"You know, Trontar," I said, "I was hoping to see more of this world
here, and the rumor is that all of us excess combat types are being
shipped to a training world to be shaped into new invasion forces."
"Tough," he said. He should know. He'd requisitioned a mansion complete
with servants and everything. He even had a native trained to drive one
of their luxuriously inefficient ground vehicles. What a deal! That
Trontar had no worries, _his_ anti-grav ray was working.
* * * * *
"I heard that a man doesn't even need any money if he's stationed down
at our headquarters," I said, and I hauled out a handful of Haldorian
notes from my pocket. "Guess I wouldn't need this stuff if I was
transferred down to our headquarters."
"Who needs money?" he asked. "Guys all the time trying to bribe me,
Trontar. You'd be surprised. Sure glad you aren't, though, because I
do hate to turn anyone in."
I put the money back in my pocket. "Speaking of turning in people,"
I said casually, "you ever have any trouble with the undercover boys
about all this loot you've picked up?" This, I thought, would shake
him--and at the same time I marvelled at how I'd changed from a simple,
naive statistician to a tough and conniving combat NCO.
He yawned all over his fat face and swung his swivel chair so that
he could better admire the picture beside his desk. I recognized the
picture as a moderately good reproduction of a Huxtner, a minor painter
of our XXVth. "No," the Assignments Trontar said, "it turns out that
one of my sept brothers runs the local watch birds. He often drops in
here to visit with me. But anything I can do for you, Trontar?"
"No," I said, and I fired at the only possible loophole left, "I'll
just leave quietly so you can admire your Huxtner."
He swung back to me with a start. "You recognize a Huxtner? You're the
first man I've ever met in the service who ever heard of Huxtner, let
alone recognizing one of his masterpieces! Hey, did you know I brought
this all the way from home in my hammock roll? And just look at the
coloring of that figure there!"
The loophole had been blasted wide open. "You're lucky," I said,
and I went on to lie about how I'd lost my own Huxtner prints in the
invasion. "No one," I continued, "ever got quite that flesh tint of
Huxtner's, did they?"
Huxtner, by the way, is notorious for using a yellow undercoat for his
blue flesh colors, unlike every realistic painter before or after who
have all used green undercoats--what else? Imagine a chrome-yellow
underlaying a blue skin color. All Huxtner's figures look like two-week
corpses--but Huxtner enthusiasts are unique.
The Assignments Trontar and I had a nice long chat about Huxtner, at
the conclusion of which he insisted on scratching my name from the
list of combat-bound men and putting me on a much smaller list of men
scheduled for our guard outfit, stationed at the old Terran capital of
Washington.
I had an un-Haldorian feeling of having arranged my own life after that
incident. That feeling persisted even after I took over one of the
guard platoons and discovered that life in a guard outfit is rather
similar to Basic Fighter Course.
"Trontar Ruxt! Two men of your platoon have tarnished armor. Get them
working on it, and maybe you'd better stay and see that they do it
properly."
"Yes, Sir."
One lives and learns. I turned the job of supervising the armor
cleaning to the Hweetorals of the squads and then I went home to my
native woman. Yes, this guard's outfit life was like Fighter Basic
Course.
But only for the lower ranks.