The Space Force veterans were looking at him with a variety of expressions. Some were studying him as if trying to identify just what kind of creature he might be, and they looked as if they had not been able to pin it down yet. Others looked bored. A few looked sick. One looked as if he would like to break the colonel’s neck, and was having trouble arguing himself out of it.
At the crates, the Terexian workers cast brief sharklike smiles at each other.
“Now . . . ah . . . gentlemen,” said the colonel, “you will please file into the ship for . . . ah . . . orientation to this new task, which, I might add, is extremely important to the pacification and mutual assistance effort on this whole planet.”
Some of the men looked as if they had finally succeeded in identifying him. Those who had looked sick looked sicker, and there were more of them.
After a distinct hesitation, the sergeant cleared his throat, and gave a low-voiced order, spoken like a curse, that started the men filing into the ship.
The colonel stepped inside, watching the expressions of the men as they crossed the short catwalk leading from the fake outer hull to the massive inner hull.
The men looked around blankly, then nudged each other as they passed through the massive lock to the inner hull, to find themselves jammed in the comparatively small interior of the real ship. The inner and outer locks shut.
“All right, men,” said the colonel, and this time his voice was lower, and slower. “Now that you’re all temporary members of the Interstellar Investigations Corporation, I will tell you how we detect who stole Space Force equipment, and I will leave it up to you to decide who wants to take part, and who would rather get out now. First, let me mention that only the first word in the Corporation’s name is real. The rest is a dummy. And the purpose I stated outside, for the benefit of whoever might hear, is also a dummy. We are here for exactly one real purpose—to blow the Skagas, the black-marketeers, and the guerrillas, sky-high. Anyone who wants to join us in cleaning out this mess of thugs and bushwhackers will be welcome—provided you can pass our tests. Now, as I understand it, you’ve all been in combat. But how many of you have been in an off-loading center on this planet?”
Everyone looked blank.
“The captain of this ship and I visited one of these offloading centers this morning,” said the colonel. “We went as investigators for the Interstellar Investigations Corporation. We recorded what we saw, and you might be interested to see it. Captain Finch—If you will project—”
The room darkened, and multiple rays of light shone out from the far wall, so that each man seemed to see before him what the colonel and the H-ship’s captain had seen earlier. The conversation also was reproduced, and as the scene progressed, an angry murmur rose in the room. At the end, when the lights came on, the colonel had changed back to his uniform, and there was a booth near where he had stood, with the words above it:
INTERSTELLAR PATROL RECRUITING
Boiling mad, the Space Force men shoved forward, toward the booth, where their requests were processed with lightning speed.
That over with, and their anger having cooled to that thoughtfulness that can follow sudden emotional enlistment, it dawned on some of the new Interstellar Patrol candidates that they had not yet found out exactly how the colonel intended to finish off the guerrillas. But already, the first group of candidates was being assembled for transfer to the testing ship—the G-class already off the planet checking its contact equipment, was to be used for that purpose. There was a lot to think about all of a sudden, and not much time to think about it. The Interstellar Patrol recruiting sergeant suddenly found himself answering a lot of questions.
“Ah—We have to pass admission tests? What happens if we don’t pass them?”
“You don’t make it into the Patrol. And then you can’t take part in the operation. But you’ll pass them. Don’t worry.”
“How many tests are there?”
“Five.”
“If we don’t make it, we will go back to the Space Force. Right?”
“Not necessarily.”
“What do you mean, ‘not necessarily?'”
“You can’t be a candidate in the Interstellar Patrol and a member of the Space Force at the same time, without special permission. If, for instance, you’re in a Space Force guardhouse, and the Space Force wants to be sure to get you back and wring the juice out of you, if you don’t get into the Patrol, then we have to hand you back. But that isn’t how it was done this time. The first paper you signed was your resignation from the Space Force. The second paper was your provisional enlistment in the Interstellar Patrol. So, you see, if you fail the tests, you don’t go straight back into the Space Force.”
“What does happen to us?”
“Well—That’s a good question.”
“You bet it’s a good question. What’s the answer?”
“H-m-m-m . . . I don’t know. Colonel?”
The colonel was smilingly handing the bulky sheaf of enlistment forms up through a hatchway to someone on the deck overhead. He looked far more formidable in uniform than he had in the suit, but he also had a look of well-being that hadn’t been there before. The look of well-being had come over him as he watched the men crowd around the enlistment booth.
“Yes?” he said, benevolently.
“Sir, one of these men wants to know what happens to him if he fails the tests.”
The colonel looked incredulous.
“Fails the tests?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, I don’t think anyone here has to worry about that. Just do your best, men. You see, these tests are designed to weed out people so far below the level we need, that it would be pointless for us to try to bring them up to it. We usually have a high rate of such failures. But you are all pre-selected, anyway. It’s hard to believe that Space Force combat veterans, from crack units, wouldn’t meet the level of Interstellar Patrol recruits.”
“Yes, sir,” said one of the candidates stubbornly, “but what happens if we fail?”
The colonel looked him in the eye, noting the stubborn set of jaw, and the direct gaze. This was the man who earlier had looked as if he would like to knock the colonel’s head off.
“If you fail,” said the colonel, “I will think you failed on purpose.”
“Then what happens?”
There was a silence, with all the other candidates listening alertly.
“If I think a candidate has failed on purpose, I have discretion to do quite a number of things—whichever one strikes me as suitable. These tests are very hard to fail on purpose. They are so designed that it goes against the grain to fail them. To fail them in a certain way demonstrates that you have the ability to pass them. To fail in another way automatically ends the series. We aren’t bound to many iron rules in the Patrol. I will do what I think best. Why? What’s wrong?”
“You promised to tell us how we’d take care of the guerrillas.”
There was a murmur of agreement.
The colonel reached into an inner pocket of his uniform jacket, and drew out a small transparent container holding what looked like a thick crayon.
“What does that look like to you?”
“A marking crayon.”
“That’s what it is. But it’s made of a very special compound, that we call ‘special tar.'”
“What does it do?”
“I’ll tell you, but only on the understanding that whoever hears the information will get set down on whatever planet, or in whatever place, we choose to set him down, if he fails the tests. I can tell you that we will choose to set him down in a place where he will be unlikely to repeat the information to anyone who wants to know about it.”
There was an immediate murmur of agreement. No one objected. Then there was an intense silence.
“That’s understood?” said the colonel insistently.
“Yes, sir. What is this ‘tar?'”
“It’s the short way of saying ‘transient atomic reactant.’ It’s also a kind of stuff that, when you get it stuck on you or anything else, it’s hard to get off. The basic trouble on Terex isn’t just the guerrillas, it’s also the Skagas that you saw in operation just a little while ago. The Skagas operate the black market that supplies the guerrillas with the best Space Force weapons available, while at the same time sabotaging deliveries to Space Force troops. Now then, Terex has no industry capable of turning out these weapons. Terex is technologically backward. The guerrillas get their weapons from the black market. The black market feeds them weapons.”