"So you're a statistician, are you? Well, we don't need any
statisticians now. We just got in a whole squad of them. Can you use a
writer, maybe?"
* * * * *
"Yes, Sir," I did not remind the Senior Trontar that using a writer was
a clerk's job, not a Trontar's, not a combat three-striper's, because
the chances were that he knew it, for one thing. And he could easily
make me a clerk, for another thing.
"Okay. Now that we understand each other," the Senior Trontar grinned,
"or that you understand me, which is all that matters, here's your
job." He handed me a stack of scribbled notes, some rolls of speech
tape and a couple of cans of visual stuff. "Make up a report in
standard format like this example. Consolidate all this stuff into it.
This report has to be ready in two days, and it has to be perfect. No
misspellings, no erasures, no nothing. Got that?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Yes, Sir," he mimicked. "Haldor only knows why they couldn't send me a
few clerks instead of a squad of statisticians and one guard Trontar.
Do you know what this stuff is that you're going to work up? It's the
final report on our invasion here!"
I looked impressed. Strange how you learn, after a while, even the
facial expression you are supposed to wear.
"Do you know why this report has to be perfect in format and
appearance?" I wouldn't say the Senior Trontar's manner was bullying,
quite. Perhaps one could call it hectoring. "Because the Accountant
is out in this sector somewhere and we have to be ready for him if he
drops in."
This time I didn't have to try to look impressed. The Accountant is the
man who passes judgment on the conduct of all military matters--though
of course he's not one man, but maybe a dozen of them. Armed with
the invaluable weapon of hindsight, he drops in after an invasion
is completed. He determines whether the affair has gone according
to regulations, or whether there has been carelessness, slackness
or wasting of Haldorian resources of men or material. Additionally
he monitors civil administration of colonies and federated worlds.
There are stories of Generals becoming Fighter Basics and Chief
Administrators becoming sub-clerks after an Accountant's visit.
* * * * *
I got the report done, but it took the full two days--mainly because
fighting men make such incomplete and erroneous reports while action
is going on. I got to understand the exasperated concern of office
personnel who have to consolidate varied fragments into a coherent
whole. And adding to the natural difficulties of the task was the
continual presence of the Senior Trontar, and his barbed comments and
lurid promises as to what would follow my failure at the work.
But the report was done and sent in to the Adjutant.
It came back covered with scribbled changes, additions, and
deletions--and it came back carried by a much disturbed Senior Trontar.
"Who in Haldor do they think I am?" he moaned. "I just handed on to you
the figures that they gave me. Me! And threatening me with duty on a
space freighter ... and one into the Slug area at that!"
I thought, as I looked at my ruined script, that guard duty wasn't so
bad, and that even combat wasn't rough _all_ the time.
"See, Trontar," the four-striper said, calling me by my proper rank for
the first time, "you did a good job, the Adjutant himself said so. But
these figures...." he shuddered. "If the Accountant should see these
we'd all be for it. Space-freighter duty would be getting off light."
The Senior Trontar seemed almost human to me right then.
"I just put down what you gave me," I said.
"Yeah, sure, Ruxt. But I didn't realize, nobody realized, how bad the
figures were till they were all together and written up. Look, this
report shows that we shouldn't Terraform this planet--that we can't
make a nudnick on the slavery proposition--and that maybe we shouldn't
have even invaded this inferno at all."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"I'll tell you what you're going to do...." The Senior Trontar had
regained his normal nasty disposition. "You're going to re-do this
report. You're going to re-do it starting now, you're going to work on
it all night, and you're going to have it on my desk and in perfect
shape when I come in in the morning, or, by Haldor, the next thing you
write will be your transfer to the space freighter run nearest the Slug
Galaxy." The Senior Trontar ran momentarily out of breath. "And," he
came back strongly, "you won't be going as no Trontar, neither!"
"It'll be on your desk in the morning, Sir," I said.
Deck hands on the space freighter run were, I'd heard, particularly
expendable.
* * * * *
By the middle of the third watch I had completed a perfect copy of the
report complete with attachments, appendices, and supplements. And also
by this time I knew from the differences between the original report
and this jawboned version that someone had goofed badly in undertaking
this invasion, and then had goofed worse in not calling the thing off.
Now there was to be considerable covering-up of tracks. The thought
suddenly came to me that a guard's trontar named Ruxt knew rather a
lot of what had gone on. Following that mildly worrying thought came a
notion that perhaps a guard's trontar named Ruxt might be considered
by some as just another set of tracks to be covered up. That far-off
retirement on a small but steady income became even more unlikely, and
the possibilities began to appear of a quick end in the Slug-shattered
hulk of a space freighter.
Had the Senior Trontar changed in his attitude towards me, towards
the end of the day, perhaps acted as though I were a condemned man?
Possibly. And had some of the officers been whispering about me late in
the afternoon? Could have been.
Shaken, I wandered down to the mess hall and joined a group of
third-watch guards, who were goofing off while their Trontar was
checking more distant guard posts.
"It's easy," one of them was telling the others. "All you got to do is
to slip some surgeon/replacer a few big notes and he gives you this
operation which makes you look like a native. And then you just settle
down on Astarte for the rest of your life with the women just begging
you to let them support you."
"You mean you'd rather live on some lousy federated world than be a
Haldorian in the Invasion Forces?" There was a strong sardonic note in
the questioner's voice.
"Man, you ever been on Astarte?" the first man asked incredulously.
"Yeah, but how are you going to be sure that the surgeon/replacer
doesn't turn you in?" objected one of the others. "He could take your
money, do the operation, and have you picked up. That way he'd have the
money and get a medal too."
"I'd get around that," the talky guy said, "I'd just...."
At this point he was jabbed in the arm by one of his buddies who had
noticed my eavesdropping. The man shut up. All four of them drifted off
to their posts.
* * * * *
I went reluctantly back to the office. From then till dawn I dreamed
up and rehearsed all manner of wild schemes to take me out of this
dangerous situation. Or was it all perhaps just imagination? A
Haldorian Trontar should never be guilty of an excess of that quality.
But I made sure when the Senior Trontar sneaked in a bit before the
regular opening time, that I was just, apparently, completing the last
page of the report. The impression I hoped to convey was that I had
spent the entire night in working and worrying.
"It's okay," the Senior Trontar growled after he had studied the
completed report. "Guess you can take a couple of days off, Ruxt. I
believe in taking care of my men. Say," he asked casually, "I suppose
you didn't understand those figures you were working up, did you?"
"No," I said, "I didn't pay any attention to them, they were just
something to copy, that's all." I felt confident that I could out-fence
the Senior Trontar any time at this little game, but what had he and
the Adjutant been whispering about before they had come in?
"But you used to be a statistician, didn't you?" He looked at the far
corner of the room and smiled slightly. "But you take a couple days
off, Ruxt. Maybe we'll find something good for you when you come back."
He smiled again. "Don't forget to check out with the Locator before you
go, though. We don't want to lose you."
I stumbled home, not even noticing the hate-filled glances my armor and
blue skin drew from the natives along the streets. The glances were
standard, but this feeling of being doomed was new.
They were going to get me. I felt sure of that, even though my Sike
Test Scores had always been as low as any normal's. But how could a
Haldorian disappear on this planet? Aside from skin color, there was
the need to keep body temperatures at a livable level. The body armor
unit was good only for about a week. Find a surgeon/replacer and bribe
him to change me to an Earthman? I saw now how ridiculous such an idea
was. But was there nothing but to wait passively while the Senior
Trontar and the Adjutant, and whoever else did the dirty work, all got
together and railroaded me off?
Haldorians, though, never surrender--or so the Mil Prop lad would have
us believe. Right from the time you are four years old and you start
seeing the legendary founders of Haldoria--Bordt and Smordt--fighting
off the fierce six-legged carnivores, you are told never to give up.
"Where there's Haldor, there's Hope!" "There's always another stone for
the wolves, if you but look." I must confess I'd snickered (way deep
inside, naturally) at these exhortations ever since I'd reached the age
of thinking, but now all these childhood admonitions came rushing back
to give me strength, quite as they were intended to do. I found that I
could but go down like any Haldorian, fighting to the last.