Old Man's War Boxed Set 1 (4 page)

“So, how is your new roommate?” Harry asked me, taking the seat next to me in the observation deck theater.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said. I had used my PDA to navigate to my stateroom, where I found my roommate already stowing his belongings: Leon Deak. He glanced over, said, “Oh, look, it’s the Bible freak,” and then studiously ignored me, which took some doing in a room that was ten by ten. Leon had already taken the bottom bunk (which, to seventy-five-year-old knees at least, is the desirable bunk); I threw my carry-on onto the top bunk, took my PDA and went to get Jesse, who was on the same deck. Her roommate, a nice lady by the name of Maggie, bowed out of watching the
Henry Hudson
break orbit. I told Jesse who my roommate was; she just laughed.

She laughed again when she related the story to Harry, who sympathetically patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t feel too bad. It’s only until we get to Beta Pyxis.”

“Wherever
that
is,” I said. “How is your roommate?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Harry said. “He was already asleep when I got there. Took the bottom bunk, too, the bastard.”

“My roommate was simply lovely,” Jesse said. “She offered me a homemade cookie when I met her. Said her granddaughter had made them as a going-away gift.”

“She didn’t offer
me
a cookie,” I said.

“Well, she doesn’t have to live with
you,
now does she.”

“How was the cookie?” Harry asked.

“It was like an oatmeal rock,” Jesse said. “But that’s not the point. The point is, I have the best roommate of us all. I’m special. Look, there’s the Earth.” She pointed as the theater’s tremendous video screen flickered to life. The Earth hung there in astounding fidelity; whoever built the video screen had done a bang-up job.

“I wish I had this screen in my living room,” Harry said. “I’d have had the most popular Super Bowl parties on the block.”

“Just look at it,” I said. “All our lives, it’s the only place we’ve ever been. Everyone we ever knew or loved was there. And now we’re leaving it. Doesn’t that make you feel something?”

“Excited,” Jesse said. “And sad. But not too sad.”

“Definitely not too sad,” Harry said. “There was nothing left to do there but get older and die.”

“You can still die, you know,” I said. “You
are
joining the military.”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to die
old,
” Harry said. “I’m going to have a second chance to die young and leave a beautiful corpse. It makes up for missing out on it the first time.”

“You’re just a romantic that way,” Jesse said, deadpan.

“Damn right,” Harry said.

“Listen,” I said. “We’ve begun pulling out.”

The speakers of the theater broadcast the chatter between the
Henry Hudson
and Colonial Station as they negotiated the terms of the
Henry Hudson
’s departure. Then came a low thrum and the slightest of vibrations, which we could barely feel through our seats.

“Engines,” Harry said. Jesse and I nodded.

And then the Earth slowly began to shrink in the video screen, still massive, and still brilliant blue and white, but clearly, inexorably, beginning to take up a smaller portion of the screen. We silently watched it shrink, all of the several hundred recruits who came to look. I looked over to Harry, who, despite his earlier blustering, was quiet and reflective. Jesse had a tear on her cheek.

“Hey,” I said, and gripped her hand. “Not too sad, remember?”

She smiled at me and gripped my hand. “No,” she said hoarsely. “Not too sad. But even still. Even still.”

We sat there some more and watched everything we ever knew shrink in the viewscreen.

I had my PDA set to wake me up at 0600, which it did by gently piping music through its little speakers and gradually increasing the volume until I woke. I turned off the music, quietly lowered myself off the top bunk and then rooted for a towel in the wardrobe, flicking on the small light in the wardrobe to see. In the wardrobe hung my and Leon’s recruit suits: two sets each of Colonial light blue sweat tops and bottoms, two light blue T-shirts, two pairs blue chino-style drawstring pants, two pairs white socks and briefs-style underwear, and blue sneakers. Apparently we’d have no need for formal dress between now and Beta Pyxis. I slipped on a pair of sweat bottoms and a T-shirt, grabbed one of the towels that was also hanging in the wardrobe, and padded down the hall for a shower.

When I returned, the lights were glowing on full but Leon was still in his bunk—the lights must have come on automatically. I put a sweat top over my T-shirt and added socks and sneakers to my ensemble; I was ready to jog or, well, whatever else I had to do that day. Now for some breakfast. On the way out, I gave Leon a little nudge. He was a schmuck, but even schmucks might not want to sleep through food. I asked him if he wanted to get some breakfast.

“What?” he said, groggily. “No. Leave me alone.”

“You sure, Leon?” I asked. “You know what they say about breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day, and all that. Come on. You need your energy.”

Leon actually growled. “My mother’s been dead for thirty years and as far I know, she hasn’t been brought back in your body. So get the hell out of here and let me sleep.”

It was nice to see Leon hadn’t gone soft on me. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll be back after breakfast.”

Leon grunted and rolled back over. I went to breakfast.

Breakfast was amazing, and I say that having been married to a woman who could make a breakfast spread that would have made Gandhi stop a fast. I had two Belgian waffles that were golden, crisp and light, wallowing in powdered sugar and syrup that tasted like real Vermont maple (and if you think you can’t tell when you have Vermont maple syrup, you’ve never had it) and with a scoop of creamery butter that was artfully melting to fill the deep wells of the waffle squares. Add over-easy eggs that were actually over easy, four slices of thick, brown sugar–cured bacon, orange juice from fruit that apparently hadn’t realized it had been squeezed, and a mug of coffee that was fresh off the burro.

I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Since I was now officially legally dead on Earth and flying across the solar system in a spaceship, I guess I wasn’t too far off.

“Oh my,” the fellow I sat next to at breakfast said, as I put down my fully-loaded tray. “Look at all the fats on that tray. You’re asking for a coronary. I’m a doctor, I know.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, and pointed to his tray. “That looks like a four-egg omelet you’re working on there. With about a pound each of ham and cheddar.”

“‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ That was my creed as a practicing physician,” he said. “If more patients had listened to me instead of following my sorry example, they’d be alive now. A lesson for us all. Thomas Jane, by the way.”

“John Perry,” I said, shaking hands.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Although I’m sad, too, since if you eat all that you’ll be dead of a heart attack within the hour.”

“Don’t listen to him, John,” said the woman across from us, whose own plate was smeared with the remains of pancakes and sausage. “Tom there is just trying to get you to give him some of your food, so he doesn’t have to get back in line for more. That’s how I lost half of my sausage.”

“That accusation is as irrelevant as it is true,” Thomas said indignantly. “I admit to coveting his Belgian waffle, yes. I won’t deny that. But if sacrificing my own arteries will prolong his life, then it’s worth it to me. Consider this the culinary equivalent of falling on a grenade for the sake of my comrade.”

“Most grenades aren’t soaked in syrup,” she said.

“Maybe they should be,” Thomas said. “We’d see a lot more selfless acts.”

“Here,” I said, sawing off half of a waffle. “Throw yourself on this.”

“I’ll launch myself face first,” Thomas promised.

“We’re all deeply relieved to hear that,” I said.

The woman on the other side of the table introduced herself as Susan Reardon, late of Bellevue, Washington. “What do you think of our little space adventure so far?” she asked me.

“If I had known the cooking was this good, I would have found some way to sign up years ago,” I said. “Who knew army food would be like this.”

“I don’t think we’re in the army
quite
yet,” Thomas said, around a mouthful of Belgian waffle. “I think this is sort of the Colony Defense Forces waiting room, if you know what I mean. Real army food is going to be a lot more spare. Not to mention I doubt we’ll be prancing around in sneakers like we are right now.”

“You think they’re easing us into things, then,” I said.

“I do,” Thomas said. “Look, there are a thousand complete strangers on this ship, all of whom are now without home, family, or profession. That’s a hell of a mental shock. The least they can do is give us a fabulous meal to take our minds off it all.”

“John!” Harry had spied me from the line. I waved him over. He and another man came, bearing trays.

“This is my roommate, Alan Rosenthal,” he said, by way of introduction.

“Formerly known as Sleeping Beauty,” I said.

“About half of that description is right,” Alan said. “I am in fact devastatingly beautiful.” I introduced Harry and Alan to Susan and Thomas.

“Tsk, tsk,” Thomas said, examining their trays. “Two more plaque attacks waiting to happen.”

“Better throw Tom a couple bacon strips, Harry,” I said. “Otherwise we’ll never hear the end of this.”

“I resent the implication that I can be bought off with food,” Thomas said.

“It wasn’t implied,” Susan said. “It was pretty much boldly stated.”

“Well, I know your roommate lottery turned out badly,” Harry said to me, handing over two bacon strips to Thomas, who accepted them gravely, “but mine turned out all right. Alan here is a theoretical physicist. Smart as a whip.”

“And devastatingly beautiful,” Susan piped in.

“Thanks for remembering that detail,” Alan said.

“This looks like a table of reasonably intelligent adults,” Harry said. “So what do you think we’re in for today?”

“I have a physical scheduled for 0800,” I said. “I think we all do.”

“Right,” Harry said. “But I’m asking what you all think that
means
. Do you think today is the day we start our rejuvenation therapies? Is today the day we begin to stop being old?”

“We don’t know that we stop being
old,
” Thomas said. “We’ve all assumed that, because we think of soldiers as being young. But think about it. None of us has actually seen a Colonial soldier. We’ve assumed, and our assumptions could be way off.”

“What would the value of old soldiers be?” Alan asked. “If they’re going to put me in the field as is, I don’t know what good I’m going to be to anyone. I have a bad back. Walking from the beanstalk platform to the flight gate yesterday just about killed me. I can’t imagine marching twenty miles with a pack and a firearm.”

“I think we’re due for some repairs, obviously,” Thomas said. “But that’s not the same as being made ‘young’ again. I’m a doctor, and I know a little bit about this. You can make the human body work better and achieve high function at any age, but each age has a certain baseline capability. The body at seventy-five is inherently less fast, less flexible and less easily repaired than at younger ages. It can still do some amazing things, of course. I don’t want to brag, but I’ll have you know that back on Earth I regularly ran ten K races. I ran one less than a month ago. And I made better time than I would have when I was fifty-five.”

“What were you like when you were fifty-five?” I asked.

“Well, that’s the thing,” Thomas said. “I was a fat slob at fifty-five. It took a heart replacement to get me serious about taking care of myself. My point is that a high-functioning seventy-five-year-old can actually do many things without actually being ‘young,’ but just by being in excellent shape. Maybe that’s all that’s required for this army. Maybe all the other intelligent species in the universe are pushovers. Presuming that’s the case, it makes a weird sort of sense to have
old
soldiers, because young people are more useful to their community. They have their whole lives ahead of them, while
we
are eminently expendable.”

“So maybe we’ll still be old, just really, really healthy,” Harry said.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Thomas said.

“Well, stop saying that. You’re bringing me down,” Harry said.

“I’ll shut up if you give me your fruit cup,” Thomas said.

“Even if we’re turned into high-functioning seventy-five-year-olds, as you say,” Susan said, “we’d still be getting older. In five years, we’d just be high-functioning eighty-year-olds. There’s an upper limit to our usefulness as soldiers.”

Thomas shrugged. “Our terms are for two years. Maybe they only need to keep us in working order for that long. The difference between seventy-five and seventy-seven isn’t as great as between seventy-five and eighty. Or even between seventy-seven and eighty. Hundreds of thousands of us sign up each year. After two years, they just swap us out with a crew of ‘fresh’ recruits.”