Old Man's War Boxed Set 1 (6 page)

This assessment was reinforced when our Colonial came into the room. “You will now be tested on basic language and mathematic skills,” the proctor said. “Your first test is being downloaded into your PDA. It is multiple choice. Please answer as many questions as you can within the thirty-minute time limit. If you finish before your thirty minutes are up, please sit quietly or review your answers. Please do not collaborate with other trainees. Please begin now.”

I looked down at my PDA. A word analogy question was on it.

“You have
got
to be kidding,” I said. Other people in the room were chuckling as well.

Harry raised his hand. “Ma’am?” he said. “What’s the score I need to get into Harvard?”

“I’ve heard that one before,” the Colonial said. “Everyone, please settle down and work on your test.”

“I’ve been waiting sixty years to raise my math score,” Harry said. “Let’s see how I do now.”

Our second assessment was even worse.

“Please follow the white square. Use only your eyes, not your head.” The Colonial dimmed the lights in the room. Sixty pairs of eyes focused on a white square on the wall. Slowly, it began to move.

“I can’t believe I went into space for this,” Harry said.

“Maybe things will pick up,” I said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get another white square to look at.”

A second white square appeared on the wall.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” Harry said.

Later, Harry and I separated, and I had some activities of my own.

The first room I was in featured a Colonial and a pile of blocks.

“Make a house out of these, please,” the Colonial said.

“Only if I get an extra juice box,” I said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the Colonial promised. I made a house out of the blocks and then went into the next room, where the Colonial in there pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.

“Starting from the middle of the maze, try to see if you can get to the outer edge.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said, “a drug-addled rat could do this.”

“Let’s hope so,” the Colonial said. “Still, let’s see you do it anyway.”

I did. In the next room, the Colonial there wanted me to call out the numbers and letters. I learned to stop wondering why and just do what they told me.

A little later in the afternoon, I got pissed off.

“I’ve been reading your file,” said the Colonial, a thin young man who looked like a strong wind would sail him off like a kite.

“Okay,” I said.

“It says you were married.”

“I was.”

“Did you like it? Being married.”

“Sure. It beats the alternative.”

He smirked. “So what happened? Divorce? Fuck around one time too many?”

Whatever obnoxiously amusing qualities this guy had were fading fast. “She’s dead,” I said.

“Yeah? How did that happen?”

“She had a stroke.”

“Gotta love a stroke,” he said. “Bam, your brain’s skull pudding, just like that. Good that she didn’t survive. She’d be this fat, bedridden turnip, you know. You’d just have to feed her through a straw or something.” He made slurping noises.

I didn’t say anything. Part of my brain was figuring how quickly I could move to snap his neck, but most of me was just sitting there in blind shock and rage. I simply could not believe what I was hearing.

Down in some deep part of my brain, someone was telling me to start breathing again soon, or I was going to pass out.

The Colonial’s PDA suddenly beeped. “Okay,” he said, and stood up quickly. “We’re done. Mr. Perry, please allow me to apologize for the comments I made regarding your wife’s death. My job here is to generate an enraged response from the recruit as quickly as possible. Our psychological models showed that you would respond most negatively to comments like the ones I have just made. Please understand that on a personal level I would never make such comments about your late wife.”

I blinked stupidly for a few seconds at the man. Then I roared at him. “What kind of sick, fucked-up test was THAT?!?”

“I agree it is an extremely unpleasant test, and once again I apologize. I am doing my job as ordered, nothing more.”

“Holy Christ!” I said. “Do you have any idea how close I came to breaking your fucking neck?”

“In fact, I do,” the man said in a calm, controlled voice that indicated that, in fact, he did. “My PDA, which was tracking your mental state, beeped right before you were about to pop. But even if it hadn’t I would have known. I do this all the time. I know what to expect.”

I was still trying to come down from my rage. “You do this thing with every recruit?” I asked. “How are you even still
alive?
”

“I understand that question,” the man said. “I was in fact chosen for this assignment because my small build gives the recruit the impression that he or she can beat the hell out of me. I am a very good ‘little twerp.’ However, I am capable of restraining a recruit if I have to. Though usually I don’t have to. As I said, I do this a lot.”

“It’s not a very nice job,” I said. I had finally managed to get myself back into a rational state of mind.

“‘It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it,’” the man said. “I find it interesting, in that every recruit has a different thing that causes him or her to explode. But you’re right. It’s a high-stress assignment. It’s not really for everyone.”

“I bet you’re not very popular in bars,” I said.

“Actually, I’m told I’m quite charming. When I’m not intentionally pissing people off, that is. Mr. Perry, we’re all finished here. If you’ll step through the door to your right, you’ll begin your next assessment.”

“They’re not going to try to piss me off again, are they?”

“You may become pissed off,” the man said, “but if you do, it’ll be on your own. We only do this test once.”

I headed to the door, then stopped. “I know you were doing your job,” I said. “But I still want you to know. My wife was a wonderful person. She deserves better than to be used like this.”

“I know she does, Mr. Perry,” the man said. “I know she does.”

I went through the door.

In the next room, a very nice young lady, who happened to be completely naked, wanted me to tell her anything I could possibly remember about my seventh birthday party.

“I can’t believe they showed us that film right before dinner,” Jesse said.

“It wasn’t right before dinner,” Thomas said. “The Bugs Bunny cartoon was after that. Anyway, it wasn’t so bad.”

“Yes, well, maybe you’re not utterly disgusted by a film on intestinal surgery, Mister Doctor, but the rest of us found it pretty disturbing,” Jesse said.

“Does this mean you don’t want your ribs?” Thomas said, pointing to her plate.

“Did anyone else get the naked woman asking about your childhood?” I asked.

“I got a man,” Susan said.

“Woman,” said Harry.

“Man,” said Jesse.

“Woman,” said Thomas.

“Man,” said Alan.

We all looked at him.

“What?” Alan said. “I’m gay.”

“What was the point of that?” I asked. “About the naked person, I mean, not about Alan being gay.”

“Thanks,” Alan said dryly.

“They’re trying to provoke particular responses, that’s all,” said Harry. “All of today’s tests have been of pretty basic intellectual or emotional responses, the foundation of more complex and subtle emotions and intellectual abilities. They’re just trying to figure out how we think and react on a primal level. The naked person was obviously trying to get you all worked up sexually.”

“But what was that whole thing about asking you about your childhood, is what I’m saying,” I said.

Harry shrugged. “What’s sex without a little guilt?”

“What pissed me off was the one where they got me all pissed off,” Thomas said. “I swear I was going to clobber that guy. He said the Cubs ought to have been demoted to the minor leagues after they went two centuries without a World Series championship.”

“That sounds reasonable to me,” Susan said.

“Don’t
you
start,” Thomas said. “Man. Pow. I’m telling you. You don’t mess with the Cubs.”

If the first day was all about demeaning feats of intellect, the second day was about demeaning feats of strength, or lack thereof.

“Here’s a ball,” one proctor said to me. “Bounce it.” I did. I was told to move on.

I walked around a small athletic track. I was asked to run a small distance. I did some light calisthenics. I played a video game. I was asked to shoot at a target on a wall with a light gun. I swam (I liked that part. I’ve always liked swimming, so long as my head’s above water). For two hours, I was placed in a rec room with several dozen other people and told to do whatever I wanted. I shot some pool. I played a game of Ping-Pong. God help me, I played shuffleboard.

At no point did I even break a sweat.

“What the hell sort of army is this, anyway?” I asked the Old Farts at lunch.

“It makes a little bit of sense,” Harry said. “Yesterday we did basic intellect and emotion. Today was basic physical movement. Again, they seem interested in the foundations of high order activity.”

“I’m not really aware of Ping-Pong being indicative of higher order physical activity,” I said.

“Hand-eye coordination,” Harry said. “Timing. Precision.”

“And you never know when you’re going to have to bat back a grenade,” Alan piped in.

“Exactly,” Harry said. “Also, what do you want them to do? Have us run a marathon? We’d all drop before the end of the first mile.”

“Speak for yourself, flabby,” Thomas said.

“I stand corrected,” Harry said. “Our friend Thomas would make it to mile six before
his
heart imploded. If he didn’t get a food-related cramp first.”

“Don’t be silly,” Thomas said. “Everyone knows you need to power up with carbohydrates before a race. Which is why I’m going back for more fettuccine.”

“You’re not running a marathon, Thomas,” Susan said.

“The day is young,” Thomas said.

“Actually,” Jesse said, “my schedule is empty. I’ve got nothing planned for the rest of the day. And tomorrow, the only thing on the schedule is ‘Concluding Physical Improvements’ from 0600 to 1200 and a general recruit assembly at 2000, after dinner.”

“My schedule is finished until tomorrow, too,” I said. A quick glance up and down the table showed that everyone else was done for the day as well. “Well, then,” I said. “What are we going to do to amuse ourselves?”

“There’s always more shuffleboard,” Susan said.

“I have a better idea,” Harry said. “Anyone have plans at 1500?”

We all shook our heads.

“Swell,” Harry said. “Then meet me back here. I have a field trip for the Old Farts.”

“Are we even supposed to be here?” Jesse asked.

“Sure,” said Harry. “Why not? And even if we’re not, what are they going to do? We’re not really in the military yet. We can’t officially be court-martialed.”

“No, but they can probably blow us out an air lock,” Jesse said.

“Don’t be silly,” Harry said. “That would be a waste of perfectly good air.”

Harry had led us to an observation deck in the Colonial area of the ship. And indeed, while we recruits had never been specifically told we couldn’t go to the Colonial’s decks, neither had we been told that we could (or should). Standing as we were in the deserted deck, the seven of us stood out like truant schoolkids at a peep show.

Which, in one sense, was what we were. “During our little exercises today, I struck up a conversation with one of the Colonial folks,” Harry said, “and he mentioned that the
Henry Hudson
was going to make its skip today at 1535. And I figure that none of us has actually seen what a skip looks like, so I asked him where one would go to get a good view. And he mentioned here. So here we are, and with”—Harry glanced at his PDA—“four minutes to spare.”

“Sorry about that,” Thomas said. “I didn’t mean to hold everyone up. The fettuccine was excellent, but my lower intestine would apparently beg to differ.”

“Please feel free not to share such information in the future, Thomas,” Susan said. “We don’t know you that well yet.”

“Well, how else will you
get
to know me that well?” Thomas said. No one bothered to answer that one.

“Anyone know where we are right now? In space, that is,” I asked after a few moments of silence had passed.

“We’re still in the solar system,” Alan said, and pointed out the window. “You can tell because you can still see the constellations. See, look, there’s Orion. If we’d traveled any significant distance, the stars would have shifted their relative position in the sky. Constellations would have been stretched out or would be entirely unrecognizable.”

“Where are we supposed to be skipping to?” Jesse asked.

“The Phoenix system,” Alan said. “But that won’t tell you anything, because ‘Phoenix’ is the name of the planet, not of the star. There is a constellation named ‘Phoenix,’ and in fact, there it is”—he pointed to a collection of stars—“but the planet Phoenix isn’t around any of the stars in that constellation. If I remember correctly, it’s actually in the constellation Lupus, which is farther north”—he pointed to another, dimmer collection of stars—“but we can’t actually see the star from here.”