A Desert Called Peace (87 page)

The rain began to fall once again as Cruz made his miserable way back to his patrol.

Balboa's climate was hot and wet. Ordinarily, it wasn't possible to become cool there in the outdoors, let alone cold. Still, when deprived of food and sleep, worked too hard, and kept soaking wet for days on end, men would shiver.

Where the swamp water came midway up Cruz's chest, it was closer to neck deep on Dominguez. That was why Cruz never noticed that Dominguez was shivering until his teeth began to chatter.

" 'minguez, are you okay?"

"No, Cruz . . . cold, getting colder."

Shit.
Cruz told Dominguez to wait in place—the patrol wasn't going anywhere fast—and waded forward to find the CI.

"Centurion, I think one of my men is coming down with hypothermia." They'd been lectured on that particular danger early on in the course.

The CI waded back with Cruz, both of them sloshing through the darkened water to where Dominguez still stood. None of Terra Nova's three moons were up much so the CI broke out a blue filtered flashlight and played in over the shivering man's face. After a briefest visual inspection, plus a quick feel of the all-too-cooled forehead, he decided Cruz was right.

"We've got to get him out of some of this water. It's not so deep up ahead. You two, pick him up and carry him forward." Montoya and another man named Saldañas lifted Dominguez bodily out of the water.

At the shallow spot, the CI took his knife out and stuck it perpendicularly into a tree. Then he took a blue fuel tablet out of a metalicized pouch. He laid the fuel tablet on the knife. Reaching into the student's web gear, the CI took out Dominguez's steel canteen cup and filled it with water. He lit the fuel tab, letting it begin to burn over its entire surface, before placing the cup squarely upon it. He pulled both knife and cup away from the tree, holding them together.

The CI looked around and announced, "I need a crap load of sugar."

Montoya went around the gathering students. "C'mon. Give it up, goddammit. Dominguez needs sugar." The men reached into hidden stores for sugar packets filched from the mess on those rare occasions the students were allowed to eat in the mess.

The CI gently slid the knife out from under the cup. The fuel tablet stayed, magically stuck to the cup's bottom. With its own bottom exposed to the air, it flared into a respectable flame. Soon the water was hot enough for a decent cup of coffee, heavily laden with sugar.

Montoya, standing with his hands cupped around sugar packets, looked with wonder at the CI's method of coffee preparation in a soaking wet environment. "I believe that is the neatest thing I've ever seen," he said, mostly to himself.

Lago de Ajuela
, Balboa, 28/3/462 AC

Today was a test day of sorts. Its objective was to run out a portion of those students who could not overcome physical fear. All the candidates had already been in combat, of course. This proved little as, in combat, no one was really watching to
see
how they reacted to danger.

"This is more like what I signed up for when I volunteered for this stinking course," announced Montoya, looking over the various tests.

Saldañas, standing on the other side of Cruz from Montoya, looked ghastly pale. "Man, I am terrified of heights." Saldañas was a sailor with the still growing naval
classis
. In the legion even sailors and members of the air
ala
had to demonstrate combat leadership before being allowed leadership of any kind.

Another student—Dominguez, Saldañas' Cazador buddy— answered "Cheer up, friend. You're a squid. At least you can swim well."

The class tac, a retired FSA master sergeant working for the FMTG and named Olivetti called the class to attention, then "at ease."

"The purpose of today's exercise," the CI said, "is to separate from the school those who lack an essential characteristic needed in a combat leader—physical courage."

At Olivetti's last words twin explosions erupted from the water. The students shuddered from the shock. A Balboan CI, carrying a pulleylike device with a handle attached, ran from the woods toward a steel I-beam set upright in the ground, with a small platform on top and a wire cable running at an angle down to the water. The CI howled as he ran.

Reaching the I beam, the CI rapidly clambered up its seventy-five odd feet until he reached the platform. There he hooked the pulley around the wire cable, grabbed hold of the handle and lifted his feet off the platform. He sped down the cable gathering speed. Another CI, standing on a floating platform near where cable met water, signaled when it was time for the slider to let go of the handle.

Montoya watched, wide-eyed, as the slider's feet struck the water first, causing him to spin head over heels a half dozen times before knifing headfirst below the surface.

That has got to take practice,
thought Cruz admiringly.

Fifty times the son of a bitch does it right in rehearsal,
thought Olivetti,
then he screws it up in practice. Idiot.

The CI surfaced and then swam toward the shore. Olivetti announced "What you have just seen is called the 'Slide for Life.' The CI is now approaching the Log Walk/Rope Drop."

Still howling, the demonstrator ran from the shore to the Log Walk. This consisted of three on-line poles set upright into the muck below. At a height of some thirty-five feet—shrewdly calculated to be the most frightening height to be at for a human being—the poles were surmounted by a log, topped by a flat plank, with steps in the middle. The logs swayed as the CI raced upward. At the top the CI bound down the plank, not stopping or slowing even for the steps in the middle. He took a quick seat at the far end.

Olivetti continued his explanations. "Once you have successfully negotiated the Log Walk you will take a seat while awaiting your turn for the Rope Drop."

The demonstrator CI rolled to his side and began to pull himself out onto another steel cable that ran slightly upwards toward the summit of a taller pole. Set more than halfway up, a Cazador tab painted on wood hung. The CI slapped it once, screamed, "Cazador!" and eased his body smoothly off the cable until he was hanging by both hands. The CI released his right hand from the cable, executed a smart hand salute and said, "Centurion, Cazador Torres requests permission to drop."

Olivetti returned the salute and answered, "Drop, Cazador." The CI on the cable let go with his left hand, placing it over his crotch as he fell. The right hand went under the chin, fingers cupping the nose. The water splashed more than halfway to the cable when he hit.

Turning his attention back to the students, Olivetti said, conversationally "Easy as Hell, isn't it? See, we don't ask too much of you."

Oh, God, I hate heights,
thought Saldañas, as he began the long climb up the I beam. Rather than look upward as he climbed, which would remind him of how far he had to go, or—worse—downward, which would tell him how far he had gone, Saldañas kept his eyes on the rusted steel of the beam, parallel to the ground. Even when his pulley, hanging off his shoulder by a strap, caught on one of the rungs, he freed it purely by touch, rather than risk seeing the ground. He closed his eyes every time a student ahead of him took off down the slide, making the beam shudder. The climb seemed endless and limitlessly terrifying.

"Get your ass up here, Cazador," shouted the CI atop the little platform. Saldañas carefully eased through the little trap door, fingers turning white from his clenching grip on whatever seemed solid. The CI saw this.

"Scared are you, son?"

Teeth clenched to keep them from chattering, he forced out a, "Yes, Centurion."

"No shame in that, son," the CI said, not unkindly. The CI took the pulley from Saldañas' shoulder and hooked it onto the cable. Then he grabbed the back of Saldañas' shirt and pulled him under the pulley. The student resisted giving up his grip on the platform.

"Open your eyes, son. The point is to see what scares you and overcome it." Saldañas obeyed and immediately lunged for the I beam.

"Cazador, there is only one way off this platform. You either get a grip on yourself and take hold of this handle or I am going to kick your shitty butt out into space, hear me?"

Half guided by the CI, Saldañas, trembling, forced himself to stand under the pulley and take a grip on the handle.

"Now when I tell you to go, I want you to lift up with your arms. When you get away from platform a ways, bend your body into an 'L' shape. Watch the man with the flag standing at the anchor dock. He'll tell you how high to lift your legs and when to let go of the pulley. Got it? Oh, yes. One other thing. If you don't keep your eyes open to see the drop signal you are going to slam into the dock at the other end of the cable at about 100 kilometers per hour. Guaranteed fatal. You will keep your eyes open?"

Saldañas could only nod, two or three times, quickly.

"Go!" Saldañas, after a moment's hesitation, lifted off and went . . . nowhere. The CI still had a grip on his shirt. "Okay. Let's try it again, this time with your eyes open. Go." Again Saldañas didn't slide but he did keep his eyes from closing.

"All right, son. That was fine. Now this time I really am going to let go. Ready? . . . Go!"

At first Saldañas felt nothing. Then he realized he also could not feel the CI's grip on the back of his shirt. By the time this registered he felt the beginnings of forward motion. He screamed, "
Jeeesuuusss!"
as he picked up speed. Chuckling and thinking,
it's funny how he called upon the only man who can save him now
, the CI called out, "Next Cazador. Get your ass up here, boy."

Dimly, Saldañas realized on his way down,
It's a good thing I'm landing in water. No one will see the piss.

"Cara? Cara, I have a letter for you from Ricardo!"

At her mother's call Caridad ran, breathless, for the front hall. She tore the letter from her mother's hand and opened it.

"Dearest Cara,

I'm terribly sorry that I haven't written before . . . there simply hasn't been any time at all. The only reason I can write now is that this is sort of a screw off day; terrifying but not difficult. "Terrifying?" I hear you ask. Very.

We were all (except Montoya, I'll tell you about him later) scared of heights. I still am but at least I can deal . . . now. The interesting one was Saldañas. He's a sailor who's bucking for officer (did I ever tell you even the squids have to graduate Cazador School to become centurions or officers?). I can't prove it, but I'd almost swear Saldañas wet himself on one of them. But he's a gutsy one. You could see he'd rather have died than walk over some steps that were thirty-five feet in the air. The steps were in the middle of one of the obstacles. But he'd rather die than fail, too. He made it over, with help, but almost in tears. We're all really proud of him.

For the rest, my mates and I are starving, and more than two weeks behind on sleep. They feed us so little here, one scanty ration a day, most days, that there isn't enough to allow the body to heal even a little cut. I have a couple I got early on that are still running sores.

Nonetheless, I am making it so far. I failed my first patrol, but it didn't count. I passed the second. Tomorrow we're off to the mountain school.

Give your parents and mine my best.

All my love,

Ricardo

Cara put the letter back in the envelope.
He didn't even mention sex. That's not the Ricardo I know.

O'Higgins was the mountain training center for the expanding legion and the second phase of the Cazador School.

In this camp Cruz's class had suffered its first fatality. In front of all four hundred odd Cazador students still with the class, a piton securing a rope snaking up the side of a cliff broke free. The reactions of both climber and safety man were too slowed by fatigue to grab a handhold; the next piton broke free as well. A long scream tore through the air, and those nearby heard a dull thud.

An ambulance came to claim the body. Other than that, none of the school cadre took any special pains over the death. In a few days a new name would be added to the monuments that stood by the entrance to the camp and the concrete plinths in front of the school headquarters at Camp Gutierrez. A memorial service was held at the close of that day's training. No other official notice was taken. That night fifteen men resigned.

Unofficially, and unobtrusively, Olivetti made note of those who had not resigned but who seemed more upset than most. These, in ones and two, as the schedule permitted, he spoke to over the next several days. One reported to him now.

"Cazador Cruz, reporting as ordered, Centurion."

"Sit, Cazador." Olivetti made a show of looking over Cruz's school file. He closed the file. "This is counseling, Cazador Cruz. We counsel each Cazador student several times during the course of the school . . . to help you learn, to improve. That's all this is. In looking over your file, and it's a short file now, I observe that you have been a somewhat better than average Cazador. True, you failed your first patrol. Most do. Nonetheless, the evaluations of your peers in your squad speak highly of you as a leader. And the CI for your first patrol thought that mostly you were let down by your assistant, Montoya."

Cruz bristled. "Montoya's okay. He just took a little longer than most getting used to the lack of sleep."

Olivetti shrugged. Alone he was a much friendlier sort than the ravening beast he usually put on for the students. "Forget about Montoya for now. You have been acting more listless than short rations and lack of sleep alone account for. What's the problem?"

Cruz hesitated to speak for a moment. When he did finally begin to talk, it came out in a torrent. "I don't understand this place. You starve us. You won't let us sleep. You keep us in constant fear of failure. You work and march us to death. And then, when somebody dies because he's too tired to pay attention and too weak to hang on to something, you act like it's just routine business. What's the point of that? This is supposed to be a leadership school. How can we learn when it's all we can do to stay awake? What does losing twenty pounds have to do with the ability to lead men in battle? Or is this all just some initiation rite at the legion's expense?"