“Hold on, McGill,” Graves said.

  Yawning and stretching, I noticed that three glum men surrounded me. The owners of these sad-sack faces were Graves, Fike and Winslade.

  “Uh… what’s up, sirs?”

  “Come with us, McGill,” Graves said. “We’re having a briefing of our own.”

  Internally, I was already kicking myself. I should have bailed out quietly near the end of the meeting, instead of falling asleep. Now, there looked to be no escape.

  Wearing an expression that was just as forlorn as the rest, I followed them out of the place. We headed down to one of Central’s infamous officer’s pubs. This one was located a hundred floors or so below legion headquarters, which placed it tantalizingly close to the ground floor exit. I could almost smell my escape route—but it wasn’t to be.

  Everyone bought a drink, but no one did more than sip theirs. No one did except for me, that is. I downed my first one, ordered a second, then eyed Winslade’s martini in a predatory fashion.

  “All right,” Fike said, leaning forward. “I called this meeting because the current situation is unacceptable. I want to hear ideas on how we can remedy our mutual problem.”

  “Uh…” I said. “What exactly are we talking about, Primus Fike?”

  Winslade snorted. “Come now, McGill. Don’t play dumb. You were the first man on his feet shouting down that abominable alien who’s now supposed to lead us all into battle.”

  I knew this, of course. What I was wondering was how far we were willing to go. Would we perm Foam? Or merely trip him up and report it to the brass?

  Suddenly, Graves stood up. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I’m needed elsewhere.”

  Everyone fell quiet as he walked away. I knew what the trouble was right off. Graves was a by-the-book stickler for rules. You just didn’t go around plotting mutinies and such-like without a damned good reason.

  The moment he was gone, Fike and Winslade leaned close.

  “We’ve got to stop him,” Winslade said. “He’ll go to the brass. He’ll tell them we’re plotting.”

  “No, he won’t,” I said. “That’s why he left. If he’d stuck around, he would have had to rat on us. That’s how Graves operates.”

  “Why the hell did he come to this meeting, then?” Winslade demanded.

  “He’s got his reasons,” I insisted. “Rest assured on that score.”

  Primus Fike eyed me seriously. “McGill, you know him best. Go after him and convince him to join us.”

  “What does it matter? We don’t need him to pull a move on Foam.”

  Fike shook his head. “Wrong. You don’t kill the king without knowing who you’re putting on the throne to replace him. Graves must be that man.”

  My jaw hung low while I thought it over, then I closed my mouth with a snap. “It won’t happen. Graves deserves the honor, sure, but Central doesn’t want him to get more rank.”

  “Why the hell not?” Fike demanded. “They’ve promoted me, Winslade—even you. If you’d accepted, you’d be a full primus right now.”

  I blinked at that. I hadn’t considered the idea before, but Fike was right. A few times before, various pieces of brass had tried to make me a sub-primus in one zoo legion or another, but I’d refused. If I’d taken their offers, I’d be a full primus today. That was kind of a shocker.

  “McGill?” Winslade asked. “McGill, are you in there? Tune in and listen, please.”

  “Sorry, sirs. What did you want again?”

  Winslade shook his head and looked at both of us in disgust. “Don’t you two know by now why Graves has been passed over so many times? Why he was singled out for today’s over-the-top humiliation?”

  “Uh…”

  I thought about lying. I surely did. After all, I only had an idea about the truth, not firm information. I knew, for example, that Graves had been killed and revived countless times. That he’d been caught up in that cycle of life and death long before the rest of us. I also knew that such men were sometimes mentally twisted. That they weren’t the same men that had been recruited so many years earlier.

  I also suspected other dark reasons. Graves had been around before the legions… and the powers that be knew that. For whatever reason, they didn’t trust him.

  Winslade leaned back and crossed his arms. “Don’t blow a mental fuse, McGill. I’ll simply tell you the story as I understand it. The matter is very simple but damning. Graves fought in the Secession wars. Worse… I believe he fought for the wrong side.”

  Fike and I stared at him in shock. I’d heard rumors… but to hear these words spoken out loud was an outright stunner.

  “Are you sure about that?” Fike asked. “That’s a serious accusation, Tribune.”

  Winslade shrugged. “I didn’t serve as his comrade in arms, if that’s what you mean. But I have it on good authority—”

  “Tribune,” Fike interrupted, “with all due respect, I think you shouldn’t be passing around rumors like that without official documentation to back it up.”

  Winslade rolled his eyes at him. “Believe what you want to, Primus Fike. Let’s just say that there are reasons why Graves has been held back.”

  “All right. I can accept that,” Fike said, “but we still need Graves on our side.”

  No one disagreed with him, and for a minute or two we all worked on downing our beverages.

  Finally, both of them looked at me. “McGill,” Winslade asked, “do you want to be led into battle by a squid?”

  “Hell no.”

  Fike leaned close. “Do you want your every action in this legion to be judged and second-guessed by a shifty alien who holds no regard for human life?”

  “No, sir!”

  Fike nodded. “Very well, Centurion. Then get up off your ass and do something about it. You know Graves better than we do. Convince him to join us.”

  My eyes traveled from Fike to Winslade then back again. I stood up. “I’ll do what I can, sirs, but I don’t think it’ll work.”

  Fike smiled a grim smile. “I have faith in you.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Winslade said. “If there’s one man on Earth McGill can’t bamboozle, it’s Graves.”

  I took my leave of them then, and I followed Graves out of the lounge. He reached the elevators before I could catch up, but as he was in my chain of command, I was able to trace him on my tapper.

  Unsurprisingly, he was heading upstairs to Legion Varus headquarters. He usually slept in the barracks, even if the legion wasn’t deployed. I didn’t even know if he had a real home to go back to in between campaigns.

  Ten minutes later, I walked into his office. He was sitting there surrounded by almost unadorned walls and a very neat desk. The only decorations in the office were three alien heads, which he’d had stuffed and mounted back when such things were legal.

  One of the heads was a saurian raptor from Steel World. Another was a big insect-looking thing—it resembled a housefly’s head blown up to the size of a basketball.

  It was the third head that caught my attention, however. It was of a Rigellian bear.

  I whistled long and low. “Damnation, Primus! I didn’t think the brass would let you get away with something like this. After all, what if we make peace with these bears someday. Squanto won’t be amused.”

  Graves eyed the head in question. He shrugged. “When that day comes, I’ll put that one away in storage. I’ve got plenty more. I’ll put up another one that is out of favor with the diplomats.”

  “Huh… yessir, very impressive.”

  Graves watched me as I marveled at his trophies.

  “What do you want anyway, McGill?”

  “Huh? Me sir? Nothing. I was just in a curious mood. I was wondering… about the old days. I know you remember things almost every Earther has forgotten. Sometimes, a young buck like myself yearns for the wisdom of the ages.”

  Graves snorted. “You only yearn for women and booze.”

  “Not just that, sir. Although you’ve named two favorites of mine. I also like good food.”

  “That’s right. I stand corrected.”

  Graves leaned back in his chair. That was an unusual change of pace for him. He generally sat up ramrod-straight at all times. He was still watching me, while I pretended to be fascinated by his wall hangings.

  Finally, he sighed. “What do you want to know about the past?”

  “Well sir, a few things have always bothered me. For one, I wonder what it was like to be killed and revived—back in the early days, I mean. I’ve talked to some of the old souls about it. Some say in the beginning, it didn’t always work as well as it does now.”

  “No, it didn’t.”

  “They said sometimes a man came back twisted—that such men were dangerous.”

  Graves froze. “Who told you that?”

  “Uh… Claver. Armel. The old salts, as I said.”

  Graves nodded, and he looked troubled. “It’s true. None of us are quite what we were. There are… gaps. Omissions. We’re all like copies that aren’t quite complete. Worse, though… worse are the additions.”

  I turned and looked at him curiously. “Additions? What do you mean, sir?”

  He shrugged. “When the old machines had incomplete files, they tried to patch the gaps. To fill them in with likely data. They don’t do that anymore.”

  I thought about Etta. She’d been revived by her grandfather, and things had been missing. They’d used whatever they had—but it wasn’t quite right. The result wasn’t quite wholesome. The same thing had happened to Raash.

  “Does that answer your question, McGill?”

  “Yessir, but I’ve got one more.”

  “What’s that?”

  We locked eyes. “Primus, sir… did you fight in the Unification Wars?”

  Graves blinked. He actually blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that one. “Why would you ask that, McGill?”

  “Because, sir, I think that you did. What’s more, I suspect you might have fought on the losing side.”

  Graves stared at me. He was expressionless, but he was thinking hard. You could tell.

  “What’s the point of these questions, McGill?”

  “Nothing, sir. I just was wondering why the hell Central would have the brass pair to promote a fiend in angel’s clothing like Foam to the spot you so clearly deserve. Then I thought to myself: they must be afraid of you. Or maybe you made a deal with them, long, long ago…”

  Graves looked down at his desk. His fingers knit together. “McGill, your grandmother was right about you. You are one part genius.”

  “Hold on, sir. Don’t forget about the three-parts retard. That’s dominant in my DNA, I swear it.”

  Graves didn’t laugh. He didn’t even meet my eye. “I’ve led a long life, McGill. I’ve made mistakes. I have my regrets. I’m sure you feel the same way.”

  “Uh… I’m sure I do, sir—but I can’t think of any right now.”

  “Well… then my past isn’t as perfect as yours. Because of that, I doubt I’ll ever command a legion in Earth’s service. In fact, I’m pretty surprised they let me hold the rank of primus.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a crying shame, sir.”

  “Let me guess, Winslade and Fike want me to become the tribune of Legion Varus, right?”

  “Of course. We all do.”

  “It will never happen. Tell them to come up with a new plan.”

  Nodding, I stood tall. I snapped off a salute, and I left him. Graves looked troubled and alone in his office. I took a moment to wonder if he’d ever had a wife or even a girlfriend. To the best of my knowledge, he’d never even gone on a date, and that was a crying shame.

  He was one of Earth’s finest sons, and in my opinion, he deserved better.

  -19-

  We called together the legion over the next few days. That was a fuster-cluck of the first order. People and equipment were all over the place. There hadn’t been any early warnings, so many of our best troops had gone to seed.

  Leeson and I were going over the rosters in the hold of Dominus, and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

  “What do you mean Adjunct Barton is on the Moon?” I demanded. “She never takes vacations.”

  “I know it, I know it. The girl is a robot most of the time—but not this week. She took off with some fellow she’s fallen for.”

  My eyebrows shot high. “Really? That’s nice for her—but we’re short an officer.”

  “We’re short a bio, too. Carlos ditched the legion, and none of the regulars felt like training for the job.”

  “Can’t say as I blame them…” Frowning, I began working my tapper. Leeson leaned way over to see what I was texting about. He squawked when he saw the truth.

  “You’re looking up Carlos’ status? Seriously?”

  “That’s right. He’s been on a long-term contract for extended service. You know full-well any of us can be reactivated in a military emergency.”

  “Emergency?” Leeson laughed. “What emergency? We’re flying out to steal some cash, and we don’t even get to keep it. That’s not a matter of planetary defense.”

  I gave him a dark look. “Adjunct, you’re not supposed to know anything about any cash.”

  “Carlos was the one who took the coins, remember? Just how quiet do you think he’s been about it since then?”

  I thought that over. Carlos had never kept quiet about anything. If he ever assassinated the prime minister of Hegemony someday, he’d probably take a selfie with the body and post it to a live feed.

  Checking the results of my status search on his name, I found I wasn’t happy with the results. “He’s in prison?”

  My surprise amused Leeson even more. “What did you expect? He stole illegal cash and got a bunch of people killed. He’s lucky they haven’t permed him yet.”

  “Huh…”

  Staring at the data, I thought about what to do. Carlos was in jail, and he was probably going to grow old in that cell in Central City. He deserved it, sure. It was justice and then some for a man like him.

  But somehow, it didn’t sit right with me. After all, Claver had tempted us all with those damned coins on one of our first deployments. How had that worked out for everyone? Well, Carlos had managed to pocket a few, but Claver had gotten away to stash the lion’s share. People were talking about millions of coins, each one worth a fortune by itself.

  Rubbing my jaw for a few seconds, I tapped the emergency reinstatement request. Then I confirmed it twice. My tapper shot off a message, and the cat was out of the bag.

  “Um…” Leeson said, studying me and my tapper. “You didn’t just do what I think you did, did you? Tell me you didn’t do that, sir.”

  “I did it. I requested Specialist Ortiz on an emergency basis.”

  “Aw, dammit. We were free of that pug, McGill! I don’t know an officer in this legion who would want him back, much less now when he’s a convict!”

  “The records show he hasn’t come to trial yet. It might be months.”

  Leeson leaned close. “That’s because the Nairbs are involved. They always make everything take forever.”

  I nodded. I was already feeling a little queasy inside. Carlos was my friend, but he was trouble. He always had been.

  Shrugging it all off, I sucked in a deep breath and stood tall. After all, what was done was done.

  I pointed a long finger at Leeson. “You’re my second in command. I just solved our bio problem—if the request is approved, and his sentence is commuted. Your job is to get Barton off the Moon and back into our module.”

  “Aw, hell. All right.”

  Leeson got up and left the table. I walked to my private quarters and stared out my fake window, which displayed a fake view of the spaceport. The better cabins all had imitation portholes like mine now. They were completely convincing. Your eyes couldn’t tell that the window was really a screen—the resolution was too high. They even had streaks on the glass and weather effects. Sometimes, a shooting star flashed by on the far side of the window. Other times, it might ice over.

  It was all bullshit, relayed from tiny camera pickups outside the ship. But like one of those electronic fireplaces, it was convincing enough. You soon forgot it was a high resolution screen.

  Two days later, my module was full of bustling troops. Everyone was stowing gear and complaining. I signaled Veteran Moller, and she walked the lines slapping people and pushing them into line. This was our first roll call, and you had to play it straight when your unit had gone to seed over the intervening months.

  We went down the roster, but I skipped Carlos and Adjunct Barton.

  Just as I was finishing up, Barton rushed in. Naturally, I’d timed the whole sequence for the moment of her arrival. That sort of thing always got a subordinate’s blood pumping.

  “Adjunct Barton? Last call, Adjunct—?”

  “Here, sir!”

  My head swiveled toward the entrance. There she was, pushing the door out of the way and almost dragging her stuffed ruck. She was only partly in uniform. Her cap was missing, as was her rank insignia.

  I nodded and looked back down at the roll-sheet on my tapper. “Glad you could make it, Adjunct.”

  She hustled to her spot in line and tried not to huff and puff as she stood at attention. She’d obviously been running all the way across Earth to the nearest spaceport to get here.

  “All right, 3rd Unit. That completes our first—”

  “Bio Specialist Ortiz, sir,” Carlos piped up. “Reporting as ordered.”

  I glanced at the last man at the back of the crowd. Two MPs had just escorted him up from the brig. Lots of other people craned their necks around too.

  Carlos lifted his hands high and rattled his gravity cuffs at us. Some people in the crowd snorted. A few booed.

  I gave him a stern glare. “You’re not officially in this unit yet, Ortiz. You’re not even on my roll sheet. So, shut up.”

  That was a lie, of course. His name was on my rolls, plain as day. Hell, I’d put it there myself. But you couldn’t let a man like him feel too comfortable. If you did, he’d walk all over you and then eat your lunch while you weren’t paying attention.