Гордон Диксон - Soldier, Ask Not

“Thou art a child!” he repeated. “Young thou art! What dost thou know of the struggle to gain sustenance, generation on generation, on our harsh and stony worlds, as I have known it? What dost thou know of hunger and want, even to the women and babes, I say it, among the Children of the Lord? What dost thou know of the purposes of them who send us to battle, that our people may live and flourish when all men elsewhere would gladly see us dead and our faith dead and buried with us?”

“I know something,” retorted the younger soldier, though his voice showed its youth and trembled a little even as he answered. “I know that we have a duty to the right, and that we have sworn to the Mercenaries’ Code, and—”

“Shut thy milk-babe mouth!” hissed the Groupman. “What are Codes before the Code of the Almighty? What are oaths other than our oath to the God of Battles? Lo, our Eldest of our Council of Elders, he who is called Bright, hath said that this day bears hard upon the future of our people, and the winning of this day’s war is a need that we must meet. Therefore shall we win! And nothing else!”

“But still I tell thee—”

“Thou shall tell me nothing! I am thy superior! I tell thee . Our orders are to regroup for another attack upon the enemy. Thou and these four with thee are to report now , to their message center. It recks not that thou art not of their unit. Thou hast been called and will obey!”

“Then we shall take the prisoners safely with us—”

” Thou shalt obey! ” The Groupman was carrying his spring-gun slung under one arm. He swung it around into his grasp so that the barrel pointed at the private. The Groupman’s thumb pushed the control of the weapon to automatic fire. I saw Greten’s eyes close for a second and his throat worked; but when his voice came out, it was still steady.

“Yet all my life have I walked in the shadow of the Lord which is truth and faith—” I heard him say, and the barrel came up. I shouted at the Groupman.

“You! Hey, you—Groupman!”

He jerked about like a timber wolf at the sound of a snapping twig under a hunter’s boot—and I was looking down the pinhole muzzle of his automatic-set spring-rifle myself. Then he came toward me, gun still aimed, and the axe blade of his starved fanatic’s face above it looked down at me.

“Thou art sensible, then?” he said. And the words were like a sneer. I read in them a contempt for anyone weak enough to take a pain-killer for the relief of any physical discomfort.

“Sensible enough to tell you a few things,” I croaked. My throat was dry and my leg was beginning to stir to an ache again, but he was good medicine for me, reawakening my anger, so that the returning hurt could feed the fury that rose easily in me. “Listen to me. I’m a Newsman. You’ve been around long enough to know that nobody wears this cape and beret who isn’t entitled to them. But just to make sure”—I dug into my jacket and produced them—“here are my papers. Look them over.”

He took them and glanced through them.

“All right now,” I said, when he had looked at the last of them. “I’m a Newsman and you’re a Groupman. And I’m not asking you anything—I’m telling you! I want transportation to a field hospital immediately, and I want my assistant over there”—and I pointed at Dave—“returned to me. Now! Not ten minutes from now, or two minutes from now; but now! These privates who’ve been on guard here may not think they have the authority to get me and my assistant out of here and me to a hospital, but you know you have. And I want it done!”

He stared from the papers to me and there came over his face a peculiar grimness of cast, the sort of look a man might get as he shakes off the grasp of those escorting him to a gallows and strides forward to the place of his execution contemptuously under his own power.

“Thou art a Newsman,” he said, and drew a deep breath. “Aye, thou art one of Anarch’s breed, who with lies and false report spreads hatred of our people and our faith throughout the worlds of men. I know thee well, Newsman”—he stared at me with black, hollowed eyes—“and thy papers to me are but trash and nonsense. But I will humor thee, and show thee how little thou weighest in the balance, with all thy foul reports. I will give thee a story to write, and thou shalt write it, and thou shall see how it is less than dry leaves blowing before the marching feet of the Anointed of the Lord.”

“Get me to a field hospital,” I said.

“Thou shalt wait for that,” he said. “Further”—and he waved the papers at me—“I see here thy pass, but no pass signed by one of authority in our ranks that gives free passage to the one thou callest thy assistant. Therefore he shall not come to thee, but remain with those prisoners of like uniform, to meet what the Lord shall send them.”

He threw the papers down into my lap, turned and stalked off, back toward the prisoners. I shouted after him, telling him to come back; but he paid me no attention.

But Greten ran after him, caught him by the arm and murmured something in his ear, meanwhile gesturing sharply toward the group of prisoners. The Groupman shoved him off with a thrust of his arm that sent Greten staggering.

“Are they of the Chosen?” the Groupman shouted. “Are they Chosen of God?”

And he whirled about in fury, with his spring-rifle still set on automatic menacing not merely Greten, but the other guards as well.

“Fall in!” he shouted.

Some slowly, some hastily, they left off guarding the prisoners and fell into line, facing the Groupman.

“You shall all report to the Message Center—now!” the Groupman snapped. “Right face!” And they turned. “ Move out! ”

And so they left us, moving off out of my sight among the shadows of the trees.

The Groupman watched after them for a second, then turned his attention and his rifle back on the Cassidan prisoners. They shrank a little from him; and I saw the white, indistinct outline of Dave’s face turned momentarily in my direction.

“Now, your guards are gone,” the Groupman said to them slowly and grimly. “For an assault begins that will wipe your forces from the field. In that assault every soldier of the Lord is needed, for a call has been placed upon us by our Eldest in Council. Even I must go—and I cannot leave enemies like yourselves unguarded behind our lines, to do mischief against our victory. Therefore, I send you now to a place from which you cannot harm the Anointed of the Lord.”

In that moment, in that moment only, for the first time, I understood what he meant. And I opened my mouth to shout; but nothing came out. I tried to rise, but my stiff leg would not let me. And I hung there, mouth open, frozen in the act of half-rising.

He opened fire at full automatic upon the unarmed men before him. And they fell—Dave among them—they dropped and fell, and died.

I am not clear in my mind exactly how things went after that. I remember, when there was no longer any stir or movement among the fallen bodies, how the Groupman turned and came toward me, holding his rifle in one hand.

He seemed, though he strode swiftly, to come slowly, slowly but inexorably. It was as if I watched him on a treadmill growing ever bigger as he loomed closer to me with the black rifle in his hand and the red sky behind his head. Until, at last, he reached me and stopped, standing over me.

I also tried to shrink from him, but could not; for the great stump of the tree was behind me and my damaged leg, itself stiff as a dead stick of wood, anchored me. But he did not lift his rifle against me; and he did not shoot me.