No one ever listened to the terrible executions and sentences announced in the Articles for the most innocent of crimes. Everyone knew that they had signed away all human rights when they enlisted, and the itemizing of what they had lost interested them not in the slightest. What they really were interested in was counting the hours until they would receive their first pass. The ritual by which this reward was begrudgingly given was unusually humiliating, but they expected this and merely lowered their eyes and shuffled forward in the line, ready to sacrifice any remaining shards of their self‑respect in exchange for the crimpled scrap of plastic. This rite finished, there was a scramble for the monorail train whose track ran on electrically charged pillars, soaring over the thirty‑foot‑high barbed wire, crossing the quicksand beds, then dropping into the little farming town of Leyville.
At least it had been an agricultural town before Camp Leon Trotsky had been built, and sporadically, in the hours when the troopers weren't on leave, it followed its original agrarian bent. The rest of the time the grain and feed stores shut down and the drink and knocking shops opened. Many times the same premises were used for both functions. A lever would be pulled when the first of the leave party thundered out of the station and grain bins became beds, salesclerks pimps, cashiers retained their same function‑though the prices went up‑while counters would be racked with glasses to serve as bars. It was to one of these establishments, a mortuary‑cum‑saloon, that Bill and his friends went.
“What'll it be, boys?” the ever smiling owner of the Final Resting Bar and Grill asked., “Double shot of Embalming Fluid,” Bowb Brown told him.
“No jokes,” the landlord said, the smile vanishing for a second as he took down a bottle on which the garish label Rte. WHISKEY had been pasted over the etched‑in EMBALMING FLUID “Any trouble I call the MPs.” The smile returned as money struck the counter. “Name your poison, gents.” They sat around a long, narrow table as thick as it was wide, with brass handles on both sides, and let the blessed relief of ethyl alcohol trickle a path down their dust‑lined throats.
“I never drank before I came into the service,” Bill said, draining four fingers neat of Old Kidney Killer and held his glass out for more.
“You never had to,” Ugly said, pouring.
“That's for sure,” Bowb Brown said, smacking his lips with relish and raising a bottle to his lips again.
“Gee,” Eager Beager said, sipping hesitantly at the edge of his glass, “it tastes like a tincture of sugar, wood chips, various esters, and a number of higher alcohols.” “Drink up,” Bowb said incoherently around the neck of the bottle. “All them things is good for you.” “Now I want a woman,” Ugly said, and there was a rush as they all jammed in the door, trying to get out at the same time, until someone shouted, “Look!” and they turned to see Eager still sitting at the table.
“Woman!” Ugly said enthusiastically, in the tone of voice you say Dinner!
when you are calling a dog. The knot of men stirred in the doorway and stamped their feet. Eager didn't move.
“Gee‑I think I'll stay right here,” he said, his smile simpler than ever.
“But you guys run along.” “Don't you feel well, Eager?” “Feel fine.” “Ain't you reached puberty?” “Gee…” “What you gonna do here?” Eager reached under the table and dragged out a canvas grip. He opened it to show them that it was packed with great purple boots. “I thought I'd catch up on my polishing.” They walked slowly down the wooden sidewalk, silent for the moment. “I wonder if there is something wrong with Eager?” Bill asked, but no one answered him.
They were looking down the rutted street, at a brilliantly illuminated sign that cast a tempting, ruddy glow.
SPACEMEN'S REST it said. CONTINUOUS STRIP SHOW and BEST DRINKS and better PRIVATE ROOMS FOR GUESTS AND THEIR FRIENDS. They walked faster. The front wall of the Spacemen's Rest was covered with shatterproof glass cases filled with tri‑di pix of the fully dressed (bangle and double stars) entertainers, and further in with pix of them nude (debangled with fallen stars). Bill stayed the quick sound of panting by pointing to a ‑small sign almost lost among the tumescent wealth of mammaries.
OFFICERS ONLY It read.
“Move along,” an MP grated, and poked at them with his electronic nightstick.
They shuffled on.
The next establishment admitted men of all classes, but the cover charge was seventy‑seven credits, more than they all had between them. After that the OFFICERS ONLY began again, until the pavement ended and all the lights were behind them.
“What's that?” Ugly asked at the sound of murmured voices from a nearby darkened street, and peering closely they saw a line of troopers that stretched out of sight around a distant comer. “What's this?” he asked the last man in the line.
“Lower‑ranks cathouse. Two credits, two minutes. And don't try to. buck the line, bowb. On the back, on the back.” They joined up instantly, and Bill ended up last, but not for long.
They shuffled forward slowly, and other troopers appeared and cued up behind him. The night was cool, and he took many life‑preserving slugs from his bottle. There was little conversation and what there was died as the red‑lit portal loomed ever closer. It opened and closed at regular intervals, and one by one Bill's buddies slipped in to partake of its satisfying, though rapid, pleasures. Then it was his turn and the door started to open and he started to step forward and the sirens started to scream and a large MP with a great fat belly jumped between Bill and the door.
“Emergency recall. Back to the base you men!” it barked.
Bill howled a strangled groan of frustration and leaped forward, but a light tap with the electronic nightstick sent him reeling back with the others.
He was carried along, half stunned, with the shuffling wave of bodies, while the sirens moaned and the artificial northern lights in the sky spelled out TO ARMS!!!! in letters of flame each a hundred miles long. Someone put his handout, holding Bill up as he started to slide under the trampling purple boots. It was his old buddy, Ugly, carrying a satiated smirk and he hated him and tried to hit him. But before he could raise his fist they were swept into a monorail car, hurtled through the night, and disgorged back in Camp Leon Trotsky. He forgot his anger when the gnarled claws of Deathwish Drang dragged them from the crowd.
“Pack your bags,” he rasped. “You're shipping out.” “They can't do that to us‑we haven't finished our training.” “They can do whatever they want, and they usually do. A glorious space battle has just been fought to its victorious conclusion and there are over four million casualties, give or take a hundred thousand. Replacements are needed, which is you. Prepare to board the transports immediately if not sooner.” “We can't‑we have no space gear! The supply room…” “All of the supply personnel have already been shipped out.” “Food…” “The cooks and KP pushers are already spacebound. This is an emergency.
All non‑essential personnel are being sent out. Probably to die.” He twanged a tusk coyly and washed them with his loathsome grin. “While I remain here in peaceful security to train your replacements.” The delivery tube plunked at his elbow, and as he opened the message capsule and read its contents his smile slowly fell to pieces. “They're shipping me out too,” he said hollowly.
Chapter 3
A total of 89,672,899 recruits had already been shipped into space through Camp Leon Trotsky, so the process was an automatic and smoothly working one, even though this time it was processing itself, like a snake swallowing its own tail. Bill and his buddies were the last group of recruits through, and the snake began ingesting itself right behind them. No sooner had they been shorn of their sprouting fuzz and deloused in the ultrasonic delouser than the barbers rushed at each other and in a welter of under and over arms, gobbets of hair, shards of mustache, bits of flesh, drops of blood, they clipped and shaved each other, then pulled the operator after them into the ultrasonic chamber. Medical corpsmen gave themselves injections against rocket‑fever and spacecafard; record clerks issued themselves pay books; and the loadmasters kicked each other up the ramps and into the waiting shuttleships. Rockets blasted, living columns of fire like scarlet tongues licking down at the blasting pads, burning up the ramps in a lovely pyrotechnic display, since the ramp operators were also aboard. The ships echoed and thundered up into the night sky leaving Camp Leon Trotsky a dark and silent ghost town where bits of daily orders and punishment rosters rustled and blew from the bulletin boards, dancing through the deserted streets to finally plaster themselves against the noisy, bright windows of the Officers' Club where a great drinking party was in progress, although there was much complaining because the officers had to serve themselves.