Because he had never been in Prime before Kana Karr, Arch Swordsman, Third Class, would have liked nothing better than to brace his lanky length against the wall of the airport and stare up at those towers thrusting into the steely blue of the morning sky. But to do that was to betray himself as a greenie, so he had to be satisfied with glances skyward taking in as much of the awesome sight as he could without becoming conspicuous. More than ever he resented the fate which had delivered him at Combatant Headquarters a whole month later than his recruit class, so that he would probably be the only newcomer among those awaiting assignment in the Hiring Hall.
Actually to be at Prime itself was exciting. This was the goal toward which ten years of intensive training had pointed him. He put down his war bag and rubbed his damp hands surreptitiously against his tight breeches; though it was a crisp early spring day he was sweating. The stiff collar of his new green-gray tunic sawed at his throat and the cheek wings of his dress helmet chafed his jaws. All his accouterments weighed more than they ever had before.
He was acutely conscious of the bare state of the belts crossing his shoulders, of the fact that his helmet was still crestless. The men who had shared the shuttle with him, scintillated with the gemmed loot of scores of successful missions, veterans every one of them.
Well—to achieve that status was only a matter of time, he repeated silently once more. Every one of these emblazoned figures now passing had stood there once, just as bare of insignia, probably just as uncertain inside as he now was—
Kana's attention was caught by another color, blazingly alive among the familiar waves of green-gray and silver. As his lips made a narrow line, his blue eyes, so startlingly vivid in his dark face, chilled.
A surface mobile had drawn up before the entrance of the very building to which he had been directed. And climbing out of it was a squat man swathed in a brilliant scarlet cloak, behind him two others in black and white. As if their arrival had been signaled, the Terran Combatants on the steps melted to right and left, making a wide path to the door.
But that was not in honor, Kana Karr reminded himself fiercely. Terrans on their home planet paid no deference to Galactic Agents, except in a style so exaggerated as to underline their dislike. There would surely come a time when—
His fists balled as he watched the red cloak and his guardian Galactic Patrolmen vanish inside the Hiring Hall. Kana had never had direct contact with an Agent. The X-Tees, the non-human Extra-Terrestrials, who had been his instructors after he had proved capable of absorbing X-Tee and Alien Liaison training, were a different class altogether. Perhaps because they were non-human he had never really ranked them among those rulers of Central Control who had generations earlier so blithely termed the inhabitants of Sol's system "barbarians," not eligible for Galactic citizenship except within the narrow limits they defined.
He was conscious that not all his fellows were as resentful of that as he was. Most of his classmates, for example, had been content enough to accept the future so arbitrarily decided for them. Outright rebellion meant the labor camps and no chance to ever go into space. Only a Combatant on military duty had the privilege of visiting the stars. And when Kana had learned that early in his career, he had set himself to acquire the shell of a model Arch, discovering in X-Tee training enough solace to aid his control of the seething hatred for the fact that he was not allowed to range the stars as he willed.
The sharp note of a military whistle proclaiming the hour brought him back to earth and to the problem at hand. He shouldered his war bag and climbed the steps up which the Agent had gone a few moments before. He left his bag in the lockers by the door and took his place in the line of men winding into the inner hall.
The Mechs in their blue-gray coveralls and bubble helmets outnumbered the Archs in his particular section of that creeping line. And the few Archs near him were veterans. Consequently even when surrounded by his kind Kana felt as isolated here as he had in the street.
"They're trying to keep the lid on—but Falfa refused that assignment for his Legion." The Mech to his left, a man in his thirties with ten enlistment notches on his blade-of-honor, made no effort to keep his voice down.
"He'll face a board for refusing," returned his companion dubiously. "After all there's such a thing as a run of hard luck—"
"Hard luck? Two different Legions don't return from the same job and you talk about luck! I'd say that some investigating was called for. D'you know how many Legions have been written off the rolls in the past five years—twenty! Does that sound like bad luck?"
Kana almost echoed the other listener's gasp. Twenty Legions lost in battle over a period of five years—that was pushing the luck theory too far. If the modern, expertly armed Legions which operated only on civilized planets had been so decimated, what of the Hordes that served on barbarian worlds? Had their "luck" been equally bad? No wonder there had been a lot of undercover talk lately, comment that the price Central Control set on space—the price that Terra had paid for almost three hundred years—was too high.
The man before him moved suddenly and Kana hurried to close the gap between them. They were at the enlistment barrier. Kana pulled at the lock on his armlet to have it ready to hand to the Swordtan on duty there. That strip of flexible metal, fed into the record block, would automatically flash on the assignment rolls all the necessary information concerning one Kana Karr, Australian-Malay-Hawaiian, age eighteen and four months, training: basic with X-Tee specialization, previous service: none. And once that went into Hiring there was no turning back. The Swordtan took the band, allowed it to rest on the block for an instant, and handed it back with the lackluster boredom of one condemned to a routine job.
Within there were plenty of empty seats—Mechs to the left, Archs to the right. Kana slipped into the nearest seat and dared to stare about him. Facing the tiers of seats was the assignment board, already blinking orange signals and, although he knew his number could not possibly come up yet, he felt he must watch that steady stream of calls. Most seemed to be for the Mechs—sometimes four and five arose together and went through the door at the far end.
The Archs—Kana leaned forward in his seat to count the men on his side. At least twenty Swordsmen First Class, with even two Swordtans among them, were there. And fifty or more Second Class rankers. But—his eyes sought for other crestless helmets—he was the only Third Class man present. The recruits who had preceded him out of Training must have been hired before he came. Wait—red light—
Two S-2 men got up, settled their tunics with a twitch and adjusted their belts. But before they moved into the aisle there was an interruption. The board flashed white and then off entirely as a small party of men tramped down to ascend two steps to the announcement platform.
A Combatant, lacking the crossed shoulder belts of a field man, but with four stars shining on the breast of his tunic, stepped out to face the murmuring Swordsmen and Mechneers. He was flanked by the red-cloaked Galactic Agent and the latter's Patrolmen. Kana identified the three swiftly—humanoid. The Agent was a Sarmak native, the Patrolmen from Nyorai—the length of their slender legs unmistakable.
"Combatants!" the Terran officer's parade ground trained voice snapped out, to be followed by instant silence. "Certain recent events have made it necessary to make this announcement. We have made a full investigation—with the able assistance of Central Control facilities—into the trouble on Nevers. It is now certified that our defeat there was the result of local circumstances. The rumors concerning this episode are not to be repeated by any of the Corps—under the rule of loyalty—general code."
What in Terra! Kana's amazement might not be openly registered on the masklike face presented him by the blood of his Malay grandfather, but his mind raced. To make such a statement as that was simply asking for trouble—didn't the officer realize that? The Galactic Agent's frown proved that he wasn't pleased. Trouble on Nevers—this was the first he'd heard of it. But he'd wager half his first enlistment pay that within ten minutes every man in this hall would be trying to find out what were the rumors being so vigorously denied. It would spread like oil slick on a river.
The Agent stepped out, he appeared to be arguing with the officer. But here he could only advise—he could not give direct orders. And it was too late to stop the damage now anyway. If he had made this move to allay fear, the Combatant officer had only given it fresh life.
With a decided shake of his head the officer started back down the aisle, the three others having, perforce, to follow him. Once more the lights flickered on the board. But the hum of talk rose to a gale of sound as soon as the door closed behind the quartet.
Kana's attention went back to the board just in time. Three more veterans had arisen on his own side of the hall, and, trailing their numbers, came the familiar combination he had answered to for the past ten years, almost more his name than the one his mixed island ancestry had given him.
Once through the other door he slackened pace, keeping modestly behind the rankers who had answered the same call. Third Class was Third Class and ranked nobody or nothing—except a cadet still in training. He was the lowest of the low and dared not presume to tread upon the heels of the man who had just stepped onto that lift.
The other was an Afro-Arab by his features—with maybe a dash of European blood bequeathed by one of the handful of refugees fleeing south during the nuclear wars. He was very tall, and the beardless, dark skin of his face was seamed with an old scar. But the loot of many campaigns blazed from his helmet and belts and—Kana squinted against the light to be sure—there were at least half a dozen major notches on his rank sword, although he could not be very far into his thirties.
They lined up in an upper hallway, the Archs who had responded to that last call. And the veterans presented a brilliant array. Both Arch and Mech who served in the field off Terra were accustomed to carry their personal savings on their bodies. A successful mission meant another jewel added to the belt, or inset in the helmet. A lean season and that could be sold for credits to tide its owner over. It was a simple form of security which served on any planet in the Galaxy.
It was two minutes after twelve before Kana came inside the assignment officer's cubby. He was a badge Swordtan, with a plasta-flesh hand which explained his present inactive status. Kana snapped to attention.
"Kana Karr, Swordsman, Third Class, first enlistment, sir," he identified himself.
"No experience"—the plasta-flesh fingers beat an impatient tattoo on the desk top—"but you have X-Tee training. How far did you go?"
"Fourth level, Alien contact, sir." Kana was a fraction proud of that. He had been the only one in his training group to reach that level.
"Fourth level," the Swordtan repeated. From the tone he was not impressed at all. "Well, that's something. We're hiring for Yorke Horde. Police action on the planet Fronn. Usual rates. You embark for Secundus Base tonight, transship from there to Fronn. Voyage about a month. Term of enlistment—duration of action. You may refuse—this is a first choice." He repeated the last official formula with the weary voice of one who has said it many times before.
He was allowed two refusals, Kana knew, but to exercise that privilege without good reason gave one a black mark. And police action—while it covered a multitude of different forms of service—was usually an excellent way to get experience.
"I accept assignment, sir!" He pulled off his armlet for the second time and watched the Swordtan insert it in the block before him, pressing the keys which would enter on that band the terms of his first tour of duty. When he checked out at the end of the enlistment, a star would signify satisfactory service.
"Ship raises from Dock Five at seventeen hours. Dismissed!"
Kana saluted and left. He was hungry. The transients' mess was open and being a combatant in service he was entitled to order more than just basic rations. But a dislike of spending pay he had not yet earned kept him to the plain fare he was allowed as long as he wore the Arch tunic. He lingered over the food, listening to the scraps of shop talk and rumor flying back and forth across the tables. As he had suspected the announcement made in the hiring hall had given birth to some pretty wild stories.
"Lost fifty legions in five years—" proclaimed one Mechtan. "They don't tell us the truth any more. I've heard that Longmead and Groth refused assignments—"
"The High Brass is getting rattled," commented a Swordtan. "Did you see old Poalkan giving us the fishy eye? He'd like to bring the Patrol in and mop up. Tell you what we ought to do—planet for some quiet in-fighting at a place I could name. That might help—"
There was a moment of silence. The speaker did not need to name his goal. All mankind's festering resentment against Central Control lay behind that outburst.
Kana could stall no longer. He left the hum of the mess hall. Yorke Horde was a small outfit. Fitch Yorke, its Blademaster, was young. He'd only had a command for about four years. But sometimes under young commanders you had better advancement. Fronn—that was a world unknown to Kana. But the answer to his ignorance was easy to find. He made his way through the corridors to a quiet room with a row of booths lining one wall. At the back of the chamber was a control board with banks of buttons. He pressed the proper combination of those and waited for the record-pak.
The roll of wire was a very thin one. Not much known of Fronn. He ducked into the nearest booth, inserted the wire in the machine there, and put aside his helmet to adjust the impression band on his temples. A second later he drifted off to sleep, the information in the pak being fed to his memory cells.
It was a quarter of an hour later when he roused. So that was Fronn—not a particularly inviting world. And the pak had only sketched in meager details. But he now possessed all the knowledge the archives listed.
Kana sighed ruefully—that climate meant a tour in the pressure chamber during the voyage. The assignment officer had not mentioned that. Pressure chamber and water acclimation both. Serve him right for not asking more questions before he signed. He only hoped that he wasn't going to be sick for the whole trip.
When he went up to return the pak he met a Mechneer standing by the selector—an impatient Mech whistling tunelessly between his teeth, playing with the buckle of his blaster belt. He was only slightly older than Kana but he carried himself with the arrogant assurance of a man who had made at least two missions, an arrogance few real veterans displayed.
Kana glanced back at the booths. He had been the only occupant, so what was the Mech waiting there for? He dropped the pak on the return belt, but, as he reached the door, its polished surface reflected a strange sight. The Mech had scooped up the pak on Fronn before it vanished into the bin.
Fronn was a primitive world, a class five planet. Any Combatant force employed there must be, by Central Control regulations, an Arch Horde, trained and conditioned for so-called hand-to-hand fighting, their most modern weapon a stat-rifle. No mechanized unit would be sent to Fronn where their blasters, crawlers, spouters would be outlawed. So why should a Mech be interested in learning about that world?
Idle curiosity about planets on which one could not serve was not indulged among Combatants. It was about all one could do to absorb the information one could actually use.
Now Kana wished that he had had a closer look at the thin face which had been so shadowed by the bubble helmet. Puzzled and somewhat disturbed he went on to the commissary to lay in the personal supplies his new knowledge of Fronn suggested it wise to buy.
Wistfully he regarded and then refused a sleeping bag of Uzakian spider silk lined with worstle temperature moss. And the gauntlets of karab skin which the supply corpsman tried to sell him were as quickly pushed aside. Such luxuries were for the veteran with enough treasure riding his belt to afford a buying spree. Kana must thriftily settle for a second-hand Cambra bag—a short jacket of sasti hide, fur-lined and with a parka hood and gloves attached, and some odd medicament and toilet articles, in all a very modest outfit which could easily be added to the contents of his war bag. And when he settled the bill he still had left four credits of his muster allowance.
The corpsman deftly rolled his purchases into a bundle. "Looks like you're heading to some cold place, fella," he commented.
"To Fronn."
The man grinned. "Never heard of the place. Back of nowhere—sounds like to me. Look out they don't stick a spear in you from behind some bush. Those nowhere guys play rough. But then you guys do too, don't you?" He stared knowingly at Kana's Arch uniform. "Yessir, kinda rough, slugging it out the way you do. Me, I'd rather have me a blaster and be a Mech—"
"Then you'd face another fighter with a blaster of his own," Kana pointed out as he reached for the bundle.
"Have it your own way, fella." The corpsman lost interest as a be-jeweled veteran approached.
Kana recognized in the newcomer the man who had preceded him to the assignment officer's cubby. Was he, too, bound for Yorke Horde and Fronn? When the spider silk sleeping bag was slapped down on the counter for his inspection, and other supplies similar to Kana's modest selection piled on it, he was reasonably sure that guess was correct.
At sixteen and a half hours the recruit stood beside his bag in the waiting section of Dock Five. So far he was alone save for the corpsmen who had business there and two spacer crewmen lounging at the far end. To have arrived so early was the badge of a greenie, but he was too excited under his impassive exterior to sit and wait elsewhere. It was twenty to seventeen before his future teammates began to straggle in. And ten minutes later they were swung up on the carry platform to the hatch of the troopship. Checking his armlet against the muster roll, the ship's officer waved Kana on. Within five minutes he entered a cabin for two, wondering which of the bunks was his to strap down on.
"Well"—a voice behind him exploded in a boom—"either get in or get out! This is no time to sleep on watch, recruit! Haven't you ever spaced before?"
Kana crowded back against the wall, snatching his bag away from the boots of the newcomer.
"Up there!" With an impatient snort his cabin mate pitched the younger man's bag up on the top bunk.
Kana swung up and investigated. Sure enough, a small knob twisted, and a section of the wall opened to display a recess which would accommodate his belongings. The rich note of a gong interrupted his exploration. At that signal the veteran loosened his belts and his helmet, putting them aside. And Kana hurriedly followed suit. One bong—first warning—
He stretched out on the bunk and fumbled for the straps which must be buckled. Under the weight of his body the foam pad spread a little. He knew that he could take acceleration—that was one of the first tests given a recruit in training. And he had been on field maneuvers on Mars and the Moon—but this was his first venture into deep space. Kana smoothed his tunic across his middle and waited for the third warning to announce the actual blastoff.
It had been a long time since Terrans had first reached toward other worlds. Three hundred years since the first recorded pioneer flight into the Galaxy. And even before that there were legends of other ships fleeing the nuclear wars and the ages of political and social confusion which followed. They must have been either very desperate or very brave, those first explorers—sending their ships out into the unknown while they were wrapped in cold sleep with one chance in perhaps a thousand of waking as their craft approached another planet. With the use of Galactic overdrive such drastic chances were no longer necessary. But had his kind paid too high a price for their swifter passage from star to star?
Though a Combatant did not openly question the dictates of authority or the status quo, Kana knew that he was by no means alone in his discontent with Terra's role. What would have happened to his species if, when they had made that first historic flight, they had not met with the established, superior force of Central Control? According to their Galactic masters the potentials of the Terran mind, body and temperament fitted them for only one role in the careful pattern of space. Born with an innate will to struggle, they were ordered to supply mercenaries for the other planets. Because the C.C. psycho-techneers believed that they were best suited to combat, their planet and system had been arbitrarily geared to war. And Terrans accepted the situation because of a promise C.C. had made—a promise the fulfillment of which seemed farther in the future every year—that when they were ready for a more equal citizenship it would be granted them.
But what if Central Control had not existed? Would the Agents' repeated argument have proved true? Would the Terrans, unchecked, have pulled planet after planet into a ruthless struggle for power? Kana was sure that was a lie. But now if a Terran wanted the stars, if the desire for new and strange knowledge burned in him—he could buy it only by putting on the Combatant's sword.
A giant hand squeezed Kana's rib case against laboring lungs. He forgot everything in a fight for breath. They had blasted off.