He went on for a time, praising our legion and our accomplishments. But then… he got down to business.

  “Officers and officials, I’m here to tell you of a budget change. A critical change that must be dealt with here at the legion level.”

  All the talk died, and everyone stopped chewing. You could have heard a pin drop. The old buzzard had everyone’s attention now.

  I swear, you could take a boatload of brass into a hot combat zone, and they’d just keep on yapping—but if you mentioned budgets, well sir, that’s what really made them stand up and salute.

  Hands rose up all over the room. For once, none of those hands belonged to me.

  Servant Turov pointed to Drusus first.

  “Servant, I think everyone here wants to know which direction this budget change will take. Are we talking about an expansion, or…?”

  Turov ran his eyes over the crowd, then he shook his head. “No. Sadly, I can’t report any good news today. The Geneva Council has decided to change our strategic direction. As part of this new direction, cuts will have to be made in the military sector.”

  “I see… Thank you, sir,” Drusus sat down, and Captain Merton was called next.

  Merton stood up and bowed. He outright frigging bowed. “Great Servant, you are doubtlessly a luminary,” Merton began, and I realized he’d decided to kiss ass and to go hard with it right from the start. “We’re very pleased to have someone come and talk to us about this matter directly. Can I assume this means final decisions have not yet been made?”

  Turov inclined his head, nodding gently in the affirmative. In response, everyone’s gut tightened a notch. The brass all seemed to find it hard to breathe. This wasn’t just an informative meet-and-greet. Turov was signaling that decisions were being made—maybe on the basis of this meeting.

  That put pressure on everyone present—with the possible exception of me. I didn’t much care if they short-changed me a few thousand credits a month, or if they didn’t replace my gear for an extra year or two. When you were on the front lines taking fire, all of that stuff didn’t mean squat to a real grunt.

  Still, it was kind of interesting, and I was happy to know that at least this meeting wasn’t going to be a total waste of time.

  “A follow-up, if I may?” Captain Merton asked.

  Servant Turov nodded to him again.

  “Will this possibly affect the navy, or are we talking only about the budget of ground forces?”

  “Every military expenditure is under scrutiny.”

  The room erupted into muttering. Apparently, this was news that no one wanted to hear.

  Servant Turov lifted a withered hand and they all shut up instantly. “Let me say that we’re not cutting pay. Not directly. We’re freezing it, and we’re freezing all new recruitments and promotions—but there will be no reduction in remuneration.”

  The muttering got louder. Winslade raised his hand, and Turov pointed to him.

  “Glorious Servant of the People,” Winslade began, establishing a new standard in bootlicking right off the bat. “I’m a tribune of a support legion. I must point out that our forces are the most cost effective of any represented here—because most of our troops do not require pay, or revivals.”

  There were a few angry scowls at that. Winslade was always looking out for number one.

  “Yes, yes,” Turov said. “That has been taken into consideration.”

  Foam threw a tentacle so high that it folded up against the ceiling. Turov pointed to him next.

  “Government official of Earth,” he said, “I am the only non-human leader of an independent legion. Is my position in danger?”

  “No, as I said, we’re not cutting line officers or salaries. We’re freezing them at current levels.”

  “Where, then, will these cuts fall?”

  Servant Turov looked around at all of us. His eyes landed on the nerd robot-operators. “Gentlemen. I’ve been told you recently exhibited the quality of your new military hardware with a public demonstration.”

  A scaredy-looking nerd stood up. “My name is Director Cunningham. I’m a lab leader from Central.”

  Servant Turov gestured impatiently for him to continue.

  Cunningham looked flustered, but determined. “Um… well sirs, we did perform an exercise today, but it was only for the purpose of training troops. It wasn’t any kind of field test.”

  “I see. How many humans participated in this training?”

  “Well…” Director Cunningham glanced across the room at me. It seemed like there was some anger in his eyes, but I could have been wrong. “Only one man participated.”

  “One man? One man was trained?”

  “Not exactly… many people observed the whole thing. It was instructive for them too, I’m sure. We as the robo-operators learned significantly.”

  Servant Turov nodded. “Excellent. Let’s see the video—in its entirety.”

  By this time, I was getting a nasty feeling from old Alexander and his tricky daughter, who was sitting there right next to him. This was a setup. It had been right from the start. At least this time out I wasn’t the target of underhanded skullduggery—Cunningham was definitely in the crosshairs.

  I could tell the nerd didn’t want to play the files, but he had no choice. A Public Servant was akin to a deity for any government type. Alexander Turov was like a minor god that sometimes deigned to walk among the filthy citizens he presided over. You didn’t just say no to a Servant.

  Finally, after seeing no way out, Cunningham played the video.

  It was awful. As a Legion Varus man, I’ve experienced a lot of public humiliation and scorn. I’ve deflected the disgust of my fellow man on many occasions. But today, after watching the piss-poor performance of his robots, I could feel Cunningham’s pain. It almost made me sorry I’d trashed all his gizmos and made him and his crew look like total losers… almost.

  By the end of the vid, the room drew quiet. They’d just watched me bashing robots, smashing one into another, for fifteen solid minutes. They’d skipped the part where I’d hid on the bottom of the lagoon, fast-forwarding out of boredom.

  That’s when Servant Turov turned toward me. “Centurion McGill. That was you playing the part of a one-man wrecking ball on Green Deck?”

  “Uh… yessir.”

  “Did you learn anything from this exercise?”

  My eyes ran over the crowd. Some of them looked amused. Others looked worried.

  The last officer I looked at was Foam. He was eyeing me steadily. Under the table, I saw one of his tentacles lift up—then he made a single downward slashing motion with the limb. He did that twice, quite deliberately, and then he dropped his nasty appendage to the floor again.

  I thought about that for half a second. Was Foam signaling me to stop talking? Or to burn Cunningham? Or what? I really wasn’t sure.

  I quickly decided it didn’t matter. I didn’t care what Foam wanted. What I wanted was for these wicked robots to be gone from my ship and from my legion. I hated them all, and I wanted them tossed onto the ash heap of legion history.

  Accordingly, I stood tall and looked around the room. Only Foam was taller, and everyone looked at me with rapt attention.

  “Servant Turov,” I said, “I can honestly tell you that I didn’t learn one goddamned thing from this exercise—other than the easily verifiable fact that these robots are expensive walking junk.”

  The room stayed silent for another second or two, then Servant Turov nodded. “Thank you for your brutal honesty, Centurion McGill.”

  “Wait a second!” Cunningham protested. “He was wearing non-regulation armor! He cheated!”

  Alexander Turov’s eyes rolled back in my direction, but then Foam intervened. “False. I issued that armor to him days earlier. Since the Glass World campaign, McGill has been wearing such gear with regularity.”

  Cunningham sputtered. “But… that’s changing the rules of the game. We weren’t prepared for that. We couldn’t—”

  Servant Turov’s hand lifted calmly, and Cunningham instantly fell silent. “Director, it occurs to me that you were throwing new tech at McGill, and he had no trouble adapting. This suit came from the labs at Central, just as your robots did. These suits are becoming increasingly common, and our greatest local enemies from Rigel wear comparable armor all the time. It’s not unreasonable that your new weapon systems should be expected to deal effectively with gear of this kind.”

  “But… Servant…”

  Turov shook his head gravely. He closed his computer scroll with a decisive motion. “It has been decided—and not just due to this single incident. Your program has been cancelled. Many Central programs are being canceled today. Please return to Earth and turn in whatever is left of your robots. Possibly, they will prove useful at a future date.”

  “But, sir!”

  “Director, I regret to inform you that you and your lab are no longer funded. Your entire staff will resign, effective immediately. Your letters of resignation will be waiting for you on your tappers within moments. Please accept my heartfelt condolences.”

  If I was a betting man, I’d say Director Cunningham didn’t appreciate Turov’s condolences. With what dignity he had left, he marched out of the room. His tribe of slumping sidekicks followed him.

  The minute the door shut behind them, I put my fingers to my teeth and whistled. Then I clapped loudly. A few other Varus officers joined in. We all hated those robots—but the celebration died out quickly when I received icy stares from the brass.

  I stopped crowing and sat back down again. Things got real dull after that, with a long list of other losers making excuses for their bloated budgets. As an infantryman, I really didn’t have much to defend. Riflemen were as cheap as dirt and twice as plentiful.

  Bored, I went and got myself a fourth plate of food, but I was pretty well stuffed by this time, and I could barely finish it.

  -28-

  When the grand shredding of budgets was finally over and done with, everyone with a gold braid on his sleeve looked like he’d been kicked in the balls. They slunk out of the place like so many stray dogs. I yawned, stretched, and made my way over to the Turovs table as they shuffled their computer scrolls and data chips.

  “That was some mighty fine work you did here today, Mr. Servant, sir. Mighty fine.”

  Galina’s dad studied me. “You like seeing cuts in the military?”

  “Only when we’re wasting money. I’ve never been the showy kind of officer.”

  “No… no, I don’t suppose you are. I understand that you’ve been seeing my daughter in a more than casual way. How long has this relationship been going on?”

  I blinked a few times, and Galina looked startled as well. Old Alexander wasn’t one to mince words.

  “Uh… well, sir, it’s been years now. Maybe even… decades. I hope you’re not offended.”

  “Offended…? No, I’m not so old-fashioned as to think Galina would ask my permission before making choices in her personal life. However, you do realize how old my daughter is, don’t you? She’s not all that much younger than I am—”

  “Father,” Galina said suddenly, and kind of loudly, “maybe these matters would be best discussed in a private setting.”

  “Perhaps so…”

  I looked from one to the other. There was some tension here, and that didn’t surprise me. How could there not be a tug-of-war when you had two ambitious rattlesnakes in one family?

  “Are you guys inviting me to dinner?” I asked. “I could go for steaks down on Lavender Deck.”

  “Steaks?” Galina asked. “You just ate yourself sick at the buffet.”

  “That was an hour back at least, and I don’t find roast pig to be very filling, anyways.”

  Galina sighed, and she glanced over at her dad. He was studying me with curiosity.

  “I’ve also heard of your exploits, McGill,” he said.

  “All good, I hope.”

  “No… not at all. But upon meeting you, I can understand the natural reactions of others to your unorthodox behavior. I find the entire situation intriguing. I will allow myself to be escorted to this… Lavender Deck?”

  “That’s just what we call it,” I said. “The walls aren’t actually purple or anything.”

  With poor grace, Galina led the way to the elevators, and we soon arrived on Lavender Deck. As a Servant, Alexander Turov was about the most important personage we’d ever seen onboard Dominus. With him in tow we were naturally ushered toward the finest restaurant the ship had, without hesitation. A navy steward did the ushering, and he was selling everything we passed by like a sales girl on Black Friday.

  When a pair of guards spotted me in the mix, however, it was a different story.

  “That’s him!” one of them shouted. “That’s the guy! Arrest him!”

  “What did you do this time, James?” Galina demanded.

  “Uh…”

  The guards swarmed me, and they made accusations about the raft of lies I’d fed them the night before. Apparently, there was some dude called Miles Stannish who’d filed a false complaint about harassment. The Turovs listened with interest.

  Glancing toward Galina and her father, I gave them a smile and introduced the big man to the guards. “You see this guy here, hog? This is Public Servant Turov—that’s right, he’s a big cheese from Earth. I’m his guest tonight, and I think he might become offended at any moment.”

  This straightened out the hog-boys in a hurry. “Servant Turov? We mean no offense, sir. If this man is bothering you, we’ll take him off your hands and down to the brig right now.”

  Everyone could see that’s what the hogs wanted. They were practically salivating at the idea.

  Alexander turned to his daughter. “Galina? What do you wish to do?”

  “I wish McGill could keep his brain operating in a straight line—but seeing as that’s impossible, I guess I want to go to dinner in peace.”

  Her dad nodded, and he made a brushing-off gesture in the direction of the hogs. When he stepped toward them, they parted like fish and water running from Moses. He didn’t even look at them.

  “Come on, McGill,” Galina said.

  I followed them and nodded to the guards. I gave them the thumbs-up and a toothy grin. “See you fellows around.”

  A few minutes later we were seated in a quiet booth and ordering from a menu I couldn’t believe. Every item in this place had a four-digit price tag—even the ice water was imported from the glaciers on Jupiter’s fourth biggest moon. It was incredibly expensive.

  The Turovs didn’t bat an eye at any of this, so I went a little wild. Before dinner even arrived, I’d had half a bottle of century-old wine and a basket of breadsticks. I’ll be damned if even the breadsticks weren’t heavenly. I was sure they used real wheat of the ancient grain variety, although I’d only heard of such a thing and never tasted it.

  “James,” Galina said, “if you can stop chewing for a few minutes, I’d like to ask you something.”

  “Sure thing, Galina. Shoot!”

  She eyed me seriously. “Did you do all this on purpose?”

  “Uh… what now?”

  Alexander leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It’s no longer necessary for you to play the fool. We’re asking if you knew about the budget cuts in advance.”

  “Oh… no, sir.”

  He nodded. “All right. Why then, did you humiliate a director from Central? Such a man can make a formidable enemy.”

  “I’m sure he could… but you just fired him, right?” I asked.

  “He resigned.”

  “Uh… right. You ‘resigned’ him. So what do I have to worry about?”

  “James,” Galina said, “no one ever really gets fired from the government. Or at least… not at Cunningham’s level. He’ll go into hiding, working on some low-budget project for a year or two. But then he’ll come back, and right now he hates you as much as Squanto, the High Lord of Rigel does.”

  I laughed. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew Squanto. That little dude would move Heaven and Earth to get revenge on me, and he’s tried it more than once.”

  Alexander nodded and leaned back in his chair. It seemed like he was thinking hard.

  “McGill, I can use a man like you. A man who doesn’t fear political enemies. A man who operates as an elemental force, rather than a fop in a suit. I don’t often meet such men.”

  “I’m not surprised, what with being cooped up in Geneva. You should get out to the stars more often, sir. It will grow you some new hair.”

  Alexander didn’t laugh at any of my jokes, but a smile flickered now and then. He got what I was saying, I could tell.

  The food soon came, and I forgot about everything else. I ate, and I drank, and I hollered a little before I was done.

  Galina looked embarrassed, but I could tell she was slightly pleased, too. For all I knew, I was the first dude she’d brought home to her daddy who’d impressed him.

  Later that night, I was summoned to her quarters on Lavender Deck. She’d made a show of depositing me on the lifts to go back to my module, then called me the minute her dad was out of her sight.

  “I’m staying on Lavender Deck,” she told me.

  “Uh… why’s that?”

  “Because I’m not running Legion Varus anymore, James. I’m a visiting dignitary now, remember?”

  “Oh yeah. I remember.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  She got a little frustrated then. I couldn’t blame her. I’d had a lot to drink, and I was missing cues.

  “Do you want to come back down here and visit me or not?”

  “Oh…”

  Right away, I was thinking of Wendy. We’d hit it off, and we were spending every evening together lately. Still, Galina and I—we were on a whole different level.

  For a few long seconds, I found it hard to decide. That was unusual for me, but again, I’d had a lot to drink.

  “Galina?” I said. “I… I think have to pass. I’m real tired, and I’m kind of drunk, and I have some training to do in the morning, see—”