“Why should it?” Toogood said mildly, apparently enjoying himself. “What more do you need to learn?”
“Well…” Ryan looked about him in desperation. “How about more weaponry? You didn’t warn us not to point the rifles at each other.”
“But that goes without saying, Private Ryan—I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but… How about a toughening-up course, sir? We’re all as weak and puny as old ladies.”
“Don’t worry about it, Ryan. You’re expected to shoot the enemy—not wrestle him. Why do you think we provide rifles in the first place?”
“Yes, but…” Ryan fell silent and his lower lip began to quiver.
Toogood put on his now-familiar grin. “I thought you were pleased about the way we eliminated all the spit-and-polish and square-bashing.
It’s not as if you were planning to hang around Porterburg and contact your family or friends, is it?”
Ryan’s mouth opened and closed silently. Farr sidled in close to him and whispered, “Don’t give up, Vernie. Ask him about the…”
“You can bugger off,” Ryan sobbed, stamping his heel on Farr’s toes. “This is all your fault. I shouldn’t have listened to you in the first place.” Farr managed to suppress an exclamation as Ryan’s considerable weight came down on his foot, but a wan, thoughtful expression appeared on his face and he moved away. At that moment the personnel carrier rolled to a halt beside the group. To Peace’s eyes it looked curiously like an ordinary goods wagon which had been given a coat of Space Legion blue. He examined it closely and thought he could discern, beneath the military crest, an overpainted picture of a bottle of sauce being upended on a plate of shrimps. His scrutiny of the vehicle ended when an automatic door in its side slid open to reveal rows of wooden seats.
“Good luck, men,” Toogood said in a ringing voice. “And no matter what the years ahead may bring, no matter how far you travel in the service of the Legion, I want you to remember—with affection and loyalty—the happy times and comradeship you found here at Fort Eccles in the class of…” he paused to glance at his wristwatch, “…ten a.m., November tenth, 2386.”
Peace nodded without conviction and, keeping his voluminous boots on with great difficulty, clambered into the truck to begin the first stage of the journey to an unknown star.
3
The journey from Fort Eccles to the spacefield was uncomfortable.
There were no windows in the passenger compartment of the personnel carrier, which meant the recruits were denied the meagre solace of being able to watch the scenery, and for the most part they maintained a broody silence which was broken only by an occasional moan of despair or an outburst of bickering between Ryan and Farr. One man, with a Latin cast of features and temperament to match, even jumped to his feet with a loud cry of “Mamma mia!” and began banging his head on the metal wall of the compartment. This action, emotionally cathartic though it may have been, produced such thunderous reverberations—plus showers of rust flakes and condensation from the ceiling—that he was quickly prevailed upon to return to his seat.
In contrast to the obvious misery of his companions, all of whom had been nursing secret hopes of beating the system, Peace began to feel perversely cheerful. Leaving Porterburg and Earth was no wrench for him, because he had no memory at all of his previous life, and the prospect of boarding a starship and voyaging away to another part of the galaxy was both glamorous and exciting. He could not recollect ever having seen a spaceship, but he had no difficulty in visualizing the tall, graceful ships with prows like gleaming spires reaching towards the heavens. And here he was—decked out with a helmet, magnificent boots and a rifle— on his way to the stars, sworn to do battle with the enemies of Earth.
Sitting upright on the hard seat, almost relishing its spartan discomfort, Peace began to feel like a real soldier. The effect would have been more complete had he been given a full uniform to wear in place of his houndstooth check jacket and hose, but he knew it was the calibre of the man within that really mattered. As he glanced down at his clothes Peace was struck by the notion that they might contain some information about his identity. He looked inside his jacket and found that the manufacturer’s label had been removed— seemingly proof that his former self had been determined to make a complete break with the past. What could I have done that was so awful? he wondered as he plucked out the severed threads which had held the label. His curiosity aroused, he began searching his pockets and found that one after another was empty except for a few coins. It appeared that before joining the Legion he had deliberately rid himself of all personal possessions, apart from the money and cigarettes which had been appropriated by Captain Widget. But why? Had he been hiding out from the police?
Peace checked his breast pocket last. As is often the case with such pockets, it was too deep and narrow for his hand to reach the bottom, and he was on the point of abandoning the search when a fingertip touched something smooth and hard. Grunting with the effort, he scrabbled the object up into the light and found he was holding a small toad molded in blue plastic. He gazed at it in perplexity. The toad must have been pressed from a memory-plastic which was activated by the heat of his hand, for—as he was trying to decide its significance—it gathered its haunches and sprang on to the neck of the recruit in front of him. Whimpering with panic, the man—whose name was Benger—swiped the little creature to the floor and stamped on it, reducing it to a shapeless blob.
“Who’s trying to be funny?” Benger demanded, swinging round. “I’ll tear… Oh, it’s you, Warren.” He gave a sickly smile. “That was a good one, Warren—you nearly scared the tripes out of me.”
Peace withheld his instinctive apology, deciding to let his fearsome reputation go on smoothing the way for him. “You didn’t have to flatten it, did you?”
“Sorry, Warren. I’ll buy you another one first chance I get.”
Peace retrieved the piece of plastic, becoming interested. “You’ve seen them on sale somewhere?”
“No, but toys like that can’t be too hard to…” Benger broke off and a doleful expression appeared on his face as the truck swerved and came to a halt. “We must be at the spacefield.”
Peace forgot about the destruction of his single personal possession as the compartment’s automatic doors began to open, giving him his first glimpse of a bustling interstellar port. He hurried to the door and eagerly looked out, only to experience a pang of disappointment as he discovered he had apparently arrived at a slack period. There were no starships to be seen anywhere on the expanse of frozen mud. A dozen shabby seagulls wandered dispiritedly on the barren ground, emitting raucous cries of disapproval. The sole human presence was that of a Space Legion lieutenant who— judging by the corpse-like pallor of his face—had been awaiting the personnel carrier for some time. He was standing at the entrance to a low, window-less metal building which was about two hundred metres long and had a raised section at each end. Its heavily welded seams gave it the appearance of a hastily constructed air-raid shelter.
“This way, you men,” the lieutenant ordered, opening a steel door. “In here.”
Peace led a reluctant file of men into the building and discovered that, for a space terminal, it was singularly lacking in amenities. He was in a long narrow room which had a door at each end, transverse rows of benches, and a lone coffee machine. The lieutenant, who remained outside, slammed the entrance door behind them and there followed the sound of bolts clunking into place. A klaxon howled briefly, wringing a fresh chorus of moans from Peace’s companions. Puzzled by and slightly contemptuous of their nerviness, he sat down slightly apart from the others and composed himself to wait for the arrival of the spaceship which was to carry him across the oceans of infinity. He was disappointed that the terminal building had no windows through which he would be able to view the great vessel descending from the sky, but consoled himself with the thought that as a legionary he would have lots of other opportunities to admire the tall ships.