It was not until then that I realized that I must have already flunked every choice on my list above K-9 Corps — and now I had just flunked it, too. I was so startled that I almost missed his next remark. Major Weiss said meditatively, with no expression and as if he were talking about someone else, long dead and far away: “I was once half of a K-9 team. When my Caleb became a casualty, they kept me under sedation for six weeks, then rehabilitated me for other work. Johnnie, these courses you’ve taken — why didn’t you study something useful?”
“Sir?”
“Too late now. Forget it. Mmmyour instructor in History and Moral Philosophy seems to think well of you.”
“He does?” I was surprised. “What did he say?”
Weiss smiled. “He says that you are not stupid, merely ignorant and prejudiced by your environment. From him that is high praise — I know him.”
It didn’t sound like praise to me! That stuck-up stiff-necked old —
“And,” Weiss went on, “a boy who gets a ‘C-minus’ in Appreciation of Television can’t be all bad. I think we’ll accept Mr. Dubois’ recommendation. How would you like to be an infantryman?”
I came out of the Federal Building feeling subdued yet not really unhappy. At least I was a soldier; I had papers in my pocket to prove it. I hadn’t been classed as too dumb and useless for anything but make-work.
It was a few minutes after the end of the working day and the building was empty save for a skeleton night staff and a few stragglers. I ran into a man in the rotunda who was just leaving; his face looked familiar but I couldn’t place him.
But he caught my eye and recognized me. “Evening!” he said briskly. “You haven’t shipped out yet?”
And then I recognized him — the Fleet Sergeant who had sworn us in. I guess my chin dropped; this man was in civilian clothes, was walking around on two legs and had two arms. “Uh, good evening, Sergeant,” I mumbled.
He understood my expression perfectly, glanced down at himself and smiled easily. “Relax, lad. I don’t have to put on my horror show after working hours — and I don’t. You haven’t been placed yet?”
“I just got my orders.”
“For what?”
“Mobile Infantry.”
His face broke in a big grin of delight and he shoved out his hand. “My outfit! Shake, son! We’ll make a man of you — or kill you trying. Maybe both.”
“It’s a good choice?” I said doubtfully.
“ ‘A good choice’? Son, it’s the only choice. The Mobile Infantry is the Army. All the others are either button pushers or professors, along merely to hand us the saw; we do the work.” He shook hands again and added, “Drop me a card — ‘Fleet Sergeant Ho, Federal Building,’ that’ll reach me. Good luck! And he was off, shoulders back, heels clicking, head up.
I looked at my hand. The hand he had offered me was the one that wasn’t there — his right hand. Yet it had felt like flesh and had shaken mine firmly. I had read about these powered prosthetics, but it is startling when you first run across them.
I went back to the hotel where recruits were temporarily billeted during placement — we didn’t even have uniforms yet, just plain coveralls we wore during the day and our own clothes after hours. I went to my room and started packing, as I was shipping out early in the morning — packing to send stuff home, I mean; Weiss had cautioned me not to take along anything but family photographs and possibly a musical instrument if I played one (which I didn’t). Carl had shipped out three days earlier, having gotten the R & D assignment he wanted. I was just as glad, as he would have been just too confounded understanding about the billet I had drawn. Little Carmen had shipped out, too, with the rank of cadet midshipman (probationary) — she was going to be a pilot, all right, if she could cut itand I suspected that she could.
My temporary roomie came in while I was packing. “Got your orders?” he asked.