After eight or ten seconds he looked back. Most of the company was still coming. Some had slowed to a walk, alternating with a staggering trot to avoid being last.

Jael was not one of the very last. Perhaps fifteen or twenty were farther back, most of them from 3rd and 4th Platoons, who'd started out in the rear. Wobbling, she staggered through the fallen and touched the wall.

A few had given up the struggle entirely, and knelt or lay in the dirt along the way. It was their names the cadre spoke into their belt recorders. Esau could hear someone retching-more than one-their heaving dry; the company hadn't eaten breakfast yet.

Although they didn't know it, B Company's trainees had just been through a test. Less of themselves than of the training pace. Was it too hard? How much could they tolerate?

Fossberg didn't let them stay collapsed for long. "Company!" he bellowed. "On your feet! Fall in and stand at attention!"

Their platoon sergeants and ensigns herded them into ranks, where they stood, still breathing hard, facing the company commander and field sergeant. It was Captain Mulvaney who addressed them. "All right, B Company," he said, "stand at ease." As always his voice was effortless but easily heard. "You're making progress. You've got a long way to go, but you've started out nicely. Some not as well as others, but you'll catch up. We'll see to that. It's our job."

He paused, scanning the ranks in front of him. Esau noticed resentfully that the captain wasn't sweating. He hadn't run, just strolled out of his office to watch them arrive.

"Now," Mulvaney continued, "everyone on the ground." To a man, the trainees dropped to their bellies, knowing what followed but not how many. "Give me-twenty-five!" Up from twenty; that was new. The captain began to count, and the ranks of trainees pumped pushups to match-in strict form; they'd already learned the penalties for cheating. Besides, for most, even in Luneburger's 1.25 gees, twenty-five pushups were readily doable. Farm work or other hard labor in New Jerusalem's gravity had given them abundant strength.

For a few, including Jael, twenty-five were only marginally or not quite doable. But they were young, and with company punishment and New Jerusalem's work ethic, they did their best. And they did at least twenty sets of pushups a day; they were gaining.

"… twenty-four, twenty-five. All right, on your feet!" Mulvaney said, and the trainees stood. "The mess hall opens for breakfast at 0730 hours. You will fall out for muster at 0815 in field uniform. Company dismissed!"

The ranks dispersed, the trainees hurrying to their huts for towels and soap. Captain Martin Mulvaney Singh and Field Sergeant Kirpal Fossberg Singh watched them go. "How is recruit Jael Wesley doing?" Mulvaney asked.

"According to Sergeant Hawkins, sir, she asked if she could go to the dispensary. When he asked her if she was pregnant, she blushed bright red and told him no. And that she didn't intend to be. I'd say she's smart and responsible."

"Or hoping perhaps to be promiscuous?" It occurred to Mulvaney that some of his trainees, removed from their straitlaced culture, might cast off its inhibitions. Though Jael Wesley didn't seem like a rebel.

"Hawkins doesn't think so, sir. He doesn't think she'd find many takers if she was. Her husband is the dominant recruit in their squad. One of the two or three most dominant in their platoon."

"Apparently they've found a way to have intercourse."

"Apparently, sir." Sergeant to sergeant, Hawkins had told Fossberg they snuck off to the water heater room, but Fossberg didn't volunteer the information. Though if Mulvaney had asked, he'd have told him.

"Tell Sergeant Hawkins to be alert for any undesirable effects in their hut. The briefing we received on the Jerries was long on generalities but short on details."

"Yessir, Captain."

Fossberg headed for the noncommissioned cadre's latrine. The captain's questions had inspired one of his own. How did a young girl like her, from a primitive fundamentalist planet like New Jerusalem, learn about birth control pills? He decided to ask Recruit Spieler, as circumspectly as he could. These Jerries were turning out to be an interesting experience.

Esau had gotten over having to shepherd his wife to the latrine, though he still hovered watchfully near her in the shower. And as usual, they used adjacent washbowls. This morning while they washed, he murmured to her: "You fell way behind this morning on the run." His tone was accusatory.

"Not till the last," she countered. "When we had to sprint."

"That's what I meant, in the sprint. You embarrassed me."

"I did the best I could." She said it quietly, without apology.

"Your best?" he muttered. "You were way back near the end of 4th Platoon."

She said nothing, and avoided looking at him.

"Let's see if you can do better on the chin-ups this morning."

She didn't answer that, either.

At the head of the mess line were several chinning bars. Each trainee was required to do all the chins he could before going inside to eat, monitored critically by two or more cadre. This time Esau did thirty-nine, and Jael struggled out eleven, with Corporal Fong watching.

"Good work, Recruit Wesley," the corporal said. "That's up from four the first day." The number identified which Wesley he was talking to.

"Thank you, Corporal," she said.

As the couple entered the mess hall, Esau jostled her. "Don't you have any sense of decency?" he hissed.

"What?"

"You know what I mean," he murmured. "Fong telling you `good work.' For eleven puny chin-ups! I did thirty-nine, and he didn't say a thing to me. He wants you to commit adultery with him."

He'd turned his face to her when he said it, and without thinking or speaking, she slugged him in the left eye, almost knocking him down. The 1st cook had been standing with a spatula, serving scrambled eggs, and saw the exchange.

"YOU TWO!" he bellowed, pointing with the spatula. "WHAT'RE YOUR NAMES?"

Esau spoke for them both, glaring at Jael, who stood red-faced but without visible repentence.

"Report to Sergeant Henkel at the orderly room, both of you! Now! And tell him you're not getting back in here till I have his okay. In writing. Now out! OUT!"

They hurried out, aware that everyone in the mess hall had heard and seen their ejection. Esau was about to berate Jael some more, when Lance Corporal Fong called after them.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"The cook just sent us to the orderly room," Esau answered.

Fong pointed at the chinning bars. "You know the orders. Trainees do exit chin-ups when they leave the mess hall."

Esau made no move to comply. "We didn't eat."

Fong's reply was not particularly loud, but it was prompt, and strong with intention. "Recruit, that was backflash. Let's see those chin-ups. Now! And they'd better be good." Esau turned to the bars, pivoting violently enough, it seemed to Fong he almost screwed his boot into the ground. The Jerrie homesteader snapped off forty-two chin-ups this time; the corporal was impressed in spite of himself. Fong had trained with the 4th Terran Infantry, and some of these Jerries were already stronger than most of his buddies had been when they finished their training. And their cadre had been Masadans!

By the time Esau had finished and was free to leave, his wife was out of sight on her way to the orderly room. Her twelve hadn't taken a third as long as his forty-two, and when Esau had finished his chin-ups, Fong had ordered him to do fifty pushups for the backflash.

At the orderly room, Esau found Jael standing before Master Sergeant Gerritt Henkel, who clearly had been waiting for him. "What kept you, recruit?" Henkel asked.