[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Division will have specialists to do the job. Once more he paused, sensing his audience was ill at ease with this. We don tknow now which of you will receive such wounds, he went on. So beginningnext week we ll start training all of you in how to operate as a warbot.Thetraining modules are expected to arrive next Twoday.The same ship is alsobringing a platoon of real warbots to continue their training here.Lateryou ll do tactical exercises with them. A hand shot up. Yes, Recruit Arvet? Sir, how can we learn to operate as a warbot if we re not bottled? You ll find out.You ll probably enjoy it. He grinned. It won t requirerunning up Drag Ass Hill. He pointed at another hand. Yes, Recruit Harrison? The young man s voice was subdued and tentative. Where do we, uh, sign theagreement, sir? To get bottled if we re crippled or dying? Right after supper, at the orderly room.Sergeant Henkel or CorporalTsinijinnie will sign you up. He scanned the room and saw no sign ofenthusiasm. Or at some later time.The sooner we know, the better. Again helooked around. Any more questions? Cochran? Sir, you said we d see cubeage of how warbots are made, and watch one of themget interviewed. Right.That comes next.Corporal Cavalieri, continue with the cube. B Company was introverted when it left the lecture shed, but the condition wasnot allowed to persist.CaptainMulvaney had prearranged for that.Outside, they were ordered to drop down andthis time pump out thirty-five.Even Recruit Vernon managed thirty-two.Then Sergeant Fossberg led them on agallop to the Physical TrainingArea, where they spent a long Lüneburgian hour and forty minutes deeply intouch with the physical universegravity, dirt, fatigue and pain.Afterward they trotted back to the companyarea by a roundabout, nearly hour-long route, chanting from time to time, to disrupt their breathing cadence.They arrived at their hutment sweating profusely, and were dismissed forshowers, dry clothes, and a layabout before supper, mostly napping.After supper but before evening muster, exactly five trainees showed up at theorderly room to sign agreements.If they were severely disabled or mortallyinjured, and unconscious, the army was authorized to extract the undersigned s central nervous system, and install it into aninterfacing module for installation in a servomechanism, to serve as a cyborgof a model, and in a military unit, deemed appropriate by the army. B Company s platoon sergeants had been allowed to choose their own site fortheir evening session.SergeantFirst Class Arjin Hawkins Singh had chosen a field training site less than amile from their hutment.There they found a platoon-size bleachers, with treesshading it from the lowering sun.Some second-level cadreman had delivered afolding chair to the site, for Hawkins, to help this seem like a conversationinstead of a lecture.The Jerries had been brought up to disdain war, and according to the briefinghandbook on Jerrie ethnology, they put great stock in showing respect to thebodies of the dead, who presumably would be watching.On the other hand, thePage 91 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlafternoon s training cube had rubbed their noses in their mortality, and theprospects of being killed or maimed would be more real now.And if fivevolunteers fell short of a landslide, it seemed to Hawkins that the bondingamong the trainees, and their psychological identification with theirregiments, would strengthen with time, and make a difference.A shortage ofagreements now didn t necessarily mean they d be lacking when the casualtiesbegan on New Jerusalem.At any rate, Division, Regiment, and Mulvaney wanted this to be a relaxed andintimate discussion.The trainees sensed that this would not be another training lecture.For onething, their sergeant hadn t ordered them to give him thirty or thirty-fivepushups before seating them.Hawkins didn t begin with the usual at ease to shut them up.He simplyasked, What did you think of the training cube this afternoon? When no onevolunteered a comment, he pointed. How about you, Abner? It took Abner McReynolds a moment to react.No cadreman had ever addressed himby his given name before.It distracted him enough, he even forgot to addressHawkins as sergeant. Those warbots were something to watch, he said. I can see why the armywants us to volunteer. Hawkins nodded.McReynolds didn t sound like someone deeply perturbed by therequest. I m signing up myself, Hawkins told them. As soon as we get backin. He looked around, then pointed at Esau Wesley. Esau, what did you think about the training cube? Sergeant, the thing that struck me most was all the bodies, all the dead andwounded.I knew all along a person could get killed fighting in a war, butseeing it like that made it a lot more real to me.Those pulses don t pick andchoose.If you re in the way, you re a deader.Wounded at least.It doesn tmatter if you re the toughestman in the company. Good observation.Isaiah, what have you got to say? Sergeant, it s well to be in good standing with the Lord before you go intobattle.Of course, it s well to be in good standing with Him anyway, ongeneral principles and for your own soul.As Jesus said in the Book ofMark: We don t know the time when death will come. He shrugged. Although abattlefield seems a lot more dangerous than being home in bed. True.Unless you re home in bed when the Wyzhñyñy arrive. Hawkins paused. What about death, Isaiah?What can you tell us about that? InContemplations on the Testaments, Elder Hofer wrote that death is the door toHeaven and Hell, and each of us chooses in life which one it will be. So I mprepared to die defending humankind. How about you, Hosea? Well, Sergeant, say you re out deadening timber.And your hound s laid uphurt, so you re out there alone.You hear something and turn, and there s a big old tiger ten foot away, andyou d just set aside your ringing ax.My bet is, you d be too scared to spit, even if you were spotless as the Lambof God
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]