DRONES, A SORCERESS, AND A HOODLUM I went on shift to find that I had all fourteen of our squad's tanks reporting to me. Word had come down that for the next twenty-four hours, we were each to work a single, six-hour shift and get plenty of rest.

The situation had stabilized enough such that the general was planning a major counteroffensive, and we were to be a part of it.

It was dead quiet for the first half of the shift, but then one of the forward drones heard the slithering sound of an enemy drone coming toward him.

When tunneling underground, a drone or a tank puts out a great deal of sonic power in the ultrasonic range, but the particular frequency used is absorbed by sand so efficiently that it is almost undetectable beyond a few meters. About all you can hear is the sound of the sand resettling behind the vehicle.

I reported the incident to the Combat Control Computer and had our drone take out theirs when they were close enough together for the explosion to do the most good. I was surprised to hear a total of four drones explode! One of ours and three of theirs. They were advancing in force, but the Combat Control Computer wasn't convinced of it.

A few minutes later, I heard the slithering sound at another forward point, did the same as before, and this time five separate explosions were heard. At leastI could hear them, with my augmented senses.

The Combat Control Computer finally agreed that this looked like a serious attack, and I had all my forward drones pop to the surface and pull back as quickly as possible. A drone that can only go five kilometers per hour underground can do fifty on the surface.

I gave them thirty seconds to run so that most of them would have time to survive, and while I was waiting I ordered up more ammunition for the entire squad, since I was planning to expend a lot of it. I also had my three coworkers awakened and brought on-line, to watch the show and help me count the pieces.

Then I let loose on the field before us with everything we had. In four minutes, thirteen rail guns and a laser made absolute hash out of more than fifteen square kilometers of desert and grassland. We raked the field to dust and toothpicks with a mathematically determined orgy of destruction, and took out two hundred and eleven Serbian drones that I'm sure of. Probably, there were a lot more that we didn't hear, but it was statistically unlikely that a single one of the enemy drones survived, even if there had been a thousand of them.

At the same time, coordinated by the Combat Control Computer, the squads on either side of us joined on in the fun as well. They brought the total up to almost fifty square kilometers of land, and more than six hundred enemy drones trashed. It was quite a show, but the artillery barrage they threw at us in retaliation topped it.

For five solid minutes, shells were incoming and it seemed like it would never end. I assigned each of the other humans three or four rail gun tanks each, plus their own, to protect and fight with, and even had Agnieshka working under Quincy, while I took control of Eva with her laser and nothing else.

The laser tank can blind more than a dozen shells for every one that a rail gun can destroy, but she needed an observer that much more than the others to do the spotting for her. I did it myself because the records showed that I have more talent for this sort of the thing than any of the others.

What's more, I think that without the laser, we all would have bought it. Eva couldn't actually destroy a shell in time, but she could mess up their fuses and sensors, and scramble their suicidal little brains in a hurry. And once the smarts were out of a smart shell, it was fairly easy for the others to take out. More importantly, we could safely ignore those that weren't coming in for a direct hit. I tell you, that night we went through some very interesting times!

In the end, the barrage just stopped. Maybe they ran out of ammunition. The surprising thing was that we came through it without losing a single one of our squad. The same couldn't be said of the squads on either side of us. They totaled nine casualties, with five down for good, and two of those had people in them. Nobody I knew, of course, but death is somehow a lot more real when it happens to the good guys instead of to the faceless enemy.

But the general and the Combat Control Computer liked this sort of thing. You see, the Serbians had a fixed supply of munitions, which they had taken from us when we had reneged on our original deal. We were bringing up fresh supplies as fast as our transporters allowed, and that was a lot. They had to try to beat us in a hurry, because time was on our side, and everybody knew it.

The Combat Control Computer told us to stand pat where we were, since they had already thrown everything they could afford at us. I was less than enthused by this order because our ammunition was very low, and Kazimierz, Zuzanna's tank, was entirely out.

But orders were orders, and Agnieshka wouldn't have allowed me to disobey them.

I sent our drones, at least those that had survived, back out to watch for any more trouble, told my human teammates to go back to sleep, and went back on guard duty. Before my shift was over, ammunition trucks came right up to the front lines and we could replenish, for which I was grateful.

In another minute of firing, we would all have been out, and being out of ammunition is being dead when artillery is coming in.

Reloading went quickly, since all of our tanks had at least one manipulator arm, and I was able to turn the squad over to Quincy in good condition. We even had a full compliment of drones.

My shift over, I felt like some more socializing, and asked Agnieshka to call Zuzanna to see if we could come over. I shortly found myself on the usual forest path, but with a few major changes.

I was suddenly wearing a gaudy velvet medieval outfit, with tights, boots, and a cape! I was wearing a sword and a dagger, and I was on a big horse that was decked out in barding that matched my outfit.

Agnieshka was also in costume, with a low cut, green velvet dress that matched her eyes. She was riding to my right on a sidesaddle.

I knew enough about history to know that this stuff wasn't exactly authentic. Like, my tunic was fastened shut with a zipper! It was all similar to what you'd see in a 1950s Hollywood movie.

Before I could ask what it was all about, we were met by a very attractive young woman on a sidesaddle who was wearing garb similar to Agnieshka's, but sky blue and even more richly embroidered.

She had clear blue eyes, very long blond hair, and an enchanting smile.

"Good morning, my lord and lady! Thou wouldst know the way to Camelot?"

I couldn't figure out if she was asking or offering to tell us. I thought for a moment about trying to answer her forsoothly, but decided not to since I'd likely make a hash of it.

"Good morning. I take it that you are Zuzanna," I said.

"Indeed, my lord, thou art uncommon well informed. 'Tis a lovely day for a ride in the wildwood! Shall we be off?"

I decidedwhat the hell and fell in with her game. Soon we were racing through the woods, going much too fast for conversation. Zuzanna's horse was even faster than ours, and soon she was a hundred meters ahead of us. Suddenly, a knight in black-and-gold plate armor charged out from some bushes at the side of the trail. He caught up with Zuzanna and pulled her from her saddle.

"Help! Save me, Lord Mickolai!" she shouted, kicking and hitting the knight's armor with her fists.

I didn't know what this nonsense was about, but I don't like seeing a woman abused. I rode to the side of the knight and the still struggling Zuzanna.

"Look, buster! I don't know what your game is, but I don't like it! Let her go!" I said.

"Varlet!" He shouted. He let her slip to the ground and drew his sword. "Ride on or die!"

Then, without waiting to see which of the above I would select, he swung his sword at me!

I was startled, but had wits enough to draw my own sword and block his in time. I didn't know the first thing about sword fighting, but it soon became obvious that he didn't either.

We hacked and bashed for a while, but what with his armor, there wasn't much that I could do to him.

Then I noticed the eyeslit in his helmet, and the first chance I got, I stuck my sword in there.

He gushed about six liters of blood and gore, like something from an ancient Monty Python movie, and then fell over dead at my horse's feet.

Before I could get my sword back into its sheath, Zuzanna had put her foot on top of my stirrup and had pulled herself close to my side.

"Most noble lord! The knight thou hast valiantly slain was the evil warlock Sir Mordick! Thou hast saved my honor and my very soul from the most dire of fates! Take me, my lord! My love and my body are yours forever!"

"Uh, right," I said. "Look, you're very attractive and all that, but my girlfriend and your husband would both object to what you have in mind."

"That is no way to treat a lady, my lord!"

"That's exactly the way one should treat amarried lady. Zuzanna, what's all this nonsense about?"

She took a breath and looked at me, disappointed. Then she said, "My lord, if we must live in a Dream World, it is only fitting and proper that we should dream up a world that is worth living in. Why settle for a mundane existence, when all the possibilities of adventure and fantasy lie available and waiting for us?"

"Lady, I just got all the adventure I wanted during that last artillery barrage. I'm afraid that killing an inept knight didn't do much for me."

"As thou wilt, my lord. Wouldst thou repair to my castle and refresh thineself? And thine lady too, of course."

"We'd be delighted," I said.

Around the next bend in the trail, we came to a castle that was probably patterned on something that Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria had come up with. Or maybe it was from Disneyland.

The drawbridge came down for us and three handsome young boys in page outfits marched out to take care of our horses.

More pretty boys escorted us to a dining chamber that was a lot like the nave of a Gothic church, except that the polychromed statues and the stained glass windows were all on secular, sexual, and even pornographic subjects rather than religious ones.

Zuzanna looked around the room, gestured in a magical sort of way, and the room shrank until it was of a proper size for three people to dine in.

"I am a mighty sorceress, of course, but then so is anyone else who wants to be in my world," she said.

"Wouldst thou be a warlock, my lord?"

I was saved from answering by a dozen more adolescent boys who brought in a lavish meal on as many platters.

The food looked tempting, except for the boar's head, where the roasted lips had pulled back, leaving the ghastly teeth pointing skyward. The thick liquid that dribbled from the mostly empty eye sockets added considerably to the general effect. I didn't feel right about the two dishes where the birds still had their feathers on, either.

"So you prefer to live in a medieval fantasy world," I said.

"Why not? It's my world and I can do with it as I please, except when I have to go out and fight the Serbians."

"I suppose so. I gather that you have a thing about young boys."

"Doesn't every old woman? At least here, I can't go to jail for it. In all events, a person's private world is her own private business."

I passed on that one, but soon I was able to get the conversation on my own level.

I found that Zuzanna had been a college professor on Earth, teaching history. She was perfectly aware of the anachronisms about her, but she preferred to live not as things actually had been, but rather as she felt that theyshould have been .

"I can get along quite nicely without the Black Death, the Thirty Years War, and the Spanish Inquisition, thank you. Modern bathrooms, electric lights, and a regular supply of fresh meats and vegetables greatly improve the quality of life. But somewhere in the course of building the modern world, much that was of great value was somehow left behind, to our great loss both as separate humans and as a culture. We have lost our roots, our extended families, and our childhood friends. Without these things, our lives have lost much of their meaning. Constantly traveling around the world, we became atomized individuals, flecks of dust blowing in the winds of time, molecules of a thin gas when we yearned to be part of a solid whole. Our feelings of impermanence have become so strong that some of our sadder cases have taken to tattooing, piercing, and actually branding their bodies, painfully putting permanent marks on their skins, just to havesomething about themselves that will last a while."

"Yes," I said, "I sometimes feel that way myself. But what does that have to do with the castles and the horses and the embroidered velvet clothes?"

"Our loss of connectedness with the living world about us naturally resulted in a corresponding loss of appreciation for art and beauty. Our buildings and clothes became simplified, standardized, and ugly.

Make a factory to make a billion identical shirts for a billion identical people! Never mind if none of them suits anyone's taste, or fits anyone exactly. If people are too tall or too short or too fat or too skinny, why, it must betheir fault! They must be evil! Let them go on a diet, or get some kind of medical help, or just go away!

"No. If I can do anything about it, I'll make it a world where every single item, every shoe, every chair, and every device is individually considered for its form and function, and individually crafted to be of the best quality that can be managed."

"A nice thought, Zuzanna, but mass production happened not because of some dark conspiracy, but because it's a lot cheaper to do things that way. Make those shirts on a spinning wheel and hand loom and sew them together with a needle and thimble, and they would cost more than a week's pay per shirt.

Without mass production, most people would have only one set of clothes, live on a hovel with dirt floors, and be hungry much of the time. Except for a very small elite, life would again become nasty, brutal, and short."

"True, and I am not advocating the reintroduction of slavery. You technical sorts have done a magnificent job at providing the material wherewithal that has done so much for humanity over the last eight hundred years. But I want you to understand that what you have built is merely the foundation of a great society. The actual edifice that is erected on that wonderful, machine-oriented foundation is going to be the work of all kinds of people. Including old history teachers."

"A very interesting thought, Zuzanna. I think that I am going to have to sleep on it before it's digested properly."

The same could probably be said for the food, assuming that it could be digested at all. Apparently, it was authentic, and authentic medieval food is wretched stuff! I dawdled with it, trying to look as though I was actually eating some of it.

She smiled politely and gestured for her serving boys to bring in dessert, three amusingly anachronistic hot fudge sundaes. Conversation went back to lighter topics.

While Quincy was in the marines, she had earned her doctorate while raising their seven children.

"One for every time he came home on leave," was the way she put it.

After he retired from the service, he had joined her at the University of Europe, and they lived for forty pleasant years in academia, until they were forced to emigrate to the horrors of New Kashubia.

She was a charming lady, once you overlooked her eccentricities.

Agnieshka and I went home, and we spent the next eight hours in the sack.

About an hour before his shift was to begin, Radek came over. He was a small, thin person, with greasy hair and quick, nervous gesticulations. He was dressed in the loud, flashy clothes that had been popular with the young hoodlum set on Earth three or four years ago. I was impressed, but not favorably.

"We ain't never had no chance to talk," he said. "Since we'll be fighting together, you know, I thought that we maybe oughta to take the time to get to know each other some, first."

"I quite agree. We visited Zuzanna a little while ago."

"Yeah. Me too. She's not a bad lady for a witch."

"I thought she was a sorceress."

"She told me she was a witch. When we were getting into it, I asked her why she didn't wear no underpanties. She said the reason was that it gave her a better grip on her broom. You got anything good to eat around here?"

"Sure. Good idea. I haven't had dinner yet. Will you join me?" I said, even though I hadn't even had breakfast. Shift work screws up your circadian rhythms. Anyway, he looked like he needed dinner, and he was a guest.

"Yeah. Good idea. I'm starved."

Agnieshka set the table and served us an entire roast lamb, with all the extras. But she did it wearing high-heeled shoes, fishnet panty hose, and nothing else. I felt embarrassed about it at first, but Radek took it all in his stride.

I eventually figured that Agnieshka must know him better than I did. Thinking about it, shehad stood guard duty with him.

Radek needed no encouragement to dig into the meal, which he did, literally, using his hands rather than any of the proper utensils.

"So how did you come to join the army?" I asked, trying to get the conversation going.

"Same as you, I guess. They said I'd join or they'd kill me, and I figured, shit, better later than sooner, you know?" He ripped one entire leg off of the lamb and started chewing on it, with grease all over his face.

I winced. "What got you into trouble?"

"Food, mostly. See, it's my nerves, I guess, but I need to eat a lot more than other people, and they never would let me have enough. You know what it's like, tending crops all day long and never being allowed to put none of it in your mouth?"

Radek's table manners were abominable. Not only was he holding the roast in his hands while he ate, he was using the table cloth for a napkin, and when he had picked a bone clean, he casually threw it over his shoulder! Now, I realized that this was all just a simulation, that I really didn't have a dining room floor littered with bits and scraps of half eaten food, but even so I didn't like it one bit.

If he observed my displeasure, and cared, he made no note of it.

"Well, I was mostly in engineering. Of course, we were hungry all the time too, but I can imagine how rough it would be," I said.

"Maybe you can, but maybe you can't. Anyway, about the fourth time my foreman, she chews me out right in public for eating a potato while we was harvesting, I pops her a few in the fucking face, and I guess we wrecked a bunch of plants before it was over. And for that, they was going to kill me! Four lousy potatoes!"

It looked as though he was getting more food on the floor than into his mouth.

I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that it all wasn't real.