“Why make them to break in half if you don’t break them in half?” I muttered aloud. The youth beside me rolled his eyes and whispered.
“Because when you’re dead they break them in half and send one half to death registrations and put the other half in your mouth.”
Why was it that as I shuffled forward to get my uniform I had a very strong metallic taste in my mouth?
Chapter 8
Under any other circumstances I would have enjoyed the ride in this unusual airship. It was shaped like a large cigar and undoubtedly contained light gas of some kind. Slung beneath the lifting body was a metal cabin tastefully decorated outside with a frieze of skulls and bones. Ducted fans on the cabin were angled to force it aloft and forward: the view from the window must have been fascinating. But the windows that we had glimpsed from the outside were all forward in the pilot’s compartment, while we draftees were jammed into a windowless metal chamber. The seats were made from molded plastic surfaced with uneven bumps and hideously uncomfortable—but at least they were seats. I dropped into one and sighed with relief. In all the hours at the reception center the only time we had been off our feet was during the bloodletting. The plastic was cool through the thin paper fabric of the purple disposable uniform, tne deck hard through the cardboard soles fastened at the end of its legs. The only pocket in this hideous garment was a pouch at the front into which we had shoved our bags of personal possessions so that we all resembled demented purple marsupials. I felt depressed. But at least I had company. We were all depressed.
“I never been away from home before,” the recruit to my right sniveled, then sniffed and wiped his damp nose on his sleeve.
“Well I have,” I said in my heartiest, most jovial tones. Not that I felt either hearty or jovial, but bucking up his spirits might help mine as well. “And it is a lot better than home.”
“Food will be rotten,” he whined self-indulgently. “Nobody can cook like my Morn. She makes the best cepkukoj in the whole world.”
Onion cakes? What sort of bizarre diet had this stripling enjoyed? “Put that all behind you,” I chirped. “If the army bakes cepkukoj they will be foul, count on that. But think of the other pleasures.. Plenty of exercise, fresh air—and you can curse all the time, drink alcohol and talk smutty about girls!”
He blushed ardently, his splayed ears glowing like banners. “I wouldn’t talk about girls! And I know how to drink. Me and Jpjo went behind the barn once and drank beer and cursed and threw up.”
“Whee—” I sighed and was saved from future futile conversation by the appearance of a sergeant. He slammed open the door from the front cabin and roared his command. “Alright you kretenoj—on your feet!”
He assured instant obedience by hitting a button on the wall that collapsed our seats. There were screams and moans of pain, writhing purple confusion on the deck as the recruits fell on top of each other. I was the only one standing and I caught the full force of the sergeant’s sizzling glare.
“What are you—a wise guy or sometin’?”
“No, sir! Just obeying orders, sir!” Saying this I leaped into the air slapping my arms to my sides, stamping my feet heavily as I landed, then delivered a snappy salute—so snappy I almost put my eye out. The sergeant’s eyes bulged in return at this display before he was lost from sight by the rising, milling bodies.
“Quiet! Attention! Hands at sides, feet together, stomachs in, chests out, chins back, eyes forward—and stop breathing!”
The purple ranks swayed and writhed into this absurd military stance, then were still. Silence descended as the sergeant glared around with dark suspicion.
“Did I hear someone breathe? No breathing until I tell you to. The first cagalhead who breathes gets my fist where it will do the most good. ”
The silence lengthened. Purple figures stirred as incipient asphyxiation took hold. One recruit moaned and fell to the deck; I’ breathed silently through my nostrils. There was a gasp as one of the lads could hold out no longer. The sergeant surged forward and the spot where a fist will do the most good turned out to be the pit of the stomach. The victim screamed and fell and all the others gasped in life-giving air. ”.
“That was a little lesson!” the sergeant screeched. “Did you get the message?”
“Yes,” I muttered under my breath. “You’re a sadomasochist. “
“The lesson is that I give the orders, you obey them—or you get stomped.” Having delivered this repulsive communication his face writhed, his lips pulled back to reveal yellowed teeth; it took a long moment for me to realize this was supposed to be a smile.
“Sit down men, make yourselves comfortable.” On the steel deck? The seats were still stowed. I sat with the rest while the sergeant amicably patted the roll of fat that hung over his belt. “My name is Klutz, Drill-sergeant Klutz. But you will not address me by my name which is for the use of those of equal rank or higher. You will call me sergeant, sir, or master. You will be humble, obedient, reverent and quiet. If you are not you will be punished. I will not tell you what the punishment will be because I have eaten recently and do not wish to upset my stomach.” Astir of fear passed through the audience at the thought of what might possibly upset that massive gut.
“One punishment is usually enough to– break the spirit of even the most reluctant recruit. However, occasionally, a recruit will need a second punishment. Still more rarely a hardened resister will require a third punishment. But there is no third punishment. Would you like to know why there is no third punishment?”
The red eyes glared down and we all wished that we were someplace, anyplace, else at this moment.
“Since you are too dim to ask why, I will tell you. Third time is out. Third time is being stuffed, kicking and screaming and begging for your mommy, into the dehydration chamber where ninety-nine point nine nine percent of all your precious bodily fluids will be removed with a dry whishing sound. Do you know what you will look like then? You will look like this!” ’
He reached into his pocket and took out a tiny dehydrated figure of a recruit in a tiny dehydrated uniform, the features on its tiny face fixed forever in lines of terror. Moans of fear sighed from the soldiers and there were a number of thuds as the weakest dropped unconscious. Sergeant Klutz smiled.
“Yes, you will look just like this. Your tiny dry body will then be hung on the barracks bulletin board for a month as a warning to the others. After that your body will be put in a padded mailing envelope and sent to your parents, along with a toy shovel to assist in burial. Now—are there any questions?”
“Please, sir,” a quavering voice asked. “Is the dehydration process instant and painless or drawn-out and terrible?”
“Good question. After your first day in the army—do you have any doubt which it will be?”
More moans and unconscious thuds followed. The sergeant nodded approval. “Alright. Let me tell you what happens next. We are going to the RTCS at MMB. That means the Recruit Training Camp Slimmarco at Mortstertoro Military Base. You will take your basic training. This training will turn you from feeble civilian wimps into sturdy, loyal, reverent soldiers. Some of you will wash out of basic training and will be buried with full military honors. Remember that. There is no way back. You will become good soldiers or you will become dead. You will understand that the military is hard but fair.”
“What’s fair about it?” a recruit gasped and the sergeant kicked him in the head.
“What is fair is that you all have an equal chance. You can get through basic or wash out. Now I will tell you something.” He leaned forward and breathed out a blast of breath so foul that the nearest draftees dropped unconscious. There was no humor in his smile now. “The truth is that I want you to wash out. I will do everything I can to make you wash out. Every recruit sent home in a wheelchair or a box saves the government money and lowers taxes. I want you to wash out now instead of in combat after years of expensive training. Do we understand each other?”