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 do. You and me — we trained as buddies for a whole year, and you done forgot that. And then you say that thing ’bout cigarettes. What kind cigarettes, Unk?”
“I — I forget,” said Unk.
“Try and remember now,” said Boaz. “You had it once.” He frowned and squinted, as though trying to help Unk remember. “I think it’s so interesting what a man can remember after he’s been to the hospital. Try and remember everything you can.”
There was a certain effeminacy about Boaz — in the nature of a cunning bully’s chucking a sissy under the chin, talking baby-talk to him.
But Boaz liked Unk — that was in his manner, too.
Unk had the eerie feeling that he and Boaz were the only real people in the stone building — that the rest were glass-eyed robots, and not very well-made robots at that. Sergeant Brackman, supposedly in command, seemed no more alert, no more responsible, no more in command than a bag of wet feathers.
“Let’s hear all you can remember, Unk,” wheedled Boaz. “Old buddy — ” he said, “just remember all you can.”