You will do a good day's work out there. I am not going to appeal to your sense of loyalty, your honor or your sense of duty…” Ferkel whipped out his atomic pistol and blew a hole in the ceiling through which rain began to drip.
“I am only going to appeal to your urge to survive, because any man shirking, goofing off, or not pulling his own weight will personally be shot dead by me.
Now get out.” With his bared teeth and shaking hands he looked sick enough and mean enough and mad enough to do it. Bill and the rest of B squad rushed out into the rain and formed ranks.
“Pick up da axes, pick up da picks, get the uranium out,” the corporal of the armed guard snarled as they squelched through the mud toward the gate. The labor squad, carrying their tools, stayed in the center, while the armed guard walked on the outside. The guard wasn't there to stop the prisoners from escaping but to give some measure of protection from the enemy. They dragged slowly down the road of felled trees that wound through the swamp. There was a sudden whistling overhead, and heavy transports flashed by.
“We're in luck today,” one of the older prisoners said, “they're sending in the heavy infantry again. I didn't know they had any left.” “You mean they'll capture more territory?” Bill asked.
“Naw, all they'll get is dead. But while they're getting butchered some of the pressure will be off of us, and we can maybe work without losing too many men.” Without orders they all stopped to watch as the heavy infantry fell like rain into the swamps ahead-and vanished just as easily as raindrops. Every once in awhile there would be a boom and flash as a teensie A-bomb went off, which probably atomized a few Venians, but there were billions more of the enemy just waiting to rush in. Small arms. crackled in the distance, and grenades boomed.
Then over the trees they saw a bobbing, bouncing figure approach. It was a heavy infantryman in his armored suit and gasproof helmet, A-bombs and grenades strapped to him, a regular walking armory. Or rather hopping armory, since he would have had trouble walking on a paved street with the weight of junk hung about him, so he therefore moved by jumping, using two reaction rockets, one bolted to each hip. His hops were getting lower and lower as he came near. He landed fifty yards away and slowly sank to his waist in the swamp, his rockets hissing as they touched the water. Then he hopped again, much shorter this time, the rockets fizzling and popping, and he threw his helmet open in the air.
“Hey, guys,” he called. “The dirty Chingers got my fuel tank. My rockets are almost out, I can't hop much more. Give a buddy a hand will you… “ He hit the water with a splash.
“Get outta the monkey suit and we'll pull you in,” the guard corporal called.
“Are you nuts!” the soldier shouted. “It takes an hour to get into and outta this thing.” He triggered his rockets, but they just went pfffft, and he rose about a foot in the water, then dropped back. “The fuel's gone! Help me you bastards! What's this, bowb-your-buddy week…” he shouted as he sank. Then his head went under, and there were a few bubbles and nothing else.
“It's always bowb-your-buddy week,” the corporal said. “Get the column moving!
“ he ordered, and they shuffled forward. “Them suits weigh three thousand pounds. Go down like a rock.” If this was a quiet day, Bill didn't want to see a busy one. Since the entire planet of Veneria was a swamp no advances could be made until a road was built.
Individual soldiers might penetrate a bit ahead of the road, but for equipment or supplies or even heavily armed men a road was necessary. Therefore the labor corps was building a road of felled trees. At the front.
Bursts from atomrifles steamed in the water around them, and the poison darts were as thick as falling leaves. The firing and sniping on both sides was constant while the prisoners cut down trees and trimmed and lashed them together to push the road forward another few inches. Bill trimmed and chopped and tried to ignore the screams and falling bodies until it began to grow dark. The squad, now a good deal smaller, made their return march in the dusk.
“We pushed it ahead at least thirty yards this afternoon,” Bill said to the old prisoner marching at his side.
“Don't mean nothing, Venians swim up in the night and take the logs away.” Bill instantly made his mind up to get out of there.
“Got any more of that joyjuice?” Sergeant Ferkel asked when Bill dropped onto his bunk and began to scrape some of the mud from his boots with the blade of his knife. Bill took a quick slash at a plant coming up through the floorboards before he answered.
“Do you think you could spare me a moment to give me some advice, Sergeant?” “I am a flowing fountain of advice once my throat is lubricated.” Bill dug a bottle out of his pocket. “How do you get out of this outfit?” he asked.
“You get killed,” the sergeant told him as he raised the bottle to his lips.
Bill snatched it out of his hand.
“That I know without your help,” he snarled.
“Well that's all you gonna know without my help,” the sergeant snarled back.
Their noses were touching and they growled at each other deep in their throats. Having proven just where they stood and just how tough they both were they relaxed, and Sergeant Ferkel leaned back while Bill sighed and passed him the bottle.
“How's about a job in the orderly room?” Bill asked.
“We don't have an orderly room. We don't have any records. Everyone sent here gets killed sooner or later, so who tares exactly when.” “What about getting wounded?” “Get sent to the hospital, get well, get sent back here.” “The only thing left to do is mutiny!” Bill shouted.
“Didn't work last four times we tried it. They just pulled the supply ships out and didn't give us any food until we agreed to start fighting again. Wrong chemistry here, all the food on this planet is pure poison for our metabolisms.
We had a couple of guys prove it the hard way. Any mutiny that is going to succeed has to grab enough ships first so we can get off-planet. If you got any good ideas about that I'll put you in touch with the Permanent Mutiny Committee.” “Isn't there any way to get out?” “I anshered that firsht,” Ferkel told him, and fell over stone drunk.
“I'll see for myself,” Bill said as he slid. the sergeant's pistol from his holster, then slipped out the back door.
Armored floodlights lit up the forward positions facing the enemy, and Bill went in the opposite direction, toward the distant white flares of landing rockets. Barracks and warehouses were dotted about on the boggy ground, but Bill stayed clear of them since they were all guarded, and the guards had itchy trigger fingers. They fired at anything they saw, anything they heard, and if they didn't see or hear anything they fired once in a while anyway just to keep their morale up. Lights were burning brightly ahead, and Bill crawled forward on his stomach to peer from behind a rank growth at a tall, floodlighted fence of barbed wire that stretched out of sight in both directions.
A burst from an atomic rifle burned a hole in the 'Mud about a yard behind him, and a searchlight swung over, catching him full in its glare.
“Greetings from your commanding officer,” an amplified voice thundered from loudspeakers on the fence. “This is a recorded announcement. You are now attempting to leave the combat zone and enter the restricted headquarters zone.
This is forbidden. Your presence has been detected by automatic machinery, and these same devices now have a number of guns trained upon you. They will fire in sixty seconds if you do not leave. Be patriotic, marl Do your duty. Death to the Chingers! Fifty-five seconds. Would you like your mother to know that her boy is a coward? Fifty seconds. Your Emperor has invested a lot of money in your trainingis this the way that you repay him? Forty-five seconds…” Bill cursed and shot up the nearest loudspeaker, but the voice continued from others down the length of the fence. He turned and went back the way he had come.
As he neared his barracks, skirting the front line to avoid the fire from the nervous guards in the buildings, all the lights went out. At the same tim
e gunfire and bomb explosions broke out on every side.
Chapter 4
Something slithered close by in the mud and Bill's trigger finger spontaneously contracted and he shot it. In the brief atomic flare he saw the smoking remains of a dead Venian, as well as an unusually large number of live Venians squelching to the attack. Bill dived aside instantly, so that their return fire missed him, and fled in the opposite direction. His only thought was to save his skin, and this he did by getting as far from the firing and the attacking enemy as he could. That this direction happened to be into the trackless swamp he did not consider at the time. Survive, his shivering little ego screamed, and he ran on.
Running became difficult when the ground turned to mud, and even more difficult when the mud gave way to open water. After paddling desperately for an interminable length of time Bill came to more mud. The first hysteria had now passed, the firing was only a dull rumble in the distance, and he was exhausted.
He dropped onto the mudbank and instantly sharp teeth sank deep into his buttocks. Screaming hoarsely, he ran on until he ran into a tree. He wasn't going fast enough to hurt himself, and the feel of rough bark under his fingers brought out all of his eoanthropic survival instincts: he climbed. High up there were two branches that forked out from the trunk, and be wedged himself into the crotch, back to the solid wood and gun pointed straight ahead and ready. Nothing bothered him now. The night sounds grew dim and distant, the' blackness was complete, and within a few minutes his head started to nod. He dragged it back up a few times, blinked about at nothing, then finally slept.
It was the first gray light of dawn, when he opened his gummy eyes and blinked around. There was a little lizard perched on a nearby branch watching him with jewellike eyes.
“Gee-you were really sacked out,” the Chinger said.
Bill's shot tore a smoking scar in the top of the branch, then the Chinger swung back up from underneath and meticulously wiped bits of ash from his paws.
“Easy on the trigger, Bill,” it said. “Gee-I could have killed you anytime during the night if I had wanted to.” “I know you,” Bill said hoarsely. “You're Eager Beager, aren't you?” “Gee-this is just like old home week, isn't it?” A centipede was scuttling by, and Eager Beager the Chinger grabbed it up with three of his arms and began pulling off legs with his fourth and eating them. “I recognized you Bill, and wanted to talk to you. I have been feeling bad ever since I called you a stoolie, that wasn't right of me. You were only doing your duty when you turned me in. You wouldn't like to tell me how you recognized me, would you…?” he asked, and winked slyly.
“Why don't you bowb off, Jack?” Bill growled, and groped in his pocket for a bottle of cough syrup. Eager Chinger sighed.
“Well, I suppose I can't expect you to betray anything of military importance, but I hope you will answer a few questions for me.” He discarded the delimbed corpse and groped about in his marsupial pouch and produced a tablet and tiny writing instrument. “You must realize that spying is not my chosen occupation, but rather I was dragooned into it through my speciality, which is exopologyperhaps you have heard of this discipline…?” “We had an orientation lecture once, an exopologist, all he could talk about was alien creeps and things.” “Yes-well, that roughly sums it up. The science of the study -of alien life forms, and of course to us you homo sapiens are an alien form…” He scuttled halfway around the branch when Bill raised his gun.
“Watch that kind of talk, bowb!” “Sorry, just my manner of speaking. To put it briefly, since I specialized in the study of your species I was sent out as a spy, reluctantly, but that is the sort of sacrifice one makes during wartime. However, seeing you here reminded me that there are a number of questions and problems still unanswered that I would appreciate your help on, purely in the matter of science of course.” “Like what?” Bill asked suspiciously, draining the bottle and flinging it away into the jungle.
“Well-gee-to begin simply, bow do you feel about us Chingers?” “Death to all Chingers!” The little pen flew over the tablet.
“But you have been taught to say that. How did you feel before you entered the service?” “Didn't give a damn about Chingers.” Out of the corner of his eye Bill was watching a suspicious movement of the leaves in the tree above.
“Fine! Then could you explain to me just who it is that hates us Chingers and wants to fight a war of extermination?” “Nobody really hates Chingers, I guess. It's just that there is no one else around to fight a war with, so we fight with you.” The moving leaves had parted and a great, smooth head with slitted eyes peered down.
“I knew it! And that brings me to my really important question. Why do you homo sapiens like to fight wars?” Bill's hand tightened on his gun as the monstrous head dropped silently down from the leaves behind Eager Chinger Beager, it was attached to a foot thick and apparently endless serpent body.
“Fight wars? I don't know,” Bill said, distracted by the soundless approach of the giant snake. “I guess because we like to, there doesn't seem to be any other reason.” “You like to!” the Chinger squeaked, hopping up and down with excitement. “No civilized race could like wars, death, killing, maiming, rape, torture, pain, to name just a few of the concomitant factors. Your race can't be civilized!” The snake struck like lightning, and Eager Beager Chinger vanished down its spine-covered throat with only the slightest of muffled squeals.
“Yeah… I guess we're just not civilized,” Bill said, gun ready, but the snake kept going on down. At least fifty yards of it slithered by before the tail flipped past and it was out of sight. “Serves the damn spy right,” Bill grunted happily, and pulled himself to his feet.
Once on the ground Bill began to realize just how bad a spot he was in. The damp swamp had swallowed up any marks of his passage from the night before and he hadn't the slightest idea in which direction the battle area lay. The sun was just a general illumination behind the layers of fog and cloud, and he felt a sudden chill as he realized how small were his chances of finding his way back.
The invasion area, just ten miles to a side, made a microscopic pinprick in the hide of this planet. Yet if he didn't find it he was as good as dead. And if he just stayed here he would die, so, picking what looked like the most likely direction, he started off.
“I'm pooped,” he said, and was. A few hours of dragging through the swamps had done nothing except weaken his muscles, fill his skin with insect bites, drain a quart or two of blood into the ubiquitous leeches, and deplete the charge in his gun as he killed a dozen or so of the local life forms that wanted him for breakfast. He was also hungry and thirsty. And still lost.
The rest of the day just recapitulated the morning, so that when the sky began to darken he was close to exhaustion, and his supply of cough medicine was gone.
He was very hungry when he climbed a tree to find a spot to rest for the night, and he plucked a luscious-looking red fruit.
“Supposed to be poison.” He looked at it suspiciously, then smelled it. It smelled fine. He threw it away.
In the morning he was much hungrier. “Should I put the barrel of the gun in my mouth and blow my head off?” he asked himself, weighing the atomic pistol in his hand. “Plenty of time for that yet. Plenty of things can still happen.” Yet he didn't really believe it when he heard voices coming through the jungle toward him, human voices. He settled behind the limb and aimed his gun in that direction.
The voices grew louder, then a clanking and rattling. An armed Venian scuttled under the tree, but Bill held his fire as other figures loomed out of the fog.
It was a long file of human prisoners wearing the neck irons used to bring Bill and the others to the labor camp, all joined together by a long chain that connected the neck irons. Each of the men was carrying a large box on his head.
Bill let them stumble by underneath and kept a careful count of the Venian guards. There were five in all with a sixth bringing up the rear, and when this one had passed underneath the tree Bill d
ropped straight down on him, braining him with his heavy boots. The Venian was armed with a Chinger-made copy of a standard atomic rifle, and Bill smiled wickedly as he hefted its familiar weight. After sticking the pistol into his waistband he crept after the column, rifle ready. He managed to kill the fifth guard by walking up behind him and catching him in the back of the neck with the rifle butt. The last two troopers in the file saw this but had enough brains to be quiet as he crept up on number four. Some stir among the prisoners or a chance sound warned this guard and he turned about, raising his rifle. There was no chance now to kill him silently, so Bill burned his head off and ran as fast as he could toward the head of the column. There was a shocked silence when the blast of the rifle echoed through the fog and Bill filled it with a shout.
“Hit the dirt-FAST!” The soldiers dived into the mud and Bill held his atomic rifle at his waist as he ran, fanning it back and forth before him like a water hose and holding down the trigger on full automatic. A continuous blast of fire poured out a yard above the ground and he squirted it in an arc before him. There were shouts and screams in the fog, and then the charge in the rifle was exhausted. Bill threw it from him and drew the pistol. Two of the remaining guards were down, and the last one was wounded and got off a single badly aimed shot before Bill burned him too.
“Not bad,” he said, stopping and panting. “Six out of six.” There were low moans coming from the line of prisoners, and Bill curled his lip in disgust at the three men who hadn't dropped at his shouted command.
“What's the matter?” he asked, stirring one with his foot, “never been in combat before?” But this one didn't answer because he was charred dead.
“Never… “ the next one answered, gasping in pain. “Get the corpsman, I'm wounded, there's one ahead in the line. Oh, oh, why did I ever leave the Chris Keeler! Medic…” Bill frowned at the three gold balls of a fourth lieutenant on the man's collar, then bent and scraped some mud from his face. “You! The laundry officer!
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