by Hank Davis
I felt that I was beginning to understand the system, a little and at long last, particularly after I saw my co-workers in the kitchen doing what should have been my work.
II
Then we started combat training, and then we started losing our normal 23.5 percent.
It wasn’t too bad as long as they stuck to the primitive stuff. I mean, you can see arrows and spears coming at you, and even if you have had only the five hours of sleep you can either duck the projectiles or catch them on your shield. And with the medics on the alert, the wounds are painful but seldom fatal. You just end up with a week’s hospitalization and slip back to the next training group. But when they go up to the explosively propelled solids, when the Trontar smirks and says: “Men, this is called a boomer, or a banger, or maybe sometimes a firestick, depending on what planet you’re fighting on,” and when he holds up a contraption of wood and metal with a hole at one end and a handle on the other—then, Draftee, look out!
It takes time to learn. It isn’t till you associate a bang in the distance with a perforated man beside you that you do learn. And when you finally come under fire from our regular production weapons like rays—well!
You might wonder why they run us through the entire history of weapons starting with the sling and ending with the slithers—the name servicemen give to those Zeta Rays that diverge from line of sight to drop in on a dug-in enemy. The usual explanation is that Haldorians are still invading places where the natives still use such things as bows and arrows. But I think, myself, that it’s something the Mil-Prop guys figured out. The idea is, as I see it, to run you right through the whole course of our fighting, invading Haldorian history, and in that way to make a better fighter out of you. And you do get rid of the death-prones before there’s much time or work invested in them—or before their inevitable early death means the failure of a mission. Haldoria—most practical of Empires!
But they didn’t make a fighter of me. All they did was to reinforce my natural survival instinct considerably, acquaint me with the tortuous ways of the service, and give me a great urge for a peaceful existence. But to all appearances, as I stood in the orderly room after graduation, I was the ideal poster-picture of a Haldorian, completely uniformed with polished power boots and rayer, a crawler to the higher-ups and a stomper on the lower-downs, a Fighter Basic with no compassion but with a certified aptitude for advancement to at least the rank of Trontar.
“Fighter Basic Ruxt,” the Dispositions Hweetoral announced.
“Here, Sir!”
“Your application for transfer to Statistical Services has been disapproved.” The two-striper’s expression showed what he, as a fighting man, thought of the Statistical Services. “But we’ve got a real assignment for you, Ruxt! The 27th Invasion Force is all set to drop on a new system. You’re lucky, Ruxt, that you put in that application. We had to hold you till it bounced. Your buddies got shipped to those rear-echelon guard outfits, but you’re going to a real fighting one. It should be a good invasion—this new system’s got atomic fission, I hear. And I’d like to tell you something, Ruxt . . .”
“I know what, Sir,” I said. “You envy me.”
The 27th was a real fighting unit all right: they had their own neckerchief, their own war cry, and a general who was on his way up. Now they had me.
And they were going to get another system for the Haldorian Empire.
You see, those intelligent worms, or maybe they are slugs—I’m a bit vague on universe geography—over on the next galaxy but one, give us Haldorians all sorts of difficulties. They insist on freedom, self-determination, and all that sort of thing. That’s all very well, but they insist on them for themselves. Our high-level planners decided that another solar system would make a better offensive set-up for Haldoria. The planners, I understand, have all sorts of esoteric theories about the ideal shape and size of an offensive unit. They ring in time and something related to time which makes galaxy distances differ according to which direction you are travelling. As I say, esoteric.
The only thing that mattered to me was that some technicians had fed some data into a computer and it had hiccupped and said: “You’ll need such-and-such a planet to control such-and-such a solar system, and that will give you a better offensive set-up.” Then the computer hiccupped again and said: “You’ll need to draft and train Ameet Ruxt to help on this little job of taking over this planet called Terra, or Earth.”
That’s what it amounted to, anyhow. Consequently I joined the 27th Invasion Force.
“So you’ve got an application in for transfer to the Statistical Services, huh?” Trontar Hytd, my new platoon three-striper, asked when I reported in for duty with the 27th.
“Yes, Sir.” I’d learned, along the line that one should never give up when applying for a transfer—just keep one in the mill.
“Huh, Borr, this new guy likes to work with figures,” Trontar Hytd growled at Hweetoral Borr, my new squad leader. “Thinks he doesn’t want to be a Fighter.” Trontar Hytd looked at me questioningly.
I didn’t say anything. I’d learned a lot in Basic Fighter Course.
“Figures?” asked Hweetoral Borr. I could see a train of thought had been started in the Hweetoral’s mind.
“Yeah, figures,” snapped Trontar Hytd. “He likes to count things, Borr. Get it?”
“Guess we need all our ray charges counted, for one thing,” suggested Hweetoral Borr. “I get all mixed up with them figures.”
“After training hours, of course,” Trontar Hytd said.
“Of course, Trontar. And someone’s gotta jawbone some kind of report on ammo expenditures every training day. Maybe after the rest of us have sacked in, for instance?”
“Of course. Okay, Hweetoral, I guess you got the idea.”
Invasion was almost a relief after that brief bit of refresher training the 27th was going through.
Our General-on-the-way-up had outlined his plan of attack: “Drop’m, hit’m, lift’m and drop’m again.” So I dropped, hit the defenders, was lifted to a new center of resistance, and dropped again. I understand it was a standard type of invasion. There’s only one way to do simple things.
Once in a while, these days, I remember those sadistic and battle-hardened comrades of mine. Hard, gutsy Trontar Hytd stayed on his feet to direct his platoon underground after our Kansas force collapsed, and one of those little fission weapons separated his body parts too widely for even our unsentimentally competent surgeon/replacer to reassemble him. Well, they had a go at the job, but they had to ray down what they created—some primitive regression had set in and the creature was hungry.
And rough and tough Hweetoral Borr incautiously scratched his hairy ear just when one of those rude projectile weapons was firing at him. The slug slipped through that opening the Hweetoral had made in his body armor. With the brain gone—or such brain as Hweetoral Borr possessed—our kindly old surgeon/replacer was foxed again.
Then there were the new germs . . .
But these things are as nothing to the creative military mind. A swarm of regulations, manuals and directives issue forth from headquarters, and force fields cease to collapse, and fighters keep their body armor on and adjusted. When something like the influenza germ wipes out half a platoon, the wheels turn, a new vaccine is devised, and no more Haldorians die from that particular germ. All the individual has to do is to live from one injection to the next (any civilized enemy always cooks up new diseases), move from one enemy strong point to the next, and dream of the day when he can return to his old life. For me it was a dream of returning to that quiet tiny room with its walls lined with the best of Haldorian art—just cheap reproductions, of course, and never again to handle a rayer or to wear armor. Real life, meanwhile, went on.
“Fighter First-Class Ruxt! Take these men and blast that strong point!” That would be the order somewhere in Missouri, or maybe in Mississippi—I never was much good on micro-geography. “Hweetoral Ruxt! Take your squad and clean out that
city. New Orleans they call it. Get their formal surrender and make damn sure there are no guerrillas left when the colonel comes through to inspect.”
By the time I was Trontar Ruxt the invasion was practically over. As I say, it was the standard thing with one or two countries holding out after all hope was gone—England never did formally surrender, not that it mattered—and our successful General was made a Sub-Marshall of the Haldorian Empire.
A real promotion and a great honor. Much good it did him when he ventured his battle fleet too far into the Slug lines a year later.
With the fighting over—the real fighting, I mean—the ever-efficient Haldorians started moving their troops off Earth to get ready for a new and bigger invasion that the computers had decreed. Only a few troops were to be left behind for occupation and guard stuff.
I had a talk with a fat Assignments Trontar in his plush office.
“You know, Trontar,” I said, “I was hoping to see more of this world here, and the rumor is that all of us excess combat types are being shipped to a training world to be shaped into new invasion forces.”
“Tough,” he said. He should know. He’d requisitioned a mansion complete with servants and everything. He even had a native trained to drive one of their luxuriously inefficient ground vehicles. What a deal! That Trontar had no worries, his anti-grav ray was working.
“I heard that a man doesn’t even need any money if he’s stationed down at our headquarters,” I said, and I hauled out a handful of Haldorian notes from my pocket. “Guess I wouldn’t need this stuff if I was transferred down to our headquarters.”
“Who needs money?” he asked. “Guys all the time trying to bribe me, Trontar. You’d be surprised. Sure glad you aren’t, though, because I do hate to turn anyone in.”
I put the money back in my pocket. “Speaking of turning in people,” I said casually, “you ever have any trouble with the undercover boys about all this loot you’ve picked up?” This, I thought, would shake him—and at the same time I marveled at how I’d changed from a simple, naïve statistician to a tough and conniving combat NCO.
He yawned all over his fat face and swung his swivel chair so that he could better admire the picture beside his desk. I recognized the picture as a moderately good reproduction of a Huxtner, a minor painter of our XXVth. “No,” the Assignments Trontar said, “it turns out that one of my sept brothers runs the local watch birds. He often drops in here to visit with me. But anything I can do for you, Trontar?”
“No,” I said, and I fired at the only possible loophole left, “I’ll just leave quietly so you can admire your Huxtner.”
He swung back to me with a start. “You recognize a Huxtner? You’re the first man I’ve ever met in the service who ever heard of Huxtner, let alone recognizing one of his masterpieces! Hey, did you know I brought this all the way from home in my hammock roll? And just look at the coloring of that figure there!”
The loophole had been blasted wide open. “You’re lucky,” I said, and I went on to lie about how I’d lost my own Huxtner prints in the invasion. “No one,” I continued, “ever got quite that flesh tint of Huxtner’s, did they?”
Huxtner, by the way, is notorious for using a yellow undercoat for his blue flesh colors, unlike every realistic painter before or after who have all used green undercoats—what else? Imagine a chrome-yellow underlaying a blue skin color. All Huxtner’s figures look like two-week corpses—but Huxtner enthusiasts are unique.
The Assignments Trontar and I had a nice long chat about Huxtner, at the conclusion of which he insisted on scratching my name from the list of combat-bound men and putting me on a much smaller list of men scheduled for our guard outfit, stationed at the old Terran capital of Washington.
I had an un-Haldorian feeling of having arranged my own life after that incident. That feeling persisted even after I took over one of the guard platoons and discovered that life in a guard outfit is rather similar to Basic Fighter Course.
“Trontar Ruxt! Two men of your platoon have tarnished armor. Get them working on it, and maybe you’d better stay and see that they do it properly.”
“Yes, Sir.”
One lives and learns. I turned the job of supervising the armor cleaning to the Hweetorals of the squads and then I went home to my native woman. Yes, this guard’s outfit life was like Basic Fighter Course.
But only for the lower ranks.
III
Life wasn’t too unendurable in those days. The duties were incredibly dull, of course, but the danger of sudden death had receded, since only a few fanatics still tried to pick off us occupation troops. And this new world of Haldoria’s was rich in the things a sensitive and artistic man appreciates: painting, sculpture, music. Then there was this new and pleasing thing of living with a woman . . .
But it wouldn’t last long.
Soon there’d be another planet to invade and maybe a space battle with the great enemy. More years of cramped living and lurking danger, for in the Empire one was drafted for the duration, and this duration was now some four hundred years old. The most Trontar Ruxt could expect, the very most, was to somehow keep alive for another fifty years and then to retire on a small pension to one of the lesser worlds of the Empire.
“Trontar Ruxt! Your records show that you’re a statistician.” My commanding officer stared at me suspiciously, for a fighting man, even one on guard duty, distrusts office personnel. And as everyone knows, “Once a fighting man, always a fighting man.” I think my C.O.’s last action had been thirty years ago.
“I was a statistician before I got in the service, Sir.”
“Well, they’re screaming over at headquarters for qualified office personnel, and we have to send them any trained men we have—of any rank.”
“It’s for Haldor, Sir,” I said. By now I knew the correct answer was most often the noncommittal one.
I reported to the Headquarters, 27th Invasion Force. The rumor was that Phase II, Reduction of Inhabitants to Slavery with Shipment to Haldorian Colonies, was about to start. And also, our Planners were supposed to be well into Phase III, Terraforming, already. Terraforming was necessary, of course, to bring the average temperature of Earth down to something like the sub-arctic so that we Haldorians could live here in comfort. We lost quite a few fighters during invasion when their cooling systems broke down. Rumor, as always, was dead right; and the Headquarters was a mad rat-race.
The Senior Trontar of the office was delighted to get another body.
“Took your time getting here, Ruxt! You guard louts don’t know the meaning of time, do you?”
I remained at attention.
“So you’re a statistician, are you? Well, we don’t need any statisticians now. We just got in a whole squad of them. Can you use a writer, maybe?”
“Yes, Sir.” I did not remind the Senior Trontar that using a writer was a clerk’s job, not a Trontar’s, not a combat three-striper’s, because the chances were that he knew it, for one thing. And he could easily make me a clerk, for another thing.
“Okay. Now that we understand each other,” the Senior Trontar grinned, “or that you understand me, which is all that matters, here’s your job.” He handed me a stack of scribbled notes, some rolls of speech tape and a couple of cans of visual stuff. “Make up a report in standard format like this example. Consolidate all this stuff into it. This report has to be ready in two days, and it has to be perfect. No misspellings, no erasures, no nothing. Got that?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Yes, Sir,” he mimicked. “Haldor only knows why they couldn’t send me a few clerks instead of a squad of statisticians and one guard Trontar. Do you know what this stuff is that you’re going to work up? It’s the final report on our invasion here!”
I looked impressed. Strange how you learn, after a while, even the facial expression you are supposed to wear.
“Do you know why this report has to be perfect in format and appearance?” I wouldn’t say the Senior Trontar’s manner wa
s bullying, quite. Perhaps one could call it hectoring. “Because the Accountant is out in this sector somewhere and we have to be ready for him if he drops in.”
This time I didn’t have to try to look impressed. The Accountant is the man who passes judgment on the conduct of all military matters—though of course he’s not one man, but maybe a dozen of them. Armed with the invaluable weapon of hindsight, he drops in after an invasion is completed. He determines whether the affair has gone according to regulations, or whether there has been carelessness, slackness or wasting of Haldorian resources of men or material. Additionally he monitors civil administration of colonies and federated worlds. There are stories of Generals becoming Fighter Basics and Chief Administrators becoming sub-clerks after an Accountant’s visit.
I got the report done, but it took the full two days—mainly because fighting men make such incomplete and erroneous reports while action is going on. I got to understand the exasperated concern of office personnel who have to consolidate varied fragments into a coherent whole. And adding to the natural difficulties of the task was the continual presence of the Senior Trontar, and his barbed comments and lurid promises as to what would follow my failure at the work.
But the report was done and sent in to the Adjutant.
It came back covered with scribbled changes, additions, and deletions—and it came back carried by a much-disturbed Senior Trontar.
“Who in Haldor do they think I am?” he moaned. “I just handed on to you the figures that they gave me. Me! And threatening me with duty on a space freighter . . . and one into the Slug area at that!”
I thought, as I looked at my ruined script, that guard duty wasn’t so bad, and that even combat wasn’t rough all the time.
“See, Trontar,” the four-striper said, calling me by my proper rank for the first time, “you did a good job, the Adjutant himself said so. But these figures . . .” he shuddered. “If the Accountant should see these we’d all be for it. Space-freighter duty would be getting off light.” The Senior Trontar seemed almost human to me right then.