Chapter Eight

You’re like in a cage. There’s people from all over the world there. There’s a lot of fights because there’s no discipline. All you’re doing is waiting. Waiting to get that red band that says you’re clear. I think that if you can get through Aubange you can get through a lot.

—an anonymous legionnaire,
French Foreign Legion, 1984

Bir Hakeim had been designed to transport a full company of legionnaires plus support troops and all the equipment needed to conduct independent operations on a remote planet. Carrying less than forty recruits plus a handful of NCOs heading back to the depot on Devereaux for one last assignment before they retired from the Legion, the transport had barely a quarter of the available troop berths filled. The accommodations should have seemed luxurious, but the recruits weren’t given a chance to enjoy that luxury.

The noncoms seemed determined to make sure that there were no idle hands among their charges. Recruit labor was put to work in a variety of menial tasks, everything from chipping old paint to cleaning latrines to donning pressure suits and working on structural repairs that would have been done when the ship reached the shipyard anyway. There was little consistency to the schedule, and Hauser doubted that it was intended to do anything more than occupy idle hands.

Hauser, Suartana, and seven other brand-new recruits who had joined up on Robespierre were spared these work details during the first leg of the journey, but this didn’t mean they had any leisure time. They were kept busy with a seemingly endless battery of tests supervised by the transport’s Navy doctor. After they rendezvoused with the carriership ARISTOTLE and shifted to Reynier-Kessler drive for the interstellar voyage out from Soleil Egalité, much of the testing was taken over by the computer itself.

The tests ran the gamut from physicals to academic quizzes to psychological profiles. Hauser had never realized just how carefully new recruits for the Legion were screened. Given their reputation for taking any outcast, they seemed surprisingly concerned with picking and choosing their new soldiers.

The criteria used to select suitable recruits was hard to follow. The NCOs seemed impressed by Hauser’s past military training and academic preparation, for instance, but they acted just as interested in a tough little Robespierran peasant named Lauriston whose only evident qualification was superb physical fitness and a calm, phlegmatic manner that no amount of testing could shake. On the other hand, the big recruit named Crater, whom Hauser had picked as a stereotypical legionnaire, was bounced by the time ARISTOTLE reached Mecca Gideed, the first stop on the long voyage to Devereaux. Rumor had it that Crater was pronounced too psychologically unstable to make acceptable Legion material. Apparently even the Legion drew the line at taking in people who enjoyed violence too much.

One of the Indomays left the transport at the same time, down-checked due to medical problems, but a draft of new recruits joined up, and the process went on as ARISTOTLE set a course for another colony world, Bonaparte.

Hauser had completed all the required testing sessions, but a final verdict on his acceptability still hadn’t been handed down. Recruits who had been passed for Basic received a red shoulder band to wear with their shipsuits, but even after the stopover at Bonaparte Hauser still hadn’t received that final stamp of approval, and he was growing concerned. They hadn’t failed him yet … but neither had they taken him in. When Suartana earned his red band and started full-time duty with the rest of the recruits on work details, Hauser couldn’t help but feel ashamed. Additional tests were scheduled. Some were obviously intended to verify his academic and military knowledge, and these didn’t worry him. But he recognized others as new psych exams, and those were disturbing. Hauser had never considered himself a candidate for a down-check based on instability.…

Yet when Bir Hakeim separated from ARISTOTLE at Bonaparte’s systerm to pick up another carriership heading for Lebensraum, Hauser received orders to transfer along with the rest of the recruits to a new, larger transport, the Kolwezi, which was joining up with ARISTOTLE to complete the trip to Devereaux. Kolwezi carried another, larger contingent of recruits, a few of whom were reportedly from Terra itself. There were also more noncoms, but despite the additional supervision less time could be devoted to individuals. When the carriership left the star system behind, Hauser still didn’t have his red armband, but he was assigned to many of the same work details as the others while the NCOs and ARISTOTLE reviewed his case further. It gave him time to get to know the others in his bunkroom a little better.

At first most of the recruits were strangers, but as time went on Hauser got to know many of them as individuals. Some, like MacDuff, were friendly from the start. MacDuff’s background was enough like his own for the two of them to hit it off right from the start, though the young Caledonian’s outgoing personality stood out in startling contrast to Hauser’s own reserve. Addicted to games of chance of every variety, and a natural master of scams and cons, MacDuff didn’t act like any aristocrat Hauser had ever seen, but there was something about the man’s inborn assurance and easy leadership that made it plain he’d been accustomed to money and power from birth.

Not everyone was as approachable to Hauser, and he found it took a special effort on his own part to win any sort of acceptance among them. Some found his manner too reserved for their taste, and for some reason they found his unwillingness to make friends with the alien Myaighee as grounds for resentment.

Hauser didn’t exactly dislike the alien, but he did find its presence disturbing. As the one recruit who had more than a year’s worth of actual Legion experience, Myaighee was in a strange position that left Hauser feeling uncertain and confused. How much weight was he supposed to give to that experience? He wasn’t sure how nonhumans were supposed to be treated in Commonwealth society.

Plainly they were regarded with more respect than would have been the case back on Laut Besar. It particularly bothered him when the alien tried to impose its own values on him, such as in their first encounter in the barracks on Robespierre. He saw others having similar problems relating to the ale from time to time, but somehow no one else seemed to elicit the same reactions he did.

After the recruits had transferred to Kolwezi, for instance, Myaighee had a run-in with one of the NCOs who had been in charge of the recruit contingent already on board the new transport. The little nonhuman had corrected Chief-Sergeant Colby when the noncom referred to Myaighee as “he.” The proper word, so the alien insisted, was “ky,” a gender-neutral term used on its homeworld of Hanuman. Myaighee’s species was hermaphroditic, and concepts of “male” and “female” didn’t apply. Colby had hardly listened to the explanation, and went right on calling Myaighee “he.” So did almost everyone else, except a few of the recruits who had been with the ale from the very start.

Chief among these was the woman, Katrina Voskovich. Short, dark-haired, and quite a bit different from the Uro women Hauser was used to in both looks and attitude, Voskovich was a fierce partisan of Myaighee’s and hence kept her distance from Hauser. He learned a little bit about her through MacDuff, who seemed to be able to find out anything about anyone. She had been an electronics technician employed by a large corporation with interests on Polypheme, a backwater world where a Legion company had fought a desperate campaign against hostile natives. When it was over, the company’s hold on the planet had all but collapsed even though the legionnaires had won the war. Voskovich had actually been involved in some of the fighting together with other volunteers from the ranks of the corporate employees, and had chosen to enlist in the Legion rather than remain in her old job. Unlike Myaighee, she didn’t have all that much experience, but she shared the alien’s high opinion of their unit, Captain Colin Fraser’s Bravo Company.

Few of the others really stood out. Young Carlssen and the tough little peasant Lauriston were both friendly with MacDuff, and seemed to like Hauser well enough. Suartana, of course, remained a rock he could always rely on, though as time went on he saw less and less of the Indomay, apparently on the orders of the chief-sergeant. According to one rumor that went around the bunkroom, Suartana was a big reason for the delay in passing Hauser’s application to the Legion. He was regarded as a symbol of Hauser’s aristocratic background, and apparently the aristocracy was viewed with some distrust by the legionnaires. They seemed to feel that Hauser was too soft to make a good soldier, though his other qualifications were excellent.

At least he still had a chance of earning a place in the Legion. He resolved to work harder and hope for the best.

* * *

Legionnaire Third Class Myaighee sat cross-legged on a mat in the center of the gymnasium and tried to picture home. Following the advice of Corporal Rostov, kys lance leader from bravo Company, Myaighee had saved up a large stock of synthol and offered it to the Navy CPO in charge of Environmental Systems maintenance aboard the transport in exchange for permission to use the variable-climate training compartment when it wasn’t needed for other purposes. As Rostov had suggested, the exchange had been welcomed enthusiastically. The clicontrol system allowed the user to set the chamber to virtually any combination of atmosphere, pressure, temperature, and humidity, but nothing could bring back the sights or sounds of nighttime in the jungle or the hubbub of a village market.

The world humans called Hanuman was far away, and Myaighee had not been home in over a year. Ky missed the jungles, the friends and family left behind, and knew ky was not likely to see any of them again.

Feelings like these had stayed comfortably far away when ky was serving in Colin Fraser’s Legion company. During the desperate fight on Polypheme ky had never felt lonely. There were friends enough within the ranks of the Legion, friends like Corporal Rostov and Legionnaire Grant and the female-human Kelly, who had been a Navy officer before becoming a Legion combat engineer. Kelly had been kys first friend, the one human who had taken an interest in Myaighee during the horrible days of the company’s retreat from Dryienjaiyeel. Ky—no, “she” was the word for a female-human—had helped Myaighee see that giving up home did not necessarily mean giving up life itself.

After Polypheme the company had been ordered to Devereaux, and Myaighee had accepted the assignment to recruit training with the thought that kys friends would be close at hand. But en route the crisis on Laut Besar had erupted, and the company had been diverted on reaching Robespierre. But the draft of recruits had been sent on to finish their training.

Now Myaighee’s friends were in the thick of another crisis, and Myaighee wished ky could face it with them.

A few other recent recruits had been shipped out with Myaighee, but none with kys seniority. Katrina Voskovich, a civilian technician who had helped the legionnaires on Polypheme, seemed friendly enough, but Myaighee barely knew that female-human. There were complete strangers among the recruits who were more like friends than that one.

So many strangers … such a strange place.…

Loneliness could do strange things. There had been the alien from Polypheme, Oomour, a native scout from a primitive nomadic culture. Oomour’s entire clan had been wiped out, and the scout had adopted the Legion as his new home. But the cramped confines of a transport lighter had been too much for a being accustomed to ranging the seas of his native world unhindered, and Oomour had committed suicide long before the legionnaires reached Robespierre. Corporal Rostov had given Myaighee a piece of the rope Oomour had used to bind his gill slits closed, claiming it would bring good luck. Myaighee still had it, but couldn’t see how it could be lucky to carry the ill-omened object.

All the cursed thing did was remind Myaighee of how much ky had in common with Oomour. Both aliens from backward cultures in a place shaped and dominated by humans. Both far from home, struggling to adjust to new ways.…

Most humans didn’t even try to recognize Myaighee as an individual. Insisting on treating ky as a male-human instead of a hermaphrodite of the kyendyp, for instance, that was something kys old lancemates would never have done. Despite Myaighee’s best efforts to educate the other recruits, ky was almost always referred to by male-human pronouns.

And humans like Volunteer Hauser seemed to actively despise Myaighee. Ky had known human scorn before, back on Hanuman before becoming a legionnaire, but ky had always assumed it was because they were so advanced and the kyendyp so obviously backward. Here there was no such standard for comparison. If anything, Myaighee should have commanded respect because ky had been part of Bravo Company. Unlike the other recruits, Myaighee already held the rank of Legionnaire Third Class, already had a right to wear the coveted white kepi. But all these things didn’t change the sense of scorn ky felt when some humans were near.

It made Myaighee wonder if ky had been right to leave the jungles of home behind in pursuit of an intangible something ky had sensed in the Fifth Foreign Legion.

The door to the gymnasium slid open with a sigh and a sudden blast of cool, dry air. Myaighee looked up, saw the slender, fair-complexioned figure of Hauser in the doorway.

“Allmachtiger Gott!” The recruit’s words were in a language Myaighee didn’t know, but ky recognized a human’s cursing when ky heard it. “What’s with the sauna?”

Myaighee felt kys neck ruff rippling in confusion, but knew few humans could understand the emotional content. “I do not understand some of your words,” ky said mildly.

“Why is it so goddamned hot in here?” Hauser said, a look of exasperation crossing his alien features.

“Ah, the heat.” Myaighee mimicked a human shrug. “These settings make the air much like my homeland on Hanuman.”

Hauser mopped his forehead with his sleeve. “Then God save me from getting posted there,” he said.

“If you wish to use the room, I will leave. I was almost finished in any case.”

“Finished? You were sitting on the floor staring at the walls. What was that, some weird ritual the ales do back on your planet?”

Myaighee stood slowly. “I try to spend my free time remembering my home,” ky said slowly. “It has been a long time since I saw it last. Remembering helps … relax me.

The human shrugged. “Hell, what you do when Chief-Sergeant Colby isn’t looking over our shoulder is your business,” he said. “But I can’t figure why you’d leave your own kind and try to mix with humans in the first place.”

Kys ruff bristled. “Are you, then, among your own people? You do not fit in as you would like to, true?”

The shot seemed to hit home, and Hauser fell silent. Myaighee crossed to the clicontrol panel and cut the settings back to their Terran-standard norms. Then ky turned to Hauser, who was still staring at Myaighee. “If you wish, perhaps you would like to learn the relaxation technique I was using when you came in.” Ky paused. “Actually, it is a ‘weird ritual’ native to a planet called Pacifica, and I learned it from the human who was my company’s Exec.”

Myaighee pushed past the tall, lanky human into the cool air of the corridor outside. Ky didn’t feel any less lonely, but at least there was satisfaction in knowing that the humans kys people had once thought of as demons or gods were, in fact, not that much different from ky after all.

* * *

“Fall in! Fall in, you straks! Move it! Move it!”

Wolfgang Hauser unstrapped the seat harness and shoved his way into the ragged double line of recruits forming up in the center aisle of the shuttle passenger compartment. A trio of corporals in Legion battledress moved through the motley group, shouting orders and curses and laying about freely with their stun batons as they tried to enforce order. From time to time they used their fists instead. Hauser obeyed the bellowed commands and tried to keep from drawing attention to himself. Three months in transit had taught him the value of remaining unobtrusive. Gradually order emerged from chaos as recruits shouldered bags or grabbed suitcases and found their places in line.

The shuttle grounded with a sharp lurch that nearly bowled over the recruits and set the noncoms to lashing out all over again. Over fifty would-be soldiers in a cramped, ancient landing craft took a lot of controlling, but these legionnaires knew how to do the job.

Colby, the burly chief sergeant in charge of the passenger compartment, ran a cold eye over the recruits and then slapped the switch beside the stern loading ramp. With a groan of long-used machinery the doors swung open and the ramp dropped slowly to the ground, letting in a blast of hot, dry air that made Hauser’s skin prickle. The fierce glare from outside was brighter, more intense than the familiar orange glow of Soleil Liberté or the muted artificial lighting of the ships that had been his home for nearly three months now, and he had to blink back tears as the corporals prodded the line into motion down the ramp and out onto the planet surface.

Chief-Sergeant Colby stopped at the foot of the ramp, facing a gate in the duracrete berm that surrounded the shuttle pad. A guard dressed in full Legion parade uniform—white kepi, khaki trousers and jacket with archaic red-and-green epaulets, green tie and blue cummerbund—took two brisk steps forward, his rifle coming to port arms. Behind the man, flanking the gate, two flags fluttered in the hot wind, one the stars-and-globe of the Terran Commonwealth, the other a tricolor emblazoned with the V emblem of the Fifth Foreign Legion. Colby saluted each flag crisply. “Recruit detail to enter the post,” he rasped.

The guard gave a sharp rifle salute in return. “Detail may enter. Major Hunter welcomes you.”

“Devereaux shall not fall again,” the chief sergeant responded. The grim, almost fanatic note in their voices fascinated and repelled at the same time. Like the old-fashioned legionnaire’s uniform, the ritual was part of the tradition of the Fifth Foreign Legion. Hauser had studied some of the background en route, but the reality made him shiver despite the desert heat.

The gate slid open as the guard stepped aside to let the recruits pass through. Fort Hunter was the main training depot for the Fifth Foreign Legion, standing near the town of Villastre near the edge of the Great Desert on Devereaux. Near the present military base, over a hundred years ago, Commandant Thomas Hunter of the Fourth Foreign Legion had led a ragtag band of legionnaires in a desperate raid against terrible odds as part of a prolonged resistance to alien invaders. The legionnaires had perished almost to a man, but their sacrifice had helped buy valuable time for the Commonwealth in their bitter war against the Semti Conclave. When the Fifth Foreign Legion was established out of the ashes of the Fourth, Hunter and the fighting on Devereaux had formed a key part in the deliberately cultivated mystique of the new organization.

Hauser could still remember the stun-lashing he’d received after scoffing at Legion tradition that first time in the shuttle leaving Robespierre, but even that beating hadn’t completely driven home the genuine seriousness with which the legionnaires regarded their unit and its history.

As the recruits shuffled slowly through the gate, he realized that he still had a lot to learn. The long voyage to Devereaux was over. Now the training would begin.

He was still a little bit surprised at having made it all the way to Devereaux. His red armband had finally been awarded a few days out from Bonaparte, after a final round of evaluations supervised by Chief-Sergeant Colby, who had come all the way out from Terra on Kolwezi. A few words from Suartana had helped Hauser pass those last tests. Once he’d realized how much he was hurting his own cause, he had made a conscious effort to tone down his stiff-necked pride. Colby had inadvertently helped him get a grip on himself by insisting that Hauser demonstrate his proficiency with the saber in a practice fight in one of the training compartments. The match—against Colby himself, a tough bulldog of a man—had reminded Hauser vividly of the duel with Neubeck and the way his short temper and touchy sense of honor had forced him to seek refuge in the Legion.

The fight had helped another way, too. Apparently Commonwealth standards of swordsmanship were a lot lower than Laut Besar’s, because Hauser actually managed to impress the NCO with his prowess with a blade. Few people on Kolwezi had succeeded in impressing Colby at anything.

Fifty-five recruits had boarded the shuttle in orbit over Devereaux, the candidates deemed acceptable after the selection procedure. Suartana was the only other Besaran left. The other two Indomays hadn’t made it, the one because of his medical problem and the other for some unknown failing only the Legion understood.

Somehow, Hauser had made it through the tests, though he’d come close to failing more than once. Chief-Sergeant Colby had been brutally direct in summing up his future with the Legion. “You’ve got the education and the intellect to be an officer,” he’d said harshly. “But you’ll have to shake off that goddamned snob routine and learn how to take orders if you’re gonna make it as a marchman. I’m passing you … but instructors at Fort Hunter might not be so charitable. Just watch yourself!”

Something in the sergeant’s words had given Hauser pause. The Fifth Foreign Legion was widely regarded with scorn by more spit-and-polish units both inside the Commonwealth and beyond its borders. Despite the hard-fighting reputation of the unit, the Legion was known as a refuge for the misfits, the malcontents, and the no-hopers who couldn’t make it anywhere else. But Colby’s tones had held nothing but haughty pride and superiority, as if Hauser was in danger of not measuring up to the Legion.

Since that interview, winning the acceptance of men like Colby had suddenly become very important to Wolfgang Hauser.