Imperial Stars 1-The Stars at War Read Online Free Page B

sweet home—even if it's a false beard."
    Kaempfert shrugged. "Our customers don't know where the cash-and-carry heroes come from. Why should Earth government? Besides, I can just hear what the government would have to say about its nationals fighting alien battles and chancing all sorts of international complications if their origin is discovered."
    "Government could use a jolt," Demaris growled.
    "Your briefing room's down the hall," Kaempfert said. "You're due there."
    Demaris nodded. "Uh-huh." He put out his hand. "Bill—I'm sorry I'm such a pop-off. I didn't really mean to give you a rough time last night. Be seeing you, huh?"
    "Sure, Thad. Come home—nothing to forgive."
    They shook hands, tapped each other on the biceps, and separated. Demaris walked down the hall, and Kaempfert went through the front office to his desk.
     
    He'd memorized his Marak file. Now he turned it in to the technician at the door of the briefing room, who tagged it with his code name and dropped it into a similarly labeled filing cabinet.
    "Strip," the technician said in a bored voice.
    Demaris had already begun climbing out of his clothes. He handed the bundle to the technician, who tagged it and put it in a locker. "Stand still, please . . . no facial expression, if you please . . . hold it. . . thank you." The front and sideview photographs were clipped to Demaris' check card, and the card was handed to him. "Medical examination over in that corner, please."
    Demaris bobbed his head impatiently. The doctor, standing beside his equipment, was thin but not invisible.
    He was given a complete physical, with results noted on his card, and returned to the technician, who wordlessly handed him a set of light coveralls, noted their issue on his card, returned the card, and then nodded him over to the desk where his briefing officer had been sitting all this time.
    "Mr. Blue?" the briefing officer said as Demaris came over, addressing him by his code name, "My name's Puce." He smiled slightly. "Sit down, please. May I have your card, please? Thank you."
    Demaris handed the card over.
    "You've studied your file?"
    "Memorized it."
    "Yes, yes, of course, Mr. Blue. Just a routine question. You know how it is—mass production. We treat everybody the same way—old hand, newcomer, special recruit; whatever he may be. It's not as informal as it might be, but—"
    "I know."
    "Uh. Well. Now, Mr. Blue—if your rank were that of Tjetlyn in the Marakian Interstellar Air Fleet, and I were a Klowdil, which of us would salute first?"
    "Neither of us. You'd be my inferior, so I'd pretend to ignore you. If I wanted anything from you, I'd say so. The salute, as such, is unknown on Marak." Demaris gave the answer in a bored voice.
    "Yes. Well—as a Tjetlyn, you might be invited to official functions at the homes of Chiefs of State. Would it be proper for you to drink three portions of drasos? "
    "It would be mandatory—three and as many more as I could hold."
    "Good. Very good, Mr. Blue. Now, assuming that you were on leave and fell into the company of a perfectly respectable but not hostile young pavoja : What would be your course of action?"
    "I'd pretend she was Eileen deFleur—up to the point at which my normal Marakian biological urges would, unfortunately, suffer frustration due to accidental circumstances over which no one could possibly prove I had any control."
    Mr. Puce chuckled. "Very good. Now, supposing—"
    And so forth, through a veritable nightmare of possible pitfalls which might betray his un-Marakian nature. Demaris threaded his deliberate way through all the vicissitudes Mr. Puce could conjure up for him, and emerged unchallenged—and angry at the redundance of going through this college entrance examination when he knew that Indoctrination would supply him with the unconscious awareness of all these things, driving the knowledge not into his conscious information banks but into his reflexes.
    Still and all, he could not deny that