"That's no more unlikely than what you said." Esau paused. "Are you calling Captain Mulvaney a liar? Or General Pak?"

"That's about right. Yeah."

Esau moved his hands to the open edge of his body bag, separating the closure all the way to his knees. And got up. "Get out of that bag and we'll talk about this," he said.

By that time others in the tent were watching, their eyes on Esau now. The man who called himself Simon Justice, on the other hand, had decided to lay back down again.

"What's the matter?" Esau demanded. "You were big on talk, with all that bullshit."

"It's against regulations to fight," the man answered. "Otherwise I'd get out of this bag and teach you a lesson."

With a single step, Esau was leaning over him, gripped him, pulled him to his feet and jerked him close, bag and all. "Simon Justice," he said, "you're a liar and a coward. And unless you take all that back… "

Another soldier was on his feet now. "A bigger liar'n you know," he said. "He's not Simon Justice. I'm Simon Justice. He's not even in 3rd Platoon. E Company, yes-I've seen him around-but not in 3rd Platoon. So if anybody beats him up, I'm the one ought to do it."

Esau's eyes widened, then he barked a laugh, and grinned at the real Simon Justice. "Well well! He's all yours. Have at it!" He let go the counterfeit, who dropped to the floor in self protection, gripping his body bag closed and yelling at the top of his lungs, "Help! Help! Murder!" waking whatever corpses weren't already awake.

Before either Esau or the real Simon Justice could decide what to do, a Terran medic stepped inside. His sleeves had sergeant's stripes, and above his jacket pocket the name "Sinisalo, Urho E." "What the hell's going on in here?" he barked. "You! And you! Get back in those body bags."

While they did, he murmured softly, as if to someone invisible beside him. Then he looked down at the false Simon Justice. "Are you the one who yelled?"

"Yes, sir," the liar answered softly. "They said they were going to beat me up." His voice was almost too faint to hear. He realized his situation. There were maybe a dozen-at least several others in the tent who'd heard the exchange. He'd never in the world lie his way out of this situation.

Sinisalo frowned, then looked around and pointed to a watching, listening corpse. "You," said the medic. "What happened in here?"

The man told him, closely enough.

Sinisalo looked down at the liar. "Give me your dog tags."

Only the liar's eyes moved.

"That's an order, soldier!"

The liar shook his head, encouraged by the apparency that he wouldn't be beaten up.

A lieutenant hurried in, a Sikh wearing a white turban and Medical Service insignia. "I'm the provost marshal," he said to Sinisalo. "What's going on here?" The provost marshal's post was only one of several he covered, the one he'd least expected to require his attention. His military police unit consisted of one man-himself. When he'd gotten the call, he'd grabbed a stunner, a belt recorder, and a set of handcuffs, and hurried to the morgue. But he was a Sikh, with five years' military experience, and a cram course in the basics of the provost marshal's job. He'd make it go right.

When Sinisalo had described what he'd found and heard, the provost marshal stood over the liar and reached down. "Your dog tags," he said.

Again the liar refused, clasping himself with his arms. The provost knew Jerrie strength, so he turned to Esau. "Sergeant, take his dog tags."

Esau crouched beside the liar, pulled open the body bag, grabbed the man's field jacket and hoisted him to his feet. Hurriedly the liar gave up his dog tags. Esau handed them to the provost marshal, who read them and scowled. "Private Thomas Crisp," he said.

He manacled the now compliant Crisp, then went around the morgue with his belt recorder and got the name, serial number, and unit of each "corpse" there.

"All right," he said, "Wesley, Justice, Crisp, come with me. You other casualties, continue in your roles." He turned to Sinisalo. "Sergeant, you come too."

As he herded his three corpses toward the hospital admin tent, the provost marshal drew his belt comm and called for an MP floater from Division. The hospital had no place to incarcerate anyone.

Before the lieutenant had finished questioning his three Jerries, two other things happened. The MP floater arrived, with six MPs led by a sergeant. And an orderly arrived to report a genuine casualty. A trainee in the maneuvers had been shot in the back with a hard pulse, a slammer pulse. It had scrambled his innards-bones and organs. And all the power slugs used in the maneuvers, including those in the aircraft, had supposedly been for soft pulses.

Saboteurs again! the lieutenant thought, thinking of the parachute incident, the major ordnance and equipment-checking project that had grown out of it, and what was found. When the floater had taken off with the prisoner and the principal witnesses, the lieutenant returned to the morgue to get statements from the other corpses.

Esau fell asleep again even before the MP floater took off, almost as he buckled himself in. Take advantage of your opportunities, he'd thought as they'd walked out to it. He'd heard how it worked for "casualties," from guys who'd gone through it the past couple of days. In an hour or two he'd be reclassified from corpse to combat replacement, and flown to some company other than his own, to fit in as best he could till the exercise was finished. On New Jerusalem, of course, there'd be no replacements, but the general didn't want his casualties to miss out on the training.

Actually it was a dozen hours before he was reassigned. Division's provost marshal let him sleep for eight hours before questioning him. And learned nothing he didn't already have on cube.

Digging for Roots

The weather had been pleasant for the Muhlbach maneuvers, with mostly sunny days, and temperatures reaching into the 60s. The nights had been near 40, with brilliant starscapes. The trainees might have enjoyed their five-day test, if they'd had enough to eat and at least a few hours a day of sleep. But the maneuvers were more than a test of tactics, leadership, and readiness. Their commanding general wanted them to discover their tenacity, and endurance of privation, so he'd cranked up the hardship factor.

They'd handled it well.

Maneuvers were the heart of unit training, and at least as vital for General Pyong Pak Singh as for his troops. Pak had never experienced actual combat, never directed a battle except in electronic games. So he lived maneuvers as realistically as he could. He directed his division from a floater; camped in the field, was often on the move, ate field rations, and caught catnaps when the situation allowed. Though he slept more than his men. His alertness, or lack thereof, was important to every man in his "corps," his expanded division-Jerries, Indi Armored, air wings, and Luneburger Engineers.

He'd delighted in the competition with his opposing counterpart, Major General Pauli Nachtigal of the Luneburger 4th Infantry Division, and found strong satisfaction in his troops, who'd performed well-even E Company, 2nd Regiment which, with fifteen men in the stockade, was shorthanded, and perhaps a bit demoralized by the defections-while the opposing Burger infantry division was really good, Masadan trained.

Now that the Muhlbach maneuvers were over, and everyone had had a long night's sleep, the troops were enjoying a day off. In camp, for there'd be no passes till the matter of defections was sorted out. A day off with naps and base food: all the roast pork, the barley with pork gravy, freshly baked still-warm bread with butter and jam, pie with good cheese from Luneburger's Mennonite dairies… and all the ice cream they could eat! Few if any of his Jerries had seen ice cream before they'd joined the army. Few had even heard of it. It had become their favorite, if infrequent, dessert.