Starship Troopers

split and there was blood on his chin and on his shirt and his cap was missing. He looked wild-eyed.

The men on each side of him were boots. They each had rifles; Hendrick did not. One of them was from my squad, a kid named Leivy. He seemed excited and pleased, and slipped me a wink when nobody was looking.

Captain Frankel looked surprised. “What is this, Sergeant?”

Zim stood frozen straight and spoke as if he were reciting something by rote. “Sir, H Company Commander reports to the Battalion Commander. Discipline. Article nine-one-oh-seven. Disregard of tactical command and doctrine, the team being in simulated combat. Article nine-one-two-oh. Disobedience of orders, same conditions.”

Captain Frankel looked puzzled. “You are bringing this to me, Sergeant? Officially?”

I don’t see how a man can manage to look as embarrassed as Zim looked and still have no expression of any sort in his face or voice. “Sir. If the Captain pleases. The man refused administrative discipline. He insisted on seeing the Battalion Commander.”

“I see. A bedroll lawyer. Well, I still don’t understand it, Sergeant, but technically that’s his privilege. What was the tactical command and doctrine?”

“A ‘freeze,’ sir.” I glanced at Hendrick, thinking: Oh, oh, he’s going to catch it. In a “freeze” you hit dirt, taking any cover you can, fast, and then freeze—don’t move at all, not even twitch an eyebrow, until released. Or you can freeze when you’re already in cover. They tell stories about men who had been hit while in freeze … and had died slowly but without ever making a sound or a move.

Frankel’s brows shot up. “Second part?”

“Same thing, sir. After breaking freeze, failing to return to it on being so ordered.”

Captain Frankel looked grim. “Name?”

Zim answered. “Hendrick, T.C., sir. Recruit Private R-P-seven-nine-six-oh-nine-two-four.”

“Very well. Hendrick, you are deprived of all privileges for thirty days and restricted to your tent when not on duty or at meals, subject only to sanitary necessities. You will serve three hours extra duty each day under the Corporal of the Guard, one hour to be served just before taps, one hour just before reveille, one hour at the time of the noonday meal and in place of it. Your evening meal will be bread and water — as much bread as you can eat. You will serve ten hours extra duty each Sunday, the time to be adjusted to permit you to attend divine services if you so elect.”

(I thought: Oh my! He threw the book.)

Captain Frankel went on: “Hendrick, the only reason you are getting off so lightly is that I am not permitted to give you any more than that without convening a court-martial … and I don’t want to spoil your company’s record. Dismissed.” He dropped his eyes back to the papers on his desk, the incident already forgotten—

—and Hendrick yelled, “You didn’t hear my side of it!”

The Captain looked up. “Oh. Sorry. You have a side?”

“You’re darn right I do! Sergeant Zim’s got it in for me! He’s been riding me, riding me, riding me, all day long from the time I got here! He—”

“That’s his job,” the Captain said coldly. “Do you deny the two charges against you?”

“No, but—He didn’t tell you I was lying on an anthill.”

Frankel looked disgusted. “Oh. So you would get yourself killed and perhaps your teammates as well because of a few little ants?”

“Not ‘just a few’—there were hundreds of ’em. Stingers.”

“So? Young man, let me put you straight. Had it been a nest of rattlesnakes you would still have been expected — and required — to freeze.” Frankel paused. “Have you anything at all to say in your own defense?”

Hendrick’s mouth was open. “I certainly do! He hit me! He laid hands on me! The whole bunch of ’em are always strutting around with those silly batons, whackin’ you across the fanny, punchin’ you between the shoulders and tellin’ you to brace up — and I put up with it. But he hit me with his hands—he knocked me down to the ground and yelled, ‘Freeze! you stupid jackass!’ How about that?”

Captain Frankel looked down at his hands, looked up again at Hendrick. “Young man, you are under a misapprehension very common among civilians. You think that your superior officers are not permitted to ‘lay hands on you,’ as you put it. Under purely social conditions, that is true — say if we happened to run across each other in a theater or a shop, I would have no more right, as long as you treated me with the respect due my rank, to slap your face than you have to slap mine. But in line of duty the rule is entirely different—”

The Captain swung around in his chair and pointed at some loose-leaf books. “There are the laws under which you live. You can search every article in those books, every court-martial case which has arisen under them, and you will not find one word which says, or implies, that your superior officer may not ‘lay hands on you’ or strike you in any other manner in line of duty. Hendrick, I could break your jaw … and I simply would be responsible to my own superior officers as to the appropriate necessity of the act. But I would not be responsible to you. I could do more than that. There are circumstances under which a superior officer, commissioned or not, is not only permitted but required to kill an officer or a man under him, without delay and perhaps without warning — and, far from being punished, be commended. To put a stop to pusillanimous conduct in the face of the enemy, for example.”

The Captain tapped on his desk. “Now about those batons — They have two uses. First, they mark the men in authority. Second, we expect them to be used on you, to touch you up and keep you on the bounce. You can’t possibly be hurt with one, not the way they are used; at most they sting a little. But they save thousands of words. Say you don’t turn out on the bounce at reveille. No doubt the duty corporal could wheedle you, say ‘pretty please with sugar on it,’ inquire if you’d like breakfast in bed this morning — if we could spare one career corporal just to nursemaid you. We can’t, so he gives your bedroll a whack and trots on down the line, applying the spur where needed. Of course he could simply kick you, which would be just as legal and nearly as effective. But the general in charge of training and discipline thinks that it is more dignified, both for the duty corporal and for you, to snap a late sleeper out of his fog with the impersonal rod of authority. And so do I. Not that it matters what you or I think about it; this is the way we do it.”

Captain Frankel sighed. “Hendrick, I have explained these matters to you because it is useless to punish a man unless he knows why he is being punished. You’ve been a bad boy — I say ‘boy’ because you quite evidently aren’t a man yet, although we’ll keep trying — a surprisingly bad boy in view of the stage of your training. Nothing you have said is any defense, nor even any mitigation; you don’t seem to know the score nor have any idea of your duty as a soldier. So tell me in your own words why you feel mistreated; I want to get you straightened out. There might even be something in your favor, though I confess that I cannot imagine what it could be.”

I had sneaked a look or two at Hendrick’s face while the Captain was chewing him out — somehow his quiet, mild words were a worse chewing-out than any Zim had ever given us. Hendrick’s expression had gone from indignation to blank astonishment to sullenness.

“Speak up!” Frankel added sharply.

“Uh … well, we were ordered to freeze and I hit the dirt and I found I was on this anthill. So I got to my knees, to move over a couple of feet, and I was hit from behind and knocked flat and he yelled at me — and I bounced up and popped him one and he—”

“STOP!” Captain Frankel was out of his chair and standing ten feet tall, though he’s hardly taller than I am. He stared at Hendrick.

“You … struck … your … company commander?”

“Huh? I said so. But he hit me first. From behind, I didn’t even see him. I don’t take that off of anybody. I popped him and then he hit me again and then—”

“Silence!”

Hendrick stopped. Then he added, “I just want out of this lousy outfit.”

“I think we can accommodate you,” Frankel said icily. “And quickly, too.”

“Just gimme a piece of paper, I’m resigning.”

“One moment. Sergeant Zim.”

“Yes, sir.” Zim hadn’t said a word for a long time. He just stood, eyes front and rigid as a statue, nothing moving but his twitching jaw muscles. I looked at him now and saw that it certainly was a shiner — a beaut.