by Ian Douglas
The viewalls at Buckner’s back lit up in response to a linked thought. A swollen gas giant hung low in a russet sky. Oddly twisting, purple-hued vegetation clotted an undulating landscape. Pyramids reflected the gold-red light of a tiny, shrunken sun.
“Ishtar, Mr. Norris. We’re sending you to Ishtar, eight light-years away.”
“My God!”
He hoped Claire wouldn’t be too hurt when he told her goodbye.
5
20 JUNE 2138
U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Training Center
Parris Island, South Carolina
0215 hours ET
“Now I want you maggots off of my bus…move! Move! Move!”
John stumbled down the steps in a sleep-deprived haze, crowding forward with the other recruits as they piled off the ancient and weather-beaten magbus that had brought them there from Charleston in the middle of the night. The Marine sergeant who’d ridden the bus with them all the way from the Charleston skyport, a grimly taciturn man in spotless khakis, had been singularly uncommunicative for the entire trip. Now, though, he was bellowing at the recruits, chivvying them from their seats and into line. Lights glared overhead, casting weirdly moving shadows and making it light enough to see the footprints painted on the ground, neatly spaced in a single long rank.
Another sergeant was waiting for them, hands on hips, the infamous “Smokey Bear” hat square-set on his head. “Fall in! I said fall in, damn it! Feet on the prints! Stand at attention!”
The mob of civilians shoved and bumped into line, each of them taking on his or her own semblance of standing at attention…or at least a half-informed guess as to what such a posture might be like. John’s loving study of the Marine Corps in past months had included a download of several Corps training manuals, and he’d been practicing in front of the E-center’s holopickup a lot lately. The footprints on the ground were closely spaced, so close that each recruit was shouldered in tightly to left and right, ahead and behind, a single, anonymous mass of tired humanity.
“Jesus, Quan Yin, and Buddha!” the second sergeant bawled. “I ask for recruits and they send us this? The boss is not gonna like it!”
John stood rigidly in line, eyes fixed on the letters reading U.S. GOVERNMENT on the sloping gray side of the magbus, endeavoring to keep them fastened there as the sergeant stalked past his line of sight. The night air was steamy, a blanket of heat and humidity that dragged at each breath and brought sweat dripping from brow and nose.
The sergeant from the bus prowled down the line of scared and sleep-deprived recruits. “You! Square away! Shoulders back! Get rid of any cigs or gum. And you! Yeah, you, maggot! Quit gawking around and hold those eyeballs front and center or I will personally pop them out of your miserable maggot’s skull and eat them for breakfast!”
John was pretty sure he knew what was coming, courtesy of family stories from his mother about life in the Corps—disorientation, confusion, controlled but deliberate terror, sleep deprivation, all in the name of breaking down civilians and rebuilding them as Marines. Forewarned was forearmed, as far as he was concerned. Whatever they dished out, he could take. He was a Garroway now, in name as well as by birth.
He did wish Lynnley were here, though. She’d flown out from Tiburón to Charleston, while he’d accompanied his mother north to San Diego first, then caught a sub-O flight out of Salton Spaceport. They’d planned to meet up at the Charleston skyport yesterday, but all incoming female recruits had been rounded up as soon as they arrived and whisked off to some other receiving area. He’d found himself herded on board the ancient magbus with thirty-seven other young men and the taciturn Marine sergeant.
That sergeant was taciturn no longer. “On behalf of Major General Phillip R. Delflores, commanding officer of this installation, and on behalf of the United States Marine Corps, welcome to Parris Island,” he bellowed, somehow making the ear-ringing yell effortless, somehow doubling the volume of select words for emphasis, as though a bellow was his normal and everyday manner of speech. “I am Staff Sergeant Sewicki, and my assistant here is Sergeant Heller. I will keep this short and simple, so that even brainless civvy maggots like you can understand.
“This is my island, this is my Marine Corps, and you maggots are my responsibility! Today you are embarking on a twenty-one-week course of Marine Corps recruit training, commonly known as boot camp. You are not at home any longer. You are not at school, you are not in your old neighborhood, you are not back in the world that you once knew. During these next few weeks, you will obey all orders given to you by any Marine. Just so there’s no confusion on this point, you people are not Marines. You are recruits. You must earn the title of U.S. Marine. To do that, you must prove to your officers, your drill instructors, your comrades, and yourselves that you are worthy of the uniform and the title of a United States Marine! Do you recruits understand me?”
The question was greeted by a mumbled chorus of “Yes,” and “Yes, sir,” and even the occasional “Sure.”
Sewicki exploded. “When you open your maggot mouths, the very first word you utter will be the word sir! The very last word your maggot mouths utter will be the word sir!…Do you understand me?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” was the response, somewhat ragged and quavering.
“No! No! No!” Sewicki’s eyes bulged, his face reddened, and for an instant John wondered if the man was going to have a stroke. “What do you people think this is, the goddamn Army? When I ask if you understand me, when I give you an order, the correct and proper response is, ‘Sir, aye aye, sir!’ Do you understand me?”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
“‘Aye, aye’ means ‘I understand and I will obey!’ Do you understand me?”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
“What? I can’t hear you!”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
“Again! Louder!”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
He cupped a hand to his ear. “What?”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
“You!” He spun suddenly, face and forefinger inches from the face of a terrified recruit three men to John’s right. “What is your name?”
“Sir! H-Hollingwood, sir!”
“Hollywood! What kind of a name is that?”
“Sir—”
“Let me see your war face!”
“S-Sir! Aye…what?”
“Let me see your goddamn war face! Do you know how to make a war face? This is a war face! Arrrr! Now you do it!”
With his eyes rigidly front, John could only imagine what was going on, but he heard the recruit give a terrified yelp.
“That is pathetic! You do not frighten me, Hollywood! Hit the deck! Ten push-ups!”
The recruit dropped.
“On your goddamn feet, Hollywood! What did I just tell you?”
“Sir, I—”
“When I give you an order, you will respond with ‘Sir, aye aye, sir!’ Do you understand me?”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
“What was that? I can’t hear you!”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
“Now hit the deck and give me twenty push-ups!”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
As the recruit began grunting through his push-ups, attended closely by the other sergeant who was shouting out the cadence, Sewicki continued his prowl in front down the ranks.
“I am an easy man to get along with. All you need to do to get along with me is to obey my commands instantly, without hesitation, without argument, do you understand me?”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!” the ranks chorused.
“You!” Sewicki moved so fast he appeared to dematerialize, rematerializing in front of a recruit in the front rank four to John’s left, face glowering, finger pointing. “What’s your name?”
“Sir! Garvey! Sir!”
“Gravy, is that gum you have in your mouth?”
“Uh, sir, I mean, it’s—”
“Is that or is that not gum you have in your magg
ot mouth?”
“It’s—It’s counterhum, sir.”
“Remove it.”
Garvey spat the offending wad into his hand.
“Place it on your nose.”
“S-Sir…?”
“On your nose, recruit.”
“Sir! Aye aye, sir!”
“And it had better stay there until I tell you to get rid of it!” He spun, addressing them all. “As for the rest of you, we are going to march—or perform the best simulation of a march that you yahoos are capable of performing—into that building behind you, and there you will deposit in a bin that we will provide any and all contraband you may have on your persons, including guns, knives, weapons of any kind, cigs, lighters, candy, food, soda, liquids of any type, gum, stims, all drugs including analgesics, mem boosters, and sleepers, nano dispensers of any kind including hummers and joggers, game players, personal communications and recording devices, personal entertainment systems, neural plug-ins, pornographic material of all types—including naked holopics of your girlfriends, boyfriends, and/or parents—do you understand me?”
“Sir! Aye aye, sir!”
“I don’t care what you used, smoked, tapped, smacked, licked, drank, charged, plugged, or popped back in the World. You people with electronic enhancements will be losing them tomorrow. While you are in my Corps and on my island, you will be clean.”
John blinked. He couldn’t mean all electronics, could he?
Sergeant Sewicki’s face suddenly filled his vision, glowering down at him, a mask of red fury. “You! What’s your name?”
“Sir! Garroway! Sir!”
Sewicki’s war face softened a bit with surprise…but only a bit. “That name has a special meaning around here, recruit,” he growled. “You big enough to carry it?”
“Sir, I hope so, sir.”
“There’s no hope for you here, recruit. And in the future, you will not refer to yourself as ‘I’ or ‘me’ or ‘my.’ You will refer to yourself as ‘this recruit.’ Now, do you know who Sands of Mars Garroway was?”
“Sir, he was one of my…uh, one of this recruit’s ancestors, sir.”
Sewicki’s eyes glazed over for a moment, as though he was studying something within, an implant download, perhaps. “Says here on my roll that your name is Esteban.”
So the bit with Sewicki demanding the names of individual recruits had been simple theater.
“Sir, I had—”
“What did you say?”
“Uh, sir, I—”
“You are not an I! None of you maggots rates an I! The only first person on this deck is me! The only time you maggots say the word ‘I’ is when you declare that you understand and will obey an order, and you will do so by saying ‘aye aye’! Do you understand me?”
“Sir! Aye aye, sir!”
“Every time you wish to refer to yourselves, you will do so in the third person! You will say ‘this recruit’ and you will not say the word ‘I’! When you refer to yourselves, you will do so as ‘recruit,’ followed by your last name. Do I make myself clear?”
“Sir, aye aye, sir!”
“Jesus, Quan Yin, and Buddha, are you that stupid, maggot? You say ‘aye aye’ when you understand and will obey an order! If I ask a question requiring of you a simple yes or no answer, you will reply with the appropriate yes or no! Do you understand?”
“Uh…Sir, yes, sir!”
“What was that? I heard some static in your reply!”
“Sir! Yes, sir!”
“Now, what is it you had to say to me?”
John had to grope for what it was Sewicki had originally asked him. Exhaustion and disorientation were beginning to take their toll, and his mind was fuzzy.
“Sir! This recruit had a naming last week. I…uh…this recruit took his mother’s name. Sir.”
“You’re a little old for that, aren’t you, son?”
Save for the members of a handful of conservative religious groups, women rarely took the names of the men they married anymore, which meant that a person’s last name was now a matter of conscious choice. Throughout most of western culture, for at least the past fifty years, boys took their father’s last name, girls their mother’s, until about the age of fourteen, when the child formally chose which name he or she would carry into adulthood. John originally had his naming ceremony on his fourteenth birthday at his father’s church in Guaymas.
There was nothing in the rules, though, that said he couldn’t have a second naming and change his last name from Esteban to Garroway. He’d gone to a notary in San Diego with his mother as soon as they’d left Sonora, paid the twenty-newdollar fee, and thumbed the e-file records to make it official. He would never be John Esteban again.
“Sir—” he began, wondering how to explain.
“I think you’re a goddamn Aztie secessionist, maggot, trying to hide your Latino name.”
The sheer unfairness of the charge surged up in his throat and mind like an unfolding blossom. “Sir—”
“I think you’re trying to be something you’re not. I think you’re an Aztie trying to infiltrate my Corps—”
“That’s not true!”
“Hit the deck, maggot!” Sewicki exploded. “Fifty push-ups!”
“Sir! Aye aye, sir!”
Face burning, John dropped to hands and toes and began chugging off the repetitions. As Sewicki pounced on another victim farther down the line, the other sergeant loomed over him, counting him down. His Marine career, he decided, was off to a very rocky start. It wasn’t that he thought the Garroway name would buy him any favors, exactly, but he sure hadn’t figured on it buying him any trouble.
He’d only reached fifteen, arms trembling, when Sergeant Heller swatted him on the back of his head and barked, “On your feet, recruit!” Sewicki was leading the rest of the group off to a building behind the paved area at a dead run, and he had to scramble to catch up, jogging through the humid night.
By now he was beginning to wonder if he would ever catch up.
The building was a featureless gray cinder-block structure, unadorned and almost unfurnished, save for a desk with a nano labeler operated by a bored-looking civilian. As the recruits filed in, the civilian touched each on the back of the left hand with the wand. Within seconds the numeral 1099 began gleaming from each recruit’s hand in self-luminous neon-orange light.
“That,” Sewicki told them, “is the number of your recruit training company, Company 1099. It is your address. It is who you are and where you are in the training schedule. You will be required to memorize it!”
Next, they filed past a large, plastic bin beneath the hawk-sharp gaze of Heller and Sewicki, dropping into it everything the two sergeants considered to be “contraband.” Most of what they collected were handheld electronics and microcircuit jewelry, hummers, sensory stims, and the like.
A few of the more expensive units were sealed in plastic with the recruit’s name, to be returned to him after he left boot camp. Most, though, went into the bin, along with a growing pile of gum, candy, pornoholo cards, prophylactic pills, analgesics, wakers, sleepers, memmers, magazine sheets, and disposable personal comms. One recruit, a bulky, heavy-set guy who claimed to be from Texas, surrendered a bowie knife he had strapped to his leg, claiming with a broad, easy drawl that he was an experienced knife fighter and that he’d heard Marines could choose their own personal blades.
Sewicki held out a hand. “Hand it over, recruit,” he said with a dark and surprising gentleness, “or I will take it from you, and I might accidentally break an arm doing it.” The recruit looked like he was going to argue but then appeared to think better of it, much to John’s relief. He knew that one troublemaker could make it hell for the entire company, and he didn’t like the idea of his comfort depending on what some hypertestosteroned commando wannabe with more bravado than brains thought was a cool idea.
John had nothing on him but a wadded-up sheet of magazine card, e-loaded with the latest issues of Newtimes and Wicca Today, that
he’d picked up at the skyport in San Diego to read on the trip. He tossed it into the bin with the rest of the trash, thinking of the gesture as a symbolic break with his civilian past. Whatever Sewicki said, he was a Marine now, at very long last.
After that they were told to sit on the linoleum tile floor and were given more facts to memorize.
“Listen up, all of you. You are not yet Marines, but you are no longer civilians. Your lives are no longer governed by the Constitution of the United States, which all of you have sworn to uphold and protect, but by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“During the next few weeks, you will become familiar with the UCMJ, but for now you will memorize only three articles of that document. Article 86 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits absence without leave. Article 91 prohibits disobedience to any lawful order. Article 93 prohibits disrespect to any senior officer. Now feed ’em back to me! Article 86 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits absence without leave!”
The recruits repeated the phrase in a ragged, partly mumbled chorus, barely intelligible among the echoes from the bare concrete walls.
“I think I just heard a freaking mouse squeak,” Sewicki yelled, cupping his right hand to his ear. “What did you maggots say?”
They repeated the article, stronger this time, and more in unison.
“Again!”
Half an hour later, the three UCMJ articles still ringing in their ears, they were brought to attention and run back into the night, this time to another building nearby. There, a trio of bored-looking civilians buzzed flat palm depilators over their scalps, leaving them completely bald as the discarded hair piled up on the floor to ankle depth. John had just begun to recognize some of the other members of the recruit platoon by sight…and now all were transformed into curiously subhuman-looking creatures with glazed eyes and hairless scalps gleaming in the overhead fluorescents.
