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no legs.
    It didn’t seem to bother him. Carl said, “Good morning. I want to join up.”
    “Me, too,” I added.
    He ignored us. He managed to bow while sitting down and said, “Good morning, young lady. What can I do for you?”
    “I want to join up, too.”
    He smiled. “Good girl! If you’ll just scoot up to room 201 and ask for
    Major Rojas, she’ll take care of you.” He looked her up and down. “Pilot?”
    “If possible.”
    “You look like one. Well, see Miss Rojas.”
    She left, with thanks to him and a see-you-later to us; he turned his attention to us, sized us up with a total absence of the pleasure he had shown in little Carmen. “So?” he said. “For what? Labor battalions?”
    “Oh, no!” I said. “I’m going to be a pilot.”
    He stared at me and simply turned his eyes away. “You?”
    “I’m interested in the Research and Development Corps,” Carl said soberly, “especially electronics. I understand the chances are pretty good.”
    “They are if you can cut it,” the Fleet Sergeant said grimly, “and not if you don’t have what it takes, both in preparation and ability. Look, boys, have you any idea why they have me out here in front?”
    I didn’t understand him. Carl said, “Why?”
    “Because the government doesn’t care one bucket of swill whether you join or not! Because it has become stylish, with some people -- too many people—to serve a term and earn a franchise and be able to wear a ribbon in your lapel which says that you’re a vet’ran . . . whether you’ve ever seen combat or not. But if you want to serve and I can’t talk you out of it, then we have to take you, because that’s your constitutional right. It says that everybody, male or female, shall have his born right to pay his service and assume full citizenship but the facts are that we are getting hard pushed to find things for all the volunteers to do that aren’t just glorified K. P. You can’t all be real military men; we don’t need that many and most of the volunteers aren’t number-one soldier material anyhow. Got any idea what it takes to make a soldier?”
    “No,” I admitted.
    “Most people think that all it takes is two hands and two feet and a stupid mind. Maybe so, for cannon fodder. Possibly that was all that Julius Caesar required. But a private soldier today is a specialist so highly skilled that he would rate ‘master’ in any other trade; we can’t afford stupid ones. So for those who insist on serving their term -- but haven’t got what we want and must have -- we’ve had to think up a whole list of dirty, nasty, dangerous jobs that will either run ‘em home with their tails between their legs and their terms uncompleted . . . or at the very least make them remember for the rest of their lives that their citizenship is valuable to them because they’ve paid a high price for it. Take that young lady who was here—wants to be a pilot. I hope she makes it; we always need good pilots, not enough of ‘em. Maybe she will.
    But if she misses, she may wind up in Antarctica, her pretty eyes red from never seeing anything but artificial light and her knuckles callused from hard, dirty work.”
    I wanted to tell him that the least Carmencita could get was computer programmer for the sky watch; she really was a whiz at math. But he was talking.
    “So they put me out here to discourage you boys. Look at this.” He shoved his chair around to make sure that we could see that he was legless. “Let’s assume that you don’t wind up digging tunnels on Luna or playing human guinea pig for new diseases through sheer lack of talent; suppose we do make a fighting man out of you. Take a look at me—this is what you may buy . . . if you don’t buy the whole farm and cause your folks to receive a ‘deeply regret’ telegram. Which is more likely, because these days, in training or in combat, there aren’t many wounded. If you buy it at all, they likely throw in a coffin—I’m the rare