Questions for a Soldier Read online

  KULKARNI:

  You can ignore her question if you would like, Captain.

  VILLAGER #4:

  That would be entirely in character for the Colonial Union.

  PERRY:

  Why would I ignore her? Maybe she’s right.

  VILLAGER #4:

  Excuse me?

  PERRY:

  Well, aren’t you? Colonists are from third world countries, or except for those from the earliest colonies, come from populations that were. CDF personnel are from the first world, particularly from the U.S., although not always, since I’ve served with people from Argentina, the UK and Japan as well as various parts of Europe. And while no one wants to talk about it, from time to time the CDF is made to step in with colonial issues. One of my dear friends lost her life during a labor uprising on Elysium; some petroleum drillers blew her up and then fed her to a fish while she was still alive, so you can imagine the CDF did not tread lightly when it retaliated. Now, as it happens, Elysium is one of the first generation colonies. I think it’s mostly Greeks there; the name would fit, anyway. But the larger point stands.

  I have to tell you that while I think your point of view makes some sense, those of us in the CDF look at it a little bit differently. Here we are, members of the richest countries on Earth — and we’re told by the Colonial Union we can’t colonize. We’re not given a reason, other than that the Colonial Union simply chooses not to recruit colonists from the US or other rich countries. There’s no appeal, since the Colonial Union enforces its monopoly on space travel. And so we see the citizens

  of India, of Pakistan, of Ethiopia, of Guatemala and New Guinea filling up the universe while we’re stuck on planet Earth. The only way we get to go is if we agree to fight, and we have to wait until we’re old men and women before they’ll take us. Then we have to wait, and survive, for another ten years before we’re given permission to colonize. Not many of us make it that long.

  So I can understand why you feel that the Western countries are trying to keep the third world in line, even out in the universe. But I can promise you that if most of us had been given the choice between colonizing and fighting, we would have gladly chosen colonizing, and equally gladly would have let others have the military responsibilities we’ve had to take on. Those of us in the CDF are just as much pawns in whatever master plan the Colonial Union has as you are.

  VILLAGER #4:

  Except that you have the guns.

  PERRY:

  Well, there is that. The only thing I can say to that is that at some point in the future, if I live that long, I’ll be putting my weapon down and colonizing myself. Then you and I will be in the same boat. I’d rather colonize than fight, personally. But this was how I was allowed to get out in the universe. For better or worse, I agreed to the terms. If I could change the terms, believe me, I would. But it wasn’t up to me.

  VILLAGER #5:

  Why doesn’t the CDF let colonists sign up to fight, too?

  PERRY:

  You know, I wish they did! (laughter) My understanding of it is that very early on in the Colonial Union, the Union decided that it would be better if the colonists were allowed to focus on building the colonies while the CDF chose recruits who weren’t tied to one colony or another. I’m sure — and here you see me nodding in the direction of my former questioner here — that there are several levels of Machiavellian realpolitik I’m skating over here, and that the true reason for this is more complex than I just gave it. But on the surface this reason makes good sense to me. I’ve been touring the colonies for the last few months. From what I can see, colonizing seems like incredibly hard work, and in many colonies, especially the newer ones, there hardly seem to be enough people to do the work that’s needed. Huckleberry has been colonized for a while now — how long, Administrator?

  KULKARNI:

  We will be celebrating our fifty-eighth anniversary in another two months.

  PERRY:

  Right. Okay, Huckleberry’s been colonized for almost sixty years, which is time enough for the planetary population to fill out some, both from immigration and natural birth rates. That’s enough time for several million people to be here. But some of these new colonies have just a couple thousand people as part of the “seeding” colony; that’s the people who work to prepare things for a second wave of colonists. Those people never stop working. Three stops before I was here, I was on Orton, which is only in its first year. I got tired just watching them work. They certainly can’t afford to ship any of their people off to fight. And to be honest, I don’t see why anyone who is already a colonist would want to sign up for the CDF.

  VILLAGER #4:

  To have control of our own collective destinies, that’s why.

  PERRY:

  She’s back! (laughter) That’s not a bad reason, but I don’t know if the reality of CDF life matches that. Your vision of what it means to be in the CDF — and I mean no disrespect — is romanticized. On a day-to-day basis, you wouldn’t be fighting for your colony, other than in the most generalized sense. You’d be fighting to keep some alien creature from killing you or killing one of your squadmates. You’d be fighting not to die, and to stop other people — some you know and some you don’t — from dying. Destiny gets compressed, you know, into just that small fraction of a second you have right in front of you at any one time. And there’s nothing romantic about keeping your head down to avoid getting shot, or trying to save a friend who’s been injured, or coming face to face with a creature who is as smart and mean and as terrified of dying as you are, and who wants to make sure that if someone is left on the ground there, it’s you and not it.

  I mean, let me say it again, just to make it clear: Eight out of ten CDF members die in ten years of service. Most of those in the first couple of years. It’s one thing to say you’re willing to die to be in control of your own destiny, whether it’s personal or political. But it’s another thing to actually be dead, light-years away from everyone you ever knew, by the hand or paw or claw or whatever of some thing whose motivations for fighting you can hardly begin to understand.

  VILLAGER #5:

  And yet you chose to serve.

  PERRY:

  I did. Although when I look back on it now, if I had known then what I know now, I might have chosen to stay in Ohio and die in my own bed. I would be lying if I didn’t say that when I signed up I had my own romantic notions of what military life would be like. I guess I thought I would be, oh, I don’t know, swashbuckling around and fighting Ming the Merciless and kissing green-skinned maidens. Although, come to think of it, I have kissed green-skinned maidens. (laughter) So maybe it hasn’t been so bad. But to be more serious again, the reality of life in the CDF is far different and far more difficult than I could have imagined.

  Knowing what I know now, I would do it again, if only because I wouldn’t choose not to meet the people I have, and to have missed the opportunity to love them, even if only briefly. But I do wish I had the opportunity to have gone into this with open eyes. Maybe the CDF wouldn’t get as many recruits if they knew what they were getting into, but the ones they would get might be better prepared. And I suppose to come back around to Miss Savitri again, that would be an advantage to having colonials in the CDF. They would know what they’re getting into. Yes, sir.

  VILLAGER #6:

  You were saying earlier that this body you have is improved beyond the normal human limits.

  PERRY:

  That’s right. Improved senses, improved reflexes, improved physical agility. I even smell better. (laughter) You laugh, people, but it’s true.

  VILLAGER #6:

  I am curious, how strong are you?

  PERRY:

  I’ve never really tested it.

  VILLAGER #6:

  Could you break that table behind you? With your hands?

  PERRY:

  I probably could. But I won’t. Because that would hurt. (laughter) They’ve made me stronger, not impervious to pain.
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  VILLAGER #6:

  Still, it must be nice to be that strong.

  PERRY:

  It’s useful, is what it is. I don’t notice being stronger or enhanced all that much, to tell you the truth. Most of the people I spend time with are enhanced just as much as I am, so I have no competitive advantage. I lose a lot at arm wrestling. (laughter) The other thing is that the reason we have these physical improvements is that they put us on an equal footing with the aliens we have to go up against. I remember my drill instructor telling us that these new bodies were the bare minimum we’d need to fight, which if you think about it is kind of a terrifying thought. All those alien species out there, each of them with native abilities that are better than our own. Some are faster, some are stronger, some are smarter. Some just plain have more limbs, which is really a problem in hand-to-hand combat. We’re just keeping up. The one real advantage that humans have is that on a pound-for-pound basis, we’re meaner. (laughter) Now, I said that to get a laugh, so I’m glad I got one. But when it gets right down to it, it’s also usually true. I imagine it’s kept our species alive more than once. Should I be wrapping things up now?

  KULKARNI:

  I think we have time for one last question. And if I may be so bold, I see that my Anjali has come into the room, and has a question.

  PERRY:

  So you’re the woman who made dessert.

  VILLAGER #7:

  I am.

  PERRY:

  I love you. (very loud laughter) And I want the recipe before I go. And I will be happy to answer your question.

  VILLAGER #7:

  Thank you. I came in late, but I have heard enough of what you’ve said that I can sense the depth of the violence you confront out there on other worlds. It seems to be a dangerous universe out there.

  PERRY:

  Yes.

  VILLAGER #7:

  My question is simple: Can we ever find peace in this universe?

  PERRY:

  (pause) I’ll share with you a story. About four months before the Battle of Coral, my ship, the Modesto, was part of an attack group bearing down on a colony held by the Ni-ni, who if you don’t know are a reptilian sort of race, about a yard tall, and venomous — not in their personalities, mind you, but in that they genuinely spit poison. It makes them very difficult to fight one on one.

  The colony was Ni-nin, but there had been a human colony on it a decade or so before. The seed colonists had arrived just before a huge volcanic event that killed off the summer and made the winter unimaginably brutal; the colonists that survived abandoned the planet, and no one could have blamed them. So there were no humans when the Ni-nans arrived and set up shop. But it didn’t matter. The Colonial Union had it on the ledgers as our planet, and if it was ours, then anyone else on it was a problem.

  And so there we were, the Modesto and about twenty other ships, with a total of about 20,000 CDF soldiers, which would have been more than enough to wipe out the Ni-nin colony about nine times in a row. We were in the process of suiting up for the attack when a Skip drone popped into our space and broadcast a general cancellation of the invasion. Apparently — in a shocking moment of clarity for both sides — the Ni-nins and the humans realized that they could actually share the planet. The Ni-nin colony was situated on the edge of an equatorial desert, which was blindingly hot for humans but suited the Ni-nins just fine, while the Union was planning a new seed colony in a temperate zone on an entirely different continent. So the Ni-nins and the Union decided to call off the war. It was just that simple.

  The attack group all went home except for the Modesto, which was told to make a courtesy call on the colony. So I and my platoon spent the next three days in the company of the people who earlier we were going to kill. And you know what? We had a great time. The Ni-nins are ugly as hell — they look like exploded lizards — but their body chemistry is close enough to ours that we can eat their food. And these people are great cooks. Just dynamite. We stuffed ourselves silly and held spitting contests, which they are very serious about, by the way, and generally acted like civilized sentient beings.

  And I remember sitting on a sand ridge with a couple of Ni-nans on the last day we were there, watching the sunset with the two of them, and thinking about just how easy it was not to fight every damn creature we came across. Then, of course, we packed up, headed out and found ourselves at a place called Cova Banda, trying to wipe an entirely different species who had a planet the Union decided was actually ours, but this time, no one wanted to share.

  Can there be peace? Sure there can. We made peace with the Ni-ni, and it was a simple thing to do, and now we happily share a planet. But will there be peace? Well, that’s the question, I think. Making peace is often a simple thing, but simple isn’t the same thing as easy. I knew someone who said he believed the Union sometimes thought it was just easier to make war than to bother with peace. I didn’t much like this person, but from time to time I see some truth in what he said.

  And it’s not just the Union — it’s all the races all over this part of the universe, all of them deciding to do the easy thing rather than the simple but difficult thing. Maybe what it will take is a great meeting of all the species, where they decide to share worlds instead of fighting each other for them. But God knows it’s hard enough even trying to get humans to agree on something. Getting all the species together would take a miracle, and about twenty years.

  Still, we can hope. We can certainly hope. And that’s what I’d ask you to do: Hope for peace. Because I know that I would love to be able to lay down my weapon and get to being a colonist. Just like you are. Just like I want to be.

  Thank you, thanks for your attention, and good night.

  (applause)

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