from the head of the platoon lieutenant lee hartford signaled sergeant felix, busy policing up stragglers at the rear, that he was taking over. hartford tongued the volume-setting of his bitcher to "low" and softly sing-songed to his three dozen troopers: "your girlfriend's just an hour away; there's a time to soldier and a time to play. pick it hup, hup, hup! 'toon, tain-hut.' hup, twop, threep, furp; hup, hup; hup, twop, threep, furp. mondrian, pick up the cadence; you're marching like a man with a paper pelvis. swing 'em six to the front and three to the rear; when you sing to your daddy, sing it loud and clear." hartford turned up the volume. "three weeks in the woods, eating squeeze-tube beans; we'd be better off in the fleet marines. sound off!"
"one, two," boomed the voice of the terrible third, sounding from the bitchers at the chests of thirty-six safety-suits. dust slapped up from marching-boots. a flock of scarlet blabrigars settled on the road ahead, chattering and watching like small boys.
"sound hoff!"
"three, four!" the road led uphill toward stinkerville; they were some three miles from first regiment barracks. three miles from now these troopers could shed their safety-suits and helmets, shower off three weeks of sweat, drink a beer and leer at the short-skirted, taut-haltered girls of the service companies.
"who are we?" hartford chanted.
"company c," the troopers blatted back.
the blabrigars, fluttering up from the roadway, chanted too: "who are we? company see. who, we? see, see. company see are wee see see." these wild birds didn't memorize human speech as well as their captive cousins; they garbled their mockeries immediately. the flock settled into the sunflowers beside the road; and were joined by a pair of wild camelopards, chewing sunflower-leaf cud as they peered at the marching axenites. hartford looked about, but there were no stinkers—kansans—in sight. these natives didn't care to watch the occupying regiment stir up their homeland's dust. "what platoon?" hartford called, his voice magnified by the bitcher till the whole column could hear him.
"third platoon," the men bellowed back, singing against the percussion of their boots. "'toon, click, click, click; 'toon, click, third platoon, click," mocked the blabrigars in ragged chorus, reflecting both the words and the marching feet.
"best platoon?"
"third platoon!" the men shouted. they'd turned up their bitchers to a volume the blabrigars couldn't match. disgusted, the birds flapped their scarlet wings and flew off across the sunflower fields. "'toon," one rear-flier chanted, "'toon, 'toon, 'toon."
"worst platoon?" hartford asked.
"first platoon!" that was for the benefit of lieutenant piacentelli, commanding the tail-end of the regiment, the platoon marching on either side of the lumbering decontamination vehicle, their safety-suit filters clogging with the dust.
"sound off!" hartford shouted.
"one, two!"
that'll rattle the windows in stinkerville, hartford thought. he pitched his descant louder and higher. "sound off!"
"three, four!"
"run 'er on down!"
"one, two, three, four; one, two, threep—furp!" the men of the terrible third were grinning through the face-plates of their helmets, rejoicing in their reputation as the loudest bunch in the regiment, happy to help hartford in waging his mock-feud with lieutenant piacentelli. they'd been classmates at the axenite academy; they'd been room-mates in the barracks until pia's recent marriage to a service company officer.
hartford lowered his bitcher to a confidential tone. "square up, men; march tall; look rough and dirty. show the stinker girls what they're missing. hup, hup, hup. sling those rifles square. mondrian, you march like you're wearing skis: hup, twop, threep, furp!" up and down the column came the commands of sergeants and platoon-commanders, getting their troopers in parade-trim for the march through kansannamura: "stinkerville." somewhere up front a company was singing the anthem of the axenite troopers, "oh, pioneers!" the chorus of twelve dozen men, their bitchers full-up, filled the kansan air and echoed from the walls ahead.
stinkerville, all white-washed, with flakes of mica glittering in the sunlight, sprawled across the road that led to the barracks. the village wall, designed to keep wild camelopards from roaming the streets and to keep the tame beasts out of the sunflower-fields, was some eight feet tall. some indigenous hominid had heard the regiment's clatter and song, for the gates of kansannamura were open, the brick streets were clear of stinker commerce. the village seemed deserted. a few blabrigars perched on the tiled eaves of the rammed-earth houses, making echoic comments on the sounds of the troopers, singing fleeting snatches of "oh, pioneers!" a camelopard stretched its ridiculous, three-horned head at the end of its fathom of neck to peer, big-brown-eyed, at the caravan of fishbowl-headed men. up at the head of the column the regiment's flags were unfurled and the regimental band was skirling the anthem; men were counting cadence as their boots clicked over the scrubbed bricks of stinkerville's streets.
but no kansan, stinker, indigenous hominid, gook or native watched. no cowboy youngsters stared at the gunned-and-holstered men from another planet. no elders looked down their noses at the brash invaders. no mothers wiped their hands on their aprons as they thought of their sons, and the fleshly price they'd pay for freedom. no teenage girls, those patrons of parades, watched with lips half-open with apprehension and audacious thoughts about the hundreds of gift-wrapped young man marching past. this planet could have as well been named coventry as kansas, hartford thought. out the far gate of kansannamura marched third platoon, company "c," then first platoon, flanking the decontamination vehicle. a villager came from the house nearest the gate and closed it. he did not look after the two columns of men winding up through the fields of sunflowers to the high plateau where they lived.
the sight of the barracks gave the men's steps a new swing and spring. after three weeks of sleeping in safety-suits; of breathing, sweating, drinking, eating and excreting through germ-barrier valves and tubing, the prospect of stripping off the plastic battle-dress was seductive. inside that eight stories of windowless, doorless stone were gardens where the troopers could walk barefoot on the grass, pools whose water could splash their naked skin. in the barracks were the three hundred service company women who made the big stone box home to their three thousand men.
the men of first regiment massed on the parade-ground. while they stood at ease, their plastic-sleeved rifles and packs growing heavier by the minute, their safety-suits staler, four of the five service companies marched out from the syphon to join them. the women were suited in yellow plastic, giving rise to the gags about fool's gold. the four golden companies took up position at the center of the regiment.
colonel benjamin nef, commander-in-chief, kansas, cinck, climbed to the reviewing-stand in his command safety-suit of scarlet. facing into the sun, the colonel had the polarizing shield dropped over his eyes, and seemed to be wearing a black bandage. his lower jaw beetled to give him a truculent look generally ratified by his actions. his hair glinted through the helmet like spun copper. nef turned to his second-in-command, a lieutenant-colonel in ordinary officer's blues, and murmured instructions. the light colonel saluted, turned the controls of his bitcher to full loud, and addressed the troopers assembled: "regiment...."
down the chain-of-command came the ripple of warning:
"battaaalion...."
"commmpaneee...."
"'toooon...."
"tain-hut!" fifteen hundred pairs of boots smacked together. the adjutant held up his clipboard and read precisely: "attention to orders:
"one. officer of the guard, lieutenant lee hartford.
"two. cinck commends troopers involved in the just-completed three-week field exercise on not having had a single incident of compromise of sterility. household, maintenance and security troopers are complimented on having maintained the integrity of the barracks with a much-reduced force.
"three. all male and female troopers are again cautioned that fraternization with indigenous hominids is an offense punishable by general court-martial, and that any unauthorized intercourse with the natives is prohibited."
there was of course a murmur of automatic laughter at this last bit of official double-entendre. the idea of bedding-down a stinker wench was a favorite bit of pornographic fantasy. an air-tight safety-suit, though fit with valves as functional as the drop-seat in long-johns, was no garment for romance. to undress, to appear in outdoor kansas outside that head-to-foot sausage-casing, appealed to none of the troopers. healthy young men and women don't entertain the thought of painful suicide.
the reporting officer about-faced, saluted colonel nef, about-faced again. "present...."
"preezent...."
"preeezent...."
"preeeezent...."
"hahms!" fifteen hundred dardick-rifles, sheathed in plastic, slapped perpendicular. the blue-clad officers, armed with pistols, touched their index fingers to their helmet-temples. the bandsmen's drums growled, the electronic horns sobbed against their mutes, and the flutes in lonely purity played the theme of "oh, pioneers!" for all his har-de-har-hardness, hartford felt a sting in his eyes at this moment, as he did whenever the splendidly stage-managed ceremony of retreat was performed. after the anthem, much louder, the band played retreat. the colors crept down the flagstaff, into the reverent arms of a pair of service policemen.
"oh-deph, hahms! by line-of-battalions, line-of-companies, line-of-platoons, line-of-squads, return to quarters and dismiss!" the light colonel made one last salute to cinck, and the little ballet on the reviewing-stand was over. the troopers were now free to go in to their showers, their latrines, their suppers, and their women.
"at ease," hartford told the terrible third. "rest. smoke if you've got 'em."
the men chuckled dutifully at the oldest joke in the service. an axenite trooper, sealed in his germ-free safety-suit and helmet, is by definition a non-smoker outside his barracks. it would be another hour they'd be outside, since the third was next to the last of the fifty platoons to swim home through the syphon. while the companies on the far left flank of the regiment were ballooning-up and peeling-off in columns-of-squads to enter the barracks, hartford went back to talk with piacentelli, c.o. of first platoon.
