“Hammer’s Regiment?” called an unfamiliar voice. Both men looked up. Down the conveyor rode a blue-tunicked ship’s man in front of what first appeared to be a huge crate. At second glance Rob saw that it was a cage of light alloy holding four . . . “Dear Lord!” the recruit gasped.
“Roger, Hammer’s,” Leon agreed, handing the crewman a plastic chit while the latter cut power to the rollers to halt the cage. The chit slipped into the computer linkage on the crewman’s left wrist, lighting a green indicator when it proved itself a genuine bill of lading.
There were four female humanoids in the cage—stark naked except for a dusting of fine blue scales. Rob blinked. One of the near-women stood with a smile—Lord, she had no teeth!—and rubbed her groin deliberately against one of the vertical bars.
“First-quality Genefran flirts,” Leon chuckled. “Ain’t human, boy, but the next best thing.”
“Better,” threw in Jake, who had swung himself into the fighting compartment as soon as the cage arrived. “I tell you, kid, you never had it till you had a flirt. Surgically modified and psychologically prepared. Rowf!”
“N-not human?” Rob stumbled, unable to take his eyes off the cage, “you mean like monkeys?”
Leon’s grin lit his face again, and the driver cackled, “Well, don’t know about monkeys, but they’re a whole lot like sheep.”
“You take the left side and we’ll get this aboard,” Leon directed. The trailer’s bed was half a meter below the rollerway so that the cage, though heavy and awkward, could be slid without much lifting.
Rob gripped the bars numbly, turning his face down from the tittering beside him. “Amazing what they can do with implants and a wig,” Jake was going on, “though a course there’s a lot of cutting to do first, but those ain’t the differences you see, if you follow. The scales, now—they have a way—”
“Lift!” Leon ordered, and Rob straightened at the knees. They took two steps backward with the cage wobbling above them as the girls—the flirts!—squealed and hopped about. “Down!” and cage clashed on trailer as the two big men moved in unison.
Rob stepped back, his mouth working in distaste, unaware of the black soldier’s new look of respect. Quarry work left a man used to awkward weights. “This is foul,” the recruit marveled. “Are those really going back with us for, for . . .”
“Rest’n relaxation,” Leon agreed, snapping tiedowns around the bars.
“But how . . .” Rob began, looking again at the cage. When the red-wigged flirt fondled her left breast upward, he could see the implant scars pale against the blue. The scales were more thinly spread where the skin had been stretched in molding it. “I’ll never touch something like that. Look, maybe Burlage is pretty backward about . . . things, about sex, I don’t know. But I don’t see how anybody could . . . I mean—”
“Via, wait till you been here as long as we have,” Jake gibed. He clenched his right hand and pumped it suggestively. “Field expedients, that’s all.”
“On this kinda contract,” Leon explained, stepping around to get at the remaining tiedowns, “you can’t trust the local girls. Least not in the field, like we are. The colonel likes to keep us patrol sections pretty much self-contained.”
“Yeah,” Jake broke in—would his cracked tenor never cease? “Why, some of these whores, they take a razor blade, see—in a cork you know?—and, well, never mind.” He laughed, seeing Rob’s face.
“Jake,” Sergeant Worzer called, “Shut up and hop in.”
The driver slipped instantly into his hatch. Disgusting as Rob found the little man, he recognized his ability. Jake moved with lethal certainty and a speed that belied the weight of his body armor.
“Ready to lift, Chero?” he asked.
The priest was levering himself toward the starship again. Worzer watched him go for a moment, shook his head. “Just run us out to the edge of the field,” he directed. “I got a few things to show our recruit before we head back; nobody rides in my car without knowing how to work the guns.” With a sigh he hopped into the fighting compartment. Leon motioned Rob in front of him. Gingerly, the recruit stepped onto the trailer hitch, gripped the armored rim with both hands, lifted himself aboard. Leon followed. The trailer bonged as he pushed off from it, and his bulk cramped the littered compartment as soon as he grunted over the side.