Harry Harrison - Bill, the Galactic Hero 7 - The Final Incoherent Adventure

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Bill, the Galactic Hero — The Final Incoherent Adventure

HARRY HARRISON

DAVID HARRIS

Bill, The Galactic Hero ... The Final Incoherent Adventure

VGSF

Special thanks to Nat Sobel, Henry Morrison, Dainis Bisenieks, and Chris Miller

First published in Great Britain 1993

by Victor Gollancz

First VGSF edition published 1994

by Victor Gollancz

A Cassell imprint

Villiers House, 41/47 Strand, London WC2N 5JE

Jacket and book design by Alex J/Studio J

Jacket art by Mark Pacella and Steve Fastner

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 0 575 05717 3

Printed and bound in Great Britain

by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold,

hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any other form of binding or

cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition

being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

For Jenny Mershon, Bettina Harris, and Shelley Rochester.

Better late than never.

Special thanks to Kate Myslinski.

CHAPTER 1

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Bill, the Galactic Hero — The Final Incoherent Adventure

Feet. Feet of all sorts and shapes and sizes. A whole foot locker full of feet. There were feet that looked

like standard issue Trooper's boots and there were feet that looked like running shoes and there were feet

that looked like stainless steel wing-tips. There were even feet that looked like they came from all sorts

of repulsive animals, like bowb-beavers and regurgibirds. There was even one that looked like that of a

rusty robomule, just for sentiment's sake. Why there were even feet that looked like sports cars, and

space ships, and the feet of some of Bill's favorite holo-cartoon characters. The foot locker was really a

feetlocker, for it held every kind of foot you could think of, and some you couldn't, everything but real

feet. They were all artificial feet. Bill's feet.

Feet had been a problem for a long time for Bill — ever since he'd been stuck on Veniola, the death

planet, and had to shoot off his foot to get off that planet. In this man's war there was always a shortage

of replacement feet. In the fullness of time he'd wound up with an elephant foot, a satyr foot, a mood

foot — more feet than he could remember. Now he had even more feet than that, and all at once. He had

finally given up even trying to get a real human foot for a replacement: a shiny socket now sprang from

his truncated ankle.

Snap. He glared at the black lacquered one with the red and gold pagoda? No, not for tonight. He needed

something a lot snazzier if he was going to get anywhere near a woman on this pass. Snap. Bill

rummaged through the trunk for a foot with more sex appeal. Maybe the pink plush number with the

bright red curly plastic toenails? Snap. No. Not macho enough. Snap. Yes, here's the one! Snap. Bill

stepped back to admire his choice in the small mirror at the foot of his bunk.

This was a foot to reckon with, a foot that said "here strides a man of parts," even if he hadn't been born

with all the same parts he had now. It was big and hairy and wild, just like Bill imagined he was, and

very ape-like — really like Bill. This was the mother, if not the father, of all feet.

It was early evening at Camp Buboe, and Bill had, through a delicate combination of bribery, extortion,

and shaking the company clerk by the throat, acquired a pass from this same clerk. Considering that the

town outside the base to which this pass entitled him to go was distinguishable from the base principally

because it was on the other side of a fence, this might not be such a big deal. But there were rumored to

be women there, women who did not wear the olive drab of the Imperial Troopers, women who sat in

bars where alcoholic beverages were served in quantities, women who might be spoken to and touched

and — Bill began panting and had to restrain his fevered imagination.

Off in the distance, a commotion was stirring. Bill turned his combat-trained senses to the front of the

barracks, and heard the cry, "Officer coming!" His combat-honed reflexes had him instantly heading for

the back door and safety.

Too late. He stormed out the back door into a brick wall.

No, not exactly a brick wall. He was sure he would have remembered a wall just outside the door, and

even at Camp Buboe the walls didn't wear uniforms. But Sergeant Brickwall was even bigger than Bill,

and he knew a fleeing Trooper when he saw one.

Bill stopped cold, then bared his treasured fangs at the sergeant and growled deep in his throat.

Brickwall bared his own implanted, sharpened incisors and growled back, like a murderous vampire

bunny.

Bill roared, and shook drool from his fangs into the sergeant's face.

Brickwall roared back, and shook Bill's own drool back at him, with some of his own for interest.

Bill roared again, and pounded his chest.

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Brickwall did the same, and flashed his fangs again.

Clearly, subtlety was getting Bill nowhere.

"Move your fat bowby body," he bellowed.

Brickwall laughed in a most insulting manner.

"Your mother wears combat boots!" Bill sneered sneeringly.

Brickwall blinked. "Of course!" he foamed indignantly. "She's a Trooper. What else should she wear?"

"Your teeth look stupid!" Bill screamed in desperation. "Rabbits are full of bowb — and who's afraid of

rodent vegetarians?"

Brickwall gnashed the offenders at Bill.

Diplomacy wasn't working either.

"Ehhhh, what's up, Bill?"

"Be a buddy, Buddy," Bill burbled. In a sudden spasm of desperation he flung himself to the ground and

grappled his arms around the sergeant's knees. "Please don't make me go back in there. There's an officer

in the barracks. Something awful is sure to happen." But even this pathetic appeal didn't help.

"Sorry, Bill, but you know the rules: cover your ass. If I let anyone out I have to go in myself. You can't

forget the Trooper's code."

Indeed Bill could not. It was ingrained in them all, from the rawest recruit to the most senior non-com:

hypnotically drilled into their brains.

Every week is bowb-your-buddy week.

"It's been nice knowing you, Bill. Can I have your fangs when you get killed?"

Bill was too depressed even to answer this routine request. He hauled himself to his feet, made a quick

feint to see if he could get past the sergeant, bounced back well crunched, then plodded gloomily back

into the barracks. This was a depressing place at the best of times, carefully designed by the emperor's

sister-in-law in colors guaranteed to keep morale at a steady low level and the stomach at the point of

regurgitation. Now not even Bill's collection of feet could cheer him up.

And it only got worse. The officer who had come in was a short, scrawny man, flanked by six tall,

extraordinary-proportioned female bodyguards. This could be none other than Captain Kadaffi, hero of

the Emperor's Own Household Commandos. He had survived dozens of battles, scores of raids behind

enemy lines, and countless assassination attempts by his own Troopers. He was known and admired,

only by other officers of course, for his willingness to stay in a battle to the very end, until the last

enlisted men had been killed.

The enlisted men didn't admire that part so much, but their opinions didn't count. They were the ones

who had tried to assassinate him, after all. They even tried to take him out when he was lecturing them,

the motto being "a frag in class may save your ass."

The bodyguards formed up in a semicircle around Kadaffi, flaunting guns and blasters at the ready. The

captain struck a pose that was only slightly less macho than that of the women. "I need volunteers!" he

squeaked with officerial authority.

Bill and the other Troopers shuffled their feet and tried to back away. The bodyguards' blasters twitched

and there were a few warning shots fired into the barracks ceiling.

"I need twenty red-blooded heroes! Now is there anyone here who doesn't have red blood?" The

Troopers tried to come up with a good answer to that one, but Kadaffi didn't give them time. "Right —

you all volunteer."

The officer wheeled and disappeared behind the bodyguards. The biggest of them, a redhead of

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terrifying voluptuousness, stepped forward and covered the men. "Grab your gear and fall in. Now!" She

punctuated the order by flirtatiously firing a few rounds into the floor at Bill's feet.

"Hey," he protested, "that's one of my best feet!"

"You won't need it where you're going. You won't need it at all after tonight. Too bad, too. That's a

kinda' sexy foot, buster."

"Not Buster, Bill. With two l's, just like an officer." But the redhead had already lost interest.

The feet locker lay open like a treasure chest, but its temptations meant nothing to Bill now. He reached

down to the bottom and pulled out the foot he hated, the one he never wanted to wear — the Swiss

Army Foot.

This was a masterpiece of the foot-designer's art. It was the top of the line in high-tech feet, with special

attachments and hidden weapons and secret compartments. There was a poisoned knife that shot out of

the toe, a mini-laser that could be used for welding or for shooting people, a dart gun, an ammunition

box, a toolkit, a condom dispenser, a small bottle of hot sauce, a length of super-strong monofilament

line, a compass, a flare gun, a collapsible mess kit, a saw, a corkscrew, a magnifying glass, and a bunch

of other things, some of which he had to read the manual to find out about because he had forgotten. The

manual had more words than pictures, and was about the same size as the foot as well, so Bill had never

read it very much. It didn't much matter, since the only one of all those tools and attachments Bill had

used so far was the bottle of hot sauce. Though unhappily the hot sauce had eaten a large hole through

the instant imitation field-combat food-type product, improving it immensely. The packaging, that is.

The food was still inedible.

The combat foot was also very large. It was a good thing it was lightened by all the compartments, or it

would have been too heavy to walk with.

With the combat foot snapped securely onto his ankle socket, Bill looked around desperately for

something else to take with him into combat, and maybe, of course, into the Great Beyond. It was taken

for granted that everything he had ever owned that was of sentimental value, every reminder of his home

on Phigerinadon II, had long ago been lost. Even the holo-snapshot of his robomule was gone. Wiping

away a small tear with his left-right hand — that was his only memento of his old shipmate the Voodoo

minister and Fusetender Sixth Class Reverend Tembo (as opposed to his other right hand, which was

original equipment) — Bill jammed his Imperial-issue hat on top of his Imperial-issue head and

prepared to meet his Imperial-issue doom.

As they exited, a squad of heavily armed Troopers fell in around the volunteers to make absolutely sure

none of them escaped, then escorted them to the armory. Armored combat jump suits awaited them; they

had no choice but to climb in.

Actually, these suits had a lot in common with Bill's foot. They were made by the same company (The

Emperor's Second Cousin's Own Defense Company, Inc.) with the same care and attention to detail.

They both had lots of fancy features and attachments that worked really well sometimes, and hardly at

all most of the time. They had the same scuffed, chipped, imitation pseudo-chrome finish.

And they were all about the same size.

Bill realized pretty quickly that the foot wasn't going to go inside the suit. He made a big show of trying

to get it in, making sure that Captain Kadaffi and his bodyguards saw him.

He pushed and twisted and made funny noises.

"Unk!" he unked.

"Krskq!" he krskqed.

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It was an elaborate and impressive performance. He jumped and spun and pirouetted and did a credible

imitation of a man diving off a tower into a fish tank. Throwing out the top and bottom scores, the other

volunteers gave him a 9 out of 15. Captain Kadaffi was not impressed. He ordered the big redhead over

to see what was going on.

"What games you playing at, bowbhead?" she sighed.

"My foot won't go into the suit." She bent down to look at the problem, and Bill caught an intoxicating

whiff of something — gun oil? His pulse raced and his loins throbbed. "I guess I can't go with you after

all. Not if I can't get into the suit, right?"

"Wrong. I'm going to shoot that foot off."

"You can't! This is my combat foot," Bill shouted in panic. "Top of the line." He thought about it for a

second. "On the other hand," he said smarmily, "if you'd like to let me go back to my bunk, I might be

able to pick out a replacement in just a few hours." He inhaled her scent again. "Maybe afterwards we

could go someplace private and get familiar with each other's feet."

"No way, big boy." She shook her head. "Not that it isn't tempting, but you're a commando now. You

know the slogan — The Few, The Proud, The Dead. Doesn't pay for me to get involved with

commandos."

The redhead bent over the suit again. "Here's the problem." She pulled out a laser cutter and sliced off

the suit boot. "That ought to do it. Your foot's not too bad a match, and now you can use it in combat,

and, what the hell, you will be dead soon anyway. Everyone's happy, right?"

Bill clicked his foot off, jammed his leg down into the suit, then clamped his combat foot back on. The

bodyguard taped the suit leg to the foot with some duct tape and slapped him on the back.

"Congratulations, old buddy, you're going to die a glorious death in the service of the Emperor. I'd like

to be with you, but I have to stay with Captain Kadaffi in the rear. Better well fed than long dead."

Bill shrugged his understanding and started checking out his weapons. Laser cannon, fully charged.

Grenade rack and launcher, loaded and ready. Armor, chipped and pitted, but not too leaky. Machine

pistols, loaded. He swung up one of the guns to fire off a couple of test rounds in the general direction of

Kadaffi's left ventricle.

Click. Click. Nothing happened.

Except the captain squealed with delight. "Excellent!"

He swaggered over to Bill, who was now surrounded by lethal feminine pulchritude and quivering in

anticipation of an extremely messy and sudden demise.

"What happened?" Bill asked.

"This happened," Kadaffi said with a flourish, pulling out a small device that looked like a holovision

remote control. "My remote control, that's what. You don't think I'd be crazy enough to stay in a room

full of armed Troopers, do you? None of your weapons will work until I say so.

"But you, my boy," he said, grinning obnoxiously up at Bill, "you have showed initiative.

"You shall have the honor of leading the attack."

Bill contemplated his new honor with growing horror.

"Oh, bowb," he muttered, still clicking the unfunctioning trigger.

CHAPTER 2

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It was dark inside the belly of the attack transport. The constant vibration of the engines kept the

troopers' stomachs churning noisily at a level just above full heartburn and a little below outright

upchucking. Which at least distracted them from the deadly attack to come. A low moaning came from

the rear.

Bill was sitting up front, in the no-moaning section. The door to the first class cabin had been open a

teensy crack when they came aboard, though it had very quickly been slammed shut. He was still hoping

vainly for a second glimpse at this military paradise. The first had been tantalizing, a hint of all the

heady pleasures reserved for officers: the magenta and puce velvet-upholstered couches, the strains of

classical jew's-harp music, the elegant original black-velvet artwork, the clink and gurgling of something

undoubtedly alcoholic being poured over ice, the bodyguards dropping their weapons and starting to

unbutton ... and then the door had been kicked shut. Bill didn't care for ice — it diluted the booze when

it melted — but all the rest was akin to heaven. Since he might very well be going to that Trooper's

Valhalla in a little while, it seemed only fair that he should have a taste now.

With a burst of light and ear-hurting static the front wall of the transport hold sprang to life in glorious

black-and-white. A scattered image of Captain Kadaffi slowly gathered itself together. He was reading

myopically from a piece of paper.

"As we head together into glorious battle in the Emperor's name I want you all to know that the hearts of

free humans everywhere are here with you at this stupendous moment," he read in an obnoxious nasal

whine. "We are engaged in a terrible battle against the godless" — and here the image paused while

another voice filled in, 'Chingers' — "in which the future of civilization itself is at stake. The Emperor

himself wants you to know that your sacrifice will not be in vain. Your names will be recorded in the

Emperor's Own Big Book of the Glorious Dead. If, by any mistake, any of you happens to survive, he

will be given a medal and a twelve-hour pass."

The captain looked at the paper with disgust, then hurled it aside. "Yeah, yeah. There's a lot more bowb

about glory and patriotism and so on. Blah, blah, blah. Now here's your mission."

The recorded image wavered and was replaced by a new one, in color. Some of the troopers actually

looked up at it and almost started paying some attention. Only because one of the bodyguards, a blonde

with long, flowing hair, and an open blouse, leaned over Kadaffi's shoulders and blew kisses at the

troopers along with revealing a fine display of her cleavage. His eyes crossed as he tried to see the view

— then he snapped back to attention.

"We, and of course I mean you, should be reaching the drop zone in a few minutes. There's a big battle

down there. You don't need to know where it is or what it's about. Other than that we're coming in

behind the Chinger lines in a sneak suicide attack. You're a diversion from the main attack. All you have

to do is get on the ground and shoot everything that moves. Try not to kill each other, although it won't

matter much.

"You there, Trooper Bill — you're the point man. You other guys will follow Bill forward into glorious

combat. Introduce yourself, Bill."

Bill raised a reluctant hand; no one bothered to look.

"Thanks, Bill. I want you all to know that I'll be behind you all the way. Far behind. Of course, I'll do it

all by remote control from right here, but someone has to get back to tell the story of your courage,

right? Right." The blonde ran her hand through Kadaffi's hair. "So long, loyal Troopers." He yawned and

turned away, already forgetting them.

The picture blinked out, then blinked back on. It was almost the same, except the blonde had two more

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buttons undone. Kadaffi scratched his head and tried to take his eyes off the view. "I forgot to tell you

that you better get ready to jump. You might not get much warning." The wall faded back to its own

airsick yellow.

All around Bill, troopers were fastening their helmets and gloves, sealing their face plates, rechecking

their ammo, writing their wills, emptying their stomachs.

They were in some planet's atmosphere now because they could hear the sounds of combat outside the

transport. Judging by the explosions, lots of very unfortunate things were happening not very far away.

Some of the blasts were very large. Some things were blowing up. In fact, lots of things were blowing

up, some of them pretty close.

The transport started swerving and swaying and twisting and banking to stay away from the anti-aircraft

fire. Which was a good idea, only it did not work very well. For suddenly there was no floor any more.

In that first instant Bill hoped that the floor had been shot away, not retracted. Because that might mean

that Captain Kadaffi was not safe and might be wasted along with the rest of them.

Then Bill was plummeting through space.

He screamed for a while, but it didn't seem to help. He kept on plummeting. He went through "Oh bowb,

oh bowb!" and "I don't wanna die!" and "Heeeeelp!" and even "Mommy!", but he just kept falling. He

tried activating the antigravity unit in his suit, but that was linked to the same remote control as the

weapons, back up in Captain Kadaffi's hot little hand. Or cold little hand since he might be dead and that

would be the end of that.

At last Bill tried looking down.

Well, it wasn't as bad an idea as he'd thought it might be. He was still plummeting, but he couldn't see

the ground, only clouds. It didn't really feel like falling, except for the wind, and he could hear that, but

not feel it. Sealed in the suit he couldn't feel much of anything. He could see out the face plate, and he

could smell the sweat — and was that blood? — of the last guy who'd worn it, but he couldn't feel

anything.

He looked around and saw the rest of the volunteers. Their radios were remotely controlled as well, so

all they could do was wave to each other and plummet, which they did for quite a while.

Then they broke through the clouds.

They were seen at once and the firing started. Bullets and shells and laser blasts whizzed around them —

but the entire squad was falling so fast by this time that no one could draw a bead on them.

But the squad could see just fine. And what they could see was lots and lots of tiny little figures that

were getting larger very fast. The little figures were pointing up at the plummeting troopers and shooting

at them. But the good Captain Kadaffi had other things to think about and hadn't pushed the button on

his remote control yet. They couldn't shoot back. All they could do, really, was fall, and they were

getting very good at that.

Bill didn't think they needed any more practice at falling. Even he, dense as he was from time to time,

had mastered the falling technique in the first few seconds. Of course, there was always the possibility

that this was their entire mission. A trooper in an armored combat suit weighed quite a lot, and could

probably destroy a small building if he scored a direct hit on it. But that would probably destroy the suit,

and suits were expensive — much more so than Troopers. So the captain had probably just forgotten to

turn on the antigrav units. That was reassuring. Some.

Bill tried to relax and enjoy the descent and be ready for whatever happened next. Much to his surprise,

that turned out to be an abrupt yank upwards, driving all of the lower part of the suit into his crotch.

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When he regained consciousness, he was wafting gently downward toward the waiting arms of the

enemy. They weren't waiting very patiently. They were sending up a lot of stuff to welcome him, and

judging by how it exploded, it wasn't an entirely friendly welcome. And they were getting the range.

Bill looked down at a whole army trying to kill him. He looked up toward the transport, where only one

man was trying to kill him.

He figured his odds and made his decision. Kadaffi was more of a threat.

He reached up and felt the helmet. The big antenna would be for the remote control. The middle-sized

one would be for the radio to the other troopers, if that ever worked. The little one — here it was! —

would be the locater beacon. He got a good grip on it and yanked, but the designers had planned for that,

and it did not budge. Even with both hands, he couldn't break it off. He could blast it with his gun, but he

didn't want to risk destroying the antigrav unit, or, for that matter, his head.

If only he could get to his Swiss Army Foot! He twisted around until he could reach his foot, tore off the

duct tape, and pressed the button that released the tool kit. It was a little gizmo; small enough to fit in his

hand, with various tools that folded out of the sides. Small knife, nail file, large knife, scissors, awl, flat-

head screwdriver, Phillips-head screwdriver, bottle opener, can opener — where the bowb was it? At

last he found what he was looking for — the portable foldout bolt cutter. In an instant he had the antenna

sliced off and discarded.

Now that bowbhead Captain Kadaffi couldn't tell where Bill was.

Bill started firing his machine guns at the enemy. He didn't care if he hit anything, but the recoil would

push him in the other direction. He started drifting away from the action, but the wind was against him,

and he was still going down. By now he was wreathed in smoke and completely alone. Pretty soon now

he'd be locked in combat, with the enemy really aiming at him, instead of just shooting blindly. Not at

all what he had in mind.

First he used up the rest of his machine-gun ammo. That reduced his weight some, enough to slow down

his descent, but not enough to stop it entirely. Then he dropped all his grenades, hoping that there was

no one below who would be hit by one. He didn't want to get anyone irritated, especially anyone with a

blaster. Still not enough weight, though.

The gloves with the built-in blasters were next. Then the backpack with the dehydrated water pills, fresh

disposable underwear made of recycled toilet paper that could also be used as toilet paper, pseudo-meal

pills, and Imperial issue last effects. He was still falling slowly.

The armored combat boot may have injured someone when it dropped, and his armored trousers left a

small crater. Now Bill was low enough to see the ground — and the gunners on the ground could see

him.

But by now he was only drifting slowly towards the ground. He loosened his belt and let fly. His

armored pants dropped and thudded to the ground and Bill was flying steady.

Except that the wind was still pushing him over the enemy lines but, with his underwear fluttering

proudly in the breeze and his arms held resolutely over his head, Bill hoped that he might be pretty safe.

And he seemed to be right. No one was shooting at him, not even the other troopers.

He could see them now, floating below him and well ahead, slipping into a formation for attack. As long

as he wasn't involved it looked kind of interesting. They formed into a wedge — with an empty spot at

the front where he was supposed to be — and charged into the enemy lines.

Of course, they were charging down, too, and Bill was going down with them. Captain Kadaffi might

not have known where Bill was, but he was sure trying to get him killed anyway.

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What else could he drop to lighten his weight? His boot was already gone along with his pants. Bill

really hoped he wouldn't have to drop his combat foot; he had no idea when he might be able to find a

replacement, and he'd spent altogether too much time without a foot on that leg in the last few years.

He did take the foot off, though. The small combat laser built into the Swiss Army Foot was powerful

enough to cut away pieces of the remaining armor. Bit by bit, he carved away the entire upper half of the

combat suit, sparing only the helmet and the antigrav unit. Taking the straps from the back-mounted

antigrav pack in his teeth, he shrugged out of the rest of the outfit.

Ah, stable flight again. Looping the straps through his shorts, he relaxed and watched what he could see

of the action below. Which wasn't much, although it looked like the suicide mission was working out as

planned. Suicidal. The Imperial Troopers were getting but creamed. For a fleeting instant Bill felt sorry

for his former comrades. But the sensation faded quickly and he wished he had some of those

dehydrated beer pills.

Bill had been in more than his share of battles, but he'd never had a chance to pay much attention to one

before. When you're in the middle of the action, it makes even less sense than it does from the generals'

point of view, which was pretty dim at best. There was always a lot of noise and confusion and, of

course, people shooting at you. This means you keep your head down and don't see very much. In fact,

the less you see, generally speaking, the better. If you can see the enemy, they can see you. For that

matter, it's a good idea to stay out of sight of your own side when the bulk of a Trooper's training was

how to obey orders and clean latrines. How to aim and shoot various weapons was just an afterthought.

Bill had learned how to use a blaster long ago, but he'd done it by reading the Official Imperial Trooper

Comix version of the manual. Then he got a lot of practice on Veniola and various other challenging and

deadly planets.

But no matter how good he got at gunning down officers and other enemies, he never got the full

satisfaction of warfare, of knowing that his work was worthwhile and appreciated, that it was part of

some larger effort. Sure, the news comix told all about how the Troopers were sweeping the Chingers

from all the planets of the galaxy, but they seemed to keep sweeping them from the same planets all the

time. From the ground, which Bill spent a lot of time staying very close to in combat, there didn't appear

to be any pattern to it at all.

From here, though, it was all different. Up here in the air with his shorts flapping jauntily in the breeze,

waving gaily to the troops on both sides below and wondering where the closest bar might be, Bill could

see the whole battle spread out like a map. The Chinger forces were arranged in a long, thin, green

rectangle, just like in the news comix, and the Imperial troops were coming at them in the shapes of big,

curved red arrows. It wasn't the best way to win a battle, but it did look good on the air reconnaissance

photos that the general staff had to send to the Emperor.

The two big arrows moved forward and back, forward and back again, not making much progress

toward anything, but getting a little bit smaller each time as the points were blasted away.

A small white arrow was poking ineffectually at the other side of the green rectangle, getting a lot of

attention from the green gunners. Bill couldn't tell if any of the volunteers were still alive, because

Captain Kadaffi's remote control wasn't concerned with that. The little box just kept the suits in

formation so they could be blasted more easily. The captain might not even have been paying attention,

as long as that arrow stayed neat and pointed in the right direction and someone was shooting someone

else. Anyone, shooting anyone else.

Yoiks! Maybe Kadaffi was paying attention after all. Bill's shorts suddenly headed up, following the

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/Harry%20Harr...%207%20-%20The%20Final%20Incoherent%20Adventure.htm (9 of 105)24-12-2006 1:57:24

Bill, the Galactic Hero — The Final Incoherent Adventure

antigrav unit. Fortunately, they were the standard trooper industrial-strength undershorts, so Bill was

carried along for the ride.

The little white arrow of the commandos lifted gently — and limply — out of the battle. The heavy

armor, laden with other military gear and possibly living bodies, slowly rose away from the surface

toward the transport.

Bill, on the other hand, was not weighed down at all. He shot into the sky.

The arrow turned and wafted up, pointing the way up to where Captain Kadaffi's bodyguards waited to

hose out the suits for re-use. It moved almost delicately, twirling over the battlefield as it gradually rose

into the air.

Bill could feel the wind rushing by and hung onto the antigrav unit's straps for dear life as it jerked him

back and forth and twisted him around. As rides go, this one was pretty good. He'd paid good money at

The Trooper's Friend Amusement Park and Knocking Shop for stuff that wasn't nearly as violent and

nauseating. And they didn't even have the real threat of a hideously painful death, which was a key

feature of this one.

It wasn't just the wind. Bill was definitely getting colder. He whipped up through the clouds, and little

crystals of ice started collecting on all the uncovered parts of his body. They formed up real nice on his

foot, especially. The frost formed a pattern there, and the cold started working its way up his leg. The

thinner air made it harder to breathe, and that provided a distraction of sorts, but wondering which of the

two problems would kill him wasn't much of an improvement over worrying about just one of them.

His teeth started chattering. His whole body was shivering, and he was sweating with fear. The droplets

of sweat froze up almost immediately, and the shivering shook them off. Bill was leaving a little delicate

trail of ice particles behind him, shimmering in reflected sunlight. Which would have been quite pretty

— if he'd had the leisure to reflect ... and if he hadn't been quickly freezing to death.

He rolled up into a ball to conserve warmth. He would've taken his foot off to run the laser over his

hands and body, but he was shaking too much.

There was no screaming this time. Even if he'd been zooming upwards in the no-moaning section, he

would have ignored it now. Moaning was all he had left, and he was determined to enjoy it to the fullest.

Moaning was something of an art form in the troopers, and troopers were expected to stay in practice, in

case of just such an emergency. It was closely related to screaming, so a lot of what Bill moaned on the

way up was very similar to what he had screamed on the way down. He even did them in the same order.

He started with a few rounds of "Oh bowb, oh bowb," moved on to "Please don't let me die," segued into

"Heeeeelp," and finished up with the old standard, "Mommy!"

It did about as much good as the screaming had, which is to say none at all. But it was important to do

these things properly. Freezing and asphyxiating to death while flying straight up into the stratosphere in

his underwear hadn't been covered in boot camp, nor in Bill's fusetender's specialist course, nor had

anyone ever mentioned the possibility any time since then. So he had to rely on his carefully honed

instincts, but moaning definitely seemed to be in order.

Bill couldn't think what should come after the moaning, so he ran through it again, and then got ready to

lose consciousness. He had a lot of experience at that.

He could see the stars now, not twinkling very much because the air was so thin up here. He was

definitely dying. He could tell because both his feet felt the same now, the manufactured one and the

real one, and the force of the wind past his ears was diminishing. His nose was numb, and his hands

weren't far from it. And now he was hallucinating.

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Bill,theGalacticHero—TheFinalIncoherentAdventureHARRYHARRISONDAVIDHARRISBill,TheGalacticHero...TheFinalIncoherentAdventureVGSFSpecialthankstoNatSobel,HenryMorrison,DainisBisenieks,andChrisMillerFirstpublishedinGreatBritain1993byVictorGollanczFirstVGSFeditionpublished1994byVictorGollanczACassellimpr...

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Harry Harrison - Bill, the Galactic Hero 7 - The Final Incoherent Adventure

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