Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [52]
Unk had no recollection of the man, but the man obviously knew Unk well—knew him warmly.
"Who am I, Unk?" said the man gayly.
Unk gasped. This had to be Stony Stevenson, had to be Unk’s fearless best friend. "Stony?" he whispered.
"Stony?" said the man. He laughed. "Oh, God—" he said, "many’s the time I’ve wished I was Stony, and many’s the time I’ll wish it again."
The ground shook. There was a whirlwind rush in the air. Neighboring space ships on all sides had leaped into the air, were gone.
Unk’s ship now had its sector of the iron plain all to itself The nearest ships on the ground were perhaps half a mile away.
"There goes your regiment, Unk," said the man, "and you not with them. Aren’t you ashamed?"
"Who are you?" said Unk.
"What do names matter in wartime?" said the man. He put his big hand on Unk’s shoulder. "Oh, Unk, Unk, Unk," he said, "what a time you’ve had."
"Who brought me here?" said Unk.
"The military police, bless them," said the man.
Unk shook his head. Tears ran down his cheeks. He was defeated. There was no reason for secrecy any more, even in the presence of someone who might have the power of life and death over him. As to life and death, poor Unk was indifferent. "I—I tried to bring my family together," he said. "That’s all."
"Mars is a very bad place for love, a very bad place for a family man, Unk," said the man.
The man was, of course, Winston Niles Rumfoord. He was commander-in-chief of everything Martian. He was not actually a practicing Parachute Ski Marine. But he was free to wear any uniform that caught his fancy, regardless of how much hell anybody else had to go through for the privilege.
"Unk," said Rumfoord, "the very saddest love story I ever hope to hear took place on Mars. Would you like to hear it.?"
"Once upon a time," said Rumfoord, "there was a man being carried from Earth to Mars in a flying saucer. He had volunteered for the Army of Mars, and already wore the dashing uniform of a lieutenant-colonel in the Assault Infantry of that service. He felt elegant, indeed, having been rather underprivileged spiritually on Earth, and assumed, as spiritually underprivileged persons will, that the uniform said lovely things about him.
"His memory hadn’t been cleaned out yet, and his antenna had yet to be installed—but he was so patently a loyal Martian that he was given the run of the space ship. The recruiters have a saying about a male recruit like that—that he has named his balls Deimos and Phobus," said Rumfoord, "Deimos and Phobus being the two moons of Mars.
"This lieutenant-colonel, with no military training whatsoever, was having the experience known on Earth as finding himself. Ignorant as he was of the enterprise in which he was ensnarled, he was issuing orders to the other recruits, and having them obeyed."
Rumfoord held up a finger, and Unk was startled to see that it was quite translucent. "There was one locked stateroom that the man was not permitted to enter," said Rumfoord. "The crew carefully explained to him that the stateroom contained the most beautiful woman ever taken to Mars, and that any man who saw her was certain to fall in love with her. Love, they said, would destroy the value of any but the most professional soldier.
"The new lieutenant-colonel was offended by the suggestion that he was not a professional soldier, and he regaled the crew with stories of his amatory exploits with gorgeous women—all of which had left his heart absolutely untouched. The crew remained skeptical, pretending to the opinion that the lieutenant-colonel had never, for all his lascivious questing, exposed himself to an intelligent, haughty beauty such as the one in the locked stateroom.
"The crew’s seeming respect for the lieutenant-colonel was now subtly withdrawn. The other recruits sensed this withdrawal, and withdrew their own. The lieutenant-colonel in his gaudy uniform was made to feel like what he really was, after all—a strutting clown. The manner in which he