"Food will be rotten," he whined self-indulgently. "Nobody can cook like my Morn. She makes the best cepkukoj in the whole world."
Onion cakes? What sort of bizarre diet had this stripling enjoyed? "Put that all behind you," I chirped. "If the army bakes cepkukoj they will be foul, count on that. But think of the other pleasures.. Plenty of exercise, fresh air—and you can curse all the time, drink alcohol and talk smutty about girls!"
He blushed ardently, his splayed ears glowing like banners. "I wouldn't talk about girls! And I know how to drink. Me and Jpjo went behind the barn once and drank beer and cursed and threw up."
"Whee—" I sighed and was saved from future futile conversation by the appearance of a sergeant. He slammed open the door from the front cabin and roared his command. "Alright you kretenoj—on your feet!"
He assured instant obedience by hitting a button on the wall that collapsed our seats. There were screams and moans of pain, writhing purple confusion on the deck as the recruits fell on top of each other. I was the only one standing and I caught the full force of the sergeant's sizzling glare.
"What are you—a wise guy or sometin'?"
"No, sir! Just obeying orders, sir!" Saying this I leaped into the air slapping my arms to my sides, stamping my feet heavily as I landed, then delivered a snappy salute—so snappy I almost put my eye out. The sergeant's eyes bulged in return at this display before he was lost from sight by the rising, milling bodies.
"Quiet! Attention! Hands at sides, feet together, stomachs in, chests out, chins back, eyes forward—and stop breathing!"
The purple ranks swayed and writhed into this absurd military stance, then were still. Silence descended as the sergeant glared around with dark suspicion.
"Did I hear someone breathe? No breathing until I tell you to. The first cagalhead who breathes gets my fist where it will do the most good. "
The silence lengthened. Purple figures stirred as incipient asphyxiation took hold. One recruit moaned and fell to the deck; I' breathed silently through my nostrils. There was a gasp as one of the lads could hold out no longer. The sergeant surged forward and the spot where a fist will do the most good turned out to be the pit of the stomach. The victim screamed and fell and all the others gasped in life-giving air. ".
"That was a little lesson!" the sergeant screeched. "Did you get the message?"
"Yes," I muttered under my breath. "You're a sadomasochist. "
"The lesson is that I give the orders, you obey them—or you get stomped." Having delivered this repulsive communication his face writhed, his lips pulled back to reveal yellowed teeth; it took a long moment for me to realize this was supposed to be a smile.
"Sit down men, make yourselves comfortable." On the steel deck? The seats were still stowed. I sat with the rest while the sergeant amicably patted the roll of fat that hung over his belt. "My name is Klutz, Drill-sergeant Klutz. But you will not address me by my name which is for the use of those of equal rank or higher. You will call me sergeant, sir, or master. You will be humble, obedient, reverent and quiet. If you are not you will be punished. I will not tell you what the punishment will be because I have eaten recently and do not wish to upset my stomach." Astir of fear passed through the audience at the thought of what might possibly upset that massive gut.
"One punishment is usually enough to— break the spirit of even the most reluctant recruit. However, occasionally, a recruit will need a second punishment. Still more rarely a hardened resister will require a third punishment. But there is no third punishment. Would you like to know why there is no third punishment?"
The red eyes glared down and we all wished that we were someplace, anyplace, else at this moment.
"Since you are too dim to ask why, I will tell you. Third time is out. Third time is being stuffed, kicking and screaming and begging for your mommy, into the dehydration chamber where ninety-nine point nine nine percent of all your precious bodily fluids will be removed with a dry whishing sound. Do you know what you will look like then? You will look like this!" '
He reached into his pocket and took out a tiny dehydrated figure of a recruit in a tiny dehydrated uniform, the features on its tiny face fixed forever in lines of terror. Moans of fear sighed from the soldiers and there were a number of thuds as the weakest dropped unconscious. Sergeant Klutz smiled.
"Yes, you will look just like this. Your tiny dry body will then be hung on the barracks bulletin board for a month as a warning to the others. After that your body will be put in a padded mailing envelope and sent to your parents, along with a toy shovel to assist in burial. Now—are there any questions?"
"Please, sir," a quavering voice asked. "Is the dehydration process instant and painless or drawn-out and terrible?"
"Good question. After your first day in the army—do you have any doubt which it will be?"
More moans and unconscious thuds followed. The sergeant nodded approval. "Alright. Let me tell you what happens next. We are going to the RTCS at MMB. That means the Recruit Training Camp Slimmarco at Mortstertoro Military Base. You will take your basic training. This training will turn you from feeble civilian wimps into sturdy, loyal, reverent soldiers. Some of you will wash out of basic training and will be buried with full military honors. Remember that. There is no way back. You will become good soldiers or you will become dead. You will understand that the military is hard but fair."
"What's fair about it?" a recruit gasped and the sergeant kicked him in the head.
"What is fair is that you all have an equal chance. You can get through basic or wash out. Now I will tell you something." He leaned forward and breathed out a blast of breath so foul that the nearest draftees dropped unconscious. There was no humor in his smile now. "The truth is that I want you to wash out. I will do everything I can to make you wash out. Every recruit sent home in a wheelchair or a box saves the government money and lowers taxes. I want you to wash out now instead of in combat after years of expensive training. Do we understand each other?"
If silence means assent, we certainly did. I admired the singleminded clarity of the technique. I did not like the military, but I was beginning to understand it. "Any questions?"
My stomach rumbled loudly in the silence and the words popped from my mouth. "Yes, sir. When do we eat?"
"You got a strong stomach, recruit. Most here are too sickened by military truth to eat."
"Only thinking of my military duty, sir. I must eat to be strong to be a good soldier. "
He shuffled this around about in his dim brain, little piggy eyes glaring at me the while. Finally the projecting jaw nodded into the rolls of fat beneath the chin.
"Right. You just volunteered to get the rations. Through that door in the aft bulkhead. Move."
I moved. And thought. Bad news: I was in the army and liked nothing about it. Good news: we were going to Mortstertoro base where Bibs had last seen Captain GarthZennar-Zennor or whatever his name was. He was on top of my revenge list—but right now I was plugging away at the top of my survival list. Garth would have to wait. I opened the door which revealed a small closet containing a single box. It was labeled YUK-E COMBAT RATIONS. This had to be it. But when I lifted the box it seemed suspiciously light to feed this shipload of incipient soldiers.
"Pass them out, kreteno, don't admire the box," the sergeant growled, and I hurried to obey. The Yuk-E rations did appear pretty yuky. Gray bricks sealed in plastic covers. I went among my purple peers and each of them grabbed one out, fondling the bricks with some suspicion.
"These rations will sustain life for one' entire day," the rasping voice informed us. "Each contains necessary vitamins, minerals, protein and saltpeter that the body needs or the army wants you to have. They are opened by inserting your thumb nail into the groove labeled thumbnailhere. The covering will fall away intact and you will preserve it intact. You will eat your ration. When you are finished you will go to the wall here and to the water tap at this position and you will drink from the plastic cover. You will drink quickly because one minute after being moistened the cover will lose its rigidity and will shrink. You will then roll up the cover and save it for display at inspection because it will now be transformed into a government issue contraceptive which you will not be able to use for a very long time, if ever, but which you will still be responsible for. Now—eat!"