Bulk carriers were well suited for conversion to "snooze ships"—stasis ships—for evacuating colonies. They were extremely large, and their holds readily segmented by decks, dividing them into numerous levels.
In Esau Wesley's broad, low-ceilinged compartment, the aisles between the stasis lockers were packed with men; the sexes had been separated when they'd come aboard. Which left Esau uneasy, because he didn't know where his wife was. Women and men, they'd been told, needed to be put in separate holds for prestasis processing. "Processing," he discovered, meant getting ready for three and a half months of stasis; a kind of deep sleep, they'd been told. "Standard" months, whatever that meant. They'd also been told they wouldn't get any older in stasis. He'd wondered if that meant setting back their birthdays three months, but hadn't asked. The man who'd told them things had one answer for all questions: the single word "later."
They hadn't even been fed since the night before boarding the ship. By then they'd had to show their nakedness to what he supposed were physicians, who among other things had stuck them with needles, drawn blood, looked at their teeth, and shamelessly examined their private parts.
After that they'd been given a thin, soft, snug-fitting, one-piece suit to wear "for while you're in stasis." There were no seams except in front, where they'd been open from throat to crotch. Like winter underwear but without buttons or a trapdoor. After they'd got into the sleep suits, men had shown them how to fasten the seams by pressing. He hadn't known the whys for any of it. Then, at their command, he'd rolled up his homespuns, tied them with a tape they'd provided, and fastened his high-cut moccasins to the bundle with another tape. All the while wondering if he'd ever see his real clothes again; they were a lot better than what he'd been given.
When he wakened, the lid was open on his stasis locker, and there was a faint smell in his nose, mildly sharp. He wasn't groggy, but he was briefly confused. Then he remembered. Meanwhile his bundle lay on his belly, moccasins included. At least the Terrans didn't seem to be thieves.
Then a whistle had blown, and a loud voice had bellowed instructions. Esau had climbed from his locker and changed into his own clothes, he and all the other men in his compartment. They filled the aisles. Nobody had said much, and most who spoke, spoke quietly. His stomach growled, and he felt strange.
The whistle shrilled again, cutting off the soft refugee murmur. Again the loud voice spoke, seeming to come from all around them. "ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS! ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS! YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE DISEMBARKED. YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE DISEMBARKED. STAY ALERT AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. STAY ALERT AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. WHEN ORDERED, FILE OUT IN AN ORDERLY MANNER. DO NOT PUSH. WE DO NOT WANT ANYONE CRUSHED, OR KNOCKED DOWN AND TRAMPLED. WHEN YOU GET OUTSIDE, LISTEN FOR YOUR NAME. WHEN YOU GET OUTSIDE, LISTEN FOR YOUR NAME."
Esau was pretty sure the voice wasn't human. They'd been warned that Terrans used machines to do all sorts of things for them; apparently that could include talking. As for "disembarked"—he supposed that meant getting off the ship. And they'd be calling off names! He'd listen for Jael's, and go to her regardless of anything. Anyone got in his way, too bad for them.
Meanwhile he waited. He didn't know whether three and a half months had passed, like they'd said, or three weeks, but he was pretty sure it was less than three years and more than three days. There was a vague sense of time having passed, and an even vaguer sense of having dreamt. But however long it had been, they seemed to have arrived, presumably on Terra.
Somewhere, someone must have given an order, because now the packed humanity in his aisle began to move. It was a main aisle, leading directly to an open door, toward which they moved slowly under the scowling gaze of a very tall man. He held what the refugees took to be a hand weapon of some sort. Esau's column flowed rather smoothly, out the door into a wide corridor. Like an aisle-wide subcurrent in a river of humanity, some of whose currents were female.
"You got a wife here somewhere?" asked a voice beside him. It belonged to another youth, a bit shorter but similarly built.
"I sure hope so. I did when I got on this thing."
"I wonder what it'll be like outside."
Esau had no reply for that. Just now his attention was on how he felt physically—light-footed, even light-headed. "Do you feel like I feel?" he asked.
"Might be. How's that?"
"Kind of strange. Light."
From behind them another voice spoke. "We all feel it. Things weigh less on Terra, including us. Back home I weighed three hundred and thirty pounds. Here I weigh two hundred and thirty."
Esau looked back at the man, a man about his own age. And like himself, rather tall by the standards of New Jerusalem. But not as strong-looking as most; he didn't have the look of a farmer. Also, he wore eyeglasses. Esau decided he must be a speaker of the books. Or judging by his age, a student speaker.
"How could that be?" Esau asked. "We don't look any thinner than we used to."
"Because the gravity is different here. A pound at home only weighs point-seven pounds here."
Esau wondered what a "point" had to do with it. And grabbity? "What's `grabbity'?" he asked.
"Gravity," the fellow said soberly, "is what God created for things to weigh differently on different worlds."
Esau didn't ask anything more. He didn't think much of the answers he'd already gotten. Besides, they were spilling down a ramp now, into a cold drizzle. It had been early summer when they'd left home. Here it felt like fall. Three months then, he told himself, or a little more. Seems like they told the truth about that. Combined with not stealing his clothes, it made the Terrans out to be not so bad as he'd feared. Maybe they'd changed over the centuries.
He was glad he had his homespuns on again, and not the thin Terran clothes he'd slept in. Wool would keep off the drizzle better. At the foot of the ramp, tall men dressed like the armed guards in the corridor directed them into separate columns of twos. There was a certain amount of confusion, and the guards had to do some pulling and pushing. When one of them pulled on Esau, he didn't seem very strong, just tall. Esau told himself he could take the guy down and sit on him if need be. But it went all right, though one of the guards cursed way worse than Esau had ever heard in his life. The columns separated somewhat, eight or ten feet apart. Then someone up ahead shouted "halt" in another really loud voice, and after some jostling and piling up, the columns got themselves stopped.
Looking sideways down the gap between his column and the next, Esau saw a man talking into something he held in one hand. The words came out loud enough; it seemed to Esau he could have heard them a quarter mile. The man said that when their name was called, they should go to a flag that someone up ahead was waving in the air. Then a bunch of names were called, some of men, some of women. After a bit they got to the W's—there was even a Wesley—but no Esau or Jael. Then the process started over again at a different flag.
Esau stood there in the rain through several rounds of that, while the drizzle started to soak through. The column had got a lot thinner before his name was called—his followed by Jael's—and he took off at a trot. Running was so easy, he began to believe in grabbity. Jael had already been somewhere up near the flag; now he could see her standing by it. She'd seen him, too, and was waving her arms overhead.
Their group was led to a large sort of tent, the biggest he'd ever seen. Light passed through it, but he couldn't actually see through it. There they were given a kind of food—crunchy flatbread that tasted decent enough—and water to wash it down. Then they'd been lined up, each line leading to a different man at a different table. He and Jael stayed together now, determined not to be separated again, Esau first, Jael close behind. These lines also moved slowly; another kind of "processing," Esau decided. The people doing it to them wore clothes just alike, as far as he could tell: greenish-brown. When he reached the table for their line, the man sitting there had him say his name to a small box.
"Esau Wesley," Esau said, then gestured. "Hers is Jael Wesley."
The man ignored the last part. "Esau Wesley, you need to make a decision now, the one they told you about before you left New Jerusalem. There are two kinds of jobs available to you. You can either be a soldier, and protect humankind from the invaders, or you can be a laborer. The choice is yours. But I must tell you that if we get too few soldiers, the invaders will win, and kill us all."
Esau's jaw jutted. "I'll be a soldier if my wife can be. We've got to stay together."
"No problem," the corporal said. "Now I'm going to give you instructions. Answer when I tell you to. And speak clearly." He paused. "Do you, Esau Wesley, understand that you are volunteering to be in the Commonwealth Armed Forces? And that you will be subject to all military rules and regulations? Please answer now, yes or no."
Esau wasn't entirely sure what "military" meant, but "rules and regulations" was clear enough. "Yes," he said.
"Good. Congratulations, Recruit Esau Wesley." The corporal was supposed to shake Esau's hand then, but shaking the hand of one Jerrie had been more than enough. He simply pointed. "Get in line behind sign C over there. To get your physical exam and army clothes." He knew from an earlier shipment that some off-worlders didn't know the word uniform.
Esau frowned at him without moving. "I'll wait for her," he said, gesturing at Jael. "We'll go together."
The man's face and voice turned impatient. "Recruit Wesley, that is not possible. You'll be naked for your physical exam, so it's men with men and women with women. You can be together later. Now go get in line C."
Reluctantly Esau left. Then the corporal repeated the procedure with Jael.
Jael felt mildly anxious that she couldn't spot her husband. Though not as anxious as she'd been aboard ship, and that had worked out all right. There were lines of one sort or another all over the huge tent, and she'd been directed to one consisting solely of women. Most, like herself, were young, and either single or childless, she supposed. It seemed unlikely that soldiers could take care of their children. Surely not in a war. Within thirty minutes, she'd been checked out by medics, inoculated, and issued a uniform. After changing clothes, she was directed to a mixed line. Esau wasn't there, either. He's still waiting for his physical exam, she told herself, but again anxiety gnawed her gut.
That line took her through the drizzle to a large nearby tent called a mustering shed, where she still couldn't see Esau. Here there were quite a few women, and most of the men appeared older. Her anxiety grew. Again names were called alphabetically, recruits gathering behind a man called ensign something. Something outlandish. When a company had received its complement of newly processed recruits, it left. Then a new ensign replaced the old, and the process repeated, starting with A again. When at last Jael's name was called, she fell in as instructed. And now she felt the beginning of panic, because Esau's name wasn't called. Hers followed Warner, and after it came Whitney, Wilcox, Williams and Yancy.
After the name Yancy, the ensign called, "All right, follow me!" and led off toward an exit, another man following to herd stragglers. Jael stepped out of line and ran to catch up with the ensign. "Sir," she said, "my husband isn't here!"
He glowered but did not slow. He was the tallest man she'd seen, even among the Terrans, a lantern-jawed giant. His skin was brown, his arms and hands long, and his eyes were hooded by thick slanting lids. "Soldier," he ordered, "get back in line. If you've got a problem, it can be handled at the waiting shed. We'll be there in a minute."
Not relieved, she fell in immediately behind him. In two minutes they arrived at another large tent, where a lot of people waited. The ensign told his charges to sit down on a block of empty benches he pointed to. They all did except Jael. She stood determinedly.
"All right, soldier, what's your complaint?"
Briefly she explained. Without answering her, he took a phone from his belt. "Provost Station, this is Ensign Adrup Gompo, Third Processing Company, at Station E. I have a recruit with a beef. This one needs an arbiter." He put the phone back on his belt and looked at Jael again. "Sit down, soldier. That's an order. Someone will come to take you to an arbiter. He'll fix what needs fixing."
She stood half numb. She'd only half understood what he'd said. A runner arrived, and led her to one end of the tent, to a room walled by plastic curtains hung on wires. Inside sat a burly, middle-aged man. A placard on his desk read SGT. MAJOR NGUVA. His skin was almost black, his short salt-and-pepper hair formed tiny tight curls, and he wore a plug in one ear. There was a chair a few feet from his, but he left her standing.
"Your name, soldier?" He asked it amiably, while aiming a microphone toward her, then watched the monitor on his terminal while she answered. Next he tapped something on his key pad, before looking back at her. "What's your complaint?"
Again she described it. He tapped an instruction, then frowned, listening to something she couldn't hear. Now his fingers tapped a longer instruction. From a box came Esau's voice, then the corporal's who'd sworn them in, and finally her own. The sergeant major cut it off.
"Corporal DeSoto misinformed you," he said. "He told you one thing and did something else. Your husband has been assigned to Company B, 587th Infantry Training Regiment. You have been assigned to Company G, 249th Fighting Vehicle Training Regiment."
Her breath stopped, trapped in her lungs.
"For whatever satisfaction it may provide you, Corporal DeSoto will be reprimanded before the recruiting staff, assigned punishment, and perhaps demoted.
"After you have completed your basic and specialist training, which will require several months, both you and your husband will be assigned to a corps consisting of your own people. Meanwhile you will train in different camps. On the same planet, but he in an infantry center, you in a fighting vehicle center."
Her guts shriveled.
"Or," the sergeant major went on, "you can choose to transfer to the infantry. In that case, considering how you were misled, you and your husband can be in the same platoon and squad. But there are serious disadvantages in that."
Again he paused, observing her relief. "You can also have your enlistments cancelled, on the grounds of Corporal DeSoto's deliberate misrepresentation. In that case you will find yourselves in a civilian labor battalion." He paused. "Perhaps on a colony world, building fortifications. If the invaders arrive there, and the fighting goes badly, an effort will be made to evacuate our fighting units, but it is difficult to imagine a situation in which labor battalions can be salvaged."
He leaned forward, forearms on the table, his tone detached but not unfriendly. "The army is no bed of roses," he went on. "The Commonwealth is in serious danger of being overrun, and the human species eradicated. That includes you and me, small children, old people—everyone. So in the army—or in the labor battalions—the purpose of existence is not pleasure, comfort, or convenience. It is to stop the invader. Defeat him and drive him out. Bloody him so badly he will never return."
She stared round-eyed, understanding enough to get his meaning.
"That is what your training will be about, whether you are an armor jockey, or in your husband's infantry squad. One is about as dangerous as the other. In the infantry, however, the purely muscular exhaustion is much greater. The need for muscular strength results in female recruits being routinely assigned to fighting vehicles, but exceptions can be made." He eyed the wide-bodied, broad-handed young woman before him, clearly from a heavyworld, and wondered how many Terran men were as strong. "You will almost certainly be the only woman in your company," he went on, "and probably in your regiment. And ancient experience has shown that few young women can long stand such isolation from female companionship.
"Meanwhile you would not be sharing your husband's bed. Private moments of any sort would be few.
"As an armor jockey, on the other hand, the exhaustion is more of the nerves, and fighting vehicle regiments have many women."
He leaned back slightly in his chair. "You must decide now: armored vehicle training, your husband's infantry platoon, or a labor battalion."
Her eyes met his, and her voice, though quiet, was firm. "I want to be with my husband."
Sergeant Major Nguva smiled. "Good," he said, getting to his feet, and held out a large black hand with a pink palm. Hesitantly she shook it. "Congratulate your husband for me," he said, "on his good fortune in having so steadfast a wife."