"Lost fifty legions in five years — " proclaimed one Mechtan. "They don't tell us the truth any more. I've heard that Longmead and Groth refused assignments — "
"The High Brass is getting rattled," commented a Swordtan. "Did you see old Poalkan giving us the fishy eye? He'd like to bring the Patrol in and mop up. Tell you what we ought to do — planet for some quiet in-fighting at a place I could name. That might help — "
There was a moment of silence. The speaker did not need to name his goal. All mankind's festering resentment against Central Control lay behind that outburst.
Kana could stall no longer. He left the hum of the mess hall. Yorke Horde was a small outfit. Fitch Yorke, its Blademaster, was young. He'd only had a command for about four years. But sometimes under young commanders you had better advancement. Fronn — that was a world unknown to Kana. But the answer to his ignorance was easy to find. He made his way through the corridors to a quiet room with a row of booths lining one wall. At the back of the chamber was a control board with banks of buttons. He pressed the proper combination of those and waited for the record-pak.
The roll of wire was a very thin one. Not much known of Fronn. He ducked into the nearest booth, inserted the wire in the machine there, and put aside his helmet to adjust the impression band on his temples. A second later he drifted off to sleep, the information in the pak being fed to his memory cells.
It was a quarter of an hour later when he roused. So that was Fronn — not a particularly inviting world. And the pak had only sketched in meager details. But he now possessed all the knowledge the archives listed.
Kana sighed ruefully — that climate meant a tour in the pressure chamber during the voyage. The assignment officer had not mentioned that. Pressure chamber and water acclimation both. Serve him right for not asking more questions before he signed. He only hoped that he wasn't going to be sick for the whole trip.
When he went up to return the pak he met a Mechneer standing by the selector — an impatient Mech whistling tunelessly between his teeth, playing with the buckle of his blaster belt. He was only slightly older than Kana but he carried himself with the arrogant assurance of a man who had made at least two missions, an arrogance few real veterans displayed.
Kana glanced back at the booths. He had been the only occupant, so what was the Mech waiting there for? He dropped the pak on the return belt, but, as he reached the door, its polished surface reflected a strange sight. The Mech had scooped up the pak on Fronn before it vanished into the bin.
Fronn was a primitive world, a class five planet. Any Combatant force employed there must be, by Central Control regulations, an Arch Horde, trained and conditioned for so-called hand-to-hand fighting, their most modern weapon a stat-rifle. No mechanized unit would be sent to Fronn where their blasters, crawlers, spouters would be outlawed. So why should a Mech be interested in learning about that world?
Idle curiosity about planets on which one could not serve was not indulged among Combatants. It was about all one could do to absorb the information one could actually use.
Now Kana wished that he had had a closer look at the thin face which had been so shadowed by the bubble helmet. Puzzled and somewhat disturbed he went on to the commissary to lay in the personal supplies his new knowledge of Fronn suggested it wise to buy.
Wistfully he regarded and then refused a sleeping bag of Uzakian spider silk lined with worstle temperature moss. And the gauntlets of karab skin which the supply corpsman tried to sell him were as quickly pushed aside. Such luxuries were for the veteran with enough treasure riding his belt to afford a buying spree. Kana must thriftily settle for a second-hand Cambra bag — a short jacket of sasti hide, fur-lined and with a parka hood and gloves attached, and some odd medicament and toilet articles, in all a very modest outfit which could easily be added to the contents of his war bag. And when he settled the bill he still had left four credits of his muster allowance.
The corpsman deftly rolled his purchases into a bundle. "Looks like you're heading to some cold place, fella," he commented.
"To Fronn."
The man grinned. "Never heard of the place. Back of nowhere — sounds like to me. Look out they don't stick a spear in you from behind some bush. Those nowhere guys play rough. But then you guys do too, don't you?" He stared knowingly at Kana's Arch uniform. "Yessir, kinda rough, slugging it out the way you do. Me, I'd rather have me a blaster and be a Mech — "
"Then you'd face another fighter with a blaster of his own," Kana pointed out as he reached for the bundle.
"Have it your own way, fella." The corpsman lost interest as a be-jeweled veteran approached.
Kana recognized in the newcomer the man who had preceded him to the assignment officer's cubby. Was he, too, bound for Yorke Horde and Fronn? When the spider silk sleeping bag was slapped down on the counter for his inspection, and other supplies similar to Kana's modest selection piled on it, he was reasonably sure that guess was correct.
At sixteen and a half hours the recruit stood beside his bag in the waiting section of Dock Five. So far he was alone save for the corpsmen who had business there and two spacer crewmen lounging at the far end. To have arrived so early was the badge of a greenie, but he was too excited under his impassive exterior to sit and wait elsewhere. It was twenty to seventeen before his future teammates began to straggle in. And ten minutes later they were swung up on the carry platform to the hatch of the troopship. Checking his armlet against the muster roll, the ship's officer waved Kana on. Within five minutes he entered a cabin for two, wondering which of the bunks was his to strap down on.
"Well" — a voice behind him exploded in a boom — "either get in or get out! This is no time to sleep on watch, recruit! Haven't you ever spaced before?"
Kana crowded back against the wall, snatching his bag away from the boots of the newcomer.
"Up there!" With an impatient snort his cabin mate pitched the younger man's bag up on the top bunk.
Kana swung up and investigated. Sure enough, a small knob twisted, and a section of the wall opened to display a recess which would accommodate his belongings. The rich note of a gong interrupted his exploration. At that signal the veteran loosened his belts and his helmet, putting them aside. And Kana hurriedly followed suit. One bong — first warning —
He stretched out on the bunk and fumbled for the straps which must be buckled. Under the weight of his body the foam pad spread a little. He knew that he could take acceleration — that was one of the first tests given a recruit in training. And he had been on field maneuvers on Mars and the Moon — but this was his first venture into deep space. Kana smoothed his tunic across his middle and waited for the third warning to announce the actual blastoff.
It had been a long time since Terrans had first reached toward other worlds. Three hundred years since the first recorded pioneer flight into the Galaxy. And even before that there were legends of other ships fleeing the nuclear wars and the ages of political and social confusion which followed. They must have been either very desperate or very brave, those first explorers — sending their ships out into the unknown while they were wrapped in cold sleep with one chance in perhaps a thousand of waking as their craft approached another planet. With the use of Galactic overdrive such drastic chances were no longer necessary. But had his kind paid too high a price for their swifter passage from star to star?