Who Goes Here?

5

In some ways the yellow-skied planet of Threlkeld was less of a nightmare than Peace had expected.

The Ulphan campaign was a police action against dissident colonists—and Peace had been dismayed at the idea of humans fighting humans—but on Threlkeld the Legion was merely engaged in rendering a jungle continent safe for mining operations. Further easing his conscience was the fact that there was no intelligent species indigenous to the planet, the opposition to commercial development coming from an assortment of wild animals. And it was there that the list of good points about service life on Threlkeld came to an abrupt end.

The denizens of the Threlkeldian jungle were so ferocious, ugly and diverse as to create the impression that Nature had made the world a kind of sampler of animal nastiness. In her ingenuity she had produced beasts which trapped their prey by looking like plants, and carnivorous plants which trapped their prey by looking like animals. There were insects which actually thrived on being crushed underfoot, because their internal secretions could burn through a plastic sole in less than a second and also contained eggs which, on the instant of contacting flesh, produced hundreds of ravenous grubs which could reduce a human foot to a bootful of bones in less than a minute.

There were electric snakes, garrotte snakes and dagger snakes—all of which lived up to their names; grenade birds, tomahawk birds and skullpeckers—all of which lived up to their names; and armoured monsters so tenacious of life that even when they were sliced up by rayitzers their individual limbs leaped about like giant demented jackboots for as long as half a day, often enabling the parent to commit more mayhem in kit form than it had been capable of as a single entity.

Every man in the 203rd had his own particular bete noire, an there were lots of those around as well. Peace’s greatest dislike was reserved for the multichew, a composite beast which at first glance looked like a huge caterpillar, but whose segments were animals in their own right. Each module was roughly cheese shaped, with four powerful stubby legs, a vicious set of jaws, and neural interfaces on the upper and lower surfaces. Segments were dangerous enough as individuals—scuttling, malevolent footstools which were difficult to hit with rifle fire—but when ten or twelve of them formed a chain and became a full-blown multichew, their fearsomeness was increased in proportion. Peace had found it necessary to destroy at least half of the composite animal to bring it down, whereupon the undamaged segments would promptly separate and renew the attack from all sides. It was at this stage he felt a belated gratitude towards Savoury Shrimp Sauce Inc. for spending its meagre funds on protective cups rather than on more decorative but less functional items of apparel.

He also felt a renewed determination to proceed with his escape plan, such as it was.

The first step was to prise a vital scrap of information out of Lieutenant Merriman, but securing an interview with him proved difficult because the lieutenant, apparently having recovered all his patriotic fervour, spent most of his waking hours where the fighting was at its height. It was not until the third day on Threlkeld that Peace managed to corner him near the field kitchen, and Merriman’s mouth made several unsuccessful attempts to compress with displeasure when he realized he was trapped.

“I can’t talk to you now, Peace,” he said in a piping voice, moving away. “We can’t serve Terra by standing around jawing.”

“But that’s just it, sir,” Peace countered, uttering the only words he could think of which would grip the young officer’s interest, “I believe we could.” Merriman turned back. “What’s on your mind, Peace?”

“Well, sir, we’ve been losing a lot of men to the multichews, and … and …” Peace listened, aghast, as his own mouth uttered the lie. “I’ve thought of a better way to fight them.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well…” Peace’s mind raced as he sought inspiration. “Well, they’re most dangerous when a dozen or so of them join up together, and all we’ve got to do is prevent that happening.”

“How?”

“Spray them with oil, sir. So that they keep slipping off each other. Any sort of lubricant would do—even suntan oil.”

“That,” Merriman said ominously, “is a rotten idea.”

Peace, who had formed exactly the same opinion, caught his arm. “Or we could spray them with something to block the nerve signals between the different segments. Any quick-drying varnish would do. How about hair lacquer?”

“What would the people back on Terra think of the Legion if we started requisitioning suntan lotion and hair sprays?” Merriman detached his arm from Peace’s grip and stared at him suspiciously. “Is this some kind of subversive greeno trick?”

“Please don’t say things like that, sir,” Peace said earnestly, at last feeling the conversation veer in the direction he wanted. “Nobody could be more loyal to the Legion and to you. I’d like you to know it isn’t the command enforcer that makes me obey your orders—it’s my love of… er … Terra, and my respect for you as an officer.”

“Don’t try to cream me.”

“It’s the truth, sir.”

“If I thought you really meant that…”

“I do, sir, I do.”

“Why, thank you, Peace. This is the very first time that anybody has…” Merriman blinked several times, then took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “I sometimes wish that more of the Supreme Command had been like General Nightingale and held out against command enforcers in their own divisions. I mean, how am I ever going to know if I’ve got inborn leadership or not?”

“It’s a terrible problem, sir—and all because somebody put a stupid little diaphragm into your throat, vibrating away at … what sort of frequency would you say? Eight or ten thou per second?”

“Twelve,” Merriman said abstractedly. “You know, Peace, I’ve enjoyed this little talk with you. I had no idea you were so sensitive and… Where are you going, Peace?”

“I’m needed at the front, sir.” Peace gestured towards the wall of viridescent jungle which represented the limit of human-controlled territory. Needles of light from radiation rifles burned irregularly in the shade of the overchanging vegetation, and occasional purple flashes showed that rayitzers were in action. The air was filled with the shouts of men and the roars, honks and hisses of the various fauna which were slowly being displaced from their native territories. As he ran towards the firing line Peace felt a certain amount of guilt about his psychological manipulation of the lieutenant, but if he was to stay alive he could not afford to be scrupulous about his methods.

He scanned the surroundings carefully and within a matter of seconds had located his next major requirement—a supply of electronics components. It took the form of a radiation rifle, lying in the undergrowth, which had been grotesquely distorted by some act of violence.

Peace had little doubt that its former owner was in a similar condition, and therefore he was relieved to find there were no organic residues to be wiped off the weapon before he could make use of it. He picked up the rifle, snapped out the ray generator pack and dropped it into his pocket.

At that moment an adult whippersnapper, busily performing both the actions for which it was named, leaped at him from the lower branches of a tree and he spent the next minute beating it off with the broken weapon while his own rifle hung uselessly on his back. He was sweating profusely and gibbering with panic by the time he managed to stun the beast and dispatch it with a five-second squirt of radiation.

The incident was a sharp reminder of what would inevitably happen if he did not remain fully alert. He decided to put all thoughts of the escape plan out of his head until conditions were more suitable for cerebration. A second reminder came an hour later when, only a few metres away, the volatile Latin recruit, whose name Peace had never learned, was scooped up by a scaly monster and—yodelling a final, despairing “Mamma mia!”—was stuffed into its cavernous maw.

When darkness had put an end to the day’s fighting the remnants of Lieutenant Merriman’s unit were sent back to the shelter of an encampment, given a bowl of gruel each and allowed to rest on heaps of dried grass. Tired though the recruits were, most were unable to sleep because the grass had been gathered locally and had a disturbing habit of moving about of its own accord and trying to take root in any bodily orifices it could reach.

Peace settled down in a corner and, pausing only to break off exploring tendrils of straw, began dismantling the rifle generator pack. The light in the tent was rather dim for intricate work, but he was pleased to discover that his fingers had an in-built gift for dealing with the circuitry. It would have meant the end of his scheme if the knowledge of electronics he had divined within himself had been as far out of touch with reality as his ideas about spaceships.

He worked for two hours, grateful for the extensive use of button terminals which enabled him to rebuild circuits without soldering equipment, and at the end of that time had created a small device which would, within a limited radius, neutralize all sound vibrations in the frequency range upon which the Legion’s command enforcers operated. It took him a further ten minutes to fit the gadget into his helmet, then he lay down to sleep, well satisfied with his progress.

Ryan, who had been watching with covert interest, raised himself on one elbow. “Hey, Warren—what’s that thing you just put in your helmet?”

“Keep your voice down,” Peace whispered. “I don’t want everybody to know about it.”

“But what is it?”

“It’s … ah … a miniature hi-fi.” Peace conducted an imaginary orchestra for a few seconds.

“When I go, I want to go with music in my ears.”

“I wish I could build something like that,” Ryan said admiringly. “All I know about hi-fi is that there’s a main speaker and a tweeter, and some circuits in between to make sure that…”

“Never the main shall tweet,” Peace cut in. “That’s an ancient joke, Vernie, and it was rotten even when it was first invented. Do you mind if we get some sleep?”

“Only trying to cheer us up, Warren. Don’t you like gags?”

“If I had a gag right now I’d roll it up tight and…” Peace fell into an exhausted sleep before he could finish the sentence, and for the remainder of that night he dreamed the short, simplified dreams appropriate to a man whose personal memory went back only three days.

Being deaf to the special harmonics in officers’ voices gave Peace a considerable degree of freedom. He had to make a show of promptly obeying every direct order, but as soon as he was out of sight of the officer concerned he could—in the confusion of the battle zone—safely return to his own pursuits. The command enforcer system positively aided him in this because the idealistic young lieutenants who made up the command cadre never thought of querying his activities as long as he went about them with a sufficiently grim and purposeful look.

On his first day of comparative liberty he went to the flattened area used for spaceship landings and was disappointed to find that his new ideas about the vessels were wrong in one important respect.

Having rid himself of the concept of spaceships looking like graceful gleaming spires, he had formed the notion that at each end of the rectangular structures there were hand-operated roller signs announcing their destinations. When he saw, instead, the featureless metal walls of the transceiver towers he had to accept that his visualised signs belonged to some other mode of transportation, and this led to a new thought.

He had proved that he still retained an excellent knowledge of electronics, and yet the machine used on him at Fort Eccles—designed to wipe out all memories associated with his guilt and remorse—had chosen to obliterate everything he must have known about spaceship technology and operation. Did this mean that his life had been intimately concerned with spacecraft? Had he been a pilot? Or a spaceship designer?

Peace toyed with the idea that he might be able to identify his previous areas of expertise by listing all the subjects of which he currently knew nothing; then came the realization that it was difficult to discriminate between natural and induced ignorance. Did the fact that he knew nothing whatsoever about the breeding habits of Anobium punctatum prove that he had been a woodworm eradicator?

Deciding that action was better than introspection, he returned his attention to the present. He had set his heart on reaching the planet Aspatria, and to that end began spending as much time as possible around the landing area, hoping to stow himself away on a ship going in the right direction. His first plan was to question crew members about their destinations, but dozens of ship arrivals and take-offs went by without his seeing a single astronaut and he developed a strong suspicion that the vessels were fully automatic in their operation. He then took to questioning departing rankers about their destinations. This actively, apart from bringing him close to being apprehended by an unusually alert officer, produced only the information that—incredible though it might seem—there were other war zones which made Threlkeld look like a picnic ground.

Three days after he had built his command neutralizer, Peace and his unit were shipped out to Torver, a rainy world where the morose Copgrove Farr died horribly as a result of kicking a toadstool which exploded with such violence that millions of its spores passed through his clothing and skin. By the time his fellow legionaries buried him, ten minutes later, he was sprouting fungi from head to foot. Peace awarded Farr a posthumous forgiveness for various remarks made about the thinness of his legs. He also redoubled his efforts to find a ship heading for Aspatria.

A week later Lieutenant Merriman and his unit were moved on to the planet Hardknott, where the unlucky Private Benger swarmed up a tree to escape from a pack of armourdillos and was promptly devoured by the tree itself. By this time Peace was becoming desperate, even though he inherited Benger’s shoes, which proved a remarkably good fit once he had shaken out of them all that remained of their donor. When he turned in at night he would speculate, in the few seconds before sleep claimed him, on why the crooked lawyers who drew up the Legion’s service contract had taken such pains to secure his labour for thirty, forty or fifty years. The way things were going with the 203rd, it was a statistical certainty that—even with his invention enabling him to disobey the more suicidal orders—he would be poisoned, crushed, torn apart or eaten within a matter of weeks. There was even a possibility of his meeting all of those fates at more or less the same time.

Like the other men in his unit, Peace found himself crying quite a lot, and becoming thinner and more jumpy with every passing day. By the end of the first month Vernie Ryan’s plumpness had disappeared and the shreds of his green glitter suit hanging around him created the impression he was covered with some form of seaweed. Private Dinkle, who had had more combat time than either of them, developed a nervous tic and a habit of crossing himself and muttering gloomily about Armageddon.

“The way he talks about Armageddon,” Ryan whispered to Peace over his breakfast gruel one morning, “you’d think it was the end of the world.”

“I warned you about those blasted jokes,” Peace replied, grabbing a convenient strip of Ryan’s suit and twisting it round his neck. He began to apply pressure, then realized the enormity of what he was doing and relaxed his grip. “I’m sorry, Vernie. I think I’m cracking up.”

“It’s all right,” Ryan said, massaging his throat. “I used to be a professional comic, you know, and my gags used to have the same effect on people even when times were good.”

“I can’t remember any good times—that’s the trouble. As far as I’m concerned, it’s always been like this.” Peace felt in his pocket for his blue toad, the small companion which had once offered him a crumb of hope. “But that’s no excuse for getting rough with you.”

“Let’s forget it.”

Peace nodded miserably. He stroked the smooth plastic of the toad with his thumb, wishing it could summon a genie with the power to grant his dearest wishes.

The entrance flap of the mess tent was lifted up and Lieutenant Merriman came through the triangular opening. Something about his appearance struck Peace as being highly unusual; then he realized that the lieutenant had left off his battle dress and was spruced up in a smart new uniform. He was accompanied by a timid-looking sergeant who had a box filled with small buff envelopes. The sergeant was also carrying an armful of flim-sey blue clothing.

“Gather round,” Merriman cried. “This is it! The day you’ve all been waiting for!”

“What day is that, sir?” Ryan said cautiously.

“Leave day, of course. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No, sir.” Ryan gave the others a glance of round-eyed surmise. “Do we get time off?”

“What a question!” Merriman’s mouth tried to stretch itself into a grin, but as this set up an impossible stress on the limited amount of lip material available it had to content itself with several rapid oscillations at the corners. “What a silly question! Did you really think your commanding officers were too lofty and too remote to appreciate how much strain you’ve been under? No, men, we know only too well that you can’t fight off battle fatigue indefinitely, that you need time in which to relax, to recuperate, to let the mental scars heal themselves.”

“That’s great, sir. How much time do we get?”

Merriman glanced at his watch. “Well, Ryan, as you’ve been in the Legion for thirty days, you’re entitled to three hours.”

Ryan stepped back. “I’ll be buggered!”

“Language!” Merriman said, frowning, then his brow cleared. “Don’t worry, Ryan—it’s within my discretion to allow you and Peace some extra rest and recreation time as a reward for loyal service, and that’s what I’m going to do. You’re going to enjoy the maximum leave period with the rest of the unit. Four hours.”

“Four hours,” Ryan whispered. “I don’t believe this. It’s too much.”

“No—you’ve earned it, and you’ll be even more pleased to hear that it doesn’t include travelling time.” Merriman swelled with benevolence as he beamed at Ryan. “Your four hours won’t even begin until you step off the ship on Aspatria.”

Peace, who had been listening to the conversation with considerable interest, felt his heart give a wild lurch at the mention of Aspatria. He resolved to do nothing which might attract undue attention and, simultaneously, his fingers opened of their own accord and allowed his bowl of gruel to upend itself in his lap. Lieutenant Merriman stared at him with distaste as he got to his feet and tried to brush the porridge off his ragged hose.

“What are you getting so excited about, Peace?” Merriman said. “You aren’t hoping to desert on Aspatria, are you?”

“Of course not, sir.” Peace simpered at him in a manner he hoped would be expressive of total loyalty and devotion to duty.

“That’s good, because …” Merriman fingered the lump on his throat, “… I’m giving you all a direct order to be back at the Legion field and on board ship—ready to leave—not more than four hours after we reach Touchdown City. Now, line up and collect your pay packets and leave suits.”

Peace queued with the rest of the unit and was issued with an envelope bearing his name, -together with a two-piece suit of a material which resembled crepe paper. He was grateful for the Legion’s consideration in providing clean clothing until he opened his packet and found that, of the three hundred monits due to him, a hundred had been deducted for the paper suit and a further forty had been put into the regiment’s retirement fund. The latter item, considering the average life expectancy of a legionary, suggested corruption in high places, but at least he still had the price of a good meal in the Blue Toad.

And, with luck, during the two hours or so that it would take to consume it he would pick up a vital clue to his past. He had no clear idea of what he was hoping to find—perhaps a waiter who remembered him, perhaps his name and address on a creditputer card—but this was the only chance he had and he was determined to grasp it with both hands. It would be necessary for him to hide out when his desertion was noticed by the Legion, but in its three centuries of existence Touchdown City had grown large enough to house a population of four million, and he was confident he could remain undiscovered for weeks or months. That, hopefully, would be ample time in which to follow up any clues he found. There was always the possibility that he had never actually been near Aspatria, that he had found or been given the little plastic souvenir, but this did not bear contemplation and he pushed the idea out of his mind.

Lieutenant Merriman led his depleted band to a waiting ship, which proved different from the type Peace already knew in that the passenger compartment was larger and included a locker room with toilet and shower facilities. As soon as the klaxon had sounded, and the vessel had begun its inertialess flight, he went into the locker room where the sergeant, who also served as toilet attendant, gave him the option of a cold shower for five monits or a hot one for twenty. Peace chose the expensive luxury, but economized by not renting a shaver to remove the short red-gold beard he had grown during his month of service. The face which gazed back at him in the mirror was leaner, harder and more mature than the one he remembered.

“What do you think of the beard?” he said to Ryan, who was donning his paper suit close by.

“It gives you a certain je ne sais quoi,” Ryan replied, “but I don’t know what it is.”

Peace stared at his companion. “Another of your so-called jokes?”

“What do you mean so-called?” Ryan said indignantly. “You’re lucky to have me around to cheer you up.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” It dawned on Peace that he had developed a real affection for Ryan, the only friend he could remember having, and that if his plans worked out they would shortly be parting for ever. It was ironic that he, who had begun by earnestly committing his life to the Legion, was about to make an early escape, while Ryan—who had joined in the spirit of somebody taking a week at a health farm—was doomed to soldier on until he died. Peace thought about the matter for a few seconds and decided to take a dangerous risk. He glanced around the room to make sure nobody could see what he was doing, then he took Ryan’s plastic helmet out of his locker and replaced it with his own.

Ryan looked perplexed. “What’s the idea, Warren?”

“I’m giving you my built-in hi-fi.” Peace pointed at the command neutralizer before concealing it by turning the helmet over. “I won’t need it any more.”

“But what about when you come back?” Ryan’s voice faded as he saw that Peace was shaking his head. “Warren, are you saying what I think you’re saying? I knew you were a bright boy, but this is too—”

Peace signalled him to keep quiet and in a confidential whisper explained how his invention operated. “It’ll help you to stay alive till you get a good chance to duck out,” he concluded.

“Do it in a battle zone, if possible, and they’ll write you off as missing, presumed dead. They won’t even bother to look for you.”

“Why aren’t you doing that?”

“I’ve got business on Aspatria,” Peace said. “At least, I think I have. Perhaps I’ll see you around.”

“I hope so. And I hope you find what you’re looking for, Warren.”

The two men shook hands and, feeling quite distressed, Peace hurried out into the passenger compartment and dropped on to a bench beside Private Dinkle, who was staring dully at the floor. At the impact of Peace’s arrival, Dinkle started violently, crossed himself and sank back into his gloomy torpor.

“Cheer up, Bud,” Peace said. “You’re going on leave!”

Dinkle stirred slightly. “On Aspatria? You can keep it.”

“Bad scene, is it?”

“Not any more, it isn’t—not since we beat hell out of the Aspatrians back in ‘83.”

“But you’re not happy about going there?”

Dinkle nodded slowly. “Too many memories.”

“My trouble is I haven’t enough.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever had to shoot a buddy who had a throwrug over him. There oughta be a limit to what a man has to do.”

Peace felt an inexplicable chill. His brief spell in the Legion had made him conversant with many unpleasant ways of entering the hereafter, but the scene described by Dinkle always had the effect of making his blood corpuscles turn into millions of tiny clunking ice cubes. He shivered slightly and tried to offer a little comfort.

“What’s done,” he said, “is done.”

Dinkle fixed him with a leaden eye. “Is that some advanced philosophy? Have you just extended the boundaries of human thought?”

“There’s no need to take it like that,” Peace said, offended. “All I meant was … the past’s over and done with.”

“The Oscar’s aren’t over and done with, sonny.” Dinkle crossed himself once more.

The strange dread returned to Peace in full force, but his curiosity was aroused. “What are these Oscars you keep talking about?”

“Supermen, sonny. Big guys with bald heads and muscles all over the place. They look like they’re made out of polished bronze.”

“They sound like statues.”

“Statues can’t move.” Dinkle’s voice took on a hollow quality. “But Oscars can run like the wind, and they can smash down trees with their bare hands, and nothing hurts them.

Radiation, bullets, bombs—everything just bounces off. They’re really what ended the war on Aspatria. Even the officers got to be afraid of them, so they pulled us out of all the up-country forests.”

“I don’t get this,” Peace said. “Are the Oscars the native Aspatrians?”

“You college types don’t know much about the real galaxy, do you?” Dinkle stopped brooding on the past long enough to give Peace a look of contempt. “Aspatria is a human colony—one of the oldest there is. In fact, that’s what the war was about. Just because they’d been around for three centuries or so, and were a few thousand light years from Earth, they thought they could go independent and stop paying their taxes. What would happen to the Federation if every Tom, Dick and Harry decided …?”

“But who are the Oscars?” Peace cut in. “Where did they come from?”

“Nobody knows officially. They appeared back on Aspatria back around ‘82 or ‘83. Some people say they’re mutants, but I know better.” Dinkle’s face began to twitch and his voice grew louder. “Soldiers of the Devil—that’s what they are-mustering for the last big battle between good and evil. And they’re going to win! I tell you, Warren, Armageddon’s almost on us, and we’re on the losing side.”

“Calm down,” Peace said uneasily as men in other parts of the room began to glance in Dinkle’s direction. He had wanted to remain as unobtrusive as possible before quietly slipping away, but Dinkle’s story had a hypnotic fascination for him. “What makes you so sure the Oscars are evil?”

“I’ve seen them in action.” Dinkle crossed himself again and his eyes glazed over. “Got separated from my unit one day … making my own way back through the forest when I heard this noise … got down on my hands and knees and crawled up to the edge of a clearing for a look-see … and I saw … I saw about five Oscars there … and they had some of our boys with them, lying there on the ground…

“Our boys were wounded, you see. I could hear them moaning and groaning and pleading for mercy, but it was no use. The Oscars kept right on doing it…” Dinkle covered his face with his hands. “I can’t go on.”

“You’ve got to.” An icy breeze seemed to be stirring the hair on the nape of Peace’s neck, but his mind was totally in thrall to the ghastly story Dinkle was unfolding. “What were the Oscars doing?”

“They were feeding our boys to the … to the throwrugs.”

Peace felt his stomach heave. “Oh, my God! You don’t mean…”

“It’s true, Warren. The Oscars had collected up some throwrugs—they could do that, you see, because nothing hurts them—and they were throwing them over our boys while they lay there on the ground. I can still hear them screaming and pleading for quick deaths. I can still see them writhing around while the throwrugs digested them and…” Dinkle clawed his fingers into Peace’s knee. “Know something else, Warren?”

“What?”

“The Oscars were laughing. They enjoyed seeing good men being eaten alive. If I’d been a brave man I’d have gone in there with my rifle and tried to put our boys out of their misery—but I was a coward, Warren. I was too scared of the same thing being done to me—so I crawled away and saved my own skin. I don’t deserve to be alive.” The blood was pounding in Peace’s ears as he stood up. “Listen, Bud,” he said, seeking a way to change the subject, “why don’t you clean up and change into your leave suit? It’ll make you feel better.”

Dinkle shook his head. “I don’t need any leave suit. I’m staying right here in the ship till we take off again.”

“Why’s that?”

Dinkle hunched around the slim prop of his rifle. “I’m not going to risk bumping into no Oscars. They swagger around like they own the place, and everybody’s afraid of them. I’ve heard they can read people’s minds, and if I saw them that day…” Dinkle crossed himself several times in quick succession and began swaying and muttering wildly about Armageddon, retribution and the Day of Judgment.

Peace backed away from him in consternation and took refuge in the lee of the coffee machine until, some minutes later, the klaxon sounded to announce that the ship was going into the landing phase. As soon as the floor had given its familiar conclusive lurch he joined the group of men clustered around the exit. After a tantalizing pause the door slid open and revealed an expanse of sunlit grass which could have been a pasture instead of a landing field.

The air was warm and sweet and in the distance, shining with harmonious pastels, was the graceful architecture of the city.

Peace felt an immediate liking for what he could see of Aspatria and he wondered if that could be a sign of previous acquaintance with the place. He stepped out with the others on to the pliant turf, filling his lungs with the scented air, revelling in the freedom from physical danger, then became aware of a different kind of hazard. Lieutenant Merriman had decided to address his men, yet again, on the evils of tobacco and alcohol, and—as he had a tendency to repeat everything he said—was almost certain to reiterate his order about returning to the ship within four hours. Peace was now unprotected by the command neutralizer and if he heard the order he would have no choice but to obey.

“Over there you will find a spaceport coach which will take you into Touchdown City,” Merriman said, pointing towards a complex of low buildings. “Visit as many museums and art galleries as you possibly can, but don’t forget that you…”

Whimpering with alarm, Peace clapped his hands over his ears, doubled low and scuttled away along the side of the spaceship. On rounding the corner of the transceiver tower he glanced back and, although it was difficult to be certain, got the impression that some of the blue-suited figures had turned to watch his departure—which must have looked slightly odd, not to say suspicious. Cursing himself for having blundered at such an early stage in his scheme, he looked around for an escape route and saw that the field’s perimeter was within sprinting distance. He ran towards it, expecting at any moment to hear a hue and cry developing in his wake, and reached the five-strand wire fence. Praying the wires were not electrified, he clambered through into the longer grass beyond. Ahead of him was a gentle rise which he ascended at top speed. On the crest he looked back and was relieved to see that neither Lieutenant Merriman nor any of his former comrades had emerged into view behind the rectangular hulk of the ship.

Relaxing a little, Peace took stock of his surroundings. The land fell away before him in a long and rather steep grassy bank, at the bottom of which a substantial road curved off in the direction of the city. A limousine painted in the unmistakable brash yellow of a taxi was cruising along the road. Peace considered using it as a quick and providential means of getting into the city, then decided against it on the grounds that he would need to conserve what was left of his money. He set off at an angle down the slope, determined to move at a leisurely pace and regain his composure. The lushness of the grass made the going slippery, and almost at once his thighs began to quiver with the effort of holding himself back on the incline. He began walking faster and faster, losing more control with each second, and before he really knew what was happening he was bounding down the long bank at breakneck speed.

I’ll learn from this little experience, he thought, trying to preserve a detached calm while the wind whistled in his ears and his contacts with the ground grew more fleeting. One should always expect the unexpected.

At that moment, as if to ratify his conclusions, the unexpected occurred again. On the road below, the driver of the cruising taxi—apparently under the impression that the flailing of Peace’s arms was intended to draw his attention—flashed his headlights and brought his vehicle to a halt at a point where he judged Peace’s descent would terminate. He must have had a keen eye for angles and distances, because Peace found himself hurtling straight at the taxi with no way of stopping, or even slowing down.

“Oh, no!” he shouted. “Out of the way, you fool!” The image of the taxi ballooned in his vision with frightening rapidity.

The driver looked out of his side window, making ready to welcome his fare, and his jaw sagged as he belatedly realized his peril. He was still struggling with the handbrake when Peace ran into the taxi with outstretched hands and beat the side window in on top of him.

Peace, whose chin had collided painfully with the vehicle’s roof, fell back onto the grass.

“You maniac!” the taxi driver shouted, brushing glass confetti out of his hair and off his shoulders with trembling hands. “What did you want to do that for?”

“What did I…?” Peace gaped at him. “What did you want to stop there for?”

“You hailed me … and, besides, I can stop anywhere I want.”

“I didn’t hail you, and I can walk anywhere I want.”

“Call that walking?” The driver sneered through the newly formed aperture in the side of his car. “You Blue-asses from Earth are all the same. Still sore about ‘83, so when you come here on leave you get all tanked up and start throwing your weight around. Well let me tell you, Mister Blue-ass—this is going to cost you.”

“Why should we be sore about…? What do you mean, it’s going to cost me?”

“A hundred monits for a new window, and twenty for my loss of time.”

It was Peace’s turn to sneer. “You can whistle for it.”

“Suits me.” The driver raised a large, complex-looking whistle which had been hanging on a cord around his neck. “I like using these subetheric jobs. You never know who’s going to answer the call first—the police or the Oscars.” He put the instrument to his lips.

“I’ll pay,” Peace said hastily, getting to his feet and producing his emaciated roll of bills. He counted off the required amount and passed it over.

“That’s better,” the driver grumbled. “I don’t know what’s the matter with folks these days—hailing cabs and then claiming they didn’t. It must be a new craze.”

“Look, I’m sorry about damaging your taxi,” Peace said. “How about taking me into the city?”

“Ten monits—and that’s half price.”

“Okay.” Peace was concerned about his reserves of cash, now approaching zero, but it had occurred to him that the taxi driver could be a good source of information about day-to-day life on Aspatria. He got into the vacant front seat, noticing as he did so that a small rent had already appeared in the sleeve of his new suit. The car surged forward with a low whine from its unimagnetic engine and the brilliant yellow-green landscape became a flowing panoramic lightshow.

“Nice day,” the driver said, seemingly ready to forgive and forget. He was a long-faced man with watered-down hair. “Nice place for a furlough.”

“Very nice.” Peace gave the scenery an approving nod. “I don’t know anything about Touchdown City and I…”

“Don’t worry—I’ll take you to the right place.”

“You will?”

“Sure. There’s nothing in it for me, of course— no commission or anything like that—but make sure Big Nelly writes my name in the book as you go in. Trev, they call me. Don’t forget—Trev.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea, Trev.” Peace tried not to show his indignation. “I want to go to the Blue Toad.”

“You can’t afford it, soldier.” Trev gave Peace an amiable double nudge with his elbow.

“Listen, you’re bound to be starving—all the legionaries I pick up are starving—and I bet you like good music, too.”

“Good music?” Peace felt he was losing the thread of the conversation.

“Sure. My cousin runs this place called the Handel Bar. High class it is—because everything’s named after highbrow composers and such—but it’s cheap. There’s nothing in it for me, of course—no commission or anything like that— but for twenty monits you’d get a big plate of his speciality, Chopin’s Bolognaise, with loads of sonata ketchup, or a Minuet Steak, or a…”

“It sounds like a wonderful place,” Peace said, “but I have to go to the Blue Toad.”

“Suit yourself—it’s not as if there was anything in it for me—or if you just want a quick snack there’s the Strauss Malts or…”

“Tell me about the Oscars,” Peace interrupted, returning to a subject which had a baleful fascination for him. “Did you say they’d answer if you blew that police whistle?”

“Sometimes they do.” Trev remained quiet for a moment, showing he had been hurt by the rejection of his commercial advances. “Sometimes they don’t.”

“But why do they do it at all?”

“Nobody knows. They never talk to anybody, but there are some things they don’t like—specially violent crime—and, boy, if you ever do anything an Oscar doesn’t like you’re in big trouble.”

“Are they like vigilantes?”

“Except you could get away from a vigilante— you can’t get away from an Oscar.”

Peace turned the new information over in his mind, trying to reconcile the notion of enigmatic, superhuman crime-busters with the atrocity scene described by Bud Dinkle. “Is it true they can read minds?”

“Some people say they can.” Trev gave Peace a thoughtful glance. “What’s it to you, anyway?

You some kind of crook or something?”

“Of course not,” Peace replied. He lapsed into a broody silence while he reviewed his misfortunes. Not only had he been deprived of all memory and identity, not only was he alone on an alien planet, not only was he almost penniless and with no place to sleep, not only was he a deserter who would soon be pursued by the Space Legion—it could easily turn out that he had a criminal record on Aspatria. And if that were the case he was likely to be hounded down and punished by invincible, telepathic supermen whose idea of light relaxation was feeding wounded Earthmen to monsters.

“Cheer up,” Trev said as the taxi swung into a wide boulevard which ran through the centre of Touchdown City. “There’s always somebody worse off than yourself.”

This was a thesis which Peace would have liked to dispute, but almost at once he saw—standing out with a vivid clarity from the other business signs—a tridi light sculpture in the shape of an enormous blue toad. He stared at it unblinkingly until the taxi came to a halt outside the building, where it floated like an insubstantial balloon. It was possible that his moment of truth was at hand, and—if so—it had found him in a condition in which he would have preferred several decades of reassuring lies.

He paid off the taxi and, realizing the necessity to act quickly before his nerve failed, squared his shoulders and walked in through the expensive, smooth-gliding doors of the Blue Toad.