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Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Robot Slaves
by Harry Harrison


Special thanks to Nat Sobel, Michael Kazan, John Douglas, David Keller, and Mary Higgs

First published in Great Britain 1989 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, 14 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8QJ
Copyright й 1989 by Harry Harrison
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Harrison, Harry, 1925--
Bill, the galactic hero on the planet of robot slaves.
I. Title
823'.9141[F]
ISBN 0-575-04615-5
Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk



THE TRUE STORY OF BILL

Bill, that's what they called him. They called him that because that was his name. A simple farm boy destined for the stars, ripped from his green acres, his silver robomule, his blue Mom -- she had circulatory troubles --and forced by trickery into the armed forces of the Emperor.
The story of how Bill became a Galactic Hero has been told in a book titled _Bill, the Galactic Hero_. It is a true story and there is a tear on every page. (An artificial tear dripped onto the pages by the printer.) Read it. It will make you laugh, make you cry, make you want to rush away and throw up. You will see how hard the military labored to destroy Bill, how he shrunk and withered, then grew and matured under this treatment. Learning, like any good soldier, to curse -- say bowb at least 354 times a day -- to drink in excess, to lust after girls while his eyeballs bulged with sperm. Any woman would be proud to be his mother. Though I can't think why.
After being drugged and tricked into enlisting in the Space Troopers, Bill was sent for his basic training at Camp Leon Trotsky. It was there under the sadistic guidance of Deathwish Drang, a drill instructor with three-inch-long tusks, that his morale was crushed, his will destroyed, his IQ diminished, his spirit broken as he was turned into the perfect trooper. Only his suburb physical condition, the product of years of boring physical activity down on the farm, prevented him from being crushed like a beetle as well. No sooner had his basic training been finished, in fact even before it was finished, and even more important before he could get through the front door of the Lower Ranks Cathouse, he and his bunkmates were bundled off to war aboard the space battleship, the grand old lady of the fleet, the _Fanny Hill_.
The war was on. Mankind was advancing to the stars. For out there among the stardust, suns and planets, comets and space crap, there existed a race of intelligent aliens. The Chingers. They were peaceful little green lizards with four arms, scales, a tail like most lizards. So of course they had to be destroyed. They might become a menace sometime, maybe. In any case -- what is an army and a navy for if not to fight war?
The boredom of space service was relieved slightly when Bill discovered that his good friend, Eager Beager, was a Chinger spy. At first this was hard for Bill to understand, even with his militarily lowered intelligence, since everyone knew that Chingers looked like moth-eaten alligators, with four arms, that stood seven feet tall. Bill understood the facts a lot better when he discovered that Beager was a special kind of spy. Well, not really a spy, but a robot operated by a seven-inch-high Chinger from a control center in Beager's skull. Seven inches, seven feet, the military does exaggerate slightly in the need of good propaganda. In any case the spy escaped and the normality of starvation and boredom returned until Bill finally went into battle as a fusetender, tending giant fuses. The battle was fierce, all'of his buddies were killed, and Bill was slightly wounded when his left arm was blown off. Despite this, and completely by accident, he fired the shot heard round the fleet -- that destroyed the enemy spaceship. A hero now, with a good, strong; black right arm sewed in place of his carbonized left arm (having two right arms he can now shake hands with himself which is lots of fun), he received a medal and a hero's award.
He also managed to go AWOL, which stands for Away Without Leave, also Over the Hill, which is basically slipping out of the clutches of the troopers for a little bit. In the course of his adventures on the planet Helier he also became a spy, got involved in garbage disposal, and other interesting things. So interesting that he ended up in combat and doomed to die on the planet of no return where the troopers went in only one direction. But alcohol-related research revealed that while normal casualties were being sewn up and sent back to combat, new arms sewed on to replace old arms, new everythings, well, almost everything, sewn on as replacements, there was a shortage of feet. A footless soldier would be sent offplanet for repair, to fight another day on another world. Unhappily for Bill he had two good feet and therefore was doomed to die in combat. But, ever resourceful, he blew his right foot off, which was better than getting everything else blown off.
So there it is. With an artificial foot, a growing alcoholic habit, incipient satyriasis, Deathwish Drang's surgically transplanted fangs willed to him, and a hobnailed liver, he is ready for whatever comes. Bill, a trooper loyal to the Emperor, as if he had a choice, destined for life to be an interstellar warrior, since his enlistment is automatically extended whether he likes it or not. About the only thing that he has going for him is the fact that with an artificial foot he has only half as much atheletes' foot as the other troopers.
Here he is, a reluctant galactic hero, going into action yet once again.
Harry Harrison



CHAPTER 1

Bill was not happy in his work. He Really should have been since, like most things military, it required little or no intelligence. Just well-conditioned reflexes. Which reflexes now tickled his brain with a reminder that the shufe of recruit footsteps was growing very dim. He glanced up to see that they were almost out of sight. In fact they really were out of sight behind the cloud of dust kicked up by their weary boots. And their feet were, obviously, weary as well. Bill took a deep breath and blasted most of it out with a single roar of sound.
"To the rear -- h'arch!"
A small bird fell to the ground, stunned by the intensity of the command. This cheered Bill ever so slightly since it proved that his skills as a drill-private were improving. It cheered the recruits as well since they were about to march into a deep, rock-filled ravine. The first rank was already atremble with fear, facing the terrible choice of death by falling or death by drill-instructor. They wheeled about, not too smartly since they were stumbling with fatigue, and marched, coughing strenuously, back into the cloud of dust.
As they came closer a snarl of anger twisted Bill's lips, a snarl made even more impressive by the single, long tusk that rested on his lower lip, its yellow tip practically touching his chin. Bill twanged it with his fingernail and the snarl grew snarlier. Two tusks were menacing. One rusk made him look like a bulldog who had lost a fight. Something had to be done about this.
The loud thud of tramping feet drew his attention and his eyes unfocussed to see that the marching recruits were just a step away, the nearest one gasping with fear at the thought of running down the DI.
"Company -- HALT!" he bellowed.
Aching feet thudded into silence and the recruit almost thudded into Bill. He stood in shivering eyeball contact with the feared DI, his dusty eyeball touching Bill's bloodshot one.
"What are you staring at?" Bill sussurated with all the menace of a snake in heat.
"Nothing, majesty, sir, your highness..."
"Don't lie -- you're staring at my face."
"No, I mean yes, can't help myself since my eyeball is touching your face."
"And it's not just my face you are staring at -- it's my tusk. And you are thinking -- why has he only one tusk?" Bill stepped back and growled loathingly at all of the swaying, frightened, fatigued, near-death recruits. "You are all thinking that, aren't you? Say _yes_!"
"Yes!" They gasped and croaked in unison, most of them too hammered by fatigue to have the slightest idea of what the hell they were doing anyway.
"I knew it," Bill sighed, then twanged the solitary rusk gloomily. "Not that I blame you. A DI with two tusks would be a fearful and terrible sight. But a single tusk is, I must say it, a pathetic sight."
He sniffled with self-pity and rubbed a pendant drop from his nose with the back of his hand.
"Not that I expect sympathy from you feebleminded misfits -- or loyalty or anything like that, since it is always bowbyour-buddy week. No, I expect raw self-interest and bribery. We will drill until it grows dark or you drop dead, whichever comes first." He waited while the moan of pain sighed through the troops. "Or you might emulate yesterday's intake who, so sympathetic to my problem, freely donated one buck each towards my fang fund. I must admit that I was so grateful that I cut the drill short at that point."