Sinisalo frowned, then looked around and pointed to a watching, listening corpse. "You," said the medic. "What happened in here?"
The man told him, closely enough.
Sinisalo looked down at the liar. "Give me your dog tags."
Only the liar's eyes moved.
"That's an order, soldier!"
The liar shook his head, encouraged by the apparency that he wouldn't be beaten up.
A lieutenant hurried in, a Sikh wearing a white turban and Medical Service insignia. "I'm the provost marshal," he said to Sinisalo. "What's going on here?" The provost marshal's post was only one of several he covered, the one he'd least expected to require his attention. His military police unit consisted of one man-himself. When he'd gotten the call, he'd grabbed a stunner, a belt recorder, and a set of handcuffs, and hurried to the morgue. But he was a Sikh, with five years' military experience, and a cram course in the basics of the provost marshal's job. He'd make it go right.
When Sinisalo had described what he'd found and heard, the provost marshal stood over the liar and reached down. "Your dog tags," he said.
Again the liar refused, clasping himself with his arms. The provost knew Jerrie strength, so he turned to Esau. "Sergeant, take his dog tags."
Esau crouched beside the liar, pulled open the body bag, grabbed the man's field jacket and hoisted him to his feet. Hurriedly the liar gave up his dog tags. Esau handed them to the provost marshal, who read them and scowled. "Private Thomas Crisp," he said.
He manacled the now compliant Crisp, then went around the morgue with his belt recorder and got the name, serial number, and unit of each "corpse" there.
"All right," he said, "Wesley, Justice, Crisp, come with me. You other casualties, continue in your roles." He turned to Sinisalo. "Sergeant, you come too."
As he herded his three corpses toward the hospital admin tent, the provost marshal drew his belt comm and called for an MP floater from Division. The hospital had no place to incarcerate anyone.
Before the lieutenant had finished questioning his three Jerries, two other things happened. The MP floater arrived, with six MPs led by a sergeant. And an orderly arrived to report a genuine casualty. A trainee in the maneuvers had been shot in the back with a hard pulse, a slammer pulse. It had scrambled his innards-bones and organs. And all the power slugs used in the maneuvers, including those in the aircraft, had supposedly been for soft pulses.
Saboteurs again! the lieutenant thought, thinking of the parachute incident, the major ordnance and equipment-checking project that had grown out of it, and what was found. When the floater had taken off with the prisoner and the principal witnesses, the lieutenant returned to the morgue to get statements from the other corpses.
Esau fell asleep again even before the MP floater took off, almost as he buckled himself in. Take advantage of your opportunities, he'd thought as they'd walked out to it. He'd heard how it worked for "casualties," from guys who'd gone through it the past couple of days. In an hour or two he'd be reclassified from corpse to combat replacement, and flown to some company other than his own, to fit in as best he could till the exercise was finished. On New Jerusalem, of course, there'd be no replacements, but the general didn't want his casualties to miss out on the training.
Actually it was a dozen hours before he was reassigned. Division's provost marshal let him sleep for eight hours before questioning him. And learned nothing he didn't already have on cube.
Chapter 39
Digging for Roots
The weather had been pleasant for the Muhlbach maneuvers, with mostly sunny days, and temperatures reaching into the 60s. The nights had been near 40, with brilliant starscapes. The trainees might have enjoyed their five-day test, if they'd had enough to eat and at least a few hours a day of sleep. But the maneuvers were more than a test of tactics, leadership, and readiness. Their commanding general wanted them to discover their tenacity, and endurance of privation, so he'd cranked up the hardship factor.
They'd handled it well.
Maneuvers were the heart of unit training, and at least as vital for General Pyong Pak Singh as for his troops. Pak had never experienced actual combat, never directed a battle except in electronic games. So he lived maneuvers as realistically as he could. He directed his division from a floater; camped in the field, was often on the move, ate field rations, and caught catnaps when the situation allowed. Though he slept more than his men. His alertness, or lack thereof, was important to every man in his "corps," his expanded division-Jerries, Indi Armored, air wings, and Luneburger Engineers.
He'd delighted in the competition with his opposing counterpart, Major General Pauli Nachtigal of the Luneburger 4th Infantry Division, and found strong satisfaction in his troops, who'd performed well-even E Company, 2nd Regiment which, with fifteen men in the stockade, was shorthanded, and perhaps a bit demoralized by the defections-while the opposing Burger infantry division was really good, Masadan trained.
Now that the Muhlbach maneuvers were over, and everyone had had a long night's sleep, the troops were enjoying a day off. In camp, for there'd be no passes till the matter of defections was sorted out. A day off with naps and base food: all the roast pork, the barley with pork gravy, freshly baked still-warm bread with butter and jam, pie with good cheese from Luneburger's Mennonite dairies… and all the ice cream they could eat! Few if any of his Jerries had seen ice cream before they'd joined the army. Few had even heard of it. It had become their favorite, if infrequent, dessert.
If the troops had the day off, their general didn't. He was at his desk at 0730, working his way through his In basket. At 0930 he met with his division provost marshal, Captain Raymond Coyote Singh, and the CO of 2nd Regiment's 2nd Battalion, Major Amar Kalnins Singh. Of urgent necessity, the subject was the defections-the refusal by fifteen members of E Company to serve. Briefly the three officers reviewed the basic known facts, without speculating on the roots. Then Captain Coyote reported on E Company's Private Thomas Crisp, and his clumsy attempt to spread disaffection in the field hospital's morgue. He had his own cubes and those recorded by the hospital's provost marshal, with accounts provided by Sergeant Sinisalo, and by Wesley, Justice, and the bystanders. And by Crisp.
The meeting was interrupted by chirping from Pak's intercom. His monitor told him it was Administrative Sergeant Major Watanabe. Frowning, Pak spoke to his pickup. "What is it?" he asked.
The answer came via the pickup in his right ear. "General, Corporal Isaiah Vernon is here, with information that may be important to the defections matter. Vernon's a bot attached to 2nd Regiment, 1st Battalion. Would you like to see him now?"
Pak knew the name. "Bring him in, Sergeant," Pak said, then broke the connection and looked at Coyote. "Captain, record this. Apparently it's information on our problem."
The sergeant major opened the door. A seven-foot warbot stood behind him. "General," said Watanabe, "this is Corporal Vernon."
Vernon stepped inside and stopped. "Thank you, Sergeant Major," Pak said in dismissal, and the door closed. "What do you have for us, Corporal?"
"General, the night before we went on maneuvers, Private Jeremiah Spieler, Speaker Spieler, came to my hut and told me a story. He and I were friends. We'd been in B Company together, and back home I was a student speaker. He told me that the evening before, after lights out, some men came to his tent and woke him up. They told him they needed his advice. So he went outside with them. It turned out they didn't want advice. They wanted him to help them spread a message in B Company. Quietly, to men he trusted.