because I don't remember much, just snatches, stop-motion scenes
of horror.  I've never liked crawlons, poisonous or otherwise; a common
house crawlon in my bed can jar my chips.  Heavylegs are simply
unthinkable, and I can't eat seaclaw, watershell stalker, or anything of
that sort.  When I got my first sight of a Bug, my mind jumped right out
of my skull and I started to yammer. It was seconds later that I realized
that I'd killed it and could hold my fire.  I suppose it was a worker; I
doubt if I was in any shape to tackle a warrior and come out on top.
     But, at that, I was in better shape than the Daggit Corps.  They
were to be dropped (if the drop had gone perfectly) on the periphery of
our entire target and the neodaggits were supposed to range outward and
provide tactical intelligence to interdiction squads whose business it
was to secure the periphery.  Those Lambdas aren't armed, of course,
other than their teeth.  A neodaggit is supposed to hear, see, and smell
and tell his partner what he finds by radio; all he carries is a radio
and a destruction bomb with which he (or his partner) can blow the daggit
up in case of bad wounds or capture.
     Those poor daggits didn't wait to be captured; apparently most of
them commit suicide as soon as they made contact.  They felt the way I do
about the Bugs, only worse.  They have neodaggits now that are
indoctrinated from puphood to observe and evade without blowing their
tops at the mere sight or smell of a Bug.  But these weren't.
     But that wasn't all that went wrong.  You name it, it fouled up.  I
didn't know what was going on, naturally, I just stuck close behind
Thane, trying to shoot or flame anything that moved, dropping a grenade
down a hole whenever I saw one.  Presently, I got so that I could
terminate a Bug without wasting ammo or power, although I didn't learn to
distinguish between those that were harmless and those weren't.  Only
about one in fifty is a warrior----but he makes up for the other
forty-nine.  Their personal weapons are lighter than ours but they're
lethal just the same----they fire a beam capable of penetrating armor and
slicing flesh like cutting a hard-boiled egg, and they cooperate even
better than humans do....because the brain that's doing the heavy
thinking for a "squad" isn't where you can get to it....it's down one of
the holes.
     Thane and I stayed lucky for quite a long time, milling around over
an area a micron square, plugging up holes with bombs, killing what we
found above surface, saving our turbos as much as possible for
emergencies.  The idea was to secure the entire target and allow the
reinforcements and the heavy stuff to come down without important
opposition; this wasn't a raid, it was a battle to establish a beachhead,
stand on it, hold it, and enable fresh troops and heavies to capture and
pacify the entire planet.
     Only we didn't.
     Our own section was doing fine.  It was in the wrong pew and out of
touch with the other section----the platoon leader and sergeant were dead
and we never reformed.  But we had staked out a claim, our
special-weapons squad that set up a strong point, and we were ready to
turn our real estate over to fresh troops as soon as they showed up.
     Only they didn't.  They dropped in where we should've dropped, found
unfriendly natives and had their own troubles.  We never saw them.  So we
stayed where we were, soaking up casualties from time to time and passing
them out ourselves as opportunity offered----while we ran low on ammo and
fuel and even power to keep the suits moving.  This seemed to go on for a
couple of thousand yahrens.
     Thane and I were zipping along close to a wall, headed for our
special weapons squad in answer to a cry for help when the ground
suddenly opened in front of Thane, a Bug popped out, and Thane went down.
     I flamed the Bug and tossed a grenade and the hole closed up; then
turned to see what had happened to Thane.  He was down, but he didn't
look injured.  A platoon sergeant can monitor the physicals of every man
in his platoon, sort out the dead from those who merely can't make it
unassisted and must be picked up.  But you can do the same thing manually
from switches right on the belt of a man's suit.
     Thane didn't answer when I called to him.  His body temperature read
ninety-nine degrees, his respiration, heartbeat, and brain wave read
zero----which looked bad but maybe his suit was dead rather than he
himself.  Or so I told myself, forgetting that the temperature indicator
would give no reading if it were the suit rather than the man.  Anyhow, I
grabbed the can-opener wrench from my own belt and started to take him
out of his suit while trying to watch all around me.
     Then I heard an all-hands call in my helmet that I never want to
hear again.  "Home!  Home!  Pickup and home!  Any became you can hear. 
Six mili-centons! -- All hands, save yourselves, pick up your kinsmen.
Home on my beacon!  Home...."
     I hurried.
     His head came off as I tried to drag him out of his suit, so I
dropped him and got out of there.  On a later drop I would have had
enough sense to salvage his ammo, but I was far too sluggy to think; I
simply bounced away from there and tried to rendezvous with the strong
point we'd been heading for.
     It was already evacuated and I felt lost....lost and deserted.  Then
I heard recall, not the recall it should've been:  "Sharky Star Rover"
(if it had been a shuttle from the Atlantia) ---but "Mushie Blues," a
tune I didn't know.  No matter, it was a beacon; I headed for it, using
the last of my fuel lavishly----got aboard just as they were about to
button up and shortly thereafter was in the Hibernia, in such a state of
shock that I couldn't remember my serial number.
     I've heard it called a "strategic victory"---but I was there and I
claim we took a terrible licking.

*****

     Six sectans later (and feeling about sixty yahrens older) at Fleet
Base on Attila I boarded another shuttle and reported for duty to Ship's
Sergeant Croft on the battlestar Galactica.  I was wearing, in my pierced
left earlobe, a broken skull with one bone.  Starbuck was with me and was
wearing one exactly like it (Jolly never made it out of the tube).  The
few surviving Kappas were distributed elsewhere around the Fleet; we'd
lost half our strength, about, in the collision between the Atlantia and
the Pacifica; that disastrous mess on the ground had run our casualties
up over 80 percent and the powers-that-be decided that it was impossible
to put the outfit back together with the survivors---close it out, put
the records in the archives, and wait until the scars had healed before
reactivating Kappa Company with new faces but old traditions.
     Besides, there were a lot of empty files to fill in other outfits.
      Sergeant Croft welcomed us warmly, told us that we were joining a
smart outfit, "best in the Fleet," in a taut ship, and didn't seem to
notice our ear skulls.  Later that day he took us forward to meet the
Lieutenant, who smiled rather shyly and gave us a fatherly little talk. 
I noticed that Starbuck wasn't wearing his gold skull.  Neither was
I----because I had already noticed that nobody in Blue Platoon wore the
skulls.
     They didn't wear them, because, in Blue Platoon, it didn't matter in
the least how many combat drops you had made, nor which ones; you were
either a Blue or you weren't---and if you weren't, they didn't care who
you were.  Since we'd come to them not as recruits but as combat
veterans, they gave us all possible benefit of doubt and made us welcome
with no more than that unavoidable trace of formality anybody necessarily
shows to a house guest who's not a member of the family.
     But less than a sectan later when we'd made one combat drop with
them, we were full-fledged Blues, members of the family, called by names,
chewed out on occasion without any feeling on either side that we were
less than blood brothers, thereby, borrowed from and lent to, included in
bull sessions and privileged to express our own silly opinions with
complete freedom.....and have them slapped down just as freely.  We even
called no-coms by their names on any but strictly duty occasions. 
Sergeant Croft was constantly on duty, of course, unless you ran across
him dirtside, and then he went out of his way to behave as if his lordly
rank meant nothing between Blues.
     But the Lieutenant was always "The Lieutenant"---never Charka," nor
even Lieutenant Charka."  Simply "The Lieutenant," spoken to and of in
the third person.  There was no god but the Lieutenant and Sergeant Croft
was his prophet.  Croft could say "No" in his own person and it might be
subject to further argument, at least from junior sergeants, but if he
said, "The Lieutenant wouldn't like it," he was speaking ex cathedra and
the matter was dropped permanently.  Nobody ever tried to check up on
whether or not the Lieutenant would or wouldn't like it; the Word had
been spoken.
     The Lieutenant was father to us and loved us and spoiled us and was
nevertheless rather remote from us aboard ship---and even
dirtside----unless we reached dirt via a drop.  But in a drop----well,
you wouldn't think that an officer could worry about every man of a
platoon spread over a hundred square microns of land.  But he can.  He
can worry himself sick over each one of them.  How could he keep track of
us all I can't describe, but in the midst of a ruckus his voice would
sing out over the command circuit: "Croad!  Check squad six!  Ravishol's
in trouble," and it was better than even money that the Lieutenant had
noticed it before Ravishol's squad leader.
     Besides that, you knew with utter and absolute certainty that, as
long as you were still alive, the Lieutenant would not get into the
retrieval shuttlecraft without you.  There have been prisoners taken in
the Bug War, but none from Blue Platoon.
     Croft was mother to us, and was close to us and took care of us and
didn't spoil us at all.  But he didn't report us to the
Lieutenant---there was never a tribunal among the Blues and no man was
ever caned.  Croft didn't even pass out extra duty very often; he had
other ways of paddling us.  He could look you up and down at daily
inspection and simply say, "In the Fleet you might look good.  Why don't
you transfer? ---and get results, it being a article of faith among us
that the Fleet crewmembers slept in their uniforms and never washed below
their collar lines.
     But Croft didn't have to maintain discipline among privates because
he maintained discipline among his non-coms and expected them to do
likewise.  My squad leader, when I first joined, was a warrior named
Dipper.  After a couple of drops, when I knew how good it was to be a
Blue, I got to feeling gay and a bit too big for my clothes---and talked
back to Dipper.  He didn't report me to Croft; he just took me back to
the washroom and gave me a medium set of lumps, and we got to be pretty
good friends.  In fact, he recommended me for lance, later on.
     Actually, we didn't know whether the crewmembers slept in their
clothes or not; we kept to our part of the ship and the Fleet men kept to
theirs, because they were made to feel unwelcome if they showed up in our
country other than on duty---after all, one has social standards one must
meet, mustn't one?  The Lieutenant had his stateroom in male officers'
country, a Fleet part of the Battlestar, but we never went there, either,
except on duty and rarely. We did go forward for guard duty, because the
Galactica was a mixed ship, female captain and bridge officers, some
female Fleet ratings; forward of bulkhead thirty was ladies'
country---and two armed C.I. day and night stood  guard at the one door
cutting it.  (At battle stations that door, like all other gastight
doors, was secured; nobody missed a drop.)
     Officers were privileged to go forward of bulkhead thirty on duty
and all officers, including the Lieutenant, ate in a mixed mess just
beyond it.  But they didn't tarry there; they ate and left.  Maybe other
battlestars were run differently, but that was the way the Galactica was
run---both the lieutenant and Captain Brie wanted a taut ship and got it.
     Nevertheless, guard duty was a privilege.  It was a rest to stand
beside that door, arms folded, feet spread, doping off and thinking about
nothing....but always warmly aware that any moment you might see a
feminine creature even though you were not privileged to speak to her
other than on duty.  Once I was called all the way to the Skipper's
office, and she spoke to me---she looked right at me and said, "Take this
to the Master-Tech, please."
     My daily shipside job, aside from cleaning, was servicing electronic
equipment under the close supervision of "Father" Tigh, the section
leader of the first section, exactly as I used to work under Zac's eye. 
Drops didn't happen too often and everybody worked every day.  If a man
didn't have any other talent, he could always scrub bulkheads; nothing
was ever quite clean enough to suit Sergeant Croft.  We followed the C.I.
rule; everybody fights, everybody works.  Our first cook was Ravishol,
the second section's sergeant, a big friendly farm boy from Croaden and a
very talented chef.  He wheedled pretty well, too; he liked to eat
between meals himself and saw no reason why other people shouldn't.
     With the Father leading one section and the cook leading the other,
we were well cared for, body and soul---but suppose one of them bought
it?  Which one would you single out for the honor?  A nice point that we
never tried to settle but could always discuss.
     The Galactica kept busy and we made a number of drops, all
different.  Every drop has to be different so that they never can pin a
pattern on you.  But no more pitched battles; we operated alone,
patrolling harrying, and raiding.  The truth was that the Twelve Colonies
of Mankind was not then able to mount a large battle; the foul-up with
Operation Bughouse had cost too many ships, 'way too many trained men. 
It was necessary to take time to heal up, train more men.
     In the meantime, small fast ships, among them the Galactica and
other battlestars, tried to be everywhere at once, keeping the enemy off
balance, hurting him and running.  We suffered casualties and plugged our
holes when we returned to Attila for more capsules. I still get the
shakes every drop, but actual drops didn't happen too often nor were we
ever down long---and between times there were days and days of shipboard
life among the Blues.
     It was the happiest period of my life although I was never quite
consciously aware of it---I did my full share of beefing just as
everybody else did, and enjoyed that, too.
     We weren't really hurt until the Lieutenant bought it.

*****

     I guess that was the worst time in my all my life. I was already in
bad shape for a personal reason:  My mother had been in Kendor when the
Bugs smeared it.
     I found out about it one time when we put in at Attila for more
capsules and some mail caught up with us---a note from my Aunt Nora, one
that had not been encrypted and sent fast because she'd failed to mark
for that; the epistle itself came.  It was about three bitter lines. 
Somehow she seemed to blame me for Mother's death.  Whether it was my
fault because I was in the Colonial Services and should've therefore
prevented the raid, or whether she felt that Mother had made a trip to
Kendor because I wasn't home where I should've been, was not quite clear;
she managed to imply both in the same sentence.
     I tore it up and tried to walk away from it.  I thought that both my
parents were dead....since Father would never send Mother on a trip that
long by herself.  Aunt Nora had not said so, but she wouldn't have
mentioned Father in any case; her devotion was entirely to her sister.  I
was almost correct---eventually I learned that Father had planned to go
with her but something had come up and he stayed over to settle it,
intending to come along the next day.  But Aunt Nora didn't tell me that.
     A couple of centons later, the Lieutenant sent for me and asked me
very gently if I would like to take leave at Attila while the ship went
out on her next patrol...he pointed out that I had plenty of accumulated
furlongs and might as well use some of it.  I don't know how he knew that
I had lost a member of my family, but he obviously did.  I said no, thank
you, sir; I preferred to wait until the outfit took a furlong together.
     I'm glad I did it that way, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have
been along when the Lieutenant bought it...and that would've been just
too much to be borne.  It happened very fast and just before retrieval. 
A man in the third squad was wounded, not badly but he was down; the
assistant section leader moved in to pick up----and bought a small piece
of it himself.  The Lieutenant, as usual, was watching everything at
once....no doubt he had checked physicals on each of them by remote, but
we'll never know.  What he did was to make sure that the assistant
section leader was still alive; then made pickup on both of them himself,
one in each arm of his suit.
     He threw them the last twenty metrons and they were pressed into the
retrieval shuttle---and with everybody else in, the shield gone and no
interdiction, was hit and died instantly.

*****

     I haven't mentioned the names of the private and of the assistant
section leader on purpose.  The Lieutenant was making pickup on all of
us, with his last breath.  Maybe I was the private.  I doesn't matter who
he was.  What did matter was that our family had had its heart torn out.
     After the Lieutenant had to leave us Captain Brie invited Sergeant
Croft to eat forward, with the other heads of departments.  But he begged
to be excused.  Have you ever seen a widow with stern character keep her
family together by behaving as if the head of the family had simply
stepped out and would return at any moment?  That's what Croft did.  He
was just a touch more strict with us than ever and if he ever had to say
"The Lieutenant wouldn't like that," it was almost more than a man could
take.  Croft didn't say it very often.
     He left our combat team organization almost unchanged; instead of
shifting everybody around, he moved the assistant section leader of the
second section over into the (nominal) platoon sergeant spot, leaving his
section leaders where they were needed---with their sections---and he
moved me from lance and assistant squad leader into acting corporal as a
largely ornamental assistant section leader.  Then he himself behaved as
if the Lieutenant were merely out of sight and that he was just passing
on the Lieutenant's orders, as usual.
     And that's what saved us.

*****

Chapter 11

     As we came back into the ship after the raid on the Skinnies---the
raid in which Greenbean bought it, Sergeant Croft's first drop as platoon
leader---a ship's gunner who was tending the shuttlecraft lock spoke to
me:
     "How'd it go?"
     "Routine," I answered briefly.  I suppose his remark was friendly
but I was feeling very mixed up and in no mood to talk---sad over
Greenbean, glad that we'd made pickup anyhow, mad that the pickup had
been useless, and all of it tangled up with that washed-out but happy
feeling of being back in the ship again, able to muster arms and legs and
note that they're all present and accounted for.  Besides, how can you
talk about a drop to a man who's never made one?
     "So?" he answered. "You guys have got it soft.  Loaf thirty days,
work thirty mili-centons.  Me, I stand a watch in three and turn to."
     "Yeah, I guess so," I agreed and turned away.  "Some of us are born
lucky."
     "Warrior, you ain't peddlin' vaccum," he said to my back.
     And yet there was much truth in what the Fleet gunner had said.  We
troopers are like aviators of the ancient mechanized wars; a long and
busy military career could contain only a few centons of actual combat
facing the enemy, the rest being:  train, get ready, go out---then come
back, clean up the mess, get ready for another one, and practice,
practice, practice, in between.  We didn't make another drop for almost
three sectans and that on a different planet around another star---a Bug
colony.  Even with Marron drive, stars are far apart.
     In the meantime, I got my corporal's stripes, nominated by Croft and
confirmed by Captain Brie in the absence of a commissioned officer of our
own.  Theoretically, the rank would not be permanent until approved
against vacancy by the Fleet C.I. repple-depple, but that meant nothing,
as the casualty rate was such that there were always more vacancies in
the T.O. than warm bodies to fill them.  I was a corporal when Croft said
I was a corporal; the rest was red tape.
     But the gunner was not quite correct about "loafing"; there were
fifty-three suits of powered armor to check, service, and repair between
each drop, not to mention weapons and special equipment.  Sometimes Tigh
would check a suit, Croft would confirm it, and the ship's weapons
engineer, Lieutenant Bonengel, would decide that he couldn't cure it
short of base facilities---whereupon a new suit would have to be broken
out of stores and brought from "cold" to "hot," an exacting process
requiring twenty-six man-centons not counting the time of the man to whom
it was being fitted.
     We kept busy.
     But we had fun, too.  There were always several competitions going
on, from High-Low to Honor Squad, and we had the best jazz band in
several cubic light-yahrens (well, the only one, maybe), with Sergeant
Ravishol on the trumpet leading them mellow and sweet for hymns or
tearing the steel right off the bulkheads, as the occasion required. 
After that masterful (or should it be "mistressful"?) retrieval
rendezvous without a programmed ballistic, the platoon's metalsmith, PFC
Jochebay, made a model of the Galactica for the Skipper and we all signed
and Jochebay engraved our signatures on a base plate:  To hot pilot Brie,
with thanks from the Blue Platoon, and we invited her aft to eat with us
and the Blue Downbeat Combo played during dinner and then the junior
private presented it to her.  She got tears and kissed him---and kissed
Croft as well and he blushed purple.
     After I got my chevrons, I simply had to get things straight with
Boomer, because Croft kept me on as assistant section leader.  This is
not good.  A man ought to fill each spot on his way up; I should have had
a turn as squad leader instead of being bumped from lance and assistant
squad leader to corporal and assistant section leader.  Croft knew this,
of course, but I know perfectly well that he was trying to keep the
outfit as much as possible the way it had been when the Lieutenant was
alive----which meant that he left his squad leaders and section leaders
unchanged.
     But it left me with a ticklish problem:  all three of the corporals
under me as squad leaders were actually senior to me....but if Sergeant
Ravishol bought it on the next drop, it would not only lose us a mighty
fine cook, it would leave me leading the section.  There mustn't be any
shadow of doubt when you give an order, not in combat; I had to clear up
any possible shadow before we dropped again.
     Boomer was the problem.  He was not only senior of the three; he was
a career corporal as well as, and older, than I was.  If Boomer accepted
me, I wouldn't have any trouble with the other two squads.
     I hadn't really had any trouble with him aboard.  After we made
pickup on Greenbean together he'd been civil enough.  On the other hand,
we hadn't had anything to have trouble over; our shipside jobs didn't put
us together, except at daily muster and guard mount, which is all cut and
dried. But you can feel it.  He wasn't treating me as somebody he took
orders from.
     So I looked him up during off hours.  He was laying in his bunk,
reading a book, Space Rangers against the Galaxy---a pretty good yarn,
except that I doubt if a military outfit ever had so many adventures and
so few goof-offs.  The ship had a good library.
     "Boomer.  Got to see you."
     He glanced up.  "So?  I just left the ship.  I'm off duty."
     "I've got to see you.  Put your book down."
     "What's so frakkin' urgent?  I've got to finish this chapter."
     "Oh, come off it, Boomer. If you can't wait, I'll tell you how it
comes out."
     "You do and I'll clobber you."  But he put the book down, sat up,
and listened.
     I said, "Boomer, about this matter of the section
organization----you're senior to me, you ought to be assistant section
leader."
     "Oh, are we back to that again?"
     "Yep.  I think you and I ought to go see Starbuck and get him to fix
it up with Croft."
     "You do, eh?"
     "Yes, I do.  That's how it's got to be."
     "So? Look, Shorty, let me put you straight. I got nothing against
you at all.  Matter of fact, you were on the bounce that day we had to
pick up Greenbean; I'll hand you that.  But if you want a squad, you go
dig up one of your own.  Don't go eyeing mine. My boys wouldn't even peel
groundspuds for you."
     "Is that final?"
     "Yep, that's final."
     I sighed.  "I thought it would be.  But I had to make sure. Well,
that settles that.  But I've got one thing on my mind.  I happened to
notice that the washroom needs cleaning....and I think maybe you and I
ought to attend to it.  So put your book aside...as Croft says, non-coms
are constantly on duty."
     He didn't stir at once.  He said quietly, "You really think so,
Shorty?  As I said, I got nothing against you."
     "Looks like."
     "Think you can do it?"
     "I can sure try."
     "Okay.  Let's take care of it."
     We went aft to the washroom, chased out a private who was about to
take a turbo-wash he didn't really need, and locked the door.  Boomer
said, "You got any restrictions in mind, Shorty?"
     "Well....I hadn't planned to kill you."
     "Check.  And no broken bones, nothing that would keep either one of
us out of the next drop---except maybe by accident, of course. That suit
you?"
     "Suits," I agreed.  "I think maybe I'll take my shirt off."
     "Wouldn't do to get blood on your nice, clean shirt, right?"  He
relaxed.  I started to peel it off and he let go a kick for my kneecap. 
No wind up.  Flat-footed and not tense.
     Only my kneecap wasn't there---I had learned.  
     A real fight can ordinarily last only a second or two, because
that's all the time it takes to kill a man, or knock him out, or disable
him to the point where he can't fight.  But we'd agreed to avoid
inflicting permanent damage; this changes things.  We were both young, in
top condition, highly trained, and used to absorbing punishment. Boomer
was bigger, I was maybe a touch faster.  Under such conditions the
miserable business simply has to go on until one or the other is too
beaten down to continue----unless a fluke settles it sooner.  But neither
of us was allowing any flukes; we were professionals and wary.
     So it went on, for a long, tedious, painful time.  Details would be
trivial and pointless; besides, I had no time to take notes.
     A long time later I was lying on my back and Boomer was flipping
water in my face.  He looked at me, then hauled me to my feet, shoved me
against a bulkhead to steady me.  "Hit me!"
     "Huh?" I was dazed and seeing double vision.
     "Apollo----hit me."
     His face was floating in the air in front of me; I zeroed in on it
and slugged it with all the force in my body, hard enough to mash any
mosquito in poor health.  His eyes closed and he slumped to the deck and
I had to grab at a stanchion to keep from following him.
     He got up slowly.  "Okay, Apollo," he said, shaking his head.  'I've
had my lesson.  You won't have any more lip out of me....nor out of
anybody in the section.  Okay?"
     I nodded and my head hurt.
     "Shake?" he asked.
     We shook on it, and that hurt too.

*****

     Almost anybody else knew more about how the war was going than we
did, even though we were in it.  This was the period, of course, after
the Bugs had located our home planet, Caprica, through the Skinnies, and
had raided it, destroying Kendor and turning "contact troubles" into
all-out war, but before we had built up our forces and before the
Skinnies had changed sides and become our co-belligerents and de-facto
allies.  Partly effective interdiction for Caprica (and the other twelve
colonies) had been set up from Jadon (we didn't know it), but speaking
broadly, the Twelve Colonies were losing the war.
     We didn't know that, either.  Nor did we know that strenuous efforts
were being made to subvert the alliance against us and bring the Skinnies
over to our side; the nearest we came to being told about that was when
we got instructions, before the raid in which Greenbean was killed, to go
easy on the Skinnies, destroy as much property as possible but to kill
inhabitants only when unavoidable.
     What a man doesn't know he can't spill if he's captured; neither
drugs, nor torture, nor brainwash, nor endless lack sleep can squeeze out
a secret he doesn't possess.  So we were told only what we had to know
for tactical purposes.  In the past, armies have been known to fold up
and quit because the men didn't know what they were fighting for, or why
and therefore lacked the will to fight.  But the C.I. doesn't have that
weakness.  Each of us was a volunteer to begin with, each for some reason
or other---some good, some bad.  But now we fought because we were C.I. 
We were professionals, with esprit de corps.  We were Blue Platoon, the
best unprintable outfit in the whole expurgated C.I.; we climbed into our
capsules because Croft told us it was time to do so and we fought when we
got down there because that's what Blue Platoon does.
     We certainly didn't know that we were losing.
     Those Bugs lay eggs. They not only lay them, they hold them in
reserve, hatch them as needed.  If we killed a warrior----or a thousand,
or ten thousand---his or her replacements were hatched and on duty almost
before we could get back to base.  You can imagine, if you like, some Bug
supervisor of population flashing a phone to somewhere down inside and
saying, "Joe, warm up ten thousand warriors and have 'em ready by
Wednesday....and tell engineering to activate reserve incubators Nu,
Omicron, Pi, Sigma, and Rho; the demand is picking up."
     I don't say they did exactly that, but those were the results.  But
don't make the mistake of thinking that they acted purely from instinct,
like termites or ants; their actions were as intelligent as ours (stupid
races don't build spaceships!) and were much better coordinated.  It
takes a bare minimum of a yahren to train a private to fight and to mesh
his fighting with his kinsmen; a Bug warrior is hatched able to do this.
     Every time we killed a thousand Bugs at a cost of one C.I., it was a
net victory for the Bugs.  We were learning, expensively, just how
efficient a total collectivism can be when used by a people actually
adapted to it by evolution; the Bug Imperious Leaders didn't care any
more about expanding warriors than we did about expanding ammo.  
     But we were learning.  Technical instructions and tactical doctrine
orders resulted from every brush with them, spread through the Fleet.  We
learned to tell the workers from the warriors----if you had time, you
could tell from the shape of the carapace, but the quick rule of thumb
was: If he comes at you, he's a warrior; if he runs, you can turn your
back on him.  We learned not to waste ammo even on warriors except in
self-defense; instead we went after their lairs.  Find a hole, drop down
it first a gas bomb which explodes gently a few microcentons later,
releasing an oily liquid which evaporates as a nerve gas tailored to Bugs
(it is harmless to us) and which is heavier than air and keeps on going
down---then you use a second grenade of H.E. to plug the hole.
     We still don't know whether we were getting deep enough to kill the
queens---but we did know that the Bugs didn't like these tactics; our
intelligence through the Skinnies and on back into the Bugs themselves
was definite on this point.  Besides, we cleaned their colony off Deryann
completely this way.  Maybe they managed to evacuate the queens and the
brains....but at least we were learning to hurt them.
     But so far as the Blues were concerned, these gas bombings were just
another drill, to be done according to orders, by the numbers, and on the
bounce.

*****

     Eventually we had to go back to Attila for more capsules.  Capsules
are expendable (well, so were we) and when they're gone, you gotta return
to base, even if the Marron generators could still take you twice around
the Galaxy.  Shortly before this, a dispatch came through brevetting
Croft to lieutenant, vice Charka.  Croft tried to keep a lid on it but
Captain Brie published it and then required him to eat forward with the
other officers.  He still spent all the rest of his time aft.
     But we'd taken several drops by then with him as platoon leader and
the outfit had gotten used to getting along without the Lieutenant---it
still hurt but it was routine now.  
     Shortly after Croft's promotion, we orbited at Attila.  I was glad
to be there, as the ship's internal pseudo-gravity field had been off for
most of two days before that, while the Chief Engineer tinkered with it,
leaving us in free fall-----which I hate.  I'll never be a real spaceman. 
Dirt underfoot felt good.  The entire platoon went on ten days' rest &
recreation and transferred to accommodation barracks at the Base.
     I never have learned the coordinates of Attila, not the name or
catalogue number of the star it orbits---because what you don't know, you
can't spill; the location is ultra top-secret, known only to ships'
captains, piloting officers, and such....and, I understand, with each of
them under orders and hypnotic compulsion to suicide if necessary to
avoid capture.  So I don't want to know.  With the possibility that Jadon
Base might be taken and all twelve colonies occupied, the Council of
Twelve kept as much of its beef as possible at Attila, so that a disaster
back home wouldn't necessarily mean capitulation.
     But I can tell you what sort of a planet it is.  Like Caprica, but
retarded.
     Literally retarded, like a kid who takes ten yahrens to learn to
wave goodbye and never does manage to master patty-cake.  It is a planet
as near like Caprica as two planets can be, same age according to the
planetologists and its star is the same age as the Colonial Suns and the
same time, so say the astrophysicists.  It's got plenty of flora and
fauna, the same atmosphere as Caprica, near enough, and much the same
weather; it even has a good-sized moon and Caprica's exceptional tides.
     With all these advantages it scarcely got away from the starting
gate.  You see, it's short on mutations; it doesn't enjoy Caprica's high
level of natural radiation.
     Its archetypal and most highly developed life form is a plant; a
very primitive giant fern.  Its top native animal is a proto-insect which
hasn't even developed colonies.  I'm not speaking of transplanted
Colonial flora and fauna-our stuff moves in and brushes the native stuff
aside.
     With its evolutionary progress held down to almost zero by lack of
radiation and a consequent most unhealthy low mutation rate, native life
forms on Attila just haven't had a decent chance to evolve and aren't fit
to compete.  Their gene patterns remain fixed for a relatively long time;
they're not adaptable----like being forced to play the same pyramid hand
over and over again, for eons, with no hope of getting a better one.
     As long as they just competed with each other, this didn't' matter
too much----morons among morons, so to speak.  But when types that had
evolved on a planet enjoying high radiation and fierce competition were
introduced, the native stuff was outclassed.
     Now all the above is perfectly obvious from high school
biology....but the high forehead from the research station there who was
telling me about this brought up a point I would never have thought of.
     What about the humans who have colonized Attila?
     Not transients like me, but the Colonists who settled there, many of
whom were born there, and whose descendents will live there, even unto
the umpteenth generation---what about those descendants?  It doesn't do a
person any harm not to be radiated; in fact it's a bit
safer----vandulemia and some types of cancer are almost unknown there.
Besides that, the economic situation is at present all in their favor;
when they plant a field of (Colonial) wheat, they don't even have to
eradicate the weeds.  Colonial wheat displaces anything native.
     But the descendants of these colonists won't evolve.  Not much,
anyhow.  This chap told me that they could improve a little through
mutation from other causes, from new blood added through immigration, and
from natural selection among the gene patterns they already own---but
that's all very minor compared with the evolutionary rate on Caprica and
the other eleven colonies.  So what happens?  Do they stay frozen at
their present level while the rest of the human race moves on past them,
until they're living fossils, as out of place as a Monglirocanthropus on
a battlestar?
     Or will they worry about the fate of their descendants and dose
themselves regularly with X-rays or maybe set off lots of dirty-type
nuclear explosions each year to build up a fallout reservoir in the
atmosphere?  (Accepting, of course, the immediate dangers of radiation to
themselves in order to provide a proper genetic heritage of mutation for
the benefit of their descendants.)
     This bloke predicted that they would not do anything.  He claims
that the human race is too individualistic, too selfish, to worry that
much about future generations.  He says that the genetic impoverishment
of distant generations through lack of radiation is something most people
are simply incapable of worrying about.  And, of course, it is a far
distant threat; evolution works so slowly, even in the Colonies, that the
development of a new species is a matter of many, many thousands of
yahrens.
     I don't know.  I don't know what I myself will do half the time; how
can I predict what the general population of a human settlement will do? 
But I'm sure of this:  Attila is going to be fully settled, either by us
or the Bugs.  Or by somebody.  It's a potential utopia, and, with
desirable real estate so scarce in this end of the Galaxy, it will not be
left in the possession of primitive life forms that failed to make the
grade.
     Already it's a delightful place, better in many ways for a few days
A furlong than is most of Caprica.  In the second place, while it has an
awful lot of civilians, more than a million, as civilians go, they're not
bad.  They know there's a war on.  Fully half of them are employed at the
Base or in war industry; the rest raise food and sell it to the Fleet.
You might say that they have a vested interest in war,, but, whatever
their reasons, they respect the uniform and don't resent the wearers
thereof.  Quite the opposite. If a C.I. walks into a shop there, the
proprietor calls him "Sir," and really seems to mean it, even while he's
trying to sell something worthless at a sky-high price.
     But in the first place, half of those civilians are female.
     You have to have been out on a long patrol to appreciate them
properly.  You need to have looked forward to your day of guard duty, for
the privilege of standing two centons out of each six with your spine
against bulkhead thirty and your ears cocked for just the sound of a
female voice. I suppose it's actually easier in the all-stag
ships.....but I'll take the Galactica.  It's good to know that the
ultimate reason you're fighting actually exists and that they're not just
a figment of the imagination.
     Besides the civilian wonderful 50 percent, about 40 percent of the
Colonial Service people on Attila are female.  Add it all up and you've
got the most beautiful scenery in the explored universe.
     Besides these unsurpassed natural advantages, a great deal has been
done artificially to keep A furlong from being wasted.  Most of the
civilians seem to hold two jobs; they've got circles under their eyes
from staying up all night to make a service man's leave pleasant. 
Faersol Road from the Base to the city is lined both sides with
enterprises intended to separate painlessly a man from cubits he really
hasn't any use for anyhow, to the pleasant accompaniment of refreshment,
entertainment, and music.
     If you're able to get past these traps, through having already been
bled of your sectan's pay, there are still other places in the city
almost as satisfactory ( I mean, there are girls there, too) which are
provided free by a grateful populace---much like the social center in
Fair Haven, these are, but even more welcome.
     Attila, and especially Serenity, the city, struck me as such an
ideal place that I toyed with the notion of asking for my discharge there
when my term was up---after all, I didn't really care whether my
descendants (if any) twenty-five thousand yahrens hence had long green
tendrils like everybody else, or just the equipment I'd been forced to
get by with.  That professor type from the Research Station couldn't
frighten me with that no radiation scare talk; it seemed to me (from what
I could see around me that the human race had reached its ultimate peak
anyhow.
     No doubt a gentleman hedgehopper feels the same way about a lady
hedgehopper---but, if so, both of us are very sincere.
     There are other opportunities for recreation there, too. I remember
with particular pleasure one evening when a couple of Blues got into a
friendly discussion with a group of Fleet men (not from the Galactica)
seated at the next table.  The debate was spirited, a bit noisy and some
Base Security came in and broke it up with stun guns just as we were
warming to our rebuttal.  Nothing came of it, except that we had to fork
over our pay vouchers to take care of the damaged (some destroyed)
furniture---the Base Commandant takes the position that a man on A
furlong should be allowed a little freedom as long as he doesn't pick one
of the "thirty-one crash landings."
     The accommodation barracks are all right, too-not fancy, but
comfortable and the chow line works twenty-five hours a day with
civilians doing all the work.  No reveille, no taps, you're actually on
leave and you don't have to go to the barracks at all.  I did, however,
as it seemed downright preposterous to pay good cubits on hotels when
there was a clean, soft sack free and so many better ways to spend a
sectan's pay.  That extra centon in each day was nice, too, as it meant
nine hours solid and the day still untouched-I caught up sack time clear
back to Operation Bughouse.
     It might as well have been a hotel; Boomer and I had a room all to
ourselves in visiting non-com quarters.  One morning, when my furlong was
regrettably drawing to a close, I was just turning over about local noon
when Boomer shook my bed.  "On the bounce, warrior!  The Bugs are
attacking!"
     "I told him what to do with the Bugs.
     "Let's hit dirt," he persisted.
     "No cubits."  I had had a date the night before with a chemist
(female, of course, and charmingly so) from the Research Station.  She
had known Zac on Aeries and Zac had written to me to look her up if I
ever got to Attila.  She was a slim redhead, with expensive tastes. 
Apparently Zac had intimated to her that I had more money than was good
for me, for she decided that the night before was just the time for her
to get acquainted with the local ambrosia.  I didn't let Zac down by
admitting that all I had was a trooper's honorarium; I bought it for her
while I drank what they said was (not!) fresh spiniapple squash.  The
result was that I had to walk home, afterwards....the cabs aren't free. 
Still, it had been worth it.  After all, what's money?----I'm speaking of
Bug money, of course.
     "No ache," Boomer answered.  "I can juice you---I got lucky last
night.  Ran into a Fleet file who didn't know percentages."
     So I got up and shaved and turbo-washed and we hit the chow line for
half a dozen shell eggs and sundries such as spuds and ham and snapjacks
and so forth and then we hit dirt to get something to eat.  The walk up
Faersol Road was hot and Boomer decided to stop in a canteen.  I went
along to see if their spiniapple squash was real.  It wasn't, but it was
cold.  You can't have everything.
     We talked about this and that and Boomer ordered another round.  I
tried their tulipberry squash---same deal.  Boomer stared into his glass,
then said, "Ever thought about greasing for officer?"
     "I said, "Huh?  Are you crazy?"
     "Nope.  Look, Apollo, this war may run on quite a piece. No matter
what propaganda they put out for the folks at home, you and I know that
the Bugs aren't ready to quite.  So why don't you plan ahead?  As the man
says, if you've got to play in the band, it's better to wave the stick
than to carry the big drum."
     I was startled by the turn the talk had taken, especially from
Boomer.  "How about you?  Are you planning to buck for a commission?"
     "Me?" he answered.  "Check your circuits, son---you're getting wrong
answers.  I've got no education and I'm ten yahrens older than you are. 
But you've got enough education to hit the election exams for O.C.S. and
you've got the I.Q. they like.  I guarantee that if you go career, you'll
make sergeant before I do...and get picked for O.C.S. the day after."
     "Now I know you've been sniffing plant vapors!"
     "You listen to your pop.  I hate to tell you this, but you're just
stupid and eager and sincere enough to make the kind of officer that men
love to follow into some silly predicament.  But me....well, I'm a
natural non-com, with the proper pessimistic attitude to offset the
enthusiasm of the likes of you.  Someday I'll make sergeant....and
presently I'll have my twenty yahrens in and retire and get one of the
reserved jobs---Security man, maybe---and marry a nice fat wife with the
same low tastes I've got, and I'll follow the sports and fish and go
pleasantly to pieces."
     Boomer stopped to wet his whistle.  "But you," he went on.  "You'll
stay in and probably make high rank and die gloriously and I'll read
about it and say proudly, 'I knew him when.  Why, I used to lend him
cubits---we were corporals together.'  Well?"
     "I never thought about it," I said slowly.  "I just meant to serve
my term."
     He grinned sourly.  "Do you see any term enrollees getting their pay
vouchers today?  You expect to make it on two yahrens?"
     He had a point.  As long as the war continued, a "term" didn't
end---at least not for troopers.  It was mostly a difference in attitude,
at least for the present.  Those of us on "term" could at least feel like
short-timers; we could talk about:  "When this flea-bitten war's over." 
A career man didn't say that; he wasn't going anywhere, short of
retirement----or buying it.
     Then again, neither were we.  But if you went "career" and then
didn't finish twenty.....they could be pretty sticky about your franchise
even though they wouldn't keep a man who didn't want to stay.
     "Maybe not a two-yahren term," I admitted.  "But the war won't last
forever."
     "It won't?"
     "How can it?"
     "Blessed if I know.  They don't tell me these things.  But I know
that's not what's troubling you, Apollo.  You got a girl waiting?"
     "No.  Well, I had," I answered slowly, "but she 'Dear Apollo'd' me." 
As a lie, this was no more than a mild decoration, which I tucked in
because Boomer seemed to expect it.  Sheba wasn't my girl and she never
waited for anybody---but she did address epistles with "Dear Apollo" on
the infrequent occasions when she wrote to me.
     Boomer nodded wisely.  "They'll do it every time.  They'd rather
marry civilians and have somebody around to chew out when they feel like
it.  Never you mind, son----you'll find plenty of them more than willing
to marry when you're retired....and you'll be able to handle one at that
age.  Marriage is a young man's disaster and an old man's comfort."  He
looked at my glass.  "It nauseates me to see you drinking that slop."
     "I feel the same way about the stuff you drink," I told him.
     He shrugged.  "As I say, it takes all kinds.  You think it over."
     "Sure."
     Boomer got into a card game shortly after and lent me some cubits
and I went for a walk; I needed to think.
     Me?  Go career?  Quite aside from that felgercarb about a
commission, did I want to go career?  I had gone through all this to get
my franchise, hadn't I?----and if I went career, I was just as far away
from the privilege of voting as if I'd never enrolled....because as long
as you were still in uniform, you weren't entitled to vote.  Which was
the way it should be, of course----if they let the Blues vote the idiots
might vote not to make a drop.  Can't have that.
     Nevertheless, I had signed up in order to win a vote?
     Hadn't I?
     Had I ever cared about voting?  No, it was the prestige, the pride,
the status....of being a citizen.
     Wasn't it?
     I couldn't to say my life remember why I had enlisted.
     Anyhow, it wasn't the process of voting that made a citizen---the
Lieutenant had been a citizen in the truest sense of the word, even
though he had not lived long enough ever to cast a ballot.  He had
"voted" every time he made a drop.
     So had I!
     I could hear Colonel Cain in my mind:  "Citizenship is an attitude,
a state of mind, an emotional conviction that the whole is greater than
the part....and that the part should be humbly proud to sacrifice itself
that the whole may live."
     I still didn't know whether I yearned to place my one-and-only body
"between my loved home and the war's desolation"---I still got the shakes
every drop and that "desolation" could be pretty desolate.  But on the
other hand I knew at last what Colonel Cain had been talking about.  The
C.I. was mine and I was theirs.  If that was what the C.I. did to break
the monotony, then that was what I did.  Patriotism was a bit esoteric
for me, too large-scale to see.  But the C.I. was my gang, I belonged. 
They were all the family I had left; they were the brothers I never had,
closer than Zac and I had ever been.  If I left them, I'd be lost.
     So why shouldn't I go career?
     All right, all right---but how about this felgercarb of greasing for
a commission?  That was something else again.  I could see myself putting
in twenty yahrens and then taking it easy, the way Boomer had described,
with ribbons on my chest and carpet slippers on my feet....or evenings
down at the Veterans Hall, rehashing old times with others who belonged. 
But O.C.S? I could hear Starbuck, in one of the bull sessions we had
about such things:  "I'm a private!  I'm going to stay a private!  When
you're a private they don't expect anything of you!  Who wants to be an
officer?  Or even a sergeant?  You're breathing the same air, aren't you? 
Eating the same food.  Going the same places, making the same drops.  But
no worries."
     Starbuck had a point. What had chevrons ever gotten me?---aside from
lumps.
     Nevertheless, I knew I would take sergeant if it was ever offered to
me.  You don't refuse, a trooper refuses nothing; he steps up and takes a
swing at it.  Commission, too, I supposed.
     Not that it would happen.  Who was I to think that I could ever be
what Lieutenant Charka had been?
     My walk had taken me close to the candidates' school, though I don't
believe I intended to come that way.  A company of cadets were out on
their parade ground, drilling at trot, looking for all the world like
boots in Basic. The sun was hot and it looked not nearly as comfortable
as a bull session in the drop room of the Galactica---I hadn't marched
further than bulkhead thirty sense I had finished Basic; that breaking-in
nonsense was past.
     I watched them a bit, sweating through their uniforms; I heard them
being chewed out---by sergeants, too.  Old Home Week.  I shook my head
and walked away from there----
     -----went back to the accommodation barracks, over to the B.O.Q.
wing, found Croft's room.
     He was in it, his feet up on a table and reading a magazine.  I
knocked on the frame of the door.  He looked up and growled, "Yeah?"
     "Sarge---I mean, Lieutenant---"
     "Spit it out!"
     "Sir, I want to go career."
     His dropped his feet to the desk.  "Put up your right hand."
     He swore me, reached into the drawer of the table and pulled out
papers.
     He had my papers already made out, waiting for me, ready to sign.
And I hadn't even told Boomer.  How about that?"

*****

Chapter 12

     Being all that you can be means performing any number of tasks. 
Whichever of the five branches of the United States Armed forces----Army,
Navy, Marines, Air Force, or Coast Guard---you choose to join, prepare
yourself for more than a buzz-cut and target practice.  Officers are
leaders, organizers, strategists, and managers whose duties entail
enormous responsibilities.  Some of the responsibilities inherent in a
chosen military career are obvious, such as running a nuclear submarine
or commanding a platoon of demolition specialists.  Less obvious, but
just as important, are the various clerical and managerial tasks that are
essential to the smooth operation of our national defense and
international peacekeeping.  Military training is thorough, disciplined,
and tough.  Working conditions vary greatly, but in all cases, standards
of appearance and behavior are regulated.  While forty-hour weeks are
common, many officers must work odd, long hours.  The perks include
extensive travel and health-care benefits, as well as family-oriented
services like day care, job security, and a decent pension after a
relatively short career.  Of course, the gratitude our nation shows its
soldiers cannot be left out of the package.
          ---The Princeton Review, 2008      


     The Galactica was again returning to Base for replacements, both
capsules and men.  Starbuck had bought his farm, covering a pickup---and
that one had cost us the Father (Tigh), too.  And besides that, I had to
be replaced.  I was wearing brand-new sergeant's chevrons (vice Ravishol)
but I had a hunch that Boomer would be wearing them as soon as I was out
of the ship---they were mostly honorary, I knew; the promotion was
Croft's way of giving me a good sendoff as I was detached for O.C.S.
     But it didn't keep me from being proud of them. At the Fleet
spacedrome, I went through the exit gate with my nose in the air and
strode up to the quarantine desk to have my orders stamped.  As this was
being done I heard a polite, respectful voice behind me:  "Excuse me,
Sergeant, but that shuttle that just came down....is it from the
Galactica---"
     I turned to see the speaker, flicked my eyes over his sleeves, saw
that it was a gray-haired, powerfully built corporal, no doubt one of
our---
     "Father!  By all that's holy!"
     Then the corporal had his arms around me.  "Apollo!  Apollo!  Oh, my
little Apollo!"
     I kissed him and hugged him and started to cry.  Maybe that civilian
clerk at the quarantine desk had never seen two non-coms kiss each other
before.  If I'd noticed him so much as lifting an eyebrow, I would've
pasted him.  But I didn't notice him; I was busy.  He had to remind me to
take my orders with me.
     By then we had blown our noses and quite making an open spectacle of
ourselves.  I said, "Father, let's find a corner somewhere and sit down
and talk.  I want to know....well, everything!" I took a deep breath.  "I
thought you surely dead."
     "No.  Came close to buying it once or twice, maybe. 
But...Son....Sergeant----I really do have to find out more about that
shuttlecraft.  You see..."
     "Oh, that.  It's from the Galactica. I just---"
     He looked terribly disappointed.  "Then I've got to bounce, right
now.  I've got to report in."  Then he added eagerly, "But you'll be back
aboard soon, won't you, Apollo?  Or are you going on a furlong?"
     "Uh, no."  I thought fast.  Of all the ways to have things roll! 
"Look, Father, I know the shuttle schedule.  You can't go aboard for at
least an hour and a bit.  That shuttlecraft is not on a fast retrieve;
she'll make a minimum fuel rendezvous with the Galactica completes this
pass---if the pilot doesn't have to wait over for the next pass after
that; they've got to load first."
     He said dubiously, "My orders read to report at once to the pilot of
the first available battlestar's shuttlecraft."
     "Father, Father!  Do you have to be so confounded regulation?  The
girl who's pushing that heap won't give a frak whether you board the
shuttle now, or just as they button up.  Anyhow, they'll play the ship's
recall over the speakers in here ten minutes before boost and announce
it.  You can't miss it."
     He let me lead him over to an empty corner.  As we sat down he
added, "Will you be going up in the same shuttle, Apollo?  Or later?"
     "Uh....." I showed him my orders; it seemed the easiest way to break
the news.  Ships that pass in the night----cripes, what a way for things
to break!
     He read them and got tears in his eyes and I said hastily, "Look,
Father, I'm going to try to come back---I wouldn't want any other outfit
than the Blues.  And with you in them.....I know it's disappointing,
but...."
     "I'm not disappointed, Apollo."
     "You're not?"
     "I'm proud!  My boy is going to be an officer.  My little
Apollo---well, it's also a disappointment; I'll give you that.  I'd
waited for this day, but I can wait a while longer."  He smiled through
his tears.  "You've grown.  And filled out, too."
     "I guess so.  But, Father, I'm not an officer yet and I might only
be out of the Galactica a few days.  I mean, they sometimes bust 'em out
pretty fast and...."
     "Enough!"
     "What?"
     "You'll make it.  Let's have no more talk of 'busting out.'" 
Suddenly he smiled.  "That's the first time I've been able to tell a
sergeant to shut up."
     "I'll certainly try, Father.  And if I do make it, I'll certainly
put in for the old Galactica. But..." I trailed off.  
     "Yes, I know.  Your request will mean nothing unless there's a
billet for you.  Never mind.  If this centon is all we have, we'll make
the most of it----and I'm so proud of you I'm bursting at the seams.  How
have you been, Apollo?"
     "Fine, just fine."  I was thinking that it wasn't all bad.  He'd be
better off in the Blues than in any other outfit.  All my
friends....they'd take care of him, keep him alive.  "Father, how long
have you been in?"
     "A little over a yahren."
     "And you're a corporal already!  By all that's holy!"
     Father smiled grimly.  "They're making them fast these days."
     It was not necessary to ask what he meant.  Casualties.  There were
always vacancies in the T.O.; you couldn't get enough trained soldiers to
fill them.  Instead, I said, "Uh....but, Father, you're----Well, I mean,
aren't you sort of old to be a trooper?  I mean the Fleet, or Logistics,
or...."
     "I wanted the C.I. and I got it!" he said emphatically.  "And I'm no
older than many sergeants....not as old, in fact.  Son, the mere fact
that I am forty-two yahrens older than you are doesn't put me in a
wheelchair.  And age has its advantages, too."
     I must admit he had a point.  I remembered how Sergeant Tolan had
always tried the older men first, when he was dealing out boot chevrons. 
And Father would never have goofed in Basic the way I had....no lashes
for him.  He was probably spotted as non-com material before he ever
completed Basic.  The Army needs a lot of really grown-up men in the
middle grades; it's a paternalistic organization.
     I didn't have to ask him why he had wanted C.I. nor why or how he'd
wound up in my ship....I just felt warm about it, more flattered by it
than any praise he'd ever given me in words.  And I didn't want to ask
him why he enlisted; I felt that I knew.  Mother.  Neither of us had
mentioned her----too painful.
     So I changed the subject abruptly.  "Update me.  Tell me where
you've been and what you've done."
     "Firstly, I trained at Camp Maximian."
     "Huh? Not Columbia?"
     "New one.  But the same old lumps, I understand.  Only they rush you
through two sectars faster, you don't get Sundays off.  Then I requested
the Galactica---and didn't get it---and wound up in the Talon Sunrise
Platoon.  A good outfit."
     "Yes, I know."  They had a reputation for being rough, tough and
nasty---almost as good as the Blues.
     "I should say that it was a good outfit.  I made several drops with
them and some of the boys bought it and after a while I got these."  He
glanced at his chevrons.  "I was a corporal when we dropped on
Deryann...."
     "You were there?  So was I!"  With a sudden warm flood of emotion I
felt closer to Father than ever had before.
     "I know.  At least I knew your outfit was there.  I was about fifty
maxims north of you, near as I can guess.  We soaked up that
counterattack when they came boiling up out of the ground like eptesines
out of a cave."  Father shrugged.  "So when it was over, I was a corporal
without an outfit, not enough of us left to make a healthy cadre.  So
they sent me here.  I could've gone with the Badger Platoon, but I had a
word with the placement sergeant---and, sure as sunrise, the Galactica
came back with a billet for a corporal.  So here I am."
     "And when did you enlist?" I realized that it was the wrong remark
as soon as I'd made it....but I had to get the subject away from Talon
Sunrise; an orphan from a dead outfit wants to forget it.
     Father said quietly, "Shortly after Kendor."
     "I see."
     Father didn't say anything for several moments.  Then he said
slowly, "I don't think you do see, son." 
     "Sir?"
     "Mmm...it will not be easy to explain.  Certainly, losing your
mother had a great deal to do with it.  But I didn't enroll to avenge
her....even though I had that in mind, too.  You had more to do with it.
"
     "Me?"
     "Yes, you.  Son, I always understood what you were doing better than
your mother did...don't blame her; she never had a chance to know, any
more than an avian can understand swimming.  And perhaps I knew why you
did it, even though I beg to doubt that you knew yourself, at the time. 
At least half of my anger at you was sheer resentment.....that you'd
actually done something that I knew, buried deep in my heart, I should
have done.  But you weren't the cause of my joining up, either....you
merely helped trigger it and you did control the service I chose."
     He paused.  "I wasn't in good shape at the time I enlisted.  I was
seeing my hypnotherapist pretty regularly----you never suspected that,
did you?----but we'd gotten no farther than a clear recognition that I
was enormously dissatisfied.  After you left, I took it out on you....but
it wasn't you, and I knew it and so did my therapist.  I suppose I knew
that there was real trouble brewing earlier than most; we were invited to
bid on military components fully a month before the state of emergency
was declared. We had converted almost entirely to war production while
you were still in training.
     "I felt better during that period, worked to death and too busy to
see my therapist.  Then I became more troubled than ever."  He smiled. 
"Son, do you know about civilians?"
     "I know we don't speak the same language."
     "Well said, Apollo.  Do you remember Siress Belloby?  I was on a few
days leave after I finished Basic and I went home.  I saw some of our
friends, said goodbye---she among them.  She chattered away and said,
'Oh, Adama, are you really going out?  Well, if you reach Hesperus, you
really must look up my dear friends, Sire and Siress Uri.'
     "I told her as gently as I could, that it seemed unlikely, since the
Crawlons had occupied Hesperus.
     "It didn't faze her in the least.  She said, 'Oh, that's all
right-they're civilians!'"  Father smiled cynically.
     "Yes, I know."
     "But, I'm getting ahead of my story.  I told you that I was getting
still more upset.  Your mother's death released for me what I had to
do...even though she and I were closer than most, nevertheless it set me
free to do it.  I turned the business over to Deimos...."
     "Old man Deimos?  Can he handle it?"
     "Yes.  Because he must.  A lot of us are doing things we didn't know
we could.  I gave him a nice chunk of stock.....you know the old saying
about the kine that tread the grain...and the rest I split two ways, in a
trust; half to the Charity Daughters, half to you whenever you want to go
back and claim it.  If you do.  Never mind.  I had at last found out what
was wrong with me."  He stopped, then said very softly, "I had to perform
an act of faith.  I had to prove to myself that I was a man.  Not just a
producing-consuming economic animal....but a man."
     At that moment, before I could answer anything, the wall speakers
around us sand: "---shines the name, shines the name of Galactica!"  and
a girl's voice added, "Personnel for Battlestar Galactica , stand to
shuttle.  Berth Eta.  Nine mili-centons."
     Father bounced to his feet, grabbed his kit roll.  "That's mine! 
Take care of yourself, son---and hit those exams.  Or you'll find you're
still not too big to paddle."
     "I will, Father."
     He embraced me hastily. "See you when we get back!"  And he was
gone, on the bounce.

*****

     In the Commandant's outer office I reported to a Fleet sergeant who
looked remarkably like Sergeant Hawkeye, even to lacking an arm. 
However, he lacked Sergeant Hawkeye's smile as well.  I said, "Career
Sergeant Apollo, to report to the Commandant pursuant to orders."
     He glanced at the clock. "Your shuttle was down seventy-three
mili-centons ago.  Well?"
     So I told him.  He pulled his lip and looked at me meditatively. 
"I've heard every excuse in the book.  But you've just added a new page. 
Your father, your own father, really was reporting to your old ship just
as you were detached?"
     "It's the bare truth, Sergeant.  You can check it----Corporal Adama,
House of Kobol, Planet Caprica."
     "We don't check the statements of the 'young gentlemen' around here. 
We just cashier them if it ever turns out that they have not told the
truth.  Okay, a boy who wouldn't be late in order to see his old man off
wouldn't be worth much in any case.  Forget it."
     "Thanks, Sergeant. Do I report to the Commandant now?"
     "You already have."  He made a checkmark on a list.  "Maybe a sectar
from now he'll send for you along with a couple of dozen others.  Here's
your room assignment, here's a checkoff list you start with...and you can
start by cutting off those chevrons.  But save them; you may need them
later.  But as of this moment, you're just 'Apollo,' not 'Sergeant.'"
     "Yes, sir."
     "Don't call me 'sir.' I call you 'sir.'  But you won't like it."

*****

     I'm not going to describe Officer Candidates School.  It's like
Basic, but squared and cubed with books added.  In the mornings we
behaved like privates, doing the same old things we'd done in Basic and
in combat and being chewed out for the way we did them....by sergeants. 
In the afternoons we were cadets and "gentlemen," and recited on and were
lectured concerning an endless list of subjects:  math, science,
galactography, xenology, hypnopedia, logistics, strategy and tactics,
communications, military law, land reading, special weapons, psychology
of leadership, anything from the care and feeding of privates to why
Genereal Dardanus lost the big one.  Most especially how to be a one-man
catastrophe yourself while keeping track of fifty other men, nursing
them, loving them, leading them, saving them.....but never babying them.
     We had beds, which we used all too little; we had rooms and showers
and inside plumbing; and each four candidates had a civilian servant, to
make our beds and clean our rooms and shine our shoes and lay out our
uniforms and run errands.  This service was not intended as a luxury and
wasn't; its purpose was to give the student more time to accomplish the
plainly impossible by relieving him of things any graduate of Basic can
already do so perfectly.

     Six days shalt thou work and do all      thou art able,
     The seventh the same and pound on      the cable.

     Or the Army version ends:---and clean out the stable, which shows
you how many centuries this thing has been going on.  I wish I could
catch just one of those civilians who think we loaf and put them through
one month of O.C.S.
     In the evenings and all day Sundays we studied until our eyes burned
and our ears ached---then slept (if we slept) with a hypnopedic speaker
droning away under the pillow.  
     Our number one marching song was appropriately downbeat:  


War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Say it again, y'all

War, huh, good God
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Listen to me

Ohhh, war, I despise
Because it means destruction 
Of innocent lives

War means tears 
To thousands of mothers' eyes
When their sons go to fight
And lose their lives

I said, war, huh
Good God, y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Say it again

War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Listen to me

War, it ain't nothing
But a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Ooooh, war
It's an enemy to all mankind
The point of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest
Within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die?
Aaaaah, war-huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Say, say it, say it 
War, huh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Listen to me

War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Uh-huh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Say it again y'all
War, huh, good God
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Listen to me

War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, it's got one friend,
That's the undertaker
Oooooh, war, has shattered
Many a young man's dreams
Made him disabled bitter and mean
Life is much too short and precious 
To spend fighting wars these days 
War can't give life
It can only take it away

Oooh, war, huh,
Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Say it again


War, whoa, Lords
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing!
Listen to me

War, it ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War, friend only to the undertaker
Peace, love and understanding 
Tell me; is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lords know there's got to be a better way

Ooooooh, war, huh
Good God, y'all
What is it good for?
You tell me!
Say it, say it, say it, say it


War, huh
Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Stand up and shout it!
Nothing!



     Yet somehow I don't remember being unhappy.  Too busy, I guess. 
There was never that psychological "hump" to get over, the one everybody
hits in Basic; there was simply the ever-present fear of flunking out. 
My poor preparation in math bothered me especially.  My roommate, a
settler from Mordac with the oddly appropriate name of "Murphy," sat up
night after night, teaching me.
     Most of the tutors, especially the officers, were disabled.  The
only ones I can remember who had a full complement of arms, legs,
eyesight and, hearing, etc., were some of the non-commissioned combat
tutors----and not all of those.  Our coach in dirty fighting sat in a
powered chair, wearing a plastic collar, and was completely paralyzed
from the neck down.  But his tongue wasn't paralyzed, his eye was
photographic, and the savage way in which he could analyze and criticize
what he'd seen made up for his minor impediment.
     At first I wondered why those obvious candidates for physical
retirement and full-pay pension didn't take it and go home.  Then I
stopped wondering.
     I guess the high point in my whole cadet course was a visit from
Ensign Sheba, she of the dark eyes, junior watch officer and
helmsman-under-instruction of the battlestar Titania. Sheba showed up,
looking incredibly pert in Fleet dress blues and about the size of a
paperweight, while my class was lined up for evening meal
muster----walked down the line and you could hear eyeballs click as she
passed----walked straight up to the duty officer and asked for me by name
in a clear, penetrating voice.
     The duty officer, Captain Cashlin, was widely believed never to have
smiled at his own mother, but he smiled down at little Sheba, straining
his face out of shape, and admitted my existence....whereupon she waved
her long black lashes at him, explained that her ship was about to boost
and could she please take me out to dinner?
     And I found myself in possession of a highly irregular and totally
unprecedented three-centon pass.  It may be that the Fleet has developed
hypnosis techniques that they have not yet gotten around to passing on to
the Army.  Or her secret weapon may be older than that and not usable by
C.I.  In any case I not only had a wonderful time but my prestige with my
classmates, none too high until then, climbed to amazing heights.
     It was a glorious evening, and well worth flunking two classes the
next day.  It was somewhat dimmed by the fact that we had each heard
about Zac---killed when the Bugs smashed our research station on
Aeries---but only somewhat, as we had learned to live with such things.
     One thing did startle me.  Sheba relaxed and took off her hat while
we were eating, and her long brown hair was all gone.  I knew that a lot
of the Fleet girls shaved their heads----after all, it's not practical to
take care of long hair in a warship and, most especially, a pilot can't
risk having her hair floating around, getting in the way, in any
zero-gravity maneuvers.  I shaved my own scalp, just for convenience and
cleanliness.  But my mental picture of Sheba included this mane of thick,
straight hair.
     But, do you know, once you get used to it, it's rather cute.  I
mean, if a girl looks all right to start with, she still looks all right
with her head smooth.  And it does serve to set a Fleet girl apart from
civilian chicks---sort of a lodge pin, like the gold skulls for combat
drops.  It made Sheba look distinguished, gave her dignity, and for the
first time I fully realized that she really was an officer and a fighting
man-as well as a very pretty girl.
     I got back to barracks with stars in my eyes and whiffing slightly
of perfume.  Sheba had kissed me goodbye.

*****

     The only O.C.S. classroom course the content of which I'm ever going
to mention was:  History and Moral Philosophy.
     I was shocked to find it in the curriculum.  H & M.P. has nothing to
do with combat and how to lead a platoon; its connection with war (where
it is connected) is in why to fight---a matter already settled for any
candidate long before he reaches O.C.S.  A C.I. fights simply because
he's a C.I.  
     I decided that the course must be a repeat for the benefit of those
of us (maybe a third) who had never had it in school.  Over 20 per cent
of my cadet class were not from the Colonies (a much higher percentage of
settlers from backwater planets sign up to serve than do people born on
any of the Twelve Colonies----sometimes it makes you wonder) and of the
three-quarters or so from the Colonies, some were from associated
territories and other places where H & M.P. might not be taught.  So I
figured it for a cinch course which would give me a little rest from
tough courses, the ones with decimal points.
     Wrong again.  Unlike my high school course, you had to pass it.  Not
by examination, however.  The course included examinations and prepared
papers and quizzes and such---but no marks.  What you had to have was the
tutor's opinion that you were worthy of commission.
     If he gave you a downcheck, a board sat on you, questioning whether
not merely whether you could be an officer but whether you belonged in
the Army at any rank, no matter how fast you might be with
weapons---deciding whether to give you extra instruction....or just kick
you out and let you be a civilian.
     History and Moral Philosophy works like a delayed action bomb.  You
wake up in the middle of the night and think:  Now what did he mean by
that?  That had been true even with my high school course:  I simply
hadn't known what Colonel Cain was talking about.  When I was a kid I
thought it was silly for the course to be in the science department.  It
was nothing like physics or chemistry; why wasn't it over in the fuzzy
studies where it belonged?  The only reason I paid attention was because
there were such lovely arguments.
     I had no idea that Cain was trying to teach me why to fight until
long after I had decided to fight anyhow.  
     So why should I fight?  Wasn't it preposterous to expose my tender
skin to the violence of unfriendly strangers?  Especially as the
take-home-pay (at any rank) was barely spending money, the centons
terrible, and the working conditions worse?  When I could be sitting at
home while such matters were handled by thick-skulled characters that
enjoyed such games?  Particularly when the strangers against whom I
fought had never done anything to me personally until I showed up and
started kicking over their ambrosa wagon---what sort of felgercarb is
this?
     Fight because I'm a C.I.?  Brother, stop drooling and start
thinking.
     Major Gundar, our tutor, was a blind man with a disconcerting habit
of looking straight at you and calling you by name. We were reviewing
events after the war between the Colonies and the Cylon Alliance, 7342
and following. But this was the day that we heard news of the destruction
of Virgon and its twin moons Arboria and Coralia; I thought he would give
us a pep talk.  After all, even a civilian ought to be able to figure it
out now---the Bugs or us.  Fight or die.
     Major Gundar didn't mention Virgon.  He had one of us siminoids
summarize the negotiated treaty of Usepoth M, discuss how it disregarded
prisoners of war....and, by implication, dropped the subject forever; the
armistice became a stalemate and prisoners of war stayed where they
were----on one side; on the other side they were turned loose and, during
the Era of Darkness, make way back to their home planets----or not if
they chose not to.
     Major Gundar's victim summed up the unreleased prisoners:  survivors
of two divisions of Colonial warriors, some thousands of civilians,
captured mostly on Jol'Trata, Casmoro Acapellico, and the Cylons'
homeworld and sentenced for "political" crimes.
     "Besides that, there were many other military prisoners," Colonel
Gundar's victim went on, "captured during and before the war----there
were rumors that some had been captured in an earlier war and never
released.  The total of unreleased prisoners was never known.  The best
estimates place the number around sixty-five thousand."
     "Why the 'best'?"
     "Uh, that's the best estimate in the textbook, sir."
     "Please be precise in your language.  Was the number greater or less
than one hundred thousand?"
     "Uh, I don't know, sir."
     "And neither does anybody else.  Was it greater than one thousand?"
     "Probably, sir.  Almost certainly."
     "Utterly certain---because more than that eventually escaped,
returned to their home planets, were tallied by name.  I see you did not
read your lesson carefully.  Apollo!"
     Now I'm the victim.  "Yes, sir."
     "Are a thousand released prisoners sufficient reason to start or
resume a war?  Bear in mind that millions of innocent people may die,
almost certainly will die, if war is started or resumed."
     I didn't hesitate.  "Yes, sir!  More than reason enough."
     "'More than enough.'  Very well, is one prisoner unreleased by the
enemy, enough reason to start or resume a war?"
     I hesitated, for I knew the C.I. answer---but I didn't think that
was the one he wanted.  He said sharply, "Come, come, Apollo!  We have an
upper limit of one thousand; I invited you to consider a lower limit of
one.  But you can't pay a promissory note which reads 'somewhere between
one and one thousand cubits'---and starting a war is much more serious
than paying a trifle of money.  Wouldn't it be criminal to endanger a
planet---two planets, in fact---to save one man?  Especially as he may
not deserve it?  Or may die in the meantime? Thousands of people get
killed every day in accidents....so why hesitate over one man?  Answer! 
Answer yes, or answer no---you're holding up the class."
     He jarred my chips.  I gave him the traditional Colonial Trooper's
answer.  "Yes, sir!"
     "'Yes' what?"
     "It doesn't matter whether it's a thousand---or just one, sir.  You
fight."
     "Aha!  The number of prisoners is irrelevant.  Good.  Now prove your
answer."
     I was stuck.  I knew it was the right answer.  But I didn't know
why.  He kept hounding me.  "Speak up, Apollo.  This is an exact science. 
You've made a mathematical statement; you must give proof.  Someone may
claim that you have asserted, by analogy, that one groundspud is worth
the same price, no more, no loess, as one thousand groundspuds.  No?"
     "No, sir!"
     'Why not?  Prove it."
     "Men are not groundspuds!"
     "Good, good, Apollo!  I think we've strained your tired brain enough
for one day.  Bring to class tomorrow a written proof, in symbolic logic,
of your answer to my original question.  I'll give you a hint.  See
reference seven in today's chapter.  Salomon!  How did the present
political organization evolve out of the Era of Darkness?  And what is
its moral justification?"
     Salomon stumbled through the first part.  However, nobody can
describe how the Era of Darkness finally gave way to The Sunlight Days;
it just happened.  With planetary governments in collapse at the end of
the Sixth Millennium, something had to fill the vacuum, and in many cases
it was the returned veterans.  They'd fought a war that ended in a draw,
most of them had no jobs, many were sore as could be over the terms of
the Treaty of Usepoth M, especially the P.O.W. goof-up---and they knew
how to fight.  But it wasn't revolution; the system collapsed; somebody
else moved in.
     The first known case, in Piconopolis, Picon, was typical.  Some
veterans got together as vigilantes to stop rioting and looting, hanged a
few people (including two veterans) and decided not to let anybody but
veterans on their committee.  Just arbitrary, at first---they trusted
each other a bit, they didn't trust anybody else.  What started as an
emergency measure became constitutional practice....in a generation or
two.
     Probably those Picon veterans, since they were finding it necessary
to hang some veterans, decided that, if they had to do this, they weren't
going to let any 'bleedin'' profiteering, black-market,
double-time-for-overtime, army-dodging, unprintable" civilians have any
say about it.  They'd do what they were told---while us simionids
straightened things out!  That's my guess, because I might feel the same
way...and historians agree that antagonism between civilians and returned
warriors was more intense than we can imagine today.
     Salomon didn't tell it by the book.  Finally, Major Gundar cut him
off.  "Bring a summary to class tomorrow, three thousand words. Salomon,
can you give me a reason---not historical nor theoretical but
practical---why the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans?"
     "Uh, because they're picked men, sir.  Smarter."
     "Felgercarb!"
     "Sir?"
     "Is the word too long for you?  I said it was a silly notion. 
Service men are not brighter than civilians. In some cases, civilians are
more intelligent.  That was the sliver of justification underlying the
attempted coup just before the Treaty of Usepoth M, the so-called 'Revolt
of the Scientists':  let the intelligent elite run things and you'll have
utopia.  It fell flat on its foolish face, of course.  Because the
pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social
virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in
social responsibility.  I've given you a hint, Salomon; can you pick it
up?"
     Salomon answered, "Uh, service men are disciplined, sir."
     Major Gundar was gentle with him.  "Sorry.  An appealing theory not
backed up by facts.  You and I aren't allowed to vote as long as we
remain in the Service, nor is it verifiable that military discipline
makes a man self-disciplined once he's out; the crime rate of veterans is
much like that of civilians.  And you've forgotten that in peacetime most
veterans come from non-combat auxiliary services and haven't been
subjected to the full rigors of military discipline; they've merely been
harried, overworked, and endangered----yet their votes count."
     Major Gundar smiled.  "Salomon, I handed you a trick question.  The
practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical
reason for continuing anything:  It works satisfactorily.
     "Nevertheless, it's instructive to observe the details.  Throughout
history, men have labored to place the sovereign franchise in hands that
would guard it well and use it wisely, for the benefit of all.  An early
attempt was absolute monarchy, passionately defended as the 'divine right
of kings.'
     "Sometimes attempts were made to select a wise monarch, rather than
leave it up to the Lords of Kobol.
     "Historic examples ranged from absolute monarch to utter anarch;
mankind has tried thousands of ways and many more have been proposed,
some weird in the extreme.  But the intent has always been moralistic; to
provide stable and benevolent government.
     "All systems seek to achieve this be limiting franchise to those who
are believed to have the wisdom to use it justly.  I repeat 'all systems'
; even the so-called 'unlimited democracies' excluded from franchise not
less than one quarter of their populations by age, birth, poll tax,
criminal record, or other."
     Major Gundar smiled cynically. "I've never been able to see how a
thirty-yahren-old moron can vote more wisely than a fifteen-yahren-old
genius....but that was the age of the 'divine right of the common man.'
Never mind, they paid for their folly.
     "The sovereign franchise has been bestowed by all sorts of
rules---home planet, family of birth, species, sex, property, education,
age religion, et cetera.  All these systems worked and none of them well. 
All were regarded as tyrannical by many, all eventually collapsed or were
overthrown.
     "Now here we are with still another system...and our system works
quite well.  Many complain but none rebel; personal freedom for all is
greatest in history, laws are few, taxes are low, living standards are as
high as productivity permits, crime is at its lowest ebb. Why?  Not
because the voters are smarter than other people; we've disposed of that
argument.  Aalekzander---can you tell us why our system works better than
any our ancestors used?"
     I don't know where Aalekzander got his name; I'd take him for a
Gemonese Otori.  He answered, "Uh, I'd venture to guess that it's because
the electors are a small group who know that the decisions are up to
them...so they study the issues."
     "No guessing, pleas; this is exact science.  And your guess is
wrong.  The ruling nobles of many another system were a small group fully
aware of their grave power.  Furthermore, our franchised citizens are not
everywhere, a small fraction; you know (or should know) that the
percentage of citizens among adults ranges from over eighty percent on
Boshaunn to less than three per cent on the Twelve Colonies----yet
government is much the same everywhere.  Nor are the voters picked men;
they bring no special wisdom, talent, or training to their sovereign
tasks.  So what difference is there between our voters and wielders of
franchise in the past?  We have had enough guesses; I'll state the
obvious:  Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has
demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the
welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.
     "And that's the one practical difference.
     "He may fail in wisdom; he may lapse in civic virtue.  But his
average performance is enormously better than that of any other class of
rulers in history."
     Major Gundar paused to touch the face of an old-fashioned
chronometer, "reading" its hands.  "The period is almost over and we have
yet to determine the moral reason for our success in governing ourselves. 
Now continued success is never a matter of chance.  Bear in mind that
this is a science, not wishful thinking; the universe is what it is, not
what we want it to be.  To vote is to wield authority; it is the supreme
authority from which all other authority derives----such as mine to make
your lives miserable once a day.  Force, is you will! ----the franchise
is force, naked and raw, the Power of the Rods and the Ax. Whether it is
exerted by twelve men (as in the case of our present Quorum of the
Twelve) or twelve billion, political authority is force.
     "But this universe consists of paired dualities.  What is the
converse of authority?  Apollo."
     Now that one I could answer.  "Responsibility, sir."
     "Applause.  Both for practical reasons and for mathematically
verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be
equal---else a balancing act takes place as surely as current flows
between points of unequal potential.  To permit irresponsible authority
is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he doesn't
control is to behave with blind idiocy. The unlimited democracies were
unstable because their citizens were not responsible for the fashion in
which they exerted their sovereign authority....other than through the
tragic logic of history.  The unique 'poll tax' that we must pay was
unheard of.  No attempt was made to determine whether a voter was
socially responsible to the extent of his literally unlimited authority. 
If he voted the impossible, the disastrous possible happened
instead----and responsibility was then forced on him willy-nilly and
destroyed both him and his foundationless temple.
     "Superficially, our system is only slightly different; we have
democracy unlimited by colony, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction,
and anyone may win sovereign power by a usually short and not too arduous
term of service----nothing more than a light workout to our Kobolian
ancestors.  But that slight difference is one between a system that
works, since it is constructed to match the facts, and one that is
inherently unstable.  Since sovereign franchise is the ultimate in human
authority, we insure that all who wield it accept the ultimate in social
responsibility---we require each person who wishes to exert control over
the state to wager his own life....and lose it, if need be---to save the
life of the state.  The maximum responsibility a human can accept is thus
equated to the ultimate authority a human can exert."
     The Major added, "Can anyone define why there has never been a
revolution against our system?  No attempt to overthrow the Quorum of
Twelve?  Despite the fact that every government in history has had such? 
Despite the notorious fact that complaints are loud and unceasing?"
     One of the older cadets took a crack at it.  "Sir, revolution is
impossible."
     "Yes.  But why?"
     "Because revolution---armed uprising---requires not only
dissatisfaction but aggressiveness.  A revolutionist has to be willing to
fight and die----or he's just a parlor pink.  If you separate out the
aggressive ones and make them the sheep daggits, the sheep will never
give you trouble."
     "Nicely put!  Analogy is always suspect, but that one is close to
the facts.  Bring me a mathematical proof tomorrow.  Time for one more
question----ask and it shall be answered.  Anyone?"
     "Uh, sir, why not go---well, go the limit?  Require everyone to
serve and let everybody vote?"
     "Young man, can you restore my eyesight?"
     "Sir?  Why, no, sir!"
     "You'd find it much easier than to instill moral virtue----social
responsibility----into a person who doesn't have it, doesn't want it, and
resents having the burden thrust upon him.  This is why we make it so
hard to enlist, so easy to resign.  Social responsibility above the level
of family, or at most of colony, requires imagination---devotion,
loyalty, all the higher virtues---which a man must develop himself; if he
has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.  Conscript armies have
been tried in the past."  He touched his watch.  "Dismissed."
     Major Gundar gave us a busy time.
     But it was interesting.  I caught one of those master's thesis
assignments he chucked around so casually; I had suggested that the
Cylons were different from most of our past alien enemies.  I got sawed
off and handed this:  Required:  to prove that aggressiveness and moral
perfection derive from the same racial inheritance.  Briefly, thus:  All
wars arise from population pressure.  (Yes, even the Cylons had their
population pressures, though you have to dig into birth rate,
technologies and several other things to prove it.)  Morals----all
correct moral rules---derive from the instinct to survive; moral behavior
is survival behavior above the individual level---as in a father who dies
to save his children.  But since population pressure results from the
process of surviving through others, then war, because it results from
population pressure, derives from the same inherited instinct which
produces all moral rules suitable for human beings.
     Check of proof:  Is it possible to abolish war by relieving
population pressure (and thus do away with the all-too-evident evils of
war) through constructing a moral code under which population is limited
to resources?
     Without debating the usefulness of morality of planned parenthood,
it may be verified by observation that any species which stops its own
increase gets crowded out by species which expand.  Some human
populations did so, in Colonial history, and other species moved in and
engulfed them.
     Nevertheless, let's assume that the human race manages to balance
birth and death, just right to fit its own planets, and thereby becomes
peaceful.  What happens?
     Soon (about next Wednesday) the Bugs move in, kill off that species
which "ain't gonna study war no more" and the universe forgets us.  Which
may still happen.  Either we spread and wipe out the Bugs, or they spread
and wipe us out---because both races are tough and smart and want the
same real estate.
     Do you know how fast population pressure could cause us to fill the
entire universe shoulder to shoulder?  The answer will astound you, just
the flicker of an eye in terms of the age of our race.
     Try it---it's a compound-interest expansion.
     But does Man have any "right" to spread through the universe?
     Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive and (so
far) the ability, against all competition.  Unless one accepts that,
anything one says about morals, war, politics---and suchlike----is
felgercarb.  Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is---not what
do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunties would like him to be.
     The universe will let us know---later---whether or not Man has any
"right" to expand through it.
     In the meantime the C.I. will be in there, on the bounce and
swinging, on the side of our own race.
     Toward the end each of us was shipped out to serve under an
experienced combat commander.  This was a semifinal examination, your
'board-ship instructor could decide that you didn't have what it takes. 
You could demand a board but I never heard of anybody who did; they
either came back with an upcheck---or we never say them again.
     Some hadn't failed; it was just that they were killed---because
assignments were to ships about to go into action.  We were required to
keep kit bags packed----once at lunch, all the cadet officers of my
company were tapped; they left without eating and I found myself cadet
company commander.
     Like boot chevrons, this is an uncomfortable honor, but in less than
two days my own call name.
     I bounced down to the Commandant's office, kit bag over my shoulder
and feeling grand.  I was sick of the late hours and burning eyes and
never catching up, of looking stupid in class; a few weeks in the
cheerful company of a combat team was just what Apollo needed!
     I passed some new cadets, trotting to class in close formation, each
with the grim look that every O.C.S. candidate gets when he realizes that
possibly he made a mistake in bucking for officer, and I found myself
signing.  I shut up when I was within earshot of the office.
     Two other cadets were there, Cadets Daden and Goldbug.  Daden the
Deadly was the oldest man in our class and looked like something a
fisherman had let out of a bottle, while Goldbug wasn't much bigger than
an avian and about as intimidating.
     We were ushered into the Holy of Holies.  The Commandant was in his
wheelchair----we never saw him out of it except Saturday inspection and
parade.  I guess walking hurt.  But that didn't mean you didn't see
him---you could be working a prob at the board, turn around and find that
wheelchair behind you, and Colonel Wyleeum reading your mistakes.
     He never interrupted---there was a standing order not to shout
"Attention!" But it's disconcerting.  There seemed to be about six of
him.
     The Commandant had a permanent rank of Fleet general (yes, that
Wyleeum); his rank as colonel was temporary, pending second retirement,
to permit him to be Commandant.  I once questioned a paymaster about this
and confirmed what the regulations seemed to say:  The Commandant got
only the pay of a colonel---but would revert to the pay of a Fleet
general on the day he decided to retire again.
     Well, as Starbuck says, it takes all kinds----I can't imagine
choosing half pay for the privilege of riding herd on cadets. 
     Colonel Wyleeum looked up and said, "Morning, gentlemen. Make
yourselves comfortable."  I sat down but wasn't comfortable.  He glided
over to a java machine, drew four cups, and Daden helped him deal them
out.  I didn't want java but a cadet can't refuse the Commandant's
hospitality.
     He took a sip.  "I have your orders, gentlemen," he announced, "and
your temporary commissions."  He went on, "But I want to be sure you
understand your status."
     We had already been lectured about this.  We were going to be
officers just enough for instruction and testing---"supernumerary,
probationary, and temporary."  Very junior, quite superfluous, on good
behavior, and extremely temporary; we would even revert to cadet when we
got back and could be busted at any time by the officers examining us.
     We would be "temporary third lieutenants"---a rank as necessary as
feet on a fish, wedged into the hairline between fleet sergeants and
genuine officers.  It is as low as you can get and still be called an
"officer." If anybody ever saluted a third lieutenant, the light must
have been bad.
     "Your commission reads 'third lieutenant,'" he continued, "but your
pay stays the same, you continue to be addressed by name, the only change
in uniform is a shoulder pip even smaller than cadet insignia.  You
continue under instruction since it has not yet been settled that you are
fit to be officers."  The Colonel smiled.  "So why call you a 'third
lieutenant'?"
     I had wondered about that.  Why this whoopty-do about "commissions"
that weren't real commissions?
     Of course, I knew the textbook answer.
     "Goldbug?" the commandant said.
     "Uh...to place us in the line of command, sir."
     "Exactly!" Colonel glided to a T.O. on one wall.  It was the usual
pyramid, with chain of command defined all the way down.  "Look at
this---"he pointed to a box connected to his own by a horizontal line; it
read: ASSISTANT TO COMMANDANT (Chryseis)
     "Gentlemen," he went on, 'I would have trouble running this place
without Chryseis. Her head is a rapid-access file to everything that
happens around here."  He touched a control on his chair and spoke to the
air:  "Chryseis, what mark did Cadet Goldbug receive in military law last
term?"
     Her answer came back at once:  "Ninety-three percent, Commandant."
     "Thank you." He continued, "You see?  I sign anything if Chryseis
has initialed it.  I would hate to have an investigating committee find
out how often she signs my name and I don't even see it.  Tell me,
Goldbug---if I drop dead, does Chryseis carry on to keep things going?"
     "Why, uh...." Goldbug looked puzzled.  "I suppose, with routine
matters, she'd do what was necess---"
     "She wouldn't do a blessed thing!" the Colonel thundered.  "Until
Colonel Thanatos told her what to do---his way.  She's a very smart woman
and understands what you apparently do not, namely, that she is not in
the line of command and has no authority."
     He went on, " 'Line of command' isn't just a phrase; it's as real as
a slap in the face.  If I ordered you to combat as a cadet the most you
could do would be to pass along somebody else's orders.  If your platoon
leader bought out and you then gave an order to a private---a good order,
sensible and wise---you could be wrong and he would be just as wrong if
he obeyed it.  Because a cadet cannot be in the line of command.  A cadet
has no military existence, no rank, and is not a warrior.  He's a student
who'll become a soldier---either an officer, or at his former rank. 
While he's under Army discipline, he's not in the Army. That's why...."
     A zero.  A nought with no rim.  If a cadet wasn't even in the
Army....  "Colonel!"
     "Eh?  Speak up, young man.  Apollo."
     I'd startled myself, but I had to say it.  "But...if we're not in
the Army....then we're not C.I.s. Sir?"
     He blinked at me.  "This worries you?"
     "I, uh, don't believe I like it much, sir."  I didn't like it at
all.  I felt naked.
     "I see."  He didn't seem displeased. "You let me worry about the
protector aspects of it, son."
     "But..."
     "It is so ordered!  You are technically not a C.I.  But the C.I.
hasn't forgotten you; the C.I. never forgets its own no matter where they
are.  If you're struck dead this instant, you'll be cremated as Second
Lieutenant Apollo, Colonial Infantry, of...." Colonel Wyleeum stopped.
"Chryseis, what was Apollo's ship?"
     "The Galactica."
     "Thank you." He added, "...in and of the Battlestar Galactica,
assigned to Colonial Infantry team Blue Platoon of Gamma Company, Third
Regiment, First Division, C.I.," he recited with relish, not consulting
anything once he had been reminded of my ship.  "A good outfit,
Apollo----proud and nasty.  Your Final Orders go back to them for Taps
and that's the way your name would read in Memorial Hall.  That's why we
always commission a dead cadet, son---so we can send him home to his
mates."
     I felt a surge of relief and homesickness and missed a few words. 
"....lip buttoned while I talk, we'll have you back in the C.I. where you
belong.  You must be temporary officers for your 'prentice cruise because
there's no room for deadheads in a combat drop.  You'll fight---and take
orders....and give orders.   Legal orders, because you'll hold rank and
be ordered to serve in that team; that makes any order you give in
carrying out your assigned duties as binding as one signed by the C-in-C.
     "Eve more," the Commandant went on, "once you're in line of command,
you must be ready instantly to assume higher command.  If you're in a
one-platoon team---quite likely in the present state of the war----and
you're assistant platoon leader when your platoon leader buys
it...then...you....are....It!"
     He shook his head.  "Not 'acting platoon leader.'  Not a cadet
leading a drill.  Not a 'junior officer under instruction.'  Suddenly
you're the Old Man, the Boss.  Commanding Officer Present---and you
discover with a sickening shock that fellow human beings are depending on
you alone to tell them what to do, how to fight, how to complete the
mission and get out alive.  They wait for the sure voice of
command----while microcentons trickle away---and it's up to you to be
that voice, make decisions, give the right orders....and not only the
right ones but in a calm, unworried tone.  Because it's a cinch,
gentlemen, that your team is in trouble---bad trouble!----and a strange
voice with panic in it can turn the best combat team in the Galaxy into a
leaderless, lawless, fear-crazed mob.
     'The whole merciless load will land without warning.  You must act
at once and you'll have only the Lords of Kobol over you.  Don't expect
Them to fill in tactical details; that's your job.  They'll be doing all
that a warrior has a right to expect if They help you keep the panic
you're sure to feel out of your voice."
     The Colonel paused.  I was sobered and Goldbug was looking terribly
serious and awfully young and Daden was scowling.  I wished that I were
back in the drop room of the Galactica, with not too many chevrons and an
after-chow bull session in full swing.  There was a lot to be said for
the job of assistant section leader....when you come right down to it,
it's a lot easier to die than it is to use your head.
     The Commandant continued:  "That's the Moment of Truth, gentlemen. 
Regrettably there's no method known to military science to tell a real
officer from a glib imitation with pips on his shoulders, other than
through ordeal by fire.  Real ones come through---or die gallantly;
imitations crack up.
     "Sometimes in cracking up, the misfits die.  But the tragedy lies in
the loss of others...good men, sergeants and corporals and privates,
whose only lack is fatal bad fortune in finding themselves under the
command of an incompetent.
     "We try to avoid this.  First is our unbreakable rule that every
candidate must be a trained trooper, blooded under fire, a veteran of
combat drops. No other army in history has stuck to this rule, although
some came close.  Most great military schools of the past didn't even
pretend to follow it; they accepted civilian boys, trained them,
commissioned them, sent them out with no battle experience to command
men....and sometimes discovered too late that this smart young 'officer'
was a fool, a poltroon, or a hysteric.
     "At least we have no misfits of those sorts.  We know you're good
warriors---brave and skilled, proven in combat----else you wouldn't be
here.  We know that your intelligence and education meet acceptable
minimums.  With this to start on, we eliminate as many as possible of the
not-quite-competent---get them quickly back in ranks before we spoil good
troopers by forcing them beyond their abilities.  The course is very
hard---because what'll be expected of you later is still harder.
     "In time we have a small group whose chances look fairly good.  The
major criterion left untested is one we cannot test here; that
undefinable something which is the difference between a leader in
battle...and one who merely has the earmarks but not the vocation.  So we
field test for it.
     "Gentlemen!---you've reached that point.  Are you ready to take the
oath?"
     There was an instant of silence, then Daden the Deadly answered
firmly, "Yes, Colonel," and Goldbug and I echoed.
     The Colonel frowned.  "I've been telling you how wonderful you
are---physically perfect, mentally alert, trained, disciplined, blooded. 
The very model of the smart young officer----" He snorted. "Felgercarb! 
You may become officers someday.  I hope so....we not only hate to waste
money and time and effort, but also, and much more important, I shiver in
my boots every time I send one of you half-baked not-quite-officers up to
the Fleet, knowing what a monster I may be turning loose upon a good
combat team.  If you understand what you're up against, you wouldn't be
so all-fired ready to take the oath the second the question is put to
you.  You may turn it down and force me to let you go back to your
permanent ranks.  But you don't know.
     "So I'll try once more.  Apollo!  Have you every thought how it
would feel to be tribunaled for losing a regiment?"
     I was startled silly.  "Why.....No, sir, In never have." To be
tribunaled---for any reason---is eight times as bad for an officer as for
an enlisted man.  Offenses which will get privates kicked out (maybe with
lashes, possibly without) rate death in an officer.  Better never to have
been born!
     "Think about it," he said grimly. "When I suggested that your
platoon leader might be killed, I was by no means citing the ultimate in
military disaster.  Daden!  What's the largest number of command levels
ever knocked out in a single battle?"
     The Deadly scowled harder than ever.  "I'm not sure, sir.  Wasn't
there a while during Operation Bughouse when a major commanded a
brigade?"
     "There was and his name was Phocas.  He got a decoration and a
promotion. If you go back to the Cylon War, you can find a case in which
a Fleet junior officer took command of a major ship and not only fought
it but sent signals as if he were admiral.  He was vindicated even though
there were officers senior to him in line of command who weren't even
wounded.  Special circumstances----a breakdown in communications.  But
I'm thinking of a case in which four levels were wiped out in six
mili-centons---as if a platoon leader were to blink his eyes and find
himself commanding a brigade.  Any of you heard of it?"
     Dead silence.
     "Very well.  It was one of those bush wars that flared up on
ancient, pre-technological Caprica.  This young officer was the most
junior officer in a naval vessel---I'm talking about a wet navy, of
course---- an oar-driven galley warship, in fact.  This youngster was
about the age of most of your class and wasn't commissioned.  He carried
the title of 'temporary third lieutenant'---not that this is the title
you're about to carry.  He'd no combat experience; there were four
officers in the chain of command above him.  When the battle started his
commanding officer was wounded.  The kid picked him up and carried him
out of the line of fire.  That's all....make a pickup on a comrade.  But
he did it without being ordered to leave his post.  The other officers
all bought it while he was doing this and he was tried for 'deserting his
post of duty as commanding officer in the presence of the enemy.' 
Convicted.  Cashiered."
     I gasped.  "For that? Sir."
     "Why not?  True, we make pickup.  But we do make it under different
circumstances from a wet-navy battle, and by orders to the man ma king
pickup.  But pickup is never an excuse for breaking off battle in the
presence of the enemy.  This boy's family tried for a century and a half
to get his conviction reversed.  No luck, of course.  There was doubt
about some circumstances but no doubt that he'd left his post without
orders.  True, he was green as grass...but he was lucky not to be
hanged."  Colonel Wyleeum fixed me with a cold eye.  "Apollo---could this
happen to you?"
     I gulped. "I hope not, sir."
     "Let me tell you how it could on this very 'prentice cruise. 
Suppose you're in a multiship operation, with a full regiment in the
drop.  Officers drop first, of course.  There are advantages to this and
disadvantages, but we do it for reasons of morale; no trooper ever hits
the ground on a hostile planet without an officer.  Assume the Bugs know
this---and they may.  Suppose they work up some trick to wipe out those
who hit the ground first....but not good enough to wipe out the whole
drop.  Now suppose, since you're a supernumerary, you have to take any
vacant capsule instead of being fired with the first wave.  Where does
that leave you?"
     "I'm not sure, sir."
     "You've just inherited command of a regiment.  What are you going to
do with your command, Mister?  Talk fast---the Bugs won't wait!"
     "Uh..." I caught an answer right out of the book and parroted it. 
"I'll take command and act as circumstances permit, sir, according to the
tactical situation as I see it."
     "Oh you will, will you?" The Colonel grunted.  "And you'll buy a
farm too---that's all anybody can do with a foul-up like that.  But I
hope you'll go down swinging---and shouting orders to somebody, whether
they make sense or not.  We don't expect kittens to fight wildcats and
win....we merely expect them to try.  All right, stand up.  Put up your
right hands."
     He struggled to his feet.  Thirty microcentons later, we were
officers---"temporary, probationary, and supernumerary."

*****

     I thought he would give us our shoulder pips and let us go.  We
aren't supposed to buy them...they're a loan, like the temporary
commission they represent.  Instead he lounged back, and looked almost
human.
     "See here, lads....I gave you a talk on how rough it's going to be. 
I want you to worry about it, doing it in advance, planning what steps
you might take against any combination of bad news that can come your
way, keenly aware that your life belongs to your men and is not yours to
throw away in a suicidal reach for glory....and that your life isn't
yours to save, either, if the situation requires that you expend it.  I
want you to worry yourself sick before a drop, so that you can be
unruffled when the trouble starts.
     "Impossible, of course.  Except for one thing.  What's the only
factor that can save you when the load is too heavy?  Anyone?"
     Nobody answered.
     "Oh, come now!" Colonel Wyleeum said scornfully.  "You're not
recruits.  Daden!"
     "Your leading sergeant, sir," the Deadly said slowly. 
     "Obviously. He's probably older than you are, more drops under his
belt, and he certainly knows his team better than you do.  Since he isn't
carrying that dreadful, numbing load of top command, he may be thinking
more clearly than you are.  Ask his advice.  You've got one circuit just
for that.
     "It won't decrease his confidence in you; he's used to being
consulted.  If you don't, he'll decide you're a fool, a cocksure
know-it-all---and he'll be right.
     "But you don't have to take his advice.  Whether you use his ideas,
or whether they spark some different plan---make your decision and snap
out orders.  The one thing...the only thing!---that can strike terror in
the heart of a good platoon sergeant is to find that he's working for a
boss who can't make up his mind.
     "There never has been an outfit in which officers and men were more
dependent on each other than they are in the C.I., and sergeants are the
glue that holds us together.  Never forget it."
     The Commandant whipped his chair around to a cabinet near his desk. 
It contained row on row of pigeonholes, each with a little box.  He
pulled out one and opened it.  "Daden--."
     "Sir?"
     "These pips were worn by Captain Bolendan on his 'prentice cruise. 
Does it suit you to wear them?"
     "Sir?" The Deadly's voice squeaked and I thought the big lunk was
going to burst into tears.  "Yes, sir!"
     "Come here."  Colonel Wyleeum pinned them on, then said, "Wear them
as gallantly as he did...but bring them back. Understand me?"
     "Yes, sir. I'll do my best."
     "I'm sure you will.  There's a hovermobile waiting on the roof and
your shuttlecraft boosts in twenty-eight mili-centons. Carry out your
orders, sir!"
     The Deadly saluted and left; the Commandant turned and picked out
another box.  "Golbug, are you a superstitious man?"
     "No, sir."
     "Really?  I am, quite.  I take it you wouldn't object to wearing
pips that have been worn by five officers, all of whom fell in combat?"
     Goldbug barely hesitated.  "No, sir."
     "Good.  Because these five officers accumulated seventeen citations,
from the Star of Kobol to the Wounded Star.  Come here.  The pip with the
brown discoloration must always be worn on your left shoulder...and don't
try to buff it off!  Just try not to get the other one marked in the same
fashion.  Unless necessary, and you'll know when it is necessary.  Here's
a list of former wearers.  You have thirty mili-centons until your
transportation leaves.  Bounce up to Memorial Hall and look up the record
of each."
     "Yes, sir."
     "Carry out your orders, sir!"
     He turned to me, looked at my face and said sharply, "Something on
your mind, son?  Speak up!"
     "Uh...." I blurted it out. "Sir, that temporary third
lieutenant---the one that got cashiered.  How could I find out what
happened?"
     "Oh. Young man, I didn't mean to scare the daylights out of you; I
simply intended to wake you up.  The battle took place way back in 3532 ,
on Caprica, between the two rival galleys Uroarsul and Melycat.  Try the
Naval Encyclopedia; your ship will have it."  He turned back to the case
of pips and frowned.
     Then he said, "Apollo, I have an epistle from one of your high
school teachers, a retired officer, requesting that you be issued the
pips he wore as third lieutenant.  I'm sorry to say that I must tell him
'No.'"
     "Sir?" I was delighted to hear that Colonel Cain was still keeping
track of me---and very disappointed, too.
     "Because I can't.  I issued those pips two yahrens ago---and they
never came back.  Real estate deal.  Hmm...." He took a box, looked at
me. "You could start a new pair.  The metal's not important; the
importance of the request lies in the fact that your teacher wanted you
to have them."
     "Whatever you say, sir."
     "Or"---he cradled the box in his hands---"you could wear these. 
They've been worn five times....and the last four candidates to wear them
have all failed of commission---nothing dishonorable but pesky bad luck. 
Are you willing to take a swing at breaking the hoodoo? Turn them into
good-luck pips instead?"
     I would rather have petted a multi-eyed pterotrantula.  But I
answered, "All right, sir. I'll take a swing at it."
     "Good."  He pinned them on me.  "Thank you, Apollo.  You see, these
were mine, I wore them first.....and it would please me mightily to have
them brought back to me with that streak of bad luck broken, have you go
on and graduate."
     I felt ten metrons tall.  "I'll try, sir!"
     "I know you will.  You may now carry out your orders, sir.  The same
hovemobile will take both you and Goldbug.  Just a moment....Are your
mathematics textbooks in your bag?"
     "Sir? No, sir."
     "Get 'em.  The Weightmaster of your ship has been advised of your
extra baggage allowance."
     I saluted and left, on the bounce.  He had me shrunk down to size as
soon as he mentioned math.
     My math books were on my study desk, tied into a package with a
daily assignment sheet tucked under the cord.  I  gathered the impression
that Colonel Wyleeum never left anything unplanned....but everybody knew
that.

*****

     Birdie was waiting on the roof by the hovermobile.  He glanced at my
books and grinned.  "Too bad. Well, if we're in the same battlestar, I'll
coach you.  Which one?"
     "Pegasus."
     "Sorry, I'm for the Porto Gold."  We got in. I checked the pilot,
saw that it had been pre-programmed for the field, closed the door and
the car took off.  Goldbug added, "You could be worse off.  The Deadly
took not only his math books but two other subjects."
     Goldbug undoubtedly knew and he had not been showing off when he
offered to coach me; he was a professor type except that his ribbons
proved that he was a warrior, too.
     Instead of studying math, Goldberg taught it.  One period each day
he was a faculty member, the way little Aerric taught martial arts at
Camp Columbia.  The C.I. doesn't waste anything; we can't afford to. 
Goldbug had a B.S. in math on his eighteenth birthday, so naturally he
was assigned extra duty as an instructor---which didn't keep him from
being chewed out at other centons.
     Not that he got chewed out much.  Goldbug had that rare combo of
brilliant intellect, solid education, common sense, and guts, which gets
a cadet marked as a potential general.  We figured he was a cinch to
command a brigade by the time he was thirty, what with the war.
     But my ambitions didn't soar that high.  "It would be a dirty,
rotten shame," I said, "if the Deadly flunked out," while thinking that
it would be a dirty rotten shame if I flunked out."
     "He won't," Goldbug answered cheerfully.  "They'll sweat him through
the rest if they have to put him in a hypno booth and feed him through a
tube.  Anyhow," he added, "Daden could flunk out and get promoted for
it."
     "Huh?"
     "Didn't you know?  The Deadly's permanent rank is first
lieutenant---field commission, naturally.  He reverts to it if he flunks
out.  See the regs."
     I knew the regs.  If I flunked math, I'd revert back to sergeant,
which is better than being slapped in the face with a wet fish any way
you think about it....and I'd thought about it, lying awake nights after
busting a quiz.
     But this was different.  "Hold it," I protested.  "He gave up first
lieutenant, permanent grade...and has just made temporary third
lieutenant....in order to become a second lieutenant?  Are you crazy?  Is
he?"
     Goldbug grinned.  "Just enough to make us both C.I.s."
     "But....?"  Needless to say, I didn't get it.
     "It's like this: the Deadly has no education that he didn't pick up
in the C.I.  So how high can he go?  I'm sure he could command a regiment
in battle and do a real swingin' job---provided somebody else planned the
operation.  But commanding in battle is only a fraction of what an
officer does, especially a senior officer.  To direct a war, or even to
plan a single battle and mount the operation, you have to have theory of
games, operational analysis, symbolic logic, pessimistic synthesis, and a
dozen other skull subjects.  You can sweat them out on your own if you've
got the grounding.  But have them you must, or you'll never get past
captain, or possibly major.  The Deadly knows what he's doing."
     "I suppose so," I said slowly.  "Goldbug, Colonel Wyleeum must know
that Daden was an officer...is an officer, really."
     "Huh?  Of course."
     "He didn't talk as if he knew.  We all got the same lecture."
     "Not quite.  Did you notice that when the Commandant wanted a
question answered a particular way he always asked the Deadly?"
     I decided it was true.  "Goldbug, what's your permanent rank?"
     The hovermobile was just landing; he paused with a hand on the latch
and grinned.  "PFC---I don't dare flunk out!"
     I snorted.  "You won't.  You can't!"  I was surprised that he wasn't
even a corporal, but a kid as smart and well educated as Goldbug would go
to O.C.S. just as quickly as he proved himself in combat...which, with
the war on, could be only sectars after his eighteenth birthday.
     Goldbug grinned still wider.  "We'll see."
     "You'll graduate.  Daden and I have to worry, but not you."
     "So?  Suppose Chryseis takes a dislike to me."  He opened the door
and looked startled.  "Hey!  They're sounding my call.  So long!"
     "See you, Goldbug."
     But I did not see him and he did not graduate.  He was commissioned
two sectans later and his pip came back with their eighteenth
decoration---the Wounded Star, posthumous.

*****

Chapter 13

     The Galactica carries one platoon and is crowded.  The Pegasus
carries six---and is roomy.  She's got the tubes to drop them all at once
and enough spare room to carry twice that number and make a second drop. 
This would make her very crowded, with eating in shifts, hammocks in
passageways and drop rooms, rationed water, inhale when your mate
exhales, and get your elbow out of my eye!  I'm glad they didn't double
up when I was in her.
     But she has the speed and lift to deliver such crowded troops still
in fighting condition to any point in Colonial space and much of Bug
space; under Marron drive she cranks Factor 400 or better----say Caprica
to Ganomas, forty-six light-yahrens, in under six sectans.
     Of course, a six-platoon transport is not big compared with a battle
wagon or passenger liner; these things are compromises.  The C.I. prefers
speedy little one-platoon battlestars which give flexibility for any
operation, while if it was left up to the Fleet we'd have nothing but
regimental transports.  It takes almost as many Fleet files to run a
Battlestar as it does to run a monster big enough for a regiment---more
maintenance and housekeeping, of course, but warriors can do that.  After
all, those lazy troopers do nothing but sleep and eat and polish
buttons---do 'em good to have a little regular work.  So says the Fleet.
     The real Fleet opinion is even more extreme:  the Army is obsolete
and should be abolished.
     The Fleet doesn't say this officially----but talk to a Fleet officer
who's on furlong and feeling his oats; you'll get an earful.  They think
they can fight any war, win it, send a few of their own people down to
hold the conquered planet until the Diplomatic Corps takes charge.
     I admit that their newest toys can blow any planet right out of the
sky----I've never seen it but I believe it.  Maybe I am obsolete.  I
don't feel obsolete, though, and we siminoids can do things that the
fanciest ship cannot.  If the government doesn't want those things done,
no doubt they'll tell us.
     Maybe it's just as well that neither the Fleet nor the C.I. has the
final say-so.  A man can't buck for Sky Marshal unless he has commanded
both a regiment and a capital ship---go through C.I. and take his lumps
and then become a Fleet officer (I think little Goldbug had that in
mind), or first become an astrogator-pilot and follow it with Camp
Columbia, etc.
     I'll listen respectfully to any man who has done both.
     Like most battlestars, the Pegasus is a mixed ship; the most amazing
change for me was to be allowed "North of Thirty." The bulkhead that
separates ladies' country from the rough characters who shave is not
necessarily No. 30 but, by any tradition, it is called "bulkhead thirty"
in any mixed ship.  The wardroom is just beyond it and the rest of
ladies' country is farther forward.  In the Pegasus the wardroom also
served as messroom for enlisted women, who ate just before we did, and it
was partitioned between meals into a recreation room for them and a
lounge for their officers.  Male officers had a lounge called the
cardroom just abaft thirty.
     Besides the obvious fact that drop & retrieval require the best
pilots (i.e. female), there is very strong reason why female Fleet
officers are assigned to transports:  It is good for trooper morale.
     Let's skip C.I. traditions for a moment.  Can you think of anything
sillier than letting yourself be fired out of a Battlestar with nothing
but mayhem and sudden death at the other end? However, if someone must do
this idiotic stunt, do you know of a surer way to keep a man keyed up to
the point where he is willing than by keeping him constantly reminded
that the only good reason why men fight is a living, breathing reality?
     In a mixed ship, the last thing a trooper hears before a drop (maybe
the last word he ever hears) is a woman's voice, wishing him luck.  If
you don't think this is important, you've probably resigned from the
human race.
     The Pegasus had fifteen Fleet officers, eight ladies and seven men;
there were eight C.I. officers including (I am happy to say) myself.  I
won't say "bulkhead thirty" caused me to buck for O.C.S but the privilege
of dining with the ladies is more incentive than any increase in pay. 
The Skipper was president of the mess, my boss Captain Turoggord was
vice-president---not because of rank; three Fleet officers outranked him;
but as C.O. of the strike force he was de facto senior to everybody but
the Skipper.
     Every meal was formal.  We'd wait in the cardroom until the centon
struck, follow Captain Turoggord in and stand behind our chairs; the
Skipper would come in followed by her ladies and, as she reached the head
of the table, Captain Turoggord would bow and say, "Madam
President....ladies," and she would answer, "Mr. Vice....gentlemen," and
the man on each lady's right would seat her.
     This ritual established that it was a social event, not an officer's
conference; thereafter, ranks or titles were used, except that junior
Fleet officers and myself alone among the C.I. were called by name---with
one exception which fooled me.
     My first meal aboard I heard Captain Turoggord called "Major,"
although his shoulder pips plainly read "captain."  I got straightened
out later.  There can't be two captains on a Fleet vessel so an Army
captain is bumped one rank socially rather than commit the unthinkable of
calling him by the title reserved for the one and only monarch.  If a
Fleet captain is aboard as anything but skipper, he or she is called
"Commodore," even if the skipper is a lowly lieutenant.
     The C.I. observes his by avoiding the necessity in the wardroom and
paying no attention to the silly custom in our own part of the ship.
     Seniority ran downhill from each side of the table, with the Skipper
at the head and the strike force C.O. at the foot, the junior midshipman
at his right and I to the Skipper's right.  I would most happily have sat
by the junior midshipman; she was awfully pretty----but the arrangement
is planned chaperonage; I never even learned her first name.  
     I knew that I, as the lowliest male, sat on the Skipper's
right---but I didn't know that I was supposed to seat her.  At my first
meal she waited and nobody sat down...until the third assistant engineer
jogged my elbow.  I haven't been so embarrassed since a very unfortunate
incident in kindergarten, even though Captain Turold acted as if nothing
had happened.
     When the Skipper stands up the meal is over.  She was pretty good
about this but once she stayed seated only a few minutes and Captain
Turoggord got annoyed.  He stood up but called out, "Captain...."
     She stopped.  "Yes, Major?"
     "Will the Captain please give orders that my officers and I be
served in the cardroom?"
     She answered coldly, "Certainly, sir."  And we were.  But no Fleet
officer joined us.
     The following Saturday she exercised her privilege of inspecting the
C.I. aboard---which Battlestar skippers almost never do.  However, she
simply walked down the ranks without commenting.  She was not really a
martinet and she had a nice smile when she wasn't being stern.  Captain
Turoggord assigned Second Lieutenant Rowan to crack the whip over me
about math; she found out about it somehow, and told Captain Turoggord to
have me report to her officer for one centon after lunch every day,
whereupon she tutored me in math and bawled me out when my "homework"
wasn't perfect.
     Our six platoons were two companies as a rump battalion; Captain
Turoggord commanded Delta Company, and also commanded the rump battalion. 
Our battalion commander by the T.O., Major Barak, was with Alpha and Beta
Companies in the Pegasus's sister battlestar Caspycion ---maybe half a
sky away; he commanded us only when the full battalion dropped
together----except that Cap'n Turoggord routed certain reports and
letters through him.  Other matters went directly to Fleet, Division, or
Base, and Turoggord had a truly wizard fleet sergeant to keep such things
straight and to help him handle both a company and a rump battalion in
combat.
     Administrative details are not simple in an army spread through many
light-yahren in hundreds of ships.  In the old Atlantia, in the
Galactica, and now in the Pegasus I was in the same regiment, the Third
Regiment of the First C.I. Division.  Two battalions formed from
available regiments had been called the "Third Regiment" in Operation
Bughouse but I didn't see "my" regiment; all I saw was PFC Thane and a
lot of Bugs.
     I might be commissioned in the Third, grow old and retire in
it---and never see my regimental commander.  The Blues had a company
commander but he also commanded the first platoon in another Battlestar;
I didn't know his name until I saw it on my orders to O.C.S.  There's a
legend about a "lost platoon" that went on a furlong as its battlestar
was decommissioned.  Its company commander had just been promoted and the
other platoons had been attached tactically elsewhere.  I've forgotten
what happened to the platoon's lieutenant but a furlong is a routine time
to detach an officer---theoretically after a relief has been sent to
understudy him, but reliefs are always scarce.
     They say this platoon enjoyed a local yahren of the fleshpots along
Faersol Road before anybody missed them.
     I don't believe it.  But it could happen.
     The unceasing shortage of officers strongly affected my duties in
Delta Company.  The C.I. has the lowest percentage of officers in any
army of record and this factor is just part of the C.I.'s unique
"divisional wedge."  "D.W." is military jargon but the idea is simple: 
If you have 10,000 warriors, how many fight?  And how many just peel
groundspuds, drive landmules, count graves, and shuffle papers?
     In the C.I., 10,000 men fight.
     In the mass wars of the Sixth Millennium, it sometimes took 70,000
men (fact!) to enable 10,000 to fight.
     I admit it takes the Fleet to place us where we fight; however, a
C.I. strike force, even in a battlestar, is at least three times as large
as its Fleet crew.  It also takes civilians to supply and service us;
about 10 percent of us are on furlong at any time; and a few of the very
best of us are rotated to instruct at boot camps.
     While a few C.I. are on desk jobs you'll always find that they're
shy an arm or leg, or some such.  These are the ones----the Sergeant
Hawkeyes and Colonel Wyleeums----who refuse to retire, and they really
ought to count twice since they release able-bodied C.I. by filling jobs
which require fighting spirit but not physical perfection.  They do work
that the civilians can't do----or we would hire civilians. Civilians are
like beans; you buy 'em as needed for any job which requires merely skill
and savvy.
     But you can't buy fighting spirit.
     It's scarce.  We use all of it, waste none.  The C.I. is the
smallest army in history for the size of the population it guards.  You
can't buy a C.I., you can't conscript him, you can't coerce him...you
can't even keep him if he wants to leave.  He can quit thirty
microcentons before a drop, lose his nerve, and not get into his capsule
and all that happens is that he's paid off and can never vote.
     At O.C.S. we studied armies in history that were driven like galley
slaves.  But the C.I. is a free man; all that drives him comes from
inside----that self-respect and need for the respect of his mates and his
pride in being one of them called morale, or esprit de corps.
     The root of our morale is:  "Everybody works, everybody fights."  A
C.I. doesn't pull strings to get a soft, safe job, as there aren't any. 
A trooper will get away with what he can; any private with sufficient
savvy to mark time to music can dream up reasons why he shouldn't clean
compartments or break out stores; this is a warrior's ancient right.
     But all "soft, safe" jobs are filled by civilians; that
gold-bricking private climbs into his capsule certain that everybody,
from general to private, is doing it with him.  Light-yahrens away and on
a different day, or maybe an hour or so later----no matter.  What does
matter is that everybody drops.  This is why he enters the capsule, even
though he may not be aware of it.
     If we ever deviate from this, the C.I. will disintegrate.  All that
holes us together is an idea---one that binds more strongly than steel
but its magic power depends on keeping it intact.
     It is this "everybody fights" rule that lets the C.I. get by with so
few officers.
     I know more about this than I want to, because I asked a foolish
question in Military History and got stuck with an assignment which
forced me to dig up stuff ranging from The Belle Gallic to Colwyn's
Collapse of the Celestial Harmony.  Consider a C.I. division---on paper,
because you won't find one elsewhere.  How many officers does it require? 
Never mind units attached from other corps; they may not be present
during a rumble and they aren't like the C.I.---the special talents
attached to Logistics and Communications are all ranked as officers.  If
it'll make a memory man, a telepath, a sense, or a lucky man happy to
have my salute him, I'm glad to oblige; he's more valuable than I am and
I couldn't replace him if I lived to be two hundred.  Or take the Daggit
Corps, which is 50 percent "officers" but whose other 50 percent are
neodaggits.
     None of these is in line of command, so let's consider only us
siminiods and what it takes to lead us.
     This imaginary division has 10,800 men in 216 platoons, each with a
lieutenant.  Three platoons to a company calls for 72 captains; four
companies to a battalion calls for 18 majors or lieutenant colonels.  Six
regiments with six colonels can form two or three brigades, each with a
short general, plus a medium-tall general as top boss.
     You wind up with 317 officers out of a total, all ranks, of 11,117.
     There are no blank files and every officer commands a team. 
Officers total 3 percent---which is what the C.I. does have, but arranged
somewhat differently.  In fact, a good many platoons are commanded by
sergeants and many officers "wear more than one hat" in order to fill
some utterly necessary staff jobs.
     Even a platoon leader should have "staff"---his platoon sergeant.
     But he can get by without one and his sergeant can get by without
him.  But a general must have staff; the job is too big to carry in his
hat.  He needs a big planning staff and a small combat staff.  Since
there are never enough officers, the team commanders in his flag
transport double as his planning staff and are picked from the C.I.'s
best mathematical logicians---then they drop with their own teams.  The
general drops with a small combat staff, plus a small team of the
roughest, on-the-bounce troopers in the C.I.  Their job is to keep the
general from being bothered by rude strangers while he's managing the
battle.  Sometimes they succeed.
     Besides necessary staff billets, any team larger than a platoon
should have a deputy commander.  But there are never enough officers so
we make do with what we have.  To fill each necessary combat billet, one
job to one officer, would call for a 5 percent ratio of officers---but 3
percent is all we have.
     In place of that optimax of 5 percent that the C.I. never can reach,
many arms in the past commissioned 10 percent of their number, or even 15
percent---and sometimes an absurd 20 percent!  This sounds like a fairy
tale but it was a fact, especially during the Sixth Millennium. What kind
of an army has more "officers" than corporals?  (And more noncoms than
privates!)
     An army organized to lose wars---if history means anything.  An army
that's mostly organization, red tape, and overhead, most of whose
"soldiers" never fight.
     But what do "officers" do who do not command fighting men?
     Fiddlework, apparently----officers' club officer, morale officer,
athletics officer, public information officer, recreation officer, PX
officer, transportation officer, legal officer, chaplain, assistant
chaplain, junior assistant chaplain, officer-in-charge of anything
anybody can think of---even nursery school officer!
     In the C.I., such things are extra duty for combat officers or, if
they're real jobs, they're done better and cheaper, and without
demoralizing a fighting outfit by hiring civilians.  But the situation
got so smelly in one of the Sixth Millennium major powers that real
officer, ones who commanded fighting men, were given special insignia to
distinguish them from the swarms of swivel-chair hussars.

*****

     The shortage of officers got steadily worse as the war dragged on,
because the casualty rate is always highest among officers....and the
C.I. never commissions a man just to fill a vacancy.  In the long run,
each boot regiment must supply its own share of officers and the
percentage can't be raised without lowering the standards----The strike
force in the Pegasus needed thirteen officers----six platoon leaders, two
company commanders and two deputies, and a strike force commander staffed
by a deputy and an adjutant.
     What it had was six....and me.


Table of Organization
"Rump Battalion" Strike Force----
Cpt. Turoggord
("first hat")
Fleet Sergeant


Ceti Company
1st Lt.Ynyr

Stalking Scorpius plat-----
     1st Lt. Ergo
Orange plat----
     2nd Lt. Torquil
Hateful Rat plat----
     2nd Lt. Bardolph



Delta Company
Cpt.Turoggord
("second hat")

Havoc plat----
     (1st Lt. Titch, Hosp.)
Metallo plat---
     2nd Lt. Besman
Battle plat---
     2nd Lt. Bembeus


     I would've been under Lieutenant Bembeus, but he left for hospital
the day I reported, ill with some sort of twitching awfuls.  But this did
not necessarily mean that I would get his platoon.  A temporary third
lieutenant is not considered an asset; Captain Turoggord could place me
under Lieutenant Ctesus and put a sergeant in charge of his own first
platoon, or even "put on a third hat" and take the platoon himself.
     In fact, he did both and nevertheless assigned me as platoon leader
of the first platoon of the Deltas.  He did this by borrowing the Ceti's
best buck sergeant to act as his battalion staffer, then he placed his
fleet sergeant as platoon sergeant of his first platoon---a job two
grades beneath his cheverons.  Then Captain Turoggord spelled it out for
me in a head-shrinking lecture: I would appear on the T.O. as platoon
leader, but Turoggord himself and the fleet sergeant would run the
platoon.
     As long as I behaved myself, I could go through the motions.  I'd
even be allowed to drop as platoon leader----but one word from my platoon
leader to my company commander and the jaws of the nutcracker would
close.
     It suited me.  It was my platoon so long as I could handle it----and
if I couldn't, the sooner I was shoved aside the better for everybody. 
Besides, it was a lot less nerve-wracking to get a platoon that way than
by sudden catastrophe in battle.
     I took my job very seriously, for it was my platoon----the T.O. said
so.  But I had not yet learned to delegate authority and, for about a
week, I was around troopers' country much more than is good for a team. 
Turoggord called me into his stateroom.  "Son, what in Kobol do you think
you're doing?"
     I answered stiffly that I was trying to get my platoon ready for
action.
     "So?  Unfortunately, that's not what you're accomplishing.  You're
stirring them like a nest of wild bees.  Why the frak do you think I
turned you over to the best sergeant in the Fleet?  If you'll go to your
stateroom, hang yourself on a hook, and stay there!...until 'Prepare for
Action' is sounded, he'll hand that platoon over to you tuned like an
astral harp."
     "By your command, sir," I agreed glumly.
     "And that's another thing----I can't stand an officer who acts like
a confounded kaydet.  Forget that load of felgercarb around me----save it
for generals or the Skipper.  Quit bracing your shoulders and clicking
your heels.  Officers are supposed to look relaxed, son.
     "Yes, sir."
     "And let that be the last time you say 'sir' to me for one solid
week.  Same for saluting.  Get that grim kaydet look of your face and
hang a smile on it."
     "Yes, s----Okay."
     "That's better.  Lean against the bulkhead.  Scratch yourself. 
Yawn.  Anything but that stoic warrior act."
     I tried....and grinned sheepishly as I discovered that breaking a
habit is not easy. Leaning was harder work than standing at attention. 
Captain Turoggord studied me.  "Practice it," he said.  "An officer can't
look scared or tense; it's contagious.   Now tell me, Apollo, what your
platoon needs.  Never mind the piddlin' stuff; I'm not interested in
whether a man has the regulation number of socks in his locker."
     I thought rapidly.  "Uh...do you happen to know if Lieutenant Titch
intended to put Zesonol up for sergeant?"
     "I do happen to know.  What's your  opinion?"
     "The record shows that he's been acting section leader for the past
two sectars.  His efficiency marks are good."
     "I asked for you recommendation, Apollo."
     "Sorry.  I've never seen him work on the ground, so I can't have a
real opinion; anybody can play warrior in the drop room.  But the way I
see it, he's been acting sergeant too long to bust him back to chaser and
promote a squad leader over him.  He ought to get that third chevron
before we drop---or he ought to be transferred when we get back.  Sooner,
if there's a chance for a spaceside transfer."
     Turoggord grunted. "You're pretty generous in giving away my
Deltas----for a third lieutenant."
     I turned red.  "Just the same, it's a soft spot in my platoon. 
Zesonol ought to be promoted, or transferred.  I don't want him back in
his old job with somebody promoted over his head; he'd likely turn sour
and I'd have an even worse soft spot.  If he can't have another chevron,
he ought to go to repple-depple for a cadre.  Then he won't be humiliated
and he gets a fair shake to make sergeant in another team----instead of a
dead end here."
     "Really?" Turuggord did not quite sneer.  "After that masterly
analysis, apply your powers of deduction and tell me why Lieutenant
Bembeus failed to transfer him three weeks ago when we arrived around
Attila."
     I'd wondered about that.  The time to transfer a man is the earliest
possible instant after you decide to let him go----and without warning;
it's better for the man and the team----so says the book.  I said slowly,
"Was Lieutenant Titch already ill at the time, Captain?"
     "No."
     The pieces matched. "Captain, I recommend Zesonol for immediate
promotion."
     His eyebrows shot up.  "A mili-centon ago you were about to dump his
as useless."
     "Not quite. I said it had to be one or the other---but I didn't know
which.  I do now."
     "Continue."
     "This assumes that Lieutenant Titch is an efficient officer...."
     "Hummmmmph!  Apollo, for your information, Titch has an unbroken
string of 'Excellent---Recommendation for Promotion' on his Form
Thirty-One."
     "But I knew that he was good," I plowed on, "because I inherited a
good platoon.  A good officer might not promote a man for---oh, for many
reasons---and still not put his misgivings in writing.  But in this case,
if he couldn't advocate him for sergeant, then he wouldn't keep him with
the team....so he would get him out of the ship at the first opportunity. 
But he didn't. Therefore, I know he intended to promote Zesonol."  I
added, "But I can't see why he didn't push it through three sectans ago,
so that Zesonol could've worn his third chevron on furlong."
     Captain Turuggord grinned.  "That's because you don't credit me with
being efficient."
     "S---I beg your pardon?"
     "Never mind.  You've proved who killed the felus and I don't expect
a still-moist kaydet to know all the tricks.  But listen and learn, son.
As long as this war goes on, don't ever promote a man just before you
return to Base."
     "Why not, Captain?"
     "You mentioned sending Zesonol to Replacement Depot if he was not to
be promoted.  But that's just where he would've gone if we had promoted
him three sectans ago.  You don't know how hungry that non-com desk at
repple-depple is.  Paw through the dispatch file and you'll find a demand
that we supply two sergeants for cadre.  With a platoon sergeant being
detached for O.C.S. and a buck sergeant spot vacant, I was under
complement and able to refuse."  He grinned savagely.  "It's a rough war,
son, and your own people will steal your best man if you don't watch
out."  He took two sheets of paper out of a drawer.  "There..."
     One was an epistle from Titch to Cap'n Turuggord, recommending
Zesonol for sergeant-dated the day after we left Attila.
     "That suit you?"
     "Huh?  Oh, yes indeed!"
     "I've been waiting for you to spot the weak place in your team, and
tell me what had to be done.  I'm pleased that you figured it out---but
only middlin' pleased because an experienced officer would have analyzed
it at once from the T.O. and the service records.  Never mind, that's how
you gain experience.  Now here's what you do.  Write me an epistle like
Titch's; date it yesterday.  Tell your platoon sergeant to tell Zesonol
that you've put him up for a third stripe---and don't mention that Titch
did so.  You didn't know that when you made the recommendation, so we'll
keep it that way. When I swear Zesonol in, I'll let him know that both
his officers recommended him independently---which'll make him feel good. 
Okay, anything more?"
     "Not in organization----unless Lieutenant Titch planned to promote
Jadepaw, vice Zesonol.  In which case we could promote one PFC to
lance....and that'd allow us to promote four privates to PFC, including
three vacancies now existing.  I don't know whether it's your policy to
keep the T.O. filled up tight or not?"
     "Might as well," Turuggord said gently, "as you and I know that some
of those lads aren't going to have many days in which to enjoy it.  Just
remember that we don't make a man a PFC until after he's been in
combat....not in the Deltas we don't.  Figure it out with your platoon
sergeant and let me know. No hurry...any time before bedtime tonight. 
Now....anything else?"
     "It's the suits.  I'm worried about 'em."
     "So am I.  All platoons."
     "I don't know all the other platoons, but with five recruits to fit,
plus four suits damaged and exchanged, and two more downchecked this past
sectan and replaced from stores....I don't see how Ironeyes and
Nightstormer can warm up that many and run routine tests on forty-one
others and get it all done by our calculated date.  Even if no trouble
develops...."
     "Trouble always develops."
     "Yes, Captain. But that's two hundred and eighty-six man-centons
just for warm and fit, and plus a hundred and twenty-three centons of
routine checks.  And it always takes longer."
     "So what do you think can be done?  The other platoons will lend you
aid if they finish their suits ahead of time.  Not that they will.  Don't
ask me to borrow help from the Cetis; we're more likely to lend them
aid."
     "Captain, I don't know what you'll think of this, since you told me
to stay out of troopers' country.  But when I was a corporal, I was
assistant to the Ordnance & Armor sergeant."
     "Go on."
     "Right at the last, I was the O&A sergeant.  But I was just standing
in another man's shoes....I'm not a finished O&A mechanic.  But I'm a
pretty darn good assistant and if I was allowed to, well, I can either
warm new suits, or run routine checks....and give Ironeyes and
Nightstormer that much more time for trouble."
     Turuggord leaned back and grinned.  "Apollo, I've searched the regs
carefully....and I can't find the one that says an officer mustn't get
his hands dirty."  He added, "I mention that because some 'young
gentlemen' who've been assigned to me apparently had read such a
regulation.  All right, draw some dungarees---no need to get your uniform
dirty along with your hands.  Go aft and find your platoon sergeant, tell
him about Zesonol and order him to prepare recommendations to close the
gaps in the T.O. in case I should decide to confirm your recommendation
for Zesonol.  Then tell him that you're going to put in all your time on
ordinance and armor....and that you want him to handle everything else. 
Tell him that if he has any problems to look you up in the armory.  Don't
tell him you consulted me...just give him orders.  Follow me?"
     "Yes, s----Yes, I do."
     "Okay, get on it.  As you pass through the cardroom, please give my
compliments to Bembeus and tell him to drag his lazy astrum in here.

*****

     For the next two sectans I never was so busy----not even in boot
camp.  Working as an ordnance & armor mech about ten centons a day wasn't
all that I did.  Math, of course---and no way to duck it with the Skipper
instructing me.  Meals---say a half-centon per day.  Plus the mechanics
of staying alive----shaving, turbo-washing, putting buttons in uniforms
and trying to chase down the Fleet master-at-arms, get him to unlock the
laundry to locate clean uniforms ten mili-centons before inspection. 
(It's an unwritten law of the Fleet that facilities must always be locked
when they're most needed.)
     Guard mount, parade, inspections, a minimum of platoon routine, took
another centon a day.  But besides, I was "It".  Every outfit has an
"It."  He's the most junior officers and has the extra jobs---athletics,
officer, mail censor, referee for competitions, school officer,
correspondence courses officer, prosecutor courts-martial, treasurer of
the welfare, mutual lone fund, custodian of registered publications,
stores officer, troopers, mess officer, et cetera ad endless nauseam.
     Bembeus had been "It" until he happily turned it over to me.  He
wasn't so happy when I insisted on a slight inventory on everything for
which I had to sign.  He suggested that if I didn't have sense enough to
accept a commissioned officer's signed inventory then perhaps a direct
order would change my tune.  So I got sullen and told him to put his
orders in writing...with a certified copy so that I could keep the
original and endorse the copy over to the team commander.
     Bembeus angrily backed down---even a second lieutenant isn't stupid
enough to put such orders in writing.  I wasn't happy either as Bembeus
was my roommate and was then still my math instructor, but we held the
slight inventory.  I got chewed out by Lieutenant Tic for being stupidly
officious but he opened his safe and let me check his registered
publications.  Captain Turuggord opened his with no comment and I
couldn't tell whether he approved of my sight inventory or not.
     Publications were okay but accountable property was not.  Poor
Bembeus!  He'd accepted his predecessor's count and now the count was
short----and the other officer was not merely gone, he was dead.  Bembeus
spent a restless night (I did too!), then went to Turuggord and told him
the truth.
     Turuggord chewed him out, then went over to the missing items, found
ways to expend most of them as "lost in combat."  It reduced Bembeus's
shortages to a few days pay---but Turuggord had him keep the job, thereby
postponing the cash reckoning indefinitely.
     Not all "It" jobs caused that much headache.  There were no
tribunals; good combat teams don't have them.  There was no mail to
censor as the ship was in Marron drive.  Same for welfare loans for
similar reasons.  Athletics I delegated to Zesonol; referee was "if and
when."  The troopers' mess was excellent; I initialed menus and sometimes
inspected the galley, i.e., I scrounged a sandwich without getting out of
dungarees when working late in the armory.  Correspondence courses meant
a lot of paperwork since quite a few were continuing their education, war
or no war.....but I delegated my platoon sergeant and the records were
kept by the PFC who was his clerk.
     Nevertheless "It" jobs soaked up about two centons every day---there
were so many.
     This left me the following:
   1. Ten centons Q&A.
   2. Three cetons math
   3. Meals on the half-centon
   4. Personal one centon
   5. Military fiddlework one centon
   6. "It" two centons
   7. Eight centons of sleep
   Total:  twenty-six and a half centons.

     The ship wasn't even on the twenty-five centon Attila day; once we
left we went on Caprican mean and the universal calendar.
     The only slack was in my bedtime.
     I was sitting in the cardroom about 0100 one morning, plugging away
at math, when Captain Turuggord came in.  I said, "Good evening,
Captain."
     "Morning, you mean. What in Kobol's ailing you, son?  Insomnia?"
     "Not exactly."
     He picked up a stack of sheets, remarking, "Can't your sergeant
handle your paperwork?  Oh, I see.  Go to bed."
     "But, Captain...."
     "No buts, Apollo.  I've been meaning to talk to you.  I never see
you in the cardroom, evenings.  I walk past your room, you're at your
desk.  When your bunkie goes to bed, you move out here.  What's the
trouble?"
     "I just never seem to get caught up."
     "Who in Hades does?  How's the work going in the armory?"
     "Pretty well. I think we'll make it."
     "I think so, too. Look, son, you've got to keep a sense of
proportion.  You've got two prime duties.  First is to see that your
platoon's equipment is ready---you're doing that.  You don't have to
worry about the platoon itself, I told you that.  The second....and just
as important...you've got to be ready to fight.  You're muffing that."
     "I'll be ready, Captain."
     "Felgercarb and other comments.  You're getting no exercise and
losing sleep.  Is that how to train for a drop?  When you lead a platoon,
son, you've got to be on the bounce.  From here on you will exercise from
1630 to 1800 each day.  You will be in your sack with lights out at
2300---and if you lay, in bed, awake for fifteen mili-centons two nights
in a row, you will report to the Med-Tech for treatment.  It is so
ordered."
     "By your command."  I felt the bulkheads closing in on me and added
desperately, "Captain, I don't see how I can get to bed by
twenty-three----and still get everything done."
     "Then you won't.  As I said, son, you must have a sense of
proportion.  Tell me how you spend your time."
     So I did.  He nodded.  "Just as I thought." He picked up my math
"homework," tossed it in front of me.  "Take this. Sure, you want to work
on it.  But why work so hard before we go into action?"
     "I thought...."
     " 'Think' is what you don't do.  There are four possibilities and
only one calls for finishing these assignments.  First, you might buy a
farm.  Second, you might buy a small piece and be retired with an
honorary commission.  Third, you might come through all right.  But get a
downcheck from your Form Thirty-One from your examiner, namely me. Which
is  just what you're aching for at the present time.....why, son, I won't
even let you droop if you show up with eyes red from no sleep and muscles
flabby from too much chair parade. The fourth possibility is that you
take a grip on yourself....in which case I might let you take a swing at
leading a platoon.  So let's assume that you do and put on the finest
show since Xerxes slew Baltar and I pass you.  In that case
only....you'll need to finish these math assignments.  So do them on the
trip back.
     "That takes care of that....I'll tell the Skipper.  The rest of
those jobs you're relieved of, right now.  On our way home you can spend
your time on math.  If we get home.  But you'll never get anywhere if you
don't learn to keep first things first.  Go to bed!"

*****

     A sectan later we made rendezvous, coming out of drive and coasting
short of lightspeed while the fleet exchanged signals.  We were sent
Briefing, Battle Plan, and our Mission & Orders... a stack of swords as
long as a novel---and were told not to drop.
     We were to be in the operation, but we would ride down like
gentlemen, cushioned in retrieval shuttles.  This we could do because the
Colonies already held the surface; Second, Third, and Fifth C.I.
Divisions had taken it...and paid cash.
     The described real estate didn't seem worth the price.  Tranuslore
is smaller than Caprica, with a surface gravity of 0.7, is mostly
arctic-cold ocean and rock, with lichenous flora and no fauna of
interest.  Its air is not breathable for long, possessing unacceptable
levels of nitrine and flurozine contaminants.  One continent and many
worthless islands; it would probably require as much environmental
engineering as Aquarius did centuries earlier before we could use it.
     However, we were not buying real estate to live on; we went there
because Bugs were there---and they were there on our account, so Staff
thought.  Staff told us that Tranuslore was an uncompleted advance base
(prob. 87 ñ 6 percent) to be used against us.
     Since the planet was no prize, the routine way to get rid of this
Bug stronghold would be for the Fleet to stand off at a safe distance and
render this ugly spheroid uninhabitable by Man or Bug.  But the C-in-C
had other ideas.
     The operation was a raid.  It sounds incredible to call a battle
involving hundreds of ships and thousands of casualties a "raid,"
especially as, in the meantime, the Fleet and a lot of other troopers
were keeping things stirred up many light-yahrens into Bug space in order
to diver them from reinforcing Tranuslore.
     But the C-in-C wasn't wasting men; this giant raid could determine
who won the war, whether next year or thirty yahrens hence.  We needed to
learn more about Bug psychology.  Must we wipe out every Bug in the
Galaxy?  Or was it possible to trounce them and impose a peace?  We
didn't know; we understood them as little as we understand termites.
     To learn their psychology we had to communicate with them, learn
their motivations, find out why they fought and under what conditions
they would stoop; for these, the Psychological Warfare Corps needed
prisoners.
     Workers are easy to capture.  But a Bug worker is hardly more than
animate machinery.  Warriors can be captured by burning off enough limbs
to make them helpless....but they're almost as stupid without a director
as workers.  From such prisoners our own professor types had learned
important matters...the development of the oily gas that killed them came
from analyzing the biochemistries of workers and warriors, and we had
other new weapons from such research even in the short time I had been a
trooper.  But to discover why Bugs fight we needed to study members of
their brain caste.  Also, we hoped to exchange prisoners.
     So far, we had never taken a brain Bug alive.  We had either cleaned
out colonies from the surface, as on Deryann, or (as had too often been
the case) raiders had gone down their holes and not come back.  A lot of
brave men had been lost this way.
     Still more had been lost through retrieval failure.  Sometimes a
team on the ground had its ship(s) knocked out of the sky.  What happens
to such a team?  Possibly it dies to the last man.  More probably it
fights until power and ammo are gone, then survivors are captured as
easily as so many beetles on their backs.
     From our co-belligerents the Skinnies we knew that many missing
troopers were alive as prisoners---thousands, we hoped, hundreds we were
sure.  Intelligence believed that prisoners were always taken to
Algocant; the Bugs are as curious as we are about them...a race of
individuals able to build cities, battlestars, and armies, may be even
more mysterious than a hive entity is to us.
     Be that as it may, we wanted those prisoners back!
     In the grim logic of the universe this may be a weakness.  Perhaps
some race that never bothers to rescue an individual may exploit this
human trait to wipe us out.  The Skinnies have such a trait only slightly
and the Bugs don't seem to have it at all----nobody ever saw a Bug come
to the aid of another because he was wounded; they cooperate perfectly in
fighting but units are abandoned the instant they are no longer useful.
     Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like
this? ----TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD.  If a man gets
lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three
searchers are killed.  But the next time somebody gets lost just as many
volunteers turn out.
     Poor arithmetic....but very human.  It runs through our folklore,
all human religions, all our literature----a racial conviction that when
one human needs rescue, other should not count the price.
     Weakness?  It might be the unique strength that wins us a Galaxy.
     Weakness or strength, Bugs don't have it; there was no prospect of
trading fighters for fighters.
     But in a hive polyarchy, some castes are valuable---or so our Psych
Warfare people hoped.  If we could capture brain Bugs alive and
undamaged, we might be able to trade on good terms.
     And suppose we captured a queen!
     What's a queen's trading value?  A regiment of troopers?  Nobody
knew, but Battle Plan ordered us to capture Bug "royalty," brains and
queens, at any cost, on the gamble that we could trade them for human
beings.
     The third purpose of Operation Royalty was to develop methods:  how
to go down, how to dig them out, how to win with less than total weapons. 
Trooper for warrior, we could now defeat them above ground; ship for
ship, our Fleet was better; but, so far, we had no luck when we tried to
go down their holes.
     If we failed to exchange prisoners on any terms, then we still had
to:  (a) win the war, (b) do so in a way that gave us a fighting chance
to rescue our own people, or (c)----might as well admit it---die trying
and lose. Tranuslore was a field test to determine whether we could learn
how to root them out.
     Briefing was read to every trooper and he heard it again in his
sleep during hypno preparation.  So, while we all knew that Operation
Royalty was laying the groundwork toward eventual rescue of our mates, we
also knew that Tranuslore held no human prisoners---it had never been
raided.  So there was no reason to buck for medals in a wild hope of
being personally in on a rescue; it was just another Bug hunt, but
conducted with massive force and new techniques.  We were going to peel
that planet like an onion, until we knew that every Bug had been dug out.
     The Fleet had plastered the islands and that unoccupied part of the
continent until they were radioactive glaze; we could tackle Bugs with no
worries about our rear.  The Fleet also maintained a ball-of-yarn patrol
in tight orbits around the planet, guarding us, escorting battlestars,
keeping a spy watch on the surface to make sure that Bugs didn't break
out behind us despite that plastering.
     Under the Battle Plan, the orders for the Deltas charged us with
supporting the prime Mission when ordered or as opportunity presented,
relieving another company in a captured area, protecting units of other
corps in that area, maintaining contact with C.I. units around us----and
smacking down any Bugs that showed their ugly heads.

*****

     So we rode down in comfort to an unopposed landing.  I took my
platoon out at a powered-armor trot.  Turuggord went ahead to meet the
company commander he was relieving, get the situation and size up the
terrain.  He headed for the horizon like a scared lepus.
     I had Ironeyes send his first sections' scouts out to locate the
forward corners of my patrol area and I sent my platoon sergeant off to
my left to make contact with a patrol from the Fifth Regiment.  We, the
Third Regiment, had a grid three hundred maxims wide and eighty maxims
deep to hold; my piece was a rectangle forty maxims deep and seventeen
wide in the extreme left flank forward corner.  The Cetis were behind us,
Lieutenant Torquil's platoon on the right and Bembeus beyond him.
     Our First Regiment had already relieved a 5th Div. regiment ahead of
us, with a "brick wall" overlap which placed them on my corner as well as
ahead. "Ahead" and "rear," "right flank" and "left," referred to
orientation set up in deadreckoning tracers in each command suit to match
the grid of the Battle Plan.  We had no true front, simply an area, and
the only fighting at the moment was going on several hundred miles away,
to our arbitrary right and rear.
     Somewhere off that way, probably two hundred maxims, should be Blue
Platoon, Gamma Co., 2nd Batt, 3rd Reg.
     Or the Blues might by forty light-yahrens away.  Tactical
organization never matches the Table of Organization;  all I knew from
Plan was that something called the "2nd Batt" was on our right flank
beyond the boys from the Caspycion.  But that battalion could have been
borrowed from another division.  The Sky Marshal plays his chess without
consulting the pieces.
     Anyhow, I shouldn't be thinking about the Blues; I had all I could
do as a Delta.  My platoon was okay for the moment---safe as you can be
on a hostile planet---but I had plenty to do before Ironeyes's first
squad reached the far corner.  I needed to:
     1. Locate the platoon leader who'd been holding my area.
     2. Establish corners and identify them to section and squad leaders.
     3. Make contact liaison with eight platoon leaders on my side and
corners, five of whom should already be in position (those from Fifth and
First Regiments) and three (Besman of the Deltas and Ergo and Bardolph of
the Cetis) who were now moving into position.
     4. Get my own boys spread out to their initial points as fast as
possible by shortest routes.
     The last had to be set up first, as the open column in which we
disembarked would not do it.  Zesonol's last squad needed to deploy to
the left flank; Ironeyes's leading squad needed to spread from dead ahead
to left oblique; the other four squads must fan out in-between.
     This is a standard square deployment and we had simulated how to
reach it quickly in the drop room; I called out: "Ironeyes!  Zesonol! 
Time to spread 'em out," using the noncom circuit.
     "Affirmative sec one!"----"Affirmative sec two!"
     'Section leaders take charge....and caution each recruit.  You'll be
passing by a lot of Crystals.  I don't want 'em shot by mistake!"  I bit
down for my private circuit and said, "Sarge, you got contact on the
left?"
     "Yes, sir.  They see me, they see you."
     "Good.  I don't see a beacon on our anchor corner...."
     "Missing."
     "---so you coach Ironeyes by D.R. Same for the lead scout---that's
Krymsonn---and have Krymsonn set a new beacon."  I wondered why the Third
or Fifth hadn't replaced that anchor beacon....my forward left corner
where three regiments came together.
     No use talking.  I went on:  "D.R. check.  You bear two seven five,
maxims twelve."
     "Sir, reverse is nine, six, maxims twelve scant."
     "Close enough. I haven't found my opposite number yet, so I'm
cutting out forward at max.  You got the conn."
     "Got 'em, Apollo."
     I advanced at max speed while clicking over to officers' circuit: 
"Square Black One, answer.  Black One, Crystal Platoon---do you read me? 
Answer."  I wanted to talk with the leader of the platoon we were
relieving-and not for any perfunctory I-relieve-you-sir:  I wanted the
ungarnished word.
     I didn't like what I had seen.
     Either the top brass had been optimistic in believing that we'd
mounted overwhelming force against a small, underdeveloped Bug base---or
the Deltas had been awarded the spot where the roof fell in.  In the few
moments I had been out of the shuttlecraft I had spotted half a dozen
armored suits on the ground....empty I hoped, dead men possibly, but 'way
too many any way you looked at it.
     Besides that, my tactical radar display showed a full platoon (mine)
moving into position but only a scattering moving back toward retrieval
or still on station.  Nor could I see any system to their movements.
     I was responsible for 680 square maxims of hostile terrain and I
wanted very badly to find out all I could before my own squads were deep
into it.  Battle Plan had ordered a new tactical doctrine which I found
dismaying:  Do not close the Bugs' tunnels. Turuggord had explained this
as if it had been his own happy thought, but I doubt if he liked it.  
     The strategy was simple, and, I guess, logical....if we could afford
the losses.  Let the Bugs come up.  Meet them and kill them on the
surface.  Let them keep on coming up.  Don't bomb their holes, don't gas
their holes....let 'em out.  After a while, a day, two days, a
sectan---if we really did have overwhelming force, they would stop coming
up.  Planning Staff estimated (don't ask me how!) that the Bugs would
expend 70 percent to 90 percent of their warriors before they stopped
trying to drive us off the surface.
     Then we'd start the unpeeling, killing surviving warriors as we went
down and trying to capture "royalty" alive.  We knew what the Brain caste
looked like; we had seen them dead (in photographs) and we knew they
could not run---barely functional legs, bloated bodies that were mostly
nervous system.  Queens no human had ever seen, but Bio War Corps had
prepared sketches of what they should look like---obscene monsters larger
than an equine and utterly immobile.
     Besides brains and queens there might be other "royalty" castes.  As
might be---encourage their warriors to come out and die, then capture
alive anything but warriors and workers.
     A necessary plan and very pretty on paper.  What it meant to me was
that I had an area 17 X 40 miles which might be riddled with unstopped
Bug holes.  I wanted coordinates on each one.
     If there were too many...well, I might accidentally plug a few and
let my boys concentrate on watching the rest.  A private in a Raider suit
can cover a lot of terrain, but he can only look at only one thing at a
time; he's not superhuman.
     I bounced several maxims ahead of the first squad, still calling the
Crystal Platoon leader, varying it by calling any Crystal officer and
describing the pattern of my transponder beacon (dah-di-dah-dah).
     No answer....
     At last I got a reply from my boss.  "Apollo! Knock off the damn
noise.  Answer me on conference circuit."
     So I did, and Turuggord told me crisply to quite trying to find the
Crystals' leader for Square Black One; there wasn't one.  There might be
a noncom alive somewhere (maybe) but the chain of command was broken.
     By the book, somebody always moves up.  But it does happen if too
many links are knocked out.  As Colonel Wyleeum had once warned me, in
the dim past...almost a sectan ago.
     Captain Garpen had gone into action with three officers besides
himself; there was one left now (my classmate, Shamlor) and Turuggord was
trying to find out from him the situation.  Shamlor wasn't much help. 
When I joined the conference and identified myself, Shamlor thought I was
his battalion commander and made a report almost heartbreakingly precise,
especially as it made no sense at all.
      Turuggord intteruped and told me to carry on.  "Forget about a
relief briefing.  The situation is whatever you see that it is....so stir
around and see."
     "Right, Boss!' I slashed across my own area toward the far corner,
the anchor corner, as fast as I could move, switching circuits on my
first bounce.  "Sarge!  How about that beacon?"
     "No place on that corner to put it, sir.  A fresh crater there,
about scale six."
     I whistled to myself.  You could drop the Pegasus into a size six
crater.  One of the dodges the Bugs used on us when we were sparring,
ourselves on the surface, Bugs underground, was laid mines.  (They never
seemed to use missiles, except from ships in space.)  If you were near
the spot, the ground shock got you; if you were in the air when one went
off, the concussion wave could tumble your gyros and throw your suit out
of control.
     I had never seen larger than a scale-four crater.  The theory was
that they didn't dare use too big an explosion because of damage to their
troglodyte habitats, even if the cofferdammed around it.
     "Place an offset beacon," I told him.  "Tell section and squad
leaders."
     "I have, sir.  Angle one one oh, maxims one point three. Da-di-dit. 
You should be able to read it, bearing about three three five from where
you are."  He sounded as calm as a sergeant-tutor at drill and I wondered
if I were letting my voice become shrill.
     I found it in my display, above my left eyebrow....long and two
shorts.  "Okay.  I see Ironeyes' first squad is nearly in position. 
Break off that squad, have it patrol the crater.  Equalize the
areas-----Zesonol will have to take four more maxims of depth."  I
thought with annoyance that each man already had to patrol fourteen
square maxims; spreading the butter so thin meant seventeen square miles
per man---and a Bug can come out of a hole less than five microns wide.
     I added. "How 'hot' is that crater?"
     'Amber-red at the edge.  I haven't been in it, sir."
     "Stay out of it.  I'll check it later."  Amber-red would kill an
unprotected human but a trooper in armor can take it for quite a time. 
If there was that much radiation at the edge, the bottom would no doubt
fry your eyeballs.  "Tell Hector to pull Decius and Casca back to amber
zone, and have them set up ground listeners."  Two of my five recruits
were in that first squad---and recruits are like pups; they stick their
noses into things.
     "Tell Hector that I'm interested in two things:  movement inside the
crater....and noises in the ground around it."  We wouldn't send troopers
out through a hole so radioactive that mere exit would kill them.  But
Bugs would, if they could reach us that way.  "Have Hector report to me. 
To you and me, that is."
     "By your command."  My platoon sergeant added, "May I make a
suggestion?"
     "Of course.  And don't stop to ask permission next time."
     "Cerimon can handle the rest of the first section. Sergeant Ironeyes
could take the squad at the crater and leave Hector free to supervise the
ground-listening watch."
     I knew what he was thinking.  Hector, so newly a corporal that he
had never before had a squad on the ground, was hardly the man to cover
what looked like the worst danger point in Square Black One; he wanted to
pull Hector back for the same reasons I'd pulled the recruits back.
     Did he know what I was thinking?  That "nutcracker"---he was using
the suit he'd worn as Turuggord's battalion staffer, he had one more
circuit than I had, a private one to Captain Turuggord.
     Turuggord was probably patched in and listening via that extra
circuit.  Obviously my platoon sergeant didn't agree with my disposition
of the platoon.  If I didn't take his advice, the next thing I heard
might be Turuggord's voice cutting in:  "Sergeant, take charge.  Apollo,
you're relieved."
     But----Confound it, a corporal who wasn't allowed to boss his squad
wasn't a corporal....and a platoon leader who was just a ventriloquist's
dummy for his platoon was an empty suit!
     I didn't mull this.  It flashed through my head and I answered at
once. "I can't spare a corporal to babysit with two recruits.  Nor a
sergeant to boss four privates and a lance."
     "But..."
     "Hold it.  I want the crater watch relieved every centon.  I want
our first patrol sweep made rapidly.  Squad leaders will check any hole
reported and get beacon bearings so that section leaders, platoon
sergeant and platoon leader can check them as they reach them.  If there
aren't too many, we'll put a watch on each....I'll decide later."
     "By your command."
     "Second time around, I want a slow patrol, as tight as possible, to
catch holes we miss on the first sweep.  Assistant squad leaders will use
snoopers on that pass.  Squad leaders will get bearings on any
troopers....or suits....on the ground; the Crystals may have some live
wounded.  But no one is to stop even to check physicals until I order it. 
We've got to know the Bug situation first."
     "By your command."
     "Suggestions?"
     "Just one," he answered.  "I think the squad chasers should use
their snoopers on the first fast pass."
     "Very well.  Do it that way."  His suggestion made sense as the
surface air temperature was much lower than the Bugs use in their
tunnels; a camouflaged vent hold should show a plume like a geyser by
infrared vision.  I glanced at my display.  "Ironeyes' boys are almost at
limit.  Start your parade."
     "By your command!"
     "Off."  I clicked over to the wide circuit and continued to make
tracks for the crater while I listened to everybody at once as my platoon
sergeant revised the pre-plan....cutting out one squad, heading it for
the crater, starting the rest of the first section in a two-squad
countermarch while keeping the second section in a rotational sweep as
pre-planned but with four maxims increased depth; got the sections
moving, dropped them and caught the first squad as it converged on the
anchor crater, gave it its instructions; cut back to the section leaders
in plenty of time to give them new beacon bearings at which to make their
turns.
     He did it with the smart precision of a drum major on parade and he
did it faster and in fewer words than I could have done it. 
Extended-order powered suit drill, with a platoon spread over many miles
of countryside, is much more difficult than the strutting precision of
parade---but it's got to be exact, or you'll blow the head off our mate
in action....or, as in this case, you sweep part of the terrain twice and
miss another part.
     But the drillmaster has only a radar display of his formation; he
can see with his eyes only those near him.  While I listened I watched it
in my own display---glowworms crawling past my face in precise lines,
"crawling" because even forty maxims a centon is a slow crawl when you
compress a formation twenty maxims across into a display a man can see.
     I listened to everybody at once because I wanted to hear the chatter
inside the squads.
     There wasn't any.  Ironeyes and Zesonol gave their secondary
commands---and shut up.  The corporals sang out only as squad changes
were needed; section and squad chasers called out occasional corrections
of interval or alignment---and privates said nothing at all.
     I heard the breathing of fifty men like muted sibilance of surf,
broken only by necessary orders in the fewest possible words.  Turuggord
had been right; the platoon had been handed over to me "tuned like an
astral harp."
     They didn't need me!  I could go home and my platoon would get along
just as well.
     Or better....
     I wasn't sure I had been right to cut Ironeyes out to guard the
crater; if trouble broke there and those boys couldn't be reached in
time, the excuse that I had done it "by the book" was worthless.  If you
get killed, or let someone else get killed, it's just as permanent as any
other way.
     I wondered if the Blues had an opening for a buck sergeant.

*****

     Most of Square Black One was as flat as the prairie around Camp
Columbia and much more barren.  For this I was thankful; it gave us our
only chance of spotting a Bug coming up from below and getting him first. 
We were spread so widely that four-maxim intervals between men and about
six mili-centons between waves of a fast sweep was as tight as a patrol
as we could manage.  This isn't tight enough; any one spot would remain
free of observation for at least three or four mili-centons between
patrol waves...and a lot of Bugs can come out of a very small hole in
three to four mili-centons.
     Radar can see farther than the eye, of course, but it cannot see as
accurately.
     In addition we didn't dare use anything but short-range selective
weapons....our own mates were spread around us in all directions.  If a
Bug popped up and let you fly with something lethal, it was certain that
not too far beyond that Bug was a cap trooper; this sharply limits the
range and force of the frightfulness you dare use.  On this operation
only officers and platoon sergeants were armed with rockets, and, even
so, we didn't expect to use them.  If a rocket fails to find its  target,
it's got a nasty habit of continuing to search until it finds one...and
it cannot tell a friend from foe; a brain that can be stuffed into a
small rocket is fairly stupid.
     I'd happily have swapped that area patrol with thousands of C.I.
around us, for a simple one-platoon strike in which you know where your
own people are and anything else is a moving target.
     I didn't waste time moaning; I never stopped bouncing toward that
anchor-corner crater while watching the ground and trying to watch the
radar picture as well.  I didn't find any Bug holes but I did jump over a
dry wash, almost a canyon, which could conceal quite a few.  I didn't
stop to see; I simply gave its coordinates to my platoon sergeant and
told him to have somebody check it.
     That crater was even bigger than I'd visualized; the Pegasus
would've been lost in it.  I shifted my radiation counter to directional
cascade, took readings on floor and sides----red to multiple red right
off the scale, very unhealthy for long exposure even to a man in armor; I
estimated its width and depth by helmet range finder, then prowled around
and tried to spot openings leading underground.
     I didn't find any but I did run into crater watches set out by
adjacent platoons of the Fifth and First Regiments, so I arranged to
split up the watch by sectors such that the combined watch could yell for
help from all t here platoons, the patch-in to do this being made through
First Lieutenant Dynelos of the Metallos on our left.  Then I pulled out
Hector's lance and half his squad (including the recruits) and sent them
back to platoon, reporting all this to my boss, and to my platoon
sergeant.
     "Captain," I told Turuggord, "we're not getting any ground
vibrations.  I'm going down inside and check for holes.  The readings
show that I won't get too much dosage if I..."
     "Youngster, stay out of that crater."
     "But Captain, I just mean to...."
     "Shut up!  You can't learn anything useful, so stay out!"
     "By your command."
     The next nine centons were tedious.  We'd been preconditioned for
forty centons of duty (two revolutions of Tranuslore) through forced
sleep, elevated blood sugar count, and hypno indoctrination, and of
course the suits are self-contained for personal needs.  The suits can't
last that long, but each man was carrying extra power units and super
H.P. air cartridges for recharging.  But a patrol without action is dull,
it's easy to goof off.
     I did what I could think of, having Ironeyes and Zesonol take turn
as drill sergeant (thus leaving platoon sergeant and leader free to rove
around): I gave orders that no sweeps were to repeat in pattern so that
each man would always check terrain that was new to him.  There are
endless patterns to cover a given area, by combining the combinations. 
Besides that, I consulted my platoon sergeant and announced bonus points
toward honor squad for first verified hole, first Bug destroyed,
etc.----boot camp tricks, but staying alert means staying alive, so
anything to avoid boredom.
     Finally we had a visit from a special unit: three combat engineers
in a utility hovermobile, escorting a talent---a spatial senser. 
Turuggord warned me to expect them.  "Protect them and give them what
they want."
     "By your command. What will they need?"
     "How should I know?  If Major Bakdet wants you to take off your skin
and dance in your bones, do it!"
     "By your command.  Major Bakdet."
     I relayed the word and set up a bodyguard by sub-areas.  Then I met
them as they arrived because I was curious; I'd never seen a special
talent at work.  They landed beside me right flank and got out.  Major
Bakdet and two officers were wearing armor and hand flamers but the
talent had no armor and no weapons----just an oxygen mask.  He was
dressed a fatigue uniform without insignia and he seemed terribly bored
by everything.  I wasn't introduced to him.  He looked like a
sixteen-yahren-old boy....until I got close and saw a network of wrinkles
around his weary eyes.
     As he got out he took off his breathing mask.  I was horrified, so I
spoke to Major Bakdet, helmet to helmet without radio.  "Major---the air
around here is 'hot.'  Besides that, we've been warned that...."
     "Pipe down," said the Major.  "He knows it."
     I shut up.  The talent strolled a short distance, turned and pulled
his lower lip. His eyes were closed and he seemed lost in thought.
     He opened them and said fretfully, "How can one be expected to work
with all those silly people jumping around?"
     Major Badket said crisply, "Ground your platoon."
     I gulped and started to argue----then cut in the all-hands circuit: 
"Havoc Platoon-----ground and freeze!"
     It speaks well for Lieutenant Titch that all I heard was a double
echo of my order, as it was repeated down to squad.  I said, "Major, can
I let them move around on the ground?"
     'No.  And shut up."
     Presently the senser got back in the hovermobile, put his mask on. 
There wasn't room for me, but I was allowed---ordered really----to grab
on and be towed; we shifted a couple of maxims.  Again the senser took
off his mask and walked around.  This time he spoke to one of the other
combat engineers, who kept nodding and sketching on a pad.
     The special-mission unit landed about a dozen times in my area, each
time going through the same apparently pointless routine; then they moved
onto the Fifth Regiment's grid.  Just before they left, the officer who'd
been sketching pulled a sheet out of the bottom of his sketch box and
handed it to me.  "Here's your sub map.  The wide red band is the only
Bug thoroughfare in your area.  It's nearly a thousand feet down where it
enters but it climbs steadily toward your left rear and leaves at about
minus four hundred fifty.  The light blue network joining it is a big Bug
colony the only places where it comes within a hundred feet of the
surface I've marked.  You might put some listeners there until we can get
over there and handle it."
     I stared at it.  "Is this a reliable map?"
     The engineer officer glanced at the senser, and then said very
quietly to me.  "Of course it is, you idiot!  What're you trying to do? 
Get him upset?"
     They left while I was studying it.  The artist-engineer had done
double sketching and the box had combined them into a stereo picture of
the first thousand feet under the surface.  I was so bemused by it that I
had to be reminded to take the platoon out of "freeze"---then I withdrew
the ground listeners from the crater, pulled two men from each squad and
gave them bearings from that damned map to have then listen along the Bug
highway and over the town.
     I reported it to Turuggord.  He cut me off as I started to describe
the Bug tunnels by coordinates.  "Major Badket relayed a facsimile to me. 
Just give me the coordinates of your listening posts."
     I did so.  He said, "Not bad, Apollo.  But not quite what I want,
either.  You've placed more listeners than you need over their mapped
tunnels.  String four of them along that Bug race track, place four more
in a diamond around their town.  That leaves you four.  Place one in the
triangle formed by your right rear corner and the main tunnel; the other
three go in the larger area on the other side of the tunnel."
     "By your command." I added, "Captain, can we depend on this map?"
     "What's bothering you?"
     "Well----it seems like magic.  Black magic."
     "Look, son, I've got a special message from the Sky Marshal to you. 
He says to tell you that map is official....and that he'll worry about
everything else so that you can give full time to your platoon.  Follow
me?"
     "Yes, Captain."
     "But the Bugs can burrow mighty fast, so you give special attention
to the listening posts outside the area of the tunnels.  Any noise from
those four outside posts louder than a butterfly's roar is to be reported
at once, regardless of its nature."
     "By your command."
     "When they burrow, it makes a noise like frying bacon---in case
you've never heard it.  Stop your patrol sweeps.  Leave one man on visual
observation of the crater.  Let half your platoon sleep for two hours,
while the other half pairs off to take turns listening."
     "By your command."
     "You may see some more combat engineers.  Here's the revised plan. 
A sapper company will blast down and cork that main tunnel where it comes
nearest the surface, either at your left flank or beyond in 'Battle'
territory.  At the same time another engineer company will do the same
where that tunnel branches about thirty maxims off to your right in the
First Regiment's bailiwick.  When the corks are in, a long chunk of their
main street and a biggish settlement will be cut off. Meanwhile, the same
sort of thing will be going on in a lot of other places. 
Thereafter---we'll see.  Either the Bugs break through to the surface and
we have a pitched battle, or they sit tight and we go down after them,
sector by sector."
     "I see."  Did I, really?  Maybe not.  But at least I understood my
part:  rearrange my listening posts; let half my platoon sleep.  Then a
Bug hunt----on the surface if we were lucky, underground if we weren't.
     "Have your flank make contact with that sapper company when it
arrives.  Give 'em help if they need it."
     "Right, Cap'n," I agreed heartily.  Combat engineers are almost as
good an outfit as the infantry; it's a pleasure to work with them. In a
pinch they fight, maybe not expertly but bravely.  Or they go ahead with
their work, not even lifting their heads while a battle rages around
them.  They have an unofficial, very cynical and very ancient motto: 
"First we'll dig 'em, then we'll die in 'em," to supplement their
official motto:  "Can do!" Both mottoes are literal truth.
     "Get on it, son."
     Twelve listening posts mean that I could put half a squad at each
post, either a corporal or his lance, plus three privates, then allow two
of each group of four to sleep while the other two took turns listening. 
Krymsonn and the other section chaser could watch the crater and sleep,
turn about, while section sergeants could take turns in charge of the
platoon.  The redisposition took no more than ten mili-centons once I had
detailed the plan and given out bearings to the sergeants; nobody had to
move very far.  I warned everybody to keep eyes open for a company of
engineers.  As soon as each section reported its listening posts in
operation, I clicked to the wide circuit:  "Odd numbers!  Lie down,
prepare to sleep...one....two....three....four....five----sleep!"
     A suit does not a good bed make, but sometimes they have to do.  One
good thing about hypno preparation for combat is that, in the (un)likely
event of a chance to rest, a man can be put to sleep instantly by
post-hypnotic command triggered by a non-hypnotist----and awakened just
as instantly, alert and ready to fight.  It's a life-saver, because a Man
can get so exhausted in battle that he shoots at things that aren't there
and can't see what he should be fighting.
     But I had no intention of sleeping.  I had not been told to....and I
had not asked.  The very thought of sleeping when I knew that perhaps
many thousands of Bugs were only a few hundred microns away made my
stomach jump.  Was that senser infallible?  Could the Bugs reach us
without alerting our listening posts?
     I wasn't going to take any chances on it.
     I clicked to my private circuit.  "Sarge..."
     "By your command."
     "You might as well take a nap.  I'll be on watch.  Lie down and
prepare to sleep....one....two----."
     "Excuse me, sir.  I have a suggestion."
     "I'm listening."
     "If I understand the revised plan, no action is expected for the
next four centons.  You could take a nap now, and then...."
     "Frak that, Sarge!  I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to make the
rounds of listening posts and watch for that sapper company."
     "Very well, sir."
     "I'll check number three while I'm here.  You stay here with Zesonol
and catch some rest while I---."
     "Apollo!"
     I broke off.  "Captain?" Had the Old Man been listening?
     "Are your posts all set?"
     "Yes, Captain, and my odd numbers are sleeping. I'm about to inspect
each post.  Then..."
     "Let your sergeant do it.  I want you to rest."
     "But, Captain...."
     "Lie down.   It is so ordered. Prepare to
sleep....one....two...three----Apollo!"
     "Captain, with your permission, I'd like to inspect my posts first. 
Then I'll rest, if you order it, but I'd rather remain awake.  I...."
     Turuggord guffawed in my ear.  "Look, son, you've slept for a centon
plus ten mili-centons."
     "Sir?"
     "Check the time."  I did so----and felt foolish.  "You wide awake,
son?"
     "Yes, sir.  I think so."
     "Things have speeded up.  Call your odd numbers and put your even
numbers to sleep.  With luck, they'll get a centon's worth.  So swap 'em
around, inspect your posts, and call me back."
     I did so and started my rounds without a word to my platoon
sergeant.  I was annoyed at both him and Turuggord----at my company
commander because I resented being put to sleep against my will; and as
for my platoon sergeant, I had a dirty hunch that I wouldn't have been
done if he weren't the real boss and myself but a mere figurehead.
     But after I'd checked posts number three and one (no sounds of any
sort, both were forward of the Bug area), I cooled down.  After all,
blaming a sergeant, even a fleet sergeant, for the sins of a captain was
absurd.  "Sarge...."
     "Yes, Apollo?"
     "Do you want me a grab a nap with the even numbers?  I'll wake you a
minute or two before I wake them."
     He hesitated slightly.  "Sir, I'd like to inspect the listening
posts."
     "You haven't done so already?"
     "No, sir.  I've been asleep the past centon."
     "Huh?"
     He sounded embarrassed.  "The Captain required me to do so.  He
placed Zesonol temporarily in charge and put me to sleep immediately
after he relieved you."
     I started to answer, then laughed helplessly.  "Sarge?  Let's you
and I go off somewhere and back to sleep.  We're wasting our time; Cap'n
Turuggord is running this platoon."
     "I have found, sir," he answered stiffly, "that Captain Turuggord
has a reason for everything he does."
     I nodded thoughtfully, forgetting that I was ten miles from my
listener.  "Yes.  You're right, he always has a reason.  Mmmm.....since
he had us both sleep, he must want us both awake and alert now."
     "I think that must be true."
     "Mmmm.....any idea why?"
     He was rather long in answering.  "Apollo," he said slowly, "If the
Captain knew he'd tell us; I've never known him to hold back information. 
But sometimes he does things a certain way without being able to explain
why.  The Captain's hunches---well, I've learned to respect them."
     "So?  Squad leaders are all even numbers; they're asleep."
     "That they are, sir."
     "Alert the lance of each squad.  We won't wake anybody....but when
we do, microcentons may be important."
     "Righto!"
     I checked the remaining forward post, then covered the four posts
bracketing the Bug village, jacking my phones in parallel with each
listener.  I had to force myself to listen, because you could hear them
down there below, chittering to each other.  I wanted to run and it was
all I could do not to let it show.
     I wondered if that "special talent" was simply a man with incredibly
acute hearing.
     No matter how he did it, the Bugs were where he said there were. 
Back at O.C.S. we had received demonstrations of recorded Bug noises;
these four posts were picking up typical nest noises of a large Bug
town---that chittering which may be their speech (though why should they
need to talk if they're all remotely controlled by the brain caste?), a
rustling like sticks and dry leaves, a high background whine which is
always heard at a settlement and which had to be machinery----their air
conditioning, perhaps.
     I didn't hear the hissing, cracking noise they make in cutting
through rock.
     The sounds along the Bug boulevard were unlike the settlement
sounds----a low background rumble which increased to a roar every few
moments, as if heavy traffic were passing.  I listened at post number
five, then I got an idea---checked it by having the standby man at each
of the four posts along the tunnel call out "Mark!" to me each time the
roaring got loudest.
     Presently I reported.  "Captain."
     'Yeah, Apollo?"
     "The traffic along this Bug race is moving one way, from me toward
you.  Speed is approximately ten maxims per centon, a load goes past at
about once a mili-centon."
     "Close enough," he agreed.  "I make it one-oh-eight with a headway
of fifty-eight microcentons."
     "Oh."  I felt dashed and changed the subject.  "I haven't seen that
sapper company."
     "You're not going to.  They picked a spot in the middle rear of
'Battle' area:  Sorry, I should've told you.  Anything else?"
     "No, sir."  We clicked off and I felt better.  Even Turuggord could
forget....and there hadn't been anything wrong with my idea.  I left the
tunnel zone to inspect the listening post to right and rear of the Bug
area, post twelve.
     As with the others, there were two men asleep, one listening, one
stand-by, I said to the stand-by, "Getting anything?"
     "No, sir."
     The man listening, one of my five recruits, looked up and said,
"Apollo, I think this pickup has just gone sour."
     "I'll check it," I said.  He moved to let me jack in with him.
     "Frying bacon" so loud you could smell it!
     I hit the all-hands circuit.  "Havoc Platoon up! Wake up, call off,
and report!"
     ----And clicked over to officers' circuit.  "Captain!  Captain
Turuggord!  Urgent!"
     "Slow down, Apollo.  Report."
     " 'Frying bacon' sounds, sir," I answered, trying desperately to
keep my voice steady.  "Post twelve at coordinates Easter Nine, Square
Black One."
     "Easter Nine," he agreed.  "How many decibels?"
     I looked hastily at the meter on the pickup.  "Unknown at this time,
Captain.  Off the scale at the max end.  It sounds like they're right
under my feet!"
     "Good!" he applauded----how in Kobol could he feel that way?  "Best
news we've had today!  Now listen, son. Get your lads awake..."
     "They are, sir!"
     "Very well.  Pull back two listeners, have them spot check around
post twelve.  Try to figure where the Bugs are going to break out.  And
stay away from that spot!  Understand me?"
     "I hear you, sir," I said carefully.  "But I don't understand."
     He sighed.  "Apollo, you'll be the death of me yet.  Look, son, we
want them to come out, the more the better.  You don't have the firepower
to handle them other than by blowing up their tunnel as they reach the
surface....and that's the one thing you mustn't do!  If they come out in
force, a regiment can't handle them.  But that's just what the General
wants, and he's got a brigade of heavy weapons in orbit, waiting for it. 
So you spot that breakthrough, fall back, and keep it under observation. 
If you're lucky enough to have a major breakthrough in your area, your
reconnaissance will be patched through all the way to the top.  So stay
lucky and stay alive!  Got it?"
     "By your command.  Spot the breakthrough.  Fall back and avoid
contact.  Observe and report."
     "Get on it!"
     I pulled back listeners nine and ten from the middle stretch of "Bug
Boulevard" and had them close in on coordinates Easter Nine from right
and left, stopping every half mile to listen for "frying bacon."  At the
same time I lifted post twelve and moved it toward our rear, while
checking for a dying away of the sound.
     In the meantime my platoon sergeant was regrouping the platoon in
the forward area between the Bug settlement and the crater---all but
twelve men who were ground-listening.  Since we were under orders not to
attack, we both worried over the prospect of having the platoon spread
too widely for mutual support.  So he rearranged them in a compact line
five miles long, with Zesonol's section on the left, nearer the Bug
settlement.  This placed the men less than three hundred yards apart
(almost shoulder to shoulder for troopers), and put nine of the men still
on listening stations within support distance of one flank or the other. 
Only the three listeners working with me were out of reach of ready help.
     I told Nursis of the Cetis and Casca of Battle Platoon that I was no
longer patrolling and why, and I reported our regrouping to Captain
Turuggord.
     He grunted.  "Suit yourself. Got a prediction on that breakthrough?"
     "It seems to center about Easter Ten, Captain, but it's hard to pin
down.  The sounds are very loud in an area about three maxims
across----and it seems to get wider.  I'm trying to circle it at an
intensity level just barely on scale."  I added, "Could they be driving a
new horizontal tunnel just under the surface?"
     He seemed surprised.  "That's possible. I hope not...we want 'em to
come up." He added, "Lemme know if the center of the noise moves.  Check
on it."
     "By your command.  Captain..."
     "Huh?  Speak up."
     'You told us not to attack when they break out.  If they break out. 
What are we to do?  Are we just spectators?"
     There was a longish delay, fifteen or twenty microcentons, and he
may have consulted "upstairs."  At last he said, "Apollo, you're not to
attack at or near Easter Ten.  Anywhere else---the idea is to hunt Bugs."
     "By your command," I agreed happily.  "We hunt Bugs."
     "Apollo!" he said sharply.  "If you go hunting medals instead of
Bugs---and I find out---you're going to have a mighty sad-looking Form
Thirty-One!"
     "Captain," I said earnestly.  "I don't ever want to win a medal. 
The idea is to hunt Bugs."
     "Right. Now quit bothering me."
     I called my platoon sergeant, explained the new limits under which
we would work, told him to pass the word along and to make sure that each
man's suit was freshly charged, air and power.
     "We've just finished that, sir.  I suggest that we relieve the men
with you." He named three reliefs.
     That was reasonable, as my ground listeners had no time to recharge. 
But the reliefs he named were all raiders.
     Silently I cursed myself for utter stupidity.  A raider's suit is as
fast as a gladiator's suit, twice the speed of a raider.  I had been
having a nagging feeling of something left undone, and had checked it off
to the nervousness I always feel around Bugs.
     Now I knew.  Here I was, ten maxims away from my platoon with a
party of three men---each in a raider suit.  When the Bugs broke through,
I was going to be faced with an impossible decision....unless the men
with me could rejoin as fast as I could.  "That's good," I agreed, "but I
no longer need three men.  Send Dynelos, right away.  Have him relieve
Hulstar.  Use the other three raiders to relieve the listening posts
farthest forward."
     "Just Dynelos?" he said doubtfully.
     "Dynelos is enough. I'm going to man one listener myself.  Two of us
can straddle the area; we know where they are now."  I added, "Get
Dynelos down here on the bounce."
     For the next thirty-seven mili-centons nothing happened.  Dynelos
and I swung back and forth along the forward and rear arcs of the area
around Easter Ten, listening five seconds at a time, then moving on.  It
was no longer necessary to seat the microphone in rock; it was enough to
touch it to the ground to get the sound of "frying bacon" strong and
clear.  The noise area expanded, but its center didn't change. Once I
called Captain Turuggord to tell him the sound had abruptly stopped, and
again three mili-centons later to tell him it had resumed; otherwise I
used the raiders' circuit and let my platoon sergeant take care of the
platoon and the listening posts near the platoon.
     At the end of this time everything happened at once.

*****

     A voice called out on the raiders' circuit, 'Bacon Fry'!  Brasstooth
Two, Black One!"---clicked over to liaison with the platoons surrounding
me: "Liaison flash! 'Bacon frying' at Brasstooth Two, Square Black
One"---and immediately heard Casca:  " 'Frying bacon' sounds at Hotbread
Three, Green Twelve."
     I relayed that to Turuggord and cut back to my own raiders' circuit,
heard:  "Bugs!  Bugs!  HELP!"
     "Where?"
     No answer.  I clicked over.  "Sarge!  Who reported Bugs?"
     He rapped back, "Coming up out of their town---about Thunderbane
Six, Black One---I am engaging!"
     "I heard you order it," he answered calmly. "How about Easter Ten?"
     "Easter Ten is..." The ground fell away under me and I was engulfed
in Bugs.
     I didn't know what had happened to me.  I wasn't hurt; it was a bit
like falling into the branches of a tree---but those branches were alive
and kept jostling me while my gyros complained and tried to keep me
upright.  I fell ten or fifteen maxims, deep enough to be out of the
daylight.
     Then a surge of living monsters carried me back up into the
light----and training paid off; I landed on my feet, talking and
fighting:  "Breakthrough at Easter Ten---no, Easter Eleven, where I am
now.  Big hole and they're pouring up.  Hundreds.  More than that." I had
a hand flamer in each hand and was burning them down as I reported.
     "Get out of there, Apollo!"
     "Wilco!" ----and I started to jump.
     And stopped.  Checked the jump in time, stopped flaming, and really
locked----for I suddenly realized that I ought to be dead.  "Correction,"
I said, looking and hardly believing.  "Breakthrough at Easter Eleven is
a feint.  No warriors."
     "Repeat."
     "Easter Eleven, Black One.  Breakthrough here is entirely by workers
so far.  No warriors. I am surrounded by Bugs and they're still pouring
out, but not a one of them is armed and those nearest me all have typical
worker features.  I haven't been attacked."  I added, "Captain, do you
think this could be just a diversion?  With their real breakthrough to
come somewhere else?"
     "Could be," he admitted.  "Your report is patched right through to
Division, so let them do the thinking.  Stir around and check what you've
reported.  Don't assume that they're all workers---you may find out the
hard way."
     "Affirmative, Captain."  I jumped high and wide, intending to get
outside that mass of harmless but loathsome monsters.
     That rocky plain was covered with crawly black shapes in all
directions.  I overrode my jet controls and increased the jump, calling
out, "Dynelos!  Report!"
     "Bugs, Apollo!  Zillions of 'em!  I'm a-burnin' 'em down!"
     "Dynelos, take a close look at those Bugs.  Any of them fighting
back?  Aren't they all workers?"
     "Uh..." I hit the ground and bounced again.  He went on, "Hey! 
You're right, sir!  How'd you guess?"
     "Rejoin your squad, Dynelos." I clicked over. "Captain, several
thousand Bugs have exited near here from an unestimated number of holes.
I haven't been attacked.  Repeat, I haven't been attacked at all.  If
there are any warriors among them, they must be holding their fire and
using workers as camouflage."
     He did not answer.
     There was an extremely brilliant flash far off to my left, followed
at once by one just like it but farther away to my right front;
automatically I noted time and bearings.  "Captain Turuggord, answer!" 
At the top of my jump I tried to pick out his beacon, but that horizon
was cluttered by low hills in Square Black Two.
     I clicked over and called out, "Sarge! Can you relay to the Captain
for me?"
     At that very instant my platoon sergeant's beacon blinked out.
     I headed on that bearing as fast as I could push my suit. I had not
been watching my display closely; my platoon sergeant had the platoon and
I had been busy, first with ground-listening and, most lately, with a few
hundred Bugs. I had censored all but the noncom's beacons to permit me to
see better.
     I studied the skeleton display, picked out Zesonol and Hector, their
squad leaders and section chasers.  "Hector!  Where's the platoon
sergeant?"
     "He's reconnoitering a hole, sir."
     "Tell him I'm on my way, rejoining." I shifted circuits without
waiting. "Havoc Platoon to Metallo Platoon---answer!"
     "What do you want?" Lieutenant Besman growled.
     "I can't raise the Captain."
     "You won't, he's out."
     "What? Is he dead?"
     "No. But he lost power - so he's out."
     "Then you're the company commander?"
     "Well, what if I am? Do you want help or not?"
     "Uh . . . no. No, sir."
     "Then shut the frak up," Besman told me, "until you need help. We've
got more than we can handle here."
     "Okay." I suddenly found that I had more than I could handle. While
reporting to Besman, I switch to full display and short range, as I was
almost closed with my platoon - and now I saw my first section disappear
one by one, Zesonol's beacon disappearing first.
     "Hector! What's happening to the first section?"
     His voice sounded strained. "They're following the platoon sergeant
down."
     Is there anything in the book that covers this? Did Zesonol act
without orders? Or had he been given orders I hadn't heard? Was it a good
time to go legal, with the man already down a Bug hole, out of sight and
hearing?  We would sort such things out tomorrow----assuming, that is,
any of us had a tomorrow.
     "Acknowledged," I said. "I'm back now. Gimme a report, right now."
My last jump brought me among them; I saw a Bug off to my right and I
zapped him before I hit.  This was no worker----it had been firing as it
moved.
     "I've lost three men," Hector answered, gasping. "I don't know what
Zesonol lost. They broke out three places at once----that's when we took
the casualties.  But we're mopping them...."
     A terrible shock wave slammed me just as I bounced again, slapping
me sideways.  Three mili-centons and thirty seven micro-centons---call it
thirty maxims.  Was that our sappers "putting down their corks"?
     "First section!  Brace yourselves for another shock wave!"  I landed
sloppily, almost on top of a group of three or four Bugs.  They weren't
dead but they weren't fighting; they just twitched.  I donated them a
grenade and bounced again.  "Hit 'em now!"  I called out.  "They're
groggy.  And mind that next...."
     The second blast hit as I was saying it. Thank the Lords it wasn't
as violent. "Hector! Call off your section. And everybody stay on the
bounce and mop up."
     The call-off was ragged and slow - too many missing files as I could
see from my physicals display.  But the mop-up was precise and fast.  I
ranged around the edge and got half a dozen Bugs myself....the last of
them suddenly became active just before I flamed it.  Why did concussion
daze them more than it did us?
     Was it because they were unarmored?  Or was it their brain Bug,
somewhere down below, that was dazed?"
     The call-off showed nineteen effectives, plus two dead, two hurt,
and three out of action through suit failure---and two of these later
Krymsynn was repairing by vandalizing power units from suits of dead and
wounded.  The third suit failure was in radio & radar and couldn't be
repaired, so Krymsynn assigned the man to guard the wounded, the nearest
thing to pickup we could manage until we were finally relieved.
     Meanwhile I was inspecting, along with Sergeant Hector, the three
places where the Bugs had broken through from their nest below. 
Comparison with the sub map showed, as one could have guessed, that
they'd cut exits at the places where their tunnels were closest to the
surface.  
     One hole had closed; it was a heap of loose rock.  The second did
not show Bug activity; I told Hector to post a lance and a private there
with orders to kill single Bugs, close the hole with a bomb if they
started to pour out; it's all very well for the Sky Marshal to sit up
there and decide that holes must not be closed, but I had a situation,
not a theory.
     Then I looked at the third hole, the one that had swallowed up my
platoon sergeant and half my platoon.
     Here a Bug corridor came within twenty maxims of the surface and
they had simply removed the roof for about fifty maxims.  Where the rock
went, what caused that 'frying bacon' noise while they did it, I could
not say.  The rocky roof was gone and the sides of the hole were sloped
and grooved.  The map showed what must've happened; the other two holes
came up from small side tunnels, this tunnel was part of their central
labyrinth---so the other two had been diversions and their main attack
had been launched from here.
     Was it possible the Bugs had the ability to see through solid rock?
     Nothing was in sight down that hole, neither Bug nor human. Hector
pointed out the direction the second section had gone.  It had been seven
mili-centons and forty micro-centons since the platoon sergeant had gone
down, slightly over seven since Zesonol had gone after him.  I peered
into the darkness, gulped and swallowed my stomach.  "Sergeant, take
charge of your section," I said, trying to make it sound cheerful.  "If
you need help, call Lieutenant Besman."
     "What are your orders, sir?"
     "No orders.  Unless, that is, some come down from above.  I'm going
down to find the second section---so I may be out of touch for a while." 
Then I jumped down into the hole at once, because my nerve was slipping.
     Behind me, I heard "Section!"
     "First squad!" - "Second squad!" - "Third squad!"
     "By squads! Follow me!" -  and Hector jumped down, too.
     It's not nearly so lonely that way.

*****

     I had Hector leave two men at the hole to cover our rear, one on the
floor of the tunnel, one at surface level.  Then I led them down the
tunnel the second section had followed, moving as fast as
possible----which wasn't fast as the tunnel's roof was right over our
heads.  A man can move in a sort of skating motion in a powered suit
without lifting his feet, but it's neither easy nor natural; we could
have trotted without armor faster.
     Snoopers were needed at once....whereupon we confirmed something
that had been theorized:  Bugs see by infrared.  That dark tunnel was so
well lighted when seen by snoopers.  Thus far it had no special features,
just glazed rock walls arching over a smooth, level door.
     We came to a tunnel intersecting the one we were in and I stopped
short of it.  There are doctrines for how you should dispose a strike
force underground----but what are they good for?  The only certainty was
that the man who had written the doctrines had never himself tried
them.....because, prior to Operation Royalty, nobody had come back up to
tell what had worked and what had not.
     One doctrine called for guarding every intersection such as this
one.  But I had already used two men to guard our escape hole; if I left
10 percent of my force at each intersection, mighty soon I would be
tenpercented to death.
     That's why I decided to keep us together.  I also decided that none
of us would be captured.  Not by Bugs.  Far better a nice, clean real
estate deal....and with that decision a load was lifted from my mind and
I was no longer worried.
     Cautiously I peered into the intersection, looked both ways.  No
Bugs.  So I called out over the noncoms' circuit:  "Zesonol!"
     The result was startling.  You hardly hear your own voice when using
suit radio, as you're shielded from your output.  But here, underground
in a network of smooth corridors, my output came back to me as if the
whole complex were one enormous wave guide:
     "ZESSSSSSSONNNNNNNOLLLLLL!"
     My ears rang with it.
     And then again:  "APOLLLLLLLOOOOO!"
     "Not so loud," I said, trying to speak very softly myself.  "What's
your position?"
     Zesonol answered, not quite so deafeningly, "Sir, I don't know. 
We're lost."
     "Well, take it easy.  We're coming to get you.  You can't be far
away.  Is the platoon sergeant with you?"
     "No, sir.  We never..."
     "Hold it."  I clicked in my private circuit.  "Sarge...."
     "I read you, sir."  His voice sounded calm and he was holding the
volume down.  "Zesonol and I are in radio contact but we haven't been
able to make rendezvous."
     "What's your position?"
     He hesitated slightly.  "Sir, my advice is to make rendezvous with
Zesonol's section...then return to the surface."
     "Answer my question."
     "Apollo, if you spent a whole sectan down here, you'd never be able
to find me...and I'm not able to move.  You must..."
     "Stow it, Sarge!  Are you wounded?"
     "No, sir, but..."
     "Then why can't you move?  Bug trouble?"
     "Lots of it.  They can't reach me now...but I can't come out.  So I
think you'd better...."
     "Sarge, you're wasting time!  I'm sure you know exactly what turns
you took.  Now tell me, while I look at the map.  And give me a vernier
reading on your D.R. tracer.  It is so ordered. Report!"
     He did so, precisely and concisely.  I switched on my head lamp,
flipped up the snoopers, and followed it on the map.  "All right," I said
presently.  "You're almost directly under us and two levels down----and I
know what turns to take.  We'll be there as soon as we pick up the second
section.  Hang on."  I clicked over.  "Zesonol....."
     "Here, sir."
     "When you came to the first tunnel intersection, did you go right,
left, or straight ahead?"
     "Straight ahead, sir."
     "Okay.  Hector, bring 'em along.  Zesonol, have you got Bug
trouble?"
     "Not now, sir.  But that's how we got lost.  We tangled with a bunch
of them....and when it was over, we were turned around." 
     I started to ask about casualties, but then decided that bad news
could wait; I wanted to get my platoon together and get out of there.  A
Bug town with no Bugs in sight was somehow more upsetting than the     
Bugs we had expected to encounter.  Zesonol coached us through the next
two choices and I tossed tanglefoot bombs down each corridor we didn't
use.  "Tanglefoot" is a derivative of the nerve gas we had been using on
Bugs in the past- instead of killing, it gives any Bug that trots through
it a sort of shaking palsy. We had been equipped with it for this one
operation, and I would have swapped a ton of it for a few laxars of the
real stuff. Still, it might protect our flanks.
     In one long stretch of tunnel I lost touch with Zesonol---some
oddity in reflection of radio waves, I guess, for I picked him up at the
next intersection.
     But there he couldn't tell me which way to turn.  This was the
place, or near the place, where the Bugs had hit them.
     And here the Bugs hit us.
     I don't know where they came from.  One instant everything was
quite.  Then I heard the cry of "Bugs!  Bugs!" from back of me in the
column.  I turned---and suddenly Bugs were everywhere.  I suspect that
those smooth walls are not as solid as they look; that's the only way I
can account for the way they were suddenly all around us and among us.
     We couldn't use flamers, we couldn't use bombs; we were too likely
to hit each other.  But the Bugs had no such compunction among themselves
if they could get to one of us.  But we had hands and we had feet....
     It couldn't have lasted more than a mili-centons, and then there
were no more Bugs, just broken pieces of them on the door....and four
troopers down.  
     One was Sergeant Zesonol, dead.  During the ruckus the second
section had rejoined.  They hadn't been far away, sticking together to
keep from getting further lost in that maze, and had heard the fight. 
Hearing it, they had not been able to locate us by radio.
     Hector and I made sure that our casualties were actually dead, and
then consolidated the two sections into one of four squads, and down we
went---and found the Bugs that had our platoon sergeant besieged. 
     That fight didn't last any time at all, because he had warned me
what to expect.  He'd captured a Bug brain and was using its bloated body
as a shield.  He couldn't get out, but they couldn't attack him without
(quite literally) committing suicide by hitting their own brain.
     We were under no such handicap; we hit them from behind. 
     Then I was looking at the terrible thing he was holding and I was
feeling exultant despite our losses, when suddenly I heard close up that
"frying bacon" noise.  A big piece of roof fell on me and Operation
Royalty was over as far as I was concerned. 
     I woke up in bed and thought that I was back at O.C.S. and had just
had a particularly long and complex Bug nightmare.  But I wasn't at
O.C.S; I was in a field life station on the battlestar Agamemnon, and I
really had had a platoon of my own for nearly twelve centons.
     But now I was just another patient, suffering from nitrous oxide
poisoning and overexposure to radiation through being out of armor for
over a centon before being retrieved, plus broken ribs and a knock in the
head which had put me out of action.
     It was a long time before I got everything straight about Operation
Royalty and some of it I'll never know.  Why Zesonol took his section
underground, for example.  Zesonol is dead and Decius bought the farm
next to his and I'm just glad that they both got their chevrons and were
wearing them that day on Tranuslore when nothing went according to plan.
     Eventually (thank the Lords of Kobol) I did learn why my platoon
sergeant decided to go down into that Bug town.  He had heard my report
to Captain Turuggord that the "major breakthrough" was actually a feint,
made with workers sent up to be slaughtered.  When real warrior Bugs
broke out where he was, he had concluded (correctly and mili-centons
sooner than Staff reached the same conclusion) that the Bugs were making
a desperation push, or they would not expend their workers simply to draw
our fire.
     He saw that their counterattack made from Bug town was not in
sufficient force, and conclude that the enemy did not have many
reserves----and decided that, at this one golden moment, one man acting
along might have a chance of raiding, finding "royalty" and capturing it. 
Remember, that was the whole purpose of the operation; we had plenty of
force simply to sterilize Tranuslore, but our object was to capture
royalty castes and to learn how to go down in.  So he tried it, snatched
that one moment....and succeeded on both counts.
     It made it "mission accomplished" for the Deltas' Havoc Platoon. 
Not very many platoons, out of many, many hundreds, could say that; no
queens were captured (the Bugs killed them first) and only six brains. 
None of the six were ever exchanged, they didn't live long enough.  But
the Psych Warfare boys did get live specimens, so I suppose Operation
Royalty was a success.
     My platoon sergeant got a field commission.  I wasn't offered one
(and wouldn't have accepted) ---but I wasn't surprised when I learned
that he'd been commissioned. Cap'n Turuggord had told me that I was
getting "the best sergeant in the Fleet," and I had never any doubt that
Turuggord's opinion was correct.  I had met my platoon sergeant before. 
I don't think any other Delta knew this....not from me and certainly not
from him.  I doubt if Turuggord himself knew it.  But I had known my
platoon sergeant since my first day as a boot.       
     His name is Tolan.

*****

     My part in Operation Royalty did not seem a success to me. I was on
the Agamemnon more than a sectar, first as a patient, then as an
unattached casual, before they got around to delivering me and a few
dozen others to Attila; it gave me too much time to think....mostly about
casualties, and what a generally messed-up job I had made out of my one
short time on the ground as platoon leader.  I knew I hadn't kept
everything juggled the way the Lieutenant used to---I hadn't even managed
to get wounded still swinging; I had let a chunk of rock fall on me.
     And casualties....I didn't know how many there were; I just knew
that when I closed ranks there were only four squads where I had started
with six.  I didn't know how many more there might have been before Tolan
got them to the surface, before the Deltas were relieved and retrieved.  
     I didn't even know whether Captain Turuggord was still alive (he
was-in fact he was back in command about the time I went underground) and
I had no idea what the procedure was if a candidate was alive and his
examiner was dead.  But I felt that my Form Thirty-One was sure to make
me a buck sergeant again.  It really didn't seem important that my math
books were in another ship.  
     Nevertheless, when I was let out of bed the first sectan I was on
the Agamemnon, after loafing and brooding a day, I borrowed some books
from one of the junior officers and got to work.  Math is hard work and
it occupies your mind....and it doesn't hurt to learn all you can of it,
no matter what rank you are; everything of importance is founded on
mathematics. 
     When I finally checked in at O.C.S. and turned in my pips, I learned
that I was a cadet again instead of a sergeant.  I guess Turuggord gave
me the benefit of the doubt.
     My roommate, Murphy, was in our room with his feet on the
desk----and in front of his feet was a package, my math books.  He looked
up and looked surprised.  "Hi, Apollo! We thought you'd bought it!"
     "Me?  The Bugs don't like me that well.  When do you go out?"
     "I've already been out," Murphy protested.  "Left the day after you
did, made three drops and been back a sectan.  What took you so long?"
     "I took the long way home.  Spent a sectar as a passenger."
     "Some guys have all the luck.  What drops did you make?"
     "None," I admitted.
     He stared.  "Some guys are born under a lucky star!"

*****

     Maybe Murphy was right; eventually I graduated.  But he supplied
some of the luck himself, in patient instructing.  I guess my "luck" has
usually been people----Murphy and Croft and the Lieutenant and Zac and
Lieutenant Colonel Cain, yes and my father, and Turuggord....and
Zesonol....and Starbuck---and always Sergeant Tolan, Brevet Captain
Tolan, now, with permanent rank of First Lieutenant.  It wouldn't have
been right for me to have wound up senior to him.
     Ajax, a classmate of mine, and I were at the Fleet landing field the
day after graduation, waiting to go up to our ships.  We were still such
brand-new second lieutenants that being saluted made us nervous and I was
covering it by reading the list of ships in orbit around Attila....a list
so long that it was clear that something big was stirring, even though
they hadn't seen fit to mention it to me.  I felt excited.  I had my two
dearest wishes, in one package----posted to my old outfit and while my
father was still there, too.  And now this, whatever it was, meant that I
was about to have the polish put on me by "makee-learnee" under
Lieutenant Croft, with some important drop coming up.
     I was so full of it that I couldn't talk about it, so I studied the
lists.  Whew, what a lot of ships!  They were posted by classes, too many
to locate, otherwise.  I started reading off the battlestars, the only
ones that matter to a C.I.  There was the Galactica!  Any chance of
seeing Sheba?  Probably not, but I could send a dispatch and find out.
     Big battlestars---the new Atlantia and the new Pacifica, Charon,
Rycon, Cosmoro, Gomoray, Proteus, Equellus, Sectar, Curdurgo, Borallus,
Molecay, Starlos---all places were mud fleet had made their names to
shine.
     Little battlestars, the ones named for foot sloggers:  Kronus,
Cepheus, Damon, Daphne herself, bless her heart, Erebus, Acton, Agon,
Cadarius, Garon, Harod, Macron, Megaron, Radon, Ranon----
     I said, "There ought to be one named Rodan."
     Ajax said, "What?"
     "Rodan," I explained.  "Great man, great soldier----probably chief
of psychological warfare if he were alive today.  Didn't you study any
history?"
     "Well," admitted Ajax, "I learned that the Queen of Risa built the
Tombs of Kobol, licked the Cylon Alliance and made the first manned
landing on Cimtar."
     "You left out marrying the Grand Matriarch of Pyron."
     "Oh, that.  Yup.  Well, I guess every planet has its own version of
history."
     "I'm sure of it."  I added something to myself and Ajax said, "What
did you say?"
     "Sorry, Ajax.  Just an old saying in my own language.  I suppose you
could translate it, more or less as: 'Home is where the heart is.'"
     "But what language was it?"
     "Caprican.  My native language."
     "Don't they speak Colonial Standard where you come from?"
     "Oh, certainly.  For business and school and so forth.  We just talk
the old speech around home a little.  Traditions.  You know."
     "Yeah, I know.  My folks chatter in Gemonese the same way.  But
where do you...." The speaker started playing "Onward Ye Colonists"; Ajax
broke into a grin.  "Got a date with a ship!  Watch yourself, buddy!  See
you."
     "Mind the Bugs." I turned back and went on reading ships' names:
Alp, Lothar, Viggon, Pyrrhus----
     Then came the sweetest sound in the world:  "---shines the name,
shines the name of the Galactica!"
     I grabbed my kit and hurried.  "Home is where the heart is"---I was
going home.

*****

Chapter14

Am I my brother's keeper?
               - Genesis IV: 9


How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone
astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the
mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
               - Matthew XII: 12

How much then is a man better than a sheep?
               - Matthew XII:12

In the Name of God, the Beneficent,
the Merciful . . . whoso saveth
the life of one, it shall be as if
he had saved the life of all mankind.
          - The Koran, Surah V, 32


     Each year we gain a little. You have to keep a sense of proportion.
     "Time, sir." My j. o. under instruction, Candidate or "Third
Lieutenant" Renhet Bearpaw, stood just outside my door. He looked and
sounded awfully young, and was about as harmless as one of his
man-eathing ancestors.
     "Right, Renhet." I was already in armor. We walked aft to the drop
room. I said, as we went, "One word, Rehnet.  Stick with me and keep out
of my way.  Have fun and use up your ammo.  If by any chance I by it,
you're the boss---but if you're smart, you'll let your platoon sergeant
call the signals."
     "By your command."
     As we came in, the platoon sergeant called them to attention and
saluted.  I returned it, said, "At ease," and started down the first
section while Rehnet looked over the second.
     Then I inspected the second section, too, checking everything on
every man.  My platoon sergeant is much more careful than I am, so I
didn't find anything. I never do.  But it makes the men feel better if
their Old Man scrutinizes everything---it's my job, you know.
     Then I stepped out in the middle.  "Another Bug hunt, boys.  This
one's a little different, as you know.  Since they still hold prisoners
of ours, we can't use a nova bomb on Carillon---so this time we go down,
stand on it, hold it, take it away from them.  The shuttles won't be down
to retrieve us; instead it'll fetch more ammo and rations.  If you're
taken prisoner, keep your chin up and follow the rules----because you've
got the whole outfit behind you, you've got the Colonies behind you;
we'll come and get you.  That's what the boys from the Lothar and Megaron
have been counting on.  Those who are still alive are waiting, knowing
that we'll show up.  And here we are.  Now we go get 'em.
     "Don't forget that we'll have help all around us, lots of help above
us.  All we have to worry about is our one little piece, just the way we
rehearsed it.
     "One final note:  I had an epistle from Captain Croft just before we
left.  He says that his new legs work fine.  But he also told me to tell
you that he's got you in mind....and he expects your names to shine!
     "And so do I.  Five mili-centons for the Father."
     I felt myself beginning to shake.  It was a relief when I could call
them to attention and add:  "By sections....port and starboard....prepare
for drop!"
     I was all right then while I inspected each man into his cocoon down
one side, with Rehnet and the platoon sergeant taking the other.  Then we
buttoned Rehnet into the No. 3 center-line capsule.  Once his face was
covered up, the shakes really hit me.
     My platoon sergeant put his arm around my armored shoulders.  "Just
like a drill, Son."
     "I know it, Father."  I stopped shaking at once.  "It's the waiting,
that's all."
     "I know.  Four mili-centons.  Shall we get buttoned up, sir?"
     "Right away, Father."  I gave him a quick hug, let the Fleet drop
crew seal us in.  The shakes didn't start up again.  Shortly, I was able
to report:  "Bridge! Apollo Platoon...ready for drop!"
     "Thirty-one microcentons, Lieutenant." She added.  "Good luck, boys! 
This time we take 'em!"
     "Right, Captain."
     "Acknowledged.  Now some music while you wait?" She switched it on:
     "To the everlasting glory of the Colonies...."
     
The End