I remembered him from the briefing session. He was the one whose hand had gone up timidly during the question period, the one who, when he was recognized, had half risen, worked his mouth a couple of times and finally blurted out: “Excuse me, sir, but they don’t—they don’t smell at all bad, do they?”
There had been a cyclone of laughter, the yelping laughter of men who’ve felt themselves close to the torn edge of hysteria all afternoon and who are damn glad that someone has at last said something that they can make believe is funny.
And the white-haired briefing officer, who hadn’t so much as smiled, waited for the hysteria to work itself out, before saying gravely: “No, they don’t smell bad at all. Unless, that is, they don’t bathe. The same as you gentlemen.”
That shut us up. Even the kid, blushing his way back into his seat, set his jaw stiffly at the reminder. And it wasn’t until twenty minutes later, when we’d been dismissed, that I began to feel the ache in my own face from the unrelaxed muscles there.
The same as you gentlemen…
I shook myself hard and walked over to the kid. “Hello, Commander,” I said. “Been here long?”
He managed a grin. “Over an hour, Commander. I caught the eight-fifteen out of Arizona Base. Most of the other fellows were still sleeping off last night’s party, I’d gone to bed early; I wanted to give myself as much time to get the feel of this thing as I could. Only it doesn’t seem to do much good.”
“I know. Some things you can’t get used to. Some things you’re not supposed to get used to.”
He looked at my chest. “I guess this isn’t your first sling-shot command?”
My first? More like my twenty-first, son! But then I remembered that everyone tells me I look young for my medals, and what the hell, the kid looked so pale—“No, not exactly my first. But I’ve never had a blob crew before. This is exactly as new to me as it is to you. Hey, listen, Commander: I’m having a hard time, too. What say we bust through that gate together? Then the worst’ll be over.”