“Awwwww — now, men. Really now, men,” said Boaz languidly.
“God damn it now, men,” he said. “I got it made. You men got to admit that. Old Boaz is doing how you might say real fine.”
He rolled off the bed, landed on all fours, sprang to his feet with pantherlike grace. He smiled dazzlingly. He was doing everything he could to enjoy the fortunate position in life that was his. “You boys ain’t got it so bad,” he said to his rigid squadmates. “You oughta see how we treat the generals, if you think you’s bad off.” He chuckled and cooed. “Two nights ago us real commanders got ourselves in a argument about which general could run the fastest. Next thing you know, we got all twenty-three generals out of bed; all bare-ass naked, and we lined ’em up like they was race horses, and then we put our money down and laid the odds, and then we sent them generals off like the devil was after ’em. General Stover, he done placed first, with General Harrison right behind him, and with General Mosher behind him. Next morning, ever’ general in the Army was stiff as a board. Not one of ’em could remember a thing about the night before.”
Boaz chuckled and cooed again, and then he decided that his fortunate position in life would look a lot better if he treated it seriously — showed what a load it was, showed how honored he felt to have a load like that. He reared back judiciously, hooked his thumbs under his belt and scowled. “Oh,” he said, “it ain’t all play by any means.” He sauntered over to Unk, stood inches away from him, looked him up and down. “Unk, boy — ” he said, “I’d hate to tell you how much time I’ve spent thinking about you — worrying about you, Unk.”
Boaz rocked on his feet. “You will try an’ puzzle things out, won’t you! You know how many times they had you in the hospital, trying to clean out that memory of yours? Seven times, Unk! You know how many times they usually have to send a man to have his memory cleaned out? Once, Unk. One time!” Boaz snapped his finger under Unk’s nose. “And that does it, Unk. One time, and the man never bothers hisself about anything ever after.” He shook his head wonderingly. “Not you, though, Unk.”
Unk shuddered.
“I keeping you at attention too long, Unk?” said Boaz. He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t forbear torturing Unk from time to time.
For one thing, Unk had had everything back on Earth, and Boaz had had nothing.
For another thing, Boaz was wretchedly dependent on Unk — or would be when they hit Earth. Boaz was an orphan who had been recruited when he was only fourteen — and he didn’t have the haziest notion as to how to have a good time on Earth.
He was counting on Unk to show him how.
“You want to know who you are — where you come from — what you were?” said Boaz to Unk. Unk was still at attention, thinking nothing, unable to profit from whatever Boaz might tell him. Boaz wasn’t talking for
Unk’s benefit anyway. Boaz was reassuring himself about the buddy who was going to be by his side when they hit Earth.
“Man — ” said Boaz, scowling at Unk, “you are one of the luckiest men ever lived. Back there on Earth, man, you were King!”
Like most pieces of information on Mars, Boaz’s pieces of information about Unk were underdeveloped. He could not say from where, exactly, the pieces had come. He had picked them out of the general background noises of army life.
And he was too good a soldier to go around asking questions, trying to round out his knowledge.
A soldier’s knowledge wasn’t supposed to be round. So that Boaz didn’t really know anything about Unk except that he had been very lucky once. He embroidered on this.
“I mean — ” said Boaz, “there wasn’t anything you couldn’t have, wasn’t anything you couldn’t do, wasn’t no place you couldn’t go!”
And while Boaz stressed the marvel of Unk’s good luck on Earth, he was expressing a deep concern for another marvel — his superstitious conviction that his own luck on Earth was sure to be rotten.