Naked to the Stars

by Gordon R. Dickson

  There was the matter of uncooperative enlisted personnel. The enlisted men connected with the school were studiedly insulting to the candidates. This was bad enough. What was worse was that whenever they could get away with being unhelpful or outright harmful to a Cadet’s requirements or record, they did so. Gradually, the candidates came to understand that there was no single right way of getting through the Contacts School. There was only the least possible wrong way.

  There was the matter of individual antagonism from the commissioned instructors. It appeared almost as if the moment a candidate began to acquire credit points as Washun had the first day, a competition was instituted among the instructors to see who would be the first to push him to the breaking point. Verbal abuse and mis-scored tests were among the milder weapons employed by the instructors. Cal, with Washun and a half dozen others, was singled out early for this sort of competition.

  But Cal, if he did not have the philosophical armor that he saw in Washun, found a deep and native stubbornness in himself that refused to give ground. As he had told himself, sitting in the rocket that had been about to carry him off to Basic Training all over again, he told himself now that it was simply a matter of putting his head down, pushing ahead, and letting them do their damnedest.

  So he did. But as the weeks piled up, the pressure got worse and worse, until he began to feel that he would explode after all; that the moment would come when the upper, sensible, directing part of his mind would no longer be able to hold back the emotion boiling beneath. And the night came finally when he knew that the next day would be his last.

  Lying on his back in the darkness, staring at the underside of the mattress of the bunk overhead, a grim solution came to him. Quietly, in the dark, he got up, slipped out of the room bare-footed, in his shorts and undershirt, and slipped down the hall of their barracks and out onto the small balcony, to the outside metal fire-escape. Six floors below, invisible in the night, was the concrete surface of the area where the Cadets stood their parade formations.

  If the worst comes to the worst, he thought, a quiet tumble off the railing here while smoking a cigaret after light-out would leave them forever lacking a positive knowledge that they had broken him. A savage, angry joy rose in him at the thought. He would not yield. No matter what happened, he could always wait until the end of the day, until night. And the night he could not face another day he would bring his cigarets here after lights-out...

  And suddenly, without warning, sanity came washing over him. He woke suddenly to the irrationality of his thoughts. It was as if a stained and distorted window through which he looked out on the world had suddenly been wiped clean so that he saw everything clearly, without distortion and in its proper perspective. The wild thought of suicide as an alternative to submission thinned away and vanished like a mist on the window glass fhad made it perfectly opaque before. The pressures the School had been putting on him shrank into the common crowd of pressures that any living would make upon him. Suddenly he saw how helpless such methods were.

  Why, he thought with something like wonder, there’s nothing they can do to me; there’s nothing anyone can do to me. Death was the brittle final ultimate of any weapon; and death shattered pointlessly upon the spirit of anyone who paid out his life in honest coin up to the moment of death. For the first time Cal felt a little of the great strength that moves men of faith, no matter what that faith may be. And for the first time he thought of the millions, that eight percent of the Earth’s adult population, that believed as his father had believed. A touch of awe at what their true power might be touched him. He went soberly back to his bed.

  The next day he woke clear-headed. And when he went about the day’s classes, he discovered a strange sort of minor miracle had happened. Before, he had pretended that none of the pressures, the words and actions aimed to trip him up, had been able to touch him. All at once, he found that this had actually come to pass. The attacks upon him had become shadow weapons,wielded by shadows. His gaze looked through them to the more important meanings and things in which they had their roots.

  Once, filing in line past the glass doors leading to the dining room at a time of day when that room was dark, he caught a glimpse of his shadowy reflection in the dusk-backed glass. He was smiling.

  Chapter Nine

  At the end of the ten weeks Cal graduated from Contacts School along with Washun and the rest of the predicted ten per-cent of the entering class. The rest took their new Lieutenant’s tabs off on an eight-day leave. Cal made an appointment to see General Scoby the following day.

  The thin, clear sun of September was cutting squarely across?the papers on the desk in Scoby’s office as Cal stepped into it this second time. The year had turned the part of the planet around Denver into mountain autumn, since they had first met;and the point of that meeting lay many millions of miles back along the Earth’s path through that space which is also time. Scoby sat as he had sat before, but the cheetah, Limpari, this time lay alongside the desk, at desk-top level, forelegs stretched out so that the light-colored puffs of her paws rested barely against the sleeve of Scoby’s shirt, feline head laid upon those forelegs. Her animal eyes turned to Cal as he entered, but nothing else about her moved. Scoby looked up.

  “Well, Lieutenant,” he said. “Sit down.”

  Cal sat.

  “You said to come see you, General,” he said, “after I got through Contacts School.”

  “That’s right.” Scoby reached for his pipe and began to fill it, considering Cal coolly. “So you got through all right.” Something about the question operated against the relative peace of mind Cal had discovered during the later days at the Contacts School. An old defensiveness came back, an old, sharp edge unsheathed itself in him:

  “The General didn’t expect me to?”

  “Now there,” said Scoby, striking a light to his pipe and puffing on it, “is why I want you for the job I have in mind and I’m afraid of you at the same time.”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re management training material,” said Scoby. “I want you as high up in my organization as you can climb. But I don’t want you coming along faster than you’re ready to. Tell me about the Paumons. What’d you learn about them at Contacts School?”' Cal frowned.

  “Very humanlike,” he said. “Human enough to get by in a crowd of us, almost. Stripped, of course, you’d notice differences. But with clothes, they’d look sort of like eskimos with sunburns.”

  “Ah...” Scoby closed his eyes. “What’s the name for them?”

  “Sir?”

  “The mulebrains and anybody else who knows about them. What’re they calling these Paumons people?”

  “Oh,” said Cal. “Progs.”

  “Standing for what? What d’you call them?”

  “Standing for what?” echoed Cal. “I don’t know, sir. Myself, sometimes I call them Progs. Or Paumons. Depends on who I’m talking to.”

  “Yeah,” said Scoby. “You got a ways to go yet. What about their culture?”

  “Industrial. They get their power from volcanic taps.”

  “Art? Philosophy?”

  Cal stared at the older man.

  “Art?” he said slowly. “Philosophy? School didn’t give us anything on that.”

  “And of course you didn’t go look it up on your own. What’s the job the Contacts Service is supposed to do? Can you tell me that?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Cal. “Just as the Armed Services’ job is to subdue the enemies of the human race, the Contacts Service’s job is to lay a basis for future peaceful co-existence with those former enemies. ”

  “Oh,” said Scoby, “but you’re a great little quoter, Lieutenant. Now tell me how you’re going to do it.”

  “Establish workable relationships with Paumons leaders and enlist their cooperation in working out future patterns of co-existence.”

  “Damn you!” shouted Scoby, suddenly slamming the desktop with one hand. The cheetah’s head came up like
a striking cobra’s. “I didn’t ask you for chapter and verse! I asked you what you’re going to do!”

  “My job,” said Cal, staring into the other man’s eyes. “What I’m told to do.”

  “And I tell you,” snarled Scoby, leaning toward him, “that nobody’s going to tell you what to do. You’re going to do what,you have to do, what you think you ought to do. You’re going to have to work it all out for yourself!” He glared at Cal. “You know why there’s nothing about philosophy or art in the Paumons course: Because I told them there wasn’t to be any. You want to find out about these people, you go find out about them for yourself. Far as the Assault Team’s concerned, you’re a god-dam aidman, and a goddam interpreter and a goddam headache. Far as I’m concerned, you’re a goddam substitute working Christ and I expect you to produce!”

  He sat glaring at Cal for a long second. Cal looked back without moving his head.

  “All right,” said Scoby more calmly—Limpari put her head down again. “As I say, I expect something more of you than I do of what I ordinarily get for help. I’ve got a special assignment for you. Contacts Officer—with your old outfit.”

  Cal felt a soundless shock. It was something like the feeling that had followed Walk’s last words three months before.

  “Want to back out?” jeered Scoby, staring at him closely.

  “No, sir,” said Cal.

  “Then take off.” Scoby went unceremoniously back to the papers on his desk. Cal rose and left.

  He had been due for a several-week course with the Medics to fit him for his aidman duties. He had planned to meet Annie that evening when she came off shift at the Service Hospital. He had even sourly made up his mind to get to the library and do some extracurricular reading on the Paumons, in line with, what Scoby had said. None of these things took place.

  That afternoon, even as he was walking out of Scoby’s office,things were “breaking,” as the News Services said, with the Paumons situation. The Cabinet on Earth was being called into emergency meeting. Six hours later he was collected by military patrol and confined to base with all other uniformed personnel on a general muster order. Seventy-eight hours later, he and the rest connected with the Paumons Expedition Assault Force were spaceborne.

  Quarters on their ship, as on all ships of the Assault Force,were close; and all experienced Service people were on thei rbest behavior with each other. Cal met the other officers of his Wing. Walk, as the only former member of the unit, was Section Commander of Section A of the Wing, and executive officer under Wing Captain Anders Kaluba, who now headed the outfit. Kaluba was a pleasant, dark-skinned man, who had been a lieu-tenant with the Seventy-second Combat Engineers against the Lehaunans. He did not seem unduly prejudiced against Contacts Officers. And Walk, when he met Cal, was almost subdued. He said little. Joby Loyt was Section Leader under Walk. Tack had been promoted to Wing Section for the outfit, and talked and acted older than before.

  The Assault Force was on the jump for nine days—and four-teen hours out of destination. An order was posted for an orientation address by General Harmon, the Force Commander, to all officers and men on all ships at X minus 1200 hours. On Cal’s ship they took down the hammocks in the main room and everybody crowded in, sitting cross-legged in ranks upon the cold metal flooring. At the far end of the room there was a viewing platform.

  At 1200 hours precisely, the platform lit up with a three-dimensional representation of the Force Commander’s office on the flagship. It showed a desk, a wall representation of the Paumons world, and a door. At a couple of minutes past twelve, the door opened, and the image of Harmon strode out before the audience. He was wearing combat coveralls with a field dress jacket over them and a light-weapons harness with, however, no weapons clipped to it. He nodded into the pickup; a warming current ran through the audience in Cal’s ship. Hannon looked slightly tired, but confident.

  “I won’t keep you,” he said. “I want you all to turn in as soon as I’m through and get as much rest as you can.”

  He picked up a pointer from the desk and turned to the wall representation of the Paumons.

  “Here,” he said, indicating a squarish-looking continent spreading south and west from the planet’s equator, “is the high central plateau area which Intelligence had decided would be the most promising location for our initial drops. The weather is uniformly clear and good at this time of year. The terrain is both highly defensible because of its ruggedness, and adapted to our overland transport. It also overlooks the industrial centers of this key continent. You’ll all be getting full details from your individual Commanders.”

  He laid the pointer aside and came to stand looking out over the desk at them all. There was a moment of silence in the main room of Cal's ship. Across the room, somebody coughed, and a couple of other barks answered from nearby.

  “Fort Cota hack,” muttered a voice behind Cal. He shifted his haunches on the hard metal plates. Around him the room was filled with the smell of still air heavy with the odors ofc lothing and other men’s bodies. Jump boots squeaked on the flooring and coveralls rustled as those about him fidgeted and shifted.

  Harmon cleared his throat.

  “The alien enemy we will be facing in a few hours is tough.We might as well face that fact. But, being an alien, the alien is not as tough as we are: The Prog is going to find out that he’s bitten off something he can’t chew at all.”

  Harmon clasped his hands behind him and stood out from behind the desk.

  “When a human being fights, he knows what he’s fighting for.That’s one reason we’ve got it all over the alien, the alien is not as tough as we are. The Prog is different. He doesn’t know. All he knows is some other alien got him stirred up, or some sort of alien sacred cow got trampled on, or it just looks like a good opportunity for him to grab something. But it’s a human being’s right and duty to know what he’s about. And so I’m just going to take a minute or two out here, and bring you officers and men up to date on the events that require us to be here.”

  Cal’s underneath foot was going to sleep. He quietly un-crossed his legs, bringing the numb one on top.

  “As you all know,” Harmon was saying, “ours is an expanding culture and requires us to be continually on the lookout for additional living room. Three years ago, we made contact with the Bellatrix solar system and set down token bases on two of the empty, less habitable planets. At the same time we contacted the Progs to explain we were only interested in what they did not have, and didn’t intend to bother them in any way.”“Move, will you!” hissed a man in the row behind Cal and off to his right. “You’re crowding my goddam knee.”

  “Shove your knee!” retorted another whisper. “I haven’t got any more room to move than you have.”

  “However, they withheld official acceptance of our presence in their solar system,” Harmon’s voice was continuing. “And shortly after that, less than six months ago, presented us with an official complaint against what they termed an offensive build-up of military equipment and personnel in these areas. We attempted to negotiate, but a month ago we were given what amounted to an ultimatum to pull out of the Bellatrix system.Ten days ago, the Prog attacked without warning and took over both our peoples and our property. Twelve hours from now, he’s going to have to answer for that to us.”

  Harmon’s glance swept from left to right in front of him.

  “That’s it, Assault Soldiers. Turn in now and get some rest—and tomorrow we give ’em hell!”

  He threw a slight wave of his hand, turned about, strode back through the imaged door, and out. The stage winked blank and bare. The seated men rose, grunting and stretching, and the room was suddenly overcrowded. By orderly masses, they moved back along narrow corridors to their individual unit rooms, where the thick-hung hammocks drooped like white foliage from the low ceilings.

  Pushing between the hammocks and the men climbing into them Cal heard his name called by Wing Captain Kaluba. He went toward the comer of the room th
at was Kaluba’s.

  Kaluba, because of the necessities imposed by rank and his duties, did Hot have a hammock, but a cot and a small folding desk. He was sitting on the cot behind the desk as Cal shoved past two filled hammocks to come into view.

  “Yes, sir?” said Cal.

  Kaluba was stacking reports in a neat pile. He looked up.“Oh, yes. Lieutenant, you’re not to go down with the outfit on the drop. You can come later with the medics.”

  Cal frowned.

  “Sir?” he said. “I’m supposed to be aidman for this Wing.”“I know,” said Kaluba. “I’ve picked a couple of the older men to fill in that duty.” There was an awkward pause.

  “Can I ask why, Captain?” said Cal.

  “I suppose so,” said Kaluba. His dark face looked tired.“You’re an ex-mulebrain. And it’s my commission if you take an active action in combat—you know the regulations. I think it’d be better all around if you weren’t in on the drop.”

  “The Captain,” said Call, “doesn’t trust me?”

  “I don’t trust your reflexes.” Kaluba lowered his voice. “Fifteen hours from now, or less, some of these men will be badly hurt, and others will be dying. Are you dead sure you can just stand around and watch that happening?”

  “That’s right,” said Cal.

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “Captain,” said Cal, “I think you may have just talked your-self into something. I’m aidman for this outfit, and you’re going to need me on this drop.” He kept his eyes steadily on Kaluba.“You’re going to need every man on the list.”

  Kaluba chewed his lower lip angrily.

  “I’m trained and I’m experienced,” said Cal. “You leave me back up here and I’ll write a letter, of complaint to the Service accusing you of a personal bias against me. I don’t think the reviewing board will think your reasons strong enough.” Kaluba’s eyes flickered up at him. Then he looked down at the reports and swore.