Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [35]
It would be warm there—and there would be only one moon, Unk thought, and the moon would be fat, stately, and slow. Something else about the pink paradise at the end of the barrel came to Unk, and Unk was puzzled by the clarity of the vision. There were three beautiful women in that paradise, and Unk knew exactly what they looked like! One was white, one was gold, and one was brown. The golden girl was smoking a cigarette in Unk’s vision. Unk was further surprised to find that he even knew what kind of cigarette the golden girl was smoking.
It was a MoonMist Cigarette.
"Sell MoonMist," Unk said out loud. It felt good to say that—felt authoritative, shrewd.
"Huh?" said a young colored soldier, cleaning his rifle next to Unk. "What’s that you say, Unk?" he said. He was twenty-three years old. His name was stitched in yellow on a black patch over his left breast pocket.
Boaz was his name.
If suspicions had been permitted in the Army of Mars, Boaz would have been a person to suspect. His rank was only Private, First Class, but his uniform, though regulation lichen green, was made of far finer stuff , and was much better tailored than the uniform of anyone around him—including the uniform of Sergeant Brackman.
Everyone else’s uniform was coarse, scratchy—held together by clumsy stitches of thick thread. And everyone else’s uniform looked good only when the wearer stood at attention. In any other position, an ordinary soldier found that his uniform tended to bunch and crackle, as though made of paper.
Boaz’s uniform followed his every movement with silken grace. The stitches were numerous and tiny. And most puzzling of all: Boaz’s shoes had a deep, rich, ruby luster—a luster that other soldiers could not achieve no matter how much they might polish their shoes. Unlike the shoes of anyone else in the company area, the shoes of Boaz were genuine leather from Earth.
"You say sell something, Unk?" said Boaz.
"Dump MoonMist. Get rid of it," murmured Unk. The words made no sense to him. He had let them out simply because they had wanted out so badly. "Sell," he said.
Boaz smiled—ruefully amused. "Sell it, eh?" he said. "O.K., Unk—we sell it." He raised an eyebrow. "What we gonna sell, Unk?" There was something particularly bright and piercing about the pupils of his eyes.
Unk found this yellow brightness, this sharpness of Boaz’s eyes disquieting—increasingly so, as Boaz continued to stare. Unk looked away, looked by chance into the eyes of some of his other squadmates—found their eyes to be uniformly dull. Even the eyes of Sergeant Brackman were dull.
Boaz’s eyes continued to bite into Unk. Unk felt compelled to meet their gaze again. The pupils were seeming diamonds.
"You don’t remember me, Unk?" said Boaz.
The question alarmed Unk. For some reason, it was important that he not remember Boaz. He was grateful that he really didn’t remember him.
"Boaz, Unk," said the colored man. "I’m Boaz."
Unk nodded. "How do you do?" he said.
"Oh—I don’t do what you’d call real bad," said Boaz. He shook his head. "You don’t remember nothing about me, Unk?"
"No," said Unk. His memory was nagging him a little now—telling him that he might remember something about Boaz, if he tried as hard as he could. He shushed his memory. "Sorry—" said Unk. "My mind’s a blank. "
"You and me—we’re buddies," said Boaz. "Boaz and Unk."
"Um," said Unk.
"You remember what the buddy system is, Unk?" said Boaz.
"No," said Unk.
"Ever’ man in ever’ squad," said Boaz, "he got a buddy. Buddies share the same foxhole, stick right close to each other in attacks, cover each other. One buddy get in trouble in hand-to-hand, other buddy come up and help, slip a knife in."
"Um," said Unk.
"Funny," said Boaz, "what a man’ll forget in the hospital and what he’ll still remember, no matter what they