Steel World Read Online Free PDF

being tested, but I didn’t really know how to respond. I decided to go with my gut and give him an honest answer.
    “It’s horseshit, Veteran. Total horseshit.”
    He laughed roughly and slapped it down on the counter. “That’s a damned good answer! Might be the best I’ve ever heard.”
    I gave him a slight smile. This place wasn’t like the chamber above. These people were different. I wasn’t entirely sure if that was good thing or not—but I was certain it was true.
    “So,” he said, eyeing me. “Forget the disk and the tests. What’s your name, kid?”
    “James McGill.”
    “Why you down here? You lost?”
    “No. The rest of them up there don’t want me.”
    He nodded sagely. I got the impression this might be something he’d heard a thousand times before.
    “You know what you’re getting yourself into if you join up with Varus?” he asked, looking me in the eye.
    “I’m going to see wonders my mind has never imagined,” I said, quoting the Mustering Hall ads. “I’ll become a man, a babe-magnet, rich and get a tan all at once.”
    “Ha! Right you are, boy. Sign here.”
    I looked at the doc tablet. It had a glowing region of the screen, which he’d swiftly spun around and aimed in my direction. My name was there, as was all my data. All I had to do was apply my fingers. We called it “signing”, but really it was the storage of my biometric information that would lock me into a contract.
    “That’s it?” I asked. “No tests, no questions?”
    “I looked you up before you made it to the bottom of the escalator. You want to know what your profile says? Why Victrix and all the rest won’t touch you?”
    I nodded.
    “It says you’re a troublemaker. A rule-breaker. A man who thinks for himself. They all hate that, you know. But we don’t in my legion. Most legions have tribunes that powder their asses before breakfast and think war is a tea-party. Maybe it is for them, with their fancy-pants patrons. But not for Varus. Not for the legions that sit down here huddled around the train station. Any more questions?”
    His tone indicated he didn’t like questions, but I had one more for him anyway.
    “Do you know a tech specialist named Ville?”
    Harris frowned for a second, then brightened. “Yeah. He was part of Teutoburg, a couple of doors down. He chickened after they wiped a few years back and went Hegemony. He’s all right, I guess.”
    Everything he said made sense to me, except for his use of the term “wiped”. I decided it wasn’t worth another question.
    I looked over the contract briefly. It didn’t have any tricky clauses to worry about. These were pretty tightly controlled agreements, regulated by the Hegemony. They all said about the same thing: I was to serve and obey for a period of not less than six years. At that point, I could reenlist if they wanted me.
    The trick, of course, was that although the terms of enlistment were all nearly identical, the type of missions each legion took was not. One legion might hire out as bodyguards to an alien prince, for example. That was about as cushy as it got. The food was good, the barracks were plush and keeping your boots shiny was about all there was to it unless there was an assassination attempt or a serious rebellion. Most legions didn’t get it that good, of course. They took missions that required actual combat.
    Long ago, when the Galactics first met up with Earth, they’d decided we didn’t have much going for us. But they’d soon figured out we liked to fight, and that trait turned into a worthwhile trade good: mercenary troops. It was a beneficial deal all the way around. The local alien worlds got us to do their dirty work for them as legions for hire, and humanity was allowed to continue breathing.
    “You going to sign it or not?” Veteran Harris roared at me suddenly.
    I pressed all five of my fingers onto the glass. I felt my stomach do a little hop in my guts as I did so.
    “Excellent!” he said.