He was a tall, powerful-looking blond man that you really couldn’t call handsome, but he looked like somebody you could trust. He was wearing the same general’s uniform that I had on.
“I gather that you are General Jan Sobieski, my boss,” I said, offering my hand.
As we shook hands, he said, “And you are the guy who has been legally impersonating me. I’ve wanted to touch bases with you for some time, but I didn’t want to disturb your honeymoon.”
“That was decent of you, sir. I saw you and your colonels at the wedding, on the big screens, but not at the reception.”
“The reception was too public, and too many questions would have been asked. I watched it, though, without my image being displayed. We toasted you and your wife with the best Dream World champagne. I only wished that I could have been there in person, so I could have kissed your lovely bride. Unfortunately, regulations are regulations, and when you had a hand in writing them yourself, well, they’re pretty hard to duck. The general and his staff have to stay in their coffins, in case of emergencies.”
“Maybe you should have a backup staff, so you could use some of your leave time, sir.”
“If things looked like they would stay peaceful, I would do just that, but there are some very black clouds on the horizon, just now. We just might have a major war coming up, so I have to stay bottled up.”
“A real war, sir? With who?”
“Just now, you don’t have a need to know. I’ll fill you in, once your leave is up. But suffice it to say that the production of military equipment has been increased tenfold in the last three standard months, and the rate of increase itself is increasing. Finding troops to fill those tanks has been a problem, but the stunts that you have pulled, getting the Croatians to pay you for taking their men, have been a godsend. You know, Earth’s original idea was to fill these tanks with convicted criminals.”
Agnieshka came in, more scantily dressed than usual, and served us some big steins of a strong Russian honey beer, Medovia Krepkoiya. Then, discreetly, she left us.
“Yes sir, but what about the people from the insane asylums?”
“The medical computers think that they can cure about eighty percent of them, eventually. Most of them will decide to stay in our army.”
“Should I continue charging them for the patients who were cured, but elected to stay in the army?”
“Why not? And charge them heavy for the ones we cured, but who want to try to go back to their old lives. I would have preferred it if you had charged the planets for all those medical centers that you sent out for free, but I decided that it might turn out to be good advertising. Those were army property, you know, even if none of us knew that they existed. The planetary governments will want more of them, and they will find that they are very expensive, but still much cheaper than doing without them.”
He took a deep drink of his beer, and continued.
“Look. The Kashubian Expeditionary Forces are the only human interstellar military force in existance. This is a big universe, and we have only explored a tiny portion of it. We don’t know what’s out there, but I’ve got a gut-level feeling that not all of it is friendly. So far, we’ve kept our army in existence by doing engineering work—brute labor, actually. The politicians don’t see the need for a military, except when they want to fight a local war, like the ones here on New Yugoslavia. They are not about to pay for a defense against a threat that is not immediately visible, and they are not able to think about any time period longer than the time between now and the next election. But if we do nothing and wait for somebody bigger and badder than us to come along, then when they get here, we won’t stand a chance. We have to be ready for whatever happens. We are protecting seventy-odd human colonized planets, with more being found every year. Most of them are politically disorganized within, and connected with each other only by commercial treaties. Earth, which should be the natural leader among the planets, is concerned only with milking the others for every cent it can get. The KEF must somehow protect those planets, and we damn well deserve to be paid for it! Otherwise, without us, humanity will eventually run into something that it can’t handle, and that will be the end of ten thousand years of human civilization.”
He took another deep pull on his beer.
“Yes, sir. I see. And I should keep this money myself?”
“Yes. It’s better that way. But if there was really a need, and I asked you for a donation, would you give it to me?”
“Yes, sir. Of course I would.”
“Then that answers your question. But back to the medical centers we were talking about. Frontier planets like New Yugoslavia are way behind the times medically, and Earth won’t let anybody who was deported come back, not even for medical reasons. Most of those who have been cured have been talked into volunteering to join us. A cured mental patient often has a hard time being accepted back into civilian society, but here, well, they’re one of us. Those we can’t help will stay in Dream World, in militarily obsolete machines. Your actions have vastly improved the fighting capabilities of the New Yugoslavian KEF, and once you get back in the saddle, you’ll be getting some decorations for it.”
“How about the criminals and mental patients on all the other planets, sir?”
“My fellow generals have men and machines working on every other off-Earth planet, trying to do the same thing that you have done here. The preliminary results look good.”
“I thought you might be angry about the money I accepted, sir.”
“It’s small change, really. You are welcome to it, especially since I like what you are doing with it. That magnificent city of yours will end up being populated by the veterans of the Kashubian Expeditionary Forces. After all, nobody else is allowed to live in that area. Owning a piece of something so marvelous will give a man something to fight for. And don’t just give them those apartments. Make them spend their back pay on them. That will increase their commitment.”
“Thank you, sir. Would you like to have the golden castle?”
“It’s beautiful, but no. What I want is the Citadel on top of Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon.”
“Sir, what with my honeymoon and all, I haven’t gone over in detail exactly what the girls built for me. I just saw that what they were doing was so good that I didn’t have the right to criticize any of it, and told them to do as they wished. But if you want this Citadel, it’s yours.”
“Thank you. I’ll pay you for it, too. I love our mechanical ladies as much as you do, I think. You see, they knew that you admired the works of J. R. R. Tolkien as much as I do, and over the centuries, most of the world’s best artists have illustrated scenes from his books. With those paintings as a guide, they have built Hobbiton, Rivendell, the Mines of Moria, Helm’s Deep, and a dozen other suchlike places, including some of the bad ones. I want the citadel.”
“You got it. I wonder if they’ll make us some Ents.”
“They just might. I’m waiting to see what they do about a Balrog. Have you been keeping up with what they’re doing about those social drones you authorized?”
“No sir. Good?”
“I think that once they’re through, you won’t be able to tell one from a human being without an X-ray machine. That’s what they really want, you know. To be human, and to have all the rights of humans, too.”
“I think that they are earning those rights, sir.”
“So do I. Well. Go back and enjoy the rest of your leave. I just might have to cut it short.”
“Yes, sir.”
I saluted him, he returned the salute and flicked out of existence.
I began to think that maybe I really felt some loyalty to something after all.
The Human Army.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A Robot and a Memorial
Coming up from the Loway, still in our tanks, we approached my underground garage. Agnieshka mentioned that there were various hidden weapon systems around us, under the control of the house computer, which was actually a disabled tank. As she described them, I said that it all seemed rather extreme.
“In our present world, you are probably right, boss, but remember that this whole complex is designed to last for five thousand years. Who can tell what might happen in so long a time span? You, or your descendants might one day have to defend yourselves from a barbarian horde, for all we know.”