“Oh, how the girls love a uniform,” the sergeant said, “and I can't blame them.” A memory of the vision of Inga-Maria Calyphigia's matched white moons obscured Bill's sight for a moment, and when it had cleared he found he was grasping a stylo and was about to sign the form that the recruiting sergeant held before him.
“No,” Bill said, a little amazed at his own firmness of mind. “I don't really want to. Technical Fertilizer Operator…” “And not only will you receive this lovely uniform, an enlistment bonus, and a free medical examination, but you will be awarded these handsome medals.” The sergeant took a flat box, offered to him on cue by a robot, and opened it to display a glittering array of ribbons and bangles. “This is the Honorable Enlistment Award,” he intoned gravely, pinning a jewel-encrusted nebula, pendant on chartreuse, to Bill's wide chest. “And the Emperor's Congratulatory Gilded Horn, the Forward to Victory Starburst, the Praise Be Given Salutation of the Mothers of the Victorious Fallen, and the Everflowing Cornucopia which does not mean anything but looks nice and can be used to carry contraceptives.” He stepped back and admired Bill's chest; which was now adangle with ribbons, shining metal, and gleaming paste gems.
“I just couldn't,” Bill said. “Thank you anyway for the offer, but… “ The sergeant smiled, prepared even for this eleventh-hour resistance, and pressed the button on his belt that actuated the programed hypno-coil in the heel of Bill's new boot. The powerful neural current surged through the contacts and Bill's hand twitched and jumped, and when the momentary fog had lifted from his eyes he saw that he had signed his name.
“But… ' “Welcome to the Space Troopers;” the sergeant boomed, smacking him on the back (trapezius like rock) and relieving him of the stylo. “FALL IN!” he called in a larger voice, and the recruits stumbled from the tavern.
“What have they done to my sonl” Bill's mother screeched, coming into the market square, clutching at her bosom with one hand and towing his baby brother Charlie with the other. Charlie began to cry and wet his pants.
“Your son is now a trooper for the greater glory of the Emperor,” the sergeant said, pushing his slack-jawed and round-shouldered recruit squad into line.
“No! it can't be…” Bill's mother sobbed, tearing at her graying hair.
“I'm a poor widow, he's my sole support… you cannot… I” “Mother…” Bill said, but the sergeant shoved him back into the ranks. ' “Be brave, madam,” he said. “There can be no greater glory for a mother.” He dropped a large and newly minted coin into her hand. “Here is the enlistment bonus, the Emperor's shilling. I know he wants you to have it. ATTENTION!” With a clash of heels the graceless recruits braced their shoulders and lifted their chins. Much to his surprise, so did Bill.
“RIGHT TURN!” In a single, graceful motion they turned, as the command robot relayed the order to the hypno-coil in every boot. “FORWARD MARCH!” And they did, in perfect rhythm, so well under control that, try as hard as he could, Bill could neither turn his head nor wave a last good-by to his mother. She vanished behind him, and one last, anguished wail cut through the thud of marching feet.
“Step up the count to 130,” the sergeant ordered, glancing at the watch set under the nail of his little finger. “Just ten miles to the station, and we'll be in camp tonight, my lads.” The command robot moved its metronome up one notch and the tramping boots conformed to the smarter pace and the men… began to sweat. By the time they had reached the copter station it was nearly dark, their red paper uniforms hung in shreds, the gilt had been rubbed from their pot-metal buttons, and the surface charge that repelled the dust from their thin plastic boots had leaked away. They looked as ragged, weary, dusty, and miserable as they felt.
Chapter 2
It wasn't the recorded bugle playing reveille that woke Bill but the supersonics that streamed through the metal frame of his bunk that shook him until the fillings vibrated from his teeth. He sprang to his feet and stood there shivering in the gray of dawn. Because it was summer the floor was refrigerated: no mollycoddling of the men in Camp Leon Trotsky.
The pallid, chilled figures of the other recruits loomed up on every side, and when the soul-shaking vibrations had died away they dragged their thick sackcloth and sandpaper fatigue uniforms from their bunks, pulled them hastily on, jammed their feet into the great, purple recruit boots, and staggered out into the dawn.
“I am here to break your spirit,” a voice rich with menace told them, and they looked up and shivered even more as they faced the chief demon in this particular hell.
Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang was a specialist from the tips of the angry spikes of his hair to the corrugated stamping-soles of his mirrorlike boots. He was wide-shouldered and lean-kipped, while his long arms hung, curved like those of some horrible anthropoid, the knuckles of his immense fists scarred from the breaking of thousands of teeth. It was impossible to look at this detestable form and imagine that it issued from the tender womb of a woman. He could never have been born; he must have been built to order by the government. Most terrible of all was the head. The face! The hairline was scarcely a finger's-width above the black tangle of the brows that were set like a rank growth of foliage at the rim of the black pits that concealed the eyes-visible only as baleful red gleams in the Stygian darkness. A nose, broken and crushed, squatted above the mouth that was like a knife slash in the taut belly of a corpse, while from between the lips issued the great, white fangs of the canine teeth, at least two inches long, that rested in grooves on the lower lip.
“I am Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang, and you will call me 'sir' or 'm'lord. '” He began to pace grimly before the row of terrified recruits.
“I am your father and your mother and your whole universe and your dedicated enemy, and very soon I will have you regretting the day you were born. I will crush your will. When I say frog, you will jump. My job is to turn you into troopers, and troopers have discipline. Discipline means simply unthinking subservience,. loss of free will, absolute obedience. That is all I ask…” He stopped before Bill, who was not shaking quite as much as the others, and scowled.
“I don't like your face. One month of Sunday KP.” “Sir…” “And a second month-for talking back.” He waited, but Bill was silent. He had already learned his first lesson on how to be a good trooper. Keep your mouth shut. Deathwish paced on.
“Right now you are nothing but horrible, sordid, flabby pieces of debased civilian flesh. I shall turn that flesh to muscle, your wills to jelly, your minds to machines. You will become good troopers, or I will kill you.
Very soon you will be hearing stories about me, vicious stories, about how I lulled and ate a recruit who disobeyed me.” He hatred and stared at them, and slowly the coffin-lid lips parted in an evil travesty of a grin, while a drop of saliva formed at the tip of each whitened tusk.
“That story is true.” A moan broke from the row of recruits, and they shook as though a chill wind had passed over them. The smile vanished.
“We will run to breakfast now as soon as I have some volunteers for an easy assignment. Can any of you drive a helicar?” Two recruits hopefully raised their hands, and he beckoned them forward.
“All right, both of you, mops and buckets behind that door. Clean out the latrine while the rest are eating. You'll have a better appetite for lunch.” That was Bill's second lesson on how to be a good trooper: never volunteer.
The days of recruit training passed with a horribly lethargic speed.
With each day conditions became worse and Bill's exhaustion greater. This seemed impossible, but it was nevertheless true. A large number of gifted and sadistic minds had designed it to be that way. The recruits' heads were shaved for uniformity. The food was theoretically nourishing but incredibly vile and when, by mistake, one batch of meat was served in an edible state it was caught at the last moment and thrown out and the cook reduced two grades. Their sleep was broken by mock gas attacks and their free time filled with caring for their equipment. The seventh day was designated as a day of rest, but they all had received punishments, like Bill's KP, and it was as any other day. On this, the third Sunday of their imprisonment, they were stumbling through the last hour of the day before the lights were extinguished and they were finally permitted to crawl into their casehardened bunks. Bill pushed against the weak force field that blocked the door, cunningly designed to allow the desert flies to enter but not leave the barracks, and dragged himself in. After fourteen hours of KP his legs vibrated with exhaustion, and his arms were wrinkled and pallid as a corpse's from the soapy water. He dropped his jacket to the floor, where it stood stiffly supported by its burden of sweat, grease, and dust, and dragged his shaver from his footlocker.