Recoil

by David Sherman

  She whirled, startled. “Oh, Nix, what the hell you doin’ up this early?” She smiled, her face turning red with embarrassment to have been caught in her undies. It was Sergeant Nix Maricle from the Fourth Company. She and Nix had “lifted” a few together and one particularly drunken night they’d gone all the way. Puella’s memory of the occasion was vague now except she thought she had enjoyed it. But that was then, this was now.

  “Oh, thought I’d bring up the charge of quarters report from last night,” Sergeant Maricle said, never taking his eyes off Puella, whose nipples were clearly visible through her T-top. Her face turned even redder.

  “Hey, you know it goes to the company commander first, Nix. He up this early? He sign it off? You know the colonel doesn’t want ’em closed out until after first formation.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Maricle answered, “musta got ahead of myself.” He grinned evilly. “Hey, Queege, we don’t see much of you down in the comp’ny no more.”

  “Yeah. Well, the old man keeps me too busy up here for socializin’, Nix. You don’t mind, I gotta get dressed.” She turned back toward her room. Damn that lyin’ sonofabitch, what’s he want at this hour? she wondered, but she knew what he wanted.

  “Hey! Puella! Not so fast.” Maricle came toward her. Her shorts clung tightly to her buttocks and her breasts were clearly visible to him through her T-shirt. A thin sheen of perspiration glistened on her neck and face and her dark hair hung tantalizingly down the left side of her head, hiding the scar where her ear had been. “Hold up. Let’s have us a cup of coffee, huh?”

  Puella turned to face the man and said, “Don’t mess with me, Nix. That coffee’s for the CO and the sergeant major—”

  “Oh, yeah, not for us peons, huh?”

  “—’n I got a lot to do to get this place ready for the colonel, who’ll be here in a few minutes, if Steiner doesn’t beat him to it. And you kin explain to ’im what the heck yer doin’ up here so early. So clear off, old buddy.”

  “Aw, Queege old Squeegee”—Maricle imitated a falsetto moan, stepping closer, a leer on his face—“come on, gimme a little smooch, jist fer old times’ sake?”

  “Sergeant, get the heck out of here! I don’t have time for this crap.”

  “Okay, okay, Queege old Squeegee, you jist ain’t no fun no more, you know that? Yer mighty high hat now you been screwing the battalion commander, or is Steiner doin’ yer ass?”

  Puella exploded. “Don’t you call me ‘old Squeege’ anymore, you sonofabitch! You do and I’ll bust your fuckin’ chops for ya! ’N I hear any more bullshit about me screwin’ the CO or the sergeant major, motherfucker, I’ll put yer stupid ass so deep in the shit that not even fuckin’ Hercules’ll be able to dig it out!”

  “Then fuck you, bitch!” Sergeant Maricle shouted, his face turning brick red. He spun around and stomped angrily out of the orderly room. Puella stood there, fists clenched, breathing heavily, fighting to get control of herself. It felt good that she’d told Maricle what she thought of him—and all the others who’d been insinuating things about her relationship with the battalion’s leaders, because he would surely tell everyone he knew what she had said—but she also felt intensely embarrassed because the way she had just talked to Maricle was the way she used to talk to everyone—when she’d been on the booze.

  Colonel Raggel arrived at a minute past five hours. “Good morning, Sergeant,” he said cheerily as he came through the door. “We should have some sunlight this morning.” He stopped beside Puella’s workstation and looked down at her, an expression of concern on his face. “Everything all right this morning, Sergeant?”

  “Fine, sir,” she answered, but she was still smoldering from Maricle’s visit.

  It was obvious to Raggel that something was wrong. “Coffee smells good,” he said, and turned away and poured himself a cup. “Refill?” he asked Puella, who nodded. “I ran into Sergeant Maricle on the way in,” he commented as he poured. “Looked like he was coming back from here.”

  “Yes, sir, he was. He said he brought the CQ report for Fourth Company early. It hadn’t been signed by the company commander and I told him it wasn’t due until after reveille,” she lied, looking away, “which he should’ve known,” she added, looking back at Colonel Raggel sharply.

  “I see.” The battalion commander sipped his coffee slowly and sat on the edge of Puella’s desk. “Well, the sergeant major will be out on the range all day today with Second Company and I have a meeting with General Aguinaldo’s G1 at 0830, so can you run the battalion by yourself for a while?” He grinned at his clerk as he said this.

  “Oh, yes, sir.” Puella brightened at the chance to change the subject. “Are they gonna fill the vacancies we asked for, sir?”

  “Mebbe, mebbe,” Raggel said, taking another sip of his coffee. “You make a good cuppa, Sergeant. How’s it goin’ otherwise?”

  Yes, Puella thought, he is probing. Do I look that upset? she asked herself. “Oh, just fine, sir, just fine.”

  “Um, huh,” he set his cup down. “You know, Sergeant, when I first took over this battalion the sergeant major told me I should send you home. He thought you’d been too tight with your first sergeant—Skinhead, Skinnard, whatever—and the men in your company. I disagreed and now both he and I are very happy we kept you here. You are doing a superb job. You keep it up and I’ll see to it that you’re rewarded. I have the authority to promote every enlisted person in this battalion to whatever grade the TO&E calls for.”

  Puella almost started to cry at this point, not because she hadn’t known that the colonel liked her work and was going to promote her eventually, but because coming so soon after the run-in she’d had with Maricle, it was wonderful to know how much the man supported her. “I-I” she croaked.

  “Hey, let me change the subject, okay?” He knew perfectly well what some of the men said about Sergeant Queege. Sergeant Major Steiner had already busted the lips on one man who had been rash enough to make a snide remark to the old soldier’s face. The man had been smart enough to know he’d been out of place so he never lodged a complaint. Besides, every man in the battalion feared Steiner because before Raggel’s advent as battalion commander he’d settled many disciplinary problems with his fists. But the battalion really did not have many of those problems under Raggel’s leadership. “I’d like to ask you a personal question, Sergeant.”

  “Okay, sir, fire away.”

  “Well, I’ve been wondering why you haven’t seen the medics and gotten that left ear of yours fixed.” He laughed. “You got that at the bank back on Ravenette, didn’t you?”

  “Um, yes, sir, that’s right. Well, I just haven’t had the time—” She knew immediately that was not the right answer. “I mean, I just don’t, well . . .” She shrugged.

  “When you put your hair back it shows up mighty ugly, Sergeant. Hell, it’d be an outpatient operation, over in fifteen minutes, and nobody’d ever know it wasn’t the ear you were born with. Go over to see the medics when I get back.”

  “Well, sir, it just is”—her face turned red—“it just is, it’s the only damned reminder I got about what happened that morning. See, when I got this Bronze Star, sir, I got it for running away from a fight when we got overrun by th’ Marines on th’ coast! I was still hungover that morning and when these Marines started coming out of nowhere, I nearly shit myself, sir! So I beat it back to Phelps and warned the general. ’N that’s how I got this medal.” She flicked the ribbon on her tunic with a finger. “I deserved a medal for what I did in the bank, sir, but then everything collapsed, we were all taken prisoner, and”—she shrugged—“I never got nothin’ so I really don’t feel I deserved this valor medal. That’s why I’ve kept this scar ever since.”

  “Um, I figured it was something like that. Who were you with at Phelps that day?”

  “Third Company, 78th MPs. We was part of the 222nd Brigade of the Fourth Independent Infantry Division under Major General Barksdale Sneed, sir. My company commander was Capt
ain Maxwell Smart. My platoon sergeant said I’d get a medal for shooting it up in the bank, but we was all captured and nobody had time to put in any recommendation. Story of my life, sir.” She grinned at her battalion commander.

  “I know General Sneed very well. Gallant soldier. Well, you probably wouldn’t have gotten another Bronze Star for the bank shoot-out, that wasn’t combat-related,” he said speculatively, “but they’d have given you the Soldier’s Medal for Heroism, that’s for sure. Too bad, Sergeant.” He picked up his cup and drained it. “Well, get to work,” he said, sighing. “Give me all the data on the vacancies we have, personnel, equipment, armaments. I want to take that with me to my meeting.” He stood. “You make a damned good cup of coffee, Sergeant! I might just give you a medal for that alone.” He winked at Puella before going into his office.

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  TEN

  Main Conference Center, Office of the President, Confederation of Human Worlds, Fargo, Earth

  Accompanied by some of her closest advisers, the president watched the man on the vid screen closely. His words swept out over the tens of thousands of faithful gathered in the stadium. Even watching him on a vid, it was difficult to resist the hypnotic cadences, the almost irresistible force of his compelling gaze, his wonderfully pitched and mellifluous voice, speaking extemporaneously and without mannerisms, illustrating his points by using examples from the common lives of his audience, images that everyone could understand.

  “Yield, sinners!” The command rang through the small studio where Chang-Sturdevant, Marcus Berentus, General Alistair Cazombi, and Huygens Long sat, transfixed. “I bring you the Final Awakening! Through me you shall find a New Birth, a Regeneration, and your very nature shall be changed as was mine when, Lord Be Praised! I was lifted unto the Kingdom of Heaven and Born Anew!” He varied his tone from whispers to shouts, swaying left and right to the rhythm of his words. He spoke in colloquial English, never referring to his listeners in the third person but as “you,” all of whom, he told them, were sinners and damned—unless they came forward now to the “Anxious Bench,” a large area reserved before the podium where the sinners knelt and wept and confessed sins while the audience prayed for them. Several hundred people were kneeling there, arms raised, hands clasped, professing and beseeching absolution. “I cannot give you absolution!” Jimmy Jasper thundered down at them. “Only God can do that! Open your hearts now, you sinners! Let the Holy Spirit enter your hearts and save your souls from damnation and the eternal fires of Hell! Come to the Anxious Bench and cleanse your souls of evil!”

  Behind Jimmy, slightly raised, as if on a pedestal, where all could see her, stood Sally Consolador, Jimmy’s “Consort in Christ,” arms raised to Heaven, cheeks stained with tears, shouting “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” her exclamations carefully synchronized with Jimmy’s preaching—a professionally choreographed performance. She swayed left as he swayed right, as though the two were the pendulums on heavenly metronomes. As she lifted up her voice, so did the tens of thousands gathered in the stadium until the joyous roar from the host of voices thundered through the air in an almost palpable wave of sound, but never overwhelming the powerfully amplified flow of words that issued wonderfully from Jimmy’s mouth.

  The cameras swept over the huge gathering in Hector Stadium on the outskirts of Fargo, near its spaceport. The stadium could seat one hundred thousand people, and that day, as every day so far that week, it was filled to capacity. Hundreds of people massed at the Anxious Bench as scores of others leaped into the aisles, blinded with tears of ecstasy, and staggered down to join them.

  Jimmy was silent for a long moment, arms raised heaven-ward, eyes tightly closed, perspiration and tears streaming down his cheeks. Perfectly tuned now to his every mannerism, the crowd too fell immediately silent. It was as though he were the conductor and they the orchestra, so totally in control of this mass of humanity was Jimmy Jasper at that moment. When at last he spoke it was in a normal tone of voice: intimate, friendly, as if he were talking in private to every single person listening to his words. “My friends! Truly beloved! Satan is here, among us now, but he is powerless. He is thwarted, he is discomfited. By God, we have got him by the tail and we’re giving him the old heave-ho!” At this the thousands of listeners roared, “Praise the Lord! Victory to the Holy Spirit!” Jimmy held up his hands for silence, which fell instantly upon the multitude. “I have been blessed. I have stood before our God as Moses stood before the Burning Bush, and my Lord God has told me to come down here and free His people from the grip of the Devil! I am God’s optician; I have come among you to grind you a new prescription! I am God’s surgeon; I have come among you to remove the cataracts from your eyes! With me, you shall read God’s eye chart with the twenty-twenty vision of the Holy Spirit!”

  “Jesus!” Huygens Long whispered. “This guy’s as full of shit as—”

  “Shhhh,” Chang-Sturdevant hissed.

  “My friends!” Jimmy continued, “your president, your government, your military, they want you to believe that this Confederation is under attack from monsters, alien beings they call ‘Skinks.’ ” He pronounced the word as if it were wormwood on his tongue. “Where your government officials see these beings as only one-eyed jacks, I have seen the other side of those beautiful faces and I recognize them as Messengers of the Divine sent by our Creator to warn us away from the path of Satan and the eternal damnation to which it leads the unwary! We must convince our president and her ministers to abandon this unholy campaign against the angels of God and accept them as harbingers of the Millennium!”

  “Okay, that’s it!” Attorney General Huygens Long exclaimed, half rising out of his chair. “He’s into politics now; revoke his goddamned tax-exempt status—”

  “Hugh!” Chang-Sturdevant said sharply. “Sit down!”

  “Dearly beloved!” Jimmy shouted, “before the fires of Hell descend upon mankind we must turn this world into a ‘burned-over district,’ a world burned over by the Holy Spirit! We must burn Satan out of our hearts and the hearts of those who govern us! I leave you with the words of the Apostles. First Peter, who in his Second Epistle General warned, ‘But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that brought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction.’ He is writing here of your government. And finally, John 6:37, ‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’ Remember these words, my friends, and may the good Lord keep you and bless you until we meet again. Let us all join hands and pray.”

  “Whew!” Chang-Sturdevant sighed as she winked out the vid screen. “If that’s how this guy comes across on a vid, what’s he like in person? I need a drink and a smoke. Come on, gentlemen, help yourselves.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, ma’am, what he needs is a great big enema!”

  “You’re a hard case, AG.” The president laughed, pouring herself a generous dollop of Lagavulin. “But what do you know about this extraordinary man?”

  Huygens Long, attorney general in Chang-Sturdevant’s government, glanced briefly at Marcus Berentus and General Cazombi before he answered. The adjective Chang-Sturdevant had used to describe a man he clearly believed was a charlatan made him nervous, not certain what words he should use. He had been observing the president closely, and the way she had reacted to Jasper’s preaching made him wonder. “Well, he’s from the world now calling itself Kingdom. He was formerly a prominent member of a Pentecostal sect known as the Rock of Ages True Light Primitive Christian Church based in a remote village known as Tabernacle. Sometime after the Skink invasion of Kingdom was defeated, he emerged in his present role as the founder of the Burning Flame Mission to Humanity. His ‘Consort in Christ’ ”—here the attorney general could not suppress an outright sneer—“Sally Consolador, is also from Kingdom, from a small town known as the Twel
fth Station of Jerusalem. Before she joined up with Jasper she was a thoroughly respectable but harmless religious fanatic, just like Jasper himself.”

  He shrugged. “The one thing they have in common is they were both abducted by Skinks.”

  “Many of the Kingdomites were,” General Cazombi, Chairman of the Combined Chiefs, Confederation Armed Forces, interjected, “including one of our Marines even.”

  “Oh, yes, one of Ted Sturgeon’s NCOs, if memory serves,” Marcus Berentus, the minister of war volunteered. “But he wasn’t brainwashed like this Jasper fellow, was he?”

  Chang-Sturdevant glanced up sharply at Berentus’s choice of words.

  “No,” General Cazombi said, chuckling, “you can’t brainwash a Marine!”

  “Hugh”—Chang-Sturdevant turned back to her AG—“what’s this Sally woman to Mr. Jasper?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Jasper’s married, no children. His wife, Zamada, is back on Kingdom, presumably dusting off his Bible collection or whatever. I can find out how intimate Consolador and Jasper are, if you want me to.”

  “No!” Chang-Sturdevant replied quickly, a bit too quickly, Huygens Long thought. “No. It’s one thing to research background on a religious figure but another to spy on him.”

  “I wouldn’t call it ‘spying,’ ma’am,” Long replied. “After all, what this man is telling people to do amounts to treason. And I’m sure if I looked hard enough I’d find the dirt on this guy—”

  “No, Hugh, that’s going too far. The public wouldn’t stand for such government probing. We guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of religion in this Confederation and I will not authorize any interference with those rights. Do you have any idea where he gets the money to hold these rallies, Hugh?”

  Long shrugged. “Personal donations, ma’am. At today’s rally—he calls them Holiness Camps—he’ll take in maybe as many as a million credits. He’ll take in who knows how much after this broadcast is seen worldwide and the contributions flow in. We won’t know how much he makes off these camps until he files his personal income tax return, if he files one. But in the short time he’s been working on Earth he’s raised a lot, I can tell you that.” As he spoke, Long speculated how he could put a spy into Jasper’s entourage, someone close enough to the preacher that he could find out just how much money he was taking in and from whom.