Many of the early ships met with accidents and disappeared. The ex-military men were suspicious. They armed the colonizing vessels, and the first time they met a Tauran ship, they blasted it.

They dusted off their medals and the rest was going to be history.

You couldn’t blame it all on the military, though. The evidence they presented for the Taurans’ having been responsible for the earlier casualties was laughably thin. The few people who pointed this out were ignored.

The fact was, Earth’s economy needed a war, and this one was ideal. It gave a nice hole to throw buckets of money into, but would unify humanity rather than dividing it.

The Taurans relearned war, after a fashion. They never got really good at it, and would eventually have lost.

The Taurans, the book explained, couldn’t communicate with humans because they had no concept of the individual; they had been natural clones for millions of years. Eventually, Earth’s cruisers were manned by Man, Kahn-clones, and they were for the first time able to get through to each other.

The book stated this as a bald fact. I asked a Man to explain what it meant, what was special about clone-to-clone communication, and he said that I a priori couldn’t understand it. There were no words for it, and my brain wouldn’t be able to accommodate the concepts even if there were words.

All right. It sounded a little fishy, but I was willing to accept it. I’d accept that up was down if it meant the war was over.

Man was a pretty considerate entity. Just for us twenty-two, he went to the trouble of rejuvenating a little restaurant-tavern and staffing it at all hours (I never saw a Man eat or drink — guess they’d discovered a way around it). I was sitting in there one evening, drinking beer and reading their book, when Charlie came in and sat down next to me. Without preamble, he said, “I’m going to give it a try.”

“Give what a try?”

“Women. Hetero.” He shuddered. “No offense … it’s not really very appealing.” He patted my hand, looking distracted. “But the alternative … have you tried it?”

“Well … no, I haven’t.” Female Man was a visual treat, but only in the same sense as a painting or a piece of sculpture. I just couldn’t see them as human beings.

“Don’t.” He didn’t elaborate. “Besides, they say — he says, she says, it says — that they can change me back just as easily. If I don’t like it.”

“You’ll like it, Charlie.”

“Sure that’s what they say.” He ordered a stiff drink. “Just seems unnatural. Anyway, since, uh, I’m going to make the switch, do you mind if … why don’t we plan on going to the same planet?”

“Sure, Charlie, that’d be great.” I meant it. “You know where you’re going?”

“Hell, I don’t care. Just away from here.”

“I wonder if Heaven’s still as nice—”

“No.” Charlie jerked a thumb at the bartender. “He lives there.”

“I don’t know. I guess there’s a list.”

A man came into the tavern, pushing a cart piled high with folders. “Major Mandella? Captain Moore?”

“That’s us,” Charlie said.

“These are your military records. I hope you find them of interest. They were transferred to paper when your strike force was the only one outstanding, because it would have been impractical to keep the normal data retrieval networks running to preserve so few data.”

They always anticipated your questions, even when you didn’t have any.

My folder was easily five times as thick as Charlie’s. Probably thicker than any other, since I seemed to be the only trooper who’d made it through the whole duration. Poor Marygay. “Wonder what kind of report old Stott filed about me.” I flipped to the front of the folder.

Stapled to the front page was a small square of paper.

All the other pages were pristine white, but this one was tan with age and crumbling around the edges.

The handwriting was familiar, too familiar even after so long. The date was over 250 years old.

I winced and was blinded by sudden tears. I’d had no reason to suspect that she might be alive. But I hadn’t really known she was dead, not until I saw that date.

“William? What’s—”

“Leave me be, Charlie. Just for a minute.” I wiped my eyes and closed the folder. I shouldn’t even read the dammed note. Going to a new life, I should leave the old ghosts behind.

But even a message from the grave was contact of a sort. I opened the folder again.

“Say, bartender.”

“Yes, Major?”

“Do you know of a place called Middle Finger? Is it still there?”

“Of course it is. Where else would it be?” Reasonable question. “A very nice place. Garden planet. Some people don’t think it’s exciting enough.”

“What’s this all about?” Charlie said.

I handed the bartender my empty glass. “I just found out where we’re going.”

9

EPILOGUE

From The New Voice, Paxton, Middle Finger 24-6