Old Man's War Read online

  “Satan,” said Maggie.

  “Sweetie,” said Susan. “Apparently, I’m the only one who likes my BrainPal.”

  “More like you were the only one who wasn’t disturbed by having a voice suddenly appear in your skull,” Alan said. “But this is my point. Suddenly becoming young and having massive physical and mechanical changes takes a toll on one’s psyche. Even if we’re glad to be young again—and I know I am—we’re still going to be alienated from our new selves. Making us look good to ourselves is one way to help us get ‘settled in.’”

  “These are crafty people we’re dealing with,” Harry said with ominous finality.

  “Oh, lighten up, Harry,” Jesse said, and gave him a little nudge. “You’re the only person I know who would turn being young and sexy into a dark conspiracy.”

  “You think I’m sexy?” Harry said.

  “You’re dreamy, sweetheart,” Jesse said, and batted her eyes dramatically at him.

  Harry cracked a goofy grin. “That’s the first time this century anyone’s said that to me. Okay, I’m sold.”

  The man who stood in front of the theater full of recruits was a battle-tested veteran. Our BrainPals informed us that he’d been in the Colonial Defense Forces for fourteen years and had participated in several battles, the names of which meant nothing to us now, but no doubt would at some point in the future. This man had gone to new places, met new races and exterminated them on sight. He looked all of twenty-three years old.

  “Good evening, recruits,” he began after we had all settled down. “I am Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Higgee, and for the remainder of your journey, I will be your commanding officer. As a practical matter, this means very little—between now and our arrival at Beta Pyxis III, one week from now, you will have only one command objective. However, it will serve to remind you that from this point forward, you are subject to Colonial Defense Forces rules and regulations. You have your new bodies now, and with those new bodies will come new responsibilities.

  “You may be wondering about your new bodies, as to what they can do, what stresses they can endure and how you can use them in the service of the Colonial Defense Forces. All these questions will be answered soon, as you begin your training on Beta Pyxis III. Right now, however, our main goal is simply for you to become comfortable in your new skins.

  “And so, for the remainder of your trip, here are your orders: Have fun.”

  That brought up a murmur and some scattered laughter in the ranks. The idea of having fun being an order was amusingly counterintuitive. Lieutenant Colonel Higgee showed a mirthless grin.

  “I understand this appears to be an unusual order. Be that as it may, having fun with your new body is going to be the best way for you to get used to the new abilities you have. When you begin your training, top performance will be required of you from the very start. There will be no ‘ramp-up’—there’s no time for that. The universe is a dangerous place. Your training will be short and difficult. We can’t afford to have you uncomfortable with your body.

  “Recruits, consider this next week as a bridge between your old lives and your new ones. In this time, which you will ultimately find all too brief, you can use these new bodies, designed for military use, to enjoy the pleasures you enjoyed as a civilian. You’ll find the Henry Hudson is filled with recreations and activities you’ve loved on Earth. Use them. Enjoy them. Get used to working with your new bodies. Learn a little about their potential and see if you can divine their limits.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we will meet again for a final briefing before you begin your training. Until then, have fun. I do not exaggerate when I say that while life in the Colonial Defense Forces has its rewards, this may be the last time you will be entirely carefree in your new bodies. I suggest you use this time wisely. I suggest you have fun. That is all; you’re dismissed.”

  We all went insane.

  Let’s start, of course, with the sex. Everyone was doing it with everybody else, in more places on the ship than it is probably sensible to discuss. After the first day, in which it became clear that any semisecluded place was going to be used for enthusiastic humping, it became courteous to make a lot of noise as one moved about, to alert the conjugal that you were on your way in. Sometime during the second day it became general knowledge that I had a room to myself; I was besieged with pleas for access. They were summarily denied. I’d never operated a house of ill repute, and I wasn’t about to start now. The only people who were going to fuck around in my room were me and any invited guests.

  There was only one of those. And it wasn’t Jesse; it was Maggie, who, as it turned out, had had a thing for me even when I was wrinkled. After our briefing with Higgee, she more or less ambushed me at my door, which made me wonder if this was somehow standard operating procedure for post-change women. Regardless, she was great fun and, in private at least, not in the least retiring. It turned out that she had been a professor at Oberlin College. She taught philosophy of Eastern religions. She wrote six books on the subject. The things you learn about people.

  The other Old Farts also stuck to their own. Jesse paired up with Harry after our initial fling, while Alan, Tom and Susan worked out some arrangement with Tom in the center. It was good that Tom liked to eat a lot; he needed his strength.

  The ferocity at which the recruits went for sex undoubtedly appears unseemly from the outside, but it made perfect sense from where we stood (or lay, or were bent over upon). Take a group of people who generally have had little sex, due to lack of partners or declining health and libido, stuff them into brand-new young, attractive and highly functional bodies and then hurl them into space far away from anything they ever knew and everyone they ever loved. The combination of the three was a recipe for sex. We did it because we could, and because it beats being lonely.

  It’s not the only thing we did, of course. Using these gorgeous new bodies only for sex would be like singing only one note. Our bodies were claimed to be new and improved, and we found it to be true in simple and surprising ways. Harry and I had to call off a Ping-Pong game when it became clear neither of us was going to win—not because we were both incompetent, but because our reflexes and hand-eye coordination made it damn near impossible to get the ball past the other guy. We volleyed for thirty minutes and would have gone longer if the Ping-Pong ball we were using hadn’t cracked from the force of being hit at such tremendously high speeds. It was ridiculous. It was marvelous.

  Other recruits found out the same thing we did in other ways. On the third day, I was in a crowd that watched two recruits engage in what was possibly the most thrilling martial arts battle ever; they did things with their bodies that simply shouldn’t have been possible assuming normal human flexibility and standard gravity. At one point, one of the men placed a kick that launched the other halfway across the room; instead of collapsing in a pile of broken bones, as I’m sure I would have, the other guy did a backflip midflight, righted himself, and launched himself back at his opponent. It looked like a special effect. In a way it was.

  After the battle, both men breathed deeply and bowed to his opponent. And then both of them collapsed onto each other, simultaneously laughing and sobbing hysterically. It’s a weird, wonderful and yet troubling thing to be as good at something as you ever wanted to be, and then to be even better than that.

  People went too far, of course. I personally saw one recruit leap off a high landing, either under the assumption that she could fly or, barring that, at least land without injury. My understanding is that she shattered her right leg, right arm, jaw, and cracked her skull. However, she was still alive after the leap, a state of affairs that probably wouldn’t have existed back on Earth. More impressively, however, she was back in action two days later, which obviously spoke more to the Colonial medical technology than this silly woman’s recuperative powers. I hope someone told her not to do such a stupid move in the future.

  When people weren’t playing with their bodies, they were playing with th
eir minds, or with their BrainPals, which was close enough. As I would walk about the ship, I would frequently see recruits simply sitting around, eyes closed, slowly nodding their heads. They were listening to music or watching a movie or something similar, the piece of work called up in their brain for them alone. I’d done it myself; while searching the ship’s system, I had come across a compilation of every Looney Tunes cartoon created, both during their classic Warner days and then after the characters were put into the public domain. I spent hours one night watching Wile E. Coyote get smashed and blown up; I finally stopped when Maggie demanded I choose between her and Road Runner. I chose her. I could pick Road Runner anytime, after all. I had downloaded all the cartoons into Asshole.

  “Choosing friends” was something I did a lot of. All of the Old Farts knew that our group was temporary at best; we were simply seven people thrown together at random, in a situation that had no hope for permanence. But we became friends, and close friends at that, in the short period of time we had together. It’s no exaggeration to say that I became as close to Thomas, Susan, Alan, Harry, Jesse and Maggie as I had to anyone in the last half of my “normal” life. We became a band, and a family, down to the petty digs and squabbles. We gave one another someone to care about, which was something we needed in a universe that didn’t know or cared that we existed.

  We bonded. And we did it even before we were biologically prodded to do so by the colonies’ scientists. And as the Henry Hudson drew closer to our final destination, I knew I was going to miss them.

  “In this room right now are 1,022 recruits,” Lieutenant Colonel Higgee said. “Two years from today, 400 of you will be dead.”

  Higgee stood in the front of the theater, again. This time, he had a backdrop: Beta Pyxis III floated behind him, a massive marble streaked with blue, white, green and brown. We were all ignoring it and focusing on Lieutenant Colonel Higgee. His statistic had gotten everyone’s attention, a feat considering the time (0600 hours) and the fact that most of us were still staggering from the last night of freedom we assumed we would have.

  “In the third year,” he continued, “another 100 of you will die. Another 150 in years four and five. After ten years—and yes, recruits, you will most likely be required to serve a full ten years—750 of you will have been killed in the line of duty. Three-quarters of you, gone. These have been the survival statistics—not just for the last ten or twenty years, but for the over two hundred years the Colonial Defense Forces have been active.”

  There was dead silence.

  “I know what you’re thinking right now, because I was thinking it when I was in your place,” Lieutenant Colonel Higgee said. “You’re thinking—what the hell am I doing here? This guy is telling me I’m going to be dead in ten years! But remember that back home, you most likely would have been dead in ten years, too—frail and old, dying a useless death. You may die in the Colonial Defense Forces. You probably will die in the Colonial Defense Forces. But your death will not be a useless one. You’ll have died to keep humanity alive in our universe.”

  The screen behind Higgee blanked out, to be replaced with a three-dimensional star field. “Let me explain our position,” he said, and as he did, several dozen of the stars burned bright green, randomly distributed across the field. “Here are the systems where humans have colonized—gained a foothold in the galaxy. And these are where alien races of comparable technology and survival requirements are known to exist.” This time hundreds of stars blazed up, redly. The human points of light were utterly surrounded. Gasps were heard in the theater.

  “Humanity has two problems,” Lieutenant Colonel Higgee said. “The first is that it is in a race with other sentient and similar species to colonize. Colonization is the key to our race’s survival. It’s as simple as that. We must colonize or be closed off and contained by other races. This competition is fierce. Humanity has few allies among the sentient races. Very few races are allies with anyone, a situation that existed long before humanity stepped into the stars.

  “Whatever your feelings about the possibility for diplomacy in the long run, the reality is that on the ground, we are in fierce and furious competition. We cannot hold back our expansion and hope that we can achieve a peaceful solution that allows for colonization by all races. To do so would be to condemn humanity. So we fight to colonize.

  “Our second problem is that when we do find planets suitable for colonization, they are often inhabited by intelligent life. When we can, we live with native population and work to achieve harmony. Unfortunately, much of the time, we are not welcome. It is regrettable when this happens, but the needs of humanity are and must be our priority. And so the Civil Defense Forces become an invading force.”

  The background switched back to Beta Pyxis III. “In a perfect universe, we would not need the Colonial Defense Forces,” Higgee said. “But this is not that perfect universe. And so, the Colonial Defense Forces have three mandates. The first is to protect existing human colonies and protect them from attack and invasion. The second is to locate new planets suitable for colonization, and hold them against predation, colonization and invasion from competing races. The third is to prepare planets with native populations for human colonization.

  “As Colonial Defense Forces soldiers, you will be required to uphold all three mandates. This is not easy work, nor is it simple work, nor is it clean work, in any number of ways. But it must be done. The survival of humanity demands it—and we will demand it of you.

  “Three-quarters of you will die in ten years. Despite improvements to soldiers’ bodies, weapons and technology, this is a constant. But in your wake, you leave the universe as a place where your children, their children, and all the children of humanity can grow and thrive. It’s a high cost, and one worth paying.

  “Some of you may wonder what you’ll get personally from your service. What you’ll get after your term of service is another new life. You will be able to colonize and to start again, on a new world. The Colonial Defense Forces will back your claim and provide you with everything you’ll need. We can’t promise you success in your new life—that’s up to you. But you’ll have an excellent start, and you’ll have the gratitude of your fellow colonists for your time of service to them and theirs. Or you can do as I have, and reenlist. You might be surprised at how many do.”

  Beta Pyxis III flickered momentarily and then disappeared, leaving Higgee as the sole focus of attention. “I hope you all took my advice to have fun in this last week,” he said. “Now your work begins. In one hour, you will be transported off the Henry Hudson to begin your training. There are several training bases here; your assignments are being transmitted to your BrainPals. You may return to your rooms to pack your personal belongings; don’t bother with clothing, it will be provided on base. Your BrainPal will inform you where to assemble for transport.

  “Good luck, recruits. May God protect you, and may you serve humanity with distinction, and with pride.”

  And then Lieutenant Colonel Higgee saluted us. I didn’t know what to do. Neither did anyone else.

  “You have your orders,” Lieutenant Colonel Higgee said. “You are dismissed.”

  The seven of us stood together, crowding around the seats in which we just sat.

  “They certainly don’t leave much time for good-byes,” Jesse said.

  “Check your computers,” Harry said. “Maybe some of us are going to the same bases.”

  We checked. Harry and Susan were reporting to Alpha Base; Jesse to Beta. Maggie and Thomas were Gamma; Alan and I were Delta.

  “They’re breaking up the Old Farts,” Thomas said.

  “Don’t get all misty,” Susan said. “You knew it was coming.”

  “I’ll get misty if I want,” Thomas said. “I don’t know anyone else. I’ll even miss you, you old bag.”

  “We’re forgetting something,” Harry said. “We may not be together, but we can still keep in touch. We have our BrainPals. All we have to do is create a mailbox
for each other. The ‘Old Farts’ clubhouse.”

  “That works here,” Jesse said. “But I don’t know about when we’re in active duty. We could be on the other side of the galaxy from each other.”

  “The ships still communicate with each other through Phoenix,” Alan said. “Each ship has skip drones that go to Phoenix to pick up orders and to communicate ship status. They carry mail, too. It might take a while for our news to reach each other, but it’ll still reach us.”

  “Like sending messages in bottles,” Maggie said. “Bottles with superior firepower.”

  “Let’s do it,” Harry said. “Let’s be our own little family. Let’s look out for each other, no matter where we are.”

  “Now you’re getting misty, too,” Susan said.

  “I’m not worried about missing you, Susan,” Harry said. “I’m taking you with me. It’s the rest of these guys I’ll miss.”

  “A pact, then,” I said. “To stay the Old Farts, through thick and thin. Look out, universe.” I held out my hand. One by one, each of the Old Farts put their hand on mine.

  “Christ,” Susan said as she put her hand on the pile. “Now I’m misty.”

  “It’ll pass,” Alan said. Susan hit him lightly with her other hand.

  We stayed that way as long as we could.

  PART II

  SEVEN

  On a far plain on Beta Pyxis III, Beta Pyxis, the local sun, was just beginning its eastward journey up the sky; the composition of the atmosphere gave the sky an aqua tint, greener than Earth’s but still nominally blue. On the rolling plain, grasses waved purple and orange in the morning breeze; birdlike animals with two sets of wings could be seen playing the sky, testing out the currents and eddies with wild, chaotic swoops and dives. This was our first morning on a new world, the first I or any of my former shipmates had ever set upon. It was beautiful. If there hadn’t been a large, angry master sergeant on it, bellowing in my ear, it would have been just about perfect.