by John Dalmas
Voker leaned back in his chair now, resting his elbows on the table behind him. "Anyway, that's how it started, more than a year ago."
More than a year! That stunned Varlik, and Voker read his expression.
"That's right; more than a year. The landing control ship picked up the distress call during the Beregesh attack, of course, and again at the Wexafel Mountain attack, and sent a message pod to Rombil. Finally, after they lost Kelikut, they sent a request for reinforcements."
He looked at Varlik again, mouth a thin line, eyes smoldering. "And that's how it started. Except it really started a lot earlier. Because someone had to gather the gooks together and organize them, which couldn't have been easy. And smuggle weapons to them, in quantity, and train them. We have no idea who, and even less why, but it's got to have something to do with technite."
His demeanor changed then. He turned to his cup, found it empty, and stood up with a lopsided, humorless grin. "You've got twenty-five more days to Kettle," he said. He took his cup over to the stainless steel joma urn to refill it, talking without looking back. "That little mystery ought to give you something to chew on along the way. Solve it and you'll really have a story."
* * *
Voker wasn't interested in talking anymore that evening, so after a short cup of joma, Varlik went to his tiny cabin and lay down to think. What Voker had told him was shocking. Why hadn't any of it been mentioned in the media so far? It was easy to understand why so little attention would be given to an ordinary gook war, but this one wasn't ordinary at all. Kettle was the technite world, the only one known, and the gooks held the mines.
What the government had released to the media had mentioned none of what Voker had told him. The reader or viewer had been left to assume that it had just sort of grown out of native dissatisfactions, or minor incidents between the natives and the Rombili, the way you might expect an insurrection to start—especially when the natives were supposed to be stone-age primitives.
And Voker said it had been going on for more than a year! Something smelled rotten all right.
Varlik got up abruptly. It was pointless to think about it with no more data than he had. He left his cabin for the library again, to see what he could find to fill the holes.
* * *
Voker didn't stay in the officers' dayroom when Varlik left, opting instead to read in his cabin. But Varlik Lormagen stayed in the back of the colonel's mind. It seemed peculiar to give the time he had to the young newsman. But Voker wasn't a man to question his own actions, his own intuition. He'd go with it and see what, if anything, developed.
7
Finding technite deposits is facilitated by two observations. First, all past known technite planets, and now Orlantha, were found in the five-parsec Rombil Sector. And second, all known technite sites, including now the Orlanthan sites, are within some area of impact terrain very rich in radioactive elements. The apparency is that, a rather long time ago, each technite area was struck by a large, more or less coherent radioactive mass from space. What the origin of such masses might be is not known.
—From: Summary Report of the Orlanthan Survey,
Royal Library, Landfall. Iryala, Y.P. 423.
In the library, Varlik looked at what little the library had on the planet, this time scanning more closely the brief technical summary from the planetological survey. It still didn't do him much good. Then he called up technetium. A silvery-gray radioactive metal, said the summary, known only from a rare ore called technite. Atomic number 43, half lives up to 2.4 x 106 Standard years . . .
From the beginning of history, technite had been mined first on a planet called Technite 3, then Technite 4, Technite 5, and finally on Kettle, the first known technite planet to be human-habitable, if just barely. Like Kettle, Technite 3, 4, and 5 were all in the five-parsec Rombil Sector. Other planets in the same sector, with evidence of ancient mining, are assumed to have been Technite 1 and 2. Records of their exploitation do not exist, as the putative Technite 1 and 2 workings predate the organized historical record that began with the First Empire.5
Technite is sufficiently radioactive that miners as well as refinery crews had to wear heavy and cumbersome "hot-suits" and breathe bottled oxygen, as protection against radioactive dust. Exhaust fans ran constantly in the mines and refineries to minimize suspended dust in the air. The refined technite was shipped off-planet for extraction of its technetium, as the extraction process required considerable support technology.
* * *
It occurred to him to call back the information on Tyss, the homeworld of the T'swa mercenaries, but data on Tyss proved even skimpier than data on Orlantha, because there'd been only a cursory planetological survey. The T'swa sounded like naturals for fighting on Orlantha, because if Orlantha was nicknamed "Kettle," Tyss was often referred to as "Oven." Temperatures ran even hotter on Oven than on Kettle, though the atmosphere was generally much drier; Tyss was a world characterized by deserts, as Kettle was by oceans and jungles. And if Kettle was unique among gook worlds for its technite, Tyss was unique for its exports of fighting men. It wasn't even usually referred to as a gook world like all the other "resource worlds—worlds without significant statutory rights."
The entry listed a minimum of physical parameters and no history at all. He could see nothing relevant that he'd missed earlier. At the end it was cross-referenced to T'swa Mercenaries and to Philosophies: Exotic. He'd already read the entry on T'swa mercenaries, which in two paragraphs only mentioned their exceptional skill in individual and small-unit combat and barely named some of their more significant military actions. It made him wish he'd had a day or two more on Iryala, where he'd had access to the most complete library bank in the Confederation.
He decided to call up the cross-referenced entry on philosophy, and found it obscure and uninformative. The unifying element in human life on Tyss, it said, was a philosophy, T'sel, the literal meaning of which was "life on Tyss." It claimed to allow for and codify "every human bent," whatever that meant, and classified the various "Ways" of T'swa life, with a chart showing the categories:
It didn't mean much to Varlik. He read on:
Very briefly, at any time in a person's life, one is said to have a clear mindset for one or another attitude—the rows of the chart—and after childhood these tend to be more or less permanent, with changes toward the lower levels more likely than upward changes. Further, a person is said to be born with a proclivity for certain fields of activity—one will tend to put one's self or find one's self in situations that fall within the columns of the chart. And someone whose mindset is for Work will perform differently on a job from someone whose mindset is for Fight.
As for the terms, Play is a nonpolar activity—one without winning or losing positions from the standpoint of the player. The only function of Play is the pleasure of the player.
To Compete is to engage in a polar activity—one that has a winning position, a losing position, and partisan spectator positions. The intention is to win, with no intention to destroy or subdue. The primary rules governing Compete, which are universal laws, are generally inaccessible to the competitor. The secondary rules, however, which define and control the specific games, are known or readily knowable and are generally enforced.
Work is similarly polar, with success, failure, and partisan spectator positions. The primary rules are generally unknowable to the worker. Secondary rules are generally in place and knowable but in practice are more or less circumvented, ignored, or altered.
Fight has winning, losing, and partisan spectator positions, and differs from Compete in that the intention is to subdue and/or destroy, and in having secondary rules which are bypassed at the opportunity and convenience of the participants.
Study is also polar, with succeed, fail, and watch positions. (I have some difficulty understanding this level, which Master Gao says is because it is the level I am at, and said that from it I might well attain a great deal of knowledge but not much wisdom. I'm
afraid that for me it will have to suffice.)
Levels below Play involve increasing amounts of seriousness. There is no seriousness in Play.
Master Gao also pointed out that the chart is a two-dimensional simplification with the sole purpose. . . .
Varlik shook his head impatiently and simply skimmed to the end of the article. He'd had the idea that he would arrive on Kettle armed with a mass of data, well digested, to serve as a framework for understanding, with pigeonholes to fit his observations into. Well, he'd have to do the best he could with what he had. Absently he called for a printout, then cleared the memory. He'd have to try Voker again the next day and see what he could learn about T'swa equipment, tactics, and strategy.
Meanwhile, it was too early to go to bed. He keyed the author index, then called Hasniker, Gorth to the screen. Hasniker was a popular adventure novelist who reputedly researched his story situations diligently. Varlik slowly scrolled the annotated titles and, sure enough, there was one that dealt with T'swa mercenaries: A Crown Prince on Ice. Maybe, he thought sardonically, Hasniker had found something he hadn't.
* * *
The next morning, the female half of the video team came into the messhall while Varlik was eating breakfast. Mike Brusin's attention left his plate to pass Varlik's right ear, and Varlik rotated his head enough to see. She was walking over to them, a husky young woman looking like an ex-athlete who'd gained some weight.
"Mind if I sit here?" she asked.
"Be my guest," Brusin replied.
Varlik rose while Brusin was speaking. "I'm Varlik Lormagen, with Central News."
"Konni Wenter, Iryala Video," she answered, and sat down.
The messman arrived to take her order, then left.
"Where's your partner?" Brusin asked.
"Sleeping in, I suppose."
"I thought he might be." Brusin grinned. "He sure knows how to pour it down. Holds it well, but that much is bound to have aftereffects."
She avoided the invitation to talk about her partner. "Who do we see to get video cubeage of the war equipment you're carrying to Kettle?"
"You talk to Major Athermon, the ship's executive officer. That's him over there, with the thinning blond hair. And he'll want you to clear it with Colonel Voker, sitting across from him, in green. Colonel Voker is in charge of the ordnance."
"What do you do?" Konni asked.
"I'm the watch officer in charge of the third watch, and I'm also the supercargo." Brusin paused to grin. "And the self-appointed, agreed-upon shepherd of guests. Which one of you is in charge—you or Mr. Bakkis?"
"Bertol's the boss, but he usually puts me in charge, except on a shoot, as long as everything's going all right. He's the creative genius and cameraman. I'm the expediter; I arrange things and do interviews."
Bertol Bakkis, thought Varlik. That was the name. The man had won prizes for his coverage of—what was it? The Omsedris flood and—the big fire in the Kolmess Forest.
Varlik finished his chops and fries, then glanced toward Voker. He'd hoped to sit by the colonel again this morning, but the man had been sitting with others, with no available seat adjacent or across from him. Varlik held up his cup and received a nod from the messman, who headed for the joma urn. He'd wait and catch Voker before he left, or follow him, if necessary.
His attention went back to the conversation between Brusin and Konni Wenter. Apparently Brusin was proving uninformative, because Konni turned unexpectedly to Varlik. "What have you been able to learn about Kettle and this war?" she asked.
"Not much," Varlik answered. He'd keep what he knew to himself, although he felt uncomfortable about it. It was his professional edge. "How about you?"
She made a rude sound, not loudly. "I planned to spend a day or two in the royal library, but it only took me about an hour. There was a lot of planetological data, including the mineralogical survey and some old stuff on tribal customs. That's all."
He decided not to ask if she'd found anything on the T'swa mercenaries. Perhaps she didn't know they were involved. Then it struck him that he hadn't brought up the T'swa with Voker, either, and Voker hadn't mentioned them on his own.
Two of the men at Voker's table got up and left, leaving only the ship's executive officer still sitting with him. Meanwhile, Konni Wenter was just starting to eat. Varlik got up, excusing himself, and walked toward the E.O.'s table, joma cup in hand. Voker and the E.O., Major Athermon, had finished eating and were talking, not the most propitious situation to interrupt. Athermon looked up with a slight frown as Varlik arrived. Varlik bobbed a small head bow.
"Excuse me, Major Athermon, Colonel Voker. Major, my name is Varlik Lormagen, with Central News. I just want to ask Colonel Voker if I can meet with him sometime this morning." His eyes moved to the colonel. Surprisingly, Voker smiled.
"Sure, Lormagen. Major Athermon just said he needed to check the bridge." He turned to Athermon. "Lormagen served an enlistment in the army a while back. Made sergeant. Central News is sending him out to report on the Kettle war."
Athermon looked at Varlik and nodded, a nod that was curt without being rude. "Well," said Athermon, "it would be unreal to tell you to enjoy your assignment. Let me wish you long life." He turned to Voker. "Have a good day, colonel. It was nice talking with you."
"Thank you, major. Same to you." Voker and Varlik watched the executive officer out the door before talking further, then Voker spoke mockingly. "Did you have any inspirations after we talked?"
"No, sir. I made further use of a library console, and found essentially nothing. Nothing of value on Kettle, and almost as little on Tyss."
The colonel's eyebrows raised fractionally and he looked around them. "Tell you what," Voker said, "why don't we talk in my cabin? It has the advantage of privacy."
Voker got up without waiting for a reply, and Varlik followed him out of the messroom, down a wide corridor and up a companionway, saying nothing, then down another corridor, narrower but nicely carpeted. Ranking officer country, Varlik thought to himself.
Voker's cabin, though small, was twice the size of the cubbyhole Varlik occupied. It even had its own computer terminal. Voker motioned him to a chair, opened a knee-high refrigerator, and took out a bottle.
"Whiskey do?" he asked, and held up a bottle of smooth Crodelan. "One of the little bargains available on out-worlds." He put ice in two glasses, poured a liberal shot in each, then handed one to Varlik and sat down. "I like this stuff too well, so I ration myself to two a day. Might as well have the first one now." He took a small, critical sip. "You mentioned Tyss. I take it you've heard the rumor about T'swa mercenaries. Where?"
A rumor! It could be false then. If it wasn't true, he needed to rethink some things. "From my boss," Varlik answered. "But he considered it fact. It's probably the reason he sent me to Kettle."
"Interesting. Do you know where he heard it?"
"No, but I could make an educated guess. Central News has close connections within His Majesty's administrative staff. We're often chosen to, uh, release selected 'rumors' or 'leaks' to test public reaction. Not that this was anything like that, but it could easily have come from the same kind of source."
Voker looked thoughtful. "I heard it suggested some four deks back, but General Lamons turned it down."
"Why is that?"
"First, he doesn't believe in elite units. They offend his sense of Standardness. Plus the T'swa are as non-Standard as you can get." The colonel's eyes met and held Varlik's as he said it. "Actually, neither Standard Management nor the army's supplemental policies say that elite units aren't all right. Or that non-Standard contractor forces aren't."
Voker slowed as if for effect. "Besides which, there are places for Standardness and there are places for innovation—creative imagination. Every damned thing man has or does was an innovation at some time or other, and imagination before that."
Varlik didn't flinch, but inwardly he squirmed at the concept. Voker saw it, and his slight smile came out awry. "Besid
es that, Lamons considers that to use mercenaries in a situation like this would be an affront to the Iryalan Army."
"The T'swa would seem to be almost perfect for Kettle, though," Varlik said.
"Exactly. They're adapted to the climate, they're specialists in wildland fighting, and they're more expendable than our own people. T'swa casualties are more acceptable to the public as well as the government. This was pointed out to Lamons, but he refused the logic."
Voker swirled the dark liquor in his glass, eyeing it thoughtfully. "I wouldn't be surprised if what you heard about bringing in T'swa is true, though. Not a bit. The suggestion seemed to have high-ranking interest back home. Someone may have bypassed Lamons and gotten the idea to the Royal Council."
"What, specifically, could the T'swa do that the army can't?" Varlik asked. "Besides stand the heat."
"Huh! What can the Royal Ballet do that the army can't? And a lot of things that the army can do, the T'swa can do quicker and more efficiently." He grimaced wryly at Varlik. "I regret to say."
"Have you ever worked with T'swa?" Varlik asked hopefully.
"No, but I've read a couple of contract monitor debriefs from trade worlds, and the War College study on the T'swa, such as it is. How much do you know about them?"
"Not much," Varlik admitted ruefully. "Only that they're supposed to be almost—super-soldiers. Most of what I've read is adventure fiction, I'm afraid. I haven't been able to find anything else."
Voker grunted. "And you checked the ship's library? I'd have expected better of it; any base library would have the War College study on them. Not that many read it; like I said, the T'swa aren't—Standard."