Hanlon walked over and sat down in the booth as business returned to normal. "They hew you were here, Steve. I heard them talking in the back of Rockefeller's. So I thought I'd come back down and hang around."

"I've always said you've got a good sense of timing, Bret."

"So, is this fine young fella the Jay you were telling me about?" Hanlon asked.

"That's Jay. Jay, this is Bret-Bret Hanlon. He runs one of the other platoons and teaches unarmed combat. Don't mess with him."

"Was that why those guys took off?" Jay asked, by now having regained most of his color. "It probably had something to do with it," Colman said, grinning. "That's the kind of trash you have to deal with. Still interested?"

"I guess I'll have to think about it," Jay conceded. Hanlon ordered three hamburger dinners, and the two sergeants spent a half hour talking with Jay about Army life, football, and how Stanislau could crash the protected sector of the public databank. Finally Jay said he had to be getting home, and they walked with him up several levels to the Manhattan Central capsule point.

"Shall we be getting back to the party then?" Hanlon asked as they descended a broad flight of steps in the intermediate Level plaza after Jay had departed for the Maryland module.

Colman slowed and rubbed his chin. He wasn't in the mood. "You go on, Bret," he said. "I think I'm just gonna wander around. I guess I'd rather be on my own for a while."

Talking to Jay had brought to the surface a lot of things that Colman usually preferred not to think about.

Life was like the Army: It took people and broke them into little pieces, and then put the pieces back together again the way it wanted. Except it did it with their minds. It took kids' minds while they were plastic and paralyzed them by telling them they were stupid, confused them with people who were supposed to know everything better than they did but wouldn't tell them anything, and terrified them with a G.o.d who loved everybody. Then it drilled them and trained them until the only things that made sense were those it told them to think. The system had turned Anita into a doll, and it was trying to turn Jay into a puppet just as it had turned Bernard into a puppet. It turned people into recording machines that words went into and came out of again, and made them think they knew everything about a planet full of people they'd never seen, just as it blew black guys' brains out because they wanted to run their farms and didn't want their kids nailed to walls, and then told the civilians in Cape Town it was okay. And what had it done to Colman? He didn't know because he didn't know how else it might have been.

"Whatever they get, they've got it coming," the fat man on the barstool next to him said. "Kids running around wild, breeding like rabbits-It's disgusting. And making bombs. Savages is what they are-no better than the Chinese. Kalens has got the right idea. He'll teach 'em some decency and respect."

Colman drank up and left.

Jesus, he thought, he was sick of the system. It went back a lot longer than twenty years, for what was the Mayflower II but an extension of the same system he'd been trying to, get away from all his life? Jay was beginning to feel the trap closing around him already. And none of it was going to change-ever.

Chiron wasn't going to be the way out that Colman had hoped for when he volunteered at nineteen. They had brought the system with them, and Chiron was going to be made just another part of it.

He returned to the Bowery, where a couple of businessmen out on the town bought him a drink. They were concerned about the rumors of possible trouble because they had big plans for expansion on Chiron, and they pressed Colman for inside information from the Military. Colman said he didn't have any. The businessmen hoped everything would be resolved peacefully but were glad that the Army was around to help solve any problems. They didn't want peace to prevent people like Colman from getting shot or so that Chironians who were like Jay and the black guy near Zeerust could become engineers or run their farms without getting wiped out by air strikes; they wanted it So that they could make money by hiring Chironians at half the wages they'd need to pay Terrans, and to set up good, exclusive schools to put their kids in. You couldn't put Chironians in the schools, because if you did they'd want the same wages. And in any case they'd never be able to afford it. The Chironians weren't really people, after all.

"What does a Chironian computer print when you attempt illegal access?" one of them asked Colman when they had got into their joke repertoires.

"What?"

"RAPE" Ha-ha, hah-hah He decided to go up to Rockefeller's to see if any of his platoon were still around. On the way his pace slowed abruptly. Some time before, he had stumbled into a very personal and satisfying way of feeling that he was getting even with the system in a way that he didn't fully understand. n.o.body else knew about it-not even Hanlon, but that didn't make any difference. He hadn't seen her for a while now, and he was in just the right mood.

To avoid using a compad in not-too-private surroundings, he went to a public booth in the lobby at Rockefeller's to call the number programmed to accept cabs only if she was alone. While Colman waited for a response, his mind flashed back six months. He had been standing stiffly at attention in dress uniform alongside a display of a remote-fire artillery control post that was part of the Army's contribution to the Fourth of July celebrations, when she wandered away from a group of VIPs sipping c.o.c.ktails and stood beside him to gaze admiringly at the screens carrying simulated battlefield displays. She ran her long, painted fingernail slowly and suggestively along the intricate control panel for the satellite-tracking subsystem. "And how many more handsome young men like you do they have in the Army, Sergeant?"

she murmured at the displays before her.

"Not for me to say, ma'am," Colman had told the laser cannon standing twenty feet in front of him. "I'm not an expert on handsome men."

"An expert on ladies in need of stimulating entertainment, perhaps?"

"That depends, ma'am. They can lead to a heap of trouble."

"Very wise, Sergeant. But then, some of them can be very discreet. Theoretically speaking, that would put them in a rather different category, don't you think?"

"Theoretically, I guess, yes, it would," Colman had agreed.

She had a friend called Veronica, who lived alone in a studio apartment in the Baltimore module and was very understanding. Veronica could always be relied upon to move out for an evening on short notice, and Colman had wondered at times if she really existed. Acquiring exclusive access to a studio wouldn't have been all that difficult for a VIP's wife, even with the accommodation limitations of the Mayflower II.

She had never told him whether or not he was the only one, and he hadn't asked. It was that kind of a relationship.

The screen before him suddenly came to life to show her face. A flicker of surprise danced in her eyes for the merest fraction of a second, and then gave way to a smoldering twinkle of antic.i.p.ation mixed with a dash of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Well, h.e.l.lo, Sergeant," she said huskily. "I was beginning to wonder if I had a deserter. Now, I wonder what could be on your mind at this time of night."

"It depends. What's the situation, company-wise?"

"Oh, very boring for a Sat.u.r.day Right."

"He's not-"

"Wining, dining, and conspiring-no doubt until the early hours."

Colman hesitated for a split second to let the question ask itself. "So...?"

"Well now, I'm sure Veronica could be persuaded if I were to can her and talk to her nicely."

"Say, half an hour?"

"Half an hour." She smiled a promise and winked. Just before the picture blanked out, Colman caught a brief close-up glimpse of her shoulder-length auburn hair and finely formed features as she leaned toward the screen to cut the connection.

Colman's top-echelon, part-time mistress was Celia Kalens.

CHAPTER EIGHT ON THIS, THE eve of the last Christmas that we shall be celebrating together before our journey ends, I have chosen as the subject of my seasonal message to you the pa.s.sage which begins, 'Suffer little children to come unto me'. The voice of the Mission's presiding bishop floated serenely down from the loudspeakers around the Texas Bowl to the congregation of ten thousand listening solemnly from the terraces. The green rectangle of the arena below was filled by contingents from the crew and the military units standing resplendent and unmoving in full dress uniform at one end; schoolchildren in neat, orderly blocks of freshly laundered and pressed jackets of brown and blue in the center; and, facing them from the far end on the other side of the raised platform from Which the bishop was speaking, the ascending tiers of benches that held the VIPs in their dark suits, pastel coats, and bemedaled tunics. The voice continued. "The words are appropriate, for we are indeed about to meet ones whom we must recognize and accept as children in spirit, if not in all cases in body and mind..."

Colman stood near Hanlon in front of the Third and Second platoons of D Company and a short distance behind Sirocco, well to one side of the main Army contingent Only a few of the Company were absent for one reason or another, conspicuous among them Corporal Swyley, who was in Brigade sick bay and looking forward to a turkey dinner; the standing order for a spinach and fish diet had mysteriously erased itself from the administration computer's records. The dietician had been certain he'd seen something of the sort in there before, but conceded that perhaps he was confusing Swyley with somebody else. Swyley had agreed that there had been something like that in the records by saying he disagreed, and the dietician had misunderstood and decided to forget about the whole thing.

"...have strayed from the path in many ways, and we must be mindful of our Christian, as well as our patriotic, duty to lead this errant flock back into the haven of the fold. Sometimes this is not an easy task, and requires firmness and dedication as well as compa.s.sion and understanding..."

Colman thought about the briefings he had attended recently on the offensive tactics for seizing key points on the surface of Chiron in the event of hostilities, and the intensive training in ant.i.terrorist and counterguerilla operations that had been initiated. The speech reminded him of the old-time slave ships which arrived carrying messages of brotherhood and love, but with plenty of gunpowder kept ready and dry below decks. Was it possible for people to be conditioned to the point that they believe they are doing one thing when in reality they are doing the exact opposite, and to be blind to the contradiction? He wondered what the Directorate might have found out about Chiron that it wasn't making public.

"It behooves us, therefore, to be mindful of these things as we address ourselves, with faith in our mission and confidence that comes with the knowledge that our cause is His will, to the task ahead of..."

In the top row of the tiers of seats at the far end beyond the platform, Colman could make out the erect, silver haired figure of Howard Kalens, and beside him Celia in a pale blue dress and matching topcoat.

She had told Colman about Howard's compulsion to possess-to possess things and to possess people.

He felt threatened by any thing or anyone that he couldn't command. Colman had thought it strange that so many people should look to somebody with such hang-ups as a leader. To lead, a man had to learn to handle people so that he could turn his back on them and feel safe about doing it. Celia refused to become another of Kalens's possessions, and she proved it to herself in the same way that Colman proved to himself that n.o.body was going to tell him what he was supposed to think. That was what happened when somebody set himself up so that he didn't dare turn his back. Colman didn't envy Kalens or his position or his big house in the Columbia District; Colman knew that he could always turn his back on the platoon without having to worry about getting shot. They should issue all the VIPs up in the benches M32s, Colman thought. Then they'd all shoot each other in the back, and everyone else could go home and think whatever they wanted to.

So how did people like Howard Kalens feel about Chiron? Colman wondered. Did they think they could possess a whole planet? Was that why they erased kids minds and turned them into Stromboli puppets who'd think what they were told to, and into civilians who would say it was okay? But why did the people let them do it? Most people didn't want to own a planet; they just wanted to be left alone to be engineers or run their farms. Because they played along with the rules that said they were better if they thought the way the rules said they should, and no good if they didn't.

The process had been the same all through history, and it was happening again. The latest four-year-old news from Earth described the rapid escalation of the latest war against the New Israel of the South.

Only this time the EAF was getting involved. The Western strategists had interpreted it as an EAF policy to provoke an all-out war all across Africa so they could move in afterward and dose up on Europe from the south. Apparently the idea was to try and take over the whole landma.s.s of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Why did they want to take over the whole of Asia, Africa, and Europe? Colman didn't know. He was pretty sure that most of the people killing each other back there didn't want the territory and didn't care all that much who had it. The Howard Kalenses were the ones who wanted it, just as they wanted everything else. Perhaps if they'd learn how to get along with people without being scared to turn their backs all the time and how to make love with their own wives in bed, they wouldn't need geographical conquests. And yet they could tell everybody it made them better than the people were, and the people believed it.

He remembered Jay's mentioning a physicist from the labs in the Princeton module who said that human societies were the latest phase in the same process of evolution that had begun billions of years ago when the universe started to condense out of radiation. Evolution was a business of survival. Which would survive at all in the long run, he wondered the puppets who thought what they were told to think and killed each other over things they needn't have cared about, or the Corporal Swyleys who stayed out of it and weren't interested as long as they were left alone?

Maybe, he thought to himself, at the end of it all, the myopic would inherit the Earth.

CHAPTER NINE.

ON THE DAY officially designated December 28, 2080, in the chronological system that would apply until the ship switched over to the Chironian calendar, the Mayflower II entered the planetary system of Alpha Centauri at a speed of 2837 miles per second, reducing, with its main drive still firing at maximum power. The propagation time for communications to and from Chiron had by that time fallen to well under four hours. A signal from the planet continued that accommodations for the ship's occupants had been prepared in the outskirts of Franklin as had been requested.

December 31, 2080 Distance to Chiron 1.9 billion miles; speed down to 1100 miles per second. Progressive phase-down of the main-drive b.u.m was commenced, and slow pivoting of the variable-att.i.tude Ring modules initiated to correct for the effect of diminishing linear force from the reducing deceleration. No response received from the Chironians to a request for a schedule of the names, ranks, t.i.tles, and responsibilities of the planetary dignitaries a.s.signed to receive the Mayflower II's official delegation on arrival.

January 5, 2081 Speed 300 miles per second; distance to destination, 493 million miles. Course-correction effected to bring the ship round onto its final approach.

January 8, 2081 At 8 million miles, defenses brought to full alert and advance screen of remote-control interceptors deployed 50,000 miles ahead of ship to cover final approach. Response from Chiron neutral.

January 9, 2081 Communications round-trip delay to Chiron, twenty-two seconds. Formal arrangements for reception procedures still not concluded. Chironians handling communications claim they have no representative powers, and that n.o.body with the qualifications specified exists. Mayflower II's defenses brought to combat readiness.

January 10, 2081 The propulsion systems master control computer monitored the final stages of phase-down of the burn and shutdown the main-drive reactors. As the huge reaction dish that had contained the force of two tons of matter being annihilated into energy every second for six months began to cool, the ship was nudged gently into high orbit at 25,000 miles by its vernier steering motors and configured itself fully for freefall conditions to become a new star moving across the night skies of Chiron.

The voyage of the Mayflower II had ended.

CHAPTER TEN.

As the Mayflower II wheeled slowly in s.p.a.ce high above Chiron, the outer dour of Shuttle Bay 6 on the Vandenberg module separated into four sectors which swung apart like the petals of an enormous metal flower to expose the nose of the surface lander nestling within. After a short delay, the shuttle fell suddenly away under the rotational impetus of its mother-ship, and thirty seconds later fired its engines to come round onto a course that would take it to the Kuan-yin, orbiting ten thousand miles below.

"Our orders are to 'precede the Amba.s.sador's party through the docking lock to form an honorary guard in the forward antechamber of the Kuan-yin, where the formalities will take place,'" Sirocco read aloud to the D Company personnel a.s.signed as escorts at the briefing held early that morning.

"'Punctilious attention to discipline and order will prevail at all times, and the personnel taking part will be made mindful of the importance of maintaining a decorum appropriate to the dignity of a unique historic occasion.' That means no ventriloquized comments to relieve the boredom, Swyley, and the best parade ground turnout you ever managed, all of you. 'Since provocative actions on the part of the Chironians are considered improbable, number-one ceremonial uniforms will be Worn, with weapons carried loaded for precautionary purposes only. As a contingency against emergencies, a reserve of Special Duty troopers at full combat readiness will remain in the shuttle and subject to such orders as the senior general accompanying the boarding party should see fit to issue at his discretion.'"

"Ever get the feeling you were being set up?" Carson of Third Platoon asked sourly. "If anyone gets it first, guess who."

"Didn't you know you were expendable?" Stanislau asked matter-of-factly.

"Ah, but think of the honor of it," Hanlon told them. "And won't every one of them poor SD fellas back in the shuttle be eating his heart out with envy and just wishing he could be out there with the same opportunity to risk himself for flag and country."

"I'll trade," Stanislau offered at once.

Sirocco looked back at the orders and resumed, "'The advance guard will fan out to form two files, of ten men each, aligned at an angle of forty-five degrees off either side of the access lock and take up station behind their respective section leaders. Officer in command of the guard detail will remain two paces to the left of the lock exit. Upon completion of the opening formalities, the guard will be relieved by a detail from B Company who will position themselves at the exit ramp, and will proceed through the Kuan-Yin, to post sentry details at the locations specified in Schedule A, attached. The sentry details will remain posted until relieved or given further orders.' Are there any questions so far?"

The Amba.s.sador referred to was to be Avery Farnhill, Howard Kalens's deputy in Liaison. Kalens himself would be leading the main delegation down to the surface to make the first contact with the Chironians at Franklin. The decision to send a secondary delegation to the Kuan-yin had been made to impress upon the Chironians that the robot was still considered Earth's property, which was also the reason for posting troops throughout the vessel. As a point of protocol, Wellesley and Sterm would not become involved until the appropriate contacts on Chiron had been established and the agenda for further discussion suitably prepared.

The Kuan-yin had changed appreciably from the form shown in the pictures he had seen of the craft that had departed from Earth in 2020, Colman noted with interest as he sat erect to preserve the creases of his uniform beneath the restraining belt holding him to his seat and watched the image growing on the wall screen at the forward end of the cabin. The original design had taken the form of a dumbbell, with fuel storage and the thermonuclear pulse engines concentrated at one end, and the computers and sensitive reconnaissance instruments carried at the far end of a long, connecting, structural boom to keep them safely away from drive-section radiation. The modifications added after 2015 for creating and accommodating the first Chironians had entailed extensions to the instrumentation module and the incorporation of auxiliary motors which would spin the dumbbell about its center after arrival in order to simulate gravity for the new occupants while the first surface base was being prepared.

In the years since, the instrumentation module had sprouted a collection of ancillary structures which had doubled its size, the original fuel tanks near the tail had vanished to be replaced, apparently, by a bundle of huge metal bottles mounted around the central portion of the connecting boom, and a new a.s.sembly of gigantic windings surrounding a tubular housing now formed the tail, culminating in a parabolic reaction dish reminiscent of the Mayflower II's main drive, though much smaller because of the Kuan-yin's reduced scale. The Mayflower II's designers had included docking adapters for the shuttles to mate with the Kuan-yin's ports, and the Chironians had retained the original pattern in their modifications, so the shuttle would be able to connect without problems.

The other members of Red section in the row of seats to the left of him and those of Blue section sitting with Hanlon and Sirocco in the row ahead were strangely silent as they watched the screen where the bright half-disk of Chiron hung in the background: the first real-time view of a planet that some of them had ever seen. Farther back along the cabin, reflecting the planned order of emergence, General Portney was sitting in the center of a group of bra.s.s-bedecked senior officers, and behind them Amery Farnhill was tense and dry-lipped among his retinue of civilian diplomatic staff and a.s.sistants. In the rear, the SD troops were grim and silent in steel helmets and combat uniforms festooned with grenades, propping their machine rifles and a.s.sault cannon between their knees.

Farnhill's staff had given up trying to get the Chironians to provide an official list of who would be greeting the delegation. In the end they had simply advised the Kuan-yin when the shuttle would arrive and resigned themselves to playing things by ear after that. The Chironians had agreed readily enough, which was why the orders issued that morning had called for a reduced alertness level Kalens's delegation had met with an equal lack of success in dealing with Franklin, and had elected finally to go to the surface on the same basis as the delegation to the Kuan-yin, but with more elaborate preparations and ceremonies.

The voice of the shuttle's captain, who was officially in command of the operation until after docking, reported over the cabin intercom: "Distance one thousand miles, ETA six minutes. Coming into matching orbit and commencing closing maneuver. Prepare for r.e.t.a.r.dation. Kuan-yin has confirmed they will open Port Three."

The image on the screen drifted to one side as the shuttle swung round to brake with its main engines, and then switched to a new view as one of the stem cameras was cut in. Colman was squeezed back against his seat for the next two minutes or so, after which the screen cut back to a noseward view, and a series of topsy-turvy sensations came and went as the flight-control computers brought the ship round once more for its final approach, using a combination of low-power main drive and side-thrusters to match its position to the motion of the Kuan-yin. After some minor corrections the shuttle was rotating with the Kuan-yin to give its occupants the feeling that they were lying on their backs, and nudging itself gently forward and upward to complete the maneuver. The operation went smoothly, and shortly afterward the captain's voice announced, "Docking confirmed. The boarding party is free to proceed."

"Proceed, General," Farnhill said from the back.

"Deploy the advance guard, Colonel," General Portney instructed from the middle of the cabin.

"Guard, forward," Colonel Wesserman ordered from a row in front of Portney.

"Guard detail, file left and right by sections," Sirocco said at the front. "Section leaders forward." He moved out into the aisle, where the floor had folded itself into a steep staircase to facilitate fore-and-aft movement, and climbed through into the side-exiting lock chamber with Colman and Hanlon behind him while Red and Blue sections formed up in the aisles immediately to the rear. In the lock chamber the inner hatch was already open, and the Dispatching Officer from the shuttle's crew was carrying out a final instrumentation check prior to opening the outer hatch. As they waited for him to finish and for the rest of the delegation to move forward in the cabin behind, Colman stared at the hatch ahead of him and thought about the ship lying just on the other side of it that had left Earth before he was born and was now here, waiting for them after crossing the same four light-years of s.p.a.ce that had accounted for a full half of his life. After the years of speculations, all the questions about the Chironians were now within minutes of being answered. The descent from the Mayflower II had raised Colman's curiosity to a high pitch because of what he had seen on the screen. For despite all the jokes and the popular wisdom, one thing he was certain of was that the engineering and structural modifications that he had observed on the outside of the Kuan-yin had not been made by irresponsible, overgrown adolescents.

"Clear to exit," the Dispatching Officer informed Sirocco. "Lock clear for exit," Sirocco called to the cabin below. "Carry on, Guard Commander," Colonel Wesserman replied from the depths.

"Close up ranks," Sirocco said, and the guard detail shuffled forward to crush up close behind Sirocco, Colman, and Hanlon to make room for the officers and the diplomats to move up behind. Sirocco looked at the Dispatching Officer and nodded. "Open outer hatch." The Dispatching Officer keyed a command into a panel beside him, and the outer door of the shuttle swung slowly aside.

Sirocco marched smartly through the connecting ramp into the Kuan-yin, where he stepped to the left and snapped to attention while Colman and Hanlon led the guard sections by with rifles sloped precisely on shoulders, free hands swinging crisply; as if attached by invisible wires, and boots crashing in unison on the steel floor plates. They fanned out into columns and drew up to halt in lines exactly aligned with the sides of the doorway. Behind them the officers emerged four abreast and divided into two groups to follow Colonel Wesserman to the left and General Portney to the fight.

"Present...arms!" Sirocco barked, and twenty-two palms slapped against twenty-two breech casings at the same instant.

Through the gap between the officers, the diplomats moved forward and came to a halt in reverse order of precedence, black suits immaculate and white shirtfronts spotless, and finally the n.o.ble form of Amery Farnhill conveyed itself regally forward to take up its position at their head.

"His Esteemed Excellency, Amery Farnhill," the a.s.sistant one pace to the rear and two paces to the right announced in dear, ringing tones that resonated around the antechamber of the Kuan-yin's docking port.

"Deputy Director of Liaison of the Supreme Directorate of the official Congress of the Mayflower II and appointed emissary to the Kuan-yin on behalf of the Director of Congress..." The conviction drained from the a.s.sistant's voice as his eyes told him even while he was speaking that the words were not appropriate. Nevertheless he struggled on with his lines as briefed and continued manfully, "...who is empowered as amba.s.sador to the planetary system of Alpha Centauri by the Government of..." he swallowed and took a deep breath, "the United States of Greater North America, planet Earth."

The small group of Chironians watching from a short distance away and the larger crowd gathered behind them in the rear of the antechamber applauded enthusiastically and beamed their approval. They weren't supposed to do that. It didn't preserve the fight atmosphere.

"They're okay," Corporal Swyley's disembodied voice u whispered from no definable direction. "We're making ourselves look like jerks."

"Shuddup," Colman hissed.

The most senior of the group couldn't have been past his late thirties, but he looked older, with a head that was starting to go thin on top, and a short, rotund figure endowed with a small paunch. He was wearing an open necked shirt of intricately embroidered blues and grays, and plain navy blue slacks held up with a belt. His features looked vaguely Asiatic. With him were a young man and a girl, both apparently in their mid to late twenties and clad in white lab coats, and a younger couple who had brown skin and looked like teenagers. A six-foot-tall, humanoid robot of silvery metal stood nearby, a tiny black girl who might have been eight sitting on its ma.s.sive shoulders. Her legs dangled around its neck and her arms clasped the top of its head.

"Hi," the paunchy man greeted amiably. "I'm Clem. These are Carla and Hermann, and Francine and Boris. The big guy here is Cromwell, and the little lady up top is Amy. Well, I guess...welcome aboard."

Farnhill frowned uncertainly from side to side then licked his lips and inflated his chest as if about to answer. He deflated suddenly and shook his head. The words to handle the situation just wouldn't come.