“Right you are,” I mumbled, and managed to remember to add, “sir.” The face didn’t look pleased, but it went away. I edged myself to the side of the bed, trying to avoid the sharpest and rustiest of the springs—half my body was covered with punctures from where I had tossed and turned in the night—and attacked the problem of getting into my tee and culottes. That problem proved soluble, though I think I carried it out in my sleep. The problem of where “chow” was was no problem at all, because I only had to follow the slow migration of red-eyed, unshaved, blinking troops to what was marked Dining Hall A. At least there was Coffiest. Better than that, there were Mokes, though these were not government issue and I wasted precious moments wheedling change from the one or two slightly familiar faces doggedly attacking their Om’Lets and Bredd. Naturally the vending machine ate my first three coins without spitting out a Moke in return, but on the fourth try I got one—warm, to be sure—and faced the blinding outdoor sun a little more bravely.
Finding the colonel’s office was a lot harder. None of the new replacements like myself seemed to have a clue. The wiser regulars were, it appeared, still happily asleep in their bunks, waiting out the press of new boys in the mess hall so that they could enjoy their breakfast in a more leisurely way later on. The couple of natives wandering around, bearing brooms or pails of gray, scummy water— though showing no signs of using either— were glad to give me directions; but as we had no language in common I had no notion of what they were directing me to. I found myself on the edge of the compound, passing through a gate, when a repellent odor filled my nostrils and, at the same moment, that raucous Aaaah-ee! blasted in my ear.
The mystery of the machine noises in the night was cleared up. To my infinite disgust I discovered that the machines were no machines. These people had animals. Living animals! Not in a zoo or properly stuffed in some museum, but standing on the streets, pulling carts, even defecating right where people might walk. I had blundered into what was a kind of parking lot for the creatures. I tell you, for a minute there it was touch and go whether I would retain the hard-won Moke I had just swallowed.
By the time I finally found the colonel’s office I was, of course, at least twenty minutes late, but I had learned some sobering facts about this new world I had been thrust into.
The particular animals with the loud bray were called donkeys. A smaller, horned kind of donkey they called goat, but they also had chickens and horses and yaks. And each one smelled fouler, and had habits more disgusting, than the next. When at last I stumbled into the mud-brick structure marked 3d Bn Hq & Hq Cy I knew I was well on the way to earning my first reprimand, but I didn’t care. It was air-conditioned, and the air conditioning actually worked, and when the first sergeant told me, scowling, that I would have to wait and the colonel would eat me out, I could have kissed him, for the air was cool, the sickening sounds from outside were muffled—and there was a Moke dispenser by the door.
The sergeant was a true prophet. The colonel’s first words were, “You were late, Tarb! A bad beginning! I tell you true, you admen make me sick!”
In normal times that kind of talk would have had me up and fighting, but these were not normal times. I could read the colonel like a book: grizzled old campaigner, chest full of ribbons for the Sudan and Papua New Guinea and the Patagonian campaign. No doubt up from the ranks, with all the former consumer’s hatred of the upper classes. I swallowed the words that rose to my lips, held the tightest brace at attention I could manage and said only, “Yes, ma’am.”
She looked at me with the same sort of unbelieving dislike that, I am sure, I gave to the donkeys. She shook her head. “So what am I going to do with you, Tarb? You got any skills that don’t show on your personnel record-cooking, plumbing, running an officers’ club?” I said indignantly, “Ma’am! I’m a copy-smith, star class!”
“You were,” she corrected. “Here you’re just another casual officer that I’ve got to find a job for.”
“But surely—my skills—my ability to create a promotional campaign—”
“Tarb,” she said wearily, “all that stuffs done back in the Pentagon. We don’t make strategy here in the field. We’re just the dogfaces that carry it out.” She flicked gloomily through the data stores—hesitated—went on —turned back and cursored one line in the Table of Organization.
“Chaplain,” she said with satisfaction.
I goggled at her. “Chaplain? But I never—I mean, I don’t know anything about—”
“You don’t know anything about anything, Lieutenant Tarb,” she said, “but chaplaining’s easy work. You can get the hang of it in no time. You’ll have an assistant who knows the ropes—and, as far as I can see, it’s a place where you can’t do much harm. Dismissed! And try to keep your nose clean till this campaign’s over so you’ll be somebody else’s problem.”
So I began my career as chaplain to the Third Battalion Headquarters and Headquarters Company—heavy limbic projectors and sky-screens—not the best duty in the world, but a long way better than going door-to-door with the infantry. The colonel had promised me an experienced chaplain’s assistant, and I got one. Staff-Sergeant Gert Martels wore the ribbons of campaigns as far back as Kampuchea on her rather prominent chest.
She greeted me as I entered my domain for the first time with a sloppy salute but a fully accomplished smile. “Morning, Lieutenant,” she sang out. “Welcome to the Third!”
I saw at once that S/Sgt Martels was going to be the best thing about my chaplaincy— well, the second best thing, anyway. The office itself was drab. It had been a laundry room in the motel, and you could still see the stains of bleach and soap powder outlining where the washing machines had been. Capped-off pipes were still present along the wall. But it was air-conditioned! It was located in that handsome motel with the fountains and shady arbors, only now the fountains were working —and we casuals had been moved out to “regular” housing, so that the space could become headquarters offices. I guess the air conditioning was the third best thing; the very best was a Moke vending machine, and the way it purred told me that the Mokes would be coming out ice-cold. “How did you know?” I demanded, and the handsome, scarred face lit up with another of those excellent smiles.
“It is,” she said, “a chaplain’s assistant’s business to know such things. Now, if the lieutenant would care to sit at his desk I’ll be glad to answer the lieutenant’s questions …”
It was better than that. I didn’t even have to ask any questions, because S/Sgt Martels knew what the lieutenant needed to know better than the lieutenant did. This was the way to the officers’ club. These were the blank passes I had the authority to sign. That on the wall was the intercom, used only by a friend in the colonel’s office to warn us when the colonel was coming this way. And, in case the lieutenant didn’t much care for the food in the mess hall, the lieutenant always had the privilege of declaring that he had been too busy with emergency duties during regular meal hours to get there, and so avail himself of between-meals “snacks” in the private dining room of the field-officers’ mess. The lieutenant, she added innocently, had also the privilege of taking his assistant at such times if he cared to.
And why, I wondered starrily, had I been so reluctant to give up the Mad. Ave. rat race to come to this earthly paradise?
Well, paradise it was not. Nights were still hell. “Regular” housing turned out to be foam pop-ups, with slit trenches. The only “air conditioning” they had were tiny solar-battery fans, and the foam walls soaked up every calorie of the Gobi’s blazing daytime sun to give back to us all night. There were also bugs. There was also the all-night braying of the animals in the stockades outside the walls. There were also the sleepless hours, miserably wondering what Mitzi was up to, who was taking over my job at Taunton, Gatchweiler and Schocken. There was also the fact that the desert heat was boiling the Mokes out of my body as fast as I could swallow them, and every day I got gaunter and shakier. On the second day Gert Martels look
ed at me in alarm. “The lieutenant,” she said, “is working too hard.” Palpable lie, of course; I had yet to see my first soldier coming in for solace or help. “I suggest the lieutenant write himself a pass and take the rest of the day off.”
“Pass to where in this hellhole?” I snarled, and brought myself up short. Hadn’t I had a conversation like this once before—on Venus —with Mitzi? “Well,” I said, reconsidering, “I suppose that ten years from now I’ll regret it if I don’t see whatever sights there are. Only you come along.”
So twenty minutes later we were sitting back-to-back on a sort of four-wheeled cart with an awning over our heads, clop-clopping along the white-dust road to the metropolis of Urumqi. Military trucks roared by, raising a six-foot wake of dust. What fun! Conversation was pretty nearly impossible, not only because we were facing away from each other but because we spent half our time coughing the dust out of our lungs until Gert produced some sort of white surgical masks to tie over our noses and mouths.
Fortunately Urumqi—they pronounced it “Oo-ROOM-chee,” which tells you a lot about the Uygurs—wasn’t far away. It also wasn’t much when you got there. The main street had real trees, a double row of them, but there was nothing but bare yellow dirt under the trees. No grass. No flowers. What there was was about a dozen Uygurs with gauze masks of their own, sweeping leaves off the bare ground. You’d think there was already enough dust in the air for any normal person, but, no, there the Weegs were, sweeping great clouds up in case we might run out. “I wish I had a Moke,” I gritted out, and Gert twisted around to say:
“Hang on, Lieutenant—”
“My name’s Tenny.”
“Hang on, Tenny, we’re almost there. See it down the block? Divisional R&R, and they’ve got all the Mokes you want.”
And so they did; and not only that, they had a bar, and an all-ranks coffee shop where you could get brand-name food, and an officers’ lounge with satellite Omni-V. And flush toilets! And—I’ll give you an idea of what heavenly luxury this was after my forty-eight hours in the field—it wasn’t until after I’d noticed all those things that I noticed that the whole building was air-conditioned. “How many passes can I give myself?” I demanded.
“All you want,” said Gert gratifyingly, and we headed first for the coffee shop. When I said it was my treat she looked amused but didn’t argue, and we washed down Turr-Kee salad sandwiches on real Bredd with half a dozen Mokes and sat comfortably at our windowside table, gazing disdainfully at the Weegs outside. “There’s worse duty than this, Tenny,” Gert announced, ordering another Coffiest.
I reached over and touched her ribbons. She didn’t draw back. “I guess you’ve seen some, right?” I offered.
Her expression clouded. “I guess Papua New Guinea was about the worst,” she said, as though the memory pained her.
I nodded. Everybody knew about Papua New Guinea, and the way hundreds of natives had died in the riots when the Coffiest and Reel-Meet ran out.
“It’s good work, Gert,” I said consolingly. “There aren’t many abo reservations left. Cleaning up the holdouts has to be done—a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.” She didn’t answer, just took a sip of her Coffiest without meeting my eyes. I said, “I know what I’ve done isn’t in the same league as you veterans. Still, I spent three years on Venus, you know.”
“Vice-consul and morale officer,” she nodded. She knew.
“Well, then you know that the Veenies aren’t really much better than these Weegs. Salesless, bigoted, antiprogress—why, take away a little superficial technology and they’d fit right in on this reservation!” I waved my hand at the street outside. A bunch of enlisted personnel were loafing around the hotel steps, trying to tempt the Uygurs with Mokes and pocket viewers and Nic-o-Chews, but the tribesmen just smiled and shook their heads and moved on. “I doubt most of these aboriginals even know that civilization exists. They haven’t changed for a thousand years.”
She gazed out at the street, her expression hard to read. “More than that, Tenny. We’re not the first invaders they’ve seen. They’ve had the Manchus and the Mongols and the Hans and outlived them all.”
I coughed—it wasn’t dust in my throat. “Invaders isn’t exactly the word I would have chosen, Gert. We’re civilizers, you know. What we’re doing here is an important mission.”
“Important is right,” she snapped, and there was an edge to her voice that caught me unaware. “The last one before the big push, eh? Did you ever think that there’s a logical progression here, New Guinea, the Sudan, the Gobi? And then—” Suddenly she faltered and looked around the room, as though wondering who might have heard.
That I could understand, for she was saying things that would cost her if the wrong people were listening. I was sure she didn’t mean them. Not deep down inside, that is. The combat troops at the spearhead of civilization couldn’t be blamed if, now and then, strange ideas crossed their minds. Back in civilization that kind of talk could get you in a lot of trouble. Here—“Here,” I said kindly, “you’re under a strain, Gert. Have another Coffiest, it’ll soothe you.”
She looked at me in silence for a moment, then laughed. “All right, Tenny,” she said, beckoning to the Weeg waitress. “You know what? You’re going to make a great chaplain.” It took me a moment to respond to that— somehow it hadn’t sounded like a compliment. “Thank you,” I said at last.
“And in order to make you one,” she said, “I guess I’d better fill you in on your duties. Now, you’re going to get two kinds of people coming to you for help. The first kind will be the ones that are worried about something—they’ve received a Dear Jane letter or they think their mother’s sick or they’re convinced they’re going crazy. The way you handle them is to tell them not to worry and give them a twenty-four-hour pass. The second kind will be the foul-ups. They’re missing formations or oversleeping roll call or failing inspection. What you do with them is send a chit to the first sergeant cutting off their passes for a week, and you tell them they better start worrying. Now, sometimes there’ll be somebody with a real problem, and what you do—”
So I listened, and I nodded, and, actually, I was quite enjoying myself. I didn’t then know that there were two of those people with real problems in my company.
Or that both of them were sitting at my table.
Chaplaincy wasn’t arduous. It left me plenty of time for long, late lunches in the field officers’ mess and evening passes to Urumqi. It also left me time to wonder, rather frequently at first, just what I was doing there, because the operation that we’d all been hustled from hemisphere to hemisphere to perform didn’t seem to be happening … whatever it was that was supposed to happen. When I asked Gert Martels, she shrugged and said it was just the good old tradition of hurry up and wait, so I stopped worrying about it. I took what each day offered. The old Urumqi hotel that had been commandeered for divisional R&R became as familiar to me as my official pop-up sleeping tent—in fact, the hotel was where I spent nights when I could, not only because of the air conditioning but because each of the tatty old guest rooms had its own flush toilet and tub and shower. Often all three of them worked. And in the officers’ lounge there was the Omni-V.
That wasn’t all joy. For one thing, what I really wanted was news. In order to get it I had to fight off the civilization-starved officers, most of them with more rank than I had, who were desperate for sports, variety shows, sitcoms and commercials—mostly commercials. The kind of news I wanted wasn’t the usual thing—the goggling, blinking, grinning couple who’d won “Consumer of the Month” in Detroit, or the President’s speeches, or the story of six pedicabs destroyed, with loss of eleven lives, when the spire fell off the old Chrysler Building and flattened half a block of Forty-second Street: I mean the real news, the “World of Advertising” report and the daily lineage and spot-time charts. That news came on at six o’clock in the morning, because of the fact that we were halfway around the world, and so I had no hope of seeing it unl
ess I pressed my luck and took yet one more night in the divisional R&R—and, of course, managed to wake myself up in time to get down to the lounge. That wasn’t easy. Every morning waking up got harder and harder. The only thing that could get me out of bed, finally, was to not have any Mokes in the room, so as soon as my eyes opened I had to get up and out to find one.
And then what I saw wasn’t all joy. There was a whole ten-minute spot, one morning, given to my ConsumAnon plan. It had been launched with a sixteen-megabuck promotion budget. It was a great success. But it wasn’t mine.
For that I was prepared. What I wasn’t prepared for was the commentator, with that sickly, covetous smile people get when somebody’s pulled off a coup, finishing up by giving credit to that dynamic new agency that came from nowhere to challenge the giants … Haseldyne and Ku.
The captain who came into the lounge just then, swinging his weights and all ready for his morning setting-up exercises, didn’t know how lucky he was. I let him live. If I hadn’t startled him so with my blast of rage when he tried to change the channel he would surely have had me in for conduct unbecoming an officer, but I don’t think he’d ever seen so much violence on a face. I clung to that channel selector. I didn’t even look around when he slunk away, his weights hanging straight at his side. I was spinning that dial, hunting for news, starving for crumbs of information. With two hundred and fifty channels coming down from the satellites it was like looking for the winning boxtop in a trash can. I didn’t care about the odds. Flick, and I was getting a Korean weather report; flick, a commercial jockey; flick, a kiddyporn audience-participation show; flick—I flicked on. I caught the tail end of the BBC’s late-night wrap-up and Russ-Corp’s early morning newscast from Vladivostok. I didn’t get the whole story. I was not sure all the pieces fit together. But Haseldyne and Ku was news worldwide, and the outline was clear. Dambois hadn’t told me all the truth. Mitzi and Desmond Haseldyne had taken their profits and started their own agency, right enough. But they hadn’t taken just money. They’d taken the whole Intangibles department from T., G. & S. with them— raided the staff—pirated the accounts—