"Good! Good! It may be that this will prove truly important." We were optimistic about Morgan the pirate, Chang reminded himself, and now he is lost to us. May he rest in the Tao. He served his species well in his weeks of spying.
Chapter 24
Hard Facts, Hard Decisions
Captain Martin Mulvaney Singh had spent most of the day at Division, being briefed on a duty he hadn't expected. As a training company commander, his main role was executive; to actually train troops was someone else's function. The company's noncommissioned cadre did the hands-on training-notably the platoon sergeants-with the platoon leader a step removed. While lectures, with or without video cubes podded out from Terra, were a function of Division staff. The training schedule came from Division, too, based on a plan from far-off War House. There were open periods in which the company commander could insert whatever he thought best, but his main role was to track the progress of training and the trainees, turning the intensity up or down, and dealing with problems.
A company commander addressed the trainees daily, at morning muster and often at other musters. This kept his presence and authority in their consciousness, and hopefully inspired them from time to time. But lectures? Lectures were delivered by Division staff.
Except for this particular, newly conceived lecture. War House had foreseen possible troublesome effects, and wanted the company commanders to deliver it. If a CO was doing his job properly, his trainees knew and trusted him. Division concurred, and Mulvaney didn't doubt they were right. Major General Pak-he'd been promoted from brigadier-took it a step further; he wanted each platoon sergeant to talk it out afterward with his trainees. If the sergeants had been doing their job properly-and Mulvaney was confident his had-they'd have bonded with their Jerrie youths, like experienced and respected older brothers.
Jerries were about as close to homogeneous as a human culture gets, and tended to accept authority. According to the ethnology report, the Jerrie religion was narrow, but persuasive more than restrictive. Its defining book, Contemplations on the Testaments, said that wise leaders led by example, gentle teaching, and mild admonition. And, like God, exercised "tolerance of the imperfections that are a part of being human."
Gopal Singh would have applauded that, Mulvaney told himself.
He got back to the company area in time for supper; his driver let him off outside the mess hall in a light but steady rain. Sixty feet away, the trainees were doing their pre-supper chin-ups before going in, callused fists gripping wet bars without a sign of slippage. Even with the enforcement of strict form, they were doing so many chins now, he'd tripled the number of bars, to keep the serving line moving.
He watched them for a moment before entering the officers' mess. He'd developed a real fondness and respect for his trainees. This evening he would brief his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants on what tomorrow held. Meanwhile Bremer and Fossberg could take the trainees on a sixty-minute speed march with sandbags, then let them off early.
The next day's training began with the usual run before breakfast. After six weeks they weren't grueling anymore. It was the one part of physical training that wasn't being intensified. Drag Ass Hill seemed neither so steep nor so long as it had. At the end of Week 4 their runs had been lengthened to forty of Luneburger's long minutes, and would stay at that, neither lengthening nor speeding up. Nor did they end with any more "suicide races."
After breakfast the trainees fell out wearing fighting gear, complete with armored jackets and battle helmets. And of course with the blasters they'd been issued in Week 4. In Week 5 they'd learned to fire them, and had qualified for single-shot firing, set for soft pulses, for safety's sake. But they'd been shown what a hard pulse did to a dummy in a flak jacket. A jacket and helmet might help against shrapnel, or spent or grazing blaster pulses, but that was all.
This morning they marched four miles, burdened not only with their gear, but with forty-pound sandbags to build strength. Then spent an hour and a half moving carefully through forest, senses alert, firing short bursts at wooden targets that popped up for two seconds from unexpected places. Fired from the hip while walking. Failure to hit your target earned gigs, which, they were told, they'd pay for on their next day off. In Week 5, on slow fire, Jael had scored "excellent." But on quick fire she'd been charged four straight gigs before she'd gotten fast enough, and a couple since when she'd missed in her haste. On this day-Fourday-she got none.
The body armor didn't help, nor did the sandbag. But on the other hand, Esau hadn't missed yet; a number of young frontiersmen hadn't. He'd been hunting with a breech-loading single-shot rifle since boyhood, had learned marksmanship at an age when the reflexes channel readily and deeply. And New Jerusalem's version of squirrels didn't hold still longer than a second. "Shooting blasters in bursts, you can't hardly miss," he'd told Jael, "once you get the hang of it. There's no recoil nor windage, and the trajectory's flat. Durn energy pulse would travel around the world and hit you in the back, if it held together good enough."
It wouldn't, of course, and Esau knew it. It would head into space on a tangent. Lieutenant Bremer, the company XO, had told them that. Nor did the pulses fall to earth. They simply lost integrity after a mile or so, and died-"unraveled" was how he'd put it.
At 1100 hours the company ground out another fifteen pushups-all they were asked for, wearing flak jackets, sandbag and helmet-and headed back to camp. They had no notion of what the afternoon held for them. But there'd be something; there always was.
Pastor Luneburger's World grew a lot of barley, so the trainees ate a lot of it as a frequent substitute for potatoes and rice. At the noon meal this day they found roast pork waiting for them, with barley, savory pork gravy, thick slices of hot, buttered whole-grain bread, crisp green beans, and a cobbler of some Luneburgian fruit. And Luneburger coffee. All with seconds if wanted.
Afterward they had thirty minutes to recover. Most napped on their cots. Then whistles brought them out in field uniforms for muster, and afterward they had the rare experience of marching to lecture with Captain Mulvaney leading them. Arriving at the lecture shed, they pumped out the now customary thirty pushups, then filed in. Captain Mulvaney was standing in front, at the lectern. When they were seated, his big voice barked, "At ease!" and the trainee chatter cut abruptly off.
"Men," he said, "today you're going to see something you've only heard about till now. You'll see cubeage of warbots in realistic simulated combat, coordinating with organic troops like ourselves. You'll find the warbots very interesting. After that you'll see cubeage of how they're constructed, and how they operate. You'll even see one of them interviewed." He paused, turning. "Corporal, begin the program."
The shed lights dimmed and the wall screen lit up. The presentation resembled a full-fledged dramatic production, opening with an interior shot of forest that had not been fought through. Artillery thundered in the distance. Squads of infantry trotted through in fighting gear, blasters in hand. Along with several seven-foot warbots roughly humanoid in form, their movements as smoothly articulated as an athlete's, though a bit different. Their laminated ceramic-steel surfaces were protected by camouflage fields whose color patterns fluctuated as they strode, mimicking the immediate surroundings. It was very effective.
A voice-over narration accompanied the visuals. A few weeks earlier the Jerries would have had serious problems with its language, but they'd been immersed in military life, and had already learned a lot.