“Meaning?”
“That I am under-qualified to consider such things.”
The Praetor tapped his muscled thigh. “Then… I should throw out your paper?”
“Might that not be hasty, Praetor? Why not let the shock troopers prove themselves. Actions after all speak louder than boasts.”
The Praetor twisted his lips. “So if your shock troopers proved treasonous…”
“Do you have any evidence of treason?”
“Not yet.”
Lycon considered the holo-clouds. He couldn’t understand the Praetor’s dislike of the shock troops. Yet clearly, it was there, as well as threats.
“I have a counter-proposal for you, Training Master.”
“You merely need order me,” said Lycon.
“I do not want automatons. I want believers.”
“Believers in what way?” asked Lycon.
“Your Janissary idea has certain promise. Take and convert is right. But ideas—we cannot trust premen to hold to mere ideas. Look how easily we’ve shifted these socialists and turned them into capitalists.”
“The upper crust has shifted,” Lycon said.
“They are the only ones that matter. In any case, take and convert, change, in other words.”
“My shock troopers—”
The Praetor waved that aside. “Sometimes they will fight as trained, for even the FEC soldiers fought. But what if I produced men who will always fight and do exactly what I train them to do?”
“Why not use both our ideas?” asked Lycon.
The Praetor’s nostrils twitched. He grinned. “Let me show you why not.” He moved sideways toward the nearest boulder.
And now Lycon noticed a new odor. It was subtle and musty.
The Praetor hissed. Lycon hurried beside him. “Look,” whispered the Praetor, as he knelt beside the boulder. Lycon saw the footprint, man-sized, preman. He frowned at the Praetor, who rose and scanned the small valley. “Ah. There.” Lycon followed the Praetor’s gesture. He caught a glimpse of deep blue. The color stood out in this stark landscape.
“They’re hiding,” whispered Lycon.
“No. They’re flanking us.”
Lycon stared at the Praetor, who kept watching the dunes. “How many of them are there?” asked Lycon.
“Six.”
Lycon frowned. “Why all this caution, Praetor? Do the premen have weapons?”
“Indeed.”
Lycon dropped to a crouch and scanned all around. “Lasers or carbines?” he snapped.
“Knives.”
“Knives?” asked Lycon, wondering why he’d been worried.
“Meter-long knives”
“Six premen with knives?” Lycon asked, as he rose from his crouch.
“Too few do you think?”
“Praetor…” Lycon frowned more deeply than before.
“No, I am not so soft that six premen frighten me. But these aren’t premen.”
“What are they then?”
“You tell me,” the Praetor said. “Here they come.”
Lycon saw five blue-colored men march down the dune toward them. Despite the strange color, they were normal-sized. Their eyes bulged, although not in fear but intense hatred. Their taut muscles quivered. They wore loincloths and wielded glittering meter-long knives. A strong odor exuded from them.
“Are they combat-trained?” Lycon asked.
“No.”
“Why do you consider them so fearsome?”
“Tell me, Training Master. Do they look afraid?”
Lycon observed no fear. Strange, unless…
“Do they cower as most premen would against two such as us?” asked the Praetor, the way a father might ask another about his son.
“Are they familiar with Highborn?” asked Lycon.
A harsh laugh and a nod told him the answer.
“You said there were six of them,” said Lycon. “I count five.”
A startling cry, from behind, surprised him. Lycon spun around. A blue man sliding toward them sprang at him. The man moved fast. His knife flashed. Lycon twisted minutely. His gauntlet smashed the leering face. Lycon picked up the knife. He turned and raced to help the Praetor, who set himself against five sprinting, snarling, bestial premen.
Only a Highborn could have followed the swift moves. These premen had uncanny reflexes. They circled the Praetor, and together lunged at him. A knife slashed skin. Blood spurted. The Praetor roared, kicked and punched. Two blue men flew backward. Knives stabbed again. One blade now stuck from the Praetor’s thigh like a growth. Then Lycon jumped among them, a whirlwind of thrusts and blocks. Seven seconds more and it was over. Six blue corpses lay bleeding and broken on the sand.
Lycon turned toward the Praetor, who jerked the knife from his thigh. He ripped a strip of buckskin from his garment and tied it around his wounded leg.
“Is it bad?” asked Lycon.
“Lucky for us I didn’t give them poison.”
It was only then that Lycon realized he had a cut under his ribs. It was shallow, but it was there. That was amazing.
“You said they weren’t combat trained,” Lycon said.
“They weren’t,” said the Praetor.
“Why were they so fast and clever?”
“Faster than any normal man, yes?”
“Unless a soldier took a dose of Tempo,” Lycon said. But even then he wouldn’t be so fast.”
The Praetor limped to the nearest blue corpse. “Let me show you this.”
Lycon went to the other side.
The Praetor ripped away the loincloth.
Lycon saw it immediately. The man’s genitals had been removed.
“Gelded,” the Praetor said.
Lycon stared up sharply. “Surely the removal of his sex organs didn’t grant him such speed.”
“Each was given a new internal organ. Said organ seeps Tempo and other drugs directly into their bloodstream.”
“What?” said Lycon. Direct tampering?
“Naturally, they must eat certain foods for the new organ to manufacture these drugs. But the toxins in their skin cause them to crave these foods.”
“Toxins?”
“They are tattooed into the skin.”
Lycon studied the altered men. Part of him considered this monstrous. Another part—“They’re Neutraloids,” he said. “You’ve neutered them, but made them…” Lycon shook his head in wonder.
“What did you call them?”
“Neutraloids.”
The Praetor clapped his hands. “I accept the name. They are Neutraloids. And these are what we must have in space with us.”
“Instead of the shock troopers?”
“Can you think of any reason why not?”
Lycon pondered the six corpses. Gelded. Implanted with a new organ. Tattooed over their entire body, and that a deep blue color. “Yes, Praetor, I can think of several reasons.”
“Please enumerate them.”
“Perhaps once I have pondered—”
The Praetor limped beside Lycon. “I picked you, Training Master, because you’re unbiased. You hope to ride your shock troopers. I’ve read your paper and understood that immediately. Yet here I’ve shown you a new and better way to rise.”
“Certainly they fought savagely,” said Lycon.
“Which is exactly what we need.”
“But why are they castrated?”
“Why is that bad?” asked the Praetor.
“It will ruin the morale of other premen.”
“Ah. I see your point. Already you’ve been helpful. Good, good. Now, I propose that only space soldiers be converted. Leave the FEC Armies alone for now. But in space, our very special preserve, here we inject only the Neutraloids and none of the other lesser species. Of course we keep the making of Neutraloids secret from the FEC masses.”
“It won’t stay secret for long,” Lycon said.
“The trick will be in doing it for long enough.”
“Not that I agree with you,” Lycon said, “but I understand your reasoning. My second objection is the new gland.”
“Meaningless. Only the space soldiers will be so converted. The others will not have to fear it.”
“It isn’t the reaction of the premen I was thinking about. Rather, the cost, time and effort to plant these organs into these… these Neutraloids.”