by Tom Kratman
The household kitchen was much smaller and cozier. He found Lourdes there, hunched over a computer, ordering supplies from the main commissary. Although Legion pay was generous by local standards, it didn't necessarily permit two cars, or even one, per family. He'd made arrangements for a local company to provide a delivery service. For some it was a necessity. For others, like Lourdes, it was a damned nice to have convenience.
Carrera's steps were catlike, virtually silent. It wasn't anything he tried to do; in fact, he'd tried to cure himself of it since it tended to give people unpleasant shocks when he materialized behind him. Lourdes didn't know he was even standing behind her until she felt his hands cup her breasts. She immediately inhaled sharply and leaned her head back against his waist, near his groin.
"Coffee, breakfast, or me?" she asked.
"You."
"Good, because coffee would make a real mess on the bed."
* * *
She knew he wouldn't be long. Even on those rare mornings when he came home after physical training he was invariably out the door by 08:15. That left her perhaps half an hour to enjoy the post-coital nearness of her man. Over the last two years, ever since she'd turned up pregnant in Sumer with their second child and he'd put his foot down and insisted she go home where she and the children would be safe, opportunities to be together had been all too infrequent.
Infrequent! She mentally snorted. A couple of weeks twice a year. No, less than that; one year he didn't come home for eight months. Then there was this last Christmas.
And now? Now he's home for a while. Maybe it will be a long while. But it won't—she felt a tear begin to form; she stifled a sniffle—it won't be forever.
The thing is, and the tear rolled across the bridge of her nose and then down the cheek on the other side, that he leaves me because he has to avenge her. He still loves her. More than he does me? I don't know . . . probably. He must because he leaves me even though that will never bring her and her children back.
Then, too, why do I love him. Because the little DNA analyzer in behind my nose tells me he's a good genetic match? Probably . . . . somewhat. Because he's rich and powerful? No, he wasn't either of those things when we met. Because he's good looking? He isn't all that good looking.
No, it isn't any of those things, or not them entirely, anyway. I think it's . . . because he has honor. Honor? What a rare concept now. Who can even agree on what it means anymore? It's not what it once was, in the olden days back on Earth or the early days here, when it was all appearance only. A man was honorable if he had high repute, never mind if he deserved it or not. A woman could screw half the world but, so long as no one ever found out, she was honorable.
No, Patricio has honor inside. He doesn't care what the world thinks of him. He knows what's right. He knows that it's not right to turn the other cheek to a movement of homicidal maniacs, and he does what he can to fight it.
2/5/467 AC, Mendoza residence, Avenida Central, Ciudad Balboa
Marqueli's little hands shook as she opened the envelope from the Legion's higher education board. What it would do to Jorge if his thesis proposal were not accepted . . . she didn't know and was afraid even to think about it.
They must accept. They must. What Jorge wants to do, it's important. Carrera sees that. And even though Jorge's blind, he sees more clearly than anyone with sight.
She inhaled, exhaled, and then forced herself to open the envelope.
The contents were printed on very nice paper; she could feel it in her fingertips. Still not daring to unfold the letter, she wondered, Do they waste good paper on rejections?
With trembling finger she began to unfold. As soon as her eyes reached the line, "We are pleased to inform you . . . " she shouted, "Jorge!"
* * *
She hadn't needed to shout. Since losing his eyesight Jorge had, like many of the sightless, developed remarkably keen hearing. Still, half the joy of the thing was listening to Marqueli's little feet dancing around their small, Legion-provided, apartment in the city. They'd been assigned those quarters when Jorge had entered the BA program for disabled legionary veterans. They would remain in it as part of the new program. The building was both near the University of Balboa and more than large enough to accommodate the eighteen disabled PhD candidates, six per year at a standard three years per course of study. At seven floors with four apartments for each of the top six floors, it could have held twenty-four families.
The apartments weren't huge, each having a small kitchen, combination living and dining room, two decently-sized bedrooms and a small office. Each also had a balcony looking towards the campus. There was an elevator that ran from the parking lot, which was in a stilted area beneath the building, to the top floor. They were furnished, if sparsely, and, all in all, could have been called "comfortable." Since all but one of the candidates was anything from disabled to severely disabled, the building was modified for handicap accessibility. The bottom floor was devoted to an academic advisor, on one side, and a "club" on the other.
For the most part the first six doctoral candidates selected had been free to choose their own subjects. That is to say, those selected were those who wished to study and write on something Carrera wanted written. One candidate would write on "Combat Ecology," which had absolutely nothing to do with the natural environment but would deal instead with the way social factors, technology, doctrine and tactics fed upon each other and caused each other to develop, often in odd ways. Other candidates wanted to explore subjects like "Command in War," "Technology in War," "Organizing for War," and "Supplying War." (That last candidate was a former supply clerk who'd lost both legs in Sumer to an improvised explosive device.) Jorge's proposal, "History and Moral Philosophy," had also been accepted.
Jorge sat on the Legion-provided sofa in the living room. He'd been at his desk, braille-reading a text on Old Earth's ancient Rome, when he'd heard Marqueli's shout.
He couldn't see to read the damned letter, of course; Marqueli had had to read it to him. (Well, that was her job. The Legion also hired the spouses at a small stipend of one hundred and ten FSD a month to be "assistants" to their husbands. It helped defray the greater expense of living in the city and without making the relatively simple finance and accounting system of the Legion del Cid any more complex than necessary. The one candidate who was unmarried was also given a girl-hire. They would soon be sleeping together.) Still, Jorge Mendoza sat with the letter held lightly but firmly in his hands. The letter made the dream real.
Now I can do some good. Now I can be heard, he thought.
3/5/467 AC, Isla Real, 1 st Tercio Centurions' Family Quarters
"Can you hear me, Ricardo?" Cara asked in a furious voice. "I am proud of you, yes. I love you, yes. But I cannot—do you hear me? CANNOT!—stand this anymore! You were almost killed two months ago. How many more times were you almost killed that I never found out about? Do you have any idea what it's like for a woman to lay awake at night worrying that her husband—the man she loves most in the world—might be lying dead in a ditch? Or captured and butchered—yes, I've seen the films on the TV—by some ragheaded maniacs? Or blown to bits by some coward's bomb with never even a body to bury?"
She buried her face in her hands and began to cry. That was, for Cruz, worse than the anger. The anger he could fight against. Against the grief and the hurt he felt helpless.
"But, Cara," Cruz answered, despairingly, "I don't know how to do anything else. And I'm good at this. Then, too . . . I don't know if I'd like doing anything else."
"You have veterans' benefits. I checked; they're matched to your rank. As a centurion, junior grade you could go back to school full time and earn a degree, then maybe teach . . . or be an engineer . . . or a doctor . . . or a lawyer."
Cruz shivered. "I hate lawyers. My father would disown me if I became one. And I can't stand snivelers. How can someone be a doctor when he can't stand people who whine about being sick? Other than our own kids, I don't really like kids. So ho
w could I teach? And engineering doesn't really interest me. What's the challenge in working with unthinking, inert material when I've grown used to building with the hardest material of all to build with, men?"
"If you loved me, you would think of something you could do," she insisted, through tears.
"If you loved me, you wouldn't ask me to give up a job I love for one I would hate," he countered.
To that objection Cara had the definitive answer. She ran off to the bedroom in tears, slamming and locking the door behind her.
* * *
Each tercio's caserne had a club for officers and another for centurions. These were mostly frequented by the junior officers, lowest grade tribunes and signifers, and the centurions and optios. There were larger and considerably more ornate clubs for seniors at the main cantonment area on the north side of the island, overlooking the bay.
The theory behind the club was, at one level, organizational and, at another, moral. Carrera believed that men could best identify with and care about all the members of groups of between about one and two hundred. Anything smaller was too likely to be demoralized by losses; anything larger was too big for every man to know every other, care about those others, and value the good opinions of those others.
He further believed that men could normally feel that way about two groups at a time. These groups were, presumptively, the maniple—most armies said "company"—to which the soldier belonged and, for leaders, the leadership corps to which they belonged. For example, within a tercio of four cohorts, there were approximately one hundred and sixty officers and warrant officers. They represented a primary group which had a potentially serious emotional hold on each of them. Thus, there was an "O" Club to each tercio caserne. There were also about two hundred centurions and optios, so they too belonged to a primary group in addition to their maniple and, thus, had their own club. There were also, within each cohort, something over two hundred non-coms, corporals and sergeants. Though this was a bit large, there was a non-com club for each of the four cohorts in a tercio. Soldiers had a club within their barracks for the roughly two hundred men of their maniple.
Guests from outside the applicable unit or corps were, by and large, not welcome except by special invitation. Girls were always welcome, of course.
Some armies looked at the clubs as businesses, to be kept if profitable or at least self sustaining and to be discarded if they failed to support themselves. Carrera considered them to be, in the broadest sense, training opportunities, to be supported whether they made a profit or not.
As a practical matter, legionary clubs typically broke even. If they found themselves with an embarrassing profit they threw large parties. If they found themselves operating at a loss the price of drinks went up until the loss was made good or the club manager had the money squeezed from him ("squeezed" being something of a euphemism).
Arredondo found Cruz sitting at the bar squeezing a lemon into a rum and cola.
"I didn't think you drank, normally, Ricardo." First names only in the club. "Hell, you usually give away the little rum bottles in the combat rations."
"Normally, I don't, Scarface." Or nicknames, where appropriate. Arredondo had a broad scar running from one side of his jaw up to past his hairline, a gift of some long-deceased Sumeri rebel. Since the scar was honorably earned, Arredondo rather liked the nickname.
"And, besides, the ration rum's pretty vile. This"—his finger indicated his
drink—"is the good stuff."
Legionary combat ration rum was 180-proof suicide-in-a-little-bottle that was only palatable if cut—much cut—with something. On the plus side, one could theoretically pour it into raw sewage, mix it up, wait a few minutes, and then drink with reasonable confidence that all one was drinking was shit, not the various bugs that usually went with it. Best of all, it made legionary rations very popular with FSC forces, such that a six for one trading ratio was standard fair market value whenever the two forces worked in close proximity.
The ration rum was vile, true enough, but Esterhazy had seen to the creation of a not unimpressive microbrewery to produce Cervesa del Cid on the island. Arredondo signaled the bartender for a beer.
While waiting for his drink, Cruz's boss rubbed the scar on his cheek. He looked at Cruz's face, then at the rum and coke. Adding one somber face to one rum and coke he came up with the perfect question: "You have a problem, Ricardo?"
"Bad one," Cruz answered, succinctly "Cara wants me to leave the Legion. I don't want to. But if I don't, I think she may leave me."
"Oooo, that sucks."
"No shit."
"How are you leaning?" Arredondo asked as the bartender set a frosty mug down in front of him.
"I'm not," Cruz shrugged. "I have no clue what to do. If I leave the Legion, I'm going to be miserable. If Cara leaves me, I'm going to be miserable."
"Switch over to one of the reserve cohorts of the tercio?" Arredondo asked, helpfully. Each tercio had several reserve cohorts, composed of discharged regulars and volunteers who joined expressly for the reserves. The reserves only served one three-day weekend a month, plus a month a year, for which they were paid at standard rates and were entitled to a reduced scale of benefits. They were obligated to come when called but, so far, there had been no call up.
"I considered it, Scarface, but it wouldn't really be the same. I'd feel second-rate. I'd see the regulars often enough to realize what I was missing, too."
Arredondo absentmindedly bit at the right quadrant of his upper lip. "What's her problem?" he asked.
Cruz shook his head. "I . . . think . . . yes, I think, that it's a mix of things. Mostly, though, it's that I'm gone a lot and she doesn't want me to get my ass shot off."
"Well, you can understand—"
"I do understand. That doesn't make it any easier."
"Could you buy her off if you took some other kind of duty? Like . . . mmm . . . maybe took over a slot as a combat instructor or basic training platoon centurion? I think I could arrange that."
Cruz had considered it, but, "I don't think so. That would still keep me gone much of the time and there would still be the chance that I might get sent back to the war."
Arredondo tilted his head to one side. "It would be more than a chance, Ricardo," he admitted. "We've got a little break going now while the Tercio Don John takes up the fight at sea, but that can't last. We'll be back at the war within a couple of years, I figure."
Nodding, Cruz agreed, "So does Cara. I think that's part of her reasoning, if reasoning is the right word to use when discussing a woman's thoughts. Right now, while the ground forces are not in the war, I can leave with a good conscience. If we were still engaged, our boys still under fire, I probably couldn't . . . wouldn't anyway. She knows that."
"'Women are stupid but clever and bear considerable watching,'" Scarface deliberately misquoted. "Did you tell her you're probably moving up to take over the platoon? That it would mean a promotion and a not-exactly contemptible pay raise?"
"I mentioned it. She wasn't impressed. Hell, Scarface, if it were about money then she'd have to admit I make more here than I am likely to on the outside, even with reserve pay tacked on to whatever I might make as a civvie."
Cruz sighed deeply. "It really comes down to the fact that she wants me home and she doesn't want me hurt or killed. And I don't know how to argue against that. She wants me out."
5/5/467 AC, Ciudad Balboa, Presidential Palace
Presidente de la Republica Rocaberti had problems.
The Republic of Balboa had a Gross Domestic Product, exclusive of the LdC and its various enterprises, on the order of just over twelve billion FSD a year. Of that, the government managed to squeeze out about a tenth. Thus, the loss of income from legionary contributions, amounting to roughly one hundred and sixty million a year, hurt. Not only had services had to be curtailed, but—far, far worse, from the point of view of those families that actually ran the country—the rake off potential had virtually disappeare
d. Those chief families were not happy about it, either.
That was one reason why the government had acquiesced in the Legion's creation of half a dozen military schools. It had not only reduced expenditures, it had also left more to disappear down the rat hole of familial corruption.
The Legion had done other things, too, that reduced government expenditures and made more available for graft, even as it made the graft more obvious. The reserve formations did a great deal of what was sometimes called, "civic action," building clinics and schools, road improvement, opening factories, and such. Admittedly, the factories just flat refused to hire anyone who was not either a reservist, a discharged regular, or the spouse of a slain or disabled legionary (indeed, that requirement was the biggest single limitation of legionary economic expansion within the country), but there had been quite a bit of trickle down. The Civil Force, Balboa's police force cum armed force, was also given full post-service employment rights as a matter of courtesy and good public relations.
