"We're all here for the same reason, sergeant," the Latin says. "Mutiny. We were supposed to gas a continent on Severance to clear it of native life so that it could be mined efficiently, and we balked."
"Severance," I murmur. "Richest lode of iridium discovered in the last decade, no intelligent or otherwise useful fauna. Why did you interfere?"
"Because it was genocide. All the animals unique to that world, all the plants—Man had no right to wipe them out. Not for the sake of a mining strike, not for any reason. To brutally gas an entire—"
"It was hardly your prerogative to impose your ludicrous sentimentality on your mission."
"We—we're not exactly from Earth's privileged class," he says. My hand drops toward the dial, and he continues quickly. "I mean we feel some empathy for those who have no power of decision. Those creatures on Severance—they had a right to live, to breed, to prosper, to die in their own fashion, just as we do. They were no threat to us, only an inconvenience. We could have mined without hurting—"
"Enough. I don't care to be contaminated by your pusillanimous ravings. You betrayed your species and your world, you despicable alien-lovers. You ought to be gassed yourselves, and if I were the court-martial officer I'd see to it myself. But at least I can make you traitors earn your keep. Your rations will be reduced by a third for your first week with me, your duty hours extended commensurately. Any complaints you may entertain will be duly processed through the box." I depress the entire bank of buttons and give them all a half-second jolt of sixty, just so they understand.
The book says the box can't kill, though it can make you wish you were dead. The book understates the case. The box stimulates the nerve endings of the skin and muscle to simulate a burn, and one hundred is the maximum the human nervous system is capable of sustaining. No torture can deliver more actual pain than that. But the real beauty of it is that no harm is done, physically, so there is no limit to the duration of the punishment. The do-gooders back on Earth are chronically campaigning against this device but the Service lobby has kept the lid on. Good thing, too; we need the box!
A minute has passed, and I see that they are pretty well recovered. "Fall out for duty," I say. They know who is master now.
I bear down on them for the next couple of weeks. You have to when you're dealing with niggers and spies and chinks. They never had real discipline before, and they do get balky and self-righteous and sloppy. Mine have become acclimatized to pain; I have to give them fifty to make them jump.
My outfit is posting the best record in the compound, but I knew there's some resistance still lurking there. I have to bring it to the surface at my convenience, not theirs. So I volunteer them for inside scrub-down on a radioactive barge. That's the worst assignment there is because, even with continuous decontamination, each hour of such duty is estimated to take a week off your life expectancy, and you're damn sick while you're exposed, too. This hulk is big; it will take them a good two weeks to G.I. it all.
I give them the word at lights-out, so they can dream about it. Maybe a hundred hours cumulative inside that scow....
Come morning by compound time, my barracks misses reveille. The company officer smirks, thinking I've lost a point. He knows I mean to have his job, in time.
I march to the barracks and slam open the lock. They are there, lying in their bunks. "On your feet!" I holler loud enough so the whole wing can hear even without the loudspeakers. I touch them with fifty.
They twitch and groan, but don't get up.
Just as I thought. This is the tactic that retired my predecessor. They figure anyone will break if they go on a lie-down strike, refusing to work no matter how much they get boxed. And if they miss more than half a day there will be an investigation and bad publicity.
They propose to bargain with the god of the box.
They are fools, of course. I do not call them again, I do not warn them. I merely turn the dial to one hundred, depress all twenty buttons, and lock them in with the intercom disconnected. I amble down the corridor to the N.C.O.'s mess and enjoy a leisurely breakfast—coffee, eggs, bacon, one griddlecake with maple syrup, a section of fresh cantaloupe, orange juice. I'll say this for the stockade: it has excellent hydroponic facilities and a fine stable. I could not eat better on Earth.
Gloria, the civilian waitress, serves me with a smile. I chat with her and pat her shapely behind. She doesn't know my line of work, only that I'm one of the staff. Nice girl; I really enjoy seeing her.
Sated, I amble back to the barracks. The Post Commander has granted my platoon the morning off in gratitude for the men's courage in volunteering for radioactive duty. I have neglected to tell them this.
One hour has passed—the maximum any prisoner may be boxed at one hundred without specific dispensation. I drop the dial to zero and unlock. It takes a moment to clarify the situation.
Numbers 2 and 15 are in coma. Numbers 4, 9, 10, and 19 are delirious. The rest are severely shaken but will be fit to work in a few hours. I notify sick bay to fetch the two, lock the four in, and conduct the rest to boot mess for a late repast. They fall into formation without protest.
I anticipate no further trouble with them.
It has taken too much time, of course, but now I am a commissioned officer. I am in charge of a dozen barracks, and there is very little disturbance in my wing. The boots fear me and do not attempt to stand on their "rights."
But I am aware that with this slow progress I will never achieve the full success I crave unless I can jump several ranks. So it behooves me to volunteer for a high-risk, high-reward mission.
Gloria, my fiancee, tries to talk me out of it. She is afraid I will fail or get killed. She doesn't understand that life itself is a failure if no chances are ever taken. I must take a risk commensurate with my aspiration.
At the top of the Special Assignment roster is a planet called Waterloo; the human discoverer's half-punning rendition of the unpronounceable native designation. Waterloo is where the Earth-sphere economic advance is stalled. I know it's gauche to speak of trails through space, as though a three-dimensional volume sparsely pocked with glowing gasballs called stars and bits of debris called planets can be seriously equated with an extinct Earthside wilderness, but that's what it really amounts to. It is feasible for man to expand his sphere in this direction—the sphere isn't sphere-shaped, naturally—using Waterloo as a kind of trading post and transfer point. It is not feasible to bypass this particular planet. That is all, I am told, that I need to know. So I think of it as a station on a trail, and the Loos of Waterloo have set up a barricade that has to come down so the posse can get through. The assignment: bring down that barricade.
It would be easier to understand the situation if the Loos were violent, asocial monsters. But they are humanoid, at least in outline, and civilized too, though without space technology. There is evidence that they had it once, but gave it up, oddly. They are rather polite and gentle with never a harsh word, and they have hardly begun to exploit their system's natural resources. They have a lot to benefit from Earth contact and seem willing enough. All that is necessary is for an envoy to connect with their leader or governing council and arrange for an Earth/Waterloo treaty that establishes an industrial enclave and permits free passage of commercial vessels. Ours, of course.
The kicker is that six envoys have tried it in turn. Five never came back. The sixth escaped to display the marks of his reception. He had been brutally tortured.