Vorpal Blade

4

“So we’ve really got a spaceship,” Berg said, shaking his head.

“Nobody briefed you, huh,” Lance Corporal Al Hattelstad said, grinning devilishly. The third member of Charlie Team, Second Platoon was short with curly, dark-brown hair. “Yeah, they got a drive from somewhere, where is classified, and stuck it in an old missile sub. It works, but it’s funky as hell. There’s plenty of gas, but sometimes we have to stop and ‘chill.’ Which really grapping sucks.”

“During chill we have to go to zero gee,” Jaenisch said, scrubbing at the breech of the M-10. The simulation rounds tended to dirty up a weapon even more than regular fire so they’d brought the weapons from the test engagement back to the armory to clean them. Normally, weapons cleaning was done in barracks or the unit offices, but the way that things were laid out it made more sense to do it in the armory. And since it was a secure area, they could talk about their jobs, which Jaenisch had pointed out was verboten in the barracks. “I don’t mind it but—”

“Free-fall sickness is the worst grapping feeling in the universe,” Hattelstad said. “Except maybe pre-mission physical. But I have to protest. Berg is still a Nugget. It’s a violation of standard operating procedure to give him a team name until he has established himself. We will be shamed before all the other teams if we assign him full nickname status as a mere Nugget! I mean, sure, he’s been through the physical…”

“Actually,” Berg said, uneasily. “I haven’t been through any new physical. Last one I had was at FOT.”

“See!” Hattelstad said. “He’s not a real Space Marine. He hasn’t been through pre-mission physical!”

“Wait till you see the grapping clip,” Jaenisch said. “Then you, too, shall forever after call him ‘Two-Gun.’ ”

“So we’re going out on this ship?” Berg asked. “I mean, out of the solar system?”

“Where no Marine has gone before and all that,” Jaenisch said, nodding. “No PT tomorrow. We start final load-out at 0800. But we’re not planning on leaving until somewhere around 2400. The bitch is, you’re probably not going to get a chance to show off. The mission is supposed to be pure Wyvern. And they’re M-5s. Top told me all your Wyvern time is M-4.”

“Yeah,” Berg said. “What’s the difference?”

“Lots,” Hattelstad said. “Faster and stronger and all that with more ammo storage. But the worst part’s the damned sensors. The grapping things have got sensors out the ass. Most of it’s maulk I don’t even understand.”

“They’ve got all these grapping particle sensors, just in case there’s some invisible monsters,” Jaenisch explained. “Nurtonos and mersons and… Maulk you have to be a physicist to understand the damned things. We’ve got a simulator on the ship. Hopefully, you’ll have time to get adjusted to it.”

“I’m looking forward to checking them out,” Berg said. “I got an A in physics.”

“Maulk, he’s a Two-Gun mojo expert and he’s a grapping physicist?” Hattelstad crowed. “What is the Corps coming to?”

“A better and brighter day, Lance Corporal,” the first sergeant said.

“Maulk,” Hattelstad snapped, jumping in his seat. “Sorry, Top, but you got to stop sneaking up on us that way. One of these days we’re going to be holding live rounds and then where will we be?”

“Dead, if you try to blue me,” Top said. “PFC Bergstresser, it has come to my attention that one small but oh so vital aspect of your in-process was overlooked. You have yet to have your pre-mission physical. That is a down-check for the mission. Thus, you will now report to the sickbay, where our very own MD will ensure that you are fit to fly.”

“Shiny, First Sergeant,” Berg said, standing up. “Jaen, I’ll be back to finish up the cleaning.”

“We got it,” Jaen said, grinning. “You’re not going to be back soon. See you tomorrow at the barracks at 0730. If you’re alive.”

“Excuse me, First Sergeant,” Berg said as they walked upstairs from the armory. “What did he mean by that?”

“Our doc is somewhat unusual,” Powell said. “And, unfortunately for us all, the pre-mission physical is extremely comprehensive. Extremely comprehensive. We normally give a person the day off after one. In your case, that will not be possible.”

“Ah, a new guinea pig.”

Berg had been ushered into the office by a very large black woman bearing a nametag that read “Nurse Betty.” He wasn’t sure what to expect, but whatever it was, the doctor was not that.

“I am Doctor Arnold Chetowski,” the doctor said, standing up and walking over to shake Berg’s hand. “You may call me Doctor Chet.”

Doctor Chet was a human mountain. Nearly seven feet tall, the doctor was as broad as he was tall, with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail and the most massive beard Berg had ever seen in his life. The guy was just hairy, as was apparent by the thick hair on the backs of his massive, hamlike hands. Forget mountain, the guy looked like a Sasquatch. Incongruously, given his appearance and name, he had a slight southern accent.

Berg’s hand was briefly engulfed and he was waved to a chair.

“We will be at this some time,” Dr. Chet said, sitting down and looking at his computer monitor. “There are numerous tests you are going to have to undergo and given the rapid nature of this examination, you will, unfortunately, have to survive the rigors of the ‘fast testing.’ Have you eaten recently?”

“I had to skip lunch,” Berg said. “I had some McDonald’s for breakfast about six this morning.”

“That will, unfortunately, change the results but I can adjust,” Dr. Chet said. “I have your medical records but they are not always entirely complete. Have you any known allergies? Any medical problems whatsoever? I would go through the list, but I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

“Nothing, sir,” Berg said.

“Very well, I shall have to take your entirely unprofessional word for it,” Dr. Chet said, looking up and grinning. “You are now permitted to chuckle.”

“Yes, sir,” Berg said. “Heh. Heh.”

“Now you are permitted to fear,” Dr. Chet said, pulling two bottles of white liquid out of his desk. “This is a radioactive tracer that will bind to certain chemicals in your brain so that much later I can see exactly how you think. Shortly before that test, which will take place in no less than eight hours, you shall take two more bottles of some pink stuff. Since we have to use the pink stuff, you will not enjoy the experience. Forty-three minutes after ingesting the pink stuff, you will become violently nauseated. We will try to ensure all the fixed testing is done by that time so that you can find a quiet place to vomit and feel as if you are going to die. The white stuff, by the way, simply tastes awful.”

“And I’m betting I don’t get to eat anything between now and then,” Berg said.

“Or drink,” Dr. Chet replied. “Nor will you have much free time. The other tests are going to take nearly eight hours.”

Dr. Chet had been on the money on the time. Berg had never heard of such extensive physical and mental testing. It made every physical he’d ever been through look like child’s play. He gave enough blood samples to count for a donation, he was lovingly prodded by a somewhat effeminate male physician assistant all over his body, did all the usual “turn your head and cough” tests, went through a cardiac stress test and an electrocardiogram. He was injected for every known disease and some, he was sure, the corpsman was just making up. He might have heard wrong, but supposedly one of the injections was for “triskaidekaphobia.” He was pretty sure there wasn’t an immunization for fear of the number thirteen.

Then he was ushered into a laboratory that deserved the full enunciation. There were more computer monitors than Berg had ever seen in one room, along with a “wet” lab that looked like something out of a mad scientist’s nightmare. Worse, through a plexiglass window he could see a full surgical suite. The gleaming steel table gave the whole room a decidedly macabre look.

“Well, as we wait for the lab results, we will commence upon the first of the truly interesting tests,” Dr. Chet said. “If you will take a seat,” he added, pointing to a chair that, while comfortable looking, had the vague appearance of an electric chair. Complete with straps.

Berg sat down and “Nurse Betty” started hooking electrodes up to his head, chest, hands and forearms.

“This is a device somewhat like a lie detector test,” Dr. Chet said. “It combines the functions of that and an electroencephalogram. An EEG measures brain patterns, but from reading your biography I believe you know that.”

“Yes, sir,” Berg said.

“So. I shall ask you a large number of questions. I will, through this test and others, get a picture of how you think. There are various reasons to do this, besides pure curiosity of which I have an inordinate supply. Would you care to venture a guess what they may be?”

“The military wants to see if the stress of the mission changes the way we think?” Berg ventured. “It might be a good way to check for post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

“In fact, no,” Dr. Chet said, looking up from the monitor and smiling. “There is a quite simple blood test for that. One of your samples is for that specific purpose. You have seen some science fiction TV shows, I’m sure. Did you never wonder about the fact that they had quite sophisticated medical technology yet beings with wildly different cellular structure were able to slip past their screening with impunity?”

“Actually, that has always bothered me,” Berg admitted.

“And things in the brain and weird addictions and so forth and so on,” Dr. Chet said. “By doing these tests, both before the mission and afterwards, we should be able to determine if aliens have taken over your body and are bent on world domination. Or at least the former. So, we shall begin. What is your name…”

Two hours later Berg was sweating more water than he could afford to lose in his dehydrated condition. He’d been asked to do math puzzles in his head; sometimes the questions had been too fast to answer, other times he had been given all the time he needed to answer. He’d been asked about his childhood, about his military experience, about his mother and father and sister. He had been posed nonsensical koans of the “what is the sound of one hand clapping” variety and about general philosophies. He’d been asked if he had ever killed anyone, if he’d like to kill someone, if he’d ever thought about it or about suicide. He’d been asked so many questions his head was buzzing.

“Good profile,” Dr. Chet said, nodding. “Good good profile. You are so much center of the norms I suggested for this mission I could use you as the profile.” He looked at his watch and grinned.

“And now for the bad part,” he said, pulling out two pink bottles from his lab coat, then glancing at the monitor. “You do not fear the pink bottles?”

“You can tell by looking at the monitor?” Berg asked.

“Oh, yes, at this point very easily,” Dr. Chet said. “And you do not.”

“I’ve been nauseated before,” Berg answered evenly.

“You thought you had been nauseated before,” Dr. Chet said, grinning. “You will come to a new appreciation.”

Nurse Betty had silently reappeared and started unstrapping the Marine.

“So, we will now do the MRI and CAT scans,” Dr. Chet said. “After you take your medicine.”

The pink stuff was just as awful as the white, but Berg didn’t feel any negative effects. Maybe he was immune or something.

He undressed and got into a nonmetallic robe, then was slid into the MRI. The thing was noisy as hell and it was initially boring as hell. But then Dr. Chet started asking him questions again.

The session in the MRI wasn’t all that long, though, no more than fifteen minutes. Then he was led to the CAT scan. That time, there weren’t any questions. He just lay in the thing for another fifteen or twenty minutes while it took pictures of his head.

“Very well, we are done,” Dr. Chet said after he’d gotten dressed again. It was after midnight, but if the doctor was tired it wasn’t apparent. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Berg said.

“Yes, well,” Dr. Chet said, looking at his watch. “Three… two… one. How are you feeling now?”

“Holy maulk,” Berg said, his eyes flying wide.

“Bathroom is through that door,” Dr. Chet said, pointing. “I’ll see you in about thirty minutes.”