Star Soldier (6 page)

“Please,” said Marten, “continue. Your information is absorbing”

Major Orlov turned crimson and shot him a venomous glance. Then she turned and ponderously marched elsewhere.

Marten glanced around for a sign of Molly. Then his features hardened as he failed to spy Hall Leader Quirn. Marten strode to the nearest Lady’s Room as he considered the major’s revelations. It was as he’d suspected. The Highborn were winning, at least in Australian Sector. Rumors said they’d already taken Antarctica, New Zealand, Tasmania, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. Their strategy didn’t seem difficult to decipher. Grab Earth’s islands first, because except for submarines the islands would be impossible to re-supply with Social Unity troops. The rumors he’d heard said that Earth’s surface vessels had all been destroyed—only the submarines had survived and could survive the Highborn orbital laser platforms that burned anything that moved. Other rumors said the Directorate’s high scientists devised new beam and missile batteries to drive the hated enemies away from Near-Earth Orbit. The news shows ominously stated that Political Harmony Corps intended the Highborn to gain no useful victories.

“Marten!” said a woman.

Marten turned. “Oh, hello Beth.”

Beth was Molly’s best friend. She constantly urged Molly to see someone else. Beth worked in records, wore her dark hair short and never smiled except during hum-a-longs when it was considered bad manners not to.

Beth eyed Marten’s leather jacket with distaste, hesitated and then moved closer.

“Really, Marten, don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?”

He didn’t want to argue with Beth. So he said, “Sometimes. Have you seen Molly?”

Beth took another step. “Marten… why do you have to make it so hard for Molly?”

“Beth, please, not now.”

“No, listen for once. She’d like you to move in with her. But your insistence that you get married first, Marten! That’s so....”

“Reactionary?”

“It’s worse than that. What if she wants to see other people?”

“What?” he said. “Like who?”

“See. That’s what I’m talking about. We all belong to each other. To insist upon marriage—you don’t own her, Marten.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

Maybe it was the synthahol, because he wasn’t sure why he asked, “Haven’t you ever wanted to belong solely to one person? To be a team, you and your partner, against the world?”

Beth drew back in horror. “We’re all one, Marten. No one is better than anyone else.”

“Yes, but—”

“How dare you want to be...” she sputtered for the right word “...elitist!”

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

“Do you think you’re the only one good enough for Molly?”

“Beth...”

“I think she should see Quirn more.”

“More? What do you mean
more
?”

Beth blinked in surprise. “Uh, what I mean is—”

“She’s been seeing Quirn?”

“Not seeing, really.”

With his heart hammering, Marten turned and glanced for sight of the hall leader.

Beth plucked at his sleeve. “She can’t just see one person. People might think her odd. Really, Marten, sometimes I think you’re corrupting her.”

Marten could hardly think as he stalked away.

“Don’t be elitist, Marten! Or—Where’s the major?” he heard Beth ask someone.

Quirn! He couldn’t believe Molly was actually seeing him, maybe even kissing him. Rage flared within him. He hunted for the hall leader. Then he saw ferns thrash and he heard a muffled, “Stop. Not here.”

Hall Leader Quirn struggled to hold onto Molly.

Several quick strides brought Marten near. He yanked back the fern.

“Marten!” said the hall leader, his features a mixture of rage, surprise and drugged lethargy.

Marten lunged at Quirn.

“Marten, no!” Molly cried.

“Take your hands off me,” Quirn warned, who finally released Molly to defend himself. “I can—”

He never finished. Marten slugged him in the mouth. Quirn slammed against the wall. Marten grabbed the front of Quirn’s shirt and...

“You!”

Marten looked over his shoulder.

With her sidearm stunner, PHC Major Orlov shot Marten in the back.

5.

Each day the forty billion people of Sol III consumed billions of kilograms of food. The government’s nightmare—even before the civil war—was where to find all those calories. Earth’s environment was strained to the maximum and still there wasn’t enough to go around. A hundred of the solar system’s biggest gigahabs orbited the planet.  On the gigahabs were fish farms, wheat farms, chicken farms and rice farms churning out food around the clock in order to provide the teeming hordes with their daily bread. Still that wasn’t enough. Beef had vanished long ago for the average man. Fish, chicken and rabbit returned more meat per bushel of feed than a steer did. Also, cows weighed ten times more than goats and ate ten times as much feed. Unfortunately, a cow only produced four times as much milk as a goat. For the same amount of feed, a goat produced twice what a cow could. For this reason, Earthmen in 2349 drank goat milk and ate goat-derived cheese.

Breakthrough food technologies became stopgap measures. Massive starvation would have occurred but for humanity’s creativity. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” went the ancient saying. And men invented with a passion in the area of food production.

In the end, one of the oldest foods in the chain came to humanity’s rescue. It happened partly for another basic need: oxygen. Near each major city gargantuan algae vats were constructed underground. In order to increase growth, powerful sunlamps burned every minute of the rotation cycle. Many names abounded for these life-saving, sustenance-rich algae a vicious, thick, goopy scum that clogged all known machinery. The nearest to the truth in terms of its rawest form was pond scum. Everything about this high-grade algae production required around the clock maintenance. From the heat flats, to the chutes that drained excess algae to the settling tanks, to the processing bins, the churn cycle and then the constantly cleaned canals that brought the vitamin-rich slop to the enhancing vats. Robotic machinery and androids cared for ninety-seven percent of the process. The last three-percent took flesh and blood workers in slick-suits slaving harder than any Egyptian had raising the pyramids.

The slime pits became one of the supreme teaching tools for Social Unity. Reform through labor, first raised to an art centuries ago by Mao Zedong in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, now once more came into its own in the middle of the Twenty-fourth Century.

For those who found normal social interaction intolerable, for those too thickheaded to understand the beauty of the system, well, a long stint in the slime pits often cured them of their pathological malaise. Perhaps as importantly, for the first time many of them performed a socially useful function. It wasn’t nice or easy. Sometimes, regrettably, workers lost lives to drowning, heat exhaustion, algae gorging, excess bleeding from torn limbs in the choppers, red-syrup lung, sludge parasite and a vicious form of black gangrene. Studies showed that unless the trainees bonded quickly with their counselors, their probability for survival was minimal. Upon initiation, each trainee or student was encouraged to develop the proper work ethic and enthusiasm for his instructor.

Marten Kluge found himself placed among the incorrigibles, due in large measure to Major Orlov backing up Hall Leader Quirn’s testimonial. No one thought Marten’s odds very good for survival, least of all Marten Kluge. But he’d be damned if he were going to just lie down and die.

6.

For four days, Marten Kluge uttered no word to anybody. They cut his rations in half, quartered them, and then they told him he could eat when he decided to cooperate and talk. Stubbornly, day and after day, he kept his lips shut and his eyes peeled. His cellmates stole food from the refectory, he discovered on his fifth day after the judgment. On the eighth day, he successfully performed his first theft from them. The day they caught him started ordinarily enough.

The squad worked in the heat flats for ten hours straight, twice the legal limit. Exhausted, they dragged themselves through decontamination, peeled off their slick-suits and staggered under the showers. Seven men of various shapes, sizes and ages slumped against the tiles as icy water needled their skin. Marten tilted his head back and gulped water. His blue eyes were bloodshot. His skin was blotchy and his stomach seemed glued to his spine.

The water stopped. They shuffled to the vents and like patient animals endured the heated air. When it quit, they donned coarse, itchy tunics and marched barefoot to their cell. Each man crumpled to his mat on the steel floor and fell asleep.

A klaxon woke them. They rose, with black circles around their eyes, and they shuffled out of their cell for dinner. Marten brought up the rear. Just before reaching the door, he knelt, felt the open stitching of the nearest mat and drew a hidden wafer, popping it into his mouth.

“So it’s you!”

Startled, Marten looked up.

A short, swarthy, stocky youth glared at him. He was Stick, a knifeboy from a pocket gang in the slums.

Armored guards stood outside, as did over a hundred men and women trooping out of their cells to dinner. Now wasn’t the moment to fight. Stick knew it, so did Marten, but Stick didn’t seem to care. He launched himself into the cell, aiming a karate kick at Marten’s head. Marten dodged, and the foot slammed against his shoulder and spun him to the floor.

Stick snarled, “Where I come from we kill thieves.”

Marten staggered to his feet. He felt lightheaded and his vision was blurry. He was taller than Stick, probably weighed more, but the scars on Stick’s body had come from a hundred different street fights.

In the corridor, there was shouting and shrill whistle blasts, and then the loud
zaps
of shock rods striking flesh.

Stick roared a battle cry and rained a flurry of blows at Marten. Smack, smack, smack, Marten’s cheek stung. He grunted as a fist snapped into his stomach. His ribs ached where Stick connected with his heel. Then red despair boiled into Marten. He gave an inarticulate cry as he charged the knifeboy. Knuckles thudded atop his head. Then Marten lifted Stick off his feet and shoulder-slammed him against the wall. He grappled as Stick gouged with his fingernails.

“Stop!” shouted the guards, blowing whistles as they piled into the room.

Neither man heeded the call. So shock rods fell on them, stunning them into submission. Armored guards separated them and hauled them to their feet and forced-marched them out of the cell and down the corridor filled with open-mouthed trainees. Marten glared wildly at everyone. Stick had eyes only for Marten. The look promised murder.

A guard twisted Marten’s arm behind his back. Marten ground his teeth together, refusing to cry out.

“Think you’re a tough bastard, huh?”

Marten remained silent.

The guard twisted harder.

Marten yelled. The guard laughed in his ear. Marten struggled to free himself, and to his amazement, the guard let go. Marten turned toward his tormenter. Shock rods hit him in the face. He saw their black visors and the gleaming white teeth of their sadistic smiles. Then he blanked out into unconsciousness.

7.

Marten woke to the sound of a hissing hypo. Groggily, he realized someone had shot him full of stimulants. He was also aware of a body beside him. He checked and saw Stick sneer. They sat on a bench together.

“You’re meat,” said Stick.

“The prisoners will not speak unless they are spoken to.”

It was an effort, but Marten swung his eyes toward the front. Ogre-sized Major Orlov sat there, her black cap snug over her beady eyes. Brutality shone on her face. Behind her stood two, red-uniformed PHC thugs, men with the zealous glare of the hypnotically adjusted. They were in a small room, the lights bright and the walls bare.

“Marten Kluge, the State believes that you are worse than an incorrigible.”

Marten said nothing concerning her statement. He was too shocked and dismayed to discover her here.

Major Orlov, her ham-like hands resting on her knees, shifted her attention to Stick. “What could possibly drive a trainee to strike another member of society?”

Stick took a leaf from Marten’s book, saying nothing.

Major Orlov nodded curtly, as if confirming a suspicion. “Intransigence is punishable many different ways.”

Stick’s eyes darted around the cell.

“On the other hand, cooperation shows willingness to reform, which means the incorrigible might possibly be returned to the labor battalion he originally came from.”

“Uh…” Stick shifted on the bench. The two thugs behind the major grew tense. Stick’s shoulders slumped in a submissive way. The guards relaxed and the major stretched her lips in what she surely assumed was a smile.

“We had an argument,” Stick said slowly.

The major’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Does Marten Kluge slack off during work hours?”

Stick shrugged.

“No. Mannerisms don’t interest me.”

Stick stared at her.

“Truth interests me. Factual, precise, measurable truth.” She glanced at Marten.

He glowered, but he didn’t glower at her. In fact, he didn’t really listen to her. He stared straight ahead and let rage consume him. His eyes grew glossy and his breathing deepened. He let rage wash over his thinking as he brooded on how much he hated everyone here. How everyone here was against him and plotted to thwart him. They tried to make him talk. He would never talk. He would rather they slice open his belly than give them the satisfaction of hearing him talk. They tried to subdue his will. They had taken away all his personal freedom. No. He refused. He wouldn’t budge a millimeter.

Major Orlov pursed her lips. “The truth is both of you broke regulations. These regulations are not frivolous guides haphazardly written. Indeed not! They are here to reform you. But we can only reform you if you will help, if you will cooperate. Truth…. It is a precious commodity. Those who cooperate will only wish to speak truths. Now, I will give you each a chance to tell me factual, actual truth.”