Bill 7 - the Galactic Hero (23 page)

“Aha! Accepting aid and comfort from the enemy, too! On top of desertion.” The general wheeled and pointed to three of the officers in the room. “You, you, and you. What do you say?”

The three officers looked at each other in abject terror, praying that one of the others would speak first. Finally one of them decided that a wrong answer was less dangerous than no answer.

“Splunge!” he said.

“Splunge?” spluttered the general. “What kind of a verdict is that? I want guilty or not guilty!”

“Guilty!”

“Guilty!”

“Guilty!”

“Oh, yes sir, really guilty.”

“Very guilty.”

“Extremely guilty!”

“Enough!” General Weissearse turned back to Bill. “Well, Bill, you've been given a fair trial and found guilty of desertion and a bunch of other things we'll fill in later when we do the paperwork. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Bill didn't have to think about this one. “I'm too young to die!” he groaned.

“Son,” the general said paternally, putting one hand gently on Bill's head (he couldn't find a shoulder under all the chains), "that isn't one of the choices.

“May the Lord bless you, my boy. Okay, soldiers, take him out and shoot him.”

The MPs started to wrestle Bill back onto the dolly.

A thin gray man in a gray trench coat appeared, possibly out of a cabinet, because Bill hadn't seen him before and only saw him now because he was too trussed up to struggle, and whispered a few words in the general's ear. The general actually seemed to listen to him. They whispered back and forth for a couple of minutes.

Bill had time to watch all this, because the MPs were having a lot of trouble balancing him on the dolly; he kept falling off, and only the thick layer of chains kept him from a serious injury, which he would have appreciated a lot more if he weren't about to die. But at last they got him propped up and started to wheel him out.

“Wait!” intoned the general. “Bill, would you like a chance to redeem yourself?”

The assembled headquarters staff gasped in astonishment.

“Sure,” Bill said. “Do I get to stay alive?”

“No.”

“Do I get to stay alive a little longer?”

“Yes.”

It was another easy choice. “What do I have to do?”

While waiting for the final countdown, Bill ran over his equipment list one more time.

Suicide pill — check.

Teeny-tiny little radio transmitter disguised as a cockroach — check.

Yup, he had it all.

Now all he had to do was wait.

He didn't exactly know what he was waiting for. He'd never traveled by onager before. It was something very old-fashioned, which probably meant that it was usually reserved for the nobility, but so far it didn't feel all that comfortable.

The MPs had removed the chains, which was more comfortable than wearing them, and which certainly made a secret suicide mission a lot easier to accomplish. But the MPs were still standing there, on the platform above him, with their blasters aimed right at some of his favorite body parts.

Riding the onager, whatever it was, seemed to involve waiting in a big bowl. He was lying in the bowl now. It also seemed to involve some risk; he was wearing a backpack that was some kind of automatic device. The man in the gray trench coat had told him that Bill didn't have to know how to work it, at any rate.

So Bill just lay there and waited until an officer stuck his head up over the edge of the big bowl and said, “Ready to go?”

“Ready for final countdown, sir!”

“Countdown? Oh, all right. Five four three two one, go!” He pulled his head back and signaled to someone below. Bill heard an axe cut through something, and then he was airborne.

Aside from the surprise of it, being flung from a catapult was interesting, even pleasant. There was nothing between Bill and the pure experience of flight, no vehicle, not even a protective outfit like the commando suits. It was just Bill and the air, as he sped up over the battlefield among the surviving birds.

And then, after a little while of soaring up, he reached the top of his arc and started to go down.

For future reference, Bill noted that flapping his arms like a bird's wings was of no use whatsoever. Nor was praying. He already knew that whimpering did no good.

He began to wonder if the device in the backpack was a bomb or something. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to, just to make him dead. Maybe it was a new experimental method of execution, as though the military needed one.

He had been instructed to curl up into a ball once he started descending, and he actually remembered to do it once he'd exhausted his other options. It was something about reducing his radar profile, so he'd look like just another artillery shell. Bill didn't think it would do much for his chances for survival, but they were so close to nil that it didn't make any difference. While he was curled into the fetal position anyway, he stuck his thumb in his mouth too, for old times' sake. It had been reassuring once.

This time it nearly cost him his front teeth.

A few feet from the ground (as far as he could tell with his eyes squeezed shut), there was a singularly unpleasant crunching-wrenching sensation in his back. He came to a sudden stop.

In a few tiny fractions of a second, the antigravity generator in the pack stopped Bill in mid-plummet; fireworks blew out the back of the pack, simulating the landing of a shell in a small fireworks depot. At the same time the straps of the pack retracted, dropping Bill the last ten feet to the ground. Its mission accomplished, the pack gently lowered itself to the field, where tiny automatic shovels popped out and quickly buried it.

Bill pulled himself up, brushed off the worst of the mud, and looked around. It seemed that no one had noticed his arrival. He threw out the suicide pill and checked the bug. It still looked like a cockroach; its little legs and antennae worked away inside its glass tube.

Now he had to figure out where he was. The little gray man had assured Bill that he would land somewhere near the Eyerackian headquarters, where he was supposed to plant the tiny robot transmitter.

He looked carefully around. There was an opening in the ground, not far away, that reminded Bill of the entrance to the neutron mine. It was about the same size, but it was much busier. There were staff hovercars and trucks and people going in and out pretty steadily. The big doors hardly got a chance to close. Since this was the only structure in sight, aside from a few trenches and a couple of outhouses, Bill decided it was the best candidate for enemy headquarters. And if he got in there it would surely provide some shelter if the Troopers decided to start serious shelling to disguise his arrival.

Bill attached himself to the end of a column of marching soldiers that was headed inside. The officer at the head of the line was questioned, but the rest of them were waved right in, right past the sign at the entrance: TRULY DEMOCRATIC AND FREE ARMY OF THE GENUINELY DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PLANET OF EYERACK — Secret Military Headquarters. This was it, all right!

The column halted in a big room, and the officer gave the command to count off. Bill had to do some quick thinking. The officer must have had a record of how many soldiers had come in with him. That number would have to match the last number that was counted off. So in order to make the count come out right, Bill would either have to not give a number at all — but the person in front of him in the formation would notice that — or give the same number as the person before him, which he figured was much less likely to be noticed.

Bill was being a model soldier, eyes riveted in front, so he couldn't see much of what was going on. He noticed that the soldier in front of him needed a haircut; the Eyerackian army must be pretty disorganized, he thought, if they couldn't even shave every conscript's head. He also noticed that a lot of the voices in the room were kind of high-pitched; it was a shame that they had had to start drafting young boys, he thought.

Then it was almost his turn. The soldier in front of him piped, “Forty-five!”

In his best military style, Bill boomed out, “Forty-five!” That should fool them.

There was complete silence for a moment. Then Bill could hear the officer's boots walking slowly the length of the room, coming down to the end of the line, to Bill. He kept his eyes locked straight out.

“Right, face!” The order came from very near by.

Bill executed a perfect turn, moving only his feet. His view now included the top of an officerial hat.

“What are you doing here?” the officer demanded.

“Sergeant Bill, reporting for duty, sir!”

“I know who you are, you silly sausage. What made you think you could pose as one of my soldiers? Did you do this just to find me? How sweet!”

This didn't sound like any officer Bill had ever met before. He allowed himself to look down. “Calyfigia!”

She pointed to her collar. “Major Calyfigia, to you, buster. At least while we're on duty.”

Bill looked around. Not only was he the tallest soldier in the room by at least half a foot, he was the only man.

“What kind of unit is this?” Bill asked.

“The Third Volunteer Housewife Commandos,” Major Calyfigia said proudly. “Ready to defend hearth and home by assassinating the enemy. We infiltrate, posing as cleaning ladies, then plant bear-traps and bombs. But here I am chattering away, when I know President Grotsky must be dying to see you.”

All the way down through the warren of the headquarters, Calyfigia told him at exhausting length how the invasion had changed her whole outlook on the war. Basically, she had become a bloodthirsty, gung-ho warrior, out for vengeance. In husky tones she confided how Bill was now one of her heroes. “If you're free later, I'd like to discuss various forms of hand-to-hand combat with you,” she said with a sultry wink when she left him at the door to the war room.

Fortunately, Bill was used to being confused. He didn't bother telling Calyfigia that he was scheduled to be dead later. Nothing else ever happened on schedule, so maybe they might get together.

Noise came pouring out of the war room when Bill opened the door. People were shouting updated information, calling for files, discussing foreplay, screaming orders over the phones, and arguing over strategy, while a small swing band was playing in one corner. Bill stepped into the room, and it suddenly fell silent. Even the band broke off in the middle of “Boogie Woogie Synthesizer Boy.” Everyone was staring at Bill.

“Hi, guys,” he said. “I'm home!”

Millard Grotsky, wearing a field marshal's uniform, slowly rose from his desk and stared at Bill. “We were told you were dead.”

“Nope,” Bill said with a smile. “Almost, but not quite.”

“Good,” Grotsky said. “Very good. That means we can put you on trial for desertion!”

Bill didn't have any ready answers for that one, since by a strictly technical interpretation, what he had done — running away from this side during combat to join the other side — could be seen as desertion.

“I need three volunteers!” Grotsky declared. Nobody moved. “To be judges, that's all.” A forest of hands went up.

Within minutes a space had been cleared in the middle of the war room, with the president's desk at one end and a folding chair for Bill at the other. The three judges sat on one side.

President Grotsky stood up. “Officers of the court, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you all to our very first court-martial here in the freedom-loving, democratic, and law-abiding Republic of Eyerack. If I may, I'd like to open the proceedings with a short statement.”

He pointed a finger at Bill. “That man deserted from the army. He ought to be shot. Thank you. What is your verdict?”

The judges looked at each other. The one in the middle said, “Sounds good to me,” and shrugged.

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Can we go back to work now?” the first one asked.

“I object!” Bill objected.

“Why should you object if we go back to work?” the second judge asked.

“No, I object to the trial.”

The third judge said, “We had a trial. What more do you want?”

“Don't I get a chance to defend myself?”

The judges looked at President Grotsky for guidance.

“Gee, Bill, we've never had a court-martial before. Are you supposed to get a lawyer or something?”

“Of course. When I had my court-martial in the Troopers, even they let me get a lawyer and defend myself.”

“Hmm.” Grotsky conferred with a couple of his aides. “No, we haven't got any lawyers handy. Sent them all up with the combat units since everyone agreed that they would never be missed. But I guess we can let you speak for yourself. Speak.” He leaned back to listen.

“Not guilty, I am sure.” Bill needed to think fast and that had never been his strong point. This, being a case of life or death, however really started his braincells ticking over. “First off I'm not a citizen of Eyerack. I'm actually a citizen of the Empire, so in order to be free to join your army, I had to go back to the Empire and renounce my citizenship. Then I came back right away. How's that?”

“Not bad for a quick improvisation,” Grotsky said. “Judges?”

One of the judges worked at a computer. The computer buzzed loudly. “I'm sorry. You have to be a citizen to be drafted, but according to our records you volunteered. See?” He swiveled the screen around so Bill and the others could see the copy of Bill's file, where “drafted” had been neatly crossed out and changed to “volunteered.”

“I better try again.” Bill racked his brain until he remembered something from his first trial. “You declared martial law, right?” President Grotsky conceded that. “So the whole planet is like a military base, and I never left the planet, so I couldn't have deserted. Right?”

The third judge raised his hand. “Can I have this one?” The president nodded his assent. “When you were last seen by Lieutenant Rosenblatt you were airborne after an explosion. As far as we can tell, you dropped out of the sky near these headquarters some time later. You were definitely off the surface of the planet for some part of that time. Still guilty.”