Earth

“But what about the other stuff? The furs. The shoes. All that powdered horn shit?”

The pilot shrugged. “Can’t sell it. That’d just legitimize wearing or using the stuff. Create demand, you see.

“Can’t destroy it, either. Could you burn billions worth of beautiful things? Sometimes they take school groups through the warehouses, to show kids what real evil is. But mostly it all just sits there, piling up higher and higher.”

The pilot looked left and right. “I do have a theory, though. I think I know the real reason for the warehouses.”

“Yes?” Roland and Schmidt leaned forward, ready to accept his confidence.

The pilot spoke behind a shielding hand. “Aliens. They’re going to sell it all to aliens from outer space.”

Roland groaned. Schmidt spat on the ground in disgust. Of course real soldiers were going to treat them this way. But it was embarrassing to have been sucked in so openly.

“You think I’m kidding?” the pilot asked.

“No, we think you’re crazy.”

That brought a wry grin. “Likely enough, boy. But think about it! It’s only a matter of time till we’re contacted, no? They’ve been searching the sky for a hundred years now. And we’ve been filling space with our radio and TV and Data Net noise all that time. Sooner or later a starship has to stop by. It only makes sense, no?”

Roland decided the only safe reply was a silent stare. He watched the noncom warily.

“So I figure it’s like this. That starship is very likely to be a trading vessel… out on a long, long cruise, like those clipper ships of olden times. They’ll stop here and want to buy stuff, but not just any stuff. It will have to be light, portable, beautiful, and totally unique to Earth. Otherwise, why bother?”

“But this stuff’s dumpit contraband!” Roland said, pointing to the goods stacked in the cargo bay.

“Hey! You two! Break’s over!” It was Corporal Wu, calling from the ramp. He jerked his thumb then swiveled and strode back into the catacomb. Roland and his partner stood up.

“But that’s the beauty of it!” the pilot continued, as if he hadn’t heard. “You see, the CITES rules make all these things illegal so there won’t be any economic market for killing endangered species.

“But fobbing it all off on alien traders won’t create a market! It’s a one-stop deal, you see? They come once, then they are gone again, forever. We empty the warehouses and spend the profits buying up land for new game preserves.” He spread his hands as if to ask what could be more reasonable.

Schmidt spat again, muttering a curse in Schweitzer-Deutsch. “Come on Senterius, let’s go.” Roland followed quickly, glancing only once over his shoulder at the gri

Probably all three, he figured at last, and double-timed the rest of the way. After all, fairy tales were fairy tales, while Corporal Wu was palpable reality.

As he worked, Roland recalled the days not so long ago when he and his pals Remi and Crat used to sit in the park listening to old Joseph tell them about the awful battles of the Helvetian War. The war that finally did end war.

Each of them had reacted differently to Joseph’s eventual betrayal — Remi by turning tragically cynical, and Crat by declaring void anything spoken by anyone over thirty. To Roland, however, what lasted were the veteran’s tales of combat — of comrades fighting shoulder to shoulder, hauling each other through mountain passes clogged with germ-laden, radioactive mud, struggling together to overcome a wily, desperate foe…

Of course he didn’t actually wish for a real war to fight. Not a big one on the vast, impersonal scale the old vet described. He knew battle sounded a lot more attractive far away, in stories, than it would seem in person.

Still, was this to be the way of it from now on? Hauling off contraband seized from CITES violators? Ma

Oh, there were real warriors in the peacekeeping forces. Takka and some of the others might get to join the elite units quelling fierce little water wars like the one going on now in Ghana. But as an American he’d have little chance of joining any of the active units. The Guarantor Powers were still too big, too powerful. No little country would stand for Russian or American or Chinese troops stationed on their soil.

Well, at least I can learn how to be a warrior. I’ll be trained, ready, in case the world ever needs me.

So he worked doggedly, doing as he was told. Hauling and lifting, lifting and hauling, Roland also tried to listen to the UNEPA officials, especially the dark woman. Had she really wished they had found more of the grisly contraband?

“… thought we’d traced the Pretoria poaching ring all the way here,” she said at one point as he passed by laden with aromatic lion skins. “I thought we’d finally tracked down the main depot. But there’s so little white rhino powder, or—”

“Could Chang have already sold the rest?” one of the others asked.

She shook her head. “Chang’s a hoarder. He sells only to maintain operating capital.”

“Well, we’ll find out when we finally catch him, the slippery eel.”

Roland was still awed by the UNEPA woman, and a bit jealous. What was it like, he wondered, to care about something so passionately? He suspected it made her somehow more alive than he was.

According to the recruitment tapes, training was supposed to give him strong feelings of his own. Over months of exhaustion and discipline, he’d come to see his squadmates as family. Closer than that. They would learn almost to read each other’s thoughts, to depend on each other utterly. If necessary, to die for one another.

That was how it was supposed to work. Glancing at Takka and Schmidt and the other strangers in his squad, Roland wondered how the sergeants and instructors could accomplish such a thing. Frankly, it sounded awfully unlikely.

But hell, guys like Kleineiman and Wu have been soldiering for five thousand years or so. I guess they know what they’re doing.

How ironic, then, that they finally made a science of it at the very end, just as the profession was trying to phase itself out of existence forever. From the looks given them by the UNEPA marshals, that day could come none too soon. Necessity allied the two groups in the cause of saving the planet. But clearly the eco-officers would rather do without the military altogether.

Just be patient, Roland thought as he worked. We’re doing the best we can as fast as we can.

He and another recruit disassembled the shrine at the back of the cavernous treasure room, carefully unwinding snakeskin ropes binding the two huge archway tusks. They were lowering one of the ivory trophies to the floor when Roland’s nostrils flared at a familiar smell. He stopped and sniffed.

“Come on,” the Russian private groused in thickly accented Standard. “Now other one.”

“Do you smell something?” Roland asked.

The other youth laughed. “I smell dead animals! What you think? It stink worse here than Tashkent brothels!”

But Roland shook his head. “That’s not it.” He turned left, following the scent.

Naturally, soldiers weren’t allowed tobacco, which would sap their wind and stamina. But he’d been quite a smoker back in Indiana, puffing homegrown with Remi and Crat — as many as eight or ten hand-rolled cigs a week. Could a noncom or UNEPA be sneaking weed behind a corner? It had better not be a recruit, or there’d be latrine duty for the entire squad!

But no, there weren’t any hiding places nearby. So where was it coming from?

Corporal Wu’s whistip blew, signaling another short break. “Hey, Yank,” the Russian said. “Don’t be a pizdyuk. Come on.”