FOR the next four weeks the cadets underwent what was described as Accelerated Basic Training, during which time they were restricted to the Turret. Those like Willie, who were from regular backgrounds and had known the destination to which they were bound, had been through a preparatory course that sounded like a cut-down version of Coulie, so none of them were in what could be called poor condition; nevertheless, the routine involved a lot of weight pushing, and sweating on exercise machines to get in shape. There was no arguing with regulations. They learned about orders of rank and insignia, the functions of all standard items of kit and how to take care of them. They were introduced to hand-to-hand combat—dirtier than had been shown at Seville Trace. There was interminable parade and small-arms drill of the traditional kind, conducted with small squads in conditions that bordered on comical in the limited space the military gym permitted. The only purpose in confining them to the Turret, since there really weren't that many places to go, seemed to be to impart an awareness that they were now under military orders. As more than one of the veterans they found themselves among told them, they would quickly discover that making sense was one of the last things that mattered.
"You come in here a rabble! By der time you leave Graylink Station, you will be material that soldiers can be made from!" Schultz screamed at them in his European accent. He was somehow apelike, of indeterminate age, with a head that was bald except for a fringe of reddish curls at the sides and back, and a mustache that curled up at the ends. Linc went through the required motions unprotesting, yet inwardly he found the machinations to instill discipline through intimidation pretty transparent and not very compelling as far as inspiring fear and terror went. Obviously, there were built-in limits that made the system a charade. It seemed to have its desired effect on the kids from more normal backgrounds, nevertheless. But they had probably never been screamed at in earnest by anyone in their lives before; and certainly they had never been visited by an arm man delivering a reminder, or had to deal with a blade waver who had boiled over on dope.
There were more classes in basic math and physics—pitched below the abilities of the majority of the cadets, but again regulations allowed no exemptions. A minimum level of knowledge was required that it was essential everyone be brought up to. It formed the prerequisite for understanding at least the basics of such things as static mechanics, kinetics and orbital dynamics, heat, and the behavior of fluids, without which meaningful adaptation to the space environment would be impossible. There was an introduction to computers and communications, because the effectiveness of every modern fighting force from five-man fire team to army division depended on the availability and quality of information. And there was instruction in weapons, ammunition, and explosives, because those were the basic tools of the trade that everyone was now in.
Linc had never dreamed that human ingenuity could conceive and perfect so many ways of killing people. Available to the individual combat soldier was a range of categories and calibers of guns able to inflict every form of abuse imaginable on the human body via projectiles that ranged from "clean" hole drillers and shot, to bullets that spread or shattered, excavating bone and tissue by the shovelful, bullets that exploded, and flying blenders capable of taking off an arm. In addition, there were grenades that splintered or ignited; mines that disabled, disemboweled, or dismembered; antitank, antiair munitions and rockets; flamethrowers, trench cudgels, bayonets, and knives. Places and people, he discovered, were not bombed but instead "took ordnance." Ordnance—explosive, incendiary, fragmentation, chemical, biological, nuclear; delivered by artillery, missile, air, orbiting platform—could single out a vehicle in a column, obliterate an area, incinerate a town. Laser cannons on the Moon tracked Earth-circling satellites. Beams of atomic particles could melt ships out in space.
The other cadets seemed intrigued and excited by it all, airing their new jargon over meals and enthusiastically debating infantry techniques and weapon specifications in their billet at the day's end. Linc found it disillusioning and depressing. For the most part the cadets were products of affluence and security trying to prove themselves—children raised on delusions of manly virtues and movie heroics. Linc had seen the effects of a broken bottle twisted into a human face, and a hand being pulped by a solid-iron bar. He had thought he was getting away from such things; that he had found a breed of people who were smarter and knew enough to be beyond living that way, and who would show him how to become one of them. But if they were that smart, why were they incapable, and on such a total and massive scale, of solving their problems and getting along with one another?
In his few years he hadn't found out too much about the world. He had always figured that people like himself lived violently and ruthlessly because it was the only way they had of getting a chance to carve themselves a share of anything—which was how he'd been conned into working for Kyle. Or, like Clay and Slam, the two punks he had hired, they didn't and never would know any different. Now he was coming to the conclusion that this wasn't the way it was after all, that there was a lot more to it. The smart ones were the worst: throwing kids in the slammer for leaning on a few jerks in order to get a decent car and a suit, while themselves looting nations wholesale and counting the corpses in millions. For the first time a lot of the things he remembered Johnny saying back at Seville Trace started to make sense. Linc wondered if this whole business was just another con, and at the end of it nothing was going to turn out any different from the way things always did. If so, he found himself thinking, he was never going to fit in anywhere.