“I want a lawyer, I have to have a lawyer! I demand my rights!” Bill hammered on the bars of the cell with the chipped bowl that they had served his evening meal of bread and water in, shouting loudly for attention. No one came in answer to his call, and finally, hoarse, tired, and depressed, he lay down on the knobbed plastic bunk and stared up at the metal ceiling. Sunk in misery, he stared at the hook for long minutes before it finally penetrated. A hook? Why a hook here? Even in his apathy it bothered him, just as it had bothered him when they gave him a stout plastic belt with a sturdy buckle for his shoddy prison dungarees. Who wears a belt with one-piece dungarees? They had taken everything from him and supplied him only with paper slippers, crumpled dungarees, and a fine belt. Why? And why was there a sturdy great hook penetrating through the unbroken smoothness of the ceiling?
“I'm saved!” Bill screamed, and leaped up, balancing on the end of the bunk and whipping off the belt. There was a hole in the strap end of the belt that fitted neatly over the hook. While the buckle made a beautiful slip knot for a loop on the other end that would fit lovingly around his neck. And he could slip it over his head, seat the buckle under his ear, kick off from the bunk and strangle painfully with his toes a full foot above the floor. It was perfect.
“It is perfect!” he shouted happily, and jumped off the bunk and ran in circles under the noose, going yeow-yeow-yeow by flapping his hand in front of his mouth. “I'm not stuck, cooked, through, and finished. They want me to knock myself off to make things easy for them.” This time he lay back on the bunk, smiling happily, and tried to think it out. There had to be a chance he could wriggle out of this thing alive, or they wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to give him an opportunity to hang himself. Or could they be playing a double, subtle game? Allowing him hope where none existed? No, this was impossible. They had a lot of attributes: pettiness, selfishness, anger, vengefulness, superiority, power-lust, the list was almost endless; but one thing was certain-subtlety was not on it.
They? For the first time in his life Bill wondered who they were. Everyone blamed everything on them, everyone knew that they would cause trouble. He even knew from experience what they were like. But who were they? A footstep shuffled outside the door, and he looked over to see Deathwish Drang glowering in at him.
“Who are they?” Bill asked.
“They are everyone who wants to be one of them,” Deathwish said philosophically twanging a tusk. “They are both a state of mind and an institution.” “Don't give me any of that mystical bowb! A straight answer to a straight question now.” “I am being straight,” Deathwish said, reeking of sincerity. “They die off and are replaced, but the institution of theyness goes on.” “I'm sorry I asked,” Bill said, sidling over so he could whisper through the bars. “I need a lawyer, Deathwish old buddy. Can you find me a good lawyer?” “They'll appoint a lawyer for you.” Bill made the rudest noise he possibly could. “Yeah, and we know just what will happen with that lawyer. I need a lawyer to help me. And I have money to pay him-” “Well why didn't you say that sooner?” Deathwish slipped on his gold-rimmed spectacles and flipped slowly through a small notebook. “I take a 10 per cent commission for handling this.” “Affirm.” “Well-do you want a cheap honest lawyer or an expensive crooked one?” “I have 17,000 bucks hidden where no one can find it” “You should have told me that first.” Deathwish closed the book and put it away. “They must have suspected this, that's why they gave you the belt and the cell with the hook. With money like that you can hire the absolute best.” “Who is that?” “Abdul O'Brien-Cohen.” “Send for him.” And no more than two bowls of soggy bread and water had passed before there was a new footstep in the hall and a clear and penetrating voice bounced from the chill walls.
“Salaam there, boyo, faith and I've had a gesundt shtik trouble getting here.” “This is a general court-martial case,” Bill told the mild, unassuming man with the ordinary face who stood outside the bars. I don't think a civilian lawyer will be allowed.” “Begorrah, landsman-it is Allah's will that I be prepared for all things.” He whipped a bristling mustache with waxed tips out of his pocket and pressed it to his upper lip. At the same time he threw his chest back and his shoulders seemed to widen and a steely glint came to his eye and the planes of his face took on a military stiffness. “I'm pleased to meet you. We're in this together, and I want you to know that I won't let you down even if you are an enlisted man.” “What happened to Abdul O'Brien-Cohen?” “I have a reserve commission in the Imperial Barratry Corps. Captain A. C.
O'Brien at your service. I believe the sum of 17,000 was mentioned?” “I take 10 per cent of that,” Deathwish said, sidling up. Negotiations were opened and took a number of hours. All three men liked, respected, and distrusted each other, so that elaborate safeguards were called for. When Deathwish and the lawyer finally left they had careful instructions about where to find the money, and Bill had statements signed in blood with affixed thumbprint from each of them stating that they were members of the Party d edicated to overthrowing the Emperor. When they returned with the money Bill gave them back their statements as soon as Captain O'Brien had signed a receipt for 15,300 bucks as payment in full for defending Bill before a general court-martial. It was all done in a businesslike and satisfying manner.
“Would you like to hear my side of the case?” Bill asked. “Of course not, that has no bearing at all on the charges. When you enlisted in the troopers you signed away all your rights as a human being. They can do whatever they like with you. Your only advantage is that they are also prisoners of their own system and must abide by the complex and self-contradictory code of laws they have constructed through the centuries. They want to shoot you for desertion and have rigged a foolproof case.” “Then I'll be shot!” “Perhaps, but that's the chance we have to take.” “We-? You going to be hit by half the bullets?” “Don't get snotty when you're talking to an officer, bowb. Abide in me, have faith, and hope they make some mistakes.” After that it was just a matter of marking time until the trial. Bill knew it was close when they gave him a uniform with a Fuse Tender First Class insignia on the arm. Then the guard tramped up, the door sprang open, and Deathwish waved him out. They marched away together, and Bill exacted what small pleasure he could from changing step to louse up the guard. But once through the door of the courtroom he took a military brace and tried to look like an old campaigner with his medals clanking on his chest. There was an empty chair next to a polished, uniformed, and very military Captain O'Brien.
“That's the stuff;” O'Brien said. “Keep up with the G. I. bit, outplay them at their own game.” They climbed to their feet as the officers of the court filed in. Bill and O'Brien were seated at the end of the long, black, plastic table, and at the far end sat the trial judge advocate, a gray-haired and stern-looking major who wore a cheap girdle. The ten officers of the court sat down at the long side of the table, where they could scowl out at the audience and the witnesses.
“Let us begin,” the court president, a bald-headed and pudgy fleet admiral, said with fitting solemnity. “Let the trial open, let justice be done with utmost dispatch, and the prisoner found guilty and shot.” “I object,” O'Brien said, springing to his feet. “These remarks are prejudical toward the accused, who is. innocent until proven guilty-” “Objection overruled.” The president's gavel banged. “Counsel for the defense is fined fifty bucks for unwarranted interruption. The accused is guilty, the evidence will prove it, and he will be shot. Justice will be served.” “So that's the way. they are going to play it,” O'Brien murmured to Bill through half-closed lips. “I can play them any way as long as I know the ground rules.” The trial judge advocate had already begun his opening statement in a monotonous voice.
“… therefore we shall prove that Fuse Tender First Class Bill did willfully overstay his officially granted leave by a period of nine days and thereafter resist arrest and flee from the arresting officers and successfully elude pursuit, where upon he absented himself for the period of over one standard year, so is therefore guilty of desertion…” “Guilty as hell!” one of the court officers shouted, a redfaced cavalry major with a black monocle, springing to his feet and knocking over his chair. “I vote guilty-shoot the buggery” “I agree, Sam,” the president drawled, tapping lightly with his gavel, “but we have to shoot him by the book, take a little while yet” “That's not true,” Bill hissed to his lawyer. “The facts are-” “Don't worry about facts, Bill, no one else heredoes. Facts can't alter this case.” “… and we will therefore ask the supreme penalty, death,” the trial judge advocate said, finally dragging to a close.
“Are you going to waste our time with an opening statement, Captain?” the president asked, glaring at O'Brien.
“Just a few words, if the court pleases… “ There was a sudden stir among the spectators, and a ragged woman with a shawl over her head, clutching a blanketwrapped bundle to her bosom, rushed forward to the edge of the table.
“Your honors-” she gasped, “don't take away me Bill, the light of me life.
He's a good man, and whatever he did was only for me and the little one.” She held out the bundle, and a weak crying could be h eard. “Every day he wanted to leave, to return to duty, but I was sick and the wee one was sick and I begged him with tears in my eyes to stay…” “Get her out of here!” The gavel banged loudly.
“… and he would stay, all the time swearing it would be just for one more day, and all the time the darlin' knowing that if he left us we would die of starvation.” Her voice was muffled by the bulk of the dress-uniformed MPs who carried her, struggling, toward the exit. “… and a blessing on your honors for freeing him, but if you condemn him, you blackhearted scuts, may you die and rot in hell…” The doors swung shut, and her voice was cut off.
“Strike all this from the records,” the president said, and glowered at the counsel for the defense. “And if I thought you had anything to do with it I would have you shot right alongside your client.” O'Brien was looking his most guileless, fingers on chest and head back, and just beginning an innocent statement when there was another interruption. An old man climbed onto one of the spectator's benches and waved his arms for attention.
“Listen to me, one and all. Justice must be served, and I am its instrument. I had meant to keep my silence and allow an innocent man to be executed, but I cannot. Bill is my son, my only son, and I begged him to go over the hill to aid me; dying as I was of cancer, I wanted to see him ne last time, but he stayed to nurse me…” There was a struggle as the MPs grabbed the man and found he was chained to the bench. “Yes he did, cooked porridge for me and made me eat, and he did so well that bit by bit I rallied until you see me today, a cured man, cured by porridge from his son's loyal hands. Now my boy shall die because he saved me, but it shall not be. Take my poor old worthless life instead of his.
… “ An atomic wire cutter hummed, and the old man was thrown out the back door.
“That's enough! That's too much!” the red-faced president of the court shrieked, and pounded so hard that the gavel broke and he hurled the pieces across the room. “Clear this court of all spectators and witnesses. It is the judgment of this court that the rest of this trial will be conducted by rules of precedence without witnesses or evidence admitted.” He flashed a quick look around at his accomplices, who all nodded solemn agreement. “Therefore the defendant is found guilty and will be shot as soon as he can be dragged to the shooting gallery.” The officers of the court were already pushing back their chairs to go when O'Brien's slow voice stopped them.
“It is of course within the jurisdiction of this court to try a case in the manner so prescribed, but it is also necessary to quote the pertinent article of precedent before judgment is passed.” The president sighed and sat down again. “I wish you wouldn't try to be so difficult, Captain, you know the regulations just as well as I do. But if you insist. Pablo, read it to them.” The law officer flipped through a thick volume on his desk, found his place with his finger, then read aloud.
“Articles of War, Military Regulations, paragraph, page, etc. etc…… yes, here it is, paragraph 298-B… `If any enlisted man shall absent himself from his post of duty for over a period of one standard year he is to be judged guilty of desertion even if absent in person from the trial and the penalty for desertion is painful death.” “That seems clear enough. Any more questions?” the president asked.
“No questions; I would just like to quote a precedent” O'Brien had placed a high stack of thick books before him and was reading from the topmost one. “Here it is, Buck Private Lovenvig versus. the United States Army Air Corps, Texas, 1944. It is stated here that Lovenvig was AWOL for a period of fourteen months, then was dicovered in a hiding place above the ceiling of the mess hall from whence he descended only in the small hours of the night to eat and to drink of the stores therein and to empty his potty. Since he had not left the base he could not be judged AWOL or be a deserter and could receive only company punishment of a most minor kind.” The officers of the court had seated themselves again and were all watching the law officer, who was flipping quickly through his own books. He finally emerged with a smile and a reference of his own.
“All of that is correct, Captain, except for the fact that the accused here did absent himself from his assigned station, the Transit Rankers' Center, and was at large upon the planet Helior.” “All of which is correct, sir,” O'Brien said, whipping out yet another volume and waving it over his head. `But in Dragsted versus the Imperial Navy Billeting Corps, Helior, 8832, it was agreed that for purposes of legal definition the planet Helior was to be defined as the City of Helior, and the City of Helior was to be defined as the planet Helior.” “All of which is undoubtedly true,” the president interrupted, “but totally beside the point. They have no bearing upon the present case and I'll ask you to snap it up, Captain, because I have a golf appointment.” “You can tee off in ten minutes, sir, if you allow both those precedents to stand. I then introduce one last item, a document drawn up by Fleet Admiral Marmoset-” “Why, that's me!” the president gasped.
“-at the onset of hostilities with the Chingers when the City of Helior was declared under martial law and considered to be a single military establishment.
I therefore submit that the accused is innocent of the charge of desertion since he never left this planet, therefore he never left this city, therefore he never left his post of duty.” A heavy silence fell and was finally broken by the president's worried voice as he turned to the law officer. “Is what this bowb says true, Pablo? Can't we shoot the guy?” The law officer was sweating as he searched feverishly through his law books, then finally pushed them from him and answered in a bitter voice. “True enough and no way out of it. This Arabic-Jewish-Irish con man has got us by the short hair. The accused is innocent of the charges.” “No execution…?” one of the court officers asked in a high, querulous voice, and another, older one dropped his head onto his arms and began to sob.
“Well he's not getting off that easily,” the president said, scowling at Bill.
“If the accused was on this post for the last year then he should have been on duty. And during that year he must have slept. Which means he slept on duty.
Therefore I sentence him to hard labor in military prison for one year and one day and order that he be reduced in rank to Fuse Tender Seventh Class. Tear off his stripes and take him away; I have to get to the golf course.
The transit stockade was a makeshift budding of plastic sheets bolted to bent aluminum frames and was in the center of a large quadrangle. MPs with bayoneted atomrifles marched around the perimeter of the six electrified barbed-wire fences. The multiple gates were opened by remote control, and Bill was dragged through them by the handcuff robot that had brought him here. This debased machine was a squat and heavy cube as high as his knee that ran on clanking treads and from the top of which projected a steel bar with heavy handcuffs fastened to the end. Bill was on the end of the handcuffs. Escape was impossible, because if any attempt was made to force the cuffs the robot sadistically exploded a peewee atom bomb it had in its guts and blew up itself and the escaping prisoner, as well as anyone else in the vicinity. Once inside the compound the robot stopped and did not protest when the guard sergeant unlocked the cuffs. As soon as its prisoner was freed the machine rolled into its kennel and vanished.
“All right, wise guy, you're in any charge now, and dat means trouble for you, “ the sergeant snapped at Bill. He had a shaven head, a wide and scar-covered jaw, small, closeset eyes in which there flickered the guttering candle of stupidity.
Bill narrowed his own eyes to slits and slowly raised his good left right arm, flexing the biceps. Tembo's muscle swelled and split the thin prison fatigue jacket with a harsh, ripping sound Then Bill pointed to the ribbon of the Purple Dart which he had pinned to his chest.
“Do you know how I got that?” he asked in a grim and toneless voice. “I got that by killing thirteen Chingers singlehanded in a pillbox I had been sent into. I got into this stockade here because after killing the Chingers I came back and killed the sergeant who sent me in there. Now-what did you say about trouble, Sergeant?” “You don't give me no trouble I don't give you no trouble,” the guard sergeant squeaked as he skittered away. “You're in cell 13, in there, right upstairs…
. “ He stopped suddenly and began to chew all the fingernails on one hand at the same time, with a nibbling-crunching sound. Bill gave him a long glower for good measure, then turned and went slowly into the building.
The door to number 13 stood open, and Bill looked in at the narrow cell dimly lit by the light that filtered through the translucent plastic walls. The double-decker bunk took up almost all of the space, leaving only a narrow passage at one side. Two sagging shelves were bolted to the far wall and, along with the stenciled message BE CLEAN NOT OBSCENEDIRTY TALK HELPS THE ENEMY!, made up the complete furnishings. A small man with a pointed face and beady eyes lay on the bottom bunk looking intently at Bill. Bill looked right back and frowned.
“Come in, Sarge,” the little man said as he scuttled up the support into the upper bunk. “I been saving the lower for you, yes I have. The name is, Blackey, and I'm doing ten months for telling a second looey to blow it out…” He ended the sentence with a slight questioning note that Bill ignored. Bill's feet hurt. He kicked off the purple boots and stretched out on the sack.
Blackey's head popped over the edge of the upper bunk, not unlike a rodent peering out the landscape. “It's a long time to chow-how's about a Dobbinburger?” A hand appeared next to the head and slipped a shiny package down to Bill.
After looking it over suspiciously Bill pulled the sealing string on the end of the plastic bag. As soon as the air rushed in and hit the combustible lining the burger started to smoke and within three seconds was steaming hot. Lifting the bun Bill squirted ketchup in from the little sack at the other end of the bag, then took a suspicious bite. It was rich, juicy horse.
“This old gray mare sure tastes like it used to be,” Bill said, talking with his mouth full. “How did you ever smuggle this into the stockade?” Blackey grinned and produced a broad stage wink. “Contacts. They bring it in to me, all I gotta do is ask. I didn't catch the name…?” “Bill.” Food had soothed his ruffled temper. “A year and a day for sleeping on duty. I would have been shot for desertion, but I had a good lawyer. That was a good burger, too bad there's nothing to wash it down with.” Blackey produced a small bottle labeled COUGH SYRUP and passed it to Bill.
“Specially mixed for me by a friend in the medics. Half grain alcohol and half ether.” “Zoingg!” Bill said, dashing the tears from his eyes after draining half the bottle. He felt almost at peace with the world. You're a good buddy to have around, Blackey.” “You can say that again,” Blackey told him earnestly. “It never hurts to have a buddy, not in the troopers, the army, the navy, anywheres. Ask old Blackey, he knows. You got muscles, Bill?” Bill lazily flexed Tembo's muscles for him.
“That's what I like to see,” Blackey said in admiration. “With your muscles and my brain we can get along fine…” “I have a brain too!” “Relax it! Give it a break, while I do the thinking. I seen service in more armies than you got days in the troopers. I got my first Purple Heart serving with Hannibal, there's the scar right there.” He pointed to a white arc on the back of his hand. “But I picked him for a loser and switched to Romulus and Remus' boys while there was still time. I been learning ever since, and I always land on my feet. I saw which way the wind was blowing and ate some laundry soap and got the trots the morning of Waterloo, and I missed but nothing, I tell you.
I. saw the same kind of thing shaping up at the Somme-or was it Ypres?-I forget some of them old names now, and chewed a cigarette and put it into my armpit, you get a fever that way, and missed that show too. There's always an angle to figure I always say.” “I never heard of those battles. Fighting the Chingers?” “No, earlier than that, a lot earlier than that. Wars and wars ago.” “That makes you pretty old, Blackey. You don't look pretty old.” “I am pretty old, but I don't tell people usually because they give me the laugh. But I remember the pyramids being built, and I remember what lousy chow the Assyrian army had, and the time we took over Wug's mob when they tried to get into our cave, rolled rocks down on them.” “Sounds like a lot of bowb,” Bill said lazily, draining the bottle.
“Yeah, that's what everybody says, so I don't tell the old stories any more.
They don't even believe me when I show them my good luck piece.” He held out a little white triangle with a ragged edge. “Tooth from a pterodactyl. Knocked it down myself with a stone from a sling I had just invented…” “Looks like a hunk of plastic.” “See what I mean? So I don't tell the old stories any more. just keep reenlisting and drifting with the tide…” Bill sat up and gaped. “Re-enlist! Why, that's suicide…” “Safe as houses. Safest place during the war is in the army. The jerks in the front lines get their heads shot off, the civilians at home get their heads blown off. Guys in between safe as houses. It takes thirty, fifty, maybe seventy guys in the middle to supply every guy in the line. Once you learn to be a file clerk you're safe. Who ever heard of them shooting at a file clerk? I'm a great file clerk. But that's just in wartime. Peacetime, whenever they make a mistake and there is peace for awhile, it's better to be in the combat troops. Better food, longer leaves, nothing much to do. Travel a lot.” “So what happens when the war starts?” “I know 735 different ways to get into the hospitals.” “Will you teach me a couple?” “Anything for a buddy, Bill. I'll show you tonight, after they bring the chow around. And the guard what brings the chow is being difficult about a little favor I asked him. Boy, I wish he had a broken arm!” “Which arm?” Bill cracked his knuckles with a loud crunch.
“Dealer's choice.” The Plastichouse Stockade was a transient center where prisoners were kept on the way from somewhere to elsewhere. It was an easy, relaxed life enjoyed by both guards and inmates with nothing to disturb the even tenor of the days.
There had been one new guard, a real eager type fresh in from the National Territorial Guard, but he had had an accident while serving the meals and had broken his arm. Even the other guards were glad to see him go. About once a week Blackey would betaken away under armed guard to the Base Records Section where he was forging new records for a light colonel who was very active in the black market and wanted to make millionaire before he retired. While working on the records Mackey saw to it that the stockade guards received undeserved promotions, extra leave time, and cash bonuses for nonexistent medals. As a result Bill and Blackey ate and drank very well and grew fat. It was as peaceful as could possibly be until the morning after a session in the records section when Blackey returned and woke Bill up.
“Good news,” he said. “We're shipping out.” “What's good about that?” Bill asked, surly at being disturbed and still halfstoned from the previous evening's drinking bout. “I like it here.” “It's going to get too hot for us soon. The colonel is giving me the eye and a very funny look, and I think he is going to have us shipped to the other end of the galaxy, where there is heavy fighting. But he's not going to do anything until next week after I finish the books for him, so I had secret orders cut for us this week sending us to Tabes Dorsalis where the cement mines are.” “The Dust World!” Bill shouted hoarsely, and picked Blackey up by the throat and shook him. “A world-wide cement mine where men die of silicosis in hours.
Hellhole of the universe…” Blackey wriggled free and-scuttled to the other end of the cell.
“Hold it!” he gasped. “Don't go off half cocked. Close the cover on your priming pan and keep your powder dryl Do you think I would ship us to a place like that? That's just the way it is on the TV shows, but I got the inside dope.
If you work in the cement mines, roger, it ain't so good. But they got one tremendous base section there with a lot of clerical help, and they use trustees in the motor pool, since there aren't enough troops there. While I was working on the records I changed your MS from fuse tender, which is a suicide job, to driver, and here is your driver's license with qualifications on everything from monocycle to atomic 89-ton tank. So we get us some soft jobs, and besides the whole base is air-conditioned.” “It was kind of nice here,” Bill said, scowling at the plastic card that certified to his aptitude in chauffeuring a number -of strange vehicles, most of which he had never seen.
“They come, they go, they're all the same,” Blackey said, packing a small toilet kit.
They began to realize that something was wrong when the column of prisoners was shackled then chained together with neckcuffs and leg irons and prodded into the transport spacer by a platoon of combat MPs. “Move along!” they shouted.
“You'll have plenty of time to relax when we got to Tabes Dorsalgia.” “Where are we going?” Bill gasped.
“You heard me, snap it bowb.” “You told me Tabes Dorsalis,” Bill snarled at Blackey who was ahead of him in the chain. “Tabes Dorsalgia is the base on Veneria where all the fighting is going on-we're heading for combat!” “A little slip of the pen,” Blackey sighed. “You can't win them all.” He dodged the kick Bill swung at him, then waited patiently while the MPs beat Bill senseless with their clubs and dragged him aboard the ship.
Veneria… a fog-shrouded world-of untold horrors, creeping in its orbit around the ghoulish green star Hernia like some repellent heavenly trespasser newly rose from the nethermost pit. What secrets lie beneath the eternal mists?
What nameless monsters undulate and gibber in its dank tarns and bottomless black lagoons? Faced by the unspeakable terrors of this planet men go mad rather than face up to the faceless. Veneria… swamp world, the lair of the hideous and unimaginable Venians…
It was hot and it was damp and it stank. The wood of the newly constructed barracks was already soft and rotting away. You took your shoes off, and before they hit the floor fungus was growing out of them. Once inside the compound their chains were removed, since there was no place for laborcamp prisoners to escape to, and Bill wheeled around looking for Blackey, the fingers of Tembo's arm snapping like hungry jaws. Then he remembered that Blackey had spoken to one of the guards as they were leaving the ship, had slipped him something, and a little while later had been unlocked from the line and led away. By now he would be running the file section and by tomorrow he would be living in the nurses's quarters. Bill sighed, let the whole thing slip out of his mind and vanish, since it was just one more antagonistic factor that he had no control over, and dropped down onto the nearest bunk. Instantly a vine flashed up from a crack in the floor, whipped four times around the bunk lashing him securely to it, then plunged tendrils into his leg and began to drink his blood.
“Grrrrk…!” Bill croaked against the pressure of a green loop that tightened around his throat.
“Never lie down without you got a knife in your hand,” a thin, yellowish sergeant said as he passed by, and severed the vine, with his own knife, where it emerged from the floorboards.
“Thanks, Sarge,” Bill said, stripping off the coils and throwing them out the window.
The sergeant suddenly began vibrating like a plucked string and dropped onto the foot of Bill's bunk. “P-pocket… shirt… p-p-pills…” he stuttered through chattering teeth. Bill pulled a plastic box of pills out of the sergeant's pocket and forced some of them into his mouth. The vibrations stopped, and the man sagged back against the wall, gaunter and yellower and streaming with sweat.
“Jaundice and swamp fever and galloping filariasis, never know when an attack will hit me, that's why they can't send me back to combat, I can't hold a gun.
Me, Master Sergeant Ferkel, the best damned flamethrower in Kirjassoff's Kutthroats, and they have me playing nursemaid in a prison labor camp. So you think that bugs me? It does not bug me, it makes me happy, and the only thing that would make me happier would be shipping off this cesspool-planet at once.” “Do you think alcohol will hurt your condition?” Bill asked, passing over a bottle of cough syrup. “It's kind of rough here?” “Not only won't hurt it, but it will…” There was a deep gurgling, and when the sergeant spoke again he was hoarser but stronger. “Rough is not the word for it. Fighting the Chingers is bad enough, but on this planet they have the natives, the Venians, on their side. These Venians look like moldy newts, and they got just maybe enough I. Q. to hold a gun and pull the trigger, but it is their planet and they are but murder out there in the swamps. They hide under the mud and they swim under the water and they swing from the trees and the whole planet is thick with them. They got no sources of supply, no army divisions, no organizations, they just fight. If one dies the others eat him. If one is wounded in the leg the others eat the leg and he grows a new one. If one of them runs out of ammunition or poison darts or whatever he just swims back a hundred miles to base, loads up, and back to battle. We have been fighting here for three years, and we now control one hundred square miles of territory.” “A hundred, that sounds like a lot.” “Just to a stupid bowb like you. That is ten miles by ten miles, and maybe about two square miles more than we captured in the first landings.” There was the squish-thud of tired feet, and weary, mudsoaked men began to drag into the barracks. Sergeant Ferkel hauled himself to his feet and blew a long blast on his whistle.
“All right you new men, now hear this. You have all been assigned to B squad, which is now assembling in the compound, which squad will now march out into the swamp and finish the job these shagged creeps from A squad began this morning.
You will do a good day's work out there. I am not going to appeal to your sense of loyalty, your honor or your sense of duty…” Ferkel whipped out his atomic pistol and blew a hole in the ceiling through which rain began to drip.
“I am only going to appeal to your urge to survive, because any man shirking, goofing off, or not pulling his own weight will personally be shot dead by me.
Now get out.” With his bared teeth and shaking hands he looked sick enough and mean enough and mad enough to do it. Bill and the rest of B squad rushed out into the rain and formed ranks.
“Pick up da axes, pick up da picks, get the uranium out,” the corporal of the armed guard snarled as they squelched through the mud toward the gate. The labor squad, carrying their tools, stayed in the center, while the armed guard walked on the outside. The guard wasn't there to stop the prisoners from escaping but to give some measure of protection from the enemy. They dragged slowly down the road of felled trees that wound through the swamp. There was a sudden whistling overhead, and heavy transports flashed by.
“We're in luck today,” one of the older prisoners said, “they're sending in the heavy infantry again. I didn't know they had any left.” “You mean they'll capture more territory?” Bill asked.
“Naw, all they'll get is dead. But while they're getting butchered some of the pressure will be off of us, and we can maybe work without losing too many men.” Without orders they all stopped to watch as the heavy infantry fell like rain into the swamps ahead-and vanished just as easily as raindrops. Every once in awhile there would be a boom and flash as a teensie A-bomb went off, which probably atomized a few Venians, but there were billions more of the enemy just waiting to rush in. Small arms. crackled in the distance, and grenades boomed.
Then over the trees they saw a bobbing, bouncing figure approach. It was a heavy infantryman in his armored suit and gasproof helmet, A-bombs and grenades strapped to him, a regular walking armory. Or rather hopping armory, since he would have had trouble walking on a paved street with the weight of junk hung about him, so he therefore moved by jumping, using two reaction rockets, one bolted to each hip. His hops were getting lower and lower as he came near. He landed fifty yards away and slowly sank to his waist in the swamp, his rockets hissing as they touched the water. Then he hopped again, much shorter this time, the rockets fizzling and popping, and he threw his helmet open in the air.
“Hey, guys,” he called. “The dirty Chingers got my fuel tank. My rockets are almost out, I can't hop much more. Give a buddy a hand will you… “ He hit the water with a splash.
“Get outta the monkey suit and we'll pull you in,” the guard corporal called.
“Are you nuts!” the soldier shouted. “It takes an hour to get into and outta this thing.” He triggered his rockets, but they just went pfffft, and he rose about a foot in the water, then dropped back. “The fuel's gone! Help me you bastards! What's this, bowb-your-buddy week…” he shouted as he sank. Then his head went under, and there were a few bubbles and nothing else.
“It's always bowb-your-buddy week,” the corporal said. “Get the column moving!
“ he ordered, and they shuffled forward. “Them suits weigh three thousand pounds. Go down like a rock.” If this was a quiet day, Bill didn't want to see a busy one. Since the entire planet of Veneria was a swamp no advances could be made until a road was built.
Individual soldiers might penetrate a bit ahead of the road, but for equipment or supplies or even heavily armed men a road was necessary. Therefore the labor corps was building a road of felled trees. At the front.
Bursts from atomrifles steamed in the water around them, and the poison darts were as thick as falling leaves. The firing and sniping on both sides was constant while the prisoners cut down trees and trimmed and lashed them together to push the road forward another few inches. Bill trimmed and chopped and tried to ignore the screams and falling bodies until it began to grow dark. The squad, now a good deal smaller, made their return march in the dusk.
“We pushed it ahead at least thirty yards this afternoon,” Bill said to the old prisoner marching at his side.
“Don't mean nothing, Venians swim up in the night and take the logs away.” Bill instantly made his mind up to get out of there.
“Got any more of that joyjuice?” Sergeant Ferkel asked when Bill dropped onto his bunk and began to scrape some of the mud from his boots with the blade of his knife. Bill took a quick slash at a plant coming up through the floorboards before he answered.
“Do you think you could spare me a moment to give me some advice, Sergeant?” “I am a flowing fountain of advice once my throat is lubricated.” Bill dug a bottle out of his pocket. “How do you get out of this outfit?” he asked.
“You get killed,” the sergeant told him as he raised the bottle to his lips.
Bill snatched it out of his hand.
“That I know without your help,” he snarled.
“Well that's all you gonna know without my help,” the sergeant snarled back.
Their noses were touching and they growled at each other deep in their throats. Having proven just where they stood and just how tough they both were they relaxed, and Sergeant Ferkel leaned back while Bill sighed and passed him the bottle.
“How's about a job in the orderly room?” Bill asked.
“We don't have an orderly room. We don't have any records. Everyone sent here gets killed sooner or later, so who tares exactly when.” “What about getting wounded?” “Get sent to the hospital, get well, get sent back here.” “The only thing left to do is mutiny!” Bill shouted.
“Didn't work last four times we tried it. They just pulled the supply ships out and didn't give us any food until we agreed to start fighting again. Wrong chemistry here, all the food on this planet is pure poison for our metabolisms.
We had a couple of guys prove it the hard way. Any mutiny that is going to succeed has to grab enough ships first so we can get off-planet. If you got any good ideas about that I'll put you in touch with the Permanent Mutiny Committee.” “Isn't there any way to get out?” “I anshered that firsht,” Ferkel told him, and fell over stone drunk.
“I'll see for myself,” Bill said as he slid. the sergeant's pistol from his holster, then slipped out the back door.
Armored floodlights lit up the forward positions facing the enemy, and Bill went in the opposite direction, toward the distant white flares of landing rockets. Barracks and warehouses were dotted about on the boggy ground, but Bill stayed clear of them since they were all guarded, and the guards had itchy trigger fingers. They fired at anything they saw, anything they heard, and if they didn't see or hear anything they fired once in a while anyway just to keep their morale up. Lights were burning brightly ahead, and Bill crawled forward on his stomach to peer from behind a rank growth at a tall, floodlighted fence of barbed wire that stretched out of sight in both directions.
A burst from an atomic rifle burned a hole in the 'Mud about a yard behind him, and a searchlight swung over, catching him full in its glare.
“Greetings from your commanding officer,” an amplified voice thundered from loudspeakers on the fence. “This is a recorded announcement. You are now attempting to leave the combat zone and enter the restricted headquarters zone.
This is forbidden. Your presence has been detected by automatic machinery, and these same devices now have a number of guns trained upon you. They will fire in sixty seconds if you do not leave. Be patriotic, marl Do your duty. Death to the Chingers! Fifty-five seconds. Would you like your mother to know that her boy is a coward? Fifty seconds. Your Emperor has invested a lot of money in your trainingis this the way that you repay him? Forty-five seconds…” Bill cursed and shot up the nearest loudspeaker, but the voice continued from others down the length of the fence. He turned and went back the way he had come.
As he neared his barracks, skirting the front line to avoid the fire from the nervous guards in the buildings, all the lights went out. At the same time gunfire and bomb explosions broke out on every side.
Something slithered close by in the mud and Bill's trigger finger spontaneously contracted and he shot it. In the brief atomic flare he saw the smoking remains of a dead Venian, as well as an unusually large number of live Venians squelching to the attack. Bill dived aside instantly, so that their return fire missed him, and fled in the opposite direction. His only thought was to save his skin, and this he did by getting as far from the firing and the attacking enemy as he could. That this direction happened to be into the trackless swamp he did not consider at the time. Survive, his shivering little ego screamed, and he ran on.
Running became difficult when the ground turned to mud, and even more difficult when the mud gave way to open water. After paddling desperately for an interminable length of time Bill came to more mud. The first hysteria had now passed, the firing was only a dull rumble in the distance, and he was exhausted.
He dropped onto the mudbank and instantly sharp teeth sank deep into his buttocks. Screaming hoarsely, he ran on until he ran into a tree. He wasn't going fast enough to hurt himself, and the feel of rough bark under his fingers brought out all of his eoanthropic survival instincts: he climbed. High up there were two branches that forked out from the trunk, and be wedged himself into the crotch, back to the solid wood and gun pointed straight ahead and ready. Nothing bothered him now. The night sounds grew dim and distant, the' blackness was complete, and within a few minutes his head started to nod. He dragged it back up a few times, blinked about at nothing, then finally slept.
It was the first gray light of dawn, when he opened his gummy eyes and blinked around. There was a little lizard perched on a nearby branch watching him with jewellike eyes.
“Gee-you were really sacked out,” the Chinger said.
Bill's shot tore a smoking scar in the top of the branch, then the Chinger swung back up from underneath and meticulously wiped bits of ash from his paws.
“Easy on the trigger, Bill,” it said. “Gee-I could have killed you anytime during the night if I had wanted to.” “I know you,” Bill said hoarsely. “You're Eager Beager, aren't you?” “Gee-this is just like old home week, isn't it?” A centipede was scuttling by, and Eager Beager the Chinger grabbed it up with three of his arms and began pulling off legs with his fourth and eating them. “I recognized you Bill, and wanted to talk to you. I have been feeling bad ever since I called you a stoolie, that wasn't right of me. You were only doing your duty when you turned me in. You wouldn't like to tell me how you recognized me, would you…?” he asked, and winked slyly.
“Why don't you bowb off, Jack?” Bill growled, and groped in his pocket for a bottle of cough syrup. Eager Chinger sighed.
“Well, I suppose I can't expect you to betray anything of military importance, but I hope you will answer a few questions for me.” He discarded the delimbed corpse and groped about in his marsupial pouch and produced a tablet and tiny writing instrument. “You must realize that spying is not my chosen occupation, but rather I was dragooned into it through my speciality, which is exopologyperhaps you have heard of this discipline…?” “We had an orientation lecture once, an exopologist, all he could talk about was alien creeps and things.” “Yes-well, that roughly sums it up. The science of the study -of alien life forms, and of course to us you homo sapiens are an alien form…” He scuttled halfway around the branch when Bill raised his gun.
“Watch that kind of talk, bowb!” “Sorry, just my manner of speaking. To put it briefly, since I specialized in the study of your species I was sent out as a spy, reluctantly, but that is the sort of sacrifice one makes during wartime. However, seeing you here reminded me that there are a number of questions and problems still unanswered that I would appreciate your help on, purely in the matter of science of course.” “Like what?” Bill asked suspiciously, draining the bottle and flinging it away into the jungle.
“Well-gee-to begin simply, bow do you feel about us Chingers?” “Death to all Chingers!” The little pen flew over the tablet.
“But you have been taught to say that. How did you feel before you entered the service?” “Didn't give a damn about Chingers.” Out of the corner of his eye Bill was watching a suspicious movement of the leaves in the tree above.
“Fine! Then could you explain to me just who it is that hates us Chingers and wants to fight a war of extermination?” “Nobody really hates Chingers, I guess. It's just that there is no one else around to fight a war with, so we fight with you.” The moving leaves had parted and a great, smooth head with slitted eyes peered down.
“I knew it! And that brings me to my really important question. Why do you homo sapiens like to fight wars?” Bill's hand tightened on his gun as the monstrous head dropped silently down from the leaves behind Eager Chinger Beager, it was attached to a foot thick and apparently endless serpent body.
“Fight wars? I don't know,” Bill said, distracted by the soundless approach of the giant snake. “I guess because we like to, there doesn't seem to be any other reason.” “You like to!” the Chinger squeaked, hopping up and down with excitement. “No civilized race could like wars, death, killing, maiming, rape, torture, pain, to name just a few of the concomitant factors. Your race can't be civilized!” The snake struck like lightning, and Eager Beager Chinger vanished down its spine-covered throat with only the slightest of muffled squeals.
“Yeah… I guess we're just not civilized,” Bill said, gun ready, but the snake kept going on down. At least fifty yards of it slithered by before the tail flipped past and it was out of sight. “Serves the damn spy right,” Bill grunted happily, and pulled himself to his feet.
Once on the ground Bill began to realize just how bad a spot he was in. The damp swamp had swallowed up any marks of his passage from the night before and he hadn't the slightest idea in which direction the battle area lay. The sun was just a general illumination behind the layers of fog and cloud, and he felt a sudden chill as he realized how small were his chances of finding his way back.
The invasion area, just ten miles to a side, made a microscopic pinprick in the hide of this planet. Yet if he didn't find it he was as good as dead. And if he just stayed here he would die, so, picking what looked like the most likely direction, he started off.
“I'm pooped,” he said, and was. A few hours of dragging through the swamps had done nothing except weaken his muscles, fill his skin with insect bites, drain a quart or two of blood into the ubiquitous leeches, and deplete the charge in his gun as he killed a dozen or so of the local life forms that wanted him for breakfast. He was also hungry and thirsty. And still lost.
The rest of the day just recapitulated the morning, so that when the sky began to darken he was close to exhaustion, and his supply of cough medicine was gone.
He was very hungry when he climbed a tree to find a spot to rest for the night, and he plucked a luscious-looking red fruit.
“Supposed to be poison.” He looked at it suspiciously, then smelled it. It smelled fine. He threw it away.
In the morning he was much hungrier. “Should I put the barrel of the gun in my mouth and blow my head off?” he asked himself, weighing the atomic pistol in his hand. “Plenty of time for that yet. Plenty of things can still happen.” Yet he didn't really believe it when he heard voices coming through the jungle toward him, human voices. He settled behind the limb and aimed his gun in that direction.
The voices grew louder, then a clanking and rattling. An armed Venian scuttled under the tree, but Bill held his fire as other figures loomed out of the fog.
It was a long file of human prisoners wearing the neck irons used to bring Bill and the others to the labor camp, all joined together by a long chain that connected the neck irons. Each of the men was carrying a large box on his head.
Bill let them stumble by underneath and kept a careful count of the Venian guards. There were five in all with a sixth bringing up the rear, and when this one had passed underneath the tree Bill dropped straight down on him, braining him with his heavy boots. The Venian was armed with a Chinger-made copy of a standard atomic rifle, and Bill smiled wickedly as he hefted its familiar weight. After sticking the pistol into his waistband he crept after the column, rifle ready. He managed to kill the fifth guard by walking up behind him and catching him in the back of the neck with the rifle butt. The last two troopers in the file saw this but had enough brains to be quiet as he crept up on number four. Some stir among the prisoners or a chance sound warned this guard and he turned about, raising his rifle. There was no chance now to kill him silently, so Bill burned his head off and ran as fast as he could toward the head of the column. There was a shocked silence when the blast of the rifle echoed through the fog and Bill filled it with a shout.
“Hit the dirt-FAST!” The soldiers dived into the mud and Bill held his atomic rifle at his waist as he ran, fanning it back and forth before him like a water hose and holding down the trigger on full automatic. A continuous blast of fire poured out a yard above the ground and he squirted it in an arc before him. There were shouts and screams in the fog, and then the charge in the rifle was exhausted. Bill threw it from him and drew the pistol. Two of the remaining guards were down, and the last one was wounded and got off a single badly aimed shot before Bill burned him too.
“Not bad,” he said, stopping and panting. “Six out of six.” There were low moans coming from the line of prisoners, and Bill curled his lip in disgust at the three men who hadn't dropped at his shouted command.
“What's the matter?” he asked, stirring one with his foot, “never been in combat before?” But this one didn't answer because he was charred dead.
“Never… “ the next one answered, gasping in pain. “Get the corpsman, I'm wounded, there's one ahead in the line. Oh, oh, why did I ever leave the Chris Keeler! Medic…” Bill frowned at the three gold balls of a fourth lieutenant on the man's collar, then bent and scraped some mud from his face. “You! The laundry officer!
“ he shouted in outraged anger, raising his gun to finish the job.
“Not I!” the lieutenant moaned, recognizing Bill at last.
“The laundry officer is gone, flushed down the drain! This is I, your friendly local pastor, bringing you the blessings of Ahura Mazdah, my son, and have you been reading the Avesta every day before going to sleep…” “Bah!” Bill snarled. He couldn't shoot him now, and he walked over to the third wounded man.
“Hello Bill… “ a weak voice said. “I guess the old reflexes are slowing down… I can't blame you for shooting me, I should have hit the dirt like the others…” “You're damn right you should have,” Bill said looking down at the familiar, loathed, tusked face. “You're dying, Deathwish, you've bought it.” “I know,” Deathwish said, and coughed. His eyes were closed.
“Wrap this line in a circle,” Bill shouted. “I want the medic up here.” The chain of prisoners curved around, and they watched as the medic examined the casualties.
“A bandage on the looie's arm takes care of him,” he said. “Just superficial burns. But the big guy with the fangs has bought it.” “Can you keep him alive?” Bill asked.
“For awhile, no telling how long.” “Keep him alive.” Bill looked around at the circle of prisoners. “Any way to get those neck irons off?” he asked.
“Not without the keys,” a burly infantry sergeant answered, “and the lizards never brought them. We'll have to wear them until we get back. How come you risked your neck saving us?” he asked suspiciously.
“Who wanted to save you?” Bill sneered. “I was hungry and I figured that must be food you were carrying.” “Yeah, it is,” the sergeant said, looking relieved. “I can understand now why you took the chance.” Bill broke open a can of rations and stuffed his face.
The dead man was cut from his position in the line, and the two men, one in front and one in back of the wounded Deathwish, wanted to do the same with him.
Bill reasoned with them, explained the only human thing to do was to carry their buddy, and they agreed with him when he threatened to burn their legs off if they didn't. While the chained men were eating, Bill cut two flexible poles and made a stretcher by slipping three donated uniform jackets over them. He gave the captured rifles to the burly sergeant and the most likely looking combat veterans, keeping one for himself.
“Any chance of getting back?” Bill asked the sergeant, who was carefully wiping the moisture from his gun.
“Maybe. We can backtrack the way we come, easy enough to follow the trail after everyone dragged through. Keep an eye peeled for Venians, get them before they can spread the word about us. When we get in earshot of the fighting we try and find a quiet area-then break through. A fifty-fifty chance.” “Those are better odds for all-of us than they were about an hour ago.” “You're telling me, But they get worse the longer we hang around here.” “Let's get moving.” Following the track was even easier than Bill had thought, and by early afternoon they heard the first signs of firing, a dim rumble in the distance.
The only Venian they had seen had been instantly killed. Bill halted the march.
“Eat as much as you want, then dump the food,” he said.
“Pass that on. We'll be moving fast soon.” He went to see how Deathwish was getting on.
“Badly-” Deathwish gasped, his face white as -paper. “This is it, Bill… I know it… I've terrorized my last recruit… stood on my last pay line.
… had my last shortarm… so long-Bill… you're a good buddy…
taking care of me like this…” “Glad you think so, Deathwish, and maybe you'd like to do me a favor.” He dug in the dying man's pockets until he found his noncom's notebook, then opened it and scrawled on one of the blank pages. “How would you like to sign this, just for old time's sake-Deathwish?” The big jaw lay slack, the evil red eyes open and staring.
“The dirty bowb's gone and died on me,” Bill said disgustedly. After pondering for a moment he dribbled some ink from the pen onto the ball of Deathwish's thumb and pressed it to the paper to make a print.
“Medic!” he shouted, and the line of men curled around so the medic could come back. “How does he look to you?” “Dead as a herring,” the corpsman said after his professional examination.
“Just before he died he left me his tusks in. his will, written right down here, see? These are real vat-grown tusks and cost a lot. Can they be transplanted?” “Sure, as long as you get them cut out and deep froze inside the next twelve hours.” “No problem with that, we'll just carry the body back with us.” He stared hard at the two stretcher bearers and fingered his gun, and they had no complaints.
“Get that lieutenant up here.” “Chaplain,” Bill said, holding out the sheet from the notebook, “I would like an officer's signature on this. Just before he died this trooper here dictated his will, but was too weak to sign it, so he put his thumbprint on it. Now you write below it that you saw him thumbprint it and it is all affirm and legallike, then sign your name.” “But-I couldn't do that, my son. I did not see the deceased print the will and Glmmpf…” He said Glmmpf because Bill had poked the barrel of the atomic pistol into his mouth and was rotating it, his finger quivering on the trigger.
“Shoot,” the infantry sergeant said, and three of the men who could see what was going on were clapping. Bill slowly withdrew the pistol.
“I shall be happy to help,” the chaplain said, grabbing for the pen.
Bill read the document, grunted in satisfaction, then went over and squatted down next to the medic. “You from the hospital?” he asked.
“You can say that again, and if I ever get back into the hospital I ain't never going out of it again. It was just my luck to be out picking up combat casualties when the raid hit.” “I hear that they aren't shipping any wounded out. Just putting them back into shape and sending them back into the line.” “You heard right. This is going to be a hard war to live through.” “But some of them must be wounded too badly to send back into action,” Bill insisted.
“The miracles of modern medicine,” the medic said indistinctly as he worried a cake of dehydrated luncheon meat. “Either you die or you're back in the line in a couple of weeks.” “Maybe a guy gets his arm blown off?” “They got an icebox full of old arms. Sew a new one on and bango, right back into the line.” “What about a foot?” Bill asked, worried.
“That's right-I forgot! They got a foot shortage. So many guys lying around without feet that they're running out of bed space. They were just starting to ship some of them offplanet when I left.” “You got any pain pills?” Bill asked, changing the subject. The medic dug out a white bottle.
“Three of these and you'd laugh while they sawed your head off.” “Give me three.” “If you ever see a guy around what has his foot shot off, you better quick tie something around his leg just over the knee, tight, to cut the blood off.” “Thanks buddy.” “No skin off my nose.” “Let's get moving,” the infantry sergeant said. “The quicker we move the better our chances.” Occasional flares from atomic rifles burned through the foliage overhead, and the thud-thud of heavy weapons shook the mud under their feet. They worked along parallel with the firing until it had died down, then stopped. Bill, the only one not chained in the line, crawled ahead to reconnoiter. The enemy lines seemed to be lightly held and he found a spot that looked the best for a breakthrough. Then, before he returned, he dug the heavy cord from his pocket that he had taken from one of the ration boxes. He tied a tourniquet above his right knee and twisted it tight with a stick, then swallowed the three pills. He stayed behind some heavy shrubs when he called to the others.
“Straight ahead, then sharp right before that clump of frees. Let's go-and FAST!” Bill led the way until the first men could see the lines ahead. Then he called out “What's that?” and ran into the heavy foliage. “Chingers!” he shouted, and sat down with his back to a tree.
He took careful aim with his pistol and blew his right foot off.
“Get moving fast!” he shouted, and heard the crash of the frightened men through the undergrowth. He threw the pistol away, fired at random into the trees a few times, then dragged to his feet. The atomic rifle made a good enough crutch to hobble along on, and he did not have far to go. Two troopers, they must have been new to combat or they would have known better, left the shelter to help him inside.
“Thanks, buddies,” he gasped, and sank to the ground. “War sure is hell.”