The Marching Hordes
The bulletin board outside lecture hall 1712-A of Patrick Henry High School showed a flashing
red light. Rod Walker pushed his way into a knot of students and tried to see what the special
notice had to say. He received an elbow in the stomach, accompanied by: "Hey! Quit shoving!"
"Sorry. Take it easy, Jimmy." Rod locked the elbow in a bone breaker but put no pressure on,
craned his neck to look over Jimmy Thruxton's head. "What's on the board?"
"No class today."
"Why not?"
A voice near the board answered him. "Because tomorrow it's 'Hail, Caesar, we who are about
to die-'"
"So?" Rod felt his stomach tighten as it always did before an examination. Someone moved
aside and he managed to read the notice:
PATRICK HENRY HIGH SCHOOL
SPECIAL NOTICE to all students Course 410
(elective senior seminar) Advanced Survival,
instr. Dr. Matson, 1712-A MWF
1. There will be no class Friday the 14th.
2. Twenty-Four Hour Notice is hereby given of final examination in Solo Survival. Students will
present themselves for the physical check at 0900 Saturday in the dispensary of Templeton Gate
and will start passing through the gate at 1000, using three-minute intervals by lot.
3. TEST CONDITIONS:
(a) ANY planet, ANY climate, ANY terrain;
(b) NO rules, ALL weapons, ANY equipment;
(c) TEAMING IS PERMITTED but teams will not be allowed to pass through the gate in
company;
(d) TEST DURATION is not less than forty-eight hours, not more than ten days.
4. Dr. Matson will be available for advice and consultation until 1700 Friday.
5. Test may be postponed Only on the recommendation of examining physician, but any student
may withdraw from the course without administrative penalty up until 1000 Saturday.
6. Good luck and long life to you all!
Rod Walker reread the notice slowly while trying to quiet the quiver in his nerves. He
checked off the test conditions-why, those were not "conditions" but a total lack of conditions,
no limits of any sort! They could dump you through the gate and the next instant you might be
facing a polar bear at forty below-or wrestling an Octopus deep in warm saltwater.
Or, he added, faced up to some three-headed horror on a planet you had never heard of.
He heard a soprano voice complaining, "'Twenty-four-hour notice!' Why it's less than twenty
hours now. That's not fair."
Another girl answered, "What's the difference? I wish we were starting this minute. I won't get
a wink of sleep tonight."
"If we are supposed to have twenty-four hours to get ready, then we ought to have them. Fair
is fair."
Another student, a tall, husky Zulu girl, chuckled softly. "Go on in. Tell the Deacon that."
Rod backed out of the press, taking Jimmy Thruxton with him. He felt that he knew what
"Deacon" Matson would say . . . something about the irrelevancy of fairness to survival. He
chewed over the bait in paragraph five; nobody would say boo if he dropped the course. After
all, "Advanced Survival' was properly a college. course; he would graduate without it.
But he knew down deep that if he lost his nerve now, he would never take the course later.
Jimmy said nervously, "What d'you think of it, Rod?"
"All right, I guess. But I'd like to know whether or not to wear my long-handled underwear.
Do you suppose the Deacon would give us a hint?"
"Him? Not him! He thinks a broken leg is the height of humor. That man would eat his own
grandmother- without salt."
"Oh, come now! He'd use salt. Say, Jim? You saw what it said about the team."
"Yeah. . . what about it?" Jimmy's eyes shifted away. Rod felt a moment's irritation. He was
making a suggestion as delicate as a proposal of marriage, an offer to put his own life in the same
basket with Jimmy's. The greatest risk in a solo test was that a fellow just had to sleep sometime
. . . but a team could split it up and stand watch over each other.
Jimmy must know that Rod was better than he was, with any weapon or bare hands; the
proposition was to his advantage. Yet here he was hesitating as if he thought Rod might handicap
him. "What's the matter, Jim?" Rod said bleakly. "Figure you're safer going it alone?"
"Uh, no, not exactly."
"You mean you'd rather not team with me?"
"No, no, I didn't mean that!"
"Then what did you mean?"
"I meant- Look, Rod, I surely do thank you. I won't forget. But that notice said something
else, too."
"What?"
"It said we could dump this durned course and still graduate. And I just happened to
remember that I don't need it for the retail clothing business."
"Huh? I thought you had ambitions to become a wide-angled lawyer?'
"So exotic jurisprudence loses its brightest jewel. . . so what do I care? It will make my old
man very happy to learn that I've decided to stick with the family business."
"You mean you're scared."
"Well, that's one way of putting it. Aren't you?"
Rod took a deep breath. "Yes. I'm scared."
"Good! Now let's both give a classic demonstration of how to survive and stay alive by
marching down to the Registrar's office and bravely signing our names to withdrawal slips."
"Uh, no. You go ahead."
"You mean you're sticking?"
"I guess so."
"Look, Rod, have you looked over the statistics on last year's classes?"
"No. And I don't want to. So long." Rod turned sharply and headed for the classroom door,
leaving Jimmy to stare after him with a troubled look.
The lecture room was occupied by a dozen or so of the seminar's students. Doctor Matson,
the "Deacon," was squatting tailor-fashion on one corner of his desk and holding forth informally.
He was a small man and spare, with a leathery face, a patch over one eye, and most of three
fingers missing from his left hand. On his chest were miniature ribbons, marking service in three
famous first expeditions; one carried a tiny diamond cluster that showed him to be the last living
member of that group.
Rod slipped into the second row. The Deacon's eye flicked at him as he went on talking. "I
don't understand the complaints," he said jovially. "The test conditions say 'all weapons' so you
can protect yourself any way you like. . . from a slingshot to a cobalt bomb. I think the final
examination should be bare hands, not so much as a nail file. But the Board of Education doesn't
agree, so we do it this sissy way instead." He shrugged and grinned.
"Uh, Doctor, I take it then that the Board knows that we are going to run into dangerous
animals?"
"Eh? You surely will! The most dangerous animal is known."
"Doctor, if you mean that literally-"
"Oh, I do, I do!"
"Then I take it that we are either being sent to Mithra and will have to watch out for snow
apes or we are going to stay on Terra and be dumped where we can expect leopards. Am I
right?"
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