Old Man's War Boxed Set 1 by John Scalzi Read Free Book Online Page A

found my roommate already stowing his belongings: Leon Deak. He glanced over, said, “Oh, look, it’s the Bible freak,” and then studiously ignored me, which took some doing in a room that was ten by ten. Leon had already taken the bottom bunk (which, to seventy-five-year-old knees at least, is the desirable bunk); I threw my carry-on onto the top bunk, took my PDA and went to get Jesse, who was on the same deck. Her roommate, a nice lady by the name of Maggie, bowed out of watching the Henry Hudson break orbit. I told Jesse who my roommate was; she just laughed.
    She laughed again when she related the story to Harry, who sympathetically patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t feel too bad. It’s only until we get to Beta Pyxis.”
    “Wherever that is,” I said. “How is your roommate?”
    “I couldn’t tell you,” Harry said. “He was already asleep when I got there. Took the bottom bunk, too, the bastard.”
    “My roommate was simply lovely,” Jesse said. “She offered me a homemade cookie when I met her. Said her granddaughter had made them as a going-away gift.”
    “She didn’t offer me a cookie,” I said.
    “Well, she doesn’t have to live with you, now does she.”
    “How was the cookie?” Harry asked.
    “It was like an oatmeal rock,” Jesse said. “But that’s not the point. The point is, I have the best roommate of us all. I’m special. Look, there’s the Earth.” She pointed as the theater’s tremendous video screen flickered to life. The Earth hung there in astounding fidelity; whoever built the video screen had done a bang-up job.
    “I wish I had this screen in my living room,” Harry said. “I’d have had the most popular Super Bowl parties on the block.”
    “Just look at it,” I said. “All our lives, it’s the only place we’ve ever been. Everyone we ever knew or loved was there. And now we’re leaving it. Doesn’t that make you feel something?”
    “Excited,” Jesse said. “And sad. But not too sad.”
    “Definitely not too sad,” Harry said. “There was nothing left to do there but get older and die.”
    “You can still die, you know,” I said. “You are joining the military.”
    “Yeah, but I’m not going to die old, ” Harry said. “I’m going to have a second chance to die young and leave a beautiful corpse. It makes up for missing out on it the first time.”
    “You’re just a romantic that way,” Jesse said, deadpan.
    “Damn right,” Harry said.
    “Listen,” I said. “We’ve begun pulling out.”
    The speakers of the theater broadcast the chatter between the Henry Hudson and Colonial Station as they negotiated the terms of the Henry Hudson ’s departure. Then came a low thrum and the slightest of vibrations, which we could barely feel through our seats.
    “Engines,” Harry said. Jesse and I nodded.
    And then the Earth slowly began to shrink in the video screen, still massive, and still brilliant blue and white, but clearly, inexorably, beginning to take up a smaller portion of the screen. We silently watched it shrink, all of the several hundred recruits who came to look. I looked over to Harry, who, despite his earlier blustering, was quiet and reflective. Jesse had a tear on her cheek.
    “Hey,” I said, and gripped her hand. “Not too sad, remember?”
    She smiled at me and gripped my hand. “No,” she said hoarsely. “Not too sad. But even still. Even still.”
    We sat there some more and watched everything we ever knew shrink in the viewscreen.

    I had my PDA set to wake me up at 0600, which it did by gently piping music through its little speakers and gradually increasing the volume until I woke. I turned off the music, quietly lowered myself off the top bunk and then rooted for a towel in the wardrobe, flicking on the small light in the wardrobe to see. In the wardrobe hung my and Leon’s recruit suits: two sets each of Colonial light blue sweat tops and bottoms, two light blue T-shirts, two pairs blue chino-style drawstring