“How do you know I’m resting?” asked Guy. They stood behind an enclosure, where, thank God, they could not be seen. No one could see this tower leaning against the fence and tugging his corporal by the buttons. “Look, Mac, I rest only at home, but even there I would never permit a subordinate to... now let goof my buttons and button up your own.”
Maxim fastened his buttons.
“Guy, I don’t understand you. On duty you behave one way at home another. Why?”
“Let’s not go into that again. I’m sick of telling you the same thing over and over. And that grin of yours—when are you going to stop smiling in formation?”
“There’s nothing in the regulations that says you can’t smile,” replied Mac slowly. “As far as repeating the same thing over and over to me, Guy, there’s something I want to tell you. Now, don’t be offended at what I’m going to say. I know you’re not a—speecher—a reciter...”
“A what?”
“You’re not a person who can speak beautifully.”
“Orator?”
“Orator. Yes, that’s the word. You’re not an orator. But that doesn’t matter. Today you made a speech to us. You spoke the right words, good words. But at home when you spoke about the Legion and the job it had to do and about conditions in your country, it was very interesting. It came from you, it was really you speaking. But here you repeat the same thing over and over and it’s not really you speaking. Everything you say here is true, but it’s always the same. And very boring. You’re not offended, are you?”
No, of course Guy wasn’t offended, but a fine icy needle had just pricked his ego: until now he had thought he had always presented things to his men as smoothly and convincingly as Corporal Serembesh. And the captain, too, had been repeating the very same speech for three years. There was nothing surprising or disgraceful about it. After all, nothing had really changed in the country’s domestic or foreign policy in the past three years.
“And where does it say, Mac, that a subordinate should reprove his superior?”
“The regulations say just the opposite,” admitted Maxim. “I think that’s wrong. Look, you take my advice when you’re trying to solve ballistics problems, and you accept my suggestions when you make a mistake in your calculations.”
“But that’s at home! Anything goes at home.”
“Well, suppose you give us the wrong sighting during gunnery practice? Suppose you miscalculate the wind factor? What then?”
“Under no circumstances do you question a superior’s orders.”
“Even in such a case?”
“You fire as ordered,” said Guy sternly. “Mac, you’ve said enough in the past ten minutes to put you in the stockade for two months. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t. But, suppose, in combat...?”
“Suppose what in combat?”
“You give a wrong sighting? What then?”
Guy had never commanded a platoon in combat. He suddenly recalled how Corporal Bakhtu had read the map incorrectly during a reconnaissance in force. The entire platoon was driven within firing range of an adjoining company. He himself had remained behind and sent half the platoon to their death. They knew damn well that he was wrong but no one dreamed of correcting him.
“Good Lord,” thought Guy suddenly, “it never would have occurred to us to correct him. Maxim doesn’t understand anything. Everything’s simple, but he won’t admit it. How many times have we gone through this! He takes the most self-evident facts and turns them upside down, and it’s impossible to convince him that he’s wrong. Instead, just the opposite happens: you begin to doubt yourself. Your head starts spinning and before you know it you’re completely confused. Yet he’s certainly not that stupid. He learned to speak our language in one month and mastered reading and writing in two days. Then read everything I own in two more days. Knows mathematics and mechanics better than our experts. Or take, for example, his discussions with Uncle Kaan.
“Lately, all the old man’s discussions at dinner have been directed at Maxim. And he keeps insisting to us that Maxim is the only man alive today with such an unusual knowledge of fossil animals and such an interest in them. He sketched some weird looking animals for Maxim, and Maxim sketched some that were even weirder. And they argued about which was the more ancient, which descended from which, and why. Unc even brought in scientific books from his library, and still Maxim barely conceded a point to him. One minute, Unc was shouting himself hoarse—the next, he was tearing the sketches to bits and stamping on them. He called Maxim an ignoramus, a bigger fool than Shapshu. Then he began to run his hands through the sparse gray hair at the back of his head and mumble with a nervous smile: ‘Bold, massaraksh, bold. Young man, you certainly have an imagination!’
“He knows mathematics and mechanics; knows military chemistry very well; and paleontology? Who in this day and age knows paleontology? Draws like an artist, sings like a professional. And he’s so generous, almost unnaturally generous. Drove off a gang of bandits, killed most of them, single-handed, with his bare hands. Anyone else caught in such a trap would have taken off like a rocket. He didn’t give a damn about them, yet was upset, couldn’t sleep, became annoyed when he was praised and thanked, and even blew up once. He turned white and shouted that it was wrong to praise someone for murder. And what a job it was to persuade him to join the Legion! He understood everything, agreed to everything, wanted to join, but, he said, he’d be required to shoot. At people. So I told him: not at people, at degens, at rabble, worse than thieves. We agreed, thank God, that at the beginning, until he got used to the idea, he would simply disarm his opponents. Amusing, yet somehow frightening. No wonder he’s always blabbing about coming from another world. I know that world. Unc has a book about it: The Misty Land of Zartak. It says that Zartak is inhabited by a happy people and lies in the Alebastro Mountains. According to the book, they’re all like Maxim. But if one of them leaves the valley, he immediately forgets where he came from and everything about his past life. He remembers only that he came from another world. Unc says that no such valley exists, that it’s pure poppycock, that there is the Zartak range, but the range was so thoroughly blasted by superbombs during the war that the mountain people suffer from permanent loss of memory.”
“Why so silent, Guy? Are you thinking about me?”
Guy looked away.
“Look here, Mac. I must ask you to do one thing for me. For the sake of discipline never show that you know more than I do. Watch how the others behave, and behave exactly as they do.”
“I’ve been trying to,” said Maxim sadly. He paused and added: “It’s difficult to get used to the idea. We don’t do things that way.”
“By the way, how’s your wound?” Guy tried to change the subject.
“It’s healing quickly,” replied Maxim absentmindedly. “Listen, Guy, let’s go straight home after this operation. I miss Rada a lot. Don’t you? We’ll drop the others off at the barracks and then head for home in the truck.”
Guy inhaled deeply. At that instant the loudspeaker’s silver box, hanging almost above their heads, roared out the duty officer’s command: “Sixth Company, fall out on the drill field! Attention, Sixth Company.”
“Candidate Sim! No more talk!” Guy barked. “Get into formation!” Maxim started to rush off, but Guy caught him with the barrel of his gun. “Please, Mac, remember,” he said. “Like the I others! No different! The captain himself is going to observe you today.”
Within three minutes the company was in formation. It had grown dark, and searchlights played over the drill field.
Truck engines rumbled softly at the formation’s rear. The brigadier, accompanied by Captain Chachu, reviewed the company in silence, inspecting every legionnaire, a procedure followed before the start of every operation. He was calm; his eyes were narrowed, and his lips were turned up at the corners in a rather kindly way. Then, without a word, he nodded to the captain and left. Waddling and waving his crippled hand, the captain planted himself before the formation and turned his swarthy face toward the legionnaires.