[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

"Have you ever killed anybody?." he whispered to night in the dim glow of the
safety lamp above the hatch barracks.
The Kindroran was a dim and limber shape sprawled on next sleeping pad.
They all slept on the deck. "No fancy where you slubrugers are going!"
Sergeant had bawled. (Untranslatable.) (Shut up, Fred.)
"Jim, did you ask yourself how come there's five of in the squad and only one
vet like me?"
"No, I guess not."
"Well you're all replacements is what it is. New buddies to over from my old
buddies."
"Replacements..."
"They're all dead, Jim. Five old friends--well four, I
like Slithabok--but dead as Plyny haKmales after a mating I'm the only one
left. I didn't make it back by kissing people.
I've killed my share. So will you. Why?"
"Just... wondering."
"Does it bother you? I thought you Terries were supposed rough as cheap butt
cleaner
Jim rolled over on his back and stared up at the vague dark of the ceiling.
"I don't know. I haven't killed many people myself." Just two... Shishtar
rose up a bit. "But you have, right?" jim sensed his answer was important to
the Kindroran. "Yes."
Shishtar relaxed. "Good. See Jim, this squad. When training is done and we
take on a contract, then we go out as a team. Whether you like every one of
us is besides the point All our lives depend on each of us doing our jobs and
doing them right. If that means blowing somefrakkin hoober into slimy paste,
then there'd better be some paste on the walls right quick. You ever been in
a real firefight, Jim? That how you did your killing?."
"Then you know. It all happens fast. There's no time to think about it, only
to do what you've been trained to do. Jim, don't take offense, but I've gotta
ask: you can do that, right? I gotta know
'cause my life will depend on it one day." Jim licked his lips.
-jim?"
"Yes, Shishtar, I can do it. Don't worry. I won't let you down."
I hope I won't let myself down.
Rustling sounds from the shadows. "Just wanted to know. G'night, Jim buddy."
"Good night, Shishtar."
What am I becoming?.
Page 50
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
DOW LET O
A month into his training his instructors decided that Jim's physical
dexterity indicated a usefulness as a squad weapons technician. That meant he
got to lug the heavy stuff, set it up, and fire it at whatever they told him
to shoot.
On Sleen, a sparsely populated backwater planet at the fringes of the
RoiFrank Swarm, it seemed to rain most of the time. During the five days
they'd been here it had rained without pause, but their briefings promised it
would stop eventually.
Jim had his force armor powered down so he could better horse the lightweight
but bulky frame of the Thunderbolt into position. "Shish, give me a hand
here."
The Kindroran belly-humped over. "There. That's got it." "Thanks."
Something flat, hot, and nasty seared the air a few feet above the bunker
they'd pulled together out of the rubble. They both ducked, but the reflex
was curiously casual. It was the half-bored movement of combat soldiers who
ducked without thought because they'd been ducking too long. It would take
more than a miss to get their full attention.
"Close one," Shishtar said.
"Not that much." Gingerly Jim raised his naked head above the top of the
bunker. There was little to see in the rain that fell so -heavily it looked
more like a vertical river. Up close the shattered
husks of buildings poked gaunt ribs into low-hanging mist. squinted but saw
no movement.
"Sarge told us this one would be a piece of cake," Jim "Bunch of country
bumpkins, he said. Sarge always lie like
Shishtar had slid down the incline and now sprawled on back, letting the rain
spatter on his face. He came from a world himself. "Sarge says what they
tell him. What else is gonna say?. He's two holes over getting half-drowned
just like are."
Shishtar looked unchanged, but Jim's face was pasty and low. His cheekbones
stood out with razor sharpness, and his were buried in doughy, puffed slits of
flesh. It had only been days, but it felt to him like five years. He saw
that his right was quivering slightly, and he wrapped his left hand around it
hold it steady.
Shishtar didn't seem to notice, but he said, "You got the a little, Jim? I
saw you had the dump-squirts last night, That's not normal for Terries, is it?
You okay?."
"I'm okay, Shish. I'll make it."
"Just asking. You worry me some. I wouldn't want to lose just when I
got to start liking you okay."
The remark was offhand, but it touched Jim. He had about but never understood
the reality of battlefield
Now he knew it firsthand. Your buddies were all you had. mission was
incomprehensible, the officers were fools, the blankly murderous, the gods
laughing their divine heads off, you could count on your buddies.
Not so long ago he'd never seen an alien in the flesh. Now a squirmy being
with a head like a butcher's display was the friend he'd ever known. More
than a friend. In some ways become two parts of the same thing in a bond
deeper and powerful than love. He stared at Shish and tried to
Cat, whom he had loved. It took a surprisingly long moment bring her face
back into focus. But he knew that as long as lived he'd be able to see
Shishtar.
"Sure, Shish. I guess I can put up with you, too, if I have to."
Shish grunted. Jim looked away. In five days he had Shish's life once and
Shish had returned the favor twice. could see every detail of those incidents
Page 51
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
in his mind, but he not to. They had happened, and now they were done
Indelible marks on the ledger of his life.
Life on the edge of death was sharper than he'd ever imagined. He was only
sixteen. He was older than time itself. And whatever he had been before, he
was now something new, something forged in fire and blood.
He knew he would need that if he survived.
If he survived.
Later in the day, with Sleen's sun a watery green blot sinking beyond the
partially collapsed roof where they sheltered, five of them squatted and
talked. There had been seven, but Obo had stepped on a shaped-charge mine and
blown off three of his legs and he'd bled out before anything could be done.
His nest-twin Ebo, deprived of the telepathic link he'd known all his life,
had gone psycho and charged at shapeless shadows beyond the perimeter, waving
his force rifle and whistling in high desperate tones. Something had lanced
out of the murk and cut him in half and they'd left him where he fell because
they were taking fire and they couldn't find enough pieces of Ebo to put in a
self broadcasting body bag.
So Jim and Shish hunkered next to Abbda, a tiny crusty being who operated on
some kind of natural radar and was the most remorseless and efficient killer
Jim had ever imagined, and K'rrrng, a jolly rotund former teacher who handled
squad communications and medic duties as well, and they all listened to
Sarge's slow rough voice as he gave them the word.
Sarge was holding K'rrrng's squad comm unit in two of his hands and scratching
his vast scaly butt with a third. Over the unit a hologram danced, a fully
detailed map picture scaled one to one thousand, updated to realtime so that
it showed the ruins that surrounded them as an infinitely tiny sprawl of
fractured doll's houses.
A red dot throbbed near the center of the map. "Us," Sarge said.
Another dot not far away began to glow.. "hat's the objective.
Upstairs says it's a sector command post full of froggies. It be something
major because they're sending in six providing backup fire support." Bright
green lines slowly from the first dot to the second.
"Intel says it's pretty gnarled there. A lot of rubble and probably every [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne