Time Enough for Love (12 page)

David tried hard to avoid incidents likely to result in this calculated torture, but there was no way to avoid them entirely, short of quitting, as some first classmen awarded such blows through sheer sadism. David gritted his teeth and accepted them when he had to, judging—correctly—that he would be run out of school if he defied the supreme authority of a first classman. So he thought about the south end of that mule and endured it.

There was a much greater hazard to his personal safety and future prospects of a life free from “honest work.” The mystique of military service included the idea that a prospective officer must excel in athletic sports. Do not ask why; it was no more subject to rational explanation than is any other branch of theology.

Plebes in particular had to—no choice!—go out for “sports.” Two hours each day which were nominally free David could not spend napping or dreaming in the quiet of the school’s library, but must perforce spend in sweaty exercise.

Worse still, some “sports” were not only excessively energetic but also involved hazards to David’s favorite skin. “Boxing”—this is a long forgotten, utterly useless, stylized mock combat in which two men batter each other for a preset period or until one is beaten unconscious. “La Crosse”—this is a mock battle taken over from the savages who had formerly inhabited that continent. In it mobs of men fought with clubs. There was a hard missile with which points were scored—but it was the prospect of being sliced open or having bones broken with these clubs that aroused our hero’s distaste.

There was a thing called “water polo” in which opposing swimmers attempted to drown each other. David avoided that one by not swimming more than well enough to stay in school—a required skill. He was an excellent swimmer, having learned at the age of seven through being chucked into a creek by two older cousins—but he concealed his skill.

The sport with highest prestige was a thing called “foot ball”—and first classmen sized up each new group of victims for candidates who might be expected to excel, or learn to excel, in this organized mayhem. David had never seen it—but now he saw it and it filled his peaceful soul with horror.

As well it might. It involved two gangs of eleven men facing each other on a field and trying to move an ellipsoid bladder down the field against the opposition of the other gang. There were rituals and an esoteric terminology, but that was the idea.

It sounds harmless and rather foolish. Foolish it was, harmless it was not—as the rituals permitted the opposing gang to attack a man attempting to move the bladder in a variety of violent ways, the least of which was to grab him and cause him to hit the ground like a ton of brick. Often three or four hit him at once, and sometimes inflicted indignities and mayhems not permitted by the rituals but concealed by the pile of bodies.

Death was not supposed to result from this activity but sometimes did. Injuries short of death were commonplace.

Unfortunately David had the ideal physique for success in this “feet ball”—height, weight, eyesight, fleetness of foot, speed of reflex. He was certain to be spotted by the first classmen on their return from mock sea battles and “volunteered” as a sacrificial victim.

It was time for evasive action.

The only possible way to avoid “foot ball” was to be acceptably occupied with some other sport. He found one.

Ira, do you know what “swordsmanship” is? Good—I can speak freely. This was a time in Earth’s history when the sword had ceased to be a weapon—after having been prominent for more than four millennia. But swords still existed in fossil form and retained a shadow of their ancient prestige. A gentleman was presumed to know how to use a sword and—

“Lazarus, what is a ‘gentleman’?”

What? Don’t interrupt, boy; you confuse me. A “gentleman” is, uh—Well, now let me see. A general definition—My, you can think up some hard ones. Some said it was an accident of birth—that being a disparaging way of saying it was a trait genetically inherited. But that doesn’t say what the trait is. A gentleman was supposed to prefer being a dead lion to being a live jackal. Me, I’ve always preferred to be a live lion, so that puts me outside the rules. Mmm…you could say in all seriousness that the quality tagged by that name represents the slow emergence in human culture of an ethic higher than simple self-interest—damn slow in emerging in my opinion; you still can’t rely on it in a crunch.

As may be, military officers were presumed to be gentlemen and wore swords. Even fliers wore swords, although Allah alone could guess why.

These cadets were not only presumed to be gentlemen; there was a national law which stated that they
were
gentlemen. So they were taught a bare minimum about how to handle a sword, just enough to keep them from slicing their fingers or stabbing bystanders—not enough to fight with them, just to keep them from looking too silly when protocol required them to wear swords.

But swordsmanship was a recognized sport, called “fencing.” It had none of the prestige of football, or boxing, or even water polo—but it was on the list; a plebe could sign up for it.

David spotted this as a way out. Under a simple physical law, if he was up in the fencing loft, then he was
not
down on the football field, with sadistic gorillas in hobnailed boots jumping up and down on him. Long before the upper classmen returned to school Plebe Cadet Lamb had established himself as a member of the fencing squad, with a record of never missing a day, and was trying hard to look like a “good prospect” for the team.

At that time and place three forms of fencing were taught: saber, dueling sword, and foil. The first two used full-sized weapons. True, edges were dulled and points were bated; nevertheless a man could get hurt with them—even fatally, though that was very rare. But the foil was a lightweight toy, a fake sword with a limber blade that bent at the slightest pressure. The stylized imitation swordplay that used the foil was about as dangerous as tiddlywinks. This was the “weapon” David selected.

It was made for him. The highly artificial rules of foil fencing gave great advantage to fast reflexes and a sharp brain, both of which he had. Some exertion was necessary—but not much compared with football, lacrosse, or even tennis. Best of all, it required no body-against-body pounding that David found so distasteful in the rough games he was avoiding. David applied himself single-mindedly to acquiring skill so that his haven would be secure.

So diligent was he in protecting his sanctuary that, before his plebe year was over, he was National Novice Foil Champion. This caused his squad leader to smile at him, an expression that hurt his face. His cadet company commander noticed him for the first time and congratulated him.

Success with the foil even got him out of some “punishment” beatings. One Friday evening, when he was about to be beaten for some imaginary dereliction, David said, “Sir, if it’s the same to you, I’d rather have twice as many swats on Sunday—because tomorrow we’re fencing the Princeton plebe team and, if you do the job I know you can do, it might slow me up tomorrow.”

The first classman was impressed by this because having the Navy win, at any time and for any purpose and in anything, took precedence by Sacred Law over anything else, even the righteous pleasure of beating a “smart ass” plebe. He answered, “Tell you what, mister. Report to my room after supper on Sunday. If you lose tomorrow, you get a double dose of the medicine you’ve got coming to you. But if you win, we’ll cancel it.”

David won all three of his matches.

Fencing got him through his perilous plebe year with his precious skin unmarked save for scars on his bottom. He was safe now, with three easy years ahead of him, for only a plebe was subject to physical punishment, only a plebe could be ordered to take part in organized mayhem.

(Omitted)

One body-contact sport David loved, one of ancient popularity, which he had learned back in those hills he had fled from. But it was played with girls and was not officially recognized at this school. There were harsh rules against it, and a cadet caught practicing it was kicked out without mercy.

But David, like all true geniuses, paid only pragmatic attention to rules made by other people—he obeyed the Eleventh Commandment and never got caught. While other cadets sought the empty prestige of sneaking girls into the barracks or went over the wall at night in search of girls, David kept his activities quiet. Only those who knew him well knew how industriously he pursued this one body-contact sport. And no one knew him well.

Eh? Female cadets? Didn’t I make that plain, Ira? Not only were there no girl cadets, there was not one girl in that Navy—except a few nurses. Most particularly there were no girls at that school; there were guards night and day to keep them away from the cadets.

Don’t ask me why. It was Navy policy and therefore did not have a reason. In truth there was no job in that entire Navy which could not have been performed by either sex or even by eunuchs—but by long tradition that Navy was exclusively male.

Come to think about it, a few years later that tradition was questioned—a little at first, then by the end of that century, shortly before the Collapse, that Navy had females at all levels. I am
not
suggesting that this change was a cause of the Collapse. There were obvious causes of the Collapse, causes I won’t go into now. This change either was a null factor or possibly postponed the inevitable by a minor amount.

Either way, it doesn’t figure into the Tale of the Lazy Man. When David was in school, cadets were supposed to encounter females but seldom, and only under highly stylized circumstances, rigidly bound protocol, and heavily chaperoned.
⁹
Instead of fighting the rules, David looked for loopholes and made use of them—he was never caught.

Every impossible rule has its loopholes; every general prohibition creates its bootleggers. The Navy as a whole created its impossible rules; the Navy as individuals violated them, especially its curious rules about sex—a publicly monastic life on duty, a slightly veiled life of unlimited voluptuousness off duty. At sea, even harmless reliefs from sexual tension were treated most harshly when detected—although such technical violations of the mores were expected and condoned less than a century earlier. But this Navy was only a little more hypocritical in its sexual behavior than was the social matrix in which it was imbedded, more excessive in its outlets only to the degree that its public rules were more sternly impossible than those of that society as a whole. The public sexual code of that time was unbelievable, Ira; the violations of it simply mirrored in reverse its fantastic requirements. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—if you’ll excuse the obvious.

I did not intend to discuss this other than to say that David found ways to get along with the school’s regulations about sex without going completely off his nut, as too many of his classmates did. I’ll add only this—and this is merely rumor: Through a mischance all too easy then although unheard of today, a young woman became pregnant, presumably by David. In those days—believe me!—this was a major disaster.

Why? Just stipulate that it
was
a disaster; it would take forever to explain that society and no civilized human would believe it. Cadets were forbidden to marry, the young woman
had
to get married under the rules current then, intervention to correct this mischance was almost unobtainable and physically very dangerous for her.

What David did about it illustrates his whole approach to life. When faced with a choice of evils, accept the least hazardous and cope with it, unblinkingly. He married her.

How he managed to do this and not get caught, I do not know. I can think of a number of ways, some simple and fairly foolproof, some complex and thereby subject to breakdown; I assume that David selected the simplest.

It changed the situation from impossible to manageable. It converted the girl’s father from an enemy, all too likely to go to the Commandant of the school with the story and thereby force David to resign when he had but a few months more to reach his goal, into an ally and fellow conspirator anxious to keep the marriage secret so that his son-in-law could graduate and take his wayward daughter off his hands.

As a side benefit David no longer needed to give planning to the pursuit of his favorite sport. He spent his time off in unworried domesticity, with perfect chaperonage.
¹⁰

As for the rest of David’s career in school, one may assume that a lad who could substitute six weeks of unsupervised reading for four years of formal schooling could also stand first in his class academically. This would pay off in money and rank as a young officer’s place on the promotion list was determined by his standing at graduation.

But the competition for first place is sharp indeed, and—worse—makes the cadet who achieves it conspicuous. David became aware of this when he was a fresh-caught plebe. “Mister, are you a savoir?”—that is to say: “academically brainy”—was another trick question; a plebe was damned whether he answered Yes or No.

But standing second—or even tenth—was practically as useful as first place. David noticed something else: The fourth year counted four times as much as the first, the next to the last year three times as much, and so on down—that is, a plebe’s marks did not affect his final standing much—only one part in ten.

David decided to maintain a “low profile”—always the smart decision when one is likely to be shot at.

He finished the first half of his plebe year a little above midway in his class—safe, respectable, inconspicuous. He ended his plebe year in the upper quarter—but by that time the first classmen were thinking only of graduation and paid no attention to his status. His second year he moved to the upper 10 percent; his third year he improved that by a few numbers—and his last year, when it counted most, he went all out and finished with a final standing for four years of sixth—but effectively second, for of those higher in ranking two elected to leave the line of command for specialization, one was not commissioned because he had damaged his eyes by studying too hard, and one resigned after he graduated.