Read Online The Best of Joe Haldeman by Jonathan Strahan, Joe W. Haldeman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jonathan Strahan, Joe W. Haldeman
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dun-colored desert camouflage.
The nature of the countryside changed slowly as we walked north, away from the sea. The thorned stalks—I guess you could call them trees—came in fewer numbers but were bigger around and less brittle; at the base of each was a tangled mass of vine with the same blue-green color, which spread out in a flattened cone some ten meters in diameter. There was a delicate green flower the size of a man’s head near the top of each tree.
Grass began to appear some five klicks from the sea. It seemed to respect the trees’ “property rights,” leaving a strip of bare earth around each cone of vine. At the edge of such a clearing, it would grow as timid blue-green stubble, then, moving away from the tree, would get thicker and taller until it reached shoulder high in some places, where the separation between two trees was unusually large. The grass was a lighter, greener shade than the trees and vines. We changed the color of our suits to the bright green we had used for maximum visibility on Charon. Keeping to the thickest part of the grass, we were fairly inconspicuous.
We covered over twenty klicks each day, buoyant after months under two gees. Until the second day, the only form of animal life we saw was a kind of black worm, finger-sized, with hundreds of cilium legs like the bristles of a brush. Rogers said that there obviously had to be some larger creature around, or there would be no reason for the trees to have thorns. So we were doubly on guard, expecting trouble both from the Taurans and the unidentified “large creature.”
Potter’s second platoon was on point; the general freak was reserved for her, since her platoon would likely be the first to spot any trouble.
“Sarge, this is Potter,” we all heard. “Movement ahead.”
“Get down, then!”
“We are. Don’t think they see us.”
“First platoon, go up to the right of point. Keep down. Fourth, get up to the left. Tell me when you get in position. Sixth platoon, stay back and guard the rear. Fifth and third, close with the command group.”
Two dozen people whispered out of the grass to join us. Cortez must have heard from the fourth platoon.
“Good. How about you, first? ... Okay, fine. How many are there?”
“Eight we can see.” Potter’s voice.
“Good. When I give the word, open fire. Shoot to kill.”
“Sarge,...they’re just animals.”
“Potter—if you’ve known all this time what a Tauran looks like, you should’ve told us. Shoot to kill.”
“But we need…”
“We need a prisoner, but we don’t need to escort him forty klicks to his home base and keep an eye on him while we fight. Clear?”
“Yes. Sergeant.”
“Okay. Seventh, all you brains and weirds, we’re going up and watch. Fifth and third, come along to guard.”
We crawled through the meter-high grass to where the second platoon had stretched out in a firing line.
“I don’t see anything,” Cortez said.
“Ahead and just to the left. Dark green.”
They were only a shade darker than the grass. But after you saw the first one, you could see them all, moving slowly around some thirty meters ahead.
“Fire!” Cortez fired first; then twelve streaks of crimson leaped out and the grass wilted black, disappeared, and the creatures convulsed and died trying to scatter.
“Hold fire, hold it!” Cortez stood up. “We want to have something left—second platoon, follow me.” He strode out toward the smoldering corpses, laser-finger pointed out front, obscene divining rod pulling him toward the carnage.... I felt my gorge rising and knew that all the lurid training tapes, all the horrible deaths in training accidents, hadn’t prepared me for this sudden reality...that I had a magic wand that I could point at a life and make it a smoking piece of half-raw meat; I wasn’t a soldier nor ever wanted to be one nor ever would
The nature of the countryside changed slowly as we walked north, away from the sea. The thorned stalks—I guess you could call them trees—came in fewer numbers but were bigger around and less brittle; at the base of each was a tangled mass of vine with the same blue-green color, which spread out in a flattened cone some ten meters in diameter. There was a delicate green flower the size of a man’s head near the top of each tree.
Grass began to appear some five klicks from the sea. It seemed to respect the trees’ “property rights,” leaving a strip of bare earth around each cone of vine. At the edge of such a clearing, it would grow as timid blue-green stubble, then, moving away from the tree, would get thicker and taller until it reached shoulder high in some places, where the separation between two trees was unusually large. The grass was a lighter, greener shade than the trees and vines. We changed the color of our suits to the bright green we had used for maximum visibility on Charon. Keeping to the thickest part of the grass, we were fairly inconspicuous.
We covered over twenty klicks each day, buoyant after months under two gees. Until the second day, the only form of animal life we saw was a kind of black worm, finger-sized, with hundreds of cilium legs like the bristles of a brush. Rogers said that there obviously had to be some larger creature around, or there would be no reason for the trees to have thorns. So we were doubly on guard, expecting trouble both from the Taurans and the unidentified “large creature.”
Potter’s second platoon was on point; the general freak was reserved for her, since her platoon would likely be the first to spot any trouble.
“Sarge, this is Potter,” we all heard. “Movement ahead.”
“Get down, then!”
“We are. Don’t think they see us.”
“First platoon, go up to the right of point. Keep down. Fourth, get up to the left. Tell me when you get in position. Sixth platoon, stay back and guard the rear. Fifth and third, close with the command group.”
Two dozen people whispered out of the grass to join us. Cortez must have heard from the fourth platoon.
“Good. How about you, first? ... Okay, fine. How many are there?”
“Eight we can see.” Potter’s voice.
“Good. When I give the word, open fire. Shoot to kill.”
“Sarge,...they’re just animals.”
“Potter—if you’ve known all this time what a Tauran looks like, you should’ve told us. Shoot to kill.”
“But we need…”
“We need a prisoner, but we don’t need to escort him forty klicks to his home base and keep an eye on him while we fight. Clear?”
“Yes. Sergeant.”
“Okay. Seventh, all you brains and weirds, we’re going up and watch. Fifth and third, come along to guard.”
We crawled through the meter-high grass to where the second platoon had stretched out in a firing line.
“I don’t see anything,” Cortez said.
“Ahead and just to the left. Dark green.”
They were only a shade darker than the grass. But after you saw the first one, you could see them all, moving slowly around some thirty meters ahead.
“Fire!” Cortez fired first; then twelve streaks of crimson leaped out and the grass wilted black, disappeared, and the creatures convulsed and died trying to scatter.
“Hold fire, hold it!” Cortez stood up. “We want to have something left—second platoon, follow me.” He strode out toward the smoldering corpses, laser-finger pointed out front, obscene divining rod pulling him toward the carnage.... I felt my gorge rising and knew that all the lurid training tapes, all the horrible deaths in training accidents, hadn’t prepared me for this sudden reality...that I had a magic wand that I could point at a life and make it a smoking piece of half-raw meat; I wasn’t a soldier nor ever wanted to be one nor ever would
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