“Thank you.” Silent shrieks of disbelief were ringing through every compartment of Peace’s mind, but he guessed the penalty for showing his true feelings would be another interlude on the floor. “Of course,” he said tentatively, seeking a neutral form of words, “it’s not quite as simple as that.”
“You’re right there, Warren.” Ryan brushed dust from Peace’s clothes. “I can see your mind is busy delving into the implications of the basic principle.”
Peace nodded. “Naturally.”
“You’re probably delving into stuff that even I don’t really understand—stuff about how it’s stellar-type condensation of matter around the ship’s centre of gravity that produces spatial displacement with every jump, stuff about the need to make one and a half million jumps a second to give an apparent velocity equal to that of light, stuff about the artificial gravity generators…”
“Yes—all that kind of thing,” Peace said faintly, turning away and making for the nearest seat.
Somewhere along the line he had become convinced of the truth of Ryan’s words, and the knowledge that his own body was being torn apart and rebuilt millions of times every second made him feel weak at the knees. This is terrible, he thought. The erasure of all conscious memory meant that his world-picture was being formed in his subconscious—and it appeared that his subconscious self was an impractical, romantic twit with no idea of how anything worked in the real universe. His earlier pleasure at being a legionary had been based on the notion of crusading through the galaxy—in one piece—in a beautiful silver ship, not being wafted from star to star as a cloud of particles inside a steel lunchbox. The adjustment was a difficult one to make, and peace longed for the solace of a cigarette.
“What’s the matter, Warren?” Ryan sat down nearby. “Not feeling so good?”
Peace jumped to his feet to prove there was nothing wrong with him, but he was unable to resist the sympathetic expression on Ryan’s plump face. “Everything’s all wrong,” he said.
“I’m dying for a smoke … and I didn’t know I’d be fighting for a ketchup manufacturer.”
“Please don’t mention fighting,” Ryan said, looking apprehensive. “Anyway, you’ll be … doing what you said … for the Legion. Triple-Ess only kits out the regiment.”
“It’s a bit degrading, isn’t it?”
Ryan pondered for a moment. “For the likes of you, perhaps.”
“What do you mean for the likes of me? Having no memory doesn’t make me special.”
“All I meant was you weren’t cut out to be a ranker, Warren. I can tell from the way you talk you’ve been to college. You must be a bright boy—not like old Coppy over there. I mean, when you joined the Legion you knew there was no way out. Old Coppy talked me into believing we could duck out any time we…”
“College, you say?” Peace turned the new fact over in his mind, but failed to draw any comfort from it. “From the cloisters to the sauce works.”
“Forget about sauce, will you? Look, would you feel better if things hadn’t changed since the seventeenth century and this outfit was called the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment?”
“Daresay I would.”
“Right. And would it make any difference that the Duke who equipped the regiment got most of his money from the revenues of his family estate?”
“No.”
“And what if the Duke’s biggest tenant was a sauce factory?”
“That’s different,” Peace said, feeling he had been tricked. “Anyway the Duke of Wellington would have given me a better uniform than this.”
“You look great the way you are, Warren.”
“Think so?” Mollified by the compliment, Peace glanced down at himself and wished he had been blessed with thicker legs or that his red-and-gold boots had been ten sizes smaller.
“No kidding, Warren—you look as smart as old General Nightingale himself.” In his enthusiasm, Ryan turned to Copgrove Farr, who had dropped on to the bench beside him.
“How do you think he looks?”
Farr examined Peace with a lacklustre eye. “With those legs—like a jaybird standing in two empty shotgun shells.”
“Aw, come on, Coppy—I’d say he’s a real Beau Geste.”
“Beau who?”
“You know—Beau Geste.”
Farr’s face became darker. “More like Bo Peep.”
“Now see here!” Peace advanced on Farr, trying to avoid stepping out of his boots as he did so. “Don’t forget who I am.”
“Why not?” Farr said. “You’ve done it.”
“I know, but…”
“I don’t believe you’re such a hard case, anyway,” Farr continued, sneering. “For all we know you’ve just got a lousy memory.”
Ryan raised a placating hand. “Look at the way he faced up to Sergeant Cleet.”
“Anybody can do that.” Farr crooked his fingers and a look of savage anticipation appeared on his face. “The next sergeant I meet I’m gonna…” The klaxon blared out suddenly, obliterating Farr’s words and causing other recruits to scuttle to their seats.
“Attention, men,” an amplified voice said. “We have reached the planet Ulpha and are going into the landing phase. If your seat has a safety belt, fasten it and remain seated until the door opens.”
Peace looked down at his bench and noted that it had ringlike anchorages at intervals along the back, but no straps of any kind. A commotion broke out all around him as men, Ryan and Farr among them, scrambled for the few places on other benches where straps were still in evidence. The panic died down momentarily and then flared up again as most of those who had begun securing themselves discovered they had only one strap each and were unable to complete their restraining loops. The Legions field officers, he decided, would need every last gram of their battle experience and leadership to weld the class often a.m. into an efficient fighting unit. He had no relish for the idea of going into combat, but at least it would be a relief to see the reins taken up by the strong hands of a professional commander, a man who had been honed and tempered and toughened by his years in the front line.
The floor lurched gently, the first indication of movement the ship had given, and Peace sat upright, his heart quickening as the ship seemed to drop a few centimetres, like an elevator with a faulty control mechanism coming to rest, and the metal door sprang open. Beyond it was a swirling of blue-white vapours through which came running a humanoid figure with huge black eyes and a short, wrinkled trunk where its nose and mouth should have been. A multiple gasp of fear arose from the watching recruits.
Peace grabbed nervously for his rifle, then realized the dreadful figure was actually a Legion officer whose face was hidden by a gas mask. The officer staggered into the ship and slammed the door behind him, dispersing little whorls of the blue-white mist through the room. He slumped against the door for a moment, breathing heavily, before taking off the respirator and scanning the group with red-rimmed eyes.
“I’m Lieutenant Merriman,” he said in a thin, fluting voice which was in ill accord with the stained and dust-streaked uniform of a front-line veteran. “You men have arrived just in time—the Ulphans are hitting us with everything they’ve got.” He paused and knuckled his streaming eyes. “Where are your respirators?”
“Respirators, sir?” Peace took his athlete’s protective cup from his pocket and dangled it by its elasticated straps. “This is the only extra equipment we got.”
Merriman gave an impatient wave. “You’ll just have to manage without. All of you follow me— we’re going into action.”
“But, sir…” Even as he spoke, Peace felt the now-familiar sandpapering sensation on the surface of his brain, and knew he was unable to disobey the order. The other rankers shuffled uneasily, faces revealing their mental torment.