"So do I," Pahner said, chewing his bisti root in deep thought. "As it is, winning this war-putting this force together, for that matter-is going to require everyone in the Company to pitch in. And the additional delay makes me really glad we happened across the apsimon. Anything new from Dobrescu on other substitutes?"
"Not yet," Kosutic told him, and the captain grunted. The fortuitous discovery of the apsimon had caused Pahner to reconsider their earlier acceptance of the survey report's insistence that nothing in the local ecosystem could supply their trace nutritional needs. He was still mentally kicking himself for having overlooked the possibility that such a cursory survey, of which they had only fragments, could have been inconclusive, and Warrant Officer Dobrescu had found himself with a new, extra assignment: running every new potential food source through his analyzers with fanatic attention to detail.
"Tell him to keep on it," the Marine CO said now. "He will, of course, but we're going to be too busy training Diasprans to look over his shoulder while he does it."
"And I think I'll just leave that training in your capable hands," Roger told him with a smile. "It's a job for an experienced captain, not a novice colonel."
"More like a job for Sergeant Whatsisname," the Marine responded with a laugh, and Roger smiled with sudden, wicked amusement. As far as the prince could tell, he'd managed to keep his mentor from figuring out that he'd been looking up some of the ancient poetry Pahner so commonly quoted.
"Indeed, 'not a prince, nor an earl nor yet a viscount,' " he said with a butter-won't-melt-in-my-mouth expression, and Pahner looked at the prince sideways and cocked his head.
" 'Just a man in khaki kit ...' " the captain said, ending on a slightly questioning note.
" 'Who could handle men a bit,' " Roger responded with a chuckle. " 'With his kit bag labelled "Sergeant Whatsisname." ' " His smile grew still broader, then faded a little around the edges. "It doesn't seem to change much, does it, Captain?" he said quietly.
"No, it doesn't, Sir," the Marine agreed, with a faint smile of his own. "It never does seem to change. And whether you intend to sit it out or not, I think we'll all have to become Sergeant Whatsisname."
CHAPTER TEN
Krindi Fain wasn't certain exactly why he was standing at the front of a milling group of Diasprans in the dawn rain while three of the odd-looking humans discussed something at the far edge of the courtyard. He was sure that it had something to do with that nice human in the tavern, and he could vaguely remember shouting about teaching the Boman to respect Diasprans and the God. Or something like that. There'd been a lot of shouting. And a lot of beer.
But now, just thinking about the shouting hurt his head. He felt as if someone had wrapped thorns around his horn sockets, and from the yelling in the distance, he was afraid there was more coming his way.
There hadn't been any shouting when they were first dragged out into the large square by the chuckling temple guardsmen. They'd been counted off into groups and then given a speech by one of the high priests. The priest had explained that they'd all volunteered for the new forces that were going to be fighting the Boman. That they were the bedrock of the army of the God, and that they would wash over the Boman like a wave. That the barbarians would be as sand before the dreadful tide of their righteous wrath.
Then he'd rattled off the rules under which they would now live. Fortunately for all of the new recruits, keeping track of the punishment for any given offense would be child's play itself ... since all of the rules ended in "guilty party shall be put to death."
The three humans finished their conference, and turned his way. Suddenly, they didn't look nearly as friendly as they had the night before.
"God save me for a drunkard and a fool," Julian said, looking at the crowd of Mardukans.
"You qualify on both counts, Adib." Roger clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll be fine. You've got your notes?"
"Macek does," the squad leader said. "I'm going to give them a few choice words, then turn them over to Gronningen and Mutabi to wear them out."
"That'll work," the prince said, and turned to the crowd of young Mardukans. "Listen up! You men-and I use that term lightly-don't know why you're here or what's coming. Some of you think you do, but you're wrong. If you listen to Sergeant Julian here, and the veterans with him, you might just survive the battle with the Boman! If you don't, I guarantee that you'll end up in an unmarked grave, unpitied victims of a contemptible struggle! So pay attention! Follow orders! And may the God defend the right!"
He glowered at them for a moment longer, then clapped Julian on the shoulder, nodded briskly in the general direction of the thoroughly wretched and confused recruits, and strode off.
Julian considered the group like a farmer picking out just the right chicken for supper. Then he pointed to four of the largest or, in one case, most intelligent looking, of them.
"You, you, you, and you." He pointed to marks on the square's cobblestones. Next to each mark was a thirty-meter line. "Here, here, here, and here," he said, and propped his hands on his hips, tapping his toe impatiently until he had the four bewildered nascent squad leaders in place. Then he turned to the rest.
"What the hell are you waiting for? Breakfast?! On the lines, now, now, NOW!"
Between them, he and Moseyev's Alpha Team got the milling crowd lined up. It happened neither easily, quickly, nor neatly, and Julian favored the more or less formation with a ferocious glare.
"When I say, 'Fall In,' you will fall in, just like this, on the line, with these four on the marks!" He strode up to the first squad leader and looked him up and down. "Is that any sort of position of attention?!" he screamed.
"I, uh ..." Krindi Fain said.
"When you answer a question, there are three possible answers! They are: 'Yes, Sir!' 'No, Sir!' and 'Clear, Sir!' Is that clear?"
"Uh, yes," the miserable and hungover Diaspran said. If this little basik didn't quit shouting at him, he was definitely going to have to do something about it. What, he wasn't sure, since one of those rules had covered the penalties for hitting their superiors. He didn't really feel inferior to this basik, but, on the other hand, he didn't want to feel the God's embrace that much.
"Yes, WHAT?" the human screamed at him.
"Sir," Gronningen mouthed silently behind Julian's back.
"Yes, SIR!" Fain shouted as loudly as physically possible, and the Marine noncom glared at him for a moment, then spun in place.
"Gronningen! Ten Hut!"
The plasma gunner snapped to attention, and Julian stalked over to him, then turned to face his new recruits again.
"This is the position of attention. Chest out! Stomach in! Heels together! Hands half-cupped and thumbs along ..."
His mouth clicked shut, and he glared at the Mardukans for a moment in despair as his familiar, well-practiced lecture hit a pothole. Normally, it would have been "thumbs along the seam of the trousers." But that assumed that the sentient in question had only two arms, both of which reached to his thighs ... and that the aforesaid sentient wore trousers.
"Macek?!"
" ... thumbs of the false-hands aligned with the middle of the outer thigh and true-hands aligned above false-hands," Macek supplied instantly, and Julian grunted in approval and strode back over to the poor squad leader-to-be.
"Got that, four-arms?" He poked the Mardukan in the stomach with his sheathed short sword. The Mardukans had a solar plexus much similar to that of a human, although larger and, if anything, more vulnerable, and the Diaspran partially doubled over, so Julian tapped him on the chin with the hilt of the sword. "Stomach in! Chin back! Chest out! False-hands half-cupped! Thumbs aligned along the thigh! Do it!"