Breakfast was followed by calisthenics—to aid the digestion or destroy it. Sergeant Klutz double-timed us to a vast, windswept plain where other recruits were already being put through their paces by muscular instructors. Our new leader was waiting for us, steely-eyed and musclebound, the spread of his shoulders so wide that his head was disproportionately small. Or maybe he just had a pinhead. Speculation about this vanished as his roar rattled the teeth in my jaw.

“What’s this, what’s this? You kretenoj are almost a minute late!”

“Pigs, that what they is,” our loyal sergeant said, taking a long black cigar from his pocket. “Little trotters in the trough. Couldn’t tear them away from their chow.” Some recruits gasped at this outright lie, but the wiser of us were learning and stayed silent. The one thing that we could not expect was justice. We were late getting here because our porcine sergeant could not move any faster.

“Is that so?” the instructor said, his beady eyes swiveling in his pinhead like glowing marbles. “Then we will see if we cannot work some of that food off of these malinger-

ing cagal-kopfs. ON THE GROUND! Now—we do fifty pushups. Begin!”

This seemed like a good idea since I usually did a hundred pushups every morning to keep in shape. And the chill wind was blowing through the rents in our disposable uniforms. Five. I wondered when we would be issued with something more permanent. Fifteen.

By twenty there was plenty of wavering and grunting around me and I was warming up nicely. By thirty over half of the pipe-stemmed striplings had collapsed in the dust. Sergeant Klutz dropped cigar ashes on the nearest prostrate back. We continued. When we reached fifty just I and the muscular lad who hated injections were the only ones left. Pinhead glared at us. “Another fifty,” he snarled.

The weightlifter puffed on for twenty more before he groaned to a halt. I finished the course and got another glare and a snarl.

“Is that all, sir,” I asked sweetly. “Couldn’t we do another fifty?”

“On your feet!” he screamed. “Legs wide, arms extended, after me. One, two, three, four. And one more time…”

By the time the exercises were finished we had worked up a good sweat, the sergeant had finished his cigar—-and two of the recruits were collapsed in the dust. One of them lay beside me, groaning and clutching his midriff. The sergeant strolled over and pushed him with his toe which elicited only some weak moans. Sergeant Klutz looked down with disgust and screamed his displeasure.

“Weaklings! Faggots! Momma’s boys! We’ll weed you out fast enough. Get these poofters out of my sight. Man to each side pick up the malingerers, bring them to the medic tent. Then fall back in. Move!”

I bent and seized one arm and lifted. I could see that the recruit on the other side was having difficulty so I shifted my grip to take most of the weight and heaved.

“Get his arm around your shoulder—I’ll do the carrying,” I whispered.

“My . .. thanks,” he said. “I’m not in such great shape.” He was right, too. Thin and round-shouldered with dark circles under his eyes. And older than the others I noticed, in his mid-twenties at least. “Morton’s the name,” he said.

“Jak. You look kind of old for the draft, Mort.”

“Believe me, I am!” he said with some warmth. “I almost killed myself getting through university, keeping top of the class to keep out of the army. So what happens? I’m so overworked I get sick, miss the exams, wash out—and end up here anyway. What do we do with this dropout?”

“That tent there, I guess, where they’re bringing the others.”

The limp form hung between us, toes dragging in the dust.

“He doesn’t look too good,” Morton said, glancing at the pallid skin and hanging head.

“That’s his problem. You have to look out for number one. “

“I’m beginning to get that message. A crude communication but a highly effective one. Here we are.”

“Drop him on the ground,” a bored corporal said, not deigning to even look up from his illiterate comic book. When he touched the page little voices spoke out and there was a mini scream. I looked at the four other unconscious forms stretched out in the dirt.

“What about some medical treatment, corporal. He looks in a bad way. ”

“Tough cagal.” He turned a page. “If he comes to—it’s back to the drill field. Stays like that the medic will look at him when he gets here tonight.”

“You’re all heart.”

“That’s the way the kuketo crumbles. Now get the cagal out of here before I put you on report for cagaling off.” We got. “Where do they, get all these sadistic types from?” I muttered.

“That could be you or I,” Morton said grimly. “A sick society breeds sickles. People do what they are ordered to do. It is easier that way. Our society lives on militarism,

chauvinism and hatred. When those are the rules there will always be someone eager to do the dirty work.” I rolled my eyes in his direction. “They taught you that in school?”

He smiled grimly and shook his head. “The opposite, if anything. I was majoring in history, military history of course, so I was allowed to do research. But I like to read and the university library is a really old one and all the books are there if you know how to look, and how to crack some simple security codes. I looked and cracked and read—and learned.”

“I hope you learned to keep your mouth shut as well?”

“Yes—but not always. ”

“Make it always or you are in big trouble.” Sergeant Klutz was just leading our squad off the field and we fell in behind them. And marched to the supply building to get outfitted at last. I had heard that clothing came in only two sizes in the army and this was true. At least most of mine were too big so I could roll up the cuffs. In addition to clothing there were mess kits, webbing belts, canteens, sewing kits, assassination kits, foxhole diggers, backpacks, VD testers, bayonets, scrokets and more items of dubious or military nature. We staggered back to the barracks, dumped our possessions and hurried to our next assignment.

Which was something called Military Orientation.

“Having possessed our bodies they now seek to take over our minds,” Morton whispered. “Dirty minds in military bodies.”

He was sure bright this Morton, but not bright enough to keep his mouth shut. I hissed him into silence as Sergeant Klutz glared in our direction.

“Talking is forbidden,” he graveled. “You are here to listen, and this here is Corporal Gow who will now tell you what you got to know.”

This Gow was a smarmy type, all smooth pink skin, little ponce’s moustache and fake grin. “Now sergeant,” he said, “this is orientation, not orders. You men will become good soldiers by following orders. But good soldiers also should know the necessity of these orders. So get comfortable, guys. No chairs of course, this is the army. Just sit down on the nice clean concrete floor and give me your attention, if you please. Now—can any of you tell me why you are here?”

“We was drafted,” a thick voice said.

“Yes, ha-ha, of course you were. But why is the draft necessary? Your teachers and your parents have let you down if this has not been made completely clear. So let me take this opportunity to remind you of some vital facts. You are here because a dangerous enemy is at our gates, has invaded our precious land, and it is your duty to defend our inalienable freedoms.”

“This is the old cagal if I ever heard it,” I muttered, and Morton nodded silent agreement.

“Did you say something, soldier?” the corporal said, staring right at me; he had good ears.

“Just a question, sir. How could a broken-down, unindustrialized society like they got over there, how could they ever invade a modern, armed and equipped country like ours.”

“That is a good question, soldier, and one that I am happy to answer. Those barbarians across the channel would pose no problem if they were not being armed and equipped by offworlders. Greedy, hungry strangers who see our rich land and want to take it for themselves. That is why you lads must go willingly to the service of your country. ”