Гарри Гаррисон - Galactic Dreams

“Teddy, I’m going to kill a man.”

Silence, just silence. Even the eyes and the arms were still.

The roar of the gun broke the silence and blew a ruin of gears, wires and bent metal from the back of the destroyed teddy bear.

“Teddy … oh, teddy … you should have told me,” David said and dropped the gun and at last was crying.

That’s it, matey, pull up a stool, sure use that one. Just dump old Phrnnx onto the floor to sleep it off. You know that Krddls can’t stand to drink — much less drink flnnx, and that topped off with a smoke of the hellish krmml weed. Here, let me pour you a mug of flnnx, oops, sorry about your sleeve. When it dries you can scrape it off with a knife. Here’s to your health and may your tubleliners never fail you when the kpnnz hordes are on your tail.

No, sorry, never heard your name before. Too many good men come and go, and the good ones die early, aye! Me? You never heard of me. Just call me Old Sarge — as good a name as any. Good men I say, and the best of them was well, we’ll call him Gentleman Jax. He had another name, but there’s a little girl waiting on a planet I could tell you about, a little girl who’s waiting and watching the shimmering trails of the deep-spacers when they come, and waiting for a man. So for her sake we’ll call him Gentleman Jax, he would have liked that, and she would like that if only she knew, although she must be getting kind of gray, or bald by now, and arthritic from all that sitting and waiting but, golly, that’s another story and by Orion it’s not for me to tell. That’s it, help yourself, a large one. Sure the green fumes are normal for good flnnx, though you better close your eyes when you drink or you’ll be blind in a week, ha-ha! by the sacred name of the Prophet Mrddl! Yes, I can tell what you’re thinking. What’s an old space rat like me doing in a dive like this out here at galaxy’s end where the rim stars flicker wanly and the tired photons go slow? I’ll tell you what I’m doing, getting drunker than a Planizzian pfrdffl, that’s what. They say that drink has the power to dim memories and by Cygnus I have some memories that need dimming. I saw you looking at those scars on my hands. Each one is a story, matey, aye, and the scars on my back each a story and the scars on my … well, that’s a different story. Yes, I’ll tell you a story, a true one by Mrddl’s holy memory, though I might change a name or two, that little girl waiting, you know.

You heard tell of the CCC? I can see by the sudden widening of your eyes and the blanching of your space-tanned skin that you have. Well, yours truly, Old Sarge here, was one of the first of the Space Rats of the CCC, and my buddy then was the man they know as Gentleman Jax. May Great Kramddl curse his name and blacken the memory of the first day when I first set eyes on him ….

“Graduating class … ten-SHUN!”

The sergeant’s stentorian voice bellowed forth, cracking like a whiplash across the expectant ears of the mathematically aligned rows of cadets. With the harsh snap of those fateful words a hundred and three incredibly polished boot heels crashed together with a single echoing crunch as the eighty seven cadets of the graduating class snapped to steel-rigid attention. (It should be explained that some of them were from alien worlds, different numbers of legs, and so on.) Not a breath was drawn, not an eyelid twitched a thousandth of a milliliter as Colonel von Thorax stepped forward, glaring down at them all through the glass monocle in front of his glass eye, close cropped gray hair stiff as barbed wire, black uniform faultlessly cut and smooth, a krmml-weed cigarette clutched in the steel fingers of his prosthetic left arm, black gloved fingers of his prosthetic right arm snapping to hat brim’s edge in a perfect salute, motors whining thinly in his prosthetic lungs to power the Brobdingnagian roar of his harshly bellowed command.

“At ease. And listen to me. You are the hand-picked men, and hand-picked things too, of course, from all the civilized worlds of the galaxy. Six million and forty-three cadets entered the first year of training, and most of them washed out in one way or another. Some could not toe the mark. Some were expelled and shot for buggery. Some believed the lying commie pinko crying liberal claims that continuous war and slaughter are not necessary, and they were expelled and shot as well. One by one the weaklings fell away through the years leaving the hard core of the Corpsyou! The Corpsmen of the first graduating class of the CCC! Ready to spread the benefits of civilization to. the stars. Ready at last to find out what the initials CCC stand for!”

A mighty roar went up from the massed throats, a cheer of hoarse masculine enthusiasm that echoed and boomed from the stadium walls. At a signal from von Thorax a switch was thrown, and a great shield of imperviumite slid into place above, sealing the stadium from prying eyes and ears and snooping spyish rays. The roaring voices roared on enthusiastically, and many an eardrum was burst that day! Yet they were stilled in an instant when the Colonel raised his hand.

“You Corpsmen will not be alone when you push the frontiers of civilization out to the barbaric stars. Oh no! You will each have a faithful companion by your side. First man, first row, step forward and meet your faithful companion!”

The called out Corpsman stepped forward a smart pace and clicked his heels sharply, said click being echoed in the clack of a thrown-wide door, and, without conscious intent, every eye in that stadium was drawn in the direction of the pitch-black doorway from which emerged …

How to describe it? How to describe the whirlwind that batters you, the storm that engulfs you, the spacewarp that enwraps you? It was as indescribable as any natural force! It was a creature three meters high at the shoulders, four meters high at the ugly, drooling, tooth-clashing head, a whirlwinded, spacewarped storm that rushed forward on four piston-like legs, great-clawed feet tearing grooves in the untearable surface of the impervitium flooring. A monster born of madness and nightmares that reared up before them and bellowed forth a soul-destroying screech.

“There!” Colonel von Thorax bellowed in answer, bloodspecked spittle mottling his lips. “There is your faithful companion, the mutacamel, mutation of the noble beast of Good Old Earth, symbol and pride of the CCC, the Combat Camel Corps! Corpsman meet your camel!”

The selected Corpsman stepped forward and raised his arm in greeting to this noble beast which promptly bit the arm off. His shrill screams mingled with the barely stifled gasps of his companions who watched, with more than casual interest, as camel trainers girt with brass-buckled leather harness rushed out and beat the protesting camel with clubs back from whence it had come, while a medic clamped a tourniquet on the wounded man’s stump and dragged his limp body away.

“That is your first lesson about combat camels,” the Colonel cried huskily. “Never raise your arms to them. Your companion, with a newly grafted arm will, I am certain, ha-ha! remember this little lesson. Next man, next companion!”

Again the thunder of rushing feet and the high-pitched gurgling, scream-like roar of the combat camel at full charge. This time the Corpsman kept his arm down, and the camel bit his head off.

“Can’t graft on a new head I am afraid,” the Colonel leered maliciously at them. “A moment of silence for our departed companion who has gone to the big rocket pad in the sky. That’s enough. Ten-SHUN! You will now proceed to the camel training area where you will learn to get along with your faithful companions. Never forgetting of course that each creature has a complete set of teeth made of imperviumite, as well as razor sharp claw caps of this same substance. DisMISSED!”