Anthony, Piers - Tyrant 2 - Mercenary Read online

  I was part of the 666th Training Battalion, nicknamed "Hell's Rejects," for reasons relating to occidental mythology or numerology and the supposed savagery of the exercises. It had three companies, A, B, and C—I was in A for Awful—each of which had three platoons, each of which had three sections. The Jupiter Navy was trilaterally organized. One platoon in Awful was female. There were thirty trainees and five supervisory personnel in each platoonship, and additional cadre in each company, so Awful had a total manpower of one hundred fifty. But I was in regular contact only with the people of my own platoon; the other two platoons were of largely peripheral awareness, and the other companies might as well not have existed. My whole attention, like that of my fellow recruits, was occupied just getting through training.

  We marched, we did grueling calisthenics, we attended dull lectures, we ate, we slept, we polished boots and brass. And of course we did KP—Kitchen Police, a euphemism for scrubbing floors and pots in the mess hall, sometimes with the same brushes. Theoretically the past five or six centuries were enough time for the military machines of our species to find ways to automate the kitchen facilities, but it had never happened. Similarly, permashine leather and brass were on the civilian market but were not available to us. We theorized that these were simply ways to keep us busy and miserable—and in subsequent years I have never found a better explanation. Likewise, inspections, a colossal expenditure of nervous energy without reward, and the necessity of maintaining entire display units of equipment that were used only for inspections. Some feculent personality once knotted my display towel over my hammock-cord while I slept, in the signal for early waking for special duty; not only was it not my turn for duty, it ruined my display. Some joke! I would have put his head out into the vacuum of space, had I known who it was.

  We got haircuts every week, or else. For the first occasion, my full platoon was marched in step to the barbershop to be shorn, like it or not. We had been issued partial pay toward our first month's pay of eighty-six dollars—twenty per week—so we had the necessary cash. The Navy always made sure we had the cash for its requirements, and woe betide the recruit who spent it otherwise. Two dollars for a scalping; no hair on my head was left longer than half an inch. Later we would be allowed to grow some hair back; here in Basic the bald look was in.

  The Navy was equally efficient about sex. Prescribed normal heterosexual relations were mandatory, and the Navy was the agency that defined "normal." There was, it was aptly said, the right way, the wrong way, and the Navy way. "You will indulge once a week," the platoon sergeant brayed, only he happened to employ a more explicit Saxon vernacular term in lieu of "indulge." Whereupon, for the first occasion, we were marched to the brothel ship for the maiden performance. The sanitary facilities were termed the Head; this department was, of course, the Tail. Each of us had to pay the two-dollar fee at the entrance, just as we had for the haircuts. Or, as the sergeant put it, else.

  Talking was not permitted in the ranks, but I heard muttered exclamations of amazement, delight, and shock. Awful Company was largely Hispanic, made up of refugees like myself, ranging up to twenty-five years of age; many did not yet speak English, so had not comprehended the nature of this assignment until they saw the red Tail light by the door. I do not think Hispanics are any more sensitive about sex than are those of other origins, but we were ill prepared for the suddenness and dispatch of this particular requirement. We should have known; the haircutting had been as forceful and insensitive, and the physical examinations had nearly provoked riot when the medics started checking prostates. I do not know how the average recruit of Saxon stock feels about this, but to us the prostate check seemed very much like buggery. We also had suffered painful inoculations against obscure diseases to which we never expected to be exposed. Why hadn't they used the painless mists instead of the huge blunt needles? To humiliate and cow us, of course; that was common knowledge. So we should have been prepared for something akin to rape as the Navy introduction to sex; the Navy prided itself on making any natural occupation a horror. Yet, in our naïveté, we were dismayed.

  One man broke ranks and fled. The Saxon sergeant turned and aimed his stunner almost casually, but caught the man in the back, a perfect shot, and the fugitive fell facedown to the floor. No one went to pick him up; he was left there unconscious as an object lesson for us all. We knew he wasn't seriously hurt—the stunner only stuns—but still, this had a sobering effect. No one else broke ranks. Numbly we waited as the lines moved forward.

  In one sense it was an eternity before my turn came; in another it was an instant. The act of sex was not foreign to my experience, but I had no interest in this manner of indulging it. A uniformed matron, a female sergeant, met me just inside the door and guided me to Room Number Eighteen. Eighteen—my older sister, Faith, had been eighteen when she was brutally raped. "You have fifteen minutes, soldier," she said, and more or less shoved me through the entrance. Fifteen—my age when I watched my sister raped. I heard the door click behind me, and knew I was locked in. Both physically and symbolically.

  A young woman in a pink negligee sat on a bunk. She was attractive enough in face and form for a Saxon, but her bored expression and my knowledge of her profession put me further off. I really had no sexual desire for her. Some people assume that any young man will eagerly indulge in any sex that offers; this is fantasy. For most of us, there has to be some emotional commitment, some indication that the woman is not merely willing but interested, that some sort of continuing relationship is possible. Our drives are strong but with many counterindications, so that the net effect is often doubt rather than passion.

  "Well, get your clothes off, soldier," she snapped. The way she pronounced "soldier" reminded me that a soldier was the lowest form of life in the Jupiter Navy, and a recruit somewhat beneath that.

  "I—do not feel inclined," I said, aware that I was blushing about as well as my swarthy skin permitted.

  "Would you like me to undress you?" she inquired, as if this too were dull routine. Surely it was, for her.

  "Uh—please, no, thank you. I—"

  "Listen, kid, you only have fifteen minutes, and it takes five to undress and redress. I've got a schedule to keep. If you don't strip, I'll do it for you. I don't indulge with clothed men." Again, the term used was not "indulge."

  "It—I think that would do no good," I said. "I—"

  "You asked for it," she said impatiently. She bounced off the bed and strode to me. Without formality she unbuttoned my fatigue shirt and tugged it free of one arm and then the other. Then she went for the trousers.

  I am, as it is put in English, ornery in some ways. I did not resist her; I let her undress me completely, moving when and in the manner she directed me, to complete the operation. In moments I stood naked before her, un-aroused. This is, if you choose to call it that, another kind of talent I possess.

  She looked at me and made a wry face. Then she shrugged out of her negligee and stood as naked as I was. She bounced a little on her feet so that her breasts lifted and fell impressively. She had the requisite physical attributes. But to me this was like a laboratory exhibit, and I did not react.

  "May I touch you?" she asked. In the Navy no person is permitted to touch another without that person's permission; it is supposedly a safeguard against abuse. An inspecting sergeant asks the recruit's permission before he takes hold of the belt buckle to see whether the back side of it has been properly shined. Of course the sensible recruit does not refuse such permission, ever—but the forms are scrupulously honored, and I believe it is right that they are. Only an ignorant person would believe that the military service is a profession of physical violence; it is, in fact, a profession of social violence, at least in the training stage. The recruit's soul, not his body, is abused, generally. So this woman requested my permission before she touched me, but I was not wearing a belt or buckle for inspection at the moment.

  "Yes," I said somewhat harshly, for my throat was tight.


  She knelt before me and took hold of my member. She kneaded it delicately. She knew what she was doing; obviously she had had much experience. But there was no response, for my mental control, buttressed by my genuine aversion to the proceedings, remained in effect. I was impotent—and therein lay my true potency.

  She got up, her lip curling with disgust. "Okay, soldier, I give up," she said. She walked to the wall and touched a button. "I'm buzzing the supe; she knows how to handle your kind."

  "My kind?" I asked.

  "The slobs who can't get it up."

  This creature was not becoming more endearing with familiarity. "As I explained, I am not inclined at the moment."

  She stared at my member. "Exactly." The door opened behind me. I half-turned, abruptly embarrassed about my nakedness, but there was no refuge.

  The one who entered was a woman in her twenties, garbed in a kind of off-the-shoulder, half-off-the-breast robe. She was beautiful, with flowing orange hair and a voluptuous body. She took in the situation in an instant. "Leave him to me, June. Take five."

  "Yes, sir," the girl said, and quickly donned her negligee and departed.

  Sir? This was an officer! That dismayed me further.

  The woman sat on the bed. "Sit beside me, Private," she said, patting the bed. "Do not be alarmed."

  I sat beside her, still conscious of my nakedness. Somehow it was worse to be naked before an officer than before an enlisted girl.

  "You are young, I see," she said. "Probably admitted underage on a waiver, or by error. Fifteen?"

  "Sixteen, sir," I said. Growth rates vary, and I am not a large person; still, this too was embarrassing. "They wouldn't—"

  "It is all right; I inquired merely as a point of information, not as criticism. I presume you do not want to be discharged on that ground?"

  "No, sir!" I said quickly. "I want to be in the Navy."

  "Excellent," she murmured, and I saw how skillfully she was managing me. She had gotten me to agree with her on a matter of substance, and she had couched what could have been a threat in a positive manner. I had good reason to cooperate now. She understood motivation. "Have you copulated before?"

  She had a higher-class vocabulary than did the girl, June! "Yes, sir." I said.

  "With a woman?"

  I felt the flush starting again. "Yes, sir."

  "You object to doing it with a stranger?"

  "I—not exactly, sir. I realize the Navy has its requirements. But—"

  "Please speak freely, Private. I'm here to help you."

  "Sir, it is better if there is love, or at least respect."

  She smiled, and she was very likeable when she did that. She was the sort of poised woman who could make a man feel at ease, even in a situation like this. "Of course. But that will come in its proper time. For recruits there is only sex."

  "I would prefer to wait for the proper time, sir."

  "You are not homosexual?"

  "No, sir!"

  "Or routinely impotent?"

  "No, sir."

  "You are, then, normally disposed? It is merely the crudity of this introduction that has put you off?"

  "Yes, pretty much, sir." I was beginning to feel guilty for my obstructionism.

  "Do you understand why we do it this way?"

  "No, not really, sir. It seems to me that—"

  "Several excellent reasons, private. Jupiter does not permit homosexuals of either sex to serve in the armed forces, for historical and practical reasons that I personally may question but must honor. Other cultures have shown that homosexuals can make fine officers and personnel, if things are done openly so that blackmailing is impossible. But I do not make policy, any more than you do. We are all to that extent victims of the system, and must do what is required of us. This introduction to the services of the Tail represents a specific test for homosexuality; a man who is truly impotent with women cannot pass this point without discovery. The certainty is less with a woman, but whatever her underlying preference, she will function heterosexually, so the Navy is satisfied.

  "It is also the opinion of the Jupiter Navy that the best soldier is a satisfied one. We do not care to have stifled sexual urges generating mischief in the ranks, so we see that sex is not stifled. Sexual expression is normal and healthy, and the Navy wants normal and healthy personnel. But this cannot be verified by a computerized test, and psychiatric charting is cumbersome and, in my opinion, unreliable; a person like yourself could readily distort the results. It is necessary to see sexual expression in practice.

  "It is also true that some recruits are young, shy, inexperienced, or have some foolish notion of saving it for marriage or for a loved one. In reality, it is better to bring experience and competence to love or marriage, so that the relationship can be most positive where it counts most, without fumbling or accident or misunderstanding. So it is necessary to take care of this training at the outset. You are not in civilian life now, soldier; you are in the Navy, and your body is ours. Once you perform by the book in this house, you will comprehend the power the Navy has over you. Your sexual expression is no more private than your haircut or your pay. You will conform—or be compelled."

  "Compelled?" I asked, alarmed at the increasingly firm tone.

  She smiled again, putting her hand on mine, softening the impact. "Was I lecturing? I apologize. Don't be concerned, Private. It is true that we have drugs that will convert a mild-mannered man into a rutting billy goat, but that is pointless. It is the normal sexual bias and application we desire, not a drug-sponsored orgy. The Navy frowns on drug abuse. You will merely be prevented from undergoing further training until you meet our sexual requirement. You will remain on this ship until we are satisfied and issue you a certificate of completion. Most men meet it in a few days and have no further difficulty; some women take longer."

  "Women really do have to—?"

  "Indeed they do, soldier! The Jupiter Navy is an Equal Opportunity Employer; no discrimination is tolerated. Males and females have identical requirements, allowing for anatomical distinctions. Obviously a woman cannot be overtly impotent, but she can be frigid, and rape is not the Navy way, either, despite scuttlebutt to the contrary. The woman must understand and acquiesce, voluntarily, and show some reasonable response. She must, in other words, be normal, and demonstrate that normalcy exactly as the men do. We believe this is fair; don't you agree?"

  "Yes, sir," I agreed, bemused.

  "Now, you said you believe there should be love or respect. Love is not permitted recruits, but respect is encouraged. I gather you had a relationship with a woman you loved?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And you lost her when you enlisted?"

  "No, sir. She's dead."

  "I understand. You feel you would sully her memory."

  "Yes, sir."

  She had scored directly, surprising me. "I do understand, Private. But what you wish is not an authorized luxury. Your heart may be your own, but as we say in the service, your ass is ours. You may feel what you feel for your loved one, but you must perform for the Navy. I believe your loved one would understand."

  "Yes, sir, she would." That was a gross understatement. Helse would have urged me to go along. She had understood sex as well as any woman living.

  "Are you ready to perform now, Private?"

  "Not with you, sir!"

  She laughed. "Of course not, though it is permissible in this special instance. Sometimes recruit girls feel easier about being initiated by male officers rather than enlisted men; it is a matter of breeding—no pun!—and perception. But for you, I mean, with June, whose office this is. You understand, she is required to make out a report; they all are. Attitude, technique, ejaculation—"

  A report! Was nothing sacred? That turned me off again. "I—" I hesitated. "She remains a—"

  "A prostitute?"

  "Yes, sir. She cares nothing for me. She just wants to get it over with, like an item on an assembly line. There is neither love nor respect
in that. That is not the type of woman I—"

  "I understand, and I respect you for that attitude, Private. I really do! The Jupiter Navy does not require that you degrade yourself with a woman who is socially beneath you."

  "Oh, I didn't mean that, sir! I—" But as I spoke, I realized I did mean it, at least in part. I had no status in the Jupiter society, but June was little more than a mannequin.

  "You are intelligent and well educated," she said. "I'm sure your tests show high facility in more than one language, broad information, extraordinary social perception, and an intelligence quotient in the upper percentiles. You are elite."

  "No, I'm not, sir! I'm just a refugee."

  "Well, refugee, we intend to do right by you, for you have a future in the Jupiter Navy. Would it help you to know that not all our women are sexually professional? Many are recruits, like yourself, who are assigned to this duty by roster."

  "But if it's not voluntary—"

  "That depends on how you interpret it, private. They do volunteer for the roster and are excused from KP or guard duty."

  "Oh," I said. "Sir." I saw how it was. I knew that many of the male recruits I knew would be glad to exchange their places on the KP roster for one like this. Evidently it was true for some women, too. But that sort of woman did not excite me, either.

  "I can see you are sincere, and I do want to help you," she said earnestly. I found I believed her. "I can offer you one other option, though a more difficult one."

  "Sir?"

  "As I mentioned, more female recruits have initial problems than do the males. They have been raised more restrictively, especially in your culture, and never expected to become refugees or to be obliged to join the Navy. Many understand intellectually but are unable to accept it emotionally. We have the drugs and experienced male operators, but—" She shrugged.