'Oh, no,' he said. I relaxed. 'Actually, though, I'm not hetero anymore, either.' He slapped his hip and it made an odd sound. 'Got wounded and it turned out that I had a rare disorder of the lymphatic system, can't regenerate. Nothing but metal and plastic from the waist down. To use your word, I'm a cyborg.'

Far out, as my mother used to say. 'Oh, Private,' I called to the waiter, 'bring me one of those Antares things.' Sitting here in a bar with an asexual cyborg who is probably the only other normal person on the whole goddamned planet.

'Make it a double, please.'

2.

They looked normal enough, filing into the lecture hall where we held our first muster, the next day. Rather young and a little stiff.

Most of them had only been out of the creche for seven or eight years. The creche was a controlled, isolated environment to which only a few specialists pediatricians and teachers, mostly had access. When a person leaves the creche at age twelve or thirteen, he chooses a first name (his last name having been taken from the donor-parent with the higher genetic rating) and is legally a probationary adult, with schooling about equivalent to what I had after my first year of college. Most of them go on to more specialized education, but some are assigned a job and go right to work.

They're observed very closely and anyone who shows any signs of sociopathy, such as heterosexual leanings, is sent away to a correctional facility. He's either cured or kept there for the rest of his life.

Everyone is drafted into UNEF at the age of twenty. Most people work at a desk for five years and are discharged. A few lucky souls, about one in eight thousand, are invited to volunteer for combat training. Refusing is 'sociopathic,' even though it means signing up for an extra five years. And your chance of surviving the ten years is so small as to be negligible; nobody ever had. Your best chance is to have the war end before your ten (subjective) years of service are up. Hope that time dilation puts many years between each of your battles.

Since you can figure on going into battle roughly once every subjective year, and since an average of 34 percent survive each battle, it's easy to compute your chances of being able to fight it out for ten years. It comes to about two one-thousandths of one percent. Or, to put it another way, get an old-fashioned six-shooter and play Russian Roulette with four of the six chambers loaded. If you can do it ten times in a row without decorating the opposite wall, congratulations! You're a civilian.

There being some sixty thousand combat soldiers in UNEF, you could expect about 1.2 of them to survive for ten years. I didn't seriously plan on being the lucky one, even though I was halfway there.

How many of these young soldiers filing into the auditorium knew they were doomed? I tried to match faces up with the dossiers I'd been scanning all morning, but it was hard. They'd all been selected through the same battery of stringent parameters, and they looked remarkably alike: tall but not too tall, muscular but not heavy, intelligent but not in a brooding way ... and Earth was much more racially homogenous than it had been in my century. Most of them looked vaguely Polynesian. Only two of them, Kayibanda and Lin, seemed pure representatives of racial types. I wondered whether the others gave them a hard time.

Most of the women were achingly handsome, but I was in no position to be critical. I'd been celibate for over a year, ever since saying goodbye to Marygay, back on Heaven.

I wondered if one of them might have a trace of atavism, or might humor her commander's eccentricity. It is absolutely forbidden for an officer to form sexual liaison with his subordinates. Such a warm way of putting it. Violation of this regulation is punishable by attachment of all funds and reduction to the rank of private or, if the relationship interferes with a unit's combat efficiency, summary execution. If all of UNEF's regulations could be broken so casually and consistently as that one was, it would be a very easygoing army.

But not one of the boys appealed to me. How they'd look after another year, I wasn't sure.

'Tench-hut!' That was Lieutenant Hilleboe. It was a credit to my new reflexes that I didn't jump to my feet. Everybody in the auditorium snapped to.

'My name is. Lieutenant Hilleboe and I am your Second Field Officer.' That used to be 'Field First Sergeant.' A good sign that an army has been around too long is that it starts getting top-heavy with officers.

Hilleboe came on like a real hard-ass professional soldier. Probably shouted orders at the mirror every morning, while she was shaving. But I'd seen her profile and knew that she'd only been in action once, and only for a couple of minutes at that. Lost an arm and a leg and was commissioned, same as me, as a result of the tests they give at the regeneration clinic.

Hell, maybe she had been a very pleasant person before going through that trauma; it was bad enough just having one limb regrown.

She was giving them the usual first-sergeant peptalk, stern-but-fair: don't waste my time with little things, use the chain of command, most problems can be solved at the fifth echelon.

It made me wish I'd had more time to talk with her earlier. Strike Force Command had really rushed us into this first muster we were scheduled to board ship the next day and I'd only had a few words with my officers.

Not enough, because it was becoming clear that Hilleboe and I had rather disparate philosophies about how to run a company. It was true that running it was her job; I only commanded. But she was setting up a potential 'good guy-bad guy' situation, using the chain of command to so isolate herself from the men and women under her. I had planned not to be quite so aloof, setting aside an hour every other day when any soldier could come to me directly with grievances or suggestions, without permission from his superiors.

We had both been given the same information during our three weeks in the can. It was interesting that we'd arrived at such different conclusions about leadership. This Open Door policy, for instance, had shown good results in 'modern' armies in Australia and America. And it seemed especially appropriate to our situation, in which everybody would be cooped up for months or even years at a time. We'd used the system on the Sangre y Victoria, the last starship to which I'd been attached, and it had seemed to keep tensions down.

She had them at ease while delivering this organizational harangue; pretty soon she'd call them to attention and introduce me. What would I talk about? I'd planned just to say a few predictable words and explain my Open Door policy, then turn them over to Commodore Antopol, who would say something about the Masaryk II. But I'd better put off my explanation until after I'd had a long talk with Hilleboe; in fact, it would be best if she were the one to introduce the policy to the men and women, so it wouldn't look like the two of us were at loggerheads.

My executive officer, Captain Moore, saved me. He came rushing through a side door he was always rushing, a pudgy meteor threw a quick salute and handed me an envelope that contained our combat orders. I had a quick whispered conference with the Commodore, and she agreed that it wouldn't do any harm to tell them where we were going, even though the rank and file technically didn't have the 'need to know.'

One thing we didn't have to worry about in this war was enemy agents. With a good coat of paint, a Tauran might be able to disguise himself as an ambulatory mushroom. Bound to raise suspicions.

Hilleboe had called them to attention and was dutifully telling them what a good commander I was going to be; that I'd been in the war from the beginning, and if they intended to survive through their enlistment they had better follow my example. She didn't mention that I was a mediocre soldier with a talent for getting missed. Nor that I'd resigned from the army at the earliest opportunity and only got back in because conditions on Earth were so intolerable.

'Thank you, Lieutenant.' I took her place at the podium. 'At ease.' I unfolded the single sheet that had our orders, and held it up. 'I have some good news and some bad news.' What had been a joke five centuries before was now just a statement of fact.

'These are our combat orders for the Sade-138 campaign. The good news is that we probably won't be fighting, not immediately. The bad news is that we're going to be a target.'

They stirred a little bit at that, but nobody said anything or took his eyes off me. Good discipline. Or maybe just fatalism; I didn't know how realistic a picture they had of their future. Their lack of a future, that is.

'What we are ordered to do ... is to find the largest portal planet orbiting the Sade-138 collapsar and build a base there. Then stay at the base until we are relieved. That will be two or three years, probably.

'During that time we will almost certainly be attacked. As most of you probably know, Strike Force Command has uncovered a pattern in the enemy's movements from collapsar to collapsar. They hope eventually to trace this complex pattern back through time and space and find the Tauran's home planet. For the present, they can only send out intercepting forces, to hamper the enemy's expansion.

'In a large perspective, this is what we're ordered to do. We'll be one of several dozen strike forces employed in these blocking maneuvers, on the enemy's frontier. I won't be able to stress often enough or hard enough how important this mission is if UNEF can keep the enemy from expanding, we may be able to envelop him. And win the war.'

Preferably before we're all dead meat. 'One thing I want to be clear: we may be attacked the day we land, or we may simply occupy the planet for ten years and come on home.' Fat chance. 'Whatever happens, every one of us will stay in the best fighting trim all the time. In transit, we will maintain a regular program of callisthenics as well as a review of our training. Especially construction techniques we have to set up the base and its defense facilities in the shortest possible time.'

God, I was beginning to sound like an officer. 'Any questions?' There were none. 'Then I'd like to introduce Commodore Antopol. Commodore?'

The commodore didn't try to hide her boredom as she outlined, to this room full of ground-pounders, the characteristics and capabilities of Masaryk 77. I had learned most of what she was saying through the can's force-feeding, but the last thing she said caught my attention.

'Sade-138 will be the most distant collapsar men have gone to. It isn't even in the galaxy proper, but rather is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, some 150,000 light years distant.

'Our voyage will require four collapsar jumps and will last some four months, subjective. Maneuvering into collapsar insertion will put us about three hundred years behind Stargate's calendar by the time we reach Sade-138.'

And another seven hundred years gone, if I lived to return. Not that it would make that much difference; Marygay was as good as dead and there wasn't another person alive who meant anything to me.

'As the major said, you mustn't let these figures lull you into complacency. The enemy is also headed for Sade-138; we may all get there the same day. The mathematics of the situation is complicated, but take our word for it; it's going to be a close race.

'Major, do you have anything more for them?'

I started to rise. 'Well...'

'Tench- hut!' Hilleboe shouted. Had to learn to expect that.

'Only that I'd like to meet with my senior officers, echelon 4 and above, for a few minutes. Platoon sergeants, you're responsible for getting your troops to Staging Area 67 at 0400 tomorrow morning. Your time's your own until then. Dismissed.'

I invited the five officers up to my billet and brought out a bottle of real French brandy. It had cost two months' pay, but what else could I do with the money? Invest it?

I passed around glasses but Alsever, the doctor, demurred. Instead she broke a little capsule under her nose and inhaled deeply. Then tried without too much success to mask her euphoric expression.

'First let's get down to one basic personnel problem,' I said, pouring. 'Do all of you know that I'm not homosexual?'

Mixed chorus of yes sirs and no sirs.

'Do you think this is going to ... complicate my situation as commander? As far as the rank and file?'

'Sir, I don't' Moore began.

'No need for honorifics,' I said, 'not in this closed circle; I was a private four years ago, in my own time frame. When there aren't any troops around, I'm just Mandella, or William.' I had a feeling that was a mistake even as I was saying it. 'Go on.'

'Well, William,' he continued, 'it might have been a problem a hundred years ago. You know how people felt then.'

'Actually, I don't. All I know about the period from the twenty-first century to the present is military history.'

'Oh. Well, it was, uh, it was, how to say it?' His hands fluttered.

'It was a crime,' Alsever said laconically. 'That was when the Eugenics Council was first getting people used to the idea of universal homosex.'

'Eugenics Council?'

'Part of UNEF. Only has authority on Earth.' She took a deep sniff at the empty capsule. 'The idea was to keep people from making babies the biological way. Because, A, people showed a regrettable lack of sense in choosing their genetic partner. And B, the Council saw that racial differences had an unnecessarily divisive effect on humanity; with total control over births, they could make everybody the same race in a few generations.'

I didn't know they had gone quite that far. But I suppose it was logical. 'You approve? As a doctor.'

'As a doctor? I'm not sure.' She took another capsule from her pocket and rolled it between thumb and forefinger, staring at nothing. Or something the rest of us couldn't see. 'In a way, it makes my job simpler. A lot of diseases simply no longer exist. But I don't think they know as much about genetics as they think they do. It's not an exact science; they could be doing something very wrong, and the results wouldn't show up for centuries.'

She cracked the capsule under her nose and took two deep breaths. 'As a woman, though, I'm all in favor of it.' Hilleboe and Rusk nodded vigorously.

'Not having to go through childbirth?'

'That's part of it.' She crossed her eyes comically, looking at the capsule, gave it a final sniff. 'Mostly, though, it's not ... having to ... have a man. Inside me. You understand. It's disgusting.'

Moore laughed. 'If you haven't tried it, Diana, don't'

'Oh, shut up.' She threw the empty capsule at him playfully.

'But it's perfectly natural,' I protested.

'So is swinging through trees. Digging for roots with a blunt stick. Progress, my good major; progress.'

'Anyway,' Moore said, 'it was only a crime for a short period. Then it was considered a, oh, curable...'

'Dysfunction,' Alsever said.

'Thank you. And now, well, it's so rare ... I doubt that any of the men and women have any strong feelings about it, one way or the other.'

'Just an eccentricity,' Diana said, magnanimously. 'Not as if you ate babies.'

'That's right, Mandella,' Hilleboe said. 'I don't feel any differently toward you because of it.'

'I I'm glad.' That was just great. It was dawning on me that I had not the slightest idea of how to conduct myself socially. So much of my 'normal' behavior was based on a complex unspoken code of sexual etiquette. Was I supposed to treat the men like women, and vice versa? Or treat everybody like brothers and sisters? It was all very confusing.

I finished off my glass and set it down. 'Well, thanks for your reassurances. That was mainly what I wanted to ask you about ... I'm sure you all have things to do, goodbyes and such. Don't let me hold you prisoner.'

They all wandered off except for Charlie Moore. He and I decided to go on a monumental binge, trying to hit every bar and officers' club in the sector. We managed twelve and probably could have hit them all, but I decided to get a few hours' sleep before the next day's muster.

The one time Charlie made a pass at me, he was very polite about it. I hoped my refusal was also polite but figured I'd be getting lots of practice.

3.

UNEF's first starships had been possessed of a kind of spidery, delicate beauty. But with various technological improvements, structural strength became more important than conserving mass (one of the old ships would have folded up like an accordion if you'd tried a twenty-five-gee maneuver), and that was reflected in the design: stolid, heavy, functional-looking. The only decoration was the name MASARYK II, stenciled in dull blue letters across the obsidian hull.

Our shuttle drifted over the name on its way to the loading bay, and there was a crew of tiny men and women doing maintenance on the hull. With them as a reference, we could see that the letters were a good hundred meters tall. The ship was over a kilometer long (1036.5 meters, my latent memory said), and about a third that wide (319.4 meters).

That didn't mean there was going to be plenty of elbow-room. In its belly, the ship held six large tachyondrive fighters and fifty robot drones. The infantry was tucked off in a corner. War is the province of friction, Chuck von Clausewitz said; I had a feeling we were going to put him to the test.

We had about six hours before going into the acceleration tank. I dropped my kit in the tiny billet that would be my home for the next twenty months and went off to explore.

Charlie had beaten me to the lounge and to the privilege of being first to evaluate the quality of Masaryk II's coffee.

'Rhinoceros bile,' he said.

'At least it isn't soya,' I said, taking a first cautious sip. Decided I might be longing for soya in a week.

The officers' lounge was a cubicle about three meters by four, metal floor and walls, with a coffee machine and a library readout. Six hard chairs and a table with a typer on it.

'Jolly place, isn't it?' He idly punched up a general index on the library machine. 'Lots of military theory.'

'That's good. Refresh our memories.'

'Sign up for officer training?'

'Me? No. Orders.'

'At least you have an excuse.' He slapped the on-off button and watched the green spot dwindle. 'I signed up. They didn't tell me it'd feel like this.'

'Yeah.' He wasn't talking about any subtle problem: burden of responsibility or anything. 'They say it wears off, a little at a time.' All of that information they force into you; a constant silent whispering.

'Ah, there you are.' Hilleboe came through the door and exchanged greetings with us. She gave the room a quick survey, and it was obvious that the Spartan arrangements met with her approval. 'Will you be wanting to address the company before we go into the acceleration tanks?'

'No, I don't see why that would be ... necessary.' I almost said 'desirable.' The art of chastising subordinates is a delicate art. I could see that I'd have to keep reminding Hilleboe that she wasn't in charge.

Or I could just switch insignia with her. Let her experience the joys of command.