Bill 7 - the Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison Read Free Book Online Page A

building, and a battleship, and again each one blew up. “There is one exception.” The ENEMY LEADER appeared on the chart. "You must use the BOMB to get the points for the ENEMY LEADER. Otherwise it looks as though you were trying to kill him, and you get no points.
    “Press the black button when you are ready to begin.”
    Fortunately for Bill, there was a change machine in the gun turret. When he ran out of quarters, he could get more without having to leave the turret, and have the amount deducted directly from his pay. Since he couldn't get a drink and no one wanted to talk to him, he spent the rest of the trip to Eyerack trying to get his name into the TAIL GUNNER! Hall of Fame.

CHAPTER 5
    In some ways this was the best duty Bill had ever pulled. People left him alone, he had nothing to do but play video games all day long, and no one was trying to kill him. On the other hand, he was sober all of the time, and there was nothing even remotely female on board the Heavenly Peace, not even the ship's cat — an evil-looking tomcat with only one eye and ears scarred and torn by the spacerats that it hunted through the bilges. But at least for the moment no one was trying to kill him, which made up for a lot.
    General Weissearse showed up in a live broadcast to the gun turret a few times, and Bill had to listen to the man pray and preach, but even that was tolerable once Bill realized he didn't have to stay awake for any of it. And the general kept saying, until Bill believed it, that this would be a safe battle. He wouldn't even have to attack any people, only guns and buildings that wouldn't fight back.
    Bill did kind of regret that he couldn't get all of a million points for ENEMY LEADER, because in the Live Fire mode a million points was exactly what you had to get to win a twelve-hour pass. But he also had learned from the game that ENEMY LEADER types were usually surrounded by other types carrying guns and missiles and weapons of all sorts. And these types got offended if you tried to kill their leader. By and large, Bill had gone out of his way for years to avoid offending people with lots of weapons.
    So when the real General interrupted the computer-animated general to tell Bill that they were in orbit around Eyerack, and had been so for two weeks hoping that the Eyerackians would see the error of their ways, Bill didn't immediately start pleading for his life. He didn't even try to remember any of his boyhood prayers. He just wondered if he could afford enough quarters to finish the battle.
    He squandered one of them in the second slot he'd found under the screen. The chair tilted back and started to vibrate, and in an instant Bill was asleep.
    He dreamt of home, of his mother and his robo-mule and the great house with the white columns in front, of the cheerful midgets who came to play and sing in the yard as he marched down the road, paved in yellow brick, that led to the recruiting office. Somewhere deep in his subconscious he knew that the farm hadn't been anything like that, but it had been so long that he wasn't really sure any more.
    Then he dreamt of his kindly old school mistress, Ms. Phlogiston, who had helped him to start taking his correspondence courses in Technical Fertilizer Operation, courses that he would now never finish. She told him, in his dream, “You must always be ready, Bill, to take advantage of whatever opportunities present themselves. And in order to do that, you must plan carefully. Every great venture must have a plan, you know.” But why was Ms. Phlogiston wearing a muumuu? And why was she yelling at Bill?
    “Bill! Bill! Hallelujah, son, it's time to wake up!”
    It gradually came to Bill that it wasn't Ms. Phlogiston yelling at him, it was General Weissearse. Reflexively, his eyes popped open and his two right hands saluted. “Yes sir! Yes sir! Three bags full, sir!”
    “Praise the Lord, son! No, no, that's not an order. But wake up, Bill, we're about to go into glorious