The same lack of response at the antenna installation, the “Salami,” and twenty other major buildings, as well as the forty-four perimeter huts still intact. So we had “captured” dozens of buildings, mostly of incomprehensible purpose, but failed in our main mission, capturing a Tauran for the xenologists to experiment with. Oh well, they could have all the bits and pieces they’d ever want. That was something.

After we’d combed every last square centimeter of the base, a scoutship came in with the real exploration crew, the scientists. Cortez said, “All right, snap out of it,” and the hypnotic compulsion fell away.

At first it was pretty grim. A lot of the people, like Lucky and Marygay, almost went crazy with the memories of bloody murder multiplied a hundred times. Cortez ordered everybody to take a sedtab, two for the ones most upset. I took two without being specifically ordered to do so.

Because it was murder, unadorned butchery — once we had the antispacecraft weapon doped out, we hadn’t been in any danger. The Taurans hadn’t seemed to have any conception of person-to-person fighting. We had just herded them up and slaughtered them, the first encounter between mankind and another intelligent species. Maybe it was the second encounter, counting the teddy bears. What might have happened if we had sat down and tried to communicate? But they got the same treatment.

I spent a long time after that telling myself over and over that it hadn’t been me who so gleefully carved up those frightened, stampeding creatures. Back in the twentieth century, they had established to everybody’s satisfaction that “I was just following orders” was an inadequate excuse for inhuman conduct … but what can you do when the orders come from deep down in that puppet master of the unconscious?

Worst of all was the feeling that perhaps my actions weren’t all that inhuman. Ancestors only a few generations back would have done the same thing, even to their fellow men, without any hypnotic conditioning.

I was disgusted with the human race, disgusted with the army and horrified at the prospect of living with myself for another century or so … Well, there was always brainwipe.

A ship with alone Tauran survivor had escaped and had gotten away clean, the bulk of the planet shielding it from Earth’s Hope while it dropped into Aleph’s collapsar field. Escaped home, I guessed, wherever that was, to report what twenty men with handweapons could do to a hundred fleeing on foot, unarmed.

I suspected that the next time humans met Taurans in ground combat, we would be more evenly matched. And I was right.

SERGEANT MANDELLA

2007–2024 A.D.

1

I was scared enough.

Sub-major Stott was pacing back and forth behind the small podium in the assembly room/chop hall/gymnasium of the Anniversary. We had just made our final collapsar jump, from Tet-38 to Yod-4. We were decelerating at 1½ gravities and our velocity relative to that collapsar was a respectable .90c. We were being chased.

“I wish you people would relax for a while and just trust the ship’s computer. The Tauran vessel at any rate will not be within strike range for another two weeks. Mandella!”

He was always very careful to call me “Sergeant” Mandella in front of the company. But everybody at this particular briefing was either a sergeant or a corporal: squad leaders.

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re responsible for the psychological as well as the physical wellbeing of the men and women in your squad. Assuming that you are aware that there is a morale problem aboard this vessel, what have you done about it?”

“As far as my squad is concerned, sir?”

“Of course.”

“We talk it out, sir.”

“And have you arrived at any cogent conclusion?”

“Meaning no disrespect, sir, I think the major problem is obvious. My people have been cooped up in this ship for fourteen—”

“Ridiculous! Every one of us has been adequately conditioned against the pressures of living in close quarters and the enlisted people have the privilege of confraternity.” That was a delicate way of putting it. “Officers must remain celibate, and yet we have no morale problem.”

If he thought his officers were celibate, he should sit down and have a long talk with Lieutenant Harmony. Maybe he just meant line officers, though. That would be just him and Cortez. Probably 50 percent right. Cortez was awfully friendly with Corporal Karnehameha. “Sir, perhaps it was the detoxification back at Stargate; maybe—”

“No. The therapists only worked to erase the hate conditioning — everybody knows how I feel about that — and they may be misguided but they are skilled.

“Corporal Potter.” He always called her by her rank to remind her why she hadn’t been promoted as high as the rest of us. Too soft. “Have you ‘talked it out’ with your people, too?”

“We’ve discussed it, sir.”

The sub-major could “glare mildly” at people. He glared mildly at Marygay until she elaborated.

“I don’t believe it’s the fault of the conditioning. My people are impatient, just tired of doing the same thing day after day.”

“They’re anxious for combat, then?” No sarcasm in his voice.

“They want to get off the ship, sir.”

“They will get off the ship,” he said, allowing himself a microscopic smile. “And then they’ll probably be just as impatient to get back on.”

It went back and forth like that for a long while. Nobody wanted to come right out and say that their squad was scared: scared of the Tauran cruiser closing on us, scared of the landing on the portal planet. Sub-major Stott had a bad record of dealing with people who admitted fear.

I fingered the fresh T/O they had given us. It looked like this:

I knew most of the people from the raid on Aleph, the first face-to-face contact between humans and Taurans. The only new people in my platoon were Luthuli and Heyrovsky. In the company as a whole (excuse me, the “strike force”), we had twenty replacements for the nineteen people we lost from the Aleph raid: one amputation, four deaders, fourteen psychotics.

I couldn’t get over the “20 Mar 2007” at the bottom of the T/O. I’d been in the army ten years, though it felt like less than two. Time dilation, of course; even with the collapsar jumps, traveling from star to star eats up the calendar.

After this raid, I would probably be eligible for retirement, with full pay. If I lived through the raid, and if they didn’t change the rules on us. Me a twenty-year man, and only twenty-five years old.

Stott was summing up when there was a knock on the door, a single loud rap. “Enter,” he said.

An ensign I knew vaguely walked in casually and handed Stott a slip of paper, without saying a word. He stood there while Stott read it, slumping with just the right degree of insolence. Technically, Stott was out of his chain of command; everybody in the navy disliked him anyhow.

Stott handed the paper back to the ensign and looked through him.

“You will alert your squads that preliminary evasive maneuvers will commence at 2010, fifty-eight minutes from now.” He hadn’t looked at his watch. “All personnel will be in acceleration shells by 2000. Tench-hut!”

We rose and, without enthusiasm, chorused, “Fuck you, sir.” Idiotic custom.

Stott strode out of the room and the ensign followed, smirking.

I turned my ring to my assistant squad leader’s position and talked into it: “Tate, this is Mandella.” Everyone else in the room was doing the same.