Starship Troopers Part 9

"But - good heavens!" the girl answered. "I didn't like being spanked any more than any kid does, but when I needed it, my mama delivered. The only time I ever got a switching in school I got another one when I got home and that was years and years ago. I don't ever expect to be hauled up in front of a judge and sentenced to a flogging; you behave yourself and such things don't happen. I don't see anything wrong with our system; it's a lot better than not being able to walk outdoors for fear of your life - why, that's horrible!" horrible!"

"I agree. Young lady, the tragic wrongness of what those well-meaning people did, contrasted with what they thought thought they were doing, goes very deep. They had no scientific theory of morals. They did have a theory of morals and they tried to live by it (I should not have sneered at their motives) but their theory was they were doing, goes very deep. They had no scientific theory of morals. They did have a theory of morals and they tried to live by it (I should not have sneered at their motives) but their theory was wrong wrong - half of it fuzzy-headed wishful thinking, half of it rationalized charlatanry. The more earnest they were, the farther it led them astray. You see, they a.s.sumed that Man has a moral instinct." - half of it fuzzy-headed wishful thinking, half of it rationalized charlatanry. The more earnest they were, the farther it led them astray. You see, they a.s.sumed that Man has a moral instinct."

"Sir? But I thought - But he does! I I have." have."

"No, my dear, you have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained one. Man has no moral instinct no moral instinct. He is not born with moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not - and a puppy has none. We acquire acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind. These unfortunate juvenile criminals were born with none, even as you and I, and they had no chance to acquire any; their experiences did not permit it. What is 'moral sense'? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. This truth is mathematically demonstrable, everywhere verifiable; it is the single eternal imperative controlling everything we do." moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind. These unfortunate juvenile criminals were born with none, even as you and I, and they had no chance to acquire any; their experiences did not permit it. What is 'moral sense'? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. This truth is mathematically demonstrable, everywhere verifiable; it is the single eternal imperative controlling everything we do."

"But the instinct to survive," he had gone on, "can be cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind, brute urge of the individual to stay alive. Young lady, what you miscalled your 'moral instinct' was the instilling in you by your elders of the truth that survival can have stronger imperatives than that of your own personal survival. Survival of your family, for example. Of your children, when you have them. Of your nation, if you struggle that high up the scale. And so on up. A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual's instinct to survive - and nowhere else! and nowhere else! - and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts." - and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts."

"We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race - we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations. But all moral problems can be ill.u.s.trated by one misquotation: 'Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.' Once you understand the problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of climbing.

"These juvenile criminals. .h.i.t a low level. Born with only the instinct for survival, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty to a peer group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to 'appeal to their better natures,' to 'reach them,' to 'spark their moral sense.' Tosh! Tosh! They They had had no 'better natures'; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive. The puppy never got his spanking; therefore what he did with pleasure and success must be 'moral.' no 'better natures'; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive. The puppy never got his spanking; therefore what he did with pleasure and success must be 'moral.'

"The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual. n.o.body preached duty to these kids in a way they could understand - that is, with a spanking. But the society they were in told them endlessly about their 'rights.' "

"The results should have been predictable, since a human being has no natural rights of any nature." no natural rights of any nature."

Mr. Dubois had paused. Somebody took the bait. "Sir? How about 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'?"

"Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights.' Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed that great doc.u.ment pledged themselves to buy buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is liberty with their lives. Liberty is never never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always always vanishes. Of all the so-called 'natural human rights' that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is vanishes. Of all the so-called 'natural human rights' that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never never free of cost. free of cost.

"The third 'right'? - the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives - but neither G.o.ds nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."

Mr. Dubois then turned to me. "I told you that 'juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty duty is an is an adult adult virtue - indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a 'juvenile delinquent.' But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents - people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail." virtue - indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a 'juvenile delinquent.' But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents - people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail."

"And that that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights' . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so const.i.tuted, can endure." was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights' . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so const.i.tuted, can endure."

I wondered how Colonel Dubois would have cla.s.sed Dillinger. Was he a juvenile criminal who merited pity even though you had to get rid of him? Or was he an adult delinquent who deserved nothing but contempt?

I didn't know, I would never know. The one thing I was sure of was that he would never again kill any little girls.

That suited me. I went to sleep.

Chapter 9.

We've got no place in this outfit for good losers. We want tough hombres who will go in there and win!

Admiral Jonas Ingram, 1926 .

When we had done all that a mud foot can do in flat country, we moved into some rough mountains to do still rougher things - the Canadian Rockies between Good Hope Mountain and Mount Waddington. Camp Sergeant Spooky Smith was much like Camp Currie (aside from its rugged setting) but it was much smaller. Well, the Third Regiment was much smaller now, too less than four hundred whereas we had started out with more than two thousand. H Company was now organized as a single platoon and the battalion paraded as if it were a company. But we were still called "H Company" and Zim was "Company Commander," not platoon leader.

What the sweat-down meant, really, was much more personal instruction; we had more corporal-instructors than we had squads and Sergeant Zim, with only fifty men on his mind instead of the two hundred and sixty he had started with, kept his Argus eyes on each one of us all the time - even when he wasn't there. At least, if you goofed, it turned out he was standing right behind you.

However, the chewing-out you got had almost a friendly quality, in a horrid sort of way, because we had changed, too, as well as the regiment - the one-in-five who was left was almost a soldier and Zim seemed to be trying to make him into one, instead of running him over the hill.

We saw a lot more of Captain Frankel, too; he now spent most of his time teaching us, instead of behind a desk, and he knew all of us by name and face and seemed to have a card file in his mind of exactly what progress each man had made on every weapon, every piece of equipment - not to mention your extra-duty status, medical record, and whether you had had a letter from home lately.

He wasn't as severe with us as Zim was; his words were milder and it took a really stupid stunt to take that friendly grin off his face - but don't let that fool you; there was beryl armor under the grin. I never did figure out which one was the better soldier, Zim or Captain Frankel - I mean, if you took away the insignia and thought of them as privates. Unquestionably they were both better soldiers than any of the other instructors - but which was best? Zim did everything with precision and style, as if he were on parade; Captain Frankel did the same thing with dash and gusto, as if it were a game. The results were about the same and it never turned out to be as easy as Captain Frankel made it look.

We needed the abundance of instructors. Jumping a suit (as I have said) was easy on flat ground. Well, the suit jumps just as high and just as easily in the mountains - but it makes a lot of difference when you have to jump up a vertical granite wall, between two close-set fir trees, and override your jet control at the last instant. We had three major casualties in suit practice in broken country, two dead and one medical retirement.

But that rock wall is even tougher without a suit, tackled with lines and pitons. I didn't really see what use alpine drill was to a cap trooper but I had learned to keep my mouth shut and try to learn what they shoved at us. I learned it and it wasn't too hard. If anybody had told me, a year earlier, that I could go up a solid chunk of rock, as flat and as perpendicular as a blank wall of a building, using only a hammer, some silly little steel pins, and a chunk of clothesline, I would have laughed in his face; I'm a sea-level type. Correction: I was was a sea-level type. There had been some changes made. a sea-level type. There had been some changes made.

Just how much I had changed I began to find out. At Camp Sergeant Spooky Smith we had liberty-to go to town, I mean. Oh, we had "liberty" after the first month at Camp Currie, too. This meant that, on a Sunday afternoon, if you weren't in the duty platoon, you could check out at the orderly tent and walk just as far away from camp as you wished, bearing in mind that you had to be back for evening muster. But there was nothing within walking distance, if you don't count jack rabbits - no girls, no theaters, no dance halls, et cetera.

Nevertheless, liberty, even at Camp Currie, was no mean privilege; sometimes it can be very important indeed to be able to go so far away that you can't see a tent, a sergeant, nor even the ugly faces of your best friends among the boots . . . not have to be on the bounce about anything, have time to take out your soul and look at it. You could lose that privilege in several degrees; you could be restricted to camp . . . or you could be restricted to your own company street, which meant that you couldn't go to the library nor to what was misleadingly called the "recreation" tent (mostly some Parcheesi sets and similar wild excitements) . . . or you could be under close restriction, required to stay in your tent when your presence was not required elsewhere.

This last sort didn't mean much in itself since it was usually added to extra duty so demanding that you didn't have any time in your tent other than for sleep anyhow; it was a decoration added like a cherry on top of a dish of ice cream to notify you and the world that you had pulled not some everyday goof-off but something unbecoming of a member of the M. I. and were thereby unfit to a.s.sociate with other troopers until you had washed away the stain.

But at Camp Spooky we could go into town - duty status, conduct status, etc., permitting. Shuttles ran to Vancouver every Sunday morning, right after divine services (which were moved up to thirty minutes after breakfast) and came back again just before supper and again just before taps. The instructors could even spend Sat.u.r.day night in town, or cop a three-day pa.s.s, duty permitting.

I had no more than stepped out of the shuttle, my first pa.s.s, than I realized in part that I had changed. Johnnie didn't fit in any longer. Civilian life, I mean. It all seemed amazingly complex and unbelievably untidy.

I'm not running down Vancouver. It's a beautiful city in a lovely setting; the people are charming and they are used to having the M. I. in town and they make a trooper welcome. There is a social center for us downtown, where they have dances for us every week and see to it that junior hostesses are on hand to dance with, and senior hostesses to make sure that a shy boy (me, to my amazement - but you try a few months with nothing female around but lady jack rabbits) gets introduced and has a partner's feet to step on.

But I didn't go to the social center that first pa.s.s. Mostly I stood around and gawked - at beautiful buildings, at display windows filled with all manner of unnecessary things (and not a weapon among them), at all those people running around, or even strolling, doing exactly as they pleased and no two of them dressed alike - and at girls.

Especially at girls. I hadn't realized just how wonderful they were. Look, I've approved of girls from the time I first noticed that the difference was more than just that they dress differently. So far as I remember I never did go through that period boys are supposed to go through when they know that girls are different but dislike them; I've always liked girls.

But that day I realized that I had long been taking them for granted.

Girls are simply wonderful. Just to stand on a corner and watch them going past is delightful. They don't walk. At least not what we do when we walk. I don't know how to describe it, but it's much more complex and utterly delightful. They don't move just their feet; everything moves and in different directions . . . and all of it graceful.

I might have been standing there yet if a policeman hadn't come by. He sized us up and said, "Howdy, boys. Enjoying yourselves?"

I quickly read the ribbons on his chest and was impressed. "Yes, sir!" sir!"

"You don't have to say 'sir' to me. Not much to do here. Why don't you go to the hospitality center?" He gave us the address, pointed the direction and we started that way - Pat Leivy, "Kitten" Smith, and myself. He called after us, "Have a good time, boys . . . and stay out of trouble." Which was exactly what Sergeant Zim had said to us as we climbed into the shuttle.

But we didn't go there. Pat Leivy had lived in Seattle when he was a small boy and wanted to take a look at his old home town. He had money and offered to pay our shuttle fares if we would go with him. I didn't mind and it was all right; shuttles ran every twenty minutes and our pa.s.ses were not restricted to Vancouver. Smith decided to go along, too.

Seattle wasn't so very different from Vancouver and the girls were just as plentiful; I enjoyed it. But Seattle wasn't quite as used to having M. I. around in droves and we picked a poor spot to eat dinner, one where we weren't quite so welcome a bar-restaurant, down by the docks.

Now, look, we weren't drinking. Well, Kitten Smith had had one repeat one beer with his dinner but he was never anything but friendly and nice. That is how he got his name; the first time we had hand-to-hand combat drill Corporal Jones had said to him disgustedly: "A kitten would have hit me harder than that that!" The nickname stuck.

We were the only uniforms in the place; most of the other customers were merchant marine sailors - Seattle handles an awful lot of surface tonnage. I hadn't known it at the time but merchant sailors don't like us. Part of it has to do with the fact that their guilds have tried and tried to get their trade cla.s.sed as equivalent to Federal Service, without success - but I understand that some of it goes way back in history, centuries.

There were some young fellows there, too, about our age the right age to serve a term, only they weren't - long-haired and sloppy and kind of dirty looking. Well, say about the way I looked, I suppose, before I joined up.

Presently we started noticing that at the table behind us, two of these young twerps and two merchant sailors (to judge by clothes) were pa.s.sing remarks that were intended for us to overhear. I won't try to repeat them.

We didn't say anything. Presently, when the remarks were even more personal and the laughs louder and everybody else in the place was keeping quiet and listening, Kitten whispered to me, "Let's get out of here."

I caught Pat Leivy's eye; he nodded. We had no score to settle; it was one of those pay-as-you-get-it places. We got up and left.

They followed us out.

Pat whispered to me, "Watch it." We kept on walking, didn't look back.

They charged us.

I gave my man a side-neck chop as I pivoted and let him fall past me, swung to help my mates. But it was over. Four in, four down. Kitten had handled two of them and Pat had sort of wrapped the other one around a lamppost from throwing him a little too hard.

Somebody, the proprietor I guess, must have called the police as soon as we stood up to leave, since they arrived almost at once while we were still standing around wondering what to do with the meat - two policemen; it was that sort of a neighborhood.

The senior of them wanted us to prefer charges, but none of us was willing - Zim had told us to "stay out of trouble." Kitten looked blank and about fifteen years old and said, "I guess they stumbled."

"So I see," agreed the police officer and toed a knife away from the outflung hand of my man, put it against the curb and broke the blade. "Well, you boys had better run along . . . farther uptown."

We left. I was glad that neither Pat nor Kitten wanted to make anything of it. It's a mighty serious thing, a civilian a.s.saulting a member of the Armed Forces, but what the deuce? - the books balanced. They jumped us, they got their lumps. All even.

But it's a good thing we never go on pa.s.s armed . . . and have been trained to disable without killing. Because every bit of it happened by reflex. I didn't believe that they would jump us until they already had, and I didn't do any thinking at all until it was over.

But that's how I learned for the first time just how much I had changed.

We walked back to the station and caught a shuttle to Vancouver.

We started practice drops as soon as we moved to Camp Spooky - a platoon at a time, in rotation (a full platoon, that is - a company), would shuttle down to the field north of Walla Walla, go aboard, s.p.a.ce, make a drop, go through an exercise, and home on a beacon. A day's work. With eight companies that gave us not quite a drop each week, and then it gave us a little more than a drop each week as attrition continued, whereupon the drops got tougher - over mountains, into the arctic ice, into the Australian desert, and, before we graduated, onto the face of the Moon, where your capsule is placed only a hundred feet up and explodes as it ejects - and you have to look sharp and land with only your suit (no air, no parachute) and a bad landing can spill your air and kill you.

Some of the attrition was from casualties, deaths or injuries, and some of it was just from refusing to enter the capsule - which some did, and that was that; they weren't even chewed out; they were just motioned aside and that night they were paid off. Even a man who had made several drops might get the panic and refuse . . . and the instructors were just gentle with him, treated him the way you do a friend who is ill and won't get well.

I never quite refused to enter the capsule - but I certainly learned about the shakes. I always got them, I was scared silly every time. I still am.

But you're not a cap trooper unless you drop.

They tell a story, probably not true, about a cap trooper who was sight-seeing in Paris. He visited Les Invalides, looked down at Napoleon's coffin and said to a French guard there: "Who's he?"

The Frenchman was properly scandalized. "Monsieur does not know? This is the tomb of Napoleon! Napoleon! Napoleon Bonaparte - the greatest soldier who ever lived!" Napoleon Bonaparte - the greatest soldier who ever lived!"

The cap trooper thought about it. Then he asked, "So? Where were his drops?"

It is almost certainly not true, because there is a big sign outside there that tells you exactly who Napoleon was. But that is how cap troopers feel about it.

Eventually we graduated.

I can see that I've left out almost everything. Not a word about most of our weapons, nothing about the time we dropped everything and fought a forest fire for three days, no mention of the practice alert that was a real one, only we didn't know it until it was over, nor about the day the cook tent blew away - in fact not any mention of weather and, believe me, weather is important to a doughboy, rain and mud especially. But though weather is important while it happens it seems to me to be pretty dull to look back on. You can take descriptions of most any sort of weather out of an almanac and stick them in just anywhere; they'll probably fit.

The regiment had started with 2009 men; we graduated 187 - of the others, fourteen were dead (one executed and his name struck) and the rest resigned, dropped, transferred, medical discharge, etc. Major Malloy made a short speech, we each got a certificate, we pa.s.sed in review for the last time, and the regiment was disbanded, its colors to be cased until they would be needed (three weeks later) to tell another couple of thousand civilians that they were an outfit, not a mob.

I was a "trained soldier," ent.i.tled to put "TP" in front of my serial number instead of "RP." Big day.

The biggest I ever had.

Chapter 10.

The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots . . .

Thomas Jefferson, 1787 .

That is, I thought I was a "trained soldier" until I reported to my ship. Any law against having a wrong opinion?

I see that I didn't make any mention of how the Terran Federation moved from "peace" to a "state of emergency" and then on into "war." I didn't notice it too closely myself. When I enrolled, it was "peace," the normal condition, at least so people think (who ever expects anything else?). Then, while I was at Currie, it became a "state of emergency" but I still didn't notice it, as what Corporal Bronski thought about my haircut, uniform, combat drill, and kit was much more important - and what Sergeant Zim thought about such matters was overwhelmingly important. In any case, "emergency" is still "peace."

"Peace" is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties which do not achieve page-one, lead-story prominence-unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the casualties. But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it. When I reported to my first outfit, "Willie's Wildcats," sometimes known as Company K, Third Regiment, First M. I. Division, and shipped with them in the Valley Forge Valley Forge (with that misleading certificate in my kit) the fighting had already been going on for several years. (with that misleading certificate in my kit) the fighting had already been going on for several years.

The historians can't seem to settle whether to call this one "The Third s.p.a.ce War" (or the "Fourth"), or whether "The First Interstellar War" fits it better. We just call it "The Bug War" if we call it anything, which we usually don't, and in any case the historians date the beginning of "war" after the time I joined my first outfit and ship. Everything up to then and still later were "incidents," "patrols," or "police actions." However, you are just as dead if you buy a farm in an "incident" as you are if you buy it in a declared war.

But, to tell the truth, a soldier doesn't notice a war much more than a civilian does, except his own tiny piece of it and that just on the days it is happening. The rest of the time he is much more concerned with sack time, the vagaries of sergeants, and the chances of wheedling the cook between meals. However, when Kitten Smith and Al Jenkins and I joined them at Luna Base, each of Willie's Wildcats had made more than one combat drop; they were soldiers and we were not. We weren't hazed for it - at least I was not - and the sergeants and corporals were amazingly easy to deal with after the calculated frightfulness of instructors.

It took a little while to discover that this comparatively gentle treatment simply meant that we were n.o.body, hardly worth chewing out, until we had proved in a drop - a real drop - that we might possibly replace real Wildcats who had fought and bought it and whose bunks we now occupied.

Let me tell you how green I was. While the Valley Forg Valley Forg was still at Luna Base, I happened to come across my section leader just as he was about to hit dirt, all slicked up in dress uniform. He was wearing in his left ear lobe a rather small earring, a tiny gold skull beautifully made and under it, in stead of the conventional crossed bones of the ancient Jolly Roger design, was a whole bundle of little gold bones, almost too small to see. was still at Luna Base, I happened to come across my section leader just as he was about to hit dirt, all slicked up in dress uniform. He was wearing in his left ear lobe a rather small earring, a tiny gold skull beautifully made and under it, in stead of the conventional crossed bones of the ancient Jolly Roger design, was a whole bundle of little gold bones, almost too small to see.

Back home, I had always worn earrings and other jewelry when I went out on a date - I had some beautiful ear clips, rubies as big as the end of my little finger which had belonged to my mother's grandfather. I like jewelry and had rather resented being required to leave it all behind when I went to Basic . . . but here was a type of jewelry which was apparently okay to wear with uniform. My ears weren't pierced - my mother didn't approve of it, for boys - but I could have the jeweler mount it on a clip . . . and I still had some money left from pay call at graduation and was anxious to spend it before it mildewed. "Unh, Sergeant? Where do you get earrings like that one? Pretty neat."

He didn't look scornful, he didn't even smile. He just said, "You like it?"

"I certainly do!" The plain raw gold pointed up the gold braid and piping of the uniform even better than gems would have done. I was thinking that a pair would be still handsomer, with just crossbones instead of all that confusion at the bottom. "Does the base PX carry them?"

"No, the PX here never sells them." He added, "At least I don't think you'll ever be able to buy one here - I hope. But I tell you what - when we reach a place where you can buy one of your own, I'll see to it you know about it. That's a promise."

"Uh, thanks!"

"Don't mention it."

I saw several of the tiny skulls thereafter, some with more "bones," some with fewer; my guess had been correct, this was jewelry permitted with uniform, when on pa.s.s at least. Then I got my own chance to "buy" one almost immediately thereafter and discovered that the prices were unreasonably high, for such plain ornaments.

It was Operation Bughouse, the First Battle of Klendathu in the history books, soon after Buenos Aires was smeared. It took the loss of B. A. to make the groundhogs realize that anything was going on, because people who haven't been out don't really believe in other planets, not down deep where it counts. I know I hadn't and I had been s.p.a.ce-happy since I was a pup.

But B. A. really stirred up the civilians and inspired loud screams to bring all our forces home, from everywhere - orbit them around the planet practically shoulder to shoulder and interdict the s.p.a.ce Terra occupies. This is silly, of course; you don't win a war by defense but by attack - no "Department of Defense" ever won a war; see the histories. But is seems to be a standard civilian reaction to scream for defensive tactics as soon as they do notice a war. They then want to run the war - like a pa.s.senger trying to grab the controls away from the pilot in an emergency.

However, n.o.body asked my opinion at the time; I was told. Quite aside from the impossibility of dragging the troops home in view of our treaty obligations and what it would do to the colony planets in the Federation and to our allies, we were awfully busy doing something else, to wit: carrying the war to the Bugs. I suppose I noticed the destruction of B. A. much less than most civilians did. We were already a couple of pa.r.s.ecs away under Cherenkov drive and the news didn't reach us until we got it from another ship after we came out of drive.

I remember thinking, "Gosh, that's terrible!" and feeling sorry for the one Porteno in the ship. But B. A. wasn't my home and Terra was a long way off and I was very busy, as the attack on Klendathu, the Bugs' home planet, was mounted immediately after that and we spent the time to rendezvous strapped in our bunks, doped and unconscious, with the internal-gravity field of the Valley Forge Valley Forge off, to save power and give greater speed. off, to save power and give greater speed.

The loss of Buenos Aires did mean a great deal to me; it changed my life enormously, but this I did not know until many months later.