Star Soldiers (3 page)

"Lord, they send 'em out young these days," commented the other. "Name and rank—"

"Kana Karr, sir, Swordsman, Third Class."

"I'm Trig Hansu." There was no reason for him to proclaim his rank, the double star of a Swordtan was plain on his tunic. "You signed for Yorke?"

"Yes, sir."

"Believe in beginning the hard way, eh?" Hansu jerked a jump seat from its wall hollow and sat down. "Fronn's no garden spot."

"It's a start, sir," Kana returned a bit stiffly and slipped down to the deck without losing a one-hand hold on the bunk.

Hansu grinned sardonically. "Well, we're all heroes when we're first out of Training. Yorke's a trail hitter and a jumper. You have to be con to keep up in one of his teams."

Kana had a defense ready for that. "The assignment officer asked for a recruit, sir."

"Which can mean several things, youngster, none of them complimentary. S-Threes come cheaper on the payroll than Ones or Twos—for example. Far be it from me to disillusion the young. There's mess call. Coming?"

Kana was glad that the veteran had given him that invitation, for the small mess hall was crowded with what seemed to his bedazzled eyes nothing but high ranks. There was gravity enough so that one could sit in a civilized fashion and eat—but Kana's stomach did not enjoy the process any. And soon such sensations would be worse, he thought grimly, when he had to go through pressure conditioning before landing on Fronn. He regarded the noisy crowd about him with a growing depression.

A Horde was divided into teams and teams into doubles. If a man didn't find a double on his own but was arbitrarily paired by his commander with a stranger, some of the few pleasures and comforts of Combat field service were automatically endangered. Your double fought, played, and lived by your side. Often your life depended upon his skill and courage—just as his might upon yours. Doubles served years of enlistments together, moving in a firmly cemented partnership from one Horde or Legion to another.

And who in this glittering gang would choose to double with a greenie? The situation would probably end by his being assigned to a veteran who would resent his inexperience and provide him with the makings of a tough jump right from the start. Waugh—he
was
getting space blues tonight! Time to change think-tracks for sure.

But that subtle unease which haunted him all that long and eventful day lingered, coming to a head in a strange and horrifying dream in which he ran breathlessly across a shadow landscape trying to avoid the red ray of a Mech blaster. He awoke with a choked gasp and lay sweating in the darkened cabin. Hunted by a Mech—but Mechs did not fight against Archs. Only—it was some time before he was able to sleep again.

The beams of the ship's artificial day brought him to life much later. Hansu was gone, the contents of his war bag spilled out on his empty bunk. A wicked needle knife, its sheath polished smooth by long wear against the bare skin of its owner's inner arm, caught Kana's eye. Its unadorned hilt was designed for service. And its presence among the gear meant that Kana was now sharing the quarters of a man practiced in the deadliest form of Combatant in-fighting. The recruit longed to pick it up, test its perfect balance and spring for himself. But he knew better than to touch another's personal weapons without the express permission of the owner. To his fellows that act was a direct insult which could lead only to a "meeting" from which one of them might never return. Kana had heard enough tall tales from the instructors at Training to make him familiar with the barracks code.

He was a late arrival at mess and ate with apologetic speed under the impatient eye of the stewards. Afterwards he went on to the small lounge deck where the Combatants sprawled at leisure. There was a card game in progress, and the usual circle of intent players about a Yano board. But Trig Hansu was a member of neither group. Instead he sat cross-legged on a mat pad, a portable reader before him, watching the projection of a pak.

Curious, Kana edged between the gamesters to see the tiny screen. He caught sight of a fraction of landscape, dark, gloomy, across which burden-bearing creatures moved from left to right. Hansu spoke without turning his head.

"If you're so curious, greenie, squat."

Feeling as hot as a thruster tube Kana would have melted away but Hansu pushed the machine to the right in real invitation.

"Our future." He jerked a thumb at the unwinding scene as the recruit dropped to his knees to watch. "That's a pak view of Fronn."

The marchers on the Fronnian plain were quadrupeds, their stilt legs seemingly only skin drawn tightly over bone. Packs rested on either side of their ridged spines and knobby growths fringed their ungainly necks and made horn excrescences on their skulls.

"Caravan of guen," Kana identified. "That must be the west coastal plains."

Hansu pressed a stud on the base of the reader and the screen blanked out. "You asked for indoctrination on Fronn?"

"From the archives, sir."

"The enthusiasms of the young have their points. And you're just out of Training. Specialization—knife—rifle—?"

"Basic in everything, sir. But specialization in X-Tee—Alien Liaison mostly—"

"Hmm. That would explain your being here." Hansu's comment seemed obscure. "X-Tee—I wonder what they spring on you in that nowadays. What about—" He swung sharply into a series of questions, delivered rapid fire, which were certainly very close in their searching value to what Kana had faced back in Training before he had been granted his mark of proficiency. When he had answered them to the best of his ability—having to say frankly, far too many times, "I don't know"—he saw Hansu nod.

"You'll do. Once you get a lot of that theory knocked out of your head, and let experience teach you what you should really know about this game, you'll be worth at least half your pay to a Blademaster."

"You said that X-Tee specialization explained my assignment, sir—?"

But the veteran appeared to have lost interest in the conversation. The Yano game broke up in a noisy if good-natured argument, and Hansu was tapped on the shoulder by one of his own rank and urged into the group reforming for a second round.

And because he had not answered that question Kana began to note more carefully the caliber of the men about him. These were not only veterans, but long-service men with a high percentage of stars. The scraps of conversation he overheard mentioned famed commanders, Hordes with long lists of successful engagements. Yet Fitch Yorke was a comparative newcomer, with no fame to pull in such men. Wouldn't it have been more normal for them to refuse enlistment under him? Why the concentration of experience and skill in an obscure Horde on an unknown planet? Kana was certain that Hansu, for one, was an outstanding X-Tee expert—

But during the next few days he saw little of the veteran, and the landing on Secundus after the boredom of the trip could not come soon enough.

The temporary quarters assigned to Yorke's men was a long hall, one end of which was a mess station while the other was tiered with bunks. With a hundred men dragging in supplies and personal equipment, greeting old comrades, sharing Horde rumor and Combat news, the room was a hurricane of noise and confusion. Kana, not knowing just where to go, followed Hansu down the length of the room. But when the Swordtan turned to join a glittering circle of his peers, the recruit was left to hunt a dim corner suitable to his inexperience and general greenness.

There was not much choice. The S-Threes congregated in the least desirable section by the door. And with a sense of relief Kana noted several whose uniforms were as bare of ornament as was his own. He tramped over and claimed a top bunk by tossing his war bag up on its pad.

"D'you see who just mustered in?" one of his neighbors demanded of the young man beside him. "Trig Hansu—!"

A low whistle of astonishment became words. "But he's top brass! What's he doing in this outfit? He could claim shares with Zagren Osmin or Franlan. Yorke should be flattered to get the time of day from him."

"Yeah? Well, I've heard he's strange in some ways. He'll cut a top outfit any time to get off the regular travel lanes and visit a new world. He's space whirly over exploring. Could have had a Horde of his own long ago if he hadn't always been jumping off into the black. And, besides, brother, haven't you noticed something else about this particular crowd? Yorke's snaffled himself more than one big name in this pull-out. Hello—" He noticed Kana's bag and now he turned smartly to survey its owner.

"So—something new here. A nice greenie out to make his fortune or die on the field of glory. What's your name and condition, greenie?"

There was no bite of sarcasm in that demand and the speaker did not outrank Kana very far in either years or service.

"Kana Karr, S-Three—"

"Mic Hamet, S-Three—that clay-clawer resting his sore feet over there is Rey Nalassie, also of our lowly rank. First assignment?"

Kana nodded. Mic Hamet's dark red hair was roached in the scalp ridge, but his unusually fair skin was reddened rather than tanned by exposure and there was a spattering of freckles across his somewhat flat nose. His friend uncoiled long legs and rose to a gangling six-foot-two, his lantern-jawed face solemn, though his sleepy gray eyes displayed humor and interest.

"They scraped us out of a rotation depot. We had bad luck a while back. Rey got bit by a bug during our last stretch and we had to default out of Oosterbeg's Horde four months short. So we were flat enough in the purse to sign on here when the assign officer looked at us as if we were slightly better than muck worms."

"You doubled yet, Karr?" asked Nalassie in a husky voice.

"No, I was delayed in leaving Training. And all the fellows who shipped out of Prime with me were vets—"

Mic lost his half grin. "That's tough luck. Most of us Threes are paired already and you wouldn't want to double with either Krosof or the rest—"

"Heard tell that if you come in solo, Yorke puts you with a vet," Rey volunteered. "Got a theory youth should be tamed by age—or something of the sort."

"And that's worse than tough," broke in his partner. "You shouldn't team up with anyone until you know him. I'd play it single as long as I could, if I were you, Karr. You might be lucky enough to find some good fella who's lost his partner. Stick with us until you do double if you want to—"

"And a very good way to stay out of trouble with the jeweled ones"—Rey nodded toward the rankers' side of the hall—"is to get out of here." He put on his helmet and buckled the chin strap. "They aren't going to muster until morning, we can still have a night on the town. And, fella, you haven't seen excitement until you've seen the leave section of Secundus."

Kana was enthusiastic until he thought of the leanness of his purse. Four credits wouldn't even pay for a meal in a base town—he was sure of that. But, as he shook his head, Mic's fingers closed on his arm.

"No quibbling, fella. We'll be a long time in the back country and we aren't comfortable, shipping out with credits sticking to our fingers. We'll stand you—then when you get your first star, you can repay in kind—that's fair enough. Now, quick about it, before someone gets the idea of putting the younger generation to labor for the good of their souls!"

Beyond the walls of the Combat area a typical leave town had grown up. Taverns, cafes, gambling establishments catered for all ranks and purses, from Bladermasters and Mechmasters to recruits. It was certainly no place to visit with only four credits, Kana thought again as he blinked at the light of the gaudy signs lining the street before them.

And, to his discomfort, the ideas of his guides were not modest. They steered him by the cafes he would have chosen and dragged him through a wide door where Terran gold-leaf was overlaid with the sea-green shimmer of Trafian scale lac. Their boots pressed flat the four-inch pile of carpets which could only have been woven on Caq, and the walls were cloaked with the tapestries of Sansifar. Kana balked.

"This is strictly a glitter boy's shop," he protested. But Mic's hold on him did not relax and Rey chuckled.

"No rank off field," Mic reminded him sardonically. "S-Threes and Blademasters—we're all the same in our skins. Only civilians worry about artificial distinctions—"

"Sure. In Combat you go where you please. And we please to come here." Rey sniffed the scented air which stirred the shining arras, shaking the figures on them to quivering life. "By the Forked Tail of Blamand, what I wouldn't give to be in on the sacking of this! And here comes mine host's assistant."

The figure loping toward them was one of the skeleton-lean, big-headed natives of Lupa. He greeted them with a professional smile, disclosing the double row of fangs which tended to make Terrans slightly nervous, and inquired their pleasure in a series of ear-taxing growls.

"Nothing big," Mic returned. "We have muster tomorrow. Suppose you let us trot around by ourselves, Feenhalt. We won't get into trouble—"

The Lupan's pointed grin widened as he waved them on. When they passed through a slit in the curtain to the next room Kana commented:

"I take it you're known here?"

"Yes. We got Feenhalt out of a hole once. He isn't a bad old Lupan. Now—let's mess."

They escorted Kana through a series of rooms, each exotic in its furnishings, each bizarrely different, until they came to a chamber which brought a surprised exclamation out of him. For they might have stepped into a section of jungle. Gigantic fern-trees forested the walls and looped long fronds over their heads, but did not exclude a golden light which revealed cushioned benches and curving tables. Among the greenery swooped and fluttered streaks of flaming color which could only be the legendary Krotands of Cephas' inner sea islands. Kana, meeting such travelers' tales in truth, bemusedly allowed his companions to push him down on a bench.

"Krotands? But how—?"

Mic's knuckles rapped and drew a metallic answer from the bole of the fern tree immediately behind them. Kana reached out to find that his fingers slid over a solid surface instead of rough bark. They were in a clever illusion.