There was another sniper just before the cross-trench. We started to handle him the same way, but when I grabbed his neck it was cold and slimy. He fell back against me and just at that moment a star shell went off and I stared at the jagged hole in his head. I let go of him instinctively and he fell with a heavy noise. We waited for an army to pounce on us but nothing happened.
We slipped into the cross-trench and moved as fast as we could. If our own gatling gun opened up we’d have no place to hide; they were right in line. There was a dead man in the middle of the trench, with a red armband. Maybe the TDU who had been sent out as a decoy. We didn’t stop to investigate.
We hesitated at the intersection, where the cross-trench met the second trench, and that was a lucky thing. We heard footsteps. Several men were coming from our left.
They couldn’t see us yet, because of the sawtooth pattern of the trenches (this gave you some protection from grenade blasts and prevented one squad, or one man with a gatling, from being able to hold an entire trench under fire).
We crossed quickly and flattened ourselves against the walls. Pancho had a grenade in his hand; I took one out, too. So much for the moral equation. But we didn’t have to use them. They came within a few meters but never even looked our way. They turned down the cross-trench and moved quickly away from us. Six-man sapper squad.
Then a flare popped and the gatling opened up. Pancho and I jumped back into the crossroads and took shelter. The sapper squad was caught in the passageway. There were a couple of horrible screams and one man called out for a medic. The gatling kept firing until he stopped.
I wondered about Miko being out in all of this, too. He couldn’t be much better off than we were. He might even be alone. I didn’t wonder very long, though. He’d have to take care of himself.
When the last flare died down we continued up the cross-trench. I fought the impulse to sprint. We’d seen how noise carried.
Third trench, right turn, half-a-klick to freedom. It was less likely that we’d run into snipers here, but we used the same caution; Pancho leading, he’d sneak forward a few meters and stop; then I, the larger target, would follow, watching him for hand signals.
We got to the end of the trench without any trouble. Evidently both armies were staying close to home tonight, good luck. We had a whispered conference and decided to stay in the trench until the next flare; when that died away we’d make a run for it.
It seemed to take forever, but finally a flare popped and we tensed for the run. In the lurid dancing light we could see a warning sign above the trench:
WARNING!
YOU ARE NEARING THE PERIMETER.
TURN BACK NOW. PENALTY FOR
LEAVING NOMANLAND IS DEATH.
The flare went out and we scrambled up and started running. After a few steps I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I barely had time to wonder about it when it suddenly got more and more intense, and brought me to my knees. Pancho stumbled to the ground beside me.
“My chest,” he croaked. “Dios!”
“Me too. Have to go back.”
“Back?” He didn’t have it figured out.
“Come on.” As we crawled back the way we had come, the pain diminished, finally disappearing as we tumbled back into the trench.
“I think I understand,” he whispered, panting. “They put something in our bodies.”
“Yeah. And there’s some kind of signal generated by the perimeter, sets if off.”
“I’m sure it would have killed us if we’d gotten much closer.” He shook his head. “What now?”
“Like Jake said. Stay alive for a couple of days. Then a couple days more, I guess. Right now we have to stay alive till dawn.”
“This is a safe place, here.”
“I don’t know. The longer we stay here, the more Blues we’ll have to pass to get back. Assuming they’ve sent more than two snipers and six sappers.”
“And if they haven’t, we’re safe anywhere,” he said, somehow with a mix of hope and sarcasm in his voice.
I stood up. “We’ll go back half as fast, twice as quiet.”
“And try not to kill?”
“I guess — damn!”
“What is it?”
“I didn’t take the bolt out of that dead sniper’s rifle. When the one I choked wakes up, he’ll just switch weapons.”
“If he stays. If I were him, I’d start easing back toward my own hill.”
We retraced our path in total silence, and didn’t meet anyone. There were only five sappers’ bodies in the corridor, but we found the sixth on the floor of the first trench. The dead sniper still had a bolt in his rifle; I removed it. The one I’d choked had disappeared.
I started to go over the wall but Pancho grabbed my leg. “No, amigo,” he whispered. “We’re safer from our own fire down here than in the slit trench.”
He was right. We settled into a niche there and all hell broke loose.
There were several muffled grenade blasts, all within a few seconds. Then sporadic rifle fire and the deeper, faster banging of pistols. People were screaming, shouting orders, calling for medics. Flares popped. There were people running all over the hill.
“Sappers,” Pancho whispered.
Four men were running down the path, shooting back at our people with pistols. They ran through the barbed wire opening unscathed; they must have gotten the gatling bunker. They jumped the slit trench and ran toward us. Rifle bullets spit all around them.
They would hit the first trench a few meters from where we were. There was no way they could miss us.
“God forgive me,” I muttered, and pulled the pin from a grenade, and hurled it at them.
My aim was good but my timing was bad. The grenade hit one of them full in the chest. It bounced in front of him and, without breaking stride, he kicked it right back at us. It bounced once and fell in the trench between me and Pancho. It was close enough that you could hear the fuse sputtering.
I could have been a hero and thrown my body over it, to save Pancho. Or I could have been smart and jumped away, flattening with my feet pointed toward it (which is what Pancho did). Instead, I was stupid, and picked it up.
My memory of it is in excruciating slow motion. As soon as I picked it up I knew I’d done the wrong thing. Then as I swung to throw it back at the advancing sappers, I knew I’d done the second wrong thing; I should have just tossed it down the trench a few meters, and the zigzag would have protected us.
It must have detonated about a meter away from my hand. It didn’t hurt, just a big sting and a blinding flash, and I fell back on to the floor of the trench, right on top of Pancho.
I heard the sappers jump into the trench and then I heard someone cock a pistol, and someone else say, “Don’t waste it, he’s dead”. Then I heard the gatling start up and slowly fade away.
“Carl! Wake up! Dios!” I woke up to a sudden universe of pain: my chest and face felt like they’d been chewed off and nailed back on. My right arm felt like it was being deep-fried.
Only one eye worked. I used it to look at my arm and almost fainted again. Thumb and forefinger were gone; middle finger was broken off and swung loose, held by a scrap of flesh. The whole arm looked like a skinned animal that had been flayed alive. Spurting blood.
Pancho was working on a tourniquet. Blood stopped spurting as I watched. “I have to go get help,” he said. “Hold on to this knife.” He guided my left hand to the trench knife he had used as a pivot for the tourniquet. “Don’t try to sit up. You’ve got one eye out of its socket. I don’t know what to do about that.”
My mouth was so dry I couldn’t talk. I tried to tell him to go on, I was dead, don’t risk himself and a medic. But he was gone. I fell asleep again. Did Pancho give me a shot?
The next thing I saw was Alegria’s face. She smiled. “You’re going to be all right, Carl.” I was in the aid station on the top of the hill. “You’ll be able to use the hand in a week or so.” My vision was blurred; I touched the bad ey
e and it was sore, but there.
“They put the eye back in. You looked pretty creepy when they brought you up.” Her voice was shaking. I wondered if she’d cried.
“How’s Pancho?”
“Hardly a scratch. And you can thank him for finding your thumb and finger, while you were waiting for the medics. You were lucky it … it all came off in one piece. That made the bone graft easy.”
“ ‘Hardly a scratch’? He was hit, then.”
“He was hurt a little when that grenade you were playing with went off. Just some scalp cuts, though; he didn’t even notice them.”
My senses were starting to come back. “Are we alone?” I whispered.
“Yes, we are.”
“Look, they’ll be sending me back to the main hospital, won’t they.”
“I suppose …”
“I can escape! I can find my way back to the Confederación.”
“It’s not that easy. Miko tried last night and they —“
I heard a door open.
“Can he stand up?” said a voice I couldn’t place.
“I don’t know, sir,” Alegria said. “I don’t think he should.”
“Have him try.” I rolled over on one elbow and levered myself up, then sat up on the bed. Oddly, only my eye hurt.
The voice belonged to Captain Forrestor. He was standing there with a pistol in his hand, loosely at his side. Behind him where Pancho and Miko, their hands tied behind their backs, and Sergeant Meyer, behind them with a rifle.
I lowered my feet to the ground and stood up, groggy. Alegria held on to my good arm. “What’s going on?” I said. “Sir?”
“You know what’s going on. I’m sorry the surgeon wasted so much time on you last night. You’ll die today.”
“You and Private Bolivar did willfully try to desert last night. The sensors implanted in your chests identified you. If someone had awakened me I would have had you shot, and saved some trouble.” He looked at Meyer sharply.
“In addition, there is the matter of Private Riley’s attempt at desertion last night. That he got farther than either of you is only a tribute to his ability to withstand the pain of the sensors.” Captain Forrestor half turned, gave Miko a cold glance. “Private Riley managed to reach the perimeter and deactivate a portion of the warning network. If he had kept going there is no doubt he could have escaped. Foolish as it may seem, he chose to return. If he had simply taken the woman he would have had no trouble. It was only when he attempted to rescue you that he was apprehended. Stupid loyalty. Pity they didn’t kill him.”
I looked at Miko. He averted his eyes and it was only then that I noticed the thin line of plastiflesh that covered half his face. His nose had been rebuilt.
“Therefore, I have good and substantial reason to believe that a conspiracy to escape exists among the four of you. I have but one reasonable course of action. You are all condemned to die.” He raised his pistol. “Sergeant?”
Meyer leaned his rifle against the wall and picked up a thick roll of surgical tape. He bound Alegria’s hands behind her back and bound mine in front, the good one against the one in a plastic cast. Then he taped everyone’s mouths shut.
“Take them down to the wire and dispose of them with the gatling. Make a little speech first. We’ll get some use out of them.”
Meyer pushed us, not too roughly, out the door, and followed us down the path to the bottom of the hill. Miko was beside me.
I felt stupid for all the things I had thought about him. There were things I had to tell him, important things. I’d never get the chance. I caught his eye and, somehow, I felt he understood.
“It’s no consolation,” said Meyer softly, “but I don’t like doing this.”
Pancho had worked a corner of the tape loose on his shoulder. “But you are doing it,” he said, mumbling.
“To save my skin. I didn’t wake that bumhole up last night because I figured any bumhole who can sleep through a sapper attack must really need his sleep.”
“You might as well have the whole story. He got a request — not an order, a request — to send you four back to base camp. It seems some Confederación official made an inquiry about our recruiting procedures. About the four of you, specifically. There will be a hearing. He would rather you weren’t alive to testify, which is why you had such interesting jobs yesterday. Your trying to escape only made it easier for him.”
“We were kidnapped — so were you! Can’t you see that setting us free could mean your freedom?”
“No. It would mean a bullet in the brain. Besides, we were legally kidnapped. I think he could solve the whole thing in court, in Confederación court. But he’s an impulsive bumhole, and the Confederación scares him shizeless — what the hell is that?”
We were about halfway down the hill. There was a low warbling sound, full of nervous subsonics.
I had never seen a Confederación police cruiser before. A shiny black inverted bowl half the size of the hill we stood on. It settled down over the first three rows of trenches, gently as a dust mote. The top-mounted gigawatt-laser swiveled to point toward us.
“WE DO SUBPOENA FIVE INDIVIDUALS: CAPTAIN HARVEY FORRESTOR, SPICELLE; ALEGRIA SALDANA, SELVA; FRANCISCO BOLIVAR, SELVA; CARL BOK, SPRINGWORLD; AND MIKO RILEY, PERRIN. COME FORWARD.” It had the voice of a minor god.
“Shoot the dighters!” Forrestor was on top of the hill, waving his pistol. He fired; the bullet sang over our heads.
Meyer slammed a round home and pointed his rifle at the officer. “Drop it, Captain! They’ll fry us all!”
He kept his pistol pointed at us for a second and then let it drop from his fingers. “Ramirez! Tulo! Sandiwell! Someone do something!”
All of the camp was staring from behind their bunkers. Nobody raised a weapon. “Guess I better go with you,” Meyer said. “Come along, sir.”
Keeping his eyes and rifle on Forrestor, he said, “Morrison. Would you set these people free?”
After announcing that the war was temporarily suspended, the police vessel took us aboard, and in a few minutes we were back at the spaceport in the capital city. Guards armed with ‘tanglers escorted us to a floater, and we were taken to a tall building in the center of the city. Down a lift to a corridor; down the corridor to an office. In the office was a huge desk, bare except for four pieces of paper — our enlistment forms — and three people; a Heller with an ornate uniform that featured five stars, Dean M’bisa — and B’oosa!
The Dean flinched when he saw me. B’oosa said, “Still have all your arms and legs, Carl. I’m surprised.”
The general said, “Who are you?”
“Sergeant Meyer, sir. I had to escort the —“
“I only asked who you were. You may leave.” He turned to us. “Sit down. You remain standing, Captain.”
He waited for us to sit. “Captain Forrestor, do you realize that you are guilty of a profound violation of the law?” He just stared. “In connection with the recruitment of these four individuals?”
“Sir, I bought them from —“
“Silence! I don’t care how they got into your camp, and I don’t care.” With a well-manicured forefinger he pushed the documents two centimeters toward Forrestor. “This is what I’m talking about.”
“They signed without coercion, sir.”
“Well and good.” He leaned forward and his voice dropped almost to a whisper. “But they are minors, Forrestor. Minors. They can’t sign such an agreement without their parents’ permission.”
He turned to the two black men. “In this case, Dr. M’bisa, who is acting in loco parentis.”
“It may not please you to know that we have already hanged one man in conjunction with this … terrible scheme. The sergeant who supplied these four to you. He kidnapped them, reported them killed in training, and collected a part of the insurance as well as an enlistment fee from you.”
“You will have a chance to defend your own role in this affair, at a general court martial this afternoon. You
are dismissed.”
“But … General … everybody —“
“You aren’t helping your case, Captain. Dismissed.” The guards escorted him out the door.
When they were gone, the General said, “His confusion might be understandable. On his world, people reach their majority at eighteen. On Hell, it’s twenty-five.”
“Of course,” M’bisa said.
“So it isn’t a Confederación matter at all, although we are of course grateful for the help of Confederación officials in resolving it. The rest may be taken care of within the structure of the Universal Code of Military Justice.” You could hear the capitals.
“Unless we should choose to press the matter,” M’bisa said.
“Let me be frank.” He indicated us with a sweep of his hand. “It happens that the same document is used for enlistment in the mercenary forces and enlistment in our military school system. Minors may sign the latter.”
“But it’s difficult to get out of, I assume,” B’oosa said.
He nodded slowly. “Even if this is desired by the parents. The natural parents.”
Dean M’bisa stood up, his posture and face showing his age. “I think we understand each other, General. Good day.”
“Good day, citizens.”
B’oosa had seen the whole thing, from behind a snowbank. He stamped out a message in the snow, in Pan-swahili. Not too many Hellers understand the language, but most Confederación employees do. A weather satellite picked it up, and he was rescued by the same vessel that rescued us.
I spent a day in a Hell hospital, where Earthie doctors worked on my hand and face. Then we went back to Starschool and left Hell behind. Dr. M’bisa announced that the planet had been dropped from the school’s itinerary.