Steven Kent - The Clone Republic

He looked up at me. “You have a problem following orders, Harris?”

“No, sir,” I said. I was, in fact, quite obedient by human standards. The military, however, had considerably higher standards. Most conscripts came out of clone farms that the government euphemistically referred to as “orphanages.” Designed specifically for military life, the clones raised in these orphanages reacted to orders by reflex, even before their conscious minds could grasp what they had been asked to do. If an officer told them to dig a hole in the middle of a sidewalk, concrete chips and sparks would fly before the conscripts stopped to analyze the command. The clones weren’t stupid, just programmed to obey first and think later. As a natural-born human, I could not compete with their autonomic obedience. My brain took a moment to sort out orders.

My inability to react to orders without thinking had caused me problems for as long as I could remember. I grew up in a military orphanage. Every child I knew was a clone. I might have entered Unified Authority Orphanage #553 the old-fashioned way—by having dead parents—but as a resident of UAO #553, I grew up with two thousand clones.

You would not believe the diversity that exists among two thousand supposedly identical beings. The Unified Authority “created all clones equal,” taking them from a single vat of carefully brewed DNA; but once they came out of the tube, time and experience filled in the cracks in their personalities. Look at a mess hall filled with two thousand clones, and they appear exactly alike. Live with them for any length of time, and the differences become obvious.

“Your file says that you are slow following orders,” Godfrey said.

“It’s comparing me to clones,” I said.

He nodded and flashed that wary smile sergeants use when they think you’re spouting bullshit. “Did you speck some officer’s daughter?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“No,” he grunted, and went back to my file. “Just wondering why they wasted a perfectly good recruit on a planet like this,” he said.

“Random assignment, I suppose, sir,” I said.

“Sure,” he said, and his smile turned caustic. “Well, Private First-class Harris, I am Glan Godfrey. You can call me ‘Glan,’ ‘Godfrey,’ or ‘Gutterwash.’ Do not call me ‘sir.’ Gobi is pretty much a long-term assignment. Get sent here, and you’re stuck for life. As long as you know that I am the sergeant and therefore the one you obey, you can forget everything they taught you in basic.”

Growing up in an orphanage, you learn how to spot clones—they’re all cut from the same helix. With Gutter-wash Godfrey, however, I could not readily tell. He had sun-bleached blond hair that nearly reached his shoulders. Every clone I had ever known had brown hair and an assembly-line flattop haircut. A decade on a desert planet could have fried the color out of Godfrey’s hair, I supposed. But the loose armor and the thick stubble on his cheeks and chin…I thought that the spit and polish was programmed into their DNA. Could ten years on a desert planet bleach a man’s programming the way it bleached his hair?

Godfrey pressed a button on his console. “Got a rack?” he asked, without identifying himself.

“Fresh meat arrive?” a voice asked back.

“Or a reasonable facsimile.”

“Send him down, I’ll put him in Hutchins’s old rack,” the voice said.

“Hutchins?” I asked, when Godfrey closed the communication. “Shipped out?”

“Nope,” Godfrey said.

“Killed in action?” I asked.

“Nope. Suicide,” Godfrey said. “Corporal Dalmer will meet you down that hall.” He pointed ahead.

“Thank you, sir,” I said instinctively, wasting another salute.

Godfrey responded with that sardonic smile. “The sooner you lose that, the better we’ll get along.”

I grabbed my two travel cases and started down the open-air hall. I had clothes and toiletries in one bag. The other bag held my gear—one helmet, a complete set of body armor, one body glove, one weapons-and-gear belt, one government-issue particle-beam pistol with removable rifle stock, one government-issue M27 pistol with removable rifle stock, and one all-purpose combat knife/bayonet with seven-inch diamond blade. Thanks to lightweight plastic-titanium alloys, the bag with the armor weighed less than the one with my clothes.

Halfway down the hall, I stopped to stare at my surroundings. After three months in the immaculate white-walled corridors of Infantry Training Center 309, I had forgotten that places like Gobi Station existed. No, that’s not true. I never suspected that the Unified Authority set up bases in such decrepit buildings.

Judging by the name, “Gobi,” I knew it was an early settlement. The cartographers used to name planets after Earth locations in the early days of the expansion. Back then, we settled any planet with a breathable atmosphere. That was before the science of terraformation passed from theoretical possibility to common practice.

The open-air hall from Godfrey’s office to the barracks buzzed with flies. One side of the hall overlooked a stagnant pool of oily water surrounded by mud and reeds. I noticed the tail end of an animal poking out through the reeds. As I looked closer, I realized that it was an Earth-bred dog, a German shepherd, and that it was lying dead on its side.

“Don’t worry, we run that through filters before we drink it,” the corporal at the other end of the hall said. Like Godfrey, this man wore his armor and body glove without his helmet. The environmental climate control in the bodysuit must have felt good. I was perspiring so much that the back of my uniform now clung to the curve of my spine. Rivulets of sweat had run down the sides of my ribs.

“We drink that?” I asked.

“You either drink that or you buy water from the locals. The locals jack you. You could blow a full week’s pay buying a glass of water from them. Only Guttman has that kind of money.” He looked off toward the pond. “That sludge doesn’t taste bad once you strain it.

“Name’s Tron Dalmer,” the corporal said as he stepped out from the doorway. “Whatever you did to get stationed here, welcome to the asshole of the friggin’ universe. Did Gutter-wash mention that we here at Gobi Station are the few and the proud?”

“No,” I said, feeling depressed.

“This here is the smallest Marine outpost in the whole damned U.A. Empire.”

I did not flinch, but Dalmer’s use of the word “Empire” gave me a start. The commanders who ran both the orphanage and the basic training facility continually grilled us on the difference between expansion and imperialism.

“How many men?” I asked, not sure that I wanted to know. Most outposts had anywhere from three thousand to five thousand Marines. I had heard of outposts on isolated moons that only had fifteen hundred men. Judging by the size of this three-story barracks building, I guessed the population of Gobi Station to be at least one thousand.

“Including you, forty-one,” Dalmer said. “The good news is that you don’t have to share your room. The bad news is that if the locals ever decide they don’t like us, they could trample our asses out of here. Of course, they barely notice us. Even with you we’re one man shy of a full platoon. Besides, they are so busy with their own wars, they hardly notice us.”

“So there is some action out here?” I asked.

Dalmer stared at me. “Fresh out of boot and in a rush to kill, eh?”

“I would hate to think that I wasted my time in boot camp,” I said.

Dalmer laughed. “You wasted it, Harris. We have standing orders to stay out of local feuds.” He led me into the barracks, an ancient building constructed of thick sandstone blocks with rows of modern dormitory cells wedged into its bulky framework. Each cell was designed to house four people, but no one lived in the cells on this floor. The doors hung open revealing dusty quarters. Gobi might once have played an integral part in the Unified Authority’s grand expansion, but that time clearly had passed. A thin layer of sand covered the floor, and I saw twisting trails where snakes had slithered across the floor.