Who Goes Here?

2

Peace found himself standing with six other youngish men in a corner of a large hall. All were wearing plastic name badges, and they were gathered in a tight apprehensive group within a small enclosure somebody had set up using portable stanchions linked by rope. Peace examined his surroundings with some curiosity.

The hall was divided into two equal parts by a long counter surmounted by a mesh screen reaching up to the bare, sloping rafters. Lighting strips near the apex glowed a dismal green amidst the tendrils of November fog which had crept in from outside. The more distant tubes were so dimmed by vapour that they resembled rods of luminous ice. Beyond the screen were rows of storage shelves, and at intervals along the counter sat uniformed clerks. They were as motionless as if they had been petrified by the currents of chill air which swirled on the concrete floor.

“What the hell was the hold-up in there?” The speaker was one of the men closest to Peace, a moody-looking individual whose face would have been blue with beard shadow had it not been for the putty-coloured mottling induced in it by the intense cold. His name badge identified him as Pvt.

Copgrove Fair.

“Sergeant Cleet told us you’d only be a couple of minutes in there, but you’ve kept us waiting half an hour,” Fair continued. “What was going on?”

Peace blinked at him. “They took away my memory.”

“We all had things to forget. That’s no reason to—”

“But you don’t understand. I’ve no memory left—it’s all gone.”

“All of it?” Fair took a step back and a look of wary respect came into his brown eyes. “You must have been a real monster.”

“Might have been,” Peace said gloomily. “The trouble is I’ll never be able to know.”

“You should have done what I did.” A plump, round-shouldered youth—labelled Pvt. Vernon A. Ryan—in a green twinkle-suit nudged Peace in the ribs. “I wrote my problem down, and I’ve got it hidden away.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“Covers me each way,” Ryan gloated. “I can’t be hauled up for whatever it was I did, and while the heat’s dying down I get a lot of free travel, and…”

“Wait a minute,” Peace said. “Is that right? I didn’t know you can’t be tried for something if your memory of it has been erased.”

“Where’ve you been all your life? Oh, I forgot …you don’t know.”

“Do you mean … you weren’t being tortured by your conscience?”

“I doubt it, but then I’m not like you—there seems to be only one strike against me.” Ryan’s button-nosed face radiated a smug happiness. “I’m only going to stay in this outfit for a month or two—see how it goes—then, when I think the time is right, I’ll just peep at my bit of paper and I’ll be out. Free and clear. Laughing.”

Ryan’s ebullience began to irritate Peace. “Have you looked at your contract?”

“Of course I’ve looked at it! That’s the whole point, my friend. It binds me to serve the Legion in exchange for memory erasure, but if my memory happens to come back the deal’s off.”

Ryan elbowed the swarthy man who had first spoken to Peace. “Just ask old Coppy, here—he’s the one who thought the idea up.”

“Keep your voice down,” Farr said, scowling. “You want the whole world to know?”

“It doesn’t matter if you have to give your memory a quiet boost,” Ryan whispered, winking with one eye and then the other, “the contract will still be nullified. I tell you, this is going to be more like a paid holiday for me.” He gazed all about him with evident satisfaction, further increasing Peace’s annoyance. Several of the men near him nodded in furtive agreement.

“Why are we penned up like sheep?” Peace demanded. He moved one of the lightweight stanchions aside and walked out of the enclosure.

“You shouldn’t have done that, soldier,” another man said. “Sergeant Cleet told us to stay put.”

Peace stamped his feet to ward off the encroaching numbness. “I’m not worried about any sergeant.”

“You would be if you’d seen him,” Ryan put in. “He’s just about the biggest, ugliest, scariest brute I’ve ever seen. He’s got arms like my legs, his mouth’s so big that even when it’s shut it’s half open, and when he…” Ryan’s voice died away and some of the colour fled from his cheeks as his eyes focused on a point above Peace’s head.

Peace turned and found himself confronted by a vision of dread which, despite the incompleteness of Ryan’s description, he immediately identified as Sergeant Cleet. The sergeant was a good two metres tall. He was a pyramid of muscle and bone which began with a skull pointed like a howitzer shell and steadily widened downwards through massive, sloping shoulders, a barrellike torso and legs which were easily as thick as Peace’s waist. The power of these limbs was so great that, regardless of the enormous weight they supported, the whole assemblage moved with a silent, springy gait, appearing to bounce a short distance clear of the floor with every step.

“Wadja say, Peace?” Cleet’s voice was a subterranean rumble emerging from the cavern of his mouth, which was every bit as large as Ryan had indicated. It appeared to stretch from ear to ear, and for one horrified moment Peace got the impression that it extended around the back of the sergeant’s head, a circular band of lips and teeth on the artillery shell of his cranium.

“I … I didn’t say anything, Sergeant,” Peace mumbled.

“I’m real glad about that.” Cleet came closer, darkening Peace’s field of view with his blue uniform. “And whyja move my stanchion?”

The fear which arose within Peace joined forces with the shock and despair he was already feeling to produce the sudden realization that he could not go on like this for thirty, forty or fifty years, that he would prefer to die at once and get it over with. And, mercifully, the means for a swift and spectacular suicide had placed themselves before him.

“I didn’t move it,” he said. “I kicked it, because it was in my way. Anything gets in my way, I kick it.” He demonstrated his brand-new approach to life’s problems by lashing out at the stanchion with his foot and toppling it over. His shoes were thinner than he had realised and the contact with the corner of the square post sent waves of pain racing up his leg, but he stood his ground without flinching and waited for annihilation. Cleet’s mouth sagged open with amazement, a process which occurred in stages, like the gradual collapse of a suspension bridge. He took a deep breath, a huge machine fuelling up for some monstrous feat of destruction, then sank to his knees and cradled the fallen stanchion in his arms.

“Wadja do that for?” he whimpered. “You’ve scuffed the paint. What’s Lieutenant Toogood gonna say?”

“I don’t care,” Peace said, taken aback.

“It’s all right for you—but I’m responsible for these stanchions.” Cleet raised his eyes in reproach. “I know your type, Peace. You’re nothin’ but a bully.”

“Listen…” Peace shuffled his feet, partly in embarrassment, partly to ease the throbbing in his injured toe.

“Don’t kick me!” Cleet cringed back to what he considered a safe distance before speaking again. “I’m gonna report you to Lieutenant Toogood, Peace. The Lieutenant will fix you, all right. You’ll see. You’re gonna be tweakin’ yourself from now till Christmas. You’ll see. By the time the Lieutenant’s finished with you your tits are gonna be upside down. You’ll see.”

He spun around and hurried off down the hall. His conical form was trembling with agitation and he was visibly springing clear of the floor with every step. The group of recruits watched his departure in silence, then— as if responding to a signal—crowded around Peace, overturning the rest of Cleet’s stanchions as they did so.

“I never saw anything like that,” one man said, grabbing Peace’s hand and shaking it. “I thought that big gorilla would eat you, but you had him sized up right from the start. How did you do it?”

“It’s a knack,” Peace said weakly. His self-destructive impulse had faded and he was beginning to fear that the moment of recklessness had made the outlook for his future even bleaker than before. “I wonder what this Lieutenant Toogood’s like? If somebody like Cleet is afraid of him…”

Ryan eyed the door through which Cleet had vanished. “I don’t like the way things are going, men. I think I’ll only stay in the Legion long enough to do the basic training and get a free trip to some other world.” Those near him, still recovering from the mental stress of having looked at Cleet, gave murmurs which indicated they had similar plans.

The realization that he was the only man present who had not had the foresight to prepare an escape route from the Legion depressed Peace even further. In a bid to make some reparation for his bad conduct he began uprighting the fallen stanchions and adjusting the linking rope.

He had almost completed the task when there was the sound of approaching footsteps.

Looking up he saw a spruce, handsome young officer who had a cigarette in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other. His red-brown hair was worn in the traditional military style—full in the front and long enough to touch his collar at the back.

“I’m Lieutenant Toogood,” he announced. He paused while the group of recruits—Peace among them—produced an assortment of ragged salutes, bows, curtsies and heel-clicks in their eagerness to show respect, then shook his head.

“You can forget all your preconceived notions about saluting officers,” Toogood said. “We don’t bother with that sort of thing in the 203rd. That’s all part of an ancient disciplinary system which was designed to inculcate the habit of complete obedience, and as such it’s no longer required. The old time-consuming square-bashing and spit-and polish nonsense has all been done away with, too—that’s good to know, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.” Sheepish smiles broke out among the recruits.

Toogood tapped the lump of the command enforcer in his throat. “After all, why should we waste all that time and money when you’re already conditioned to the point where if I told you to go and cut your throats you’d dash right out and do it?”

The recruits’ smiles abruptly vanished.

“The present system, while greatly superior to the old methods, places a crushing load of responsibility on your officers. Suppose, for example, that one of you behaved in such a way as to make me lose my temper, and I—unthinkingly, of course—shouted the sort of thing that people sometimes say when they are angry … the results could be catastrophic.” Toogood puffed luxuriously on his cigarette for a moment while the imaginations of his audience ran riot. “Think how awful I’d feel afterwards. Think how awful you’d feel.”

The recruits nodded glumly, thinking along the lines Toogood had suggested.

“But I’m not going to burden you with my worries,” Toogood continued magnanimously. “It’s my job to look after you while you undergo basic training here at Fort Eccles, and I want you to think of me as your friend. Will you do that?”

Peace nodded vigorously, along with the others. He made a conscientious effort to see the debonair young lieutenant as a friend, but a not-so-still, not-so-small voice in the back of his mind kept telling him otherwise.

“Things are looking worse,” Ryan whispered in his ear. “I may not even stay long enough to complete basic training.”

“Now that we know exactly where we stand,” Toogood said, “which one of you upset Sergeant Cleet?”

Peace considered keeping quiet and remaining within the comradely protection of the group, but there was an immediate return of the sandpapering effect on the surface of his brain.

Simultaneously, the group—apparently feeling no desire to go into the comradely protection business—shoved him forward with a collective hand.

Trying to look as though he had advanced of his own accord, he fluttered his fingers and said, “I did it, sir. Private Peace. I didn’t mean to…”

“Full marks, Peace,” Toogood interrupted. “What you did shows courage and a quick grasp of the situation— I think you’ll be a useful man in the front line.”

He directed his stern gaze at the other recruits. “The thing which Peace realized immediately— but which the rest of you were too slow to grasp— is that the non-commissioned officer is an anachronism, a virtually useless appendage in the modern army. In the old days his function was that of enforcing discipline, acting as an interface between officers and rankers. But, now that we have the command enforcer and mental conditioning techniques, corporals, sergeants, warrant officers and all others of that ilk are almost redundant. They still exist to carry out the most menial tasks, but no man is given the rank of sergeant until he has proved he’s too stupid or cowardly to serve in any other capacity.”

Toogood drew delicately on his cigarette and his eyes became even harder. “Looking at you men, my first impression is that—with the exception of Private Peace—the Legion has just acquired a bunch of potential NCOs.”

Stung by the insult, the rest of the group stirred uneasily and Peace, still mindful of their lack of solidarity, was unable to resist giving them a smug glance.

” Don’t get too full of yourself, Peace,” Toogood continued, withdrawing his approval.

“Sergeant Cleet has locked himself in the toilets. He’s probably crying, which means he’ll be good for nothing for the rest of the day—and that throws extra work on to me. I’m going to overlook it this time, but you’d all better remember that being tough on sergeants and upsetting them is misconduct which calls for considerable sapping.

“A few of you may already have been introduced to the tweak, but I assure you it’s nothing compared to some of the saps I specialize in.” Toogood smiled unpleasantly through plumes of smoke.

“That settles it,” Ryan muttered to Peace. “I’m not going to stay in this outfit—I’ll take my chances outside with the law.”

“Stop talking and follow me,” Toogood ordered, leading the way to a table on which sat a square metal box. He removed the lid of the box, revealing a greenish interior glow which showed it was a molecular disintegrator of the type used for domestic garbage disposal. The seven recruits glanced at each other nervously and Toogood’s smile broadened into a grin.

“This is the bit I always enjoy most,” he said. “In every batch of rookies there are always a few smart alecs who think they can beat the system. And how do they plan to beat the system?

Why, by hiding little memory-joggers somewhere on their persons. Little notes. Little tape recordings. Mi-crodots.” Toogood was still grinning, but his gaze raked the group like machine-gun fire.

“Listen closely to the following order. Any of you who have such mementos tucked away will now produce them, and—without attempting to read their contents—drop them in here.” He illustrated his command by flicking the stub of his cigarette into the disintegrator. The glow within brightened momentarily as the cigarette end was converted to invisible dust.

Toogood’s words were followed by a deathly silence which lasted perhaps three seconds, although it seemed to Peace to go on forever. He glanced at Ryan and Fair. Their faces were horribly contorted and he guessed both men were enduring the agonies of cerebral sandpapering as their wills clashed with their mental conditioning. Finally, Ryan took a small envelope from the pocket of his sparkling green suit and, with trembling fingers, dropped it into the waiting box. Fan-did the same with a scrap of paper removed from his left sock, while others in the line fumbled similar items out of their underwear and from beneath wristwatch straps. The disintegrator cast a Mephistophelian glow over Toogood’s features as it devoured the souvenirs of forgotten crimes and follies.

“That’s better,” he said benignly. “You’ll feel a deep inner peace and contentment now that you’ve rid yourselves of temptation, now that you know you’re fully committed to the Legion.

How about you, Ryan? You feel better already, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan gritted. For a man who was supposed to be enjoying deep inner peace and contentment he looked strangely ill.

Toogood nodded. “Again, full marks to Private Peace—he was the only one of you who came here today with the honest intention of devoting his life to the Legion. I like that. Do you come from a military family, Peace?”

Peace blinked at him. “I don’t know, sir.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t know what sort of family I come from. My memory’s all been wiped out.”

“All of it?”

“Yes, sir. I can’t remember anything that happened before I came round in that chair.”

Toogood looked impressed. “You must have been a monster, Peace. Your whole life must have been steeped in crime and guilt.”

“Yes, sir,” Peace said unhappily. Repeated assurances that he had been some kind of Anti-Christ in his former existence were beginning to have a bludgeoning effect on him. He wished Toogood would drop the subject and let him forget that he had nothing to remember.

“It’s funny, but you don’t look like a monster.” Toogood approached Peace and stared intently into his face. “Or do you? Wait! I think I… Has your picture been in the papers?”

“How would I know?” Peace snapped, losing his patience.

“Don’t get prickly with me, Peace.” Toogood tapped the lump on his throat as he spoke. “Remember this. You’re in the Legion now—with no gang of thugs and murderers to back you up.”

“Hold on a minute,” Peace protested. “I hadn’t any gang.”

“How do you know? Can you remember not having one?”

“Ah … no.”

“There you are,” Toogood said triumphantly.

Recognizing the same kind of logical ploy that had been used on him by Captain Widget, Peace made up his mind to avoid arguing with officers who had years of practice in dealing with amnesiacs. He glanced hopefully past the lieutenant towards the middle of the hall.

Toogood, as though taking the hint, gave orders for the group to pass along the central counter, where they would be issued with uniforms and equipment. Ryan and Farr, recovering their powers of speech, immediately began to whisper recriminations over the failure of their scheme. Peace moved away from them and approached a clerk who was sitting under a sign marked: UNIFORMS.

The clerk examined him with baleful yellowish eyes, went to a rack and returned with a plastic helmet and a smaller cup-like object fitted with narrow elasticated straps. He pushed both items towards Peace through a space in the mesh screen, sat down again and appeared to go into a coma. Peace prodded the hollowed-out artifact and saw that it was an athlete’s protective cup. “Excuse me,” he said. “What’s this?” Light slowly returned to the clerk’s eyes.

“That’s your uniform.”

“I thought these things were for ball games.”

“In this case they’re for preventing ball games.”

The clerk gave an evil leer. “Some of the species you’ll be up against fight real dirty.”

Peace stifled a pang of dread. “Where’s the rest of my uniform?”

“That’s it, pal. That’s all you get.”

“What?”

Peace laughed uncertainly. “A helmet and a cup! That’s not a uniform.”

“It is if you join 203 Regiment,” the clerk said.

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand much, do you?” The clerk sighed in exasperation, made as if to walk away, then leaned across the counter. “The 203rd is sponsored by Triple-Ess. Right?”

Peace nodded. “What does Triple-Ess mean?”

“Savoury Shrimp Sauce, you dummy. Don’t you know anything about the Legion?”

“Not a thing.” Peace lowered his voice and leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the other man’s through the wire mesh. “You see, the machine they hooked me up to in surgery wiped out all my memory.”

“All of it?” The clerk pulled backwards abruptly, his eyes widening. “You must have been a real…”

“Don’t say it,” Peace cut in. “I’m sick of hearing that.”

“All right, pal. No offence intended.” The clerk read Peace’s name badge. “I don’t want to cross somebody like you, Warren. Honest. I was only…”

Peace silenced him with an upraised hand. “What were you saying about Savoury Shrimp Sauce?”

“Well, they’ve been having a bad time lately— ever since it was found that the local shrimps are so full of mercury they get taller on a hot day. Sales have dropped right off, so Triple-Ess have a lot less money to put into the Regiment, and they decided to cut down on uniforms.”

“I didn’t know the Legion worked that way.”

“You should’ve joined the 186 Regiment. It’s home city is Porterburg, too—the recruiting station’s just a few blocks south of here—but it’s backed by Stingo Pesticides, and they’re loaded these days. You’d have got a nice uniform there, Warren.”

Peace pressed the back of a hand to his forehead, wondering why the news about the Space Legion’s commercial orientation should have shocked him so much, and his gaze fastened on the resplendent figure of Lieutenant Toogood. “The Lieutenant’s got a full uniform,” he pointed out. “And Captain Widget, and Sergeant Cleet.”

“Ah, but they’re base personnel, stationed right here in Porterburg,” the clerk said. “It would be bad for Triple-Ess’s image if they were seen going around dressed like bums—but you guys will be shipping out as soon as you finish basic training.”

“I see,” Peace turned to leave.

“Thanks for putting me in the picture.”

“Wait a minute, Warren.” The clerk had developed an air of conspiratorial friendliness.

“What sort of shoes are you wearing?”

“Thin ones,” Peace said, realizing that the pain in his damaged toe had faded only because of the numbing coldness seeping up from the concrete floor.

“They’ll be no use in the sort of places you’ll be sent to. I tell you what I’ll do, Warren. I never met a ranker who’d lost more than three months out of his memory, so ‘cause you’re kind of special I’ll let you have these.” The clerk reached under the counter and came up with a huge pair of red boots with gold heels and toe caps.

“What are they?” Peace said, impressed. “Genuine Startrooper Sevenleague boots— standard issue when Triple-Ess was at the top of the Dow-Jones ratings. That’s the last pair on the whole base, Warren. I’ve been keeping them to sell to some ranker who had a bit of extra cash, but since Captain Widget took over out there nobody gets through with two cents to rub together. You might as well have them.”

“Thanks.” Peace gathered up the heavy boots, tucked them under his arm with the rest of his uniform, and set off towards another window where he could see men being issued with rifles.

“Wear them in health, Warren,” the clerk called after him. “As long as it lasts, anyway.”

As Peace was approaching the window Ryan and Fair fell into step beside him. Ryan was looking cheerful again, his eyes gleaming in accompaniment to the sparkling of his green suit.

Fair’s slate-coloured countenance wore a look of shifty contentment.

“Me and Coppy have worked out a new plan,” Ryan said in a low voice. “I was a bit worried back there, but everything’s okay now.”

Peace was reluctantly impressed by their refusal to accept defeat. “What are you going to do?”

“It’s easy! Me and Coppy have a lot of friends in Porterburg, friends who are bound to know what we did to get into this mess. The first leave we get during basic training we’ll go and see them—and get our memories back.”

“Supposing we don’t get any leave?”

“We’re bound to. Anyway, it wouldn’t make any difference—me and Coppy would get over the wall some way. We’ll get out. Just wait and see.”

“Good luck.” Peace barely had time to wonder if he too had friends in Porterburg when he found himself at the equipment window. A gleaming weapon, vaguely recognizable as a radiation rifle, was thrust into his hands, and in a few seconds he had been jostled out of the building and into a large quadrangle surrounded by a high wall. It resembled the exercise yard in a prison, except that a blue dinosaur-like creature with a single white spot on its belly had been painted on the brickwork opposite the doorway from which the group had emerged.

Iron-grey clouds were pursuing each other across the sky and a sleet-laden wind made the dismal hall the recruits had just quit seem a haven of warmth and good cheer. They put on their helmets and huddled together like sheep while Lieutenant Toogood ascended the steps of a small rostrum.

Peace took the opportunity to kick off his lightweight shoes and slip his feet into the resplendent calf-length red-and-gold boots which had so unexpectedly come into his possession. They were much too large, the tops gaping open around his rather thin legs, but the stout soles gave excellent protection against the cold. He felt blocky little projections under each of his big toes, which seemed a strange flaw in such expensive footwear, and made up his mind to fix them at the first leisure moment.

“Pay attention, men,” Lieutenant Toogood ordered. “You are about to begin your basic training.”

“I think I’ll go over the wall tonight,” Ryan muttered through chattering teeth. “I couldn’t stand much of this.”

“You’ve all been issued with standard service rifles,” Toogood continued. “I want you to point them at the blue silhouette on the wall opposite you and pull the triggers. Proceed.”

Slightly surprised at being allowed to fire a lethal weapon with so little preparation, Peace aimed the rifle at the blue dinosaur and pulled the trigger. A slender purple ray stabbed out of the muzzle and struck the wall several metres above the animal silhouette. As effortlessly as he would have directed a spotlight, he brought the ray down until it was hosing its energy against the target circle on the dinosaur’s mid-section. The other recruits did likewise and flakes of brickwork began to fall to the ground from the glowing circle.

“That’s enough—don’t waste the batteries.” Toogood folded his arms and waited until the last of the purple rays had faded away.

“Congratulations, men! I take back all the things I said about you earlier—you have all completed your basic training with flying colours. You will now board the personnel carrier for transportation to the nearest war.” He pointed at a blue truck which had entered the yard and was lumbering towards the group.

Ryan, who was standing beside Peace, gave a bleat of alarm. “Sir! Please, sir! You can’t do this to us, sir,” he shouted. “I thought the basic training went on for weeks.”

“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.