John Scalzi - Old Man's War
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OLD MAN'S WAR
John Scalzi
To Regan Avery, first reader extraordinaire,
And always to Kristine and Athena.
PART I
ONE
I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.
Visiting Kathy's grave was the less dramatic of the two. She's buried in Harris Creek Cemetery, not more
than a mile down the road from where I live and where we raised our family. Getting her into the cemetery was
more difficult than perhaps it should have been; neither of us expected needing the burial, so neither of us
made the arrangements. It's somewhat mortifying, to use a rather apt word, to have to argue with a cemetery
manager about your wife not having made a reservation to be buried. Eventually my son, Charlie, who
happens to be mayor, cracked a few heads and got the plot. Being the father of the mayor has its
advantages.
So, the grave. Simple and unremarkable, with one of those small markers instead of a big headstone. As a
contrast, Kathy lies next to Sandra Cain, whose rather oversized headstone is polished black granite, with
Sandy's high school photo and some maudlin quote from Keats about the death of youth and beauty
sandblasted into the front. That's Sandy all over. It would have amused Kathy to know Sandra was parked
next to her with her big dramatic headstone; all their lives Sandy nurtured an entertainingly
passive-aggressive competition with her. Kathy would come to the local bake sale with a pie, Sandy would
bring three and simmer, not so subtly, if Kathy's pie sold first. Kathy would attempt to solve the problem by
preemptively buying one of Sandy's pies. It's hard to say whether this actually made things better or worse,
from Sandy's point of view.
I suppose Sandy's headstone could be considered the last word in the matter, a final show-up that could not
be rebutted, because, after all, Kathy was already dead. On the other hand, I don't actually recall anyone
visiting Sandy. Three months after Sandy passed, Steve Cain sold the house and moved to Arizona with a
smile as wide as Interstate 10 plastered on his skull. He sent me a postcard some time later; he was
shacking up with a woman down there who had been a porn star fifty years earlier. I felt unclean for a week
after getting that bit of information. Sandy's kids and grand-kids live one town over, but they might as well be
in Arizona for as often as they visit. Sandy's Keats quote probably hadn't been read by anyone since the
funeral but me, in passing, as I move the few feet over to my wife.
Kathy's marker has her name (Katherine Rebecca Perry), her dates, and the words: beloved wife and mother.
I read those words over and over every time I visit. I can't help it; they are four words that so inadequately and
so perfectly sum up a life. The phrase tells you nothing about her, about how she met each day or how she
worked, about what her interests were or where she liked to travel. You'd never know what her favorite color
was, or how she liked to wear her hair, or how she voted, or what her sense of humor was. You'd know
nothing about her except that she was loved. And she was. She'd think that was enough.
I hate visiting here. I hate that my wife of forty-two years is dead, that one minute one Saturday morning she
was in the kitchen, mixing a bowl of waffle batter and talking to me about the dustup at the library board
meeting the night before, and the next minute she was on the floor, twitching as the stroke tore through her
brain. I hate that her last words were "Where the hell did I put the vanilla."
I hate that I've become one of those old men who visits a cemetery to be with his dead wife. When I was
(much) younger I used to ask Kathy what the point would be. A pile of rotting meat and bones that used to be
a person isn't a person anymore; it's just a pile of rotting meat and bones. The person is gone—off to heaven
or hell or wherever or nowhere. You might as well visit a side of beef. When you get older you realize this is
still the case. You just don't care. It's what you have.
For as much as I hate the cemetery, I've been grateful it's here, too. I miss my wife. It's easier to miss her at
a cemetery, where she's never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was
alive.
I didn't stay long; I never do. Just long enough to feel the stab that's still fresh enough after most of eight
years, the one that also serves to remind me that I've got other things to do than to stand around in a
cemetery like an old, damned fool. Once I felt it, I turned around and left and didn't bother looking around.
This was the last time I would ever visit the cemetery or my wife's grave, but I didn't want to expend too much
effort in trying to remember it. As I said, this is the place where she's never been anything but dead. There's
not much value in remembering that.
Although come to think of it, signing up for the army wasn't all that dramatic either.
My town was too small for its own recruiting office. I had to drive into Greenville, the county seat, to sign up.
The recruiting office was a small storefront in a nondescript strip mall; there was a state liquor authority store
on one side of it and a tattoo parlor on the other. Depending on what order you went into each, you could
wake up the next morning in some serious trouble.
The inside of the office was even less appealing, if that's possible. It consisted of a desk with a computer and
a printer, a human behind that desk, two chairs in front of the desk and six chairs lining a wall. A small table
in front of those chairs held recruiting information and some back issues of Time and Newsweek. Kathy and I
had been in here a decade earlier, of course; I suspect nothing had been moved, much less changed, and
that included the magazines. The human appeared to be new. At least I don't remember the previous recruiter
having that much hair. Or breasts.
The recruiter was busy typing something on the computer and didn't bother to look up as I came in. "Be right
with you," she muttered, by way of a more or less Pavlovian response to the door opening.
"Take your time," I said. "I know the place is packed." This attempt at marginally sarcastic humor went
ignored and unappreciated, which has been par for the course for the last few years; good to see I had not
lost my form. I sat down in front of the desk and waited for the recruiter to finish whatever she was doing.
"You coming or going?" she asked, still without actually looking up at me.
"Pardon me?" I said.
"Coming or going," she repeated. "Coming in to do your Intent to Join sign-up, or going out to start your
term?"
"Ah. Going out, please."
This finally got her to look at me, squinting out through a rather severe pair of glasses. "You're John Perry,"
she said.
"That's me. How did you guess?"
She looked back to her computer. "Most people who want to enlist come in on their birthday, even though
they have thirty days afterward to formally enlist. We only have three birthdays today. Mary Valory already
called to say she won't be going. And you don't look like you'd be Cynthia Smith."
"I'm gratified to hear that," I said.
"And since you're not coming in for an initial sign-up," she continued, ignoring yet another stab at humor, "it
stands to reason you're John Perry."
"I could just be a lonely old man wandering around looking for conversation," I said.
"We don't get many of those around here," she said. "They tend to be scared off by the kids next door with
the demon tattoos." She finally pushed her keyboard away and gave me her full attention. "Now, then. Let's
see some ID, please."
"But you already know who I am," I reminded her.
"Let's be sure," she said. There was not even the barest hint of a smile when she said this. Dealing with
garrulous old farts every day had apparently taken its toll.
I handed over my driver's license, birth certificate and national identity card. She took them, reached into her
desk for a handpad, plugged it into the computer and slid it over to me. I placed my hand on it palm down and
waited for the scan to finish. She took the pad and slid my ID card down the side to match the print
information. "You're John Perry," she said, finally.
"And now we're back where we started," I said.
She ignored me again. "Ten years ago during your Intent to Join orientation session, you were provided
information concerning the Colonial Defense Forces, and the obligations and duties you would assume by
joining the CDF," she said, in the tone of voice which indicated that she said this at least once a day, every
day, most of her working life. "Additionally, in the interim period, you have been sent refresher materials to
remind you of the obligations and duties you would be assuming.
"At this point, do you need additional information or a refresher presentation, or do you declare that you fully
understand the obligations and duties you are about to assume? Be aware there is no penalty either for
asking for refresher materials or opting not to join the CDF at this time."
I recalled the orientation session. The first part consisted of a bunch of senior citizens sitting on folding chairs
at the Greenville Community Center, eating donuts and drinking coffee and listening to a CDF apparatchik
drone on about the history of human colonies. Then he handed out pamphlets on CDF service life, which
appeared to be much like military life anywhere. During the question and answer session we found out he
wasn't actually in the CDF; he'd just been hired to provide presentations in the Miami valley area.
The second part of the orientation session was a brief medical exam—a doctor came in and took blood,
swabbed the inside of my cheek to dislodge some cells, and gave me a brain scan. Apparently I passed.
Since then, the pamphlet I was provided at the orientation session was sent to me once a year through the
mail. I started throwing it out after the second year. I hadn't read it since.
"I understand," I said.
She nodded, reached into her desk, pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, and handed both to me. The paper
held several paragraphs, each with a space for a signature underneath. I recognized the paper; I had signed
another, very similar paper ten years earlier to indicate that I understood what I would be getting into a
decade in the future.
"I'm going to read to you each of the following paragraphs," she said. "At the end of each paragraph, if you
understand and accept what has been read to you, please sign and date on the line immediately following the
paragraph. If you have questions, please ask them at the end of each paragraph reading. If you do not
subsequently understand or do not accept what has been read and explained to you, do not sign. Do you
understand?"
"I understand," I said.
"Very good," she said. "Paragraph one: I the undersigned acknowledge and understand that I am freely and of
my own will and without coercion volunteering to join the Colonial Defense Forces for a term of service of not
less than two years in length. I additionally understand that the term of service may be extended unilaterally
by the Colonial Defense Forces for up to eight additional years in times of war and duress."
This "ten years total" extension clause was not news to me—I did read the information I was sent, once or
twice—although I wondered how many people glossed over it, and of those who didn't, how many people
actually thought they'd be stuck in the service ten years. My feeling on it was that the CDF wouldn't ask for
ten years if it didn't feel it was going to need them. Because of the Quarantine Laws, we don't hear much
about colonial wars. But what we do hear is enough to know it's not peacetime out there in the universe.
I signed.
"Paragraph two: I understand that by volunteering to join the Colonial Defense Forces, I agree to bear arms
and to use them against the enemies of the Colonial Union, which may include other human forces. I may not
during the term of my service refuse to bear and use arms as ordered or cite religious or moral objections to
such actions in order to avoid combat service."
How many people volunteer for an army and then claim conscientious objector status? I signed.
"Paragraph three: I understand and agree that I will faithfully and with all deliberate speed execute orders and
directives provided to me by superior officers, as provided for in the Uniform Code of Colonial Defense Forces
Conduct."
I signed.
"Paragraph four: I understand that by volunteering for the Colonial Defense Forces, I consent to whatsoever
medical, surgical or therapeutic regimens or procedures are deemed necessary by the Colonial Defense
Forces to enhance combat readiness."
Here it was: Why I and countless other seventy-five-year-olds signed up every year.
I once told my grandfather that by the time I was his age they'd have figured out a way to dramatically extend
the human life span. He laughed at me and told me that's what he had assumed, too, and yet there he was,
an old man anyway. And here I am as well. The problem with aging is not that it's one damn thing after
another—it's every damn thing, all at once, all the time.
You can't stop aging. Gene therapies and replacement organs and plastic surgery give it a good fight. But it
catches up with you anyway. Get a new lung, and your heart blows a valve. Get a new heart, and your liver
swells up to the size of an inflatable kiddie pool. Change out your liver, a stroke gives you a whack. That's
aging's trump card; they still can't replace brains.
Life expectancy climbed up near the ninety-year mark a while back, and that's where it's been ever since. We
eked out almost another score from the "three score and ten" and then God seems to have put his foot down.
People can live longer, and do live longer—but they still live those years as an old person. Nothing much has
ever changed about that.
Look, you: When you're twenty-five, thirty-five, forty-five or even fifty-five, you can still feel good about your
chances to take on the world. When you're sixty-five and your body is looking down the road at imminent
physical ruin, these mysterious "medical, surgical and therapeutic regimens and procedures" begin to sound
interesting. Then you're seventy-five, friends are dead, and you've replaced at least one major organ; you have
to pee four times a night, and you can't go up a flight of stairs without being a little winded—and you're told
you're in pretty good shape for your age.
Trading that in for a decade of fresh life in a combat zone begins to look like a hell of a bargain. Especially
because if you don't, in a decade you'll be eighty-five, and then the only difference between you and a raisin
will be that while you're both wrinkled and without a prostate, the raisin never had a prostate to begin with.
So how does the CDF manage to reverse the flow of aging? No one down here knows. Earthside scientists
can't explain how they do it, and can't replicate their successes, though it's not for the lack of trying. The
CDF doesn't operate on-planet, so you can't ask a CDF veteran. However, the CDF only recruits on-planet, so
the colonists don't know, either, even if you could ask them, which you can't. Whatever therapies the CDF
performs are done off-world, in the CDF's own authority zones, away from the purview of global and national
governments. So no help from Uncle Sam or anyone else.
Every once in a while, a legislature or president or dictator decides to ban CDF recruiting until it reveals its
secrets. The CDF never argues; it packs up and goes. Then all the seventy-five-year-olds in that country take
long international vacations from which they never return. The CDF offers no explanations, no rationales, no
clues. If you want to find out how they make people young again, you have to sign up.
I signed.
"Paragraph five: I understand that by volunteering for the Colonial Defense Forces, I am terminating my
citizenship in my national political entity, in this case the United States of America, and also the Residential
Franchise that allows me to reside on the planet Earth. I understand that my citizenship will henceforth be
transferred generally to the Colonial Union and specifically to the Colonial Defense Forces. I further recognize
and understand that by terminating my local citizenship and planetary Residential Franchise, I am barred
from subsequent return to Earth and, upon completion of my term of service within the Colonial Defense
Forces, will be relocated to whatsoever colony I am allotted by the Colonial Union and/or the Colonial Defense
Forces."
More simply put: You can't go home again. This is part and parcel of the Quarantine Laws, which were
imposed by the Colonial Union and the CDF, officially at least, to protect Earth from any more xenobiological
disasters like The Crimp. Folks on the Earth were all for it at the time. Funny how insular a planet will
become when a third of its male population permanently loses its fertility within the space of a year. People
here are less enthused about it now—they've gotten bored with Earth and want to see the rest of the universe,
and they've forgotten all about childless Great Uncle Walt. But the CU and CDF are the only ones with
spaceships that have the skip drives that make interstellar travel possible. So there it is.
(This makes the agreement to colonize where the CU tells you to colonize something of a moot point—since
they're the only ones with the ships, you go where they take you anyway. It's not as if they're going to let you
drive the starship.)
A side effect of the Quarantine Laws and the skip drive monopoly is to make communication between Earth
and the colonies (and between the colonies themselves) all but impossible. The only way to get a timely
response from a colony is to put a message onto a ship with a skip drive; the CDF will grudgingly carry
messages and data for planetary governments this way, but anyone else is out of luck. You could put up a
radio dish and wait for communication signals from the colonies to wash by, but Alpha, the closest colony to
Earth, is eighty-three light-years away. This makes lively gossip between planets difficult.
I've never asked, but I would imagine that it is this paragraph that causes the most people to turn back. It's
one thing to think you want to be young again; it's quite another thing to turn your back on everything you've
ever known, everyone you've ever met or loved, and every experience you've ever had over the span of seven
and a half decades. It's a hell of a thing to say good-bye to your whole life.
I signed.
"Paragraph six—final paragraph," the recruiter said. "I recognize and understand that as of seventy-two hours
of the final signing of this document, or my transport off Earth by the Colonial Defense Forces, whichever
comes first, I will be presumed as deceased for the purposes of law in all relevant political entities, in this
case the State of Ohio and the United States of America. Any and all assets remaining to me will be
dispensed with according to law. All legal obligations or responsibilities that by law terminate at death will be
so terminated. All previous legal records, be they meritorious or detrimental, will be hereby stricken, and all
debts discharged according to law. I recognize and understand that if I have not yet arranged for the
distribution of my assets, that at my request the Colonial Defense Forces will provide me with legal and
financial counsel to do so within seventy-two hours."
I signed. I now had seventy-two hours to live. So to speak.
"What happens if I don't leave the planet within seventy-two hours?" I said as I handed the paper back to the
recruiter.
"Nothing," she said, taking the form. "Except that since you're legally dead, all your belongings are split up
according to your will, your health and life benefits are canceled or disbursed to your heirs and being legally
dead, you have no legal right to protection under the law from everything from libel to murder."
"So someone could just come up and kill me, and there would be no legal repercussions?"
"Well, no," she said. "If someone were to murder you while you were legally dead, I believe that here in Ohio
they could be tried for 'disturbing a corpse.' "
"Fascinating," I said.
"However," she continued, in her ever-more-distressing matter-of-fact tone, "it usually doesn't get that far.
Anytime between now and the end of those seventy-two hours you can simply change your mind about
joining. Just call me here. If I'm not here, an automated call responder will take your name. Once we've
verified it's actually you requesting cancellation of enlistment, you'll be released from further obligation. Bear
in mind that such cancellation permanently bars you from future enlistment. This is a onetime thing."
"Got it," I said. "Do you need to swear me in?"
"Nope," she said. "I just need to process this form and give you your ticket." She turned back to her
computer, typed for a few minutes, and then pressed the enter key. "The computer is generating your ticket
now," she said. "It'll be a minute."
"Okay," I said. "Mind if I ask you a question?"
"I'm married," she said.
"That wasn't what I was going to ask," I said. "Do people really proposition you?"
"All the time," she said. "It's really annoying."
"Sorry about that," I said. She nodded. "What I was going to ask was if you've actually ever met anyone from
CDF."
"You mean apart from enlistees?" I nodded. "No. The CDF has a corporation down here that handles
recruiting, but none of us are actual CDF. I don't think even the CEO is. We get all our information and
materials from the Colonial Union embassy staff and not the CDF directly. I don't think they come Earthside
at all."
"Does it bother you to work for an organization you never met?"
"No," she said. "The work is okay and the pay is surprisingly good, considering how little money they've put
in to decorate around here. Anyway, you're going to join an organization you've never met. Doesn't that bother
you?"
"No," I admitted. "I'm old, my wife is dead and there's not much reason to stay here anymore. Are you going
to join when the time comes?"
She shrugged. "I don't mind getting old."
"I didn't mind getting old when I was young, either," I said. "It's the being old now that's getting to me."
Her computer printer made a quiet hum and a business card-like object came out. She took it and handed it
to me. "This is your ticket," she said to me. "It identifies you as John Perry and a CDF recruit. Don't lose it.
Your shuttle leaves from right in front of this office in three days to go to the Dayton Airport. It departs at 8:30
A.M.; we suggest you get here early. You'll be allowed only one carry-on bag, so please choose carefully
among the things you wish to take.
"From Dayton, you'll take the eleven A.M. flight to Chicago and then the two P.M. delta to Nairobi from there.
They're nine hours ahead in Nairobi, so you'll arrive there about midnight, local time. You'll be met by a CDF
representative, and you'll have the option of either taking the two A.M. beanstalk to Colonial Station or getting
some rest and taking the nine A.M. beanstalk. From there, you're in the CDF's hands."
I took the ticket. "What do I do if any of these flights is late or delayed?"
"None of these flights has ever experienced a single delay in the five years I've worked here," she said.
"Wow," I said. "I'll bet the CDF's trains run on time, too."
She looked at me blankly.
"You know," I said, "I've been trying to make jokes to you the entire time I've been here."
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry. My sense of humor was surgically removed as a child."
"Oh," I said.
"That was a joke," she said, and stood up, extending her hand.
"Oh." I stood up and took it.
"Congratulations, recruit," she said. "Good luck to you out there in the stars. I actually mean that," she
added.
"Thank you," I said, "I appreciate it." She nodded, sat back down again, and flicked her eyes back to the
computer. I was dismissed.
On the way out I saw an older woman walking across the parking lot toward the recruiting office. I walked over
to her. "Cynthia Smith?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "How did you know?"
"I just wanted to say happy birthday," I said, and then pointed upward. "And that maybe I'll see you again up
there."
She smiled as she figured it out. Finally, I made someone smile that day. Things were looking up.
TWO
Nairobi was launched from underneath us, and dropped away; we walked over to the side as if on a fast
elevator (which is of course exactly what the beanstalk is) and watched the Earth begin its slide.
"They look like ants from up here!" Leon Deak cackled as he stood next to me. "Black ants!"
I had the strong urge to crack open a window and hurl Leon out of it. Alas, there was no window to crack; the
beanstalk's "window" was the same diamond composite materials as the rest of the platform, made
transparent so travelers could sightsee below them. The platform was airtight, which would be a handy thing
in just a few minutes, when we were high enough up that cracking a window would lead to explosive
decompression, hypoxia and death.
So Leon would not find himself making a sudden and entirely unexpected return to the Earth's embrace.
More's the pity. Leon had attached himself to me in Chicago like a fat, brat-and-beer-filled tick; I was amazed
that someone whose blood was clearly half pork grease had made it to age seventy-five. I spent part of the
flight to Nairobi listening to him fart and expound darkly on his theory of the racial composition of the
colonies. The farts were the most pleasant part of that monologue; never had I been so eager to purchase
headphones for the in-flight entertainment.
I'd hoped to ditch him by opting to take the first 'stalk out of Nairobi. He seemed like the kind of guy who'd
need a rest after busily passing gas all day. No such luck. The idea of spending another six hours with Leon
and his farts was more than I could take; if the beanstalk platform had windows and I couldn't hurl Leon out of
one, I might have jumped myself. Instead, I excused myself from Leon's presence by telling him the only
thing that seemed to hold him at bay, which was by saying I had to go relieve myself. Leon grunted his
permission. I wandered off counterclockwise, in the general direction of the rest rooms but more specifically
to see if I could find a place where Leon might not find me.
This was not going to be easy to do. The 'stalk platform was donut-shaped, with a diameter of about one
hundred feet. The "hole" of the donut, where the platform slid up the 'stalk, was about twenty feet wide. The
cable's diameter was obviously slightly less than that; perhaps about eighteen feet, which if you thought
about it hardly seemed thick enough for a cable several thousand miles long. The rest of the space was filled
with comfortable booths and couches where people could sit and chat, and small areas where travelers could
watch entertainment, play games or eat. And of course there were lots of window areas to look out of, either
down to the Earth, across to other 'stalk cables and platforms, or up toward Colonial Station.
Overall the platform gave the impression of being the lobby of a pleasant economy hotel, suddenly launched
toward geostationary orbit. The only problem was that the open design made it difficult to hide. The launch
was not heavily subscribed; there weren't enough other passengers to hide by blending in. I finally decided to
get something to drink at a kiosk near the center of the platform, roughly opposite of where Leon was
standing. Sight lines being what they were, that's where I stood the best chance of avoiding him the longest.
Leaving Earth physically had been an irritating thing, thanks to Leon's obnoxiousness, but leaving it
emotionally had been surprisingly easy. I had decided a year before my departure that, yes, I would join the
CDF; from there it was simply a matter of making arrangements and saying good-byes. When Kathy and I
had originally decided to join up a decade earlier, we put the house in our son Charlie's name as well as our
own, so that he could take possession of it without having to go through probate. Kathy and I otherwise
owned nothing of any real value, just the bric-a-brac that you pile up in a life. Most of the really nice stuff was
dispersed to friends and family over the last year; Charlie would deal with the rest of it later.
Leaving people was not that much harder. People reacted to the news with varying levels of surprise and
sadness, since everyone knows that once you join the Colonial Defense Forces, you don't come back. But
it's not entirely like dying. They know that somewhere out there, you're still alive; heck, maybe after a while,
they might even come and join you. It's a little what I imagine people felt hundreds of years ago when
someone they knew hitched up a wagon and headed west. They cried, they missed them, they got back to
what they were doing.
Anyway, I told people a whole year before I left that I was going. That's a lot of time to say what you have to
say, to settle matters and to make your peace with someone. Over the course of the year, I had had a few
sit-downs with old friends and family and did a final poking of old wounds and ashes; in nearly every case it
ended well. A couple of times I asked forgiveness for things I didn't particularly feel sorry about, and in one
case I found myself in bed with someone who otherwise I'd rather I hadn't. But you do what you have to do to
give people closure; it makes them feel better and it doesn't cost you much to do it. I'd rather apologize for
something I didn't really care about, and leave someone on Earth wishing me well, than to be stubborn and
have that someone hoping that some alien would slurp out my brains. Call it karmic insurance.
Charlie had been my major concern. Like many fathers and sons, we'd had our go-rounds; I wasn't the most
attentive father, and he wasn't the most self-directed son, wandering through life well into his thirties. When
he originally found out that Kathy and I intended to join, he'd exploded at us. He reminded us that we'd
protested against the Subcontinental War. He reminded us that we'd always taught him violence wasn't the
answer. He reminded us that we'd once grounded him for a month when he'd gone out target shooting with
Bill Young, which we both thought was a little odd for a man of thirty-five to bring up.
Kathy's death ended most of our battles, because both he and I realized that most of the things we argued
about simply didn't matter; I was a widower and he a bachelor, and for a while he and I were all we had left.
Not long thereafter he met and married Lisa, and about a year after that he became a father and was
re-elected mayor all in one very hectic night. Charlie had been a late bloomer, but it was a fine bloom. He and
I had our own sit-down where I apologized for some things (sincerely), and also told him equally sincerely
how proud I was of the man he'd become. Then we sat on the porch with our beers, watched my grandson
Adam swat a t-ball in the front yard, and talked about nothing of any importance for a nice long time. When
we parted, we parted well and with love, which is what you want between fathers and sons.
I stood there by the kiosk, nursing my Coke and thinking about Charlie and his family, when I heard Leon's
voice grumbling, followed by another voice, low, sharp and female, saying something in response. In spite of
myself, I peered over past the kiosk. Leon had apparently managed to corner some poor woman and was no
doubt sharing whatever dumb-ass theory his beef-witted brain stem was promulgating at the moment. My
sense of chivalry overcame my desire to hide; I went to intervene.
"All I'm saying," Leon was saying, "is that it's not exactly fair that you and I and every American has to wait
until we're older than shit to get our chance to go, while all those little Hindis get carted off to brand-new
worlds as fast as they can breed. Which is pretty damn quick. That's just not fair. Does it seem fair to you?"
"No, it doesn't seem particularly fair," the woman said back. "But I suppose they wouldn't see it as fair that
we wiped New Delhi and Mumbai off the face of the planet, either."
"That's exactly my point!" Leon exclaimed. "We nuked the dot heads! We won that war! Winning should
count for something. And now look what happens. They lost, but they get to go colonize the universe, and the
only way we get to go is if we sign up to protect them! Excuse me for saying so, but doesn't the Bible say,
"The meek shall inherit the earth'? I'd say losing a goddamn war makes you pretty damn meek."
"I don't think that phrase means what you think it does, Leon," I said, approaching the two of them.
"John! See, here's a man who knows what I'm talking about," Leon said, grinning my way.
The woman turned to face me. "You know this gentleman?" she asked me, with an undercurrent in her voice
that implied that if I did, there was clearly something wrong with me.
"We met on the trip to Nairobi," I said, gently raising an eyebrow to indicate that he wasn't my companion of
choice. "I'm John Perry," I said.
"Jesse Gonzales," she said.
"Charmed," I replied, and then turned to Leon. "Leon," I said, "you've got the saying wrong. The actual saying
is from the Sermon on the Mount, and it says, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'
Inheriting the earth is meant to be a reward, not a punishment."
Leon blinked, then snorted. "Even so, we beat them. We kicked their little brown asses. We should be
colonizing the universe, not them."
I opened my mouth to respond, but Jesse beat me to the punch. " 'Blessed are they which are persecuted,
for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven,' " she said, speaking to Leon but looking sidelong at me.
Leon gaped for a minute at the both of us. "You can't be serious," he said, after a minute. "There's nothing in
the Bible that says we should be stuck on Earth while a bunch of brownies, which don't even believe in Jesus,
thank you very much, fill up the galaxy. And it certainly doesn't say anything about us protecting the little
bastards while they do it. Christ, I had a son in that war. Some dot head shot off one of his balls! His balls!
They deserved what they got, the sons of bitches. Don't ask me to be happy that now I'll have to save their
sorry asses up there in the colonies."
Jesse winked at me. "Would you like to field this one?"
"If you don't mind," I said.
"Oh, not at all," she replied.
" 'But I say unto you, Love your enemies,' " I quoted. " 'Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate
you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your
Father who is in Heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust.' "
Leon turned lobster red. "You're both out of your fucking gourds," he said, and stomped off as fast as his fat
would carry him.
"Thank you, Jesus," I said. "And this time I mean it literally."
"You're pretty handy with a Bible quotation," Jesse said. "Were you a minister in your past life?"
"No," I said. "But I lived in a town of two thousand people and fifteen churches. It helped to be able to speak
the language. And you don't have to be religious to appreciate the Sermon on the Mount. What's your
excuse?"
"Catholic school religion class," she said. "I won a ribbon for memorization in the tenth grade. It's amazing
what your brain can keep in storage for sixty years, even if these days I can't remember where I parked when
I go to the store."
"Well, in any event, let me apologize for Leon," I said. "I barely know him, but I know enough to know he's an
idiot."
" 'Judge not, that ye be not judged,' " Jesse said, and shrugged. "Anyway, he's only saying what a lot of
people believe. I think it's stupid and wrong, but that doesn't mean I don't understand it. I wish that there had
been a different way for me to see the colonies than to wait an entire life and have to join the military for it. If I
could have been a colonist when I was younger, I would have."
"You're not joining for a life of military adventure, then," I said.
"Of course not," Jesse said, a little scornfully. "Did you join because you have a great desire to fight a war?"
"No," I said.
She nodded. "Neither did I. Neither did most of us. Your friend Leon certainly didn't join to be in the
military—he can't stand the people we will protect. People join because they're not ready to die and they
don't want to be old. They join because life on Earth isn't interesting past a certain age. Or they join to see
someplace new before they die. That's why I joined, you know. I'm not joining to fight or be young again. I just
want to see what it's like to be somewhere else."
She turned to look out the window. "Of course, it's funny to hear me say that. Do you know that until
yesterday, I'd never been out of the state of Texas my entire life?"
"Don't feel bad about it," I said. "Texas is a big state."
She smiled. "Thank you. I don't really feel bad about it. It's just funny. When I was a child, I used to read all
the 'Young Colonist' novels and watch the shows, and dreamed about raising Arcturian cattle and battling
vicious land worms on colony Gamma Prime. Then I got older and realized that colonists came from India and
Kazakhstan and Norway, where they can't support the population they have, and the fact I was born in
America meant that I wouldn't get to go. And that there weren't actually Arcturian cattle or land worms! I was
very disappointed to learn that when I was twelve."
She shrugged again. "I grew up in San Antonio, went 'away' to college at the University of Texas, and then
took a job back in San Antonio. I got married eventually, and we took our vacations on the Gulf Coast. For our
thirtieth anniversary, my husband and I planned to go to Italy, but we never went."
"What happened?"
She laughed. "His secretary is what happened. They ended up going to Italy on their honeymoon. I stayed
home. On the other hand, they both ended up getting shellfish poisoning in Venice, so it's just as well I never
went. But I didn't worry much about traveling after that. I knew I was going to join up as soon as I could, and I
did, and here I am. Although now I wish I had traveled more. I took the delta from Dallas to Nairobi. That was
fun. I wish I had done it more than once in my life. Not to mention this"—she waved her hand at the window,
toward the beanstalk cables—"which I never thought I would ever want to ride in my life. I mean, what's
keeping this cable up?"
"Belief," I said. "You believe that it won't fall and it won't. Try not to think about it too much or we're all in
trouble."
"What I believe," Jesse said, "is that I want to get something to eat. Care to join me?"
"Belief," Harry Wilson said, and laughed. "Well, maybe belief is holding up this cable. Because it sure as hell
isn't fundamental physics."
Harry Wilson had joined Jesse and me at a booth where we were eating. "You two look like you know each
other, and that's one up on everyone else here," he said to us as he came up. We invited him to join us and
he accepted gratefully. He had taught physics at a Bloomington, Indiana, high school for twenty years, he
said, and the beanstalk had been intriguing him the entire time we had been riding it.
"What do you mean physics isn't holding it up?" Jesse said. "Believe me, this is not what I want to hear right
at this moment."
Harry smiled. "Sorry. Let me rephrase. Physics is involved in holding up this beanstalk, certainly. But the
physics involved aren't of the garden variety. There's a lot going on here that doesn't make sense on the
surface."
"I feel a physics lecture coming on," I said.
"I taught physics to teenagers for years," Harry said, and dug out a small notepad and a pen. "It'll be
painless, trust me. Okay, now look." Harry began drawing a circle at the bottom of the page. "This is the
Earth. And this"—he drew a smaller circle halfway up the page—"is Colonial Station. It's in geosynchronous
orbit, which means it stays put relative to the Earth's rotation. It's always hanging above Nairobi. With me so
far?"
We nodded.
"Okay. Now, the idea behind the beanstalk is that you connect Colonial Station with the Earth through a
'beanstalk'—a bunch of cables, like those out the window—and a bunch of elevator platforms, like the one
we're on now, that can travel back and forth." Harry drew a line signifying the cable, and a small square,
signifying our platform. "The idea here is that elevators on these cables don't have to reach escape velocity to
get to Earth orbit, like a rocket payload would. This is good for us, because we don't have to go to Colonial
Station feeling like an elephant had its foot on our chests. Simple enough.
"The thing is, this beanstalk doesn't conform to the basic physical requirements of a classic Earth-to-space
beanstalk. For one thing"—Harry drew an additional line past Colonial Station to the end of the
page—"Colonial Station shouldn't be at the end of the beanstalk. For reasons that have to do with mass
balance and orbital dynamics, there should be additional cable extending tens of thousands of miles past
Colonial Station. Without this counterbalance, any beanstalk should be inherently unstable and dangerous."
"And you're saying this one isn't," I said.
"Not only is not unstable, it's probably the safest way to travel that's ever been devised," Harry said. "The
beanstalk has been in continuous operation for over a century. It's the only point of departure for colonists.
There's never been an accident due to instability or matériel failure, which would be related to instability.
There was the famous beanstalk bombing forty years ago, but that was sabotage, unrelated to the physical
structure of the beanstalk itself. The beanstalk itself is admirably stable and has been since it was built. But
according to basic physics, it shouldn't be."
"So what is keeping it up?" Jesse said.
Harry smiled again. "Well, that's the question, isn't it."
"You mean you don't know?" Jesse asked.
"I don't know," Harry admitted. "But that in itself should be no cause for alarm, since I am—or was—merely a
high school physics teacher. However, as far as I know, no one else has much of a clue how it works, either.
On Earth, I mean. Obviously the Colonial Union knows."
"Well, how can that be?" I asked. "It's been here for a century, for God's sake. No one's bothered to figure out
how it actually works?"
"I didn't say that," Harry said. "Of course they've been trying. And it's not like it's been a secret all these
years. When the beanstalk was being built, there were demands by governments and the press to know how
it worked. The CU essentially said 'figure it out,' and that was that. In physics circles, people have been trying
to solve it ever since. It's called 'The Beanstalk Problem.' "
"Not a very original title," I said.
"Well, physicists save their imagination for other things." Harry chuckled. "The point is, it hasn't been solved,
primarily for two reasons. The first is that it's incredibly complicated—I've pointed out the mass issues, but
then there are other issues like cable strength, beanstalk oscillations brought on by storms and other
atmospheric phenomena, and even an issue about how cables are supposed to taper. Any of these is
massively difficult to solve in the real world; trying to figure them all out at once is impossible."
"What's the second reason?" Jesse asked.
"The second reason is that there's no reason to. Even if we did figure out how to build one of these things, we
couldn't afford to build it." Harry leaned back. "Just before I was a teacher, I worked for General Electric's civil
engineering department. We were working on the SubAtlantic rail line at the time, and one of my jobs was to
go through old projects and project proposals to see if any of the technology or practices had application to
the SubAtlantic project. Sort of a hail-Mary attempt to see if we could do anything to bring down costs."
"General Electric bankrupted itself on that, didn't they?" I asked.
"Now you know why they wanted to bring down costs," Harry said. "And why I became a teacher. General
Electric couldn't afford me, or much of anyone else, right after that. Anyway, I'm going through old proposals
and reports and I get into some classified stuff, and one of the reports is for a beanstalk. General Electric had
been hired by the U.S. Government for a third-party feasibility study on building a beanstalk in the Western
Hemisphere; they wanted to clear out a hole in the Amazon the size of Delaware and stick it right on the
equator.
"General Electric told them to forget it. The proposal said that even assuming some major technological
breakthroughs—most of which still haven't happened, and none of which approach the technology that has to
be involved with this beanstalk—the budget for the beanstalk would be three times the annual gross national
product of the United States economy. That's assuming that the project did not run over budget, which of
course it almost certainly would have. Now, this was twenty years ago, and the report I saw was a decade
old even then. But I don't expect that the costs have gone down very much since then. So no new
beanstalks—there are cheaper ways of getting people and material into orbit. Much cheaper."
Harry leaned forward again. "Which leads to two obvious questions: How did the Colonial Union manage to
create this technological monstrosity, and why did they bother with it at all?"
"Well, obviously, the Colonial Union is more technologically advanced than we are here on Earth," Jesse
said.
"Obviously," Harry said. "But why? Colonists are human, after all. Not only that, but since the colonies
specifically recruit from impoverished countries with population problems, colonists tend to be poorly
educated. Once they get to their new homes, you have to assume they're spending more time staying alive
than they are thinking up creative ways to build beanstalks. And the primary technology that allowed
interstellar colonization is the skip drive, which was developed right here on Earth, and which has been
substantially unimproved for more than a century. So on the face of it, there's no reason why the colonists
should be any more technologically advanced than we are."
Something suddenly clicked in my head. "Unless they cheat," I said.
Harry grinned. "Exactly. That's what I think, too."
Jesse looked at me, and then Harry. "I'm not following you two," she said.
"They cheat," I said. "Look, on Earth, we're bottled up. We only learn from ourselves—we make discoveries
and refine technology all the time, but it's slow, because we do all the work ourselves. But up there—"
"Up there humans meet other intelligent species," Harry said. "Some of which almost certainly have
technology more advanced than ours. We either take it in trade or reverse engineer it and find out how it
works. It's much easier to figure out how something works when you've got something to work from than it is
to figure it out on your own."
"That's what makes it cheating," I said. "The CU is reading off someone else's notes."
"Well, why doesn't the Colonial Union share what it's discovered with us?" Jesse asked. "What's the point of
keeping it to themselves?"
"Maybe they think that what we don't know can't hurt us," I said.
"Or it's something else entirely," Harry said, and waved toward the window, where the beanstalk cables slid
by. "This beanstalk isn't here because it's the easiest way to get people to Colonial Station, you know. It's
here because it's one of the most difficult—in fact, the most expensive, most technologically complex and
most politically intimidating way to do it. Its very presence is a reminder that the CU is literally light-years
ahead of anything humans can do here."
"I've never found it intimidating," Jesse said. "I really never thought about it much at all."
"The message isn't aimed at you," Harry said. "If you were President of the United States, however, you'd
think of it differently. After all, the CU keeps us all here on Earth. There's no space travel except what the CU
allows through colonization or enlistment. Political leaders are always under pressure to buck the CU and get
their people to the stars. But the beanstalk is a constant reminder. It says, 'Until you can make one of these,
don't even think of challenging us.' And the beanstalk is the only technology the CU has decided to show us.
Think about what they haven't let us know about. I can guarantee you the U.S. President has. And that it
keeps him and every other leader on the planet in line."
"None of this is making me feel friendly toward the Colonial Union," Jesse said.
"It doesn't have to be sinister," Harry said. "It could be that the CU is trying to protect Earth. The universe is a
big place. Maybe we're not in the best neighborhood."
"Harry, were you always this paranoid," I asked, "or was this something that crept up on you as you got
older?"
"How do you think I made it to seventy-five?" Harry said, and grinned. "Anyway, I don't have any problems
with the CU being much more technologically advanced. It's about to work to my advantage." He held up an
arm. "Look at this thing," he said. "It's flabby and old and not in very good shape. Somehow, the Colonial
Defense Forces are going to take this arm—and the rest of me—and whip it into fighting shape. And do you
know how?"
"No," I said. Jesse shook her head.
"Neither do I," Harry said, and let his arm down with a plop onto the table. "I have no idea how they'll make it
work. What's more, it's likely that I can't even imagine how they'll do it—if we assume that we've been held in
a state of technological infancy by the CU, trying to explain it to me now would be like trying to explain this
beanstalk platform to someone who's never seen a mode of transportation more complex than a horse and
buggy. But they've obviously made it work. Otherwise, why would they recruit seventy-five-year-olds? The
universe isn't going to be conquered by legions of geriatrics. No offense," he added quickly.
"None taken," Jesse said, and smiled.
"Lady and gentleman," Harry said, looking at the both of us, "we may think we have some idea of what we're
getting into, but I don't think we have the first clue. This beanstalk exists to tell us that much. It's bigger and
stranger than we can imagine—and it's just the first part of this journey. What comes next is going to be even
bigger and stranger. Prepare yourself as best you can."
"How dramatic," Jesse said dryly. "I don't know how to prepare myself after a statement like that."
"I do," I said, and scooted over to get out of the booth. "I'm going to go pee. If the universe is bigger and
stranger than I can imagine, it's best to meet it with an empty bladder."
"Spoken like a true Boy Scout," Harry said.
"A Boy Scout wouldn't need to pee as much as I do," I said.
"Sure he would," Harry said. "Just give him sixty years."
THREE
"I don't know about you two," Jesse was saying to me and Harry, "but so far this really isn't what I expected
the army to be."
"It's not so bad," I said. "Here, have another donut."
"I don't need another donut," she said, taking the donut anyway. "What I need is some sleep."
I knew what she meant. It had been more than eighteen hours since I left home, nearly all of it consumed with
travel. I was ready for a nap. Instead I was sitting in the huge mess hall of an interstellar cruiser, having coffee
and donuts with about a thousand other recruits, waiting for someone to come and tell us what we were
supposed to do next. That part, at least, was pretty much like the military I expected.
The rush and wait began on arrival. As soon as we got off the beanstalk platform, we were greeted by two
Colonial Union apparatchiks. They informed us that we were the last recruits expected for a ship that was
leaving soon, so could we please follow them quickly so that everything could stay on schedule. Then one
took the lead and one went to the rear and they effectively and rather insultingly herded several dozen senior
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OLDMAN'SWARJohnScalziToReganAvery,firstreaderextraordinaire,AndalwaystoKristineandAthena.PARTIONEIdidtwothingsonmyseventy-fifthbirthday.Ivisitedmywife'sgrave.ThenIjoinedthearmy.VisitingKathy'sgravewasthelessdramaticofthetwo.She'sburiedinHarrisCreekCemetery,notmorethanamiledowntheroadfromwhereIlivean...
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