The way wasn’t hard to follow. All around the eroded rim of the crater, there was a path where the asteroid ground had been beaten flat by the passage of uncounted feet. But to run under the false weight of their belts was brutal, and their skinsuits, designed for the comparatively light use of greenship crews, were not intended for this kind of hard labor. Soon Pirius’s feet started to blister, and the suit chafed at his groin and armpits.
Enduring Hope managed two circuits before his legs gave way. Pirius and Cohl had to support him the rest of the course.
When their punishment run was done, Pirius, Cohl, and Hope, exhausted, their skinsuits covered in charcoal-gray asteroid grime, were shoved through a hatchway in the ground.
They found themselves in a shabby underground receiving area. Here orderlies briskly stripped them of their skinsuits, and the rest of their clothing. Uncomfortable as their skinsuits had become, they were unhappy to see these last contacts with their past disappear into the black economy of this nameless Army Rock.
Shivering, naked, they were put through a brisk barrage of showers and radiation baths. Every hair on their heads, faces, and bodies was burned off, and the top layer of skin turned into a powder that they could brush away with their fingers. Clumsy, aged bots probed at them, working at their teeth and ears and eyes. Fluid was pumped into their mouths and recta, only to spill out from both ends, humiliatingly, bringing the contents of their guts with it. After that they were subjected to a battery of injections that went on until their arms and thighs ached.
Pirius understood the need for such precautions. The human bases studded around the Front were closed communities, isolated by light-years, and tended to develop their own strains of bugs and mites. Pirius and the others could easily pick up a disabling plague from Arches, to which they might have no immunity. But despite all these injections, he suspected that a lot more care was being taken to ensure that Quin Base wasn’t infected by them.
When the cleansing was done, the three of them were led out of the receiving area. Then they were pushed out through a bulkhead hatch into a much larger chamber beyond. It was a barracks, a noisy high-roofed chamber crowded with people — and they were still naked, to Pirius’s sudden horror; the medics hadn’t given them so much as a blanket between them.
A grinning cadet, female, very young-looking, met them at the bulkhead. She wore a bright orange coverall, and she greedily eyed Cohl’s breasts, which the navigator vainly tried to cover with her hands. “Come on. I’ll show you your pit.” And she turned and led them into the big chamber.
Pirius tried not to be self-conscious, to give a lead to his crew. But of course it was impossible; he walked hunched over, his hands clamped over his genitals.
This underground habitat was basically a barracks, like the Barracks Ball at Arches. But it was much less orderly, crammed with tottering heaps of bunks that climbed from floor to rough-hewn ceiling. The air was hot and muggy, and stank of stale food and sewage.
And everywhere there were people. They crowded the alleys, they clambered on the bunks, they stared as the flyers passed. Some of them wore official-looking coveralls, like the girl who had met them, but others were bare to the waist, or wore shorts and shirts improvised from worn-out coveralls or blankets. And some of them just ran naked, as unashamed as the flyers were mortified. They ran and shouted, they wrestled on the floor, and couples and threesomes enjoyed noisy sex in the bunks, skin against glistening skin. And they all looked young, even compared to the population of Arches Base.
It was a swarming mass of youth and energy, an animal mass; Pirius had never seen anything like it. It was more like a nursery than a barracks. But some of these children were already veterans of combat. You could tell, he was starting to learn, by the gleam of metal in their eyes.
They reached a little block of bunks. One of the bunks was occupied by a man who lay on his back, hands locked behind his head. He said, “Welcome. Pick a bunk! It doesn’t really matter which…” He was old — at least twenty-five, old compared to the population of this chamber anyhow. He even had a little gray at his temples.
On three of the bunks sat small stacks of clothing: coveralls, underwear, a skinsuit each. The clothing was clearly ancient, much patched, and lacked any sentience whatsoever, just a one-size-fits- all design with crude expansion joints at elbows, knees, waist, and neck. You even had to do up the fastenings yourself. But the coveralls were at least clothes, and the flyers grabbed at them.
The swarming cadets crowded around, grinning, curious, malicious, heads shaven, their faces slick with sweat. Pirius towered over them. Some of them were so young he couldn’t tell if they were male or female. As small hands plucked at his coverall, he forced a grin. “Sorry to disappoint you. The surface crew took everything we had — hey!” Somebody had grabbed his balls. He backed up quickly and closed his coveralls.
Although the others were just as mortified, neither of them had raised a hand at the swarming cadets, which really would have been disastrous. He felt obscurely proud of them.
The older man on the bunk swung down his legs, stood up and clapped his hands. “Come on, give them a break.”
“Fresh meat,” one cadet giggled. She, or maybe he, had sharpened teeth.
The man stepped forward, arms extended. “Yeah, but they’ll be almost as fresh tomorrow. Come on, come on…” He herded the recruits away, like guiding unruly children, and they reluctantly acquiesced. But a circle of them stayed, staring at the newcomers and whispering.
“You’ll get used to it,” the older man said.
“I doubt it,” said Enduring Hope, as he struggled into a coverall that refused to fit.
Cohl was investigating her blankets. “These aren’t clean. Lethe, they’re warm.”
“You’ll get used to that, too. There’s a rather high turnover here.”
Cohl said, “What happened to her?”
“Who? Oh, the last person to sleep in those blankets?… You don’t want to know.” He wore a green- gray coverall, open to the waist; his body was taut, fit. He was handsome, Pirius supposed, with a lean, well-drawn face, a small nose, thick hair he wore swept back from his brow, and a quick smile. Pirius’s immediate impression was of weakness, oddly, despite his appearance. But his manner was relaxed as he welcomed the crew. And, like the other veterans here, his eyes shone silver.
Pirius walked up to him, hand extended. He introduced himself and his crew.
“I used to be a flyer too,” he said, “before I found my calling shovelling shit on this Rock. My name is Quero.”
Hope was staring at him. “No, it isn’t.” He lumbered clumsily up to Quero, and, hesitantly, touched his sleeve. “I know your true name. Everybody does.”
Cohl growled, “I don’t.”
Quero said, “I call myself This Burden Must Pass.”
Cohl said, “Oh, terrific. Another Friend.”
Burden laughed. “Why do you think I got busted down here? And why I keep on being busted back?”
“You’re a heretic. You deserve it.” Cohl threw herself back on her bunk bed. She covered her face against the glare of the drifting light globes, turned on her side, and curled up.
“If you say so,” Burden said gently.
Hope was captivated. “Pirius, you don’t know who this is, do you? This Burden Must Pass is the leader of the Friends.”
Burden admonished him gently. “Now, you know we don’t have leaders. But I’m flattered you know me.” He placed a hand on Hope’s shoulder, and gazed into his eyes. “You’ve had a tough time. I can’t promise you it’s going to get any easier. It never does. But just remember, none of it matters. And at timelike infinity—”