The Duke of Uranium

I wonder what we'll end up doing? I thought about it, of course, and I had an in-case plan, but it all seemed very unreal till just this moment. What are you planning to do? Sign on with a general labor brigade?"

Jak shook his head. "Naw. I don't have to go that heavy. I'll try the Army. Asmart heet like me could make sergeant pretty quick, and from there if you're a good enough sergeant, you can get into one of the officer programs and eventually it's just as if you went to the PSA in the first place. And the next time one of the human settlements gets into something with the Rubahy, or if Triton tries to secede again, or if we get into another argument about who owns Ceres, we can be out in the dark bouncing around in cryojammies, shooting up the landscape. It's a busy violent world out there, and we can get into all the violence we could ever want. You can't beat that for amusement. Better than a simulation game!"

"You can't get killed in the simulation games. Not literally, anyway. You're not really thinking of going into the Army, are you, Jak? I mean, you just did a great job of describing why not to go in. And you have to be a sergeant for six years to be eligible for officer school. That's like an average of. . . shit, Jak, that's going to be at least two wars. As a sergeant. Which you won't make right away, anyway. Probably three wars before you're a lieutenant."

"Oh, I agree the PSA would have been a better way to go—five years and walk out the door and into the commission. But I'm on entropy's bad side. I didn't get in. I'd still like to be a full citizen and I'd still like to get a good job. The Army looks like the way. And besides, I kind of like the idea of the adventure and the travel."

"Weehu. Fine idea. Adventures like digging foxholes in high gravity, close to absolute zero. And the very first thing you get to do is travel clear to the other side of the Hive. Must be what, two hours on the Pertrans?" "But after Basic—"

"Oh, toktru, masen? the chance to be a guard on a mining asteroid. Or a ship's B&E on an orbicruiser- four years of cleaning and polishing your stuff and staying in shape, in case they need you for ten minutes of getting killed. Are you totally crazy, or have you just gotten way too far into those intrigue-and-adventure stories you like, or what? At least go into the Spatial, where you can get to fly the ship."

"There's no way for me to do that, Duj, toktru, I've thought about it, and there isn't. The Spatial gets to pick first and there are going to be lots of people ahead of me. I barely have the physap for the Spatial, and I sure don't have the mathap."

"But aren't your mechap and spatiap singing—on? They always need riggers and optimizers."

"They want heets who are top-rate across the board. I looked into this, Duj, toktru, because for some reason after I took that test I specked some bad feelings about the whole thing-pretty well dakked I'd gotten wanged, even before I got the scores. My math scores just toktru kill my chances for the Spatial. No, if I want into the Forces, it's the Army. And I'm not going to go through all the hassles of Basic just to hold down a desk or fix a machine, so if I enlist, I'm enlisting to be a dirtkick." The emphasis in his own voice surprised Jak.