Space Cadet (7 page)

“Martin!”

This time there was no hesitation. He heard Tex’s voice, his tone shrill: “I answer for him.”

“Rivera.”

A strong baritone: “Answering for Rivera!”

“Wheeler!”

“I answer for Wheeler.”

The cadet turned toward the Commandant and saluted:

“All present, sir. Class of 2075, First Muster complete.”

The man in black returned the salute. “Very well, sir. We will proceed with the oath.” He stepped forward to the very edge of the platform, the cadet at his elbow. “Raise your right hands.”

The Commandant raised his own hand. “Repeat after me: Of my own free will, without reservation—”

“‘Of my own free will, without reservation—’”

“I swear to uphold the peace of the Solar System—”

In chorus they followed him.

“—to protect the lawful liberties of its inhabitants—

“—to defend the constitution of the Solar Federation—

“—to carry out the duties of the position to which I am now appointed—

“—and to obey the lawful orders of my superior officers.

“To these ends I subordinate all other loyalties and renounce utterly any that may conflict with them.

“This I solemnly affirm in the Name I hold most sacred.”

“So help me, God,” concluded the Commandant. Matt repeated his words, but the response around him took a dozen different forms, in nearly as many languages.

The Commandant turned his head to the cadet by his side. “Dismiss them, sir.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The cadet raised his voice. “On being dismissed, face to the right and file out. Maintain your formation until clear of the door. Dismissed!”

At the cue of his command, music swelled out and filled the hall; the newly created cadets marched away to the strains of the Patrol’s own air,
The Long Watch
. It persisted until the last of them were gone, then faded out.

The Commandant waited until the youngster cadets had left, then faced around. His aide joined him at once, whereupon the acting cadet adjutant moved quickly from his side. Commodore Arkwright turned toward the departing cadet. “Mr. Barnes.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Are you ready to be commissioned?”

“Er—I don’t think so, sir. Not quite.”

“So? Well, come see me soon.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

The Commodore turned away and headed rapidly for the stage exit, with his aide’s sleeve brushing his. “Well, John,” asked the senior, “What did you think of them?”

“A fine bunch of boys, sir.”

“That was my impression. All youth and eagerness and young expectation. But how many of them will we have to eliminate? It’s a sorry thing, John, to take a boy and change him so that he is no longer a civilian, then kick him out. It’s the crudest duty we have to perform.”

“I don’t see a way to avoid it.”

“There is no way. If we had some magic touchstone—Tell the field that I want to raise ship in thirty minutes.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The Patrol Academy may lack ivy-covered buildings and tree-shaded walks; it does not lack room. There are cadets in every reach of the Federation, from ships circling Venus, or mapping the scorched earth of Mercury, to ships patrolling the Jovian moons.

Even on years-long exploration flights to the frozen fringes of the Solar System cadets go along—and are brevetted as officers when their captains think them ready, without waiting to return.

The public thinks of the Academy as the school ship P.R.S.
James Randolph
, but every cadet mess in every ship of the Patrol is part of the Academy. A youngster cadet is ordered to the
Randolph
as soon as he is sworn in and he remains attached to that ship until he is ready to go to a regular Patrol vessel as a passed cadet. His schooling continues; in time he is ordered back to where he started, Hayworth Hall, to receive his final polish.

An oldster, attached to Hayworth Hall, will not necessarily be there. He may be at the radiation laboratories of Oxford University, or studying interplanetary law at the Sorbonne, or he may even be as far away as Venus, at the Institute for System Studies. Whatever his route—and no two cadets pursue exactly the same course of training—the Academy is still in charge of him, until, and
if
, he is commissioned.

How long it takes depends on the cadet. Brilliant young Hartstone, who died on the first expedition to Pluto, was brevetted less than a year after he reported to Hayworth Hall as a groundhog candidate. But it is not unusual to find oldsters at Terra Base who have been cadets for five years or more.

Cadet Matthew Dodson admired himself in the mirror of the ’fresher. The oyster-white uniform he had found waiting when he returned from First Muster the evening before, and with it a small book of regulations embossed with his name and clipped to a new assignment schedule. The schedule had started out: “1. Your first duty as a cadet is to read the regulation book herewith, at once. Hereafter you are responsible for the contents.”

He had read it before taps, until his mind was a jumble of undigested rules: “A cadet is an officer in a limited sense—” “—behave with decorum and sobriety appropriate to the occasion—” “—in accordance with local custom rather than Patrol custom unless in conflict with an invariant law of the Federation or regulation of the Patrol.” “—but the responsibility of determining the legality of the order rests on the person ordered as well as on the person giving the order.” “—circumstances not covered by law or regulation must be decided by the individual in the light of the living tradition of the Patrol.” “Cadets will at all times be smooth-shaven and will not wear their hair longer than two inches.”

He felt that he understood the last mentioned.

He got up before reveille the next morning and dived into the ’fresher, shaved hastily and rather unnecessarily and got into uniform.

It fit him well enough, but to his eye the fit was perfect, the styling superb. As a matter of fact, the uniform lacked style, decoration, trim, insignia, or flattering cut.

But Matt thought he looked wonderful.

Burke pounded on the ’fresher door. “Have you died in there?” He stuck his head in. “Oh—all right, so you look sweet. Now how about getting out?”

“Coming.” Matt stalled around the room for a few minutes, then overcome by impatience, tucked his regulation book in his tunic (regulation #383), and went to the refectory. He walked in feeling self-conscious, proud, and about seven feet tall. He sat down at his table, one of the first to arrive. Cadets trickled in; Cadet Sabbatello was one of the last.

The oldster looked grimly down the table. “Attention,” he snapped. “All of you—stand up.”

Matt jumped to his feet with the rest. Sabbatello sat down. “From now on, gentlemen, make it a rule to wait until your seniors are seated. Be seated.” The oldster studied the studs in front of him, punched his order, and looked up. The youngsters had resumed eating. He rapped the table sharply. “Quiet, please. Gentlemen, you have many readjustments to make. The sooner you make them, the happier you will be. Mr. Dodson—stop dunking your toast; you are dripping it on your uniform. Which brings me,” he went on, “to the subject of table manners—”

Matt returned to his quarters considerably subdued.

He stopped by Tex’s room and found him thumbing through the book of regulations. “Hello, Matt. Say, tell me something—is there anything in this bible that says Mr. Dynkowski has the right to tell me not to blow on my coffee?”

“I see you’ve had it, too. What happened?”

Jarman’s friendly face wrinkled. “Well, I’d begun to think of Ski as an all-right guy, helpful and considerate. But this morning at breakfast he starts out by asking me how I manage to carry around all that penalty-weight.” Tex glanced at his waist line; Matt noted with surprise that Tex looked quite chubby in cadet uniform.

“All us Jarmans are portly,” Tex went on defensively. “He should see my Uncle Bodie. Then he—”

“Skip it,” said Matt. “I know the rest of it—now.”

“Well, I guess I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“Probably not.” Matt looked through the book. “Maybe this will help. It says here that, in case of doubt, you may insist that the officer giving the order put it in writing and stamp his thumbprint, or use other means to provide a permanent record.”

“Does it, really?” Tex grabbed the book. “That’s for me!—’cause I sure am in doubt. Boy! Just wait and see his face when I pull this one.”

“I’d like to,” agreed Matt. “Which way do you take the lift, Tex?” The Patrol Rocket Ship
Simon Bolivar
, transport, was at Santa Barbara Field, having discharged a battalion of Space Marines, but P.R.S.
Bolivar
could take but about half the new class. The rest were to take the public shuttle rocket from Pike’s Peak launching catapult to Terra Space Station, there to be transferred to the
Randolph
.

“Transport,” Tex answered. “How about you?”

“Me, too. I’d like to see Terra Station, but I’m glad we’re going in a Patrol ship. What are you taking with you?”

Tex hauled out his luggage and hefted it. “It’s a problem. I’ve got about fifty pounds here. Do you suppose if I rolled it up real small I could get it down to twenty pounds?”

“An interesting theory,” Matt said. “Let’s have a look at it—you’ve got to eliminate thirty pounds of penalty-weight.”

Jarman spread his stuff out on the floor. “Well,” Matt said at once, “you don’t need all those photographs.” He pointed to a dozen large stereos, each weighing a pound or more.

Tex looked horrified. “Leave my harem behind?” He picked up one. “There is the sweetest redhead in the entire Rio Grande Valley.” He picked up another. “And Smitty—I couldn’t get along without Smitty. She thinks I’m wonderful.”

“Wouldn’t she still think so if you left her pic behind?”

“Oh, of course. But it wouldn’t be gallant.” He considered. “I’ll compromise—I’ll leave behind my club.”

“Your club?” Matt asked, failing to see anything of that description.

“The one I use to beat off the little darlings when they get too persistent.”

“Oh. Maybe someday you’ll teach me your secret. Yes, leave your club behind; there aren’t any girls in the
Randolph
.”

“Is that good?” demanded Tex.

“I refuse to commit myself.” Matt studied the pile. “You know what I’d suggest? Keep that harmonica—I like harmonica music. Have those photos copied in micro. Feed the rest to the cat.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“I’ve got the same problem.” He went to his room. The class had the day free, for the purpose of getting ready to leave Earth. Matt spread his possessions out to look them over. His civilian clothes he would ship home, of course, and his telephone as well, since it was limited by its short range to the neighborhood of an earth-side relay office.

He made a note to telephone home before he packed the instrument. Might as well make one other call, too, he decided; even though he was resolved not to waste time on girls in his new life, it would be polite to phone and say good-by. He did so.

He put the instrument down a few minutes later, baffled to find that he had apparently promised to write regularly.

He called home, spoke with his parents and kid brother, and then put the telephone with things to be shipped. He was scratching his head over what remained when Burke came in. He grinned. “Trying to swallow your penalty-weight?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“You don’t have to leave that junk behind, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Ship it up to Terra Station, rent a locker, and store it. Then, when you go on liberty to the Station, you can bring back what you want. Sneak it aboard, if it’s that sort of thing.” Matt made no comment; Burke went on, “What’s the matter, Galahad? Shocked at the notion of running contraband?”

“No. But I don’t have a locker at Terra Station.”

“Well, if you’re too cheap to rent one, you can ship the stuff to mine. You scratch me and I’ll scratch you.”

“No, thanks.” He thought about expressing some things to the Terra Station post office, then discarded the idea—the rates were too high. He went on sorting. He would keep his camera, but his micro kit would have to go, and his chessmen. Presently he had cut the list to what he hoped was twenty pounds; he took the stuff away to weigh it.

Reveille and breakfast were an hour early the next day. Shortly after breakfast the call-to-muster ran through Hayworth Hall, to be followed by heart-quickening strains of “Raise Ship!” Matt slung his jump bag over his shoulder and hurried down to the lower corridors. He pushed his way through a throng of excited youngster cadets and found his assigned area.

Muster was by squads and Matt was a temporary squad leader, as his name came first, alphabetically, in his squad. He had been, given a list; he reached into his pouch and had an agonizing moment of thinking he had left it up in his room before his fingers closed on it. “Dodsworth!”

“Here.”

“Dunstan,”

“Here.”

He was still working through Frankel, Freund, and Funston when the oldster mustering the entire corridor shouted for him to report. He hurried to a conclusion, faced around, and saluted. “Squad nineteen—all present!”