Sten looked back from the doorway at Bjhalstred, who had snapped to rigid attention.
"You have my permission to speak, Trainee Bunghole Bjhalstred."
"Request plus or minus reading on that last, over."
"Stand by. Computing. Prog 1—somebody's either gonna be trainee fleet general or Guard cesspool orderly with thirty years' time in grade. I dunno. Prog 2—I'm gonna get imploded. Halstead said training was really gonna start tomorrow mornin', an' that's more than I can face without a hangover."
Three mugs clanked solemnly.
"Awright," Carruthers said in what were almost human tones. "What you're about to get is the most carefully engineered way of killing someone known to man. Imperial engineers designed it so not even maggotbrains like you could screw it up. Which is almost unbelievable.
"I need one idiot volunteer. You." She waved at Sten. "Post."
Sten slid out of the bleacher bench, double-timed to a position in front of the low stand, and waited at attention.
In the distance, behind Carruthers, ran the thousand-meter tree- and bush-studded emptiness of a firing range, lane-marked at its far end.
Carruthers opened the top of the lecture stand and took out a weapon. A smooth black triangle formed the stock/pistol grip, and a stubby inverted cone ended the seventy-centimeter-long barrel.
Carruthers handled the rifle reverently.
"You probably seen this, and handled it in the livees. This is the assault rifle Mark XI. We call it the willygun. Tell you something strange about this. This was invented more'n a thousand years ago, on Terra, by a designer named Robert Willy.
"It was a fine design," Carruthers said. "On'y problem was that lasers weren't that good and nobody knew for sure how to handle hunks of antimatter, which is what makes this piece so deadly."
She touched a stud, and a long tube slid out of the rifle's butt. "This is the ammunition. Antimatter Two—AM2 —the same stuff that powers spaceships. One tube contains fourteen hundred rounds. The bullet's a one-millimeter ball of AM2 , which is inside an Imperium shield, which is the only thing that keeps the whole magazine from exploding when it touches conventional matter.
"We once calculated, as a matter of interest, that one of these tubes has enough energy to power a scoutship all the way around this system at full drive level.
"Ain't that interesting, Bjhalstred?"
Bjhalstred jumped awake.
"You wasn't sleeping on me, was you, Bjhalstred?"
"NO, CORPORAL."
"That's good. That's very good. But why don't you come on out here and get down in pushup position to make sure you don't get sleepy.
"Anyway. Fourteen hundred rounds. If the Empire ever sold these guns on the open market, which of course they never will, each little tiny AM2 ball would cost a guardsman three weeks' salary. You see how good the Empire is to us?"
Carruthers waited.
"YES, CORPORAL," came the shout.
"Aren't you all glad you went and joined up?"
"YES, CORPORAL."
"You sounded a little weak on that one," Carruthers growled. "Assault rifle Mark XI. You got two controls. One is for your safety/single-shot/automatic fire mode selection, the other is the trigger. You got one dial, here on the butt, which shows you the state of battery charge. Each battery will give the laser enough energy for about ten thousand rounds, depending on atmospheric pressure, if any, and conditions.
"The laser is what is used to fire the particles. This means the only sight you got is this crosshair. You don't have to worry about trajectory or bullet drop or any of that other dust that's important with a conventional weapon.
"Which is what is special about the willygun. If you can point it at something, you hit that something.
"Demonstrator!"
Sten mounted the platform. Carruthers handed him the rifle. Sten handled it curiously. Light. Almost too light, like a toy. Carruthers grinned at him. "That ain't nothing you'd give your kid brother on Empire Day," she said, seeming to read Sten's thoughts.
Curruthers opened the stand again and took out an object wrapped in plastic and about fifty centimeters to a side. She jumped down from the stand and walked ten meters to a low table. Carruthers unwrapped the parcel.
"This here is meat," she said. "The stuff that soyacrap in the messhall is supposed to taste like. It's got about the same consistency as a humanoid."
Carruthers set the blood-oozing meat on the table and walked back to the stand. "Shoot me that deadly charging chunk of beef, trainee," she said.
Sten raised the weapon awkwardly to his shoulder, and aimed through the sight He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
"Helps if you take the safety off first," Carruthers snarled.
Sten flipped the switch just above the trigger, reaimed, and fired. There was the low crackle as air ionized.
His eyes jumped open, and the recruits semidozing through the lecture snapped awake. The minute particle hit the meat. It looked as if the beef exploded, blood spattering for several meters to the side.
"Go take a close look, trainee," Carruthers invited.
Sten climbed down from the stand and walked to the table. There were only a few chunks of the meat left. Sten stared at the spattered table and ground, then came back to the stand.
"Makes you think," Carruthers said, "just how healthy anybody on the receiving end of that round would be. The answer is," she said, raising her voice, "they wouldn't be. You hit anything humanoid or even anything close to it with one of those anywhere and they're dead. If the round don't make a hole big enough to stick your fist through, the shock will."
Carruthers stood silently, letting the idea sink in.
"Something to think about, isn't it?" she said soberly.
"AWRIGHT, SLUGS, YOU SAT ON IT LONG ENOUGH. NOW UNASS THOSE BLEACHERS AND GIMME A COMPANY FORMATION. We're gonna let you kill some targets today."
Carruthers waited until the recruits were on line, then added softly, "So far we dumped less'n a third of you skeeks back to your home cesspits. Here's where we cut some more dead tissue out.
"Children, there ain't never been a soldier who couldn't shoot. If there was an army that'd let him, that army wasn't around long—and the Guard has been around for a thousand years. This is where we start cuttin' clean.
"You either qualify on the willygun or you're out. Simple as that. If you more'n just qualify, there's bennies for that. More pay and better training.
"But first you best qualify. 'Cause I hear they're jumpin' those duty battalions into terraforming these days. I'd ruther be making a first-wave drop myself. Figure the chances are better.
"Now. FIRST RANK, 'TEN-HUT. ONE MAN PER POST. AT A RUN. MOVE OUT!"
Ten recruits, in spite of extensive individual attention and minor batterings, failed to qualify. Their bunks were rolled and empty the next day.
Sten couldn't understand why anybody had problems. Carruthers had been right. Point the willygun, and you hit. Every time.
When the rifle course ended, Sten was qualified for the next stage: SNIPER-RATED.
It got him ten more credits a month, his first ribbon, and more training.
Carruthers thunked down beside him.
"You got the target?"
Sten peered through the sights of the rifle. "Yes, corporal."
Carruthers touched the control box beside him. The target shot sideways, out of sight behind the stone wall a thousand meters from Sten.
"Awright. Now. Focus on the wall. The crosshairs go out of focus, right? Use the first knob on your sight. Twist until you get the sight focused."
Sten followed instructions.
"Got it? Now use the knob below your sight, and turn until the crosshairs are about where you think that target is, even though you can't see it Got it? Fire one."