Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  Even the casualties were convincing, though it seemed to him the Wyzhnyny might be dying in unreasonable numbers. Then Wyzhnyny APFs-armored personnel flyers-sliced across the field at perhaps two hundred feet. Not a lot of them. The script writers, he recalled, had decimated them during the aerial preliminaries.

  The picture cut to an oblique overhead view a few hundred yards back from the forest edge. The Wyzhnyny APFs hovered close above the trees, lowering troops on individual slings, from doors with short, stout, drop booms. Then it cut to a view within the forest. As the airborne Wyzhnyny landed, they triggered their sling releases and began forming up squads.

  Suddenly warbots hit them, greatly outnumbered, but fighting with astonishing speed and power. The Wyzhnyny were slaughtered. The warbots seemed too heavily armored to be harmed by their shoulder-fired blasters. And bots, Mulvaney knew, had a backup "torso" sensorium in case their eyes and ears were knocked out.

  Briefly the trainees witnessed special effects sufficient to impress even Terrans. For Jerries who'd never seen dramatic video before-or video at all till they'd come to Camp Stenders-it had to be a truly powerful experience.

  The airborne Wyzhnyny were shown as effectively wiped out, the few survivors dispersed and routed. Only a handful of warbots had gone down. The remaining bots did not linger. As if on command, perhaps received by built-in radio, they turned and loped off among the trees. Mulvaney was skeptical that machines on two legs could move so smoothly.

  As the final bots disappeared, the viewpoint changed again, to the close-range fighting in the forest fringe. Wyzhnyny bodies were abundant, but many humans also lay "dead." Not as many as you'd expect, Mulvaney thought. I suppose War House doesn't want to shock the trainees too badly. Then the warbots entered the fighting there, too, striking swiftly and powerfully. The Wyzhnyny gave way and, after a brief desperate moment, broke and fled across a welter of bodies. Three warbots lay disabled, presumably by heavy slammers. The camera watched the surviving Wyzhnyny gallop all the way across the fields to the forest on the far side, impelled by human fire that added more bodies to those already sprawled.

  As the final Wyzhnyny disappeared into the far woods, the scene froze on the field, and music cut in, restrained but powerful. Mulvaney recognized it as "The Arrival of Alp Arslan," by the Egyptian composer Ibrahim Hakim, in his orchestral suite Manzikert. It ended with a dark and powerful closing phrase, as the visual faded and disappeared.

  Then the shed's lights came on, and the recorded narration resumed. "This cube was made to show you the basic function-and the great importance!-of warbots in modern warfare. For every regiment, the table of organization calls for two warbot platoons. Without them, no infantry regiment is complete, or fully prepared for combat. You will learn much more about warbots as your training progresses."

  The voice stopped. Mulvaney got to his feet and stepped again to the lectern. Well, Martin, he thought, scanning his Jerries, it's time to earn your pay. "All right, men, stand up in place, and stretch. Really stretch, so you feel it."

  They did, with a chorus of groans.

  Mulvaney grinned. "Now stamp your feet!"

  Boots drummed on the plank floor.

  "All right, now turn to the men around you; tell them hello, and shake hands with them." After half a minute of confusion and laughter, everyone had been included. "Good. Now tell them you're glad they're here. And mean it." He paused to let the chatter play out. "All right, at ease. Sit down." They stilled and sat. "We have something very important to talk about."

  He paused a long moment, letting them wait. "Who of you," he asked, "will tell us why you're here, instead of back home on New Jerusalem?"

  A hand shot up. "Recruit Isaiah Vernon," Mulvaney said, "tell us about it."

  "Captain, sir, it's because invaders have come, invaders not made in the image of God. They're conquering human worlds, and killing the people on them. If we stayed, we'd be killed, too. Here we're learning to drive them away."

  "Right," Mulvaney said. "At last report they'd definitely captured fourteen human worlds, and probably two others. Those we've heard from say the Wyzhnyny"-he paused, pronouncing the name carefully again-"the Wyzhnyny were killing everyone they came to, including those who tried to surrender."

  Mulvaney scanned his audience again, his eyes stopping on Esau. "Recruit Esau Wesley, suppose we don't get back to New Jerusalem soon enough, and the Wyzhnyny take it. What then?"

  "Then we'll drive them off, sir."

  Mulvaney frowned. "Why not leave in-say a month from now? That should get us there in time."

  "Fine, if we're ready. But if we're not, and we go, the Wyzhnyny will beat us."

  "Exactly right. And believe me, you're a long way from ready. You're coming along well, very well, but you're far from ready." His gaze found his religious advisor. "Recruit Spieler, you trainees are all from New Jerusalem, so it's obvious why you should return there to defend it. Or regain it. But I'm a Terran. All your cadre are. Why should we go there to fight?"

  The somber Spieler got to his feet. As recruits went, he was old, twenty-seven Terran years. "Captain Mulvaney, sir, long ago, God put Adam and Eve on Terra, and they were fruitful, and multiplied. Then, in His own good time for His own good reasons, He shepherded folks out to the stars. But all of Adam's progeny are God's children, created in His own image and saved by the sacrifice of His own son. It is the duty of us all to drive out these"-he paused, struggling with the pronunciation-"these Wiz-nin-ee."

  "Well said, Spieler." Once more Mulvaney scanned his audience, making them wait. He was no orator, but he knew how to communicate. "So," he said, changing directions on them, "what did you think of the cube? Anyone?"

  "Exciting, sir," someone called. Someone else followed with "We've got some idea now of what fighting will be like."

  "Recruit Jael Wesley, what did you think of it?"

  "Sir, it made me realize the cost of being in this war. If we lose, we'll all die. But even winning, lots of us will."

  "Good observation. Recruit Spieler, what about death?"

  "Sir, we'll all die sometime. If not on the battlefield, then maybe in bed. But death isn't the thing to fear. Hell is, and next after Hell, the destruction of the human race." Spieler paused, then went on. "Most of us here-maybe all of us-when we die, we'll go to Heaven and be with the Lord."

  "Thank you, Recruit Spieler." Another hand rose as he said it. "Recruit Esau Wesley, what have you got to add?"

  "Sir, I was wondering about the warbots. The cube said every regiment was supposed to have them. And those folks it showed would have been in bad trouble if it wasn't for warbots. But I haven't seen or heard of any in our whole division."

  Mulvaney stood tall, sure of himself. He made them wait again, tightening their attention. "I was coming to that, Wesley," he said, "but I'm glad you brought it up. What do you suppose a warbot is?"

  "Sir, it's a kind of machine."

  "Ah. That's right, as far as it goes. But they're more than that." Again he pointed. "Recruit Vernon, do machines have souls?"

  "No, sir. Only people have souls."

  "And brains?"

  "I suppose they have artificial brains, sir."

  Mulvaney nodded. "You certainly might think that. But actually a bot has both a soul and a human brain."

  There wasn't a sound from his audience, but it seemed to Mulvaney he sensed doubt, resistance. "I have a sister who's a bot," he went on. "A different model than shown in the cube. She's a medic bot."

  Esau hadn't sat back down yet. "Sir," he said, "your sister?"

  "My sister. She was a nurse, until she came down with a condition called `cascade syndrome'-the breakdown of one body part after another. By age thirty she was expected to die at any time. The last time I heard from her was since we arrived here on Luneburger's World. She'd volunteered to have her central nervous system-that's her brain, her spinal cord and nerve connections-removed from her body and put into what's called a `bottle.' Then the bottle was put
into a machine called a `servo'-the sort of machine you saw in the cube. Without the human central nervous system, and the soul associated with it, the servo is a useless piece of machinery. It's the combination-the servo, the central nervous system and the soul-that makes a warbot. Or in Audrey's case a battlefield medic bot.

  "And therein lies the reason the 1st New Jerusalem Division has no warbots yet; why no division has anything like as many as it should. People don't get converted into warbots unless they're badly crippled, or they're dying of something.

  "Because becoming a bot is final. If someone becomes a bot, and later wishes he hadn't, it can't be undone. So even severely disabled people, who may feel tempted, often can't bring themselves to take that final step. And until the past month, many people who were willing weren't sufficiently disabled to qualify. Now recruitment for what is called `bottling' has picked up. So the 1st New Jerusalem Division should have at least a partial contingent of warbots when we leave."

  There Mulvaney stopped and simply stood, the silence longer than before, as if he were looking for the words to continue. Finally he nodded, as if to himself. "When we get to New Jerusalem, we cannot expect replacements for our casualties. You noticed in the cube that not all the casualties were Wyzhnyny; not even close. We'll have a medical battalion to treat our wounded; Indis-people from another heavyworld called Epsilon Indi Prime."

  Again he paused. "There will also be damaged warbots. We'll have spare servos-warbot bodies-and bottles can be transferred from damaged servos to replacement servos. But in some of the damaged servos, the human inside will have been killed. And we'll need to replace them if we can.

  "So-" This was the hard part. His new pause was not for effect; he was groping. "So what we need," he said carefully, "are volunteers. People like you and me, who'll agree in writing that if we're disabled or mortally wounded, our central nervous system-our brain and spinal cord-can be bottled and installed in a warbot. Division will have specialists to do the job."

  Once more he paused, sensing his audience was ill at ease with this. "We don't know now which of you will receive such wounds," he went on. "So beginning next week we'll start training all of you in how to operate as a warbot. The training modules are expected to arrive next Twoday. The same ship is also bringing a platoon of real warbots to continue their training here. Later you'll do tactical exercises with them."

  A hand shot up. "Yes, Recruit Arvet?"

  "Sir, how can we learn to operate as a warbot if we're not-bottled?"

  "You'll find out. You'll probably enjoy it." He grinned. "It won't require running up Drag Ass Hill."

  He pointed at another hand. "Yes, Recruit Harrison?"

  The young man's voice was subdued and tentative. "Where do we, uh, sign the agreement, sir? To get bottled if we're crippled or dying?"

  "Right after supper, at the orderly room. Sergeant Henkel or Corporal Tsinijinnie will sign you up." He scanned the room and saw no sign of enthusiasm. "Or at some later time. The sooner we know, the better." Again he looked around. "Any more questions? Cochran?"

  "Sir, you said we'd see cubeage of how warbots are made, and watch one of them get interviewed."

  "Right. That comes next. Corporal Cavalieri, continue with the cube."

  B Company was introverted when it left the lecture shed, but the condition was not allowed to persist. Captain Mulvaney had prearranged for that. Outside, they were ordered to drop down and this time pump out thirty-five. Even Recruit Vernon managed thirty-two. Then Sergeant Fossberg led them on a gallop to the Physical Training Area, where they spent a long Luneburgian hour and forty minutes deeply in touch with the physical universe-gravity, dirt, fatigue and pain. Afterward they trotted back to the company area by a roundabout, nearly hour-long route, chanting from time to time, to disrupt their breathing cadence. They arrived at their hutment sweating profusely, and were dismissed for showers, dry clothes, and a layabout before supper, mostly napping.

  After supper but before evening muster, exactly five trainees showed up at the orderly room to sign agreements. If they were severely disabled or mortally injured, and unconscious, the army was authorized to "extract the undersigned's central nervous system, and install it into an interfacing module for installation in a servomechanism, to serve as a cyborg of a model, and in a military unit, deemed appropriate by the army."

  B Company's platoon sergeants had been allowed to choose their own site for their evening session. Sergeant First Class Arjin Hawkins Singh had chosen a field training site less than a mile from their hutment. There they found a platoon-size bleachers, with trees shading it from the lowering sun. Some second-level cadreman had delivered a folding chair to the site, for Hawkins, to help this seem like a conversation instead of a lecture.

  The Jerries had been brought up to disdain war, and according to the briefing handbook on Jerrie ethnology, they put great stock in showing respect to the bodies of the dead, who presumably would be watching. On the other hand, the afternoon's training cube had rubbed their noses in their mortality, and the prospects of being killed or maimed would be more real now. And if five volunteers fell short of a landslide, it seemed to Hawkins that the bonding among the trainees, and their psychological identification with their regiments, would strengthen with time, and make a difference. A shortage of agreements now didn't necessarily mean they'd be lacking when the casualties began on New Jerusalem.

  At any rate, Division, Regiment, and Mulvaney wanted this to be a relaxed and intimate discussion.

  The trainees sensed that this would not be another training lecture. For one thing, their sergeant hadn't ordered them to give him thirty or thirty-five pushups before seating them.

  Hawkins didn't begin with the usual "at ease" to shut them up. He simply asked, "What did you think of the training cube this afternoon?" When no one volunteered a comment, he pointed. "How about you, Abner?"

  It took Abner McReynolds a moment to react. No cadreman had ever addressed him by his given name before. It distracted him enough, he even forgot to address Hawkins as "sergeant."

  "Those warbots were something to watch," he said. "I can see why the army wants us to volunteer."

  Hawkins nodded. McReynolds didn't sound like someone deeply perturbed by the request. "I'm signing up myself," Hawkins told them. "As soon as we get back in." He looked around, then pointed at Esau Wesley. "Esau, what did you think about the training cube?"

  "Sergeant, the thing that struck me most was all the bodies, all the dead and wounded. I knew all along a person could get killed fighting in a war, but seeing it like that made it a lot more real to me. Those pulses don't pick and choose. If you're in the way, you're a deader. Wounded at least. It doesn't matter if you're the toughest man in the company."

  "Good observation. Isaiah, what have you got to say?"

  "Sergeant, it's well to be in good standing with the Lord before you go into battle. Of course, it's well to be in good standing with Him anyway, on general principles and for your own soul. As Jesus said in the Book of Mark: We don't know the time when death will come." He shrugged. "Although a battlefield seems a lot more dangerous than being home in bed."

  "True. Unless you're home in bed when the Wyzhnyny arrive." Hawkins paused. "What about death, Isaiah? What can you tell us about that?"

  "In Contemplations on the Testaments, Elder Hofer wrote that `death is the door to Heaven and Hell, and each of us chooses in life which one it will be.' So I'm prepared to die defending humankind."

  "How about you, Hosea?"

  "Well, Sergeant, say you're out deadening timber. And your hound's laid up hurt, so you're out there alone. You hear something and turn, and there's a big old tiger ten foot away, and you'd just set aside your ringing ax. My bet is, you'd be too scared to spit, even if you were spotless as the Lamb of God. The soul might go to Heaven, but the body? It'd stay behind for tiger feed, and don't no way like the prospect."

  "Ah! Now there's a good way of putting it. Thank you, Hosea." Hawkins scanned and
pointed. "Jael, you look as if you have something to say."

  "Yessir, Sergeant. I'm a lot more scared of great pain than of dying. I suspect that lying out there in terrible pain, with maybe my innards ripped open and the flies buzzing, I'd be crying out to God to take me fast as he can."

  "Good point," Hawkins said, thinking he'd as soon it hadn't come up. "But if it comes down to it, in combat you'll all have something in your aid kit that will greatly deaden the pain."

  Jael continued before Hawkins could call on someone else. "And something else, Sergeant. There are things I want to do before I die. Have children, bring them up, watch them grow. Maybe even be a grandmother."

  Hawkins nodded. "A good wish to have; a good ambition. But to enjoy it, it helps to have a safe place to live. There are lots of people who chose to stay on New Jerusalem-many with children-and they're a lot more likely to see their children murdered than grow up. While those who left with children… a labor camp's a hard place to raise a family. But when the war is over, and if we win it, things will work out for them.

  "The fact is, the invaders have changed everything for us. I have a wife and two children back in North America. In a city called Madison, by a large beautiful lake. There's a good chance I'll never see them again, but I'll be doing what I can to keep them safe."

  "Sergeant Hawkins?" It was Isaiah Vernon again.

  "Yes, Isaiah?"

  "Where do Sikhs believe they go when they die?"

  Don't get into that, Arjan, Hawkins warned himself. It'll dilute the subject we're here for, and maybe generate contention. He would, he decided, give them a generality, something uncomplicated but basically valid. "Isaiah," he said, "think of it as returning to the loving arms of God."