Harry Harrison - Bill, The Galactic Hero

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BILL The Galactic Hero

Harry Harrison

Bill never realized that sex was the cause of it all. If the sun that morning

had not been burning so warmly in the brassy sky of Phigerinadon II, and if

he had not glimpsed the sugar-white and wine-barrel-wide backside of

Inga-Maria Calyphigia, while she bathed in the stream, he might have paid more

attention to his plowing than to the burning pressures of heterosexuality and

would have driven his furrow to the far side of the hill before the seductive

music sounded along the road. He might never have heard it, and his life would

have been very, very different. But he did hear it and dropped the handles of

the plow that was plugged into the robomule, turned, and gaped.

It was indeed a fabulous sight. Leading the parade was a one-robot band,

twelve feet high and splendid in its great black busby that concealed the

hi-fi speakers. The golden pillars of its legs stamped forward as its thirty

articulated arms sawed, plucked, and fingered at a dazzling variety of

instruments. Martial music poured out in wave after inspiring wave, and even

Bill's thick peasant feet stirred in their clodhoppers as the shining boots of

the squad of soldiers crashed along the road in perfect unison. Medals jingled

on the manly swell of their scarlet-clad chests, and there could certainly be

no nobler sight in all the world. To their rear marched the sergeant, gorgeous

in his braid and brass, thickly clustered medals and ribbons, sword and gun,

girdled gut and steely eye 'which sought out Bill where he stood gawking over

the fence. The grizzled head nodded in his direction, the steel-trap mouth bent

into a friendly smile and there' was a conspiratorial wink. Then the little

legion was past, and hurrying behind in their wake came a huddle of

dust-covered ancillary robots, hopping and crawling or rippling along on

treads. As soon as these had gone by Bill climbed clumsily over the split-rail

fence and ran after them. There were no more than two interesting events every

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four years here, and he was not going to miss what promised to be a third.

A crowd had already gathered in the market square when Bill hurried up, and

they were listening to an enthusiastic band concert. The robot hurled itself

into the glorious measures of "Star Troopers to the Skies Avaunt," thrashed its

way through "Rockets Rumble," and almost demolished itself in the tumultuous

rhythm of "Sappers at the Tithead Digging." It pursued this last tune so

strenuously that one of its legs flew off, rising high into the air, but was

caught dexterously before it could hit the ground, and the music ended with the

robot balancing on its remaining leg, beating time with the detached limb. It

also, after an ear-fracturing peal on the basses, used the leg to point across

the square to where a tri-di screen and refreshment booth had been set up. The

troopers had vanished into the tavern, and the recruiting sergeant stood alone

among his robots, beaming a welcoming smile.

"Now hear this! Free drinks for all, courtesy of the Emperor, and some lively

scenes of jolly adventure in distant climes to amuse you while you sip," he

called in an immense and leathery voice.

Most of the people drifted over, Bill in their midst, though a few

embittered and elderly draft-dodgers slunk away between the houses. Cooling

drinks were shared out by a robot with a spigot for a navel and an

inexhaustible supply of plastic glasses in one hip. Bill sipped his happily

while he followed the enthralling adventures of the space troopers in full

color, with sound effects and stimulating subsonics. There was battle and death

and glory, though it was only the Chingers who died: troopers only suffered

neat little wounds in their extremities that could be covered easily by small

bandages. And while Bill was enjoying this, Recruiting Sergeant Grue was

enjoying him, his little piggy eyes ruddy with greed as they fastened onto the

back of Bill's neck.

This is the one! he chortled to himself while, unknowingly, his yellowed

tongue licked at his lips. He could already feel the weight of the bonus money

in his pocket. The rest of the audience. were the usual mixed bag of overage

men, fat women, beardless youths, and other unenlistables. All except this

broad-shouldered, square-chinned, curly-haired chunk of electronic-cannon

fodder. With a precise hand on the controls the sergeant lowered the background

subsonics and aimed a tight-beam stimulator at the back of his victim's head.

Bill writhed in his seat, almost taking part in the glorious battles unfolding

before him.

As the last chord died and the screen went blank, the refreshment robot

pounded hollowly on its metallic chest and bellowed, "DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!"

The sheeplike audience swept that way, all except Bill, who was plucked from

their midst by a powerful arm.

"Here, I saved some for you," the sergeant said, passing over a prepared cup

so loaded with dissolved ego-reducing drugs that they were crystallizing out at

the bottom. "You're a fine figure of a lad and to my eye seem a cut above the

yokels here. Did you ever think of making your career in the forces?"

"I'm not the military type, Shargeant . . ." Bill chomped his jaws and spat

to remove the impediment to his speech and puzzled at the sudden-fogginess in

his thoughts. Though it was a tribute to his physique that he was even

conscious after the volume of drugs and sonics that he had been plied with.

"Not the military type. My fondest ambition is to be of help in the best way I

can, in my chosen career as a Technical Fertilizer Operator, and I'm almost

finished with my correspondence course . . . "

"That's a crappy job for a bright lad like you," the sergeant said, while

clapping him on the arm to get a good feel of his biceps. Rock: He resisted the

impulse to pull Bill's lip down and take a quick peek at the condition of his

back teeth. Later. "Leave that kind of job to those that like it. No chance of

promotion. While a career in the troopers has no top. Why, Grand-Admiral

Pflunger came up through the rocket tubes, as they say, from, recruit trooper

to grandadmiral. How does that sound?"

"It sounds very nice for Mr. Pflunger, but I think fertilizer operating is

more fun. Gee-I'm feeling sleepy. I think I'll go lie down."

"Not before you've seen this, just as a favor to me of course," the sergeant

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said, cutting in front of him and pointing to a large book held open by a tiny

robot. "Clothes make the man, and most men would be ashamed to be seen in a

crummy-looking smock like that thing draped around you or wearing those broken

canal boats on their feet. Why look like that when you can look like this?"

Bill's eyes followed the thick finger to the color plate in the book where a

miracle of misapplied engineering caused his own face to appear on the

illustrated figure dressed in trooper red. The sergeant flipped the pages, and

on each plate the uniform was a little more gaudy, the rank higher. The last

one was that of a grand-admiral, and Bill blinked at his own face under the

plumed helmet, now with a touch of crow's-feet about the eyes and sporting a

handsome and grayshot mustache, but still undeniably his own.

"That's the way you will look," the sergeant murmured into his ear, "once you

have climbed the ladder of success. Would you like to try a uniform on? Of

course you would like to try a uniform on. Tailorl"

When Bill opened his mouth to protest the sergeant put a large cigar into it,

and before he could get it out the robot tailor had rolled up, swept a

curtain-bearing arm about him and stripped him naked. "Hey! Hey!" he said.

"It won't hurt," the sergeant said, poking his great head through the curtain

and beaming at Bill's muscled form.. He poked a finger into a pectoral (rock),

then withdrew.

"Ouch!" Bill said, as the tailor extruded a cold pointer and jabbed him with

it, measuring his size. Something went chunk deep inside its tubular torso, and

a brilliant red jacket began to emerge from a slot in the front. In an instant

this was slipped onto Bill and the shining golden buttons buttoned. Luxurious

gray moleskin trousers were pulled on next, then gleaming black knee-length

boots. Bill staggered a bit as the curtain was whipped away and a powered

full-length mirror rolled up.

"Oh, how the girls love a uniform," the sergeant said, "and I can't blame

them."

A memory of the vision of Inga-Maria Calyphigia's matched white moons

obscured Bill's sight for a moment, and when it had cleared he found he was

grasping a stylo and was about to sign the form that the recruiting sergeant

held before him.

"No," Bill said, a little amazed at his own firmness of mind. "I don't really

want to. Technical Fertilizer Operator . . ."

"And not only will you receive this lovely uniform, an enlistment bonus, and

a free medical examination, but you will be awarded these handsome medals."

The sergeant took a flat box, offered to him on cue by a robot, and opened it

to display a glittering array of ribbons and bangles. "This is the Honorable

Enlistment Award," he intoned gravely, pinning a jewel-encrusted nebula,

pendant on chartreuse, to Bill's wide chest. "And the Emperor's Congratulatory

Gilded Horn, the Forward to Victory Starburst, the Praise Be Given Salutation

of the Mothers of the Victorious Fallen, and the Everflowing Cornucopia which

does not mean anything but looks nice and can be used to carry contraceptives."

He stepped back and admired Bill's chest; which was now adangle with ribbons,

shining metal, and gleaming paste gems.

"I just couldn't," Bill said. "Thank you anyway for the offer, but . . . "

The sergeant smiled, prepared even for this eleventh-hour resistance, and

pressed the button on his belt that actuated the programed hypno-coil in the

heel of Bill's new boot. The powerful neural current surged through the

contacts and Bill's hand twitched and jumped, and when the momentary fog had

lifted from his eyes he saw that he had signed his name.

"But...'

"Welcome to the Space Troopers;" the sergeant boomed, smacking him on the

back (trapezius like rock) and relieving him of the stylo. "FALL IN!" he called

in a larger voice, and the recruits stumbled from the tavern.

"What have they done to my sonl" Bill's mother screeched, coming into the

market square, clutching at her bosom with one hand and towing his baby brother

Charlie with the other. Charlie began to cry and wet his pants.

"Your son is now a trooper for the greater glory of the Emperor," the

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sergeant said, pushing his slack-jawed and round-shouldered recruit squad into

line.

"No! it can't be . . ." Bill's mother sobbed, tearing at her graying hair.

"I'm a poor widow, he's my sole support . . . you cannot . . . I"

"Mother. . ." Bill said, but the sergeant shoved him back into the ranks.'

"Be brave, madam," he said. "There can be no greater glory for a mother."

He dropped a large and newly minted coin into her hand. "Here is the enlistment

bonus, the Emperor's shilling. I know he wants you to have it. ATTENTION!"

With a clash of heels the graceless recruits braced their shoulders and

lifted their chins. Much to his surprise, so did Bill.

"RIGHT TURN!"

In a single, graceful motion they turned, as the command robot relayed the

order to the hypno-coil in every boot. "FORWARD MARCH!" And they did, in

perfect rhythm, so well under control that, try as hard as he could, Bill could

neither turn his head nor wave a last good-by to his mother. She vanished

behind him, and one last, anguished wail cut through the thud of marching feet.

"Step up the count to 130," the sergeant ordered, glancing at the watch set

under the nail of his little finger. "Just ten miles to the station, and we'll

be in camp tonight, my lads."

The command robot moved its metronome up one notch and the tramping boots

conformed to the smarter pace and the men.. began to sweat. By the time they

had reached the copter station it was nearly dark, their red paper uniforms

hung in shreds, the gilt had been rubbed from their pot-metal buttons, and

the surface charge that repelled the dust from their thin plastic boots had

leaked away. They looked as ragged, weary, dusty, and miserable as they felt.

It wasn't the recorded bugle playing reveille that woke Bill but the

supersonics that streamed through the metal frame of his bunk that

shook him until the fillings vibrated from his teeth. He sprang to his

feet and stood there shivering in the gray of dawn. Because it was summer

the floor was refrigerated: no mollycoddling of the men in Camp Leon Trotsky.

The pallid, chilled figures of the other recruits loomed up on every side, and

when the soul-shaking vibrations had died away they dragged their thick

sackcloth and sandpaper fatigue uniforms from their bunks, pulled them hastily

on, jammed their feet into the great, purple recruit boots, and staggered out

into the dawn.

"I am here to break your spirit," a voice rich with menace told them, and

they looked up and shivered even more as they faced the chief demon in this

particular hell.

Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang was a specialist from the tips of the

angry spikes of his hair to the corrugated stamping-soles of his mirrorlike

boots. He was wide-shouldered and lean-kipped, while his long arms hung,

curved like those of some horrible anthropoid, the knuckles of his immense

fists scarred from the breaking of thousands of teeth. It was impossible to

look at this detestable form and imagine that it issued from the tender womb

of a woman. He could never have been born; he must have been built to order

by the government. Most terrible of all was the head. The face! The hairline

was scarcely a finger's-width above the black tangle of the brows that were

set like a rank growth of foliage at the rim of the black pits that concealed

the eyes-visible only as baleful red gleams in the Stygian darkness. A nose,

broken and crushed, squatted above the mouth that was like a knife slash in

the taut belly of a corpse, while from between the lips issued the great,

white fangs of the canine teeth, at least two inches long, that rested in

grooves on the lower lip.

"I am Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang, and you will call me 'sir' or

'm'lord.'" He began to pace grimly before the row of terrified recruits.

"I am your father and your mother and your whole universe and your dedicated

enemy, and very soon I will have you regretting the day you were born. I will

crush your will. When I say frog, you will jump. My job is to turn you into

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troopers, and troopers have discipline. Discipline means simply unthinking

subservience,. loss of free will, absolute obedience. That is all I ask . . ."

He stopped before Bill, who was not shaking quite as much as the others, and

scowled.

"I don't like your face. One month of Sunday KP."

"Sir..."

"And a second month - for talking back."

He waited, but Bill was silent. He had already learned his first lesson on

how to be a good trooper. Keep your mouth shut. Deathwish paced on.

"Right now you are nothing but horrible, sordid, flabby pieces of debased

civilian flesh. I shall turn that flesh to muscle, your wills to jelly,

your minds to machines. You will become good troopers, or I will kill you.

Very soon you will be hearing stories about me, vicious stories, about how

I lulled and ate a recruit who disobeyed me."

He hatred and stared at them, and slowly the coffin-lid lips parted in an

evil travesty of a grin, while a drop of saliva formed at the tip of each

whitened tusk.

"That story is true."

A moan broke from the row of recruits, and they shook as though a chill

wind had passed over them. The smile vanished.

"We will run to breakfast now as soon as I have some volunteers for an

easy assignment. Can any of you drive a helicar?"

Two recruits hopefully raised their hands, and he beckoned them forward.

"All right, both of you, mops and buckets behind that door. Clean out the

latrine while the rest are eating. You'll have a better appetite for lunch."

That was Bill's second lesson on how to be a good trooper: never volunteer.

The days of recruit training passed with a horribly lethargic speed.

With each day conditions became worse and Bill's exhaustion greater. This

seemed impossible, but it was nevertheless true. A large number of gifted

and sadistic minds had designed it to be that way. The recruits' heads were

shaved for uniformity. The food was theoretically nourishing but incredibly

vile and when, by mistake, one batch of meat was served in an edible state

it was caught at the last moment and thrown out and the cook reduced two

grades. Their sleep was broken by mock gas attacks and their free time filled

with caring for their equipment. The seventh day was designated as a day of

rest, but they all had received punishments, like Bill's KP, and it was as

any other day. On this, the third Sunday of their imprisonment, they were

stumbling through the last hour of the day before the lights were extinguished

and they were finally permitted to crawl into their casehardened bunks. Bill

pushed against the weak force field that blocked the door, cunningly designed

to allow the desert flies to enter but not leave the barracks, and dragged

himself in. After fourteen hours of KP his legs vibrated with exhaustion, and

his arms were wrinkled and pallid as a corpse's from the soapy water. He

dropped his jacket to the floor, where it stood stiffly supported by its

burden of sweat, grease, and dust, and dragged his shaver from his footlocker.

In the latrine he bobbed his head around trying to find a clear space on one

of the mirrors. All of them had been heavily stenciled in large letters with

such inspiring messages as KEEP YOUR WUG SHUT-THE CHINGERS ARE LISTENING and

IF YOU TALK THIS MAN MAY DIE. He finally plugged the shaver in next to

WOULD YOU WANT YOUR SISTER TO MARRY ONE? and centered his face in the o in ONE.

Black-rimmed and bloodshot eyes stared back at him as he ran the buzzing

machine over the underweight planes of his jaw. It took more than a minute

for the meaning of the question to penetrate his fatigue-drugged brain.

"I haven't got a sister," he grumbled peevishly, "and if I did, why should

she want to marry a lizard anyway?" It was a rhetorical question, but it

brought an answer from the far end of the room, from the last shot tower

in the second row.

"It doesn't mean exactly what it says-it's just there to make us hate

the dirty enemy more." .

Bill jumped, he had thought he was alone in the latrine, and the razor

buzzed spitefully and gouged a bit of flesh from his lip.

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"Who's there? Why are you hiding?" he snarled, then recognized the huddled

dark figure and the many pairs of boots. "Oh, it's only you, Eager."

His anger drained away, and he turned back to the mirror.

Eager Beager was so much a part of the latrine that you forgot he was there.

A moon-faced, eternally smiling youth, whose apple-red cheeks never lost their

glow and whose smile looked so much out of place here in Camp Leon Trotsky

that everyone wanted to kill him until they remembered that he was mad. He had

to be mad because he was always eager to help his buddies and had volunteered

as permanent latrine orderly. Not only that, but he liked to polish boots and

had offered to do those of one after another of his buddies until now he did

the boots for every man in the squad every night. Whenever they were in the

barracks Eager Beager could be found crouched at the end of the thrones that

were his personal domain, surrounded by the heaps of shoes and polishing

industriously, his face wreathed in smiles. He would still be there after

lights-out, working by the light of a burning wick stuck in a can of polish,

and was usually up before the others in the morning, finishing his voluntary

job and still smiling. Sometimes, when the boots were very dirty, he worked

right through the night. The kid was obviously insane, but no- one turned him

in because he did such a good job on the boots, and they all prayed that he

wouldn't die of exhaustion until recruit training was finished.

"Well if that's what they want to say, why don't they just say,

`Hate the dirty enemy more,"' Bill complained. He jerked his thumb at the

far wall, where there was a poster labeled KNOW THE ENEMY. It featured a

life-sized illustration of a Chinger, a seven-foot-high saurian that looked

very much like a scale-covered, four-armed, green kangaroo with an alligator's

head. "Whose sister would want to marry a thing like that anyway? And what

would a thing like that want to do with a sister, except maybe eat her?"

Eager put a last buff on a purple toe and picked up another boot. He frowned

for a brief instant to show what a serious thought this was. "Well you see,

gee-it doesn't mean a real sister. It's just part of psychological warfare.

We have to win the war. To win the war we have to fight hard. In order to fight

hard we have to have good soldiers. Good soldiers have to hate the enemy.

That's the way it goes. The Chingers are the only non-human race that has been

discovered in the galaxy that has gone beyond the aboriginal level, so

naturally we have to wipe them out."

"What the hell do you mean, naturally? I don't want to wipe anyone out.

I just want to go home and be a Technical Fertilizer Operator."

"Well, I don't mean you personally, of course-gee!" Eager opened a fresh

can of polish with purple-stained hands and dug his fingers into it. "I mean

the human race, that's just the way we do things. If we don't wipe them out

they'll wipe us out. Of course they say that war is against their religion and

they will only fight in defense, and they have never made any attacks yet.

But we can't believe them, even though it is true. They might change their

religion or their minds some day, and then where would we be? The best answer

is to wipe them out now."

Bill unplugged his razor and washed his face in the tepid, rusty water.

"It still doesn't seem to make sense. All right, so the sister I don't have

doesn't marry one of them. But how about that " he pointed to the stenciling

on the duck boards, KEEP THIS SHOWER CLEAR-THE ENEMY CAN HEAR. "Or that-"

The sign above the urinal that read BUTTON FLIES-BEWARE SPIES. "Forgetting

for the moment that we don't have any secrets here worth traveling a mile to

hear, much less twenty-five light years-how could a Chinger possibly be a spy?

What kind of make-up would disguise a seven-foot lizard as a recruit? You

couldn't even disguise one to look like Deathwish Drang, though you could get

pretty close-"

The lights went out, and, as though using his name had summoned him like

a devil from the pit, the voice of Deathwish blasted through the barracks.

"Into your sacks! Into your sacks! Don't you lousy bowbs know there's a

war on!"

Bill stumbled away through the darkness of the barracks where the only

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illumination was the red glow from Deathwish's eyes. He fell asleep the instant

his head touched his carborundum pillow, and it seemed that only a moment had

elapsed before reveille sent him hurtling from his bunk. At breakfast, while

he was painfully cutting his coffee-substitute into chunks small enough to

swallow, the telenews reported heavy fighting in the Beta Lyra sector with

mounting losses. A groan rippled through the mess hall when this was announced,

not because of any excess of patriotism but because any bad news would only

make things worse for them. They did not know how this would be arranged, but

they were positive it would be. They were right. Since the morning was a bit

cooler than usual the Monday parade was postponed until upon when the

ferro-concrete drill ground would have warmed up nicely and there would be the

maximum number of heat-prostration cases. But this was just the beginning.

From where Bill stood at attention near the rear he could see that the

air-conditioned canopy was up on the reviewing stand. That meant brass. The

trigger guard of his atomic rifle dug a hole into his shoulder, and a drop of

sweat collected, then dripped from the tip of his nose. Out of the comers of

his eyes he could see the steady ripple of motion as men collapsed here and

there among the massed ranks of thousands and were dragged to the waiting

ambulances by alert corpsmen. Here they were laid in the shade of the vehicles

until they revived and could be urged back to their positions in the formation.

Then the band, burst into "Spacemen Ho and Chingers Vanquished!" and the

broadcast signal to each boot heel snapped the ranks to attention at the same

instant, and the thousands of rifles flashed in the sun. The commanding

general's staff car-this was obvious from the two stars painted on it-pulled

up beside the reviewing stand and a tiny, round figure moved quickly through

the furnacelike air to the cornfort of the enclosure. Bill had never seen him

any closer than this, at least from the front, though once while he was

returning from late KP he had spotted the general getting into his car near

the camp theater. Al least Bill thought it was he, but all he had seen was a

brief refit view. Therefore, if he had a mental picture of the general, it was

of a large backside superimposed on a teeny, antlike figure. lie thought of

most officers in these general terms, since the men of course had nothing to

do with officers during their recruit training. Bill had had a good glimpse of

a second lieutenant once, near the orderly room, and he knew he had a face.

And there had been a medical officer no more than thirty yards away, who had

lectured them on venereal disease, but Bill had been lucky enough to sit behind

a post and had promptly fallen asleep.

After the band shut up the anti-G loudspeakers floated out over the troops,

and the general addressed them. He had nothing to say that anyone cared to

listen to, and he closed with the announcement that because of losses in the

field their training program would be accelerated, which was just what they

had expected. Then the band played some more and they marched back to the

barracks, changed into their haircloth fatigues, and marched-double time now-to

the range, where they fired their atomic rifles at plastic replicas of Chingers

that popped up out of holes in the ground. Their aim was bad until Deathwish

Drang popped out of a hole and every trooper switched to full automatic and

hit with every charge fired from every gun, which is a very hard thing to do.

Then the smoke cleared, and they stopped cheering and started sobbing when

they saw that it was only a plastic replica of Deathwish, now torn to tiny

pieces, and the original appeared behind them and gnashed its tusks and gave

them all a full month's KP. .

"The human body is a wonderful thing," Bowb Brown said a month later, when

they were sitting around a table in the Lowest Ranks Klub eating plastic-

skinned sausages stuffed with road sweepings and drinking watery warm beer.

Bowb Brown was a throat- herder from the plains, which is why they called him

Bowb, since everyone knows just what thoatherders do with their thoats. He

was tall, thin, and bowlegged, his skin burnt to the color of ancient leather.

He rarely talked, being more used to the eternal silence of the plains broken

only by the eerie cry of the restless thoat, but he was a great thinker, since

the one thing he had plenty of was time to think in. He could worry a thought

for days, even weeks, before he mentioned it aloud, and while he was thinking

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about it nothing could disturb him. He even let them call him Bowb without

protesting: call any other trooper bow b and he would hit you in the face. Bill

and Eager and the other troopers from X squad sitting around the table all

clapped and cheered, as they always did when Bowb said something.

"Tell, us more, Bowb!"

"It can still talk-I thought it was dead!"

"Go on-why is the body a wonderful thing?"

They waited in expectant silence, while Bowb managed to tear a bite from his

sausage and, after ineffectual chewing, swallowed it with an effort that

brought tears to his eyes. He eased the pain with a mouthful of beer and spoke.

"The human body is a wonderful thing, because if it doesn't die it lives."

They waited for more until they realized that he was finished, then they

sneered.

"Boy, are you full of bowb!"

"Sign up for OCS!"

"Yeah-but what does it mean?"

Bill knew what it meant but didn't tell them. There were only half as many

men in the squad as there had been the first day. One man had been transferred,

but all the others were in the hospital, or in the mental hospital, or

discharged for the convenience of tire government as being too crippled for

active service. Or dead. The survivors, after losing every ounce of weight not

made up of bone or essential connective tissue, had put back the lost weight in

the form of muscle and were now completely adapted to the rigors of Camp Leon

Trotsky, though they still loathed it. Bill marveled at the efficiency of the

system. Civilians had to fool around with examinations, grades, retirement

benefits, seniority, and a thousand other factors that limited the efficiency

of the workers. But how easily the troopers did it! They simply killed off

the weaker ones and used the survivors. He respected the system. Though he

still loathed it.

"You know what I need, I need a woman," Ugly Ugglesway said.

"Don't talk dirty," Bill told him promptly, since he had been correctly

brought up.

"I'm not talking dirty!-" Ugly whined. "It's not like I said I wanted to

re-enlist or that I thought Deathwish was human or anything like that. I just

said I need a woman. Don't we all?"

"I need a drink," Bowb Brown said as he took a long swig from his glass of

dehydrated reconstituted beer, shuddered, then squirted it out through his

teeth in a long stream onto the concrete, where it instantly evaporated.

"Affirm, affirm," Ugly agreed, bobbing his mat haired, warty head up and

down. "I need a woman and a drink." His whine became almost plaintive. "After

all, what else is there to want in the troopers outside of out?"

They thought about that a long time, but could think of nothing else that

anyone really wanted. Eager Beager looked out from under the table, where he

was surreptitiously polishing a boot and said that he wanted more polish, but

they ignored him. Even Bill, now that he put his mind to it, could think of

nothing he really wanted other than this inextricably linked pair. He tried

hard to think of something else, since he had vague memories of wanting other

things when he had been a civilian, but nothing else came to mind.

"Gee, it's only seven weeks more until we get our first pass," Eager said

from under the table, then screamed a little as everyone kicked him at once.

But slow as subjective time crawled by, the objective clocks were still

operating, and the seven weeks did pass by and eliminate themselves one by one.

Busy weeks filled with all the essential recruit-training courses: bayonet

drill, smallarms training, short-arm inspection, greypfing, orientation

lectures, drill, communal singing and the Articles of War. These last were

read with dreadful regularity twice a week and were absolute torture because

of the intense somnolence they brought on. At the first rustle of the scratchy,

monotonous voice from the tape player heads would begin to nod. But every seat

in the auditorium was wired with an EEG that monitored the brain waves of the

captive troopers. As soon as the shape of the Alpha wave indicated transition

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from consciousness to slumber a powerful jolt of current would be shot into the

dozing buttocks, jabbing the owners painfully awake. The musty auditorium was

a dimly lit torture chamber, filled with the droning, dull voice, punctuated by

the sharp screams of the electrified, the sea of nodding heads abob here and

there with painfully leaping figures.

No one ever listened to the terrible executions and sentences announced in

the Articles for the most innocent of crimes. Everyone knew that they had

signed away all human rights when they enlisted, and the itemizing of what

they had lost interested them not in the slightest. What they really were

interested in was counting the hours until they would receive their first

pass. The ritual by which this reward was begrudgingly given was unusually

humiliating, but they expected this and merely lowered their eyes and

shuffled forward in the line, ready to sacrifice any remaining shards of

their self-respect in exchange for the crimpled scrap of plastic. This rite

finished, there was a scramble for the monorail train whose track ran on

electrically charged pillars, soaring over the thirty-foot-high barbed wire,

crossing the quicksand beds, then dropping into the little farming town of

Leyville.

At least it had been an agricultural town before Camp Leon Trotsky had been

built, and sporadically, in the hours when the troopers weren't on leave, it

followed its original agrarian bent. The rest of the time the grain and feed

stores shut down and the drink and knocking shops opened. Many times the same

premises were used for both functions. A lever would be pulled when the first

of the leave party thundered out of the station and grain bins became beds,

salesclerks pimps, cashiers retained their same function-though the prices went

up-while counters would be racked with glasses to serve as bars. It was to one

of these establishments, a mortuary-cum-saloon, that Bill and his friends went.

"What'll it be, boys?" the ever smiling owner of the Final Resting Bar and

Grill asked.,

"Double shot of Embalming Fluid," Bowb Brown told him.

"No jokes," the landlord said, the smile vanishing for a second as he took

down a bottle on which the garish label Rte. WHISKEY had been pasted over the

etched-in EMBALMING FLUID "Any trouble I call the MPs." The smile returned as

money struck the counter. "Name your poison, gents."

They sat around a long, narrow table as thick as it was wide, with brass

handles on both sides, and let the blessed relief of ethyl alcohol trickle a

path down their dust-lined throats.

"I never drank before I came into the service," Bill said, draining four

fingers neat of Old Kidney Killer and held his glass out for more.

"You never had to," Ugly said, pouring.

"That's for sure," Bowb Brown said, smacking his lips with relish and raising

a bottle to his lips again.

"Gee," Eager Beager said, sipping hesitantly at the edge of his glass,

"it tastes like a tincture of sugar, wood chips, various esters, and a number

of higher alcohols."

"Drink up," Bowb said incoherently around the neck of the bottle. "All them

things is good for you."

"Now I want a woman," Ugly said, and there was a rush as they all jammed in

the door, trying to get out at the same time, until someone shouted, "Look!"

and they turned to see Eager still sitting at the table.

"Woman!" Ugly said enthusiastically, in the tone of voice you say Dinner!

when you are calling a dog. The knot of men stirred in the doorway and stamped

their feet. Eager didn't move.

"Gee-I think I'll stay right here," he said, his smile simpler than ever.

"But you guys run along."

"Don't you feel well, Eager?"

"Feel fine."

"Ain't you reached puberty?"

"Gee..."

"What you gonna do here?"

Eager reached under the table and dragged out a canvas grip. He opened it to

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show them that it was packed with great purple boots. "I thought I'd catch up

on my polishing."

They walked slowly down the wooden sidewalk, silent for the moment. "I wonder

if there is something wrong with Eager?" Bill asked, but no one answered him.

They were looking down the rutted street, at a brilliantly illuminated sign

that cast a tempting, ruddy glow.

SPACEMEN'S REST it said. CONTINUOUS STRIP SHOW and BEST DRINKS and better

PRIVATE ROOMS FOR GUESTS AND THEIR FRIENDS. They walked faster. The front wall

of the Spacemen's Rest was covered with shatterproof glass cases filled with

tri-di pix of the fully dressed (bangle and double stars) entertainers, and

further in with pix of them nude (debangled with fallen stars). Bill stayed

the quick sound of panting by pointing to a -small sign almost lost among the

tumescent wealth of mammaries.

OFFICERS ONLY It read.

"Move along," an MP grated, and poked at them with his electronic nightstick.

They shuffled on.

The next establishment admitted men of all classes, but the cover charge

was seventy-seven credits, more than they all had between them. After that

the OFFICERS ONLY began again, until the pavement ended and all the lights

were behind them.

"What's that?" Ugly asked at the sound of murmured voices from a nearby

darkened street, and peering closely they saw a line of troopers that stretched

out of sight around a distant comer. "What's this?" he asked the last man in

the line.

"Lower-ranks cathouse. Two credits, two minutes. And don't try to.buck the

line, bowb. On the back, on the back."

They joined up instantly, and Bill ended up last, but not for long.

They shuffled forward slowly, and other troopers appeared and cued up behind

him. The night was cool, and he took many life-preserving slugs from his

bottle. There was little conversation and what there was died as the red-lit

portal loomed ever closer. It opened and closed at regular intervals, and one

by one Bill's buddies slipped in to partake of its satisfying, though rapid,

pleasures. Then it was his turn and the door started to open and he started

to step forward and the sirens started to scream and a large MP with a great

fat belly jumped between Bill and the door.

"Emergency recall. Back to the base you men!" it barked.

Bill howled a strangled groan of frustration and leaped forward, but a light

tap with the electronic nightstick sent him reeling back with the others.

He was carried along, half stunned, with the shuffling wave of bodies, while

the sirens moaned and the artificial northern lights in the sky spelled out

TO ARMS!!!! in letters of flame each a hundred miles long. Someone put his

handout, holding Bill up as he started to slide under the trampling purple

boots. It was his old buddy, Ugly, carrying a satiated smirk and he hated him

and tried to hit him. But before he could raise his fist they were swept into

a monorail car, hurtled through the night, and disgorged back in Camp Leon

Trotsky. He forgot his anger when the gnarled claws of Deathwish Drang dragged

them from the crowd.

"Pack your bags," he rasped. "You're shipping out."

"They can't do that to us-we haven't finished our training."

"They can do whatever they want, and they usually do. A glorious space battle

has just been fought to its victorious conclusion and there are over four

million casualties, give or take a hundred thousand. Replacements are needed,

which is you. Prepare to board the transports immediately if not sooner."

"We can't-we have no space gear! The supply room . . ."

"All of the supply personnel have already been shipped out."

"Food . . ."

"The cooks and KP pushers are already spacebound. This is an emergency.

All non-essential personnel are being sent out. Probably to die." He twanged

a tusk coyly and washed them with his loathsome grin. "While I remain here

in peaceful security to train your replacements." The delivery tube plunked

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Harry Harrison - Bill, The Galactic Hero

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