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

pants, two pairs white socks and briefs-style underwear, and blue sneakers. Apparently we’d have no need for formal dress between now and Beta Pyxis. I slipped on a pair of sweat bottoms and a T-shirt, grabbed one of the towels that was also hanging in the wardrobe, and padded down the hall for a shower.
    When I returned, the lights were glowing on full but Leon was still in his bunk—the lights must have come on automatically. I put a sweat top over my T-shirt and added socks and sneakers to my ensemble; I was ready to jog or, well, whatever else I had to do that day. Now for some breakfast. On the way out, I gave Leon a little nudge. He was a schmuck, but even schmucks might not want to sleep through food. I asked him if he wanted to get some breakfast.
    “What?” he said, groggily. “No. Leave me alone.”
    “You sure, Leon?” I asked. “You know what they say about breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day, and all that. Come on. You need your energy.”
    Leon actually growled. “My mother’s been dead for thirty years and as far I know, she hasn’t been brought back in your body. So get the hell out of here and let me sleep.”
    It was nice to see Leon hadn’t gone soft on me. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll be back after breakfast.”
    Leon grunted and rolled back over. I went to breakfast.
    Breakfast was amazing, and I say that having been married to a woman who could make a breakfast spread that would have made Gandhi stop a fast. I had two Belgian waffles that were golden, crisp and light, wallowing in powdered sugar and syrup that tasted like real Vermont maple (and if you think you can’t tell when you have Vermont maple syrup, you’ve never had it) and with a scoop of creamery butter that was artfully melting to fill the deep wells of the waffle squares. Add over-easy eggs that were actually over easy, four slices of thick, brown sugar–cured bacon, orange juice from fruit that apparently hadn’t realized it had been squeezed, and a mug of coffee that was fresh off the burro.
    I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Since I was now officially legally dead on Earth and flying across the solar system in a spaceship, I guess I wasn’t too far off.
    “Oh my,” the fellow I sat next to at breakfast said, as I put down my fully-loaded tray. “Look at all the fats on that tray. You’re asking for a coronary. I’m a doctor, I know.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said, and pointed to his tray. “That looks like a four-egg omelet you’re working on there. With about a pound each of ham and cheddar.”
    “‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ That was my creed as a practicing physician,” he said. “If more patients had listened to me instead of following my sorry example, they’d be alive now. A lesson for us all. Thomas Jane, by the way.”
    “John Perry,” I said, shaking hands.
    “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Although I’m sad, too, since if you eat all that you’ll be dead of a heart attack within the hour.”
    “Don’t listen to him, John,” said the woman across from us, whose own plate was smeared with the remains of pancakes and sausage. “Tom there is just trying to get you to give him some of your food, so he doesn’t have to get back in line for more. That’s how I lost half of my sausage.”
    “That accusation is as irrelevant as it is true,” Thomas said indignantly. “I admit to coveting his Belgian waffle, yes. I won’t deny that. But if sacrificing my own arteries will prolong his life, then it’s worth it to me. Consider this the culinary equivalent of falling on a grenade for the sake of my comrade.”
    “Most grenades aren’t soaked in syrup,” she said.
    “Maybe they should be,” Thomas said. “We’d see a lot more selfless acts.”
    “Here,” I said, sawing off half of a waffle. “Throw yourself on this.”
    “I’ll launch myself face first,” Thomas promised.
    “We’re all deeply relieved to hear that,” I said.
    The woman on the other side of