And I thought the moon was cold.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Slugs were remaking Ganymede just the way they liked it. That meant they had so far warmed it to zero Fahrenheit in the twilight that passed for day way out there. The atmosphere they breathed was 2 percent oxygen, not 16 percent like Earth. Gases trapped in Sluggo’s tissues confirmed remote spectroscopy. Ganymede’s artificial atmosphere was also as thin as the air miles above sea level.
So when the UN looked for a place to train the Infantry division that was going to fight on Ganymede, it needed a place where the air was cold and thin but that had enough infrastructure to move troops in and out and house ten thousand of them plus trainers and alternates.
Camp Hale, Colorado, was old, like Indiantown Gap. It sat two miles above sea level on the western slope of the Rockies, six miles north of the old silver-mining town of Leadville . Built during World War II to train and house ski troops, it had been knocked down to nothing but foundations in the snow.
But you wouldn’t have known that as the helicopter drifted over the base carrying me and a dozen other GEF selectees.
Luna Base had been built from nothing a quarter million miles from Earth in short months. Camp Hale’s snowy foundations were closer to home, but the sprawled prefab structures, roads, and bustling troops and vehicles were equally startling.
Mountains around Camp Hale thrust up another half mile higher, the peaks above tree line as gaunt as ax blades.
As an early arrival, I drew modern gear and humped it all to my billet, which was a double room in the barracks complex that housed Headquarters Battalion of GEF. I had stowed my gear in my locker when my roomie arrived.
He rapped on the doorjamb. “You Wander?” He stuck out his hand. “Ari Klein.”
He wore civvies, but I knew already that my roomie was part of Howard Hibble’s Military Intelligence company. Ari Klein was rostered as our TOT-Wrangler, so I expected weird.
Ari’s black hair reached such unmilitary length that it curled like wool. Over it perched a knit yarmulke . His eyes were dark beneath bushy brows, but his smile was broad. The TOT-Wrangler scars showed faint at each temple. “Howdy.”
He wore a plaid shirt, jeans, and ostrich-skin boots. Intelligence Branch. My roommate was a Jewish cowboy.
“Don’t let the outfit fool you. I’m not a real cowboy. I’m from North Dallas.”
Ari was a surprise, but his duffel was astonishing. It wriggled. He set it on his bunk, unsnapped it, and stood back while I stared.
A six-legged, black velvet football wriggled out and stared back at me with eyes the size of gray Oreos.
“Jason, meet Jeeb.”
Everybody has heard about Tactical Observation Transports, but few people have been as close to a TOT as I was to Jeeb.
Theoretically, a TOT’s just a sophisticated version of the police surveillance drones seen over every American neighborhood day in and day out. Except that a drone has a four-foot wingspan and costs a couple hundred thousand. Ari’s tin friend cost as much as a tank battalion. So even division-size units like GEF only got one.
A TOT, even with wings spread, can fly through the average window with six inches to spare. It can crawl on six legs faster than a cheetah can run, has a velvet-texture skin invisible to radar and infrared, can change color to blend with its surroundings like a chameleon. Its ultra-tanium chassis is hardened against small-arms rounds, fire, water, and the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear blast
Ari clucked, and his robot alter ego hopped onto his shoulder, still watching me. “He’s a J-series. He’s the second one, ‘B,’ of six. So, Jeeb.”
Jeeb twisted his head to take in the room. He imaged visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, and radar. He heard sound from five to fifty thousand hertz and soft as a rat fart, plus all bands of radio.
“Is he looking for his bunk?” I asked. Ari shook his head. “He’s programmed to scan for eavesdropping sensors. He makes you nervous, doesn’t he?”
“Nah.” Of course he did. I was sleeping with a mechanical cockroach as big as a Thanksgiving turkey.
Jeeb hopped from Ari’s shoulder to the windowsill, worked the latch with one arm while perched on the other five, and threw up the sash. The covering on his back split, telescoped into wings, and Jeeb flew away.
Ari grinned as he began unpacking the inanimate parts of his gear. “The Swedish troops are landing. Half women. Babefest!”
Ari was seeing them as he spoke, through Jeeb’s eyes. A TOT displayed holo images on a suitcase-size viewer for analysis, but its input also beamed directly into the Wrangler’s brain, through surgical implants.
TOTs are just metal-and-plastic machines. They respond to the thoughts of their Wranglers and to no other input, immune to jamming. They have enough artificial intelligence to function when out of range of their Wranglers, but no personality, theoretically. But I read that Wranglers and TOTs are closer than the old K-9 dogs and trainers.
Ari laughed. “The Swedes are catching hell from the drills, blonde or not.”
GEF was technically a UN operation. But after a century as the world’s policeman, the US military, sad as it was, functioned light-years ahead of the rest of the world’s. Most of GEF’s troops were American. Most of GEF’s equipment was American. Most of GEF’s trainers were American.
So experienced soldiers arriving from other countries were being subjected to American boot-camp indoctrination just to get them up to speed with the likes of me.
Ari consulted his wrist ‘puter. “Hour ’til chow. Let’s go down to the airstrip so you can see it, too.”
By the time we arrived the decorative Swedes had moved out for a jolly double-time around the post.
A Here disgorged a sorry-looking bunch of male and female soldiers.
“Egyptians.” Ari was getting input from Jeeb. I shaded my eyes with my hand and squinted at the low clouds. I knew Jeeb hovered up there, but still I couldn’t find him, his belly chameleoned gray to match the clouds.
“They’re bitching about the cold.” Jeeb also translated languages, dialects, codes, and ciphers in real time as he sent his eavesdroppings back into Ari’s head.
The Egyptians formed up and stood more or less at attention. Frigid wind off the peaks ruffed the fleece halos on our parka hoods. The poor Egyptians wore just desert fatigues and shivered on the runway, especially the small or skinny ones.
A voice echoed across the runway.
“Sir? Commissioned officers are addressed as ‘Sir’! I am Division Sergeant Major Ord and am so addressed!”
Even though the words weren’t addressed to me, I shivered.
Ord! It hadn’t occurred to me that Pittsburgh had made Ord a war orphan, eligible for GEF, just like me. But with his qualifications he didn’t need to capture a Slug to get in, like I had.
As divison sergeant major, he ruled my HQ Battalion with an iron fist. Oh joy.
We sidled up to the formation.
The object of Ord’s affection was a young, female soldier, who wore the uniform of an Egyptian army lieutenant. In GEF, we all gave up our rank pending final assignment. She was just another grunt.
She stood maybe four-ten, so Ord had to bend at the waist to get nose to nose with her.
When he finally drew back, I saw her face and nearly stopped breathing.
Her skin was olive and flawless, her eyes wide and dark, and her features perfect. Fatigues don’t reveal much about a woman’s shape, but hers looked promising.
As Ari and I watched, arms folded and smirking, Ord ended his welcome spiel. He commanded, “Dis- missed !”
The Egyptians spun stunned about-faces, picked up their gear, and jogged toward trucks that would haul them to the quartermaster building.
