The Complete Inheritance Trilogy: Star Strike, Galactic Corps, Semper Human. Ian Douglas

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ his graduation. Not one.

      Estelle, he knew, had wanted to come, but an e-transmit from her last week had told him the money for a flight out to Mars just wasn’t there. He wondered if that was the reason … or if Delano Giangreco had put his pacifist foot down. Delano, he knew, held the purse strings for the entire Giangreco line family.

      He wished that, at least, his birth mother could have been there.

      McCulloch was still talking.

      “… and it is within the Corps that these young people learn the heart and soul of altruism. They learn to value the person standing next to them more than they value themselves, learn to regard sacrifice as the sacred gift they give to their comrades, and to their home.

      “There was a time, a thousand years or more ago, when service in the military was a prerequisite for public service as a leader of the community or of the larger state. It was the military that taught a young person character, and half or more of the people attending the institutions of higher learning first served in the military.

      “Eventually, however, and unfortunately, such service, such altruism, became unfashionable. Today, I might point out, only a tiny fraction of our leaders actually have military service in their records.

      “Does that mean that our Commonwealth leaders are of poor character? No … and I wouldn’t be allowed to say so if they were.” That brought a small chuckle from the audience. The commandant, Garroway thought, was skating kind of close to the edge, here. Service personnel were required to be completely apolitical so long as they were in uniform.

      “But I do wonder,” McCulloch continued, “just where in this day and age a future leader can better develop that altruistic ethic, that willingness to sacrifice for others, that comes from military service in general, from service as a Marine in particular. …”

      Garroway stifled a yawn. His feet were hurting, and his back, and he thought-clicked the appropriate anodynes into his system, mixed with a mild stimulant. He was operating now less on a willingness to sacrifice than terror of what Gunnery Sergeant Warhurst would do to him if he screwed up.

      “Duty,” McCulloch said, the word reverberating through the Arean Promenade. “Honor. Loyalty … to comrades, to country, to the Corps. …”

      There was more, lots more, but the rhetoric ended at last. Warhurst, at the head of the graduating class, crisply attired in Marine full dress, rasped out the command. “Comp’ney, forrard … harch!” As one, forty new Marines stepped out, left foot first, the sharp clash of sound shivering the air as they began the first leg of their march around the Arean Promenade.

      “Right turn … harch!” and they swung in-column, four abreast to the right. As they passed the reviewing stand, Warhurst snapped, “Comp’ney, eyes … right!” He then raised a sharp salute toward the stand. A live band waiting in the wings burst into the surging strains of the Marine Corps Hymn.

      Garroway snapped his head to the right, and so was able to see the assembled brass in the reviewing stand rise to their feet and return the salute. …

      Afterward, they attended one hell of a party.

       Sloan Residence

       Ares Ring, Mars

       1720 hrs GMT

      Warhurst stepped off the elevator and onto a broad, open deck of artificial wood overlooking a lake. A forest crowded close around the house—he couldn’t tell if the trees were real or artificial, but they smelled real in the gentle breeze. Whichever they were, the illusion was that of a forested mountain on Earth; the illusion broke down only when the visitor looked up, toward the hub, and, beyond the hub’s artificial sun, saw the green and sculpted landscape—woods, streams, and other buildings—etched into the other side of the colony arching overhead.

      And, of course, when he turned around, he found himself looking through the hab’s transparent end cap, to see the green and ocher half-disk of Mars turning gently with the rest of the sky. Stars and an endless night rotated beyond the opposite end cap, the two transparencies sandwiching between them this strip of green and blue.

      “Welcome, Gunnery Sergeant Warhurst!” a young servant in scarlet livery announced.

      Warhurst had never met the man, and he assumed that the guy had just pulled his ID off the local Net. “Thank you. It was kind of you to invite me.”

      “It was the senator’s pleasure. Would you care for a drink?”

      A serving robot hovered at the man’s side, a selection of drinks of various sizes, shapes, and colors on its tray.

      “Not just now, thank you,” Warhurst replied. He looked about, puzzled. “I’m not the first one here, am I?”

      The servant laughed. “Certainly not, sir! People have been coming in since early this morning!”

      “Oh. Good.” He felt terribly awkward. He wanted to ask if Julie, Callie, Donal, or Eric were here … or if they were expected. He didn’t want to see them right now, or relive any of those memories, not the pain, not the injustice, not the anger.

      God it still hurt. …

      But the servant was still speaking, gesturing toward the sliding glass doors leading into the main house. “You’ll find refreshments inside, sir. Or you can follow the guidelight on the deck around the corner, there, and go straight back to the pools. Make yourself at home, have a good time … and happy birthday!”

      “Thank you,” Warhurst replied, terse. He didn’t like being here alone. And quite apart from his … personal problems, social galas like this one always gave him a pain.

      As did the pretensions of the rich. But he appreciated the greeting.

      Wherever there was a Corps presence, the date of 1011—the tenth day of November, old-style—was celebrated, the birthday of the U.S. Marines.

      On that date, in 1775, the Second Continental Congress had enacted legislation, resolving that “two battalions of Marines be ‘inlisted’ to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies.” Two weeks later, a Quaker innkeeper named Samuel Nicholas had been commissioned as the first officer of the Marines, and recruiting had begun at the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia. Less than four months after that, on 3 March 1776, four full months before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Captain Nicholas led 268 Marines ashore on New Providence Island in the Bahamas, capturing two forts, cannons, and a supply of gun powder in the Corps’ very first amphibious operation.

      Eleven hundred two years later, the Corps continued to celebrate that birthday, in this case with an elaborate party. The graduation of class 4102 had been arranged to coincide with the festivities.

      Normally, Marines took care of their own celebrations. The festivities within the Arean Ring, though, had been hijacked this year. Warhurst made a face as he looked around the expansive, rotating hab module. Senator Sloan was not a Marine. According to his Net bio, he hadn’t even served in the military.

      But he was one of four Commonwealth senators representing Mars, and the two chief СКАЧАТЬ