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Unfortunately it had been a triumph of utter recklessness over good soldiering. The men's behavior had been erratic, to say the least. They had sought engagement at every opportunity, even when avoidance would have served the mission better. They had wastefully expended their minimal manpower. Casualties had been one hundred percent.
A death wish was the psychologist's term. The assumption that survival instinct would offset the self-destructive tendency of the pain/pleasure reversal had proved incorrect. The men had become addicts, subconsciously seeking more and more intense experience of all.
The problem was inherent and insoluble. Expensive super-soldiers who kamikazied in combat would be unreliable as well as unaffordable. So, insofar as augmenting the performance of the Homeworld's military forces was concerned, Project Fury was a failure.
The General stared into the half-lit gloom. His mouth twisted into a grim smile.
But not a total failure. In any war there were certain high-risk objectives which required elite, strongly motivated commando units. So-called suicide missions. Whenever the need arose, he would have the tools for the job.
FAREWELL TO HAVEN
His Excellency Arthur John George Waltham, the last CoDominium Consul-General ever assigned to the Byers' System, gazed out the quad-glazed windows of Government House at the last Haven sunset he would ever see. Behind him, workmen bustled busily, finishing the herculean labor of packing ten years of diplomatic life into crates for shipment back to Terra. He sighed. His baggage was packed and the diplomatic niceties were almost completed. Soon, fifty-four years of CoDominium governance would end. At noon tomorrow, on the seventieth a
Home to Terra. Now he smiled. He had missed the civilized days and nights of Earth, the civilized climate of Victoria, the civilized people of Melbourne.
It was the people he missed most of all, he decided. Haven harbored nothing but barbarians and criminals: boorish religious fanatics, crude hafnium miners, angry, volatile transportees. God, how glad he would be to leave behind the problem of what to do with a million new political and criminal deportees each year. Or the tougher one of how to enforce the writ of the CoDominium Senate now that the Marines had left to deal with worse problems elsewhere, and he had only the Haven militia, the "Volunteers" to back him up. His smile grew broader. Let the locals solve their own problems now, and see how they liked it.
"I know that smile, you've been smiling it entirely too much recently."
He turned, smiling even more broadly at a beauty that even ten years of marriage on Haven (and four children) had not been able to mar.
"You always could read my mind, Allison. Yes, I was thinking how wonderful it will be to get you and the children back to civilization and civilized people once again. Haven is not the place to raise a family, not a sane one anyway."
"Now, Arthur, you know not all Haveners and transportees are evil psychotics. What would the children be like by now if we didn't have Na
"Yes, dear, I know she has turned them into a fine set of young gentlemen and ladies, but you must admit that she is one in a million. With three generations of conservative-Havener-religious and radical-transportee-political fanaticism behind her, it's a wonder she managed to get an education, learn civilized ma
Allison stood pondering that problem for a moment, her head tilted to one side, her long black hair drilling down over one shoulder. "I don't suppose we could arrange to take her back to Terra with us this late in the game? She could take care of the children on the trip home." She smiled her own private smile, the one with the left corners of her mouth and left eye trying to come together. "It would be just like the trip out . . . a second honeymoon."
He was delighted with the idea. "Of course! I've never met a Havener who didn't want to get off this rock." He frowned briefly. "The waiting list for emigration is about two million names long, and they only let a thousand or so get off in any given year." He slapped the windowsill with a happy violence that had heads turning and his aide rolling hurriedly to his side. "What good is it being the Consul-General of an entire planetary system if you can't let someone leave it? I still have sixty hours in office, and by Jove, I'll see it gets done if it is my last official act!"
His Excellency Arthur John George Waltham, last and former CoDominium Consul-General for the Byers' System, his wife, and their four children, departed Haven sixty-eight hours later. They left laden with public honors, burdened with private chagrin, and unaccompanied by Na
It was not that their invitation had been refused, though it had. It was not that they had never before encountered a Haven patriot, though they had not. It was the ma
When asked if she wanted to return with them to Terra, Na
"You want to take me to Terra," she cried, clutching her throat, "where all the criminals come from?"