Old Man’s War Page 6

  "I dunno," Thomas said. "Maybe they're fitting us for new brains after all. Or maybe they've got some way of adding new brain material, and they need to see what parts of our brains need a boost. I just hope they don't need to put in another set of the damned things. The first set nearly killed me from the pain."

  "Speaking of which," Alan said, turning to me, "I hear you lost your roommate this morning. Are you okay?"

  "I'm all right," I said. "Though it's depressing. My doctor said that if he had managed to make it to his appointment this morning, they probably could have kept him from dying. Given him a plaque remover or something. I feel like I should have made him get up for breakfast. That might have kept him moving long enough to make it to his appointment."

  "Don't kick yourself about it," Thomas said. "There's no way you could have known. People just die."

  "Sure, but not days from getting a 'comprehensive overhaul,' as my doctor was putting it."

  Harry piped in. "Not to be too crass about this—"

  "You just know this is going to be bad," Susan said.

  "—but when I went to college," Harry continued, throwing a piece of bread at Susan, "if your roommate died, you were usually allowed to skip your finals for that semester. You know, because of the trauma."

  "And oddly enough, your roommate got to skip them, too," Susan said. "For much the same reason."

  "I never thought of it that way," Harry said. "Anyway, think they might let you sit out the evaluations they have planned for today?"

  "I doubt it," I said. "Even if they did, I wouldn't take up the offer. What else would I do, sit in my stateroom all day? Talk about depressing. Someone died there, you know."

  "You could always move," Jesse said. "Maybe someone else's roommate died, too."

  "There's a morbid thought," I said. "And anyway, I don't want to move. I'm sorry Leon's dead, of course. But now I have a room to myself."

  "Looks like the healing process has begun," Alan said.

  "I'm just trying to move past the pain," I said.

  "You don't talk much, do you," Susan said to Maggie, rather suddenly.

  "No," Maggie said.

  "Hey, what does everyone have next on their schedule?" Jesse asked.

  Everyone reached for their PDA, then stopped, guiltily.

  "Let's think about just how high school that last moment really was," Susan said.

  "Well, hell," Harry said, and pulled out his PDA anyway. "We've already joined a lunchroom clique. Might as well go all the way."

  It turned out Harry and I had our first evaluation session together. We were directed to a conference room where chairs with desks had been set up.

  "Holy crap," Harry said as we took our seats. "We really are back in high school."

  This assessment was reinforced when our Colonial came into the room. "You will now be tested on basic language and mathematic skills," the proctor said. "Your first test is being downloaded into your PDA. It is multiple choice. Please answer as many questions as you can within the thirty-minute time limit. If you finish before your thirty minutes are up, please sit quietly or review your answers. Please do not collaborate with other trainees. Please begin now."

  I looked down at my PDA. A word analogy question was on it.

  "You have got to be kidding," I said. Other people in the room were chuckling as well.

  Harry raised his hand. "Ma'am?" he said. "What's the score I need to get into Harvard?"

  "I've heard that one before," the Colonial said. "Everyone, please settle down and work on your test."

  "I've been waiting sixty years to raise my math score," Harry said. "Let's see how I do now."

  Our second assessment was even worse.

  "Please follow the white square. Use only your eyes, not your head." The Colonial dimmed the lights in the room. Sixty pairs of eyes focused on a white square on the wall. Slowly, it began to move.

  "I can't believe I went into space for this," Harry said.

  "Maybe things will pick up," I said. "If we're lucky, we'll get another white square to look at."

  A second white square appeared on the wall.

  "You've been here before, haven't you?" Harry said.

  Later, Harry and I separated, and I had some activities of my own.

  The first room I was in featured a Colonial and a pile of blocks.

  "Make a house out of these, please," the Colonial said.

  "Only if I get an extra juice box," I said.

  "I'll see what I can do," the Colonial promised. I made a house out of the blocks and then went into the next room, where the Colonial in there pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.

  "Starting from the middle of the maze, try to see if you can get to the outer edge."

  "Jesus Christ," I said, "a drug-addled rat could do this."

  "Let's hope so," the Colonial said. "Still, let's see you do it anyway."

  I did. In the next room, the Colonial there wanted me to call out the numbers and letters. I learned to stop wondering why and just do what they told me.

  A little later in the afternoon, I got pissed off.

  "I've been reading your file," said the Colonial, a thin young man who looked like a strong wind would sail him off like a kite.

  "Okay," I said.

  "It says you were married."

  "I was."

  "Did you like it? Being married."

  "Sure. It beats the alternative."

  He smirked. "So what happened? Divorce? Fuck around one time too many?"

  Whatever obnoxiously amusing qualities this guy had were fading fast. "She's dead," I said.

  "Yeah? How did that happen?"

  "She had a stroke."

  "Gotta love a stroke," he said. "Bam, your brain's skull pudding, just like that. Good that she didn't survive. She'd be this fat, bedridden turnip, you know. You'd just have to feed her through a straw or something." He made slurping noises.

  I didn't say anything. Part of my brain was figuring how quickly I could move to snap his neck, but most of me was just sitting there in blind shock and rage. I simply could not believe what I was hearing.

  Down in some deep part of my brain, someone was telling me to start breathing again soon, or I was going to pass out.

  The Colonial's PDA suddenly beeped. "Okay," he said, and stood up quickly. "We're done. Mr. Perry, please allow me to apologize for the comments I made regarding your wife's death. My job here is to generate an enraged response from the recruit as quickly as possible. Our psychological models showed that you would respond most negatively to comments like the ones I have just made. Please understand that on a personal level I would never make such comments about your late wife."

  I blinked stupidly for a few seconds at the man. Then I roared at him. "What kind of sick, fucked-up test was THAT?!?"

  "I agree it is an extremely unpleasant test, and once again I apologize. I am doing my job as ordered, nothing more."

  "Holy Christ!" I said. "Do you have any idea how close I came to breaking your fucking neck?"

  "In fact, I do," the man said in a calm, controlled voice that indicated that, in fact, he did. "My PDA, which was tracking your mental state, beeped right before you were about to pop. But even if it hadn't I would have known. I do this all the time. I know what to expect."

  I was still trying to come down from my rage. "You do this thing with every recruit?" I asked. "How are you even still alive?"

  "I understand that question," the man said. "I was in fact chosen for this assignment because my small build gives the recruit the impression that he or she can beat the hell out of me. I am a very good 'little twerp.' However, I am capable of restraining a recruit if I have to. Though usually I don't have to. As I said, I do this a lot."

  "It's not a very nice job," I said. I had finally managed to get myself back into a rational state of mind.

  "'It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it,'" the man said. "I find it interesting, in that every recruit has a different thing that caus
es him or her to explode. But you're right. It's a high-stress assignment. It's not really for everyone."

  "I bet you're not very popular in bars," I said.

  "Actually, I'm told I'm quite charming. When I'm not intentionally pissing people off, that is. Mr. Perry, we're all finished here. If you'll step through the door to your right, you'll begin your next assessment."

  "They're not going to try to piss me off again, are they?"

  "You may become pissed off," the man said, "but if you do, it'll be on your own. We only do this test once."

  I headed to the door, then stopped. "I know you were doing your job," I said. "But I still want you to know. My wife was a wonderful person. She deserves better than to be used like this."

  "I know she does, Mr. Perry," the man said. "I know she does."

  I went through the door.

  In the next room, a very nice young lady, who happened to be completely naked, wanted me to tell her anything I could possibly remember about my seventh birthday party.

  "I can't believe they showed us that film right before dinner," Jesse said.

  "It wasn't right before dinner," Thomas said. "The Bugs Bunny cartoon was after that. Anyway, it wasn't so bad."

  "Yes, well, maybe you're not utterly disgusted by a film on intestinal surgery, Mister Doctor, but the rest of us found it pretty disturbing," Jesse said.

  "Does this mean you don't want your ribs?" Thomas said, pointing to her plate.

  "Did anyone else get the naked woman asking about your childhood?" I asked.

  "I got a man," Susan said.

  "Woman," said Harry.

  "Man," said Jesse.

  "Woman," said Thomas.

  "Man," said Alan.

  We all looked at him.

  "What?" Alan said. "I'm gay."

  "What was the point of that?" I asked. "About the naked person, I mean, not about Alan being gay."

  "Thanks," Alan said dryly.

  "They're trying to provoke particular responses, that's all," said Harry. "All of today's tests have been of pretty basic intellectual or emotional responses, the foundation of more complex and subtle emotions and intellectual abilities. They're just trying to figure out how we think and react on a primal level. The naked person was obviously trying to get you all worked up sexually."

  "But what was that whole thing about asking you about your childhood, is what I'm saying," I said.

  Harry shrugged. "What's sex without a little guilt?"

  "What pissed me off was the one where they got me all pissed off," Thomas said. "I swear I was going to clobber that guy. He said the Cubs ought to have been demoted to the minor leagues after they went two centuries without a World Series championship."

  "That sounds reasonable to me," Susan said.

  "Don't you start," Thomas said. "Man. Pow. I'm telling you. You don't mess with the Cubs."

  If the first day was all about demeaning feats of intellect, the second day was about demeaning feats of strength, or lack thereof.

  "Here's a ball," one proctor said to me. "Bounce it." I did. I was told to move on.

  I walked around a small athletic track. I was asked to run a small distance. I did some light calisthenics. I played a video game. I was asked to shoot at a target on a wall with a light gun. I swam (I liked that part. I've always liked swimming, so long as my head's above water). For two hours, I was placed in a rec room with several dozen other people and told to do whatever I wanted. I shot some pool. I played a game of Ping-Pong. God help me, I played shuffleboard.

  At no point did I even break a sweat.

  "What the hell sort of army is this, anyway?" I asked the Old Farts at lunch.

  "It makes a little bit of sense," Harry said. "Yesterday we did basic intellect and emotion. Today was basic physical movement. Again, they seem interested in the foundations of high order activity."

  "I'm not really aware of Ping-Pong being indicative of higher order physical activity," I said.

  "Hand-eye coordination," Harry said. "Timing. Precision."

  "And you never know when you're going to have to bat back a grenade," Alan piped in.

  "Exactly," Harry said. "Also, what do you want them to do? Have us run a marathon? We'd all drop before the end of the first mile."

  "Speak for yourself, flabby," Thomas said.

  "I stand corrected," Harry said. "Our friend Thomas would make it to mile six before his heart imploded. If he didn't get a food-related cramp first."

  "Don't be silly," Thomas said. "Everyone knows you need to power up with carbohydrates before a race. Which is why I'm going back for more fettuccine."

  "You're not running a marathon, Thomas," Susan said.

  "The day is young," Thomas said.

  "Actually," Jesse said, "my schedule is empty. I've got nothing planned for the rest of the day. And tomorrow, the only thing on the schedule is 'Concluding Physical Improvements' from 0600 to 1200 and a general recruit assembly at 2000, after dinner."

  "My schedule is finished until tomorrow, too," I said. A quick glance up and down the table showed that everyone else was done for the day as well. "Well, then," I said. "What are we going to do to amuse ourselves?"

  "There's always more shuffleboard," Susan said.

  "I have a better idea," Harry said. "Anyone have plans at 1500?"

  We all shook our heads.

  "Swell," Harry said. "Then meet me back here. I have a field trip for the Old Farts."

  "Are we even supposed to be here?" Jesse asked.

  "Sure," said Harry. "Why not? And even if we're not, what are they going to do? We're not really in the military yet. We can't officially be court-martialed."

  "No, but they can probably blow us out an air lock," Jesse said.

  "Don't be silly," Harry said. "That would be a waste of perfectly good air."

  Harry had led us to an observation deck in the Colonial area of the ship. And indeed, while we recruits had never been specifically told we couldn't go to the Colonial's decks, neither had we been told that we could (or should). Standing as we were in the deserted deck, the seven of us stood out like truant schoolkids at a peep show.

  Which, in one sense, was what we were. "During our little exercises today, I struck up a conversation with one of the Colonial folks," Harry said, "and he mentioned that the Henry Hudson was going to make its skip today at 1535. And I figure that none of us has actually seen what a skip looks like, so I asked him where one would go to get a good view. And he mentioned here. So here we are, and with"—Harry glanced at his PDA—"four minutes to spare."

  "Sorry about that," Thomas said. "I didn't mean to hold everyone up. The fettuccine was excellent, but my lower intestine would apparently beg to differ."

  "Please feel free not to share such information in the future, Thomas," Susan said. "We don't know you that well yet."

  "Well, how else will you get to know me that well?" Thomas said. No one bothered to answer that one.

  "Anyone know where we are right now? In space, that is," I asked after a few moments of silence had passed.

  "We're still in the solar system," Alan said, and pointed out the window. "You can tell because you can still see the constellations. See, look, there's Orion. If we'd traveled any significant distance, the stars would have shifted their relative position in the sky. Constellations would have been stretched out or would be entirely unrecognizable."

  "Where are we supposed to be skipping to?" Jesse asked.

  "The Phoenix system," Alan said. "But that won't tell you anything, because 'Phoenix' is the name of the planet, not of the star. There is a constellation named 'Phoenix,' and in fact, there it is"—he pointed to a collection of stars—"but the planet Phoenix isn't around any of the stars in that constellation. If I remember correctly, it's actually in the constellation Lupus, which is farther north"—he pointed to another, dimmer collection of stars—"but we can't actually see the star from here."

  "You sure know your constellations," Jesse said admiringly.
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  "Thanks," Alan said. "I wanted to be an astronomer when I was younger, but astronomers get paid for shit. So I became a theoretical physicist instead."

  "Lots of money in thinking up new subatomic particles?" Thomas asked.

  "Well, no," Alan admitted. "But I developed a theory that helped the company I worked for create a new energy containment system for naval vessels. The company's profit-sharing incentive plan gave me one percent for that. Which came to more money than I could spend, and trust me, I made the effort."

  "Must be nice to be rich," Susan said.

  "It wasn't too bad," Alan admitted. "Of course, I'm not rich anymore. You give it up when you join. And you lose other things, too. I mean, in about a minute, all that time I spent memorizing the constellations will be wasted effort. There's no Orion or Ursa Minor or Cassiopeia where we're going. This might sound stupid, but it's entirely possible I'll miss the constellations more than I miss the money. You can always make more money. But we're not coming back here. It's the last time I'll see these old friends."

  Susan went over and put an arm around Alan's shoulder. Harry looked down at his PDA. "Here we go," he said, and began a countdown. When he got to "one," we all looked up and out the window.

  It wasn't dramatic. One second we were looking at one star-filled sky. The next, we were looking at another. If you blinked, you would have missed it. And yet, you could tell it was an entirely alien sky. We all may not have had Alan's knowledge of the constellations, but most of us know how to pick out Orion and the Big Dipper from the stellar lineup. They were nowhere to be found, an absence subtle and yet substantial. I glanced over at Alan. He was standing like a pillar, hand in Susan's.

  "We're turning," Thomas said. We watched as the stars slid counterclockwise as the Henry Hudson changed course. Suddenly the enormous blue arm of the planet Phoenix hovered above us. And above it (or below it, from our orientation) was a space station so large, so massive, and so busy that all we could do was bulge our eyes at it.

  Finally someone spoke. And to everyone's surprise, it was Maggie. "Would you look at that," she said.

  We all turned to look at her. She was visibly annoyed. "I'm not mute," she said. "I just don't talk much. This deserves comment of some kind."

  "No kidding," Thomas said, turning back to look at it. "It makes Colonial Station look like a pile of puke."