CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BASICALLY, STEN DECIDED, he didn't give a Mig's ass. He touched the anodizer to the last bit of exposed metal on his weapons belt, then tucked it back in his cabinet.

Then looked up.

Tomika stood there, kitbag in hand.

He decided, for about the gigatime, she was the nicest-looking thing about training. And he'd tried. Indeed he'd tried.

"Who's paired with you, Sten?"

"My left hand," he said.

She tossed her ditty on his bunk and started patting the pillow into shape. Sten's mouth dropped.

"Uh, Tomika? I asked before and—"

"I don't bag with NCOs. I got standards."

Sten suddenly decided it not only wasn't important, but it was funny, Broke his laugh off as he looked at Gregor.

"You see what I meant," Gregor said. "And you were wrong."

"I'm always wrong, Gregor. Howcum this time?"

"They are arbitrary. They wouldn't give me the rank I deserve.

And they broke you. You see?"

"Nope. Far as I can see, I stepped on it."

"It's right there. In front of you." Sten decided that Gregor was getting a little shrill.

"DNC, troop. Does not compute."

"My father taught me that any business that doesn't respond to new stimuli is doomed. That's the Guard. All they want is cannon fodder. Anybody who doesn't fit their idea of a moron hero, they'll put to scutwork. And if they make a mistake, like they did with you, they'll bust him down as soon as they see it."

"You really believe that, Gregor," Tomika said.

"Dash-A right I do," Gregor said. "I've written another letter to my father, Sten. He'll see things are rectified."

Sten sat up. "You, uh, mention me?"

"No, I did not. Just like you would have wanted. But you will regret it. You'll see."

And Gregor laughed, turned, and walked back toward his bunk.

"Hey, Ex Recruit Trainee Small Time Corporal Sten? Is he two zeds short of a full count?"

Sten didn't answer her, just listened to Gregor's laughter as he clambered into his bunk.

"And what happens when I do this?"

Tomika giggled. Sten suddenly sat up in his bunk and put a hand over her mouth. Movement. A buried snicker. Tomika reached up and grabbed him, pulling Sten down to the pillow.

"No, Sten," she breathed. "Wait."

Sten did—for a long count of heartbeats.

And then the shouting started.

Somebody hit the lights, and Sten bolted out of the bunk. The shouting came from Gregor's area.

Sten rolled out of his bunk, reflexively sliding up into an attack stance. And then he slumped down again, laughing helplessly.

Gregor screamed louder and started flailing.

Sten and the other recruits gathered around Gregor's area.

The man did have problems.

"It's the Giant Spider of Odal," somebody said in a mock hushed voice. "You're in trouble, Gregor."

Gregor was indeed in trouble. Somebody must've snuck a spray can of climbing thread out of the training area the day before. And while Gregor slept, he, she, or they had spun the thread from bunk to cabinet to boots to bunk to combat shoes to cabinet to end up connected to Gregor's nose.

The high-test, incredibly sticky goo made a very effective spider web, Sten decided. Whoever had spun the web had unclipped the hardener from the nozzle tip, so the more Gregor flailed, the more he became enmeshed in the strands.

Gregor by now had trussed himself neatly in the strands and was moaning.

Sten looked at Tomika. "Who's got the real case at Gregor?"

She motioned blankly. "Just about everybody." The woman giggled. "Guess he'll make a fine officer."

"Bet three-one it won't straighten him out," Sten said. "Not just that, but prog—"

"Are we enjoying ourselves, children?" The recruits turned to instant statuary.

Sten could never figure how Carruthers managed a 116-dB(A) whisper. "Is there any particular reason we aren't all at attention?"

"Ten-hup!" somebody managed. Carruthers waddled forward through the cluster. Looked at Gregor and clucked thoughtfully.

"The Giant Spider of Odal. Knew we had lice and a few rats, but thought we fumigated those spiders last cycle."

Carruthers turned.

"Morghhan! Why don't you stroll down to supply and draw a tank of solvent. If you wouldn't mind."

The squadbay door slammed on Morghhan before Carruthers finished her sentence.

"Giant spiders, hmm. Serious business." Whisper into shout.

"Recruit Sten, what's the uniform of the day for spider hunts?"

"Uh…I dunno, corporal."

"DROP, DROP, DROP. YOU ARE AN EXNONCOM AND YOU

ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT! TRAINEE TOMIKA, YOU

SHOULD HAVE TOLD HIM—DROP, DROP, DROP!"

Carruthers walked back to the door.

"You will fall out in five minutes in full spider-hunt dress, and prepare to spend the remainder of the night looking for what I estimate is five giant spiders."

She slammed out. The recruits looked around. Bewildered.

The door creaked open again.

"Anyone who is not in the proper uniform draws two days'

kitchen detail. That is all, children. Time's a-wast-ing."

When Bjhalstred ran over Corporal Halstead with a combat car, Sten knew he had been right all along. There was nothing stupid about the farmboy. Now, no one ever accused Bjhalstred of crunching Halstead on purpose. It was an accident. Sure, Sten thought to himself, sure.

"This," Halstead proclaimed, "is another Empire tool for wormbrains. One gauge shows you battery charge. Turn this switch, and the car starts. You adjust the lift level stick to the desired altitude. One to one-grand meters. Doppler radar keeps you automatically that far off the ground.

"Shove the control stick forward, you lift up. Farther forward, the faster. Max speed, two hundred kph. Move the stick to the side, the combat car turns. Do we have a volunteer?"

Halstead looked around the trainees until he saw someone trying to be invisible.

"Bjhalstred," he crooned. "Come on up here, my boy."

Bjhalstred locked his heels in front of the corporal. "Never driven a car, hmm?"

"NO, CORPORAL!"

"Why not, trainee?"

"We don't believe in them on Outremer, corporal. We're Amish."

"I see." Halstead considered for a minute, then evidently decided not to say anything. "In the car."

Bjhalstred clambered in.

"You don't have any religious objections to driving, do you?"

Halstead asked.

"NO, CORPORAL."

"Fine. Start it, set it for two meters height, and drive out across the parade ground. Turn it around and come back."

Bjhalstred fumbled with the controls, and the car silently lifted clear of the ground and hung there.

"Well?"

Bjhalstred looked puzzledly at the controls, then firmly took the control stick in his hand and yanked it to the right.

Halstead had just time to scream " NOO" as the combat car pivoted on its own axis, the bumper catching Halstead in the head and sending him spinning off the stand to the ground, and the car smoothly soared forward. Its radar had enough range to pick up the trainee-filled (but rapidly emptying) bleachers, and lifted the vehicle neatly up and over the bleachers, after which it turned neat fifteen-meter circles. Bjhalstred sat petrified at the controls.

Eventually Lanzotta and Carruthers got a second car and maneuvered alongside the aimlessly circling first vehicle.

Lanzotta jumped lightly into the troop compartment, reached over Bjhalstred's shoulder, and turned the power off. The car settled down to the ground. Lanzotta levered Bjhalstred out.

"At the moment," Lanzotta said, "I do not love you, trainee.

You have knocked one of my cadremen unconscious, and this is a Bad Thing.

"I am sure you will want to make Corporal Halstead happy when he finally comes to, won't you?"

Bjhalstred nodded.

"Otherwise he is liable to kill you, trainee. And then I'll have to write up a report on why he did that. So I'm sure you want to volunteer to do the poor corporal a personal favor, don't you?"

Bjhalstred nodded again.

"You see that mountain," Lanzotta said, pointing at the

kilometers-distant ridge. "There is a creek on that mountain, trainee. Corporal Halstead is particularly fond of the water from that creek. So why don't you get a bucket and run up there and get him a bucket of water?"

"Huh?" Bjhalstred managed.

"That is, ‘Huh, Sergeant,'" Lanzotta said. "And I think you heard me."

Bjhalstred nodded, got slowly up from the seat, and started for the barracks.

Lanzotta watched him run into the building, dash out carrying a bucket, and disappear in the distance. Sten, watching from the company formation meters away, thought he saw Lanzotta's shoulders shake slightly. No, Bjhalstred wasn't that dumb.