Read Ebook: Drawings and Pharmacy in Al-Zahrawi's 10th-Century Surgical Treatise by Hamarneh Sami Khalaf

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Ebook has 418 lines and 26320 words, and 9 pages

"Damned right," Hartford said.

"You could find a girl," Piacentelli said.

"They all itch to get married," Hartford explained. "They come out to these germy planets like they used to go to Purdue. The man-woman ratio is in their favor. And biology. Pia, I've seen bears you wouldn't glim twice on Titan turn into love-goddesses after six months here. I'll meet some Service Company corporal, say. She'll look to me like the prettiest li'l thing since Adam's costectomy, and I'll call in at the Orderly Room to have us assigned Family Quarters. Back at Home Base, she'll turn out to be something you scare kids quiet with. She'll talk all the time, leave lipstick on drinking-glasses, or play bridge and talk about it. First thing you know, I'll be volunteering for another five years duty on bug-dirt, just for a chance to leave her behind."

"So pick up a local germ," Piacentelli suggested. "If they can't decontaminate you, they'll send you to Earth. Lots of women on Earth."

"I'd do it," Hartford said, "but I'm still more scared of microbes than lustful for a woman. Here's Dimples with our chow."

"Dimples?" Piacentelli asked as the girl came up with their tray.

"Watch her when she walks away," Hartford suggested.

"You must keep a carton of goat-glands under your bunk, Lee," Piacentelli said. "Marriage isn't all bad. I've done pretty well with Paula."

Hartford nodded. Paula Piacentelli, a lieutenant in the Service Companies, was a pretty decent sort. "Where is she now?" he asked.

"She'll be on the Status Board tonight," Piacentelli said. "You'll be in the Board Room with her. Lee, I've got a favor to ask you. As O.G. you'll be in charge tonight."

"Paula will be in charge," Hartford said. "I'll be sleeping."

"If I go outside, though, it will need your okay as well as Paula's," Piacentelli said.

"Who's going outside with you?"

"That's the sticky bit," Piacentelli said. "I'd like to go outside alone."

"Want to run in the rain in your little bare skin?" Hartford asked. "Mix it up with a Stinker maiden? Paula wouldn't like that. Besides, you might get yourself jack-rolled by some Indigenous Hominid who doesn't like Axenites running his planet."

"Bug-dirt," Hartford said. "Don't tell lies."

"All right, then," Piacentelli said. "I've got an idea that might lead to the most important discovery ever made on Kansas. Paula suggested it. I want to prove it."

"Tell Nasty Nef about your idea," Hartford said, signalling the waitress for a second cup of stay-awake. "Give CINCK something clever to report when the supply ship lands, and you'll have your silver stripes before I will. Wouldn't Paula love that, though? Captain Piacentelli, I'd have to salute first."

Hartford leaned against the table to press a fist against Piacentelli's propped elbow. "Don't say that, Pia," he whispered. "I'm not political; I'm not interested; I don't care whether the Brotherhood even exists."

"Yes, Virginia; there is a Brotherhood," Piacentelli said. "And our Nasty Nef is a Brother."

"He's a number of things," Hartford said. "He's our CO; he's CINCK; he's an SOB. But he's our boss, and 'Brotherhood' is a dangerous word." He sipped his coffee. "Tell you what, Pia. If you want to go out and talk Gook with the Gooks, I'll fix it for you to draw picket duty tonight. The man who's got picket has been married only a month, and spent three weeks of that in a safety-suit out in the woods. I'm sure he'll relinquish to you the pleasure of a night's romp as picket officer."

"Can you do it?"

"An O.G. can do anything, during those hours when his superior officers are asleep," Hartford said.

"You're a buddy," Piacentelli said. "I'll give you free tutoring in Kansan for the rest of our tour."

As one of the seventy-six male lieutenants of the Regiment, Hartford pulled O.G. about once every eleven weeks. His Terrible Third drew duty with him as Guard Platoon. All of them could expect to sleep through the night undisturbed, unless Nasty Nef held a dry-run, falling them out for a Simulated Problem. Nef was tired tonight, though; the Guard could sleep. Only the two men on picket and the handful of Service Company personnel on duty at the Status Board need stay awake tonight.

Awake or sleeping, the security of First Regiment would rest this night in the hands of Lee Hartford. It was he who bore the final responsibility for allowing no living thing to enter the Barracks except in a well-scrubbed safety-suit; for assuring that the air his sleeping comrades breathed was sterile and dustless; that the Syphon's poisonous bug-juice was of the proper pH and germicidity; and for checking that the whereabouts of every Axenite on Kansas was reflected on the Status Board. That these duties were complex was attested by the assignment of a Service Company officer to the Board, a woman who would watch the Board's bands of lights and meters every moment. Hartford could sleep; he was the Responsible Male. Mrs. Paula Piacentelli, 1/Lt. S.C. , had to remain awake: she was the Knowledgeable Woman.

Hartford found Paula already at her work in the Board Room. Only a bit over five feet tall, Piacentelli's wife was concentrated woman of the most splendid sort. When Hartford had told her that Pia was taking the picket, she frowned. "I hope he doesn't plan anything foolish."

"Me? Foolish?" Piacentelli demanded from the elevator. He walked up, clammed shut in his blue safety-suit, ready to hit bug-dirt. Under one arm he carried a package sheathed in opaque plastic. Behind him, in the gray safety-suit of an enlisted trooper, was a man Hartford recognized as Corporal Bond, machine-gunner from Pia's platoon. "Lieutenant Gabriel Piacentelli reporting with one man, Sir and Ma'am," he said, saluting his wife and Hartford.

"At ease, Weenie-head," Hartford said. "With you and Bond on picket amidst the sunflowers, I won't sleep a wink all night." He turned to the corporal. "Did you sure-enough volunteer for this duty?" he asked.

"Yes, sir!" Bond said. "I voluntarily assumed the duty of absorbing a fifth of Lt. Piacentelli's Class-VI Scotch. The Lieutenant was kind enough to reciprocate by offering me this tour."

"He gave you Scotch?" Hartford turned to Piacentelli. "Gabe, for a jug of Scotch I'd have gone on picket with you myself. What's that you're taking outside with you? Lunch?"

"A microscope," Piacentelli said. "I'm doing a little research for Paula." His wife nodded. A gnotobiotics technician, responsible for maintaining the bacteriological security of the Barracks, she had business with microscopes.

"Want to give me the word on this romp of yours?" Hartford asked.

"Standard picket, Lee," Piacentelli said. "I'll learn a little Kansan, take care of Paula's project and tell you all about it when we get back."

"Let's see your weapons." Hartford inspected Bond's Dardick-rifle and Piacentelli's Dardick-pistol. Both weapons were loaded, clean and wrapped up for their trip through the Wet Gut in plastic sleeves. The trucks and heavy weapons stayed outside on bug-dirt. The lighter weapons and all ammunition came back inside the Barracks with the troopers who carried them. The weapons were detail-stripped on each re-entry, irradiated with u-v and fit with fresh sleeves. As had been discovered with the first axenic animals, in the 1930's, keeping a mammal germ-free is a formidable task. When that mammal is a human being and a soldier the job is double-tough.

"Check out a jeep," Hartford said. "Report each half-hour. Don't shoot any Stinkers ... sorry, I mean Indigenous Hominids. Try not to hit a camelopard with the jeep; we're low on replacement parts. In fact, be careful. Okay, Pia?"

"Done and done, Exalted One."

Hartford dropped his voice. "I'd feel easier in my mind if I knew what's so important as to require your desertion of our mutual womb tonight, Pia."

"Language study, you might say," Piacentelli replied.

"Aren't you going to kiss her good night?" Hartford asked.

Pia grinned through his clammed-shut helmet and clomped to the elevator with Bond. They were en route to the Hot Gut and the Wet Gut, the twisting hallway from the sterile First Regiment Barracks to the living night of Kansas.

Hartford turned.

Piacentelli turned the ignition key of the jeep he'd chosen. With the starting cough of the engine, one of the rank of TV screens over the Status Board lighted. The camera eye was looking out the rear-view mirror of the jeep, and picked up Pia's helmeted head and the shoulder of his companion. "We're off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz!" Piacentelli sang.

His wife spoke into the microphone before her. "Don't do anything foolish, Lieutenant," she said. "And remember, all transmissions are recorded and are audited, at random, by the Base Commander."

"Transmission received, receiver contrite," Piacentelli reported back. "Okay, Paula-Darling. From now on till Bond and I swim home, we'll be as military as GI soap." He flicked the TV monitor around to look out the windshield and started the jeep down the road toward Stinkerville. The duty of the picket was to chug around outside at random, hitting all the cross-roads, settlements and high spots of the countryside near the Barracks; to interview late-riding Indigenous Hominids and inquire their business being out; to conduct such searches of Stinker homes and hideaways as might seem useful to the occupying Axenites; and to remain at all times in contact with the officers on duty at the Status Board.

As the picket got underway, Hartford went down to the Terrible Third's area to check quickly through the two-man apartments. Knock on the door; "As you were, Troopers." A brisk inspection of two safety-suits, gaping beside their owners' bunks like firemen's boot-sheathed pants. The men were quiet. Guard-duty meant that any socializing with Service Company troopers was impossible for a night, and militated against any intake of alcoholic beverage. It was a bore, especially after three dry and womanless weeks in the field. Hartford visited his Platoon Sergeant last: "Sergeant Felix, could you have our bunch standing on bug-dirt ten minutes after I blew the whistle? Very well, then. Good night, Felix."

Having demonstrated to his troopers that he was suffering the same strictures as they, Hartford went back to the O.G. cubicle in the Board Room. He checked his own safety-suit, his plastic-packaged Dardick-pistol, said good night to Paula Piacentelli and lay down to begin his first night's sleep outside a safety-suit in three weeks.

But sleep didn't come easily.

"Continue random patrol, Lieutenant."

"Yes, Dear. I'm going to run down to Kansannamura for my next call-in."

"Carry on, Lieutenant."

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