The culture of these infantry troops was very different from the Navy’s, but slowly he began to perceive their fundamental pride. This war fought with starships had a surprisingly primitive base. There was ground to be held everywhere, on planets full of people and docks and weapons factories, on Rocks thrown into the battle zone. If the ground was lost, the battle was lost. And if you were infantry you held the ground; if you were infantry you were mankind’s fighting force, and everybody else was just support.
Even the horror of their surroundings in the barracks began to wear off.
At first they felt as if they had been thrown into a pit of strange, subhuman animals. They were surrounded by smooth-skinned, lusty kids; it seemed to Pirius that whichever way you looked somebody had his dick out. “It’s like being in a Coalescence,” Cohl whispered, horrified, her eyes wide.
It certainly wasn’t like Arches. There, the instructors — combat veterans, even if they were invalided out — were role models for the cadets, and discipline was comparatively light. Most adults here were keepers, not teachers. It was all very dismaying.
But gradually, in their way, these strange swarming kids seemed to accept the Claw crew. Jabbering in their own strange, rapid dialect, the cadets would show them the way to the refectories and showers and de-lousing blocks. Others showed them simple tips on how to make your life easier: for instance, if you saved some grease from your food and rubbed it into the inside of the joints of your skinsuit, the chafing was eased a lot. Once when Pirius stumbled during one of Marta’s endless route marches, a couple of them came over and helped him up.
In the barracks one night, another offered to share her Virtual with him. It was a drama, a crude soap opera full of strong plotlines and tear-jerking emotions, one of a whole series pumped out endlessly by storytelling machines, all different yet all the same. Pirius watched a little to be polite, then slipped away when his host fell asleep.
And he became accustomed to visitors in the night: a smooth, round face hovering over his, a brush of lips on lips, a small hand probing under his blanket. These approaches came from boys, girls, and various combinations. Gently, with a smile, he pushed them away. He felt his life was complicated enough for now.
There was bound to be intense companionship here. After all, this was the front line of a war zone. You grew up with the people around you, and you knew you might die with them.
Death seemed always near. The very architecture of the Rock reminded you that the Army wasn’t in the business of preserving your life. If an attack were to come, the Rock’s pressurized layers would crush down. The cadets were a shield of human flesh and blood that might protect the Rock’s really valuable cargo, the weapons and ships at the core, a little longer.
People were expendable. Of course, that was true across the Front, in every branch of the service. Pirius had been brought up to believe he wouldn’t even have been given his life in the first place, if not for the strength and steely will of the Coalition, and it was his duty to give up that life whenever he was asked.
But the economic logic of war was brutal. At least as a pilot, the extensive training invested in you made you worth something. Here, among these Army grunts, the training was a good deal cheaper, and the grunts were a lot more disposable as a consequence. It was a chilling, desolating thought, which no amount of Doctrinal justification made easier to bear.
And so these children turned to each other for comfort.
Anyhow, the situation got better, bit by bit. But not for Enduring Hope.
Hope withdrew into himself; he became gray, oddly sickly, and was always exhausted. His broad, soft face, between those protruding ears, rarely showed a smile.
Pirius knew Captain Marta wasn’t trying to destroy Hope; she was attempting to break him down to build him up. But, he feared, she was getting it wrong. Pirius couldn’t see a thing he could do about it.
It came to a head at a roll call.
It was the thirty-fourth day after Pirius’s arrival here. Once again Enduring Hope had been the last to finish his run. The silence of the waiting cadets hid a wave of resentment that would break over Hope once he got back to the barracks.
But today, as he stood in his place in the line, wheezing, his body heaving with the strain of breathing, Pirius saw a spark of defiance.
Holding her data desk, Captain Marta called him. “Tuta.”
“My name,” he said, “is Enduring Hope.”
“Two more laps,” Marta said levelly. “Increased load.”
Still gasping, Hope stumbled out of his place in the line, and prepared to resume his run. Over the open loop Pirius could hear a barely muffled grumble as the cadets prepared to wait in their skinsuits even longer.
Enough, he thought. This is my fault, after all. He stepped forward. “Captain Marta.” Every eye save the Captain’s were on him.
Marta inspected her data desk. “I told you, Cadet. No questions.”
“His name is Enduring Hope.”
Hope heard him and stopped; he turned, astonished, hands on his knees. “Pirius,” he said between gasps. “Shut it.”
Marta said, “If you’re so keen to share his punishment, you can take it for him.” She touched her chest. The weight on Pirius’s shoulders increased suddenly, like a heavy load being dropped onto his back. “Three laps,” she said.
He walked stiffly out of line, and began to plod toward the crater path.
Hope said, “No, sir. I won’t have him take my punishment for me.”
“Four laps, Pirius.”
“Captain—”
“Five laps, increased load.”
Again the burden on Pirius’s back increased. He heard nothing more from Hope, who returned to his place in line.
Pirius traced the now familiar route, around and around this ancient splash in the Rock. His footprints shone pale in regolith that weathered quickly in this ferocious radiation environment, so close to the heart of the Galaxy.
He was already tired from his own training, and the increased load was the heaviest he had yet had to bear. Even after one lap, his heart was thumping, his lungs pulling, a blistering headache locked across his temples, and his stressed knees were tender. But he kept on, and counted off the laps, two, three, four.
As he neared the end of his fifth lap, Marta came to stand at the end of the course, her artificial half- torso gleaming by Galaxy light. He didn’t acknowledge her. He ran right past her, ran past the finish line. She let him run on, but she increased the load again. And when he repeated the stunt after the next lap, she increased it again.
By the end of the tenth lap he could barely see where he was going. And yet still he raised one foot after another, still he pounded over the churned-up dirt.
This time, as he passed Marta, she touched a control on her chest.
His suit locked to immobility. Suddenly he was a statue, poised in midstep, unbalanced. He fell, feather-slow. He hit the ground and finished up with half his face buried in carbonaceous dirt. His lungs heaved, but he could barely move inside the suit.
Marta crouched down so he could see her face with his one exposed eye. Over the voice loop he thought he could hear the whir of exoskeletal multipliers. She said, “It’s not my job to kill you, Cadet.”
“Sir.”
She leaned closer. “I know your type. I could see it in your face the minute you landed. That’s why I’ve picked on your fat friend, of course. To flush you out.”
“Sir.
She hissed, “Do you imagine you’re a hero, Pirius? Do you think you’re special?” She waved a hand. “Look at the sky. At any moment there are a billion human beings on the front line of this war. And do you imagine that out of all that great host you will be noticed?”