'Far too late,' the nostril-flarer said. 'You're out of business, Jak, and in the army.'
This really was the biter bit. This time I had been just a little too smart for my own good. It looked like my new and exciting military career had just begun.
Chapter 7
The cell was small, the bed hard, I had no complaints. After the strenuous day I had just finished, sleep was the only thing that I wanted. I must have been snoring as I fell toward the canvas covers, with no memory of my face ever touching the stained pillow. I slept the sleep of exhaustion and awoke when a gray shaft of light filtered in through the barred window. I felt cheered and rested until I realized where I was. Dark depression fell. 'Well, it could be worse,' I said cheerily.
'How?' I snarled dispiritedly. There was no easy answer to that. My stomach rumbled with hunger and thirst and the depression deepened. 'Cry-baby,' I sneered. 'You've had it much worse than this. They took the dagger but nothing else. You have your money, your identification.' And the lockpick I added in silence. The presence of that little tool had a warming effect, holding out hope of eventual escape.
'I'm hungry!' a youthful voice cried out and there was a rattling of bars. Others took up the cry. 'Food. We're not criminals!'
'My mom always brought me breakfast in bed…' I was not too impressed by this last wail of complaint but sympathized with the general attitude. I joined the cry.
'All right, all right, shut up,' an older and gruffer voice called out. 'Chow is on the way. Not that you deserve anything, bunch of draft dodgers.'
'Cagal on that sergeant - I don't see your fat chunk in the army.'
I looked forward to meeting the last speaker; he showed a little more courage than the rest of the wailers. The wait wasn't too long, though it was scarcely worth it. Cold noodle soup with sweet red beans is not my idea of the way to start the day. I wondered how it would end.
I had plenty of time for wondering because after feeding time in the zoo we were left strictly alone. I stared up at the cracked ceiling and slowly began to realize that my ill fortune wasn't that bad when closely examined. I was alive and well in Nevenkebla. With a promising career ahead of me. I would learn the ropes, find out all I could about this society, maybe even get a lead on Garth - or General Zennor if Bibs had overheard the name correctly. He was in the army and I would very soon be in the army, which fact might work to my advantage. And I had the lockpick. When the right moment came I could do a little vanishing act. And how bad could the army be? I had been a soldier on Spiovente, which training should come in handy…
Oh, how we do fool ourselves.
Somewhere around midday, when my cowardly peer group were beginning to howl for more nourishment, the crash of opening cell doors began. The howls changed to cries of complaint as we were ordered from our cells and cuffed wrist to wrist in a long daisychain. About a dozen of us, similar of age and gloomy of mien. The unknown future lay darkly ahead. With much stumbling and curses we were led from the cell block to the prison compound where a barred vehicle waited to transport us to our destiny. It moved away silently after we had been herded aboard, battery or fuel cell powered, out into the crowded city streets. Clothes were slightly different, vehicles of unusual shapes, but it could have been any world of advanced technology. No wonder they had cut themselves off from the rest of this decadent planet. Selfish - but understandable.
No effete amenities like seats were provided for hardened criminals: so we clutched to the bars and swayed into each other at the turns. A thin, dark-haired youth secured to my left wrist sighed tremulously, then turned to me,
'How long you been on the run?' he asked.
'All my life.'
'Very funny. I've had six months since my birthday, six short months. Now it's all over.
'You're not dying - just going into the army.'
'What's the difference? My brother got drafted last year. He smuggled a letter out to me. That's when I decided to run. Do you know what he wrote—?' His eyes opened wide and he shivered at the memory, but before he could speak our transport slammed to a halt and we were ordered out.
The street scene was one to give joy to the eyes of any sadist. Varying forms of transport had converged on the plaza before the tall building. Emerging from them were young men, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, all wearing upon their faces a uniform expression of despair. Only our little band was manacled - the rest clutched the yellow draft notices that had dragged them to their destiny. A few of them had the energy to make mock of our manacled state, but they shrunk away under the chorus of our jeers. At least we had made some attempt, no matter how feeble, to escape military impressment. Nor did it appear to make any difference to the authorities. They did not care how they had managed to grab the bodies. Once inside the doors our chains were stripped away and we were herded into line with all the others. The faceless military machine was about to engulf us.
At first it did not seem too bad. The lines of youths crept forward toward desks manned by plump maternal types who might have been our morns or teachers. All of them had gray hair and wore spectacles, which they looked over the tops of when they weren't two-fingeredly hammering their typewriters. I finally reached mine and she smiled up at me.
'Your papers please, young man.'
I passed them over and she copied dates and names and incorrect facts into a number of forms. I saw the cable leading from her typewriter to a central computer and knew that everything was being recorded and ingested there as well. I was happy to see the false identity entered, when I un-volunteered I wanted to drop from sight.
'Here you are,' she said, and smiled, and passed over a buff file of papers. 'You just take these up to the fourth floor. And good luck in your military career.' I thanked her, it would be churlish not to, and started back toward the front doors. A solid line of unsmiling military police blocked any chance of exit.
'Fourth floor.' I said as the nearest one eyed me coldly and smacked his club into his palm.
The elevator cars were immense, big enough to take forty of us at a time. Nor did they leave until they were full. Jammed and miserable we rose to the fourth floor where a little taste of what awaited us awaited us. As the doors sighed open a military figure, all stripes and decorations, medals and red face came roaring toward us.
'Get out! Get out! Don't stand around like a bunch of poofters! Move it! Snap cagal or you'll be in the cagal. Take a box and a small transparent bag from the counter on the right as you pass. Then go to the far end of this room where you will UNDRESS. That means take all of your clothes off. AND I MEAN ALL OF YOUR CLOTHES! Your personal effects will go into the plastic bag which you will keep in your left hand at all times. All of your clothing will go into the box which you will take to the counter at the far end where it will be sealed and addressed and sent to your home. Where you will retrieve it after the war, or it will be buried with you, whichever comes first. Now MOVE!'
We moved. Unenthusiastically and reluctantly - but we had no choice. There must be a nudity taboo in this society because the youths spread out, trying to get close to the walls, huddled over as they stripped off their clothes. I found myself alone in the center of the room enjoying the scowled attention of the stripe-bearing monster. I quickly joined the others. So reluctant were they to reveal their shrinking flesh that dawdle as I might I was still first to the counter. Where a bored soldier seized my box and quickly sealed it, slammed it down before me and pointed to thick pens hung from the ceiling on elastic cords. 'Name-address-postcode-nearest-relative.' The words, empty of meaning through endless repetition, rolled out as he turned to seize up the next box. I scrawled the address of the police station where we had been held and when I released the pen the countertop opened and the box vanished. Very efficient. Plastic bag in left hand, folder in my right I joined the shivering group of pallid, naked young men who hung their heads as they waited their next orders. With their clothes gone all differences of identity seemed to have fled as well.
'You will now proceed to the eighteenth floor!' was the bellowed command. We proceeded. Into the elevator, forty at a time, doors closed, doors opened - into a vision of a sort of medical hell.
A babble of sound, shouts for attention, screamed orders, Doctors and medical orderlies garbed in white, many with cloth masks over their faces, poked and prodded in a mad mirror-image of medical practice. Senses
