Ox, the corporal who had educated me about mining gear, was a huge guy from Georgia. Tank-big.
“I friggin’ hate curried chicken,” he said. Ox pulled the feeding tube from a tiny membrane in his helmet and threw a pouch to the ground. “Anyone wanna trade?”
I had brought some ration packs that I got off a couple of French guys in Shymkent, and I threw one to him.
“What the hell is this? I can’t read it.”
“It’s French. That one is wine-poached salmon.”
Ox broke the heat pack at the pouch’s bottom. When it was warm he stuck the tube through and squeezed. I swore I could almost see his eyes go wide, the no-friggin-way expression on his face.
“Where’d you get this?”
“Foreign Legion.”
He squeezed the pouch again and didn’t stop until it was a wad, all wrung out. “Un-fucking-real. The French get to eat this every day?”
I nodded and then remembered he couldn’t see it. “Yeah. And they get booze in their rations. Wine.”
“That’s it,” Ox said. “I’m going AWOL, join up with the Legion. You, rube, are welcome in my tunnel.”
And just like that, I was in the fold.
About Orbit Short Fiction
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Copyright © 2011 by T.C. McCarthy
Excerpt from Germline copyright © 2011 by T.C. McCarthy
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
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First eBook edition: April 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-19116-6