The red-haired man at the stake made no sound, because soldiers at ease were not permitted to make sounds. He sent a message with his eyes, however, to the effect that he would like to scream. He sent the message to anyone whose eyes would meet his. He was hoping to get the message to one person in particular, to his best friend — to Unk. He was looking for Unk.
He couldn’t find Unk’s face.
If he had found Unk’s face, there wouldn’t have been any blooming of recognition and pity on Unk’s face. Unk had just come out of the base hospital, where he had been treated for mental illness, and Unk’s mind was almost a blank. Unk didn’t recognize his best friend at the stake. Unk didn’t recognize anybody. Unk wouldn’t have even known his own name was Unk, wouldn’t even have known he was a soldier, if they hadn’t told him so when they discharged him from the hospital.
He had gone straight from the hospital to the formation he was in now.
At the hospital they told him again and again and again that he was the best soldier in the best squad in the best platoon in the best company in the best battalion in the best regiment in the best division in the best army.
Unk guessed that was something to be proud of.
At the hospital they told him he had been a pretty sick boy, but he was fully recovered now.
That seemed like good news.
At the hospital they told him what his sergeant’s name was, and what a sergeant was, and what all the symbols of ranks and grades and specialties were.
They had blanked out so much of Unk’s memory that they even had to teach him the foot movements and the manual of arms all over again.
At the hospital they even had to explain to Unk what Combat Respiratory Rations or CRR’s or goofballs were — had to tell him to take one every six hours or suffocate. These were oxygen pills that made up for the fact that there wasn’t any oxygen in the Martian atmosphere.
At the hospital they even had to explain to Unk that there was a radio antenna under the crown of his skull, and that it would hurt him whenever he did something a good soldier wouldn’t ever do. The antenna also would give him orders and furnish drum music to march to. They said that not just Unk but everybody had an antenna like that — doctors and nurses and four-star generals included. It was a very democratic army, they said.
Unk guessed that was a good way for an army to be. At the hospital they gave Unk a small sample of the pain his antenna would stick him with if he ever did anything wrong.
The pain was horrible.
Unk was bound to admit that a soldier would be crazy not to do his duty at all times.
At the hospital they had said the most important rule of all was this one: Always obey a direct order without a moment’s hesitation.
Standing there in formation on the iron parade ground, Unk realized that he had a lot to relearn. At the hospital they hadn’t taught him everything there was to know about living.
The antenna in his head brought him to attention again and his mind went blank. Then the antenna put Unk at parade rest again, then at attention again, then made him give a rifle salute, then put him at ease again.
His thinking began again. He caught another glimpse of the world around him.
Life was like that, Unk told himself tentatively — blanks and glimpses, and now and then maybe that awful flash of pain for doing something wrong.
A small, low-flying, fast-flying moon sailed in the violet sky overhead. Unk didn’t know why he thought so, but he thought the moon was moving too fast. It didn’t seem right. And the sky, he thought, should be blue instead of violet.
Unk felt cold, too, and he longed for more warmth. The unending cold seemed as wrong, as unfair, somehow, as the fast moon and the violet sky.