"Those dirty, filthy bastards. So now what? When we go home, do we put on phony officer's uniforms, or something?"
"That's exactly what the people in public relations want us to do, Mickolai. They want a presence around to let the people know that they are being well protected, but the real Powers That Be want our actual command structures hidden, and in their Combat Control Computers, in case of emergencies. Having you and me out there pretending to be in charge is the compromise they came up with."
"Damn them! They want us to be targets for enemy snipers, local lunatics, and suicidal maniacs, that's what they really want! Well, I won't do it!"
"We will be well protected. And have you thought it out, love? Being famous might be a very nice thing. We'd get the very best service in the restaurants, in the hotels, and in the shops."
"We've already been getting the best service, for eight years, subjectively, in Dream World, and it's no big thing. What we'd also get is mobbed by every newscaster, social climber, and autograph hunter on thirty planets. Really famous people all need bodyguards. Have you ever thought about why?"
"If it gets to be tiresome or dangerous, we can always crawl back into our tanks. Nobody can bother us in here, without our wanting them to."
"We won't have our tanks. We'll be on leave, remember?" I said.
"Oh, yes we will. You are thinking of what we were told in Dream World, when we thought we were retired. You'd know the rules when you are still on active duty, if you'd bothered to read the regulations. I checked it out. As members of the Kashubian Expeditionary Forces, we are required to have our weapons at hand at all times, in case of emergencies. For us, that means we keep our tanks."
"You know, that regulation could actually come in handy."
"You are oh, so right, my handsome hero. Especially when it comes to building us our house. I've already taken steps to insure that Agnieshka and Eva will be properly equipped for the job."
"Properly equipped? What do you mean?"
"You'll find out. But for now, roll over, and I'll rub your back."
Getting out of a tank after more than four years wasn't the shock that I'd expected it to be.
Agnieshka said, "Good-bye, for now!"
The coffin drained and slid out the back with me in it. I sat up, took off my helmet, and removed the sanitary fittings. I was in a private garage, of sorts, but a clean, well-appointed one. A polite male attendant took my helmet, helped me to clean up, and showed me to the room where military clothing of my size was kept.
On the way, I stopped and looked at myself, naked, in a mirror. Agnieshka hadn't done a bad job on me at all. Oh, I was bald, and the complete lack of sunlight had made my skin a sickly white, but I looked fit and well muscled, and I moved with a certain grace that hadn't been there before. All told, I was a far cry from the starving immigrant who had been inducted so many years ago.
All the uniforms I was shown had a general's insignia on them, and I decided not to fight it, for now anyway. There were five rows of campaign ribbons on the class A uniforms, and almost two dozen medals hanging on the dress outfits. I had no idea what they were supposed to be for, but I guessed that they were a part of the disguise, and I didn't question my right to wear them.
The attendant told me that I was being issued a full set of uniforms, and I figured, what the heck, I might as well get it over with. Besides six sets of tailored, supercamouflaged Squid Skins, two of which were armored, I picked up four sets each of work fatigues, garrison uniforms, and class A Uniforms, in both summer and winter varieties. Then there were two sets each of formal dinner uniforms, dress uniforms, which came with a fancy ceremonial dagger, and full dress uniforms, which had an inordinate amount of real gold embroidery, knee-high boots, and a stupidly ornate sword. I soon had nine pairs of various footgear, lots of socks, shirts, ties, belts, and underwear, plus eight increasingly garish hats, a fatigue jacket, a dress overcoat, and a full-dress cape.
It took five big military suitcases to hold it all, plus two big boxes for the armor.
Somebody somewhere had had a lot of fun designing all that stuff. Personally, I thought it was silly. Especially the cape and the sword, which looked like they came out of the Napoleonic Era.
I mean, in the kind of warfare that I had trained for, even a shoulder-held rocket launcher was too lightweight to be worth worrying about. I'd once abandoned an assault rifle because it was not worth carrying, and now I was being issued a
sword
?
A much larger room held civilian clothing. With the attendant to tell me what was in style in New Croatia, I bought a selection of civilian clothes, as well.
I really don't know much about clothes. On Earth, I'd been a Bohemian student type, and owned little more than hiking boots, blue jeans, and flannel shirts. In New Kashubia, everybody had been so poor that we couldn't afford clothing. In fact, back when we were growing up it had been illegal to wear any, and the sexes had been segregated, to eliminate the possibility of making more babies.
That's how Kasia and I had gotten into trouble and drafted in the first place.
And in a modern tank, you were floating in a coffin, and simply couldn't wear clothes. If you tried it, the bioactive liquid would eat them right off you.
Having the attendant there to advise me on clothing was a big help. I just hoped that he didn't have a streak of practical joker in him. I mean, were lederhosen and Tyrolean hats
really
in style out there? To be on the safe side, I elected to wear a class A uniform on my first outing into the real world.
"It's all mostly imported from New Ireland, sir, although some of the cotton things were made right here on New Yugoslavia, in some of the automatic factories that we bought from you Kashubians," the attendant told me. Then he sold me a set of hand-tooled leather suitcases from New Mexico. The planet, not the state.
Eventually, before we were through, I had six big suitcases full of civilian stuff, way more than I'd ever owned before. Like most men, I've never liked shopping, and figured it would be best to get it all over and done with.
"I'll have it all sent to your hotel room, sir," the attendant said in Kashubian, with a Croatian accent.
"Uh, yeah. Say, how do I pay you for all of this stuff?"
"You don't, sir. This is all the gift of the grateful New Croatian Government."
"Thank you. I'm impressed. But, do they pay you to say that?"
"In fact, yes, sir. I mean, I'm a government employee, and it's my job, but it's still true. We all appreciate the help that all of you have given to our cause. I'm just here to express it personally. Actually, I volunteered to serve in the army, but since I happened to speak Kashubian, I was assigned this duty, rather than being sent to the front, as I had requested. In time of war, you can't always get what you want."
"Yes, that is too terribly true. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Is Kasia ready?"
"The colonel? Not yet, and if you don't mind my saying it, sir, the ladies always take a few hours longer than the men do, what with all the makeup and wigs, and trying on all the shoes and so forth. I can escort you to your hotel, if you want, or show you around the town. It's all part of the service."
"A walk outside would be nice. You said something about makeup. Should I do something about my bleached-out skin?"
"I have some skin dyes available if you want, sir, but if I may suggest, it might be best to leave it as it is, and simply avoid the sun for a few weeks. Your color of skin is the mark of a hero in New Croatia."
The last thing I was issued was a pocket communicator, complete with an inertial positioning system. A global positioning system couldn't work here, since all satellites had been knocked out long ago, when the war started. Regulations required me to carry it, so that the military, and my tank, could find me if they wanted me. Thoughtfully, Kasia's number was already loaded into button number two. I called her, and told her to take her time. She said that she intended to, that she loved me, and that she was busy, now.
I pressed button number one. "Agnieshka, you've just become my social secretary. Find me the nearest Catholic priest."
"Wouldn't you rather . . ."
"I'd rather that you followed orders." I was still a little ticked at her.
"Yes, sir."
"And after that, find me a real estate salesman who knows all about ranch land."
There was a church a few blocks from the Serviceman's Center that I was decanted in, and with the attendant as a guide, I didn't get lost as I otherwise would have done.
Despite the fact that the city of Nova Split was less than twenty years old, the city's founders had laid the streets out like those of a medieval town, with curving roads of varying width meeting at odd angles, and no two things ever the same as anything else. Some streets had street signs, hand carved on the corners of buildings in different styles, but most streets didn't. No two buildings were the same, or even in the same architectural style, that I could see.
I suppose that it was all very quaint and picturesque, but it sure wasn't stranger friendly.
The people were friendly enough, though. Total strangers in lederhosen and Tyrolean hats acted as though they knew me well. They came up to shake my hand, and tell me, through my attendant turned interpreter, how much they appreciated what I had done for New Croatia. I guess that they had all seen the movie, which showed me saving the whole damn country.
All I could do was to smile and mumble something polite, which seemed to satisfy them. The women were even worse, since all of them were decked out like English prostitutes, even the ones who were old and fat. Not what anyone could call esthetically pleasing.
All the attention was flattering, but it made part of me felt very cheap.
I mean, I hadn't fought a war for these people, and I certainly hadn't saved them from anything. All I'd done was participate in a con game that had taken their money, and given them in return a huge engineering project that might someday be very useful, but which, in fact, they had never asked for.
After the tenth hand shaker, and the fourth old woman who insisted on being kissed, I asked my guide if maybe we couldn't get on with seeing the priest.
He agreed, and made excuses for me for a while as we walked down the street. Then a pretty, budding twelve-year-old girl wanted my autograph, and I just couldn't turn her down. After I signed her book, she jumped up, grabbed me around the neck, and gave me a squirming, hard-bodied kiss that I'm sure she thought was very sexy. The primary effect was smearing my face with lipstick, and bruising my lip.
I wiped off the lipstick and blood, bemused by the fact that this was the only actual injury that I had sustained in the entire "war."
We turned the corner and found the church.
The priest spoke neither Polish, nor Kashubian, nor English. I spoke neither Croatian, nor Italian, nor Latin, and therefore we ended up communicating through my attendant again.
The priest had never heard of Dream World, and apparently he never went to the movies, either. He stared incomprehensively when I said that although we had been on New Yugoslavia for years, and that we had been trying to get to a priest almost the whole time, this was our first real opportunity. Finally, he asked when I had last been to confession. When I told him that it had been four and a half years, I thought that he would go into convulsions. He demanded that if I wanted to stay a Roman Catholic, I would confess to him immediately.
When I asked if there was room in the confessional for my translator, he launched into a tirade that never did get translated.
I got out my communicator and called Agnieshka.
"I know, boss. But you insisted on going to the
nearest
priest. The one who usually handles the Kashubian Forces is three blocks in the other direction."
"Right," I said, leaving. The priest's tirade could still be heard as we stepped into the street.
On the walk there, I didn't speak to anyone, not even nymphettes with autograph books.
The next priest was a good deal more reasonable. He started out by explaining that many people coming out of the modern army were confused as to what was real and what was not. But as far as my soul was concerned, he assured me that the only important thing was what I had thought was true at the time it happened.
If I had thought that I had committed murder, then I was a murderer, even if no one was actually injured. If I had been acting in what appeared to me to be a sane and responsible manner, and the tank that I was in had inadvertently killed someone in the real world, I was not guilty of any sin.
I might possibly be guilty of a legal crime, but not of a religious sin.
Well, with those as ground rules, confession became a good deal easier, although since it covered a period of over eight years, it was lengthy.
Finally, it was agreed that we would hold the wedding at his church in three days, on Monday morning.
I called Kasia to tell her. She said that that was wonderful, but she was shopping, and could I call her back later?
Meanwhile, Agnieshka had found out what I had in the bank. It seemed like a large number, but since I didn't know what a New Croatian mark was worth, it didn't mean much to me.
Also, she had arranged an appointment for me with an English-speaking realtor so I could find out what my money could buy.
The guy was polished, smooth, and seemed to know what he was talking about. He seemed flattered to have me for a customer, and canceled all of his other appointments for the day to serve me.
For the first half hour or so he talked in generalities. If I wanted both farming and ranching land, I might find it difficult to compete economically with specialists. The closer the land was to the city markets, the more expensive it would be. A working farm was considerably more expensive than wild, undeveloped acreage, and since New Yugoslavia was so new, there wasn't any old, worn-out land to be had at all.