Colonel Rowan, commander, Third Battalion Supply & Support Depot, U.S. Army Materiel Command at Kankakee, south of Chicago, leaned back from his desk, his eyes impenetrable behind gold-tinted mirror glasses. Next to him, Major Kellend, who ran the logistics section, glanced over the file lying open in front of them. Warrant Officer -Anthony Demiro stood at ease, waiting, watching them with dark, alert eyes.
Rowan, solid and thickset, square-chinned, with iron-gray hair and nicknamed "Yukon Jack"—after the liquor and because of his gold-shielded stare—never displayed humor. Major Kellend, blond and fresh-faced, with the youthful looks that make popular actors and doctors, but intelligent, straight, and a good officer, was Demiro's immediate chief. Between the two of them they got along well enough in the informal kind of way that develops when respect for competence is mutual. But in Yukon Jack's office, everyone had to keep things a little more formal.
"As far as your duties go, you've got a clean record," Rowan said, looking up. "You've got your act together and you know your job."
"Thank you, sir," Demiro acknowledged.
Rowan drew across one of the sheets that he had taken from the file and stared at it just long enough to let the tide retreat from that high point. "But unfortunately it doesn't stop there, does it? I have reports here that some of the views and opinions that you seem to be in the habit of expressing are not what I'd expect my officers to be airing, and especially not in the company of enlisted men."
"Sir?"
Rowan sighed. "This isn't the first time we've been through this, Demiro. You know damn well what I'm talking about. You've been heard on at least two occasions in the last week referring to our President as the 'Fuehrer' and to the Pentagon as the Kremlin. And yesterday, did you not make the remark that the reason there are no Communists left in the FER is that they're all running things over here? And the day before that, that the Consolidation is a game preserve for the white man, because he's made himself an endangered species?"
"I don't remember the context, sir. We could have been joking—you know how it is when guys get together. Maybe your source isn't strong in his sense of humor." Demiro's tone made the point without his having to use the word "spy."
"I don't buy that, Demiro. The contexts that I see here make it pretty plain to me that these constitute political statements; and not only that, but statements that could, by anyone of a mind to do so, be construed as being of subversive intent. Do I make myself clear? The United States Army isn't the place to be starting your own rebellion. You could end up in a lot of trouble. This is the last time I'm prepared to let it go with a warning."
"I understand. Thank you, sir."
Rowan set the paper down, paused for a moment, then turned to Kellend. "Warrant Officer Demiro was a volunteer, not a draftee?"
"That's correct," the major replied.
Rowan leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk, and looked up again. His voice fell to a quieter note, signaling that the official business was over and he was speaking from personal curiosity. "What made you join?" he asked Demiro. "Your primary reason?"
"I didn't have a family, sir. I think, most of all it was the structure. Something to belong to."
Rowan nodded. "I appreciate your frankness. So we're not pretending that it was any motivation to dedicate yourself to the defense of the institutions and property of this country?"
"That's not quite true, sir," Demiro replied.
"Oh? How do you mean?"
"If the country was attacked or threatened, sure I'd want to help defend it."
"You don't consider that to be the case?"
The question put Demiro in an awkward position. He could agree, and in so doing deny his own last statement; or he could say, in effect, that the people were being routinely lied to. Finally, he replied, "With respect, aren't we getting into political opinions again, sir?"
"But this isn't a billet of enlisted men who might attach official authority to what you say. I'm simply curious, I'd like to hear your political view."
Demiro sensed an ulterior motive and answered guardedly. "Well . . . it just seems that we'd do better trying to get along a bit more with the Offworlders, instead of acting as if they're about to come after us all the time. I don't think they need anything we've got."
"What about this planet's material resources? Isn't it common knowledge that they'll be contested when the Off-world expansion overreaches itself, as it has to -eventually?"
"That's what they tell us," Demiro agreed.
"And you have reason to disbelieve informed sources? In other words, we're all suffering from collective paranoia down here?"
"I didn't say that, sir."
Rowan stared up at the officer in silence for a few moments, seemingly pondering whether to draw this out any further. But his instructions had been simply to sound the applicants out on their politics, not engage them in a debate. He set the papers aside and picked up a thin sheaf of forms relating to a notice that had been put out inviting volunteers for a special assignment.
"I have your VR-1 application here, countersigned and completed. Are you still interested?"
"Yes, sir, I am."
"I can't tell you anything about it, because I don't know myself. But you do understand that it would involve transfer away from this unit, and possible absence of contact with the outside world for a considerable time?"
"Yes, sir."
"Out of curiosity, why do you want to do it?" Rowan asked.
"A chance for a change. To do something different." Demiro's olive Mediterranean features, with their shaggy mat of black hair, softened into a faint grin that came easily and naturally. "I guess I get curious too, sir."
The colonel stared at him for a second or two longer, then nodded. "Very well. I'm putting it through. The appli-cation entitles you to a forty-eight-hour pass, which I'm making effective from sixteen hundred hours today since the people running this want to get started as quickly as possible. We'll see you back here on Sunday, and by that time we'll let you know their decision. If you're selected, you could be moving out Sunday night. So use the weekend to make any arrangements that you need to."
"Yes, sir."
"That's all. You're dismissed."
In a room on the floor below, the two visitors from Washington had been following the proceedings on a monitor screen hooked to the camera concealed in the Divisional crest mounted behind Colonel Rowan's desk. Colonel Wylvern, who believed with the conviction of a biblical prophet that the powers above knew what they were doing and that soldiers should preferably never have heard of politics, let alone hold political opinions, was tottering on the brink of apoplexy.
"That . . . man was as good as a goddam Communist!" he spluttered. He didn't know what this project in Georgia was all about, but he did know that it involved sensitive information and was highly classified. "A disruptive influence on everyone he comes in contact with. He ought to be discharged from the service."
The scientist who was with him keyed in a command for a replay and watched keenly through rimless bifocals as the sequence began again. Dr. Harold Nordens didn't agree at all.
"No, Colonel," he said in a voice that was only peripherally aware of the other's presence. "That's precisely what we're looking for. Warrant Officer Demiro, I suspect, would make an ideal subject."
The two girls that Rita commuted with dropped her at a convenience store off the Adlai E. Stevenson expressway at Hodgkins, twelve miles west of Chicago center. She collected some items of groceries that they were short of, a couple of magazines, a bottle of Gallo Dry Reserve, and some cigarettes—the store sold cigarettes under-the-counter to avoid hassles and picketing from neighborhood antismoking vigilantes. Then, taking her bags, she walked the two blocks to the mobile home park.
The unit that she shared with Tony was beginning to come apart at the seams; but it had meant an affordable cash outlay, instead of slow bloodletting by mortgage esca-lation clauses, or hemorrhaging to uncontrolled rents whose skyrocketing in response to vanishing supply was outdoing even the price for old-fashioned (and strictly illegal) freon-run refrigerators, whose pipes didn't rot away and release things that ate through the floor. Controlled places were fine, provided you didn't mind waiting for three years, and then the square footage was allocated through a points system and you took what was offered. Unless you got pregnant, were certified disabled, or qualified for criminal, mental stress, or drug-abuse rehabilitation, all of which came with the alternative complication of being required to let other people take charge of your life.
As she turned the last corner, she saw that the light in the house was on and there was a vehicle parked outside. Fifty yards nearer, and it revealed itself as an Army jeep. Great! Tony had fixed it for the weekend—and worked his charm with the transportation sergeant too, it seemed. She gripped the two bags more securely and quickened her pace.
"Hi!" she called to the house in general as she let herself in and closed the door with her back. "You made it, then."
Tony appeared from the living room, barefoot in his bathrobe and holding a beer. He took one of the bags and followed her through into the kitchen. "Free as a bird until Sunday night. I took a shower and called Sandy and Bruce. We're meeting them at the Admiral at eight. It seemed time we had a night out."
"Terrific." Rita put her bag down on the worktop by the refrigerator. As she turned, Tony moved close, slid an arm around her—the other was still holding the beer—and kissed her on the mouth. She responded, kissed back harder, putting her arms around his neck and drawing him close. His free hand fondled her neck, her back, her waist, then settled on her behind, squeezing the middles of their bodies -together.
"You smell nice," he murmured. "Kind of outside-and-fresh-airy."
"I don't know so much about fresh. I had a hard day at work."
"It's animal."
"Most people call it sweat."
"It's you. I like it."
They kissed and rubbed and fondled.
"You're cool and clean," she said, loosening his robe and sliding her hands around his chest inside.
He drew her away from the worktop, turning them both around, and began steering her like a waltzing partner out of the kitchen and across the living room in the direction of the door to the bedroom. "Eight's a long time away," he said, his eyes laughing. "People who've had tough days ought to be relaxed. Relaxed all over."
"There's chocolate ice cream in the bag. It should go in the freezer."
"So, we'll have chocolate milk instead."
"Can't I get to shower first?"
"Shower after. I like you better the way you are."
"Sometimes I think you're perverted, you know that?"
"You only think? Honey, if you don't know by now . . ."
They lay together contentedly, he with an arm folded underneath his head, staring at the ceiling, she propped up against the pillows, smoking a cigarette and caressing his chest with her other hand.
"How long will this assignment last? Did they say?" she asked.
"Hey, hang on. I haven't even been told I've got it yet. I don't get to find out till Sunday."
"I thought you said you could be moving out Sunday."
"If I'm selected. I just need to be ready, that's all."
Rita would be going to Boston for a month on a training seminar to do with her government job, and Demiro had decided that he might as well volunteer for the special assignment as a way of keeping himself occupied and out of trouble. There was also a lot of truth in what he had told Colonel Rowan about needing a change of scene. And on top of that, naturally, there was the extra money, which would go toward getting them a better place that much sooner.
Rita drew at her cigarette quickly. "How much do you know about it?" she asked. "Is there much chance that it could be . . . well, you know, dangerous?"
Tony laughed and turned his head to kiss her on the hip. "Not a hope. It's probably one of them dumb psychological tests they dream up—you watch colored lights or something, and then fill in questionnaires for shrinks. At the end of it they figure out that some people always get things the wrong way around, and other people get bored and start making up answers—things that everyone except shrinks knew all along, anyway."
"Then why is it secret?"
"Because it's the Army. Everything about the Army has to be secret. You don't think they want people to know how they're spending their money, do you? Don't worry about it. I'll be back home before you are."
That night they met Sandy and Bruce for drinks, ran into some more friends, and all went together to eat Chinese. Then they found another bar and drank until the early hours. They talked about the trashy music that kid groups played and why vintage stuff from the nineties and two-ohs was better, traded reviews of new movies, rated the city's eating places and dance spots, argued about what ate up the value of money and whether people in the last century had been better off—anything to forget about the week.
By the time it was drawing near to closing, Terry, one of the others who had joined them, was describing a public-information documentary about the FER states and their Offworlder connections, which had been shown the previous night. "It's practically a crime-controlled empire out there," he said. "That's where all the generals and capos went after the fighting when the Red empire broke up: the Soviet -Mafia—they run the lunar bases. If you go out there, it's a one-way trip. They run everything by what amounts to slave labor."
"And you really believe that?" Demiro asked.
Terry seemed taken aback. "Why not? I mean, look at the environment they have to deal with out there. There's nothing."
Demiro bunched his mouth and looked unconvinced. "People have always said things like that about anywhere new. Most places where people live now used to be nothing, just waste."
"They were gardens," Terry protested. "It was us who turned everywhere into wastes: people." He knew because everybody knew. They'd been told it since their school days.
"That's not what the books say," Demiro answered.
"What books?"
"Old books. Not the ones that you see these days. Ones that were written back when we're talking about. They're still around, if you know where to look. And they don't tell it the way you're saying."
Later, as they were leaving, Bruce drew Demiro and Rita to one side and asked, "Do you guys have any plans for tomorrow night?"
Demiro looked at Rita. She shrugged and shook her head. "Not really."
"Why?" Demiro asked. "What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, there's this place we go to sometimes, out near the university. There's music and you can dance, and they're not always careful about cards, so everyone can have a good time. And sometimes there's other things too—somebody talking or showing pictures maybe. It can be interesting."
"Different, anyhow," Sandy put in. "Give it a try."
"What kind of 'different'?" Demiro asked.
"Come and see," Bruce suggested. "From some of the things you say, I've got a feeling you'd like it."
"Why not?" Rita said, looking at Demiro.
He nodded. "Sure. Let's give it a try."
They stayed in bed until ten the next morning, making love and talking, got up for coffee and a breakfast of pancake, sausage, and egg, then went back to bed and started all over. The afternoon was a lazy affair of drinking the bottle of wine that Rita had bought the evening before, watching football, a movie, and other odds and ends on TV, eating chicken sandwiches with potato salad—and making love again, once on the couch in the living room and once, laughing inanely, entangled with the dishwasher and a window seat in the kitchen in a position that the compiler of the Kama Sutra had overlooked.
Evening found them at peace with the world again and in the frame of mind that international law should require all negotiators to attain before going off to discuss treaties. They showered, changed out of their house clothes, and left for the city to meet Sandy and Bruce.