Astounding British Edition, Volume 8, No. 11 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SPECTER GENERAL = 5 There was a sudden change in the colonel’s face as a warm human smile swept across it, and he broke into a peal of laughter. “It’s a hell of a feeling, isn’t it, son? You know you shouldn’t, but at the same time there’s something inside you that Says you’ve got to know what’s behind those peaks or die. When you get a few more years under your belt you'll find that it isn’t just mountains that make you feel like that. Here, boy, have a seat.’ He ges- tured toward a woven wicker chair that stood by his desk. Kurt shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, stunned by the colonel’s sudden change of attitude and embarrassed by his request. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but we aren’t out on work detail, and—” The colonel laughed. “And enlisted men not on work detail don’t sit in the presence of officers. Doesn’t the way we do things ever strike you as odd, Dixon? On one hand you’d see nothing strange about being yoked to a plow with a major, and on the other you’d never dream of sitting in his ence off duty.” Kurt looked puzzled, “Work details are different,” he said. “We all have to work if we're going to eat. But in the garrison, officers are officers and enlisted men are enlisted men and that’s the way it’s always been.” Still smiling, the colonel reached into his desk drawer, fished out something, and tossed it to Kurt. : _ “Stick this in your scalp lock,” he said. ~Kurt looked at it, stunned. It was a golden feather crossed with a single black bar, the insignia of rank of a second lieu- tenant of the Imperial Space Marines. The room swirled before his eyes. “Now,” said the older officer, “sit down!” Kurt slowly lowered himself into the chair and looked at the colonel through bemused eyes. “Stop gawking!” said Colonel Harris. “You're an officer now! When a man gets too big for his sandals, we give him a new pair—after we let him sweat a while!” He suddenly grew serious. “Now that you're one of the family you have a right to know why I’m hushing up the matter of the tableland to the north. What I have to say won’t make much sense at*first. Later I’m hoping it will. Tell me,” he said suddenly, “where did the battalion come from?” ~ “We've always been here I guess,” said Kurt, “When I was a recruit, Grandad used ~ to tell me stories about us being brought from some place else a long time ago by an iron bird, but it stands to reason that something that heavy can’t fly!” A faraway look came into the colonel’s eyes. “Six generations,” he mused, “and history becomes legend. Another six and the legends themselves become tales for chil- dren, Yes, Kurt,” he said softly, “it stands to reason that something that heavy couldn’t fly so we'll forget it for a while. We did come from some place else though. Once there was a great empire, so great that all the stars you see at night were only part of it. And then, as things do when age rests too heavily on them, it began to crumble. Commanders fell to fighting among themselves and the Emperor grew ~ weak. The battalion was set down here to operate a forward maintenance station for his ships. We waited but no ships came. For five hundred years no ships have come,” said the colonel somberly. “Perhaps they tried to relieve us and couldn’t, perhaps the Empire fell with such a crash that we were lost in the wreckage. There are a thou- sand perhapses that a man can tick off in~ his mind when the nights are long and sleep comes hard! Lost . . . forgotten... > knows?” a Kurt stared at him with a blank expres- sion on his face. Most of what the colonel had said made no sense at all. Whatever Imperial Headquarters was, it hadn’t for-- gotten them, The LG. still made his inspec- tion every year or so. The colonel continued as if talking to himself. “But our operational orders said that we would stand by to give all necessary ~ maintenance to Imperial warcraft until pro- perly relieved, and stand by we have.” The old officer’s voice seemed to be coming from a place far distant in time and space. : “[m sorry, sir,” said Kurt, “but I don’t follow you. If all these things did happen, it was so long ago that they mean nothing to us now.” “But they do!” said Colonel Harris vigorously. “It’s because of them that things like your rediscovery of the tableland to the north have to be suppressed for the good of the battalion! Here on the plateau the living is hard. Our work in the fields and the meat brought in by our hunting parties give us just enough to get by on. But here we have the garrison and the Tech Schools—and vague as it has become—a reason for remaining together.as the batta- EComichbooks=co