Sirens Of Titan Part 8

Chapter 5.

Letter From An Unknown Hero "We can make the center of a man's memory virtually as sterile as a scalpel fresh from the autoclave. But grains of new experience begin to acc.u.mulate on it at once. These grains in turn form themselves into patterns not necessarily favorable to military thinking. Unfortunately, this problem of recontamination seems insoluble."

- Dr. Morris N. Castle, Director of Mental Health, Mars Dr. Morris N. Castle, Director of Mental Health, Mars Unk's formation halted before a granite barrack, before a barrack in a perspective of thousands, a perspective that ran to seeming infinity on the iron plain. Before every tenth barrack was a flagpole with a banner snapping in the keen wind.

The banners were all different.

The banner that fluttered like a guardian angel over Unk's company area was very gay- red and white stripes, and many white stars on a field of blue. It was Old Glory, the flag of the United States of America on Earth.

Down the line was the red banner of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Past that was a wonderful green, orange, yellow, and purple banner, showing a lion holding a sword, It was the flag of Ceylon.

And past that was a red ball on a white field, the flag of j.a.pan.

The banners signified the countries that the various Martian units would attack and paralyze when the war between Mars and Earth began.

Unk saw no banners until his antenna let his shoulders sag, let his joints loosen- let him fall out. He gawked at the long perspective of barracks and flag-poles. The barrack before which he stood had a large number painted over the door. The number was 576.

Some part of Unk found the number fascinating, made Unk study it. Then he remembered the execution- remembered that the red-headed man he had killed had told him something about a blue stone and barrack twelve.

Inside barrack 576, Unk cleaned his rifle, found it an extremely pleasant thing to do. He found, moreover, that he still knew how to take the weapon apart. That much of his memory, at any rate, had not been wiped out at the hospital. It made him furtively happy to suspect that there were probably other parts of his memory that had been missed as well. Why this suspicion should make him furtively happy he didn't know.

He swabbed away at his rifle's bore. His weapon was an 11-millimeter German Mauser, single shot, a type ofrifle that made its reputation when used by the Spaniards in the Earthling Spanish-American War. All of the Martian Army's rifles were of about the same vintage. Martian agents, working quietly on Earth, had been able to buy up huge quant.i.ties of Mausers and British Enfields and American Springfields for next to nothing.

Unk's squadmates were swabbing their bores, too. The oil smelled good, and the oily patches, twisting through the rifling, resisted the thrust of the cleaning rod just enough to be interesting. There was hardly any talk.

No one seemed to have taken particular notice of the execution. If there had been a lesson in the execution for Unk's squadmates, they were finding the lesson as digestible as Pablum.

There had been only one comment on Unk's partic.i.p.ation in the execution, and that had come from Sergeant Brackman. "You done all right, Unk," said Brackman.

"Thanks," said Unk.

"This man done all right, didn't he?" Brackman asked Unk's squadmates.

There had been some nods, but Unk had the impression that his squadmates would have nodded in response to any positive question, would have shaken their heads in response to any negative one.

Unk withdrew the rod and patch, slipped his thumb under the open breech, caught the sunlight on his oily thumbnail. The thumbnail sent the sunlight up the bore. Unk put his eye to the muzzle and was thrilled by perfect beauty. He could have stared happily at the immaculatespiral of the rifling for hours, dreaming of the happy land whose round gate he saw at the other end of the bore. The pink under his oily thumbnail at the far end of the barrel made that far end seem a rosy paradise indeed. Some day he was going to crawl down the barrel to that paradise.

It would be warm there- and there would be only one moon, Unk thought, and the moon would be fat, stately, and slow. Something else about the pink paradise at the end of the barrel came to Unk, and Unk was puzzled by the clarity of the vision. There were three beautiful women in that paradise, and Unk knew exactly what they looked like! One was white, one was gold, and one was brown. The golden girl was smoking a cigarette in Unk's vision. Unk was further surprised to find that he even knew what kind of cigarette the golden girl was smoking.

It was a MoonMist Cigarette.

"Sell MoonMist," Unk said out loud. It felt good to say that- felt authoritative, shrewd.

"Huh?" said a young colored soldier, cleaning his rifle next to Unk. "What's that you say, Unk?" he said. He was twenty-three years old. His name was st.i.tched in yellow on a black patch over his left breast pocket.

Boaz was his name. was his name.

If suspicions had been permitted in the Army of Mars, Boaz would have been a person to suspect. His rank was only Private, First Cla.s.s, but his uniform, though regulation lichen green, was made of far finer stuff, and was much better tailored than the uniform of anyone around him- including the uniform of Sergeant Brackman.

Everyone else's uniform was coa.r.s.e, scratchy- held together by clumsy st.i.tches of thick thread. And everyone else's uniform looked good only when the wearer stood at attention. In any other position, an ordinary soldier found that his uniform tended to bunch and crackle, as though made of paper.

Boaz's uniform followed his every movement with silken grace. The st.i.tches were numerous and tiny. And most puzzling of all: Boaz's shoes had a deep, rich, ruby l.u.s.ter- a l.u.s.ter that other soldiers could not achieve no matter how much they might polish their shoes. Unlike the shoes of anyone else in the company area, the shoes of Boaz were genuine leather from Earth.

"You say sell something, Unk?" said Boaz.

"Dump MoonMist. Get rid of it," murmured Unk. The words made no sense to him. He had let them out simply because they had wanted out so badly. "Sell," he said.

Boaz smiled- ruefully amused. "Sell it, eh?" he said. "O.K., Unk- we sell it." He raised an eyebrow. "What we gonna sell, Unk?" There was something particularly bright and piercing about the pupils of his eyes.

Unk found this yellow brightness, this sharpness of Boaz's eyes disquieting- increasingly so, as Boaz continued to stare. Unk looked away, looked by chance into the eyes of some of his other squadmates- found their eyes to be uniformly dull. Even the eyes of Sergeant Brackman were dull.

Boaz's eyes continued to bite into Unk. Unk felt compelled to meet their gaze again. The pupils were seeming diamonds.

"You don't remember me, Unk?" said Boaz.

The question alarmed Unk. For some reason, it was important that he not remember Boaz. He was grateful that he really didn't remember him.

"Boaz, Unk," said the colored man. "I'm Boaz."

Unk nodded. "How do you do?" he said.

"Oh- I don't do what you'd call real bad," said Boaz. He shook his head. "You don't remember nothing about me, Unk?"

"No," said Unk. His memory was nagging him a little now- telling him that he might remember something about Boaz, if he tried as hard as he could. He shushed his memory. "Sorry- " said Unk. "My mind's a blank."

"You and me- we're buddies," said Boaz. "Boaz and Unk."

"Um," said Unk.

"You remember what the buddy system is, Unk?" said Boaz.

"No," said Unk.

"Ever' man in ever' squad," said Boaz, "he got a buddy. Buddies share the same foxhole, stick right close to each other in attacks, cover each other. One buddy get in trouble in hand-to-hand, other buddy come up and help, slip a knife in."

"Um," said Unk.

"Funny," said Boaz, "what a man'll forget in the hospital and what he'll still remember, no matter what they do. You and me- we trained as buddies for a whole year, and you done forgot that. And then you say that thing 'bout cigarettes. What kind cigarettes, Unk?"

"I- I forget," said Unk.

"Try and remember now," said Boaz. "You had it once." He frowned and squinted, as though trying to help Unk remember. "I think it's so so interesting what a man can remember after he's been to the hospital. Try and remember everything you can." interesting what a man can remember after he's been to the hospital. Try and remember everything you can."

There was a certain effeminacy about Boaz- in the nature of a cunning bully's chucking a sissy under the chin, talking baby-talk to him.

But Boaz liked Unk- that was in his manner, too.

Unk had the eerie feeling that he and Boaz were the only real people in the stone building- that the rest were gla.s.s-eyed robots, and not very well-made robots at that. Sergeant Brackman, supposedly in command, seemed no more alert, no more responsible, no more in command than a bag of wet feathers.

"Let's hear all you can remember, Unk," wheedled Boaz. "Old buddy-" he said, "just remember all you can."

Before Unk could remember anything, the head pain that had made him get on with the execution hurt him again. The pain did not stop, however, with the warning nip. While Boaz watched expressionlessly, the pain in Unk's head became a whanging, flas.h.i.+ng thing.

Unk stood, dropped his rifle, clawed at his head, reeled, screamed, fainted.

When Unk came to on the barrack floor, his buddy Boaz was daubing Unk's temples with a cold washrag.

Unk's squadmates stood in a circle around Unk and Boaz. The faces of the squadmates were unsurprised, unsympathetic. Their att.i.tude was that Unk had donesomething stupid and unsoldierly, and so deserved what he got.

They looked as though Unk had done something as militarily stupid as silhouetting himself against the sky or cleaning a loaded weapon, as sneezing on patrol or contracting and not reporting a venereal disease, as refusing a direct order or sleeping through reveille, as being drunk on guard or drawing to an inside straight, as keeping a book or a live hand grenade in his foot-locker, as asking who had started the Army anyway and why...

Boaz was the only one who looked sorry about what had happened to Unk. "It was all my fault, Unk," he said.

Sergeant Brackman now pushed through the circle, stood over Unk and Boaz. "Wha'd he do, Boaz?" said Brackman.

"I was kidding him, Sergeant," said Boax earnestly. "I told him to try an' remember back as far as he could. I never dreamed he'd go and do it."

"Oughta have more sense than to kid a man just back from the hospital," said Brackman gruffly.

"Oh, I know it- I know it," said Boaz, full of remorse. "My buddy-" he said. "G.o.d d.a.m.n d.a.m.n me!" me!"

"Unk," said Brackman, "didn't they tell you about remembering at the hospital?"

Unk shook his head vaguely. "Maybe," he said. "They told me a lot."

"That's the worst thing you can do do, Unk- remembering back," said Brackman. "That's what they put you in the hospital for in the first place- on account of you remembered too much." He made cups of hisstubby hands, held in them the heart-breaking problem Unk had been. "Holy smokes," he said, "you were remembering so much, Unk, you weren't worth a nickel as a soldier."

Unk sat up, laid his hand on his breast, found that the front of his blouse was wet with tears. He thought of explaining to Brackman that he hadn't really tried to remember back, that he'd known instinctively that that was a bad thing to do- but that the pain had hit him anyway anyway. He didn't tell Brackman that for fear that the pain would come again.

Unk groaned and blinked away the last of the tears. He wasn't going to do anything he wasn't ordered to do.

"As for you, Boaz-" said Brackman. "I don't know but what a week's latrine duty would maybe teach you something about horseplay with people just out of the hospital."

Something formless in Unk's memory told Unk to watch the by-play between Brackman and Boaz closely. It was somehow important.

"A week, Sergeant?" said Boaz.

"Yes, by G.o.d-" said Brackman, and then he shuddered and closed his eyes. Plainly, his antenna had just given him a little stab of pain.

"A whole week, Sarge?" asked Boaz innocently.

"A day," said Brackman, and it was less a threat than a question. Again Brackman reacted to pain in his head.

"Starting when, Sarge?" asked Boaz.

Brackman fluttered his stubby hands. "Never mind," he said. He looked rattled, betrayed- haunted. Helowered his head, as though better to fight the pain if it came again. "No more horseplay, d.a.m.n it," he said, his voice deep in his throat. And he hurried away, hurried into his room at the end of the barrack, slammed the door.

The company commander, a Captain Arnold Burch, came into the barrack for a surprise inspection.

Boaz was the first to see him. Boaz did what a soldier was supposed to do under such circ.u.mstances. Boaz shouted, "A-tennnn-hut!" Boaz did this, though he had no rank at all. It is a freak of military custom that the lowliest private can command his equals and noncommissioned superiors to attention, if he is the first to detect the presence of a commissioned officer in any roofed-over structure not in a combat area.

The antennas of the enlisted men responded instantly, straightened the men's backs, locked their joints, hauled in their guts, tucked in their b.u.t.ts- made their minds go blank. Unk sprang up from the floor, stood stiff and s.h.i.+vering.

Only one man was slow about coming to attention. That man was Boaz. And when he did come to attention, there was something insolent and loose and leering about the way he did it.

Captain Burch, finding Boaz's att.i.tude profoundly offensive, was about to speak to Boaz about it. But the Captain no sooner got his mouth open than pain hit him between the eyes.

The captain closed his mouth without having made a sound.

Under the baleful gaze of Boaz, he came smartly to attention, did an about-face, heard a snare drum in his head, and marched out of the barrack in step with the drum.

When the captain was gone, Boaz did not put his squadmates at ease again, though it was in his power to do so. He had a small control box in his right front trouser pocket that could make his squadmates do just about anything. The box was the size of a one-pint hip flask. Like a hip flask, the box was curved to fit a body curve. Boaz chose to carry it on the hard, curved face of his thigh.

The control box had six b.u.t.tons and four k.n.o.bs on it. By manipulating these, Boaz could control anybody who had an antenna in his skull. Boaz could administer pain in any amount to that anybody- could bring him to attention, could make him hear a snare drum, could make him march, halt, fall in, fall out, salute, attack, retreat, hop, skip, jump....

Boaz had no antenna in his own skull.

As free as it wanted to be- that's how free the free will of Boaz was.

Boaz was one of the real commanders of the Army of Mars. He was in command of one-tenth of the force that was to attack the United States of America when the attack on Earth was mounted. Down the line were units training to attack Russia, Switzerland, j.a.pan, Australia, Mexico, China, Nepal, Uruguay....

To the best of Boaz's knowledge, there were eight hundred real commanders of the Army of Mars- not one of them with an apparent rank above buck sergeant. Thenominal commander of the entire Army, General of the Armies Borders M. Pulsifer, was in fact controlled at all times by his orderly, Corporal Bert Wright. Corporal Wright, the perfect orderly, carried aspirin for the General's almost chronic headaches.

The advantages of a system of secret commanders are obvious. Any rebellion within the Army of Mars would be directed against the wrong people. And, in time of war, the enemy could exterminate the entire Martian officer cla.s.s without disturbing the Army of Mars in the least.

"Seven hundred and ninety-nine," said Boaz out loud, correcting his own understanding of the number of real commanders. One of the real commanders was dead, having been strangled at the stake by Unk. The strangled man had been Private Stony Stevenson, former real commander of a British attack unit. Stony had become so fascinated by Unk's struggles to understand what was going on that he had begun, unconsciously, to help Unk think.

Stevenson had suffered the ultimate humiliation for this. An antenna had been installed in his skull, and he had been forced by it to march to the stake like a good soldier- there to await murder by his protege.

Boaz let his squadmates go on standing at attention- let them go on quivering, thinking nothing, seeing nothing. Boaz went to Unk's cot, lay down on it with his big, l.u.s.trous shoes on the brown blanket. He folded his hands behind his head- arched his body like a bow.

"Awwwww-" said Boaz, somewhere between a yawn and a groan. "Awwwww- now, men, men, men," he said, letting his mind idle. "G.o.d d.a.m.n, now, men," hesaid. It was lazy, nonsense talk. Boaz was a little bored with his toys. It occurred to him to have them fight each other- but the penalty for doing that, if he got caught, was the same penalty Stony Stevenson had paid.

"Awwwww-now, men. Really now, men," said Boaz languidly.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it now, men," he said. "I got it made made. You men got to admit that. Old Boaz is doing how you might say real fine."

He rolled off the bed, landed on all fours, sprang to his feet with pantherlike grace. He smiled dazzlingly. He was doing everything he could to enjoy the fortunate position in life that was his. "You boys ain't got it so bad," he said to his rigid squadmates. "You oughta see how we treat the generals, if you think you's bad off." He chuckled and cooed. "Two nights ago us real commanders got ourselves in a argument about which general could run the fastest. Next thing you know, we got all twenty-three generals out of bed, all bare-a.s.s naked, and we lined 'em up like they was race horses, and then we put our money down and laid the odds, and then we sent them generals off like the devil was after 'em. General Stover, he done placed first, with General Harrison right behind him, and with General Mosher behind him him. Next morning, ever' general in the Army was stiff as a board. Not one of 'em could remember a thing about the night before."

Boaz chuckled and cooed again, and then he decided that his fortunate position in life would look a lot better if he treated it seriously- showed what a load it was, showed how honored he felt to have a load like that. Hereared back judiciously, hooked his thumbs under his belt and scowled. "Oh," he said, "it ain't all play by any means." He sauntered over to Unk, stood inches away from him, looked him up and down. "Unk, boy-" he said, "I'd hate to tell you how much time I've spent thinking about you- worrying about you, Unk."

Boaz rocked on his feet. "You will will try an' puzzle things out, won't you! You know how many times they had you in the hospital, trying to clean out that memory of yours? Seven times, Unk! You know how many times they usually have to send a man to have his memory cleaned out? Once, Unk. One time!" Boaz snapped his finger under Unk's nose. "And that does it, Unk. One time, and the man never bothers hisself about anything ever after." He shook his head wonderingly. "Not try an' puzzle things out, won't you! You know how many times they had you in the hospital, trying to clean out that memory of yours? Seven times, Unk! You know how many times they usually have to send a man to have his memory cleaned out? Once, Unk. One time!" Boaz snapped his finger under Unk's nose. "And that does it, Unk. One time, and the man never bothers hisself about anything ever after." He shook his head wonderingly. "Not you you, though, Unk."