David Gerrold - A Matter for Men

"Repeat it back to me."

I did so and she nodded in satisfaction. "Good," she said. "Thank you. That'll be all."

The helipad was a kilometer down the mountain. It took five minutes to drive there. Duke was tight-lipped all the way. What was it about the Special Forces anyway that they didn't-let you in unless you were terminally nasty?

Ted was stretched across the back. I was sitting in the front, half-turned toward Duke. "Uh-Duke?"

"Don't talk." He said it very flatly.

I shut up. And wondered what was eating him now. Abruptly, Duke said, "Listen, both of you-you've both taken the oath and you're both entitled to wear the Special Forces insignia. I would prefer that you didn't."

"Sir?"

Did Duke look annoyed? The expression flashed so quickly, I wasn't sure. He said, "What you need to know is this: if you wear your insignia, you will attract the attention of people who will ask you questions that you are not prepared to answer. That could be very embarrassing for you. Or worse. Got that?"

I started to say, "I don't understand-" but Ted poked me in the ribs. Hard. "We got it," he said.

I looked at him. He looked back at me. I remembered what we had talked about the day before. "Oh," I said.

We pulled up at the helipad then-actually just a large clear space next to the road, bulldozed flat and surrounded by automatic lights and plastic markers. The chopper was nowhere in sight yet. Duke glanced at his watch. "Looks like we're a little early."

"Or they're a little late." That was Ted. He hopped out of the jeep and walked off a way to admire the view.

"Duke," I said. "I want to thank you."

He looked at me skeptically. "For what?"

"For lying to me."

"Eh?"

"I went and reread my contract. I'm `scientific personnel attached to the military, specifically exempt from military duties and functions.' I'm not in the army at all."

"I never said you were. I didn't lie to you, McCarthy. You told me your contract requires you to obey your immediate superiors and I agreed with you." He grinned. "I just didn't tell you that neither Dr. Obama nor myself are in that chain of command. Except by courtesy. Legally, you're an independent agent."

"Um," I said. "Well, thank you for fooling me."

"I didn't fool you. You fooled yourself. What I said was this: `If the mission is military, every man is a soldier.' That has nothing at all to do with your contract. You could have stood your ground as a `scientist,' and there wouldn't have been a thing I could have done about it-except, you would have never seen a worm. That's all. Either way, you still get sent to Denver-but this way, I'll shake your hand and mean it." He held out his hand.

His grip was firm. I looked at him and his eyes were bright. Almost smiling? No, it must have been a trick of the sun. I looked away, embarrassed.

The chopper appeared in the distance then and Duke sat up in his seat to see it better. "By the way," I asked, "if neither you nor Dr. Obama has the authority to give me orders, who does?"

Still peering into the distance, he said, "That's in your contract too.

"No, it isn't," I said. "There's not a word about where I fit into the chain of command."

He looked at me then and grinned. "That's what I meant. You're your own man-all civilian attached personnel are. But we try to keep you from finding out, else you're hard to put up with. I can't give you orders, only recommendations. Same for Dr. Obama and every other officer. Take a look at your papers on the way up. You're carrying pinks, not yellows; you're a free agent, responsible only to the team or task you're assigned. But, ah, don't get cocky. You still have to earn the right to talk to a Special Forces man."

We could hear the chopper now, a distant blurring in the air.

Duke was already getting out of the jeep. "Come on, I'll help you with your gear."

By the time we had unloaded the last of it, the chopper was already overhead, engines screaming and stirring up clouds of choking dust with their downdraft. It was one of the new Huey Valkyrie 111's; with jet-assisted flight, its range was more than two thousand miles-at least, that's all the army would admit. Privately, it was said to be a lot more. The landing gear flexed and gave as the copter settled its weight to the ground, but its rotors continued to strop the air. The thundrous roar of the jets muted temporarily to an impatient whine. We picked up our bags and ran for it.

Ted was up the ladder first. I bumped into him as he did a sudden stop in the door. The pilot was an impeccable-looking redhead in jumpsuit and major's insignia, Army Air Corps. I wondered if she was friendly. She looked through us as we climbed aboard with the specimen cases. "Secure those boxes in the back, then get out. I'm in a hurry." No, she wasn't.

"Uh-" I said, "-we're coming with."

"Forget it-I don't carry passengers." She booted my duffel casually out the door.

"Hey!" I yelped, but she was already turning to Ted.

He was unbuttoning his pocket. He handed her our orders. She didn't even bother to look, just snapped, "I said, `Forget it.' " Ted and I exchanged a glance

Duke called up, "What's the matter? What's going on?" and I shouted back, "No problem. We're just going to have to find some other transportation, that's all. Come on, Ted-I'll get the eggs, you unstrap the cages."

"Hold it, Charlie!" she barked.

"Just hold it yourself!" I barked right back. "We have a job to do too!" It worked. She stopped-but only for a moment. "You'd better read our orders," I said, very calmly.

She took them from Ted and scanned them quickly. "Pinks!" she snorted, handing them to me. "Doesn't mean a thing. Those are just advisories."

"Right," I said. I kept my voice innocent as I carefully refolded and pocketed our papers. "We're advised to deliver these specimens. And you're advised to take us."

"Uh uh." She shook her head. "Nobody told me about it. I'm only taking those." She pointed at the cages.

"No way." I cleared my throat and prayed that my voice wouldn't crack. "If we don't go, they don't go. Duke, hand me that duffel?"

She looked at me, then really looked. I glared right back. She had very bright blue eyes-and a very dark expression. She flicked her glance briefly over Ted, then back to me again. I was already stowing my bag. She said a word, a not-very-ladylike word, then, "The hell with it-I don't care! Fight it out with Denver. How much do you turkeys weigh?"

"Seventy-three kilos," grunted Ted. He didn't look happy. "Sixty-four," I said.

"Right." She jerked her thumb at me. "You sit on the left." To Ted: "Secure that box on the other side. Both of them. Then belt up." She didn't even wait to see; she pulled the door shut behind us with a slam, secured it and climbed forward again. She checked to see that Duke was clear-I just had time to wave; he nodded back-and punched us up into the air.

The mountain dropped quickly, then angled off and slid sideways as we described a sharp sweeping turn. The acceleration pressed me against the wall of the cabin. We had hardly leveled off-I had to trust my eyes for that; my stomach was no longer speaking to me-when the jets cut in and a second press of acceleration forced me deep into my seat. The cabin tilted steeply and my ears popped as we climbed for height.

There was nothing to see out the window except clouds; the stubby wing of the copter blocked my view of the ground and the bulge of the jet engine was not enough to hold my interest. The scenery in the distance, what little of it I could see, was too far away to be impressive.

I realized the pilot was speaking to us: "-be in the air a couple hours. If you're hungry, there's a ration box plugged into the wall. Don't eat all the chocolate ice cream."

Ted was already rooting around in it. He came up with a couple of sandwiches and a container of milk. Grinning hungrily, he went forward and plopped into the copilot's seat.