The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  Not that he ever expected or intended to be. His language studies and drills served briefly as a pastime—something to do besides work out, sleep, and sit reading in the ship's library.

  Eventually, the day of landfall arrived. And conscious of his aloofness on the trip, Varlik made a point at breakfast of going around the officers' mess shaking the hand of every man there, thanking them for the voyage. The thank-you didn't make a great deal of sense, and had he delivered it coolly, might have been taken as hauteur. But it came across with a tinge of regret, almost as apology, which in a sense it was, and when they left the messroom, in almost every case it was with the opinion that the white T'swi was a good guy, if not very social.

  At 07.77, ship's time, the Quaranth came out of warp, and Varlik went to the observation room to watch intently the brilliantly glinting point that was Iryala grow to a beautiful cobalt and white orb, then to a looming planetary ball that moved in on them until it blocked out the sky. Soon a planetscape formed beneath him and Landfall appeared, spreading to cover the view.

  He could see the spaceport, watched it grow and spread until it was the ground. Service trucks stood or moved; workers watched upward or went about their work. The Quaranth settled, touched down almost imperceptibly. He was back on Iryala.

  36

  It was 09.63, nearly midday, in Landfall and by ship's time, too. With a long layover planned, ship's time had been gradually adjusted until it agreed with destination time, helping circadian rhythms into sync.

  In the terminal, Mauen had come into the reception area from the glassed viewing deck. She'd been waiting for almost three hours, had been there early, not wanting to miss him if the Quaranth should arrive ahead of schedule. Space flights seldom missed schedule by more than minutes, but she was taking no chances.

  She wore her prettiest—a new sheer yellow dress with white underlining, of party quality but wearabout cut that showed quite a bit of pretty leg. Her hair was newly coifed, and she'd taken more than usual care with her makeup.

  The first man in the door was Varlik—from his eagerness to see her, she was sure. But preoccupied, he almost didn't notice as she started toward him; he had other things on his mind, and somehow it hadn't occurred to him that she'd have gotten off work to meet him. He'd planned to take a cab to the office and report in, then ring Konni. But Mauen called his name as she ran, jerking his eyes to her. Then, after the merest lag, he was running too, to set down his bags and gather her in his arms, hugging her too tightly, his mission suddenly forgotten. They kissed avidly until they became aware that people were staring.

  "I can't believe how much I missed you," he breathed.

  She noticed neither the underlying profundity of his words nor their surface absurdity, hearing only the love they expressed. "It seemed like forever!" she murmured back. "Half a year."

  He signaled a luggageman and, with his bags being carried, walked hand in hand with her through the building and out to the cab area, where the first cabbie in line stowed Varlik's bags, then held the door for them.

  "Where to, sir?" he asked.

  The sight of Mauen had banished office, report, and phone call from Varlik's mind. "Media Apartments Three," he said.

  * * *

  Varlik came out of the bathroom belting on his robe, poured a drink, then went out onto the canopied balcony where he sat down on a chair. The afternoon sun was warm, though the season was late. Many trees were already bare; on the rest the foliage had turned—yellow, bronze, red. He sipped his drink reflectively, and a minute later Mauen joined him. When she sat, a knee peeked out at him from her robe.

  "Do you feel properly welcomed?" she asked.

  "That was maximum welcome. More welcome than that I could hardly handle."

  "You've always had a nice body," she said. "Now you're so hard and muscular it's almost unbelievable. But I like you this way." She touched his hand. "And I'll like you just as much if you gain weight again."

  They touched glasses and drank. Then he held his up to the sun, eyeing thoughtfully the gleam through amber brandy. "I'd like to make a phone call," he said. "Invite a colleague to dinner with us, to talk business. My business and hers. Yours now." He saw Mauen's smile slip at the pronoun hers. "Her name is Konni Wenter. She was on Kettle for Iryala Video," he went on, "and we ran into some strange things—evidence of a criminal conspiracy against the Confederation. We agreed to hold back what we found out until we learned more."

  Mauen said nothing, asked no questions, simply waited soberly for Varlik to continue.

  He got up. "Come back in," he said. "I'll show you some pictures that I haven't made available for newsfacs or videocasts. We can talk about what they mean, or seem to mean."

  She followed him in and closed the doors behind them, feeling chilly now, and dialed the heat control while he activated the wall viewer and inserted a cube. Then they sat down together, and he played first his talk with Ramolu, pointing out the anomalies not only of the man's fluency in Standard but his obvious knowledge of the Confederation and technology and his general sophistication.

  "So how did he get like that?" Varlik asked. "Who trained the Birds? Or probably the more correct question is who trained and educated the leaders like Ramolu, because the common Bird soldier doesn't speak Standard—or Tyspi, the language of Tyss. Probably the people who trained them are the people who armed them. Here's one of their rifles." He moved the halted sequence to the image of the rifle he'd picked up in the jungle, and pointed out its lack of serial number.

  "Konni and I, after being wounded, went to Tyss for rehabilitation, and walked into town from the hospital there. We recorded this." He sat quietly, letting Mauen watch and listen to the two children who'd talked with Konni and him. Varlik stopped the sequence after each line of dialog, to translate from the Tyspi. "Are you Ertwa?" asked the little girl, and from the audio, Konni's voice answered, "I don't know what 'Ertwa' means."

  "They are Splennwa," the little boy corrected his sister. "Ertwa were very long ago."

  Mauen interrupted, and Varlik touched the pause key again. "What are 'Ertwa?' " she asked.

  "I have no idea. The point is that he responded as if he assumed we were from Splenn. That suggests that Splennites visit Tyss often enough that people are aware of them as frequent visitors—even little children."

  Then he played the audio recording of the teaching brother, Ban-Shum, their host and guide in Oldu Tez-Boag, who could speak Orlanthan. Why would a teacher on Tyss know Orlanthan?

  And finally, he showed his video recording of the arsenal in the Jubat Forest and the weapons without serial numbers, then removed from a bag the T'swa-made sidearm he'd taken, also without serial number.

  "How does all of this seem to you?" he asked. And realized that his body was tense, trembling slightly at some undefined stress.

  "It looks . . . it looks as if it might be the T'swa who armed and trained the Orlanthans. But . . . where does Splenn fit in?"

  "Splennites could have smuggled the weapons from Tyss to Kettle. Splenn has space ships, and at least in adventure fiction the Splennites are supposed to be smugglers. But I haven't told you all of it yet." He explained his theory—Konni's actually—that the T'swa had a technite mine of their own.

  "And—why do you want to ask Miss Wenter over?"

  "To show her what I recorded in the jungle. And she'd planned to see what she could learn here; I want to know what she's found out."

  Mauen nodded. "All right. Ask her." She paused. "Why do you think there's anything to learn about this, here on Iryala?"

  "The T'swa colonels wanted their regiments publicized here. Why? And more than the colonels wanted it; they'd already arranged for publicity to be channeled through the T'swa ambassador here. Besides that, apparently someone had expected both Central News and Iryala Video to have the T'swa featured." And got the king to contract personally for the regiments, Varlik added to himself; he'd never looked at that angle before. "It's as if someone here, someone in a very
high place, is involved."

  Mauen got up and went to her desk in their activities room, then returned with an address book. "Perhaps I have something helpful," she said. Varlik looked at her, puzzled. "I got interested in the T'swa from your reports," she went on. "Lots of people did, but especially me because I'm your wife. So I called the Royal Library for anything they might have on them. I didn't find much. But I thought there might be material that I didn't know how to access, so I called the library's consulting office. When the supervisory consultant realized I was your wife, she gave me the name and number of an expert on Tyss and the T'swa philosophy—Melsa Ostrak Gouer."

  Mauen handed him the address book, open to the Gs. The name Gouer didn't mean anything specific to him, though he recognized it vaguely as belonging to an aristocratic family. But Ostrak—the Ostraks were one of the better known aristocratic families, holding certain interstellar trading rights in fief from the crown.

  "Have you called this Melsa Gouer?"

  "No. I hesitated to bother someone of a family like that."

  "I think I will," he said. "Tomorrow. It could be that you do have something helpful here."

  At least it could provide a lead to highly placed families with a prewar interest in the T'swa. He made his call to Konni and she accepted the dinner invitation. Then Varlik got dressed to report to the office. When he was ready to leave, he stopped to kiss Mauen.

  "Varlik?"

  "Yes?"

  "Did you sleep with this Konni Wenter?"

  The question startled him. "Sleep with her? No. Or anyone else since I met you. Not ever." He stepped back to arm's length. "I hope you haven't been worrying about that."

  "Not until you asked to call her. And then said you'd traveled to Tyss together. Is she pretty?"

  "No, she's fairly plain. Not homely, but . . ." He grinned. "She's nothing like you. Except that she's nice, too. I think you'll like her. And she'll like you. Have you ever wondered about things like that before when I've been gone?"

  "Not really." She smiled a little. "A time or two, maybe. I know that women must put themselves in your way sometimes. But while you were talking, it occurred to me that you shared something with her out there that was important to you both, and that I had no part in—a mystery, a war, and friends killed."

  His eyes rested on hers. "True. But now the mystery is yours, too. You've even given me a lead."

  * * *

  Varlik checked in with Fendel, who told him to take a week off; then he'd have a new assignment for him. Varlik told him he wasn't done with the T'swa assignment yet, that there were odds and ends of it to look into here, and that when he was finished he was going to take two weeks off.

  When he left Fendel's office, Fendel stared after him. The young man had certainly changed. Independent! But he was worth a little temperament. Subscriptions had soared with his coverage of the T'swa.

  Varlik stopped at his own desk before he left, to place a call to the T'swa embassy. He got an appointment with the ambassador for the next morning at 07.75.

  * * *

  Varlik had been right. As different as they were, Mauen and Konni hit it off.

  Konni hadn't learned much of value. A week after returning to Iryala, she'd been back at work and busy. She'd read or scanned everything the library had on Splenn, though, giving special attention to Splenn's politics and interstellar trade. It had been interesting but not very helpful. But clearly the Splennites—the Splennwa, Varlik and Konni called them, using the Tyspi—had a penchant for intrigues, at least at home.

  And there had been several smuggling convictions by the Confederation Tax Commission, though the Splennite reputation was worse than a few convictions would account for. Also, T'swa regiments had been hired more than once to help in power disputes on Splenn; the current dynasty of the leading state on Splenn owed its position to T'swa regiments.

  Varlik in turn told them about his appointment with the T'swa ambassador. He'd call Konni afterward, he promised, and tell her what happened.

  Konni left by midevening—at 17.20. It didn't seem to her like an evening to keep Varlik and Mauen up late.

  37

  It had not been a good night for Varlik, though it started exceedingly well. Near dawn he'd wakened from a seemingly unending dream in which he and his platoon had been walking through a landscape that sometimes was like the Jubat Hills, looking for—whatever. Perhaps the source of the war, of their deaths. For they were dead; Varlik, too. And their bodies had been decaying. Their biggest difficulty was that body parts kept sloughing off as they hiked. The T'swa had been in high spirits nonetheless, as if it were a holiday outing, but for Varlik it had been constant and desperate struggle.

  When finally it had wakened him, he'd gotten up quietly, not to disturb Mauen, had had a drink and read a bit before going back to bed.

  Nor was morning a success. Overnight a front had moved in with dirty gray clouds. Strong raw wind clawed the last leaves from the trees, sending them hurling and swirling through the parklike city, leaving skeletons behind to greet the coming winter. Varlik, waiting at the transit shelter, was glad to get aboard the hover bus, and gladder yet to get inside the government office building where the tiny T'swa embassy was tucked away.

  Like all government buildings, this one was aesthetic, a fact he took for granted, not consciously appreciating it. The register in the lobby informed him that the T'swa Embassy was on the ninth floor. The silent lift, rising smoothly on its AG unit, gave a broadening view of the bleak morning, and Varlik turned his back on it to face the door. The trip was quick; the government work day had already begun, and he had the lift to himself. Its doors opened to floor nine, and another register faced him as he stepped out.

  The door to Suite 912 bore a simple sign that read, appropriately, "T'swa Embassy." It was open, and he walked in. A white-haired T'swa woman sat behind a desk, and smiled at him when he entered.

  "Mr. Lormagen!" she said. "It's so nice to see you in person. Just a moment. I'll tell the ambassador you're here."

  She's the ambassador's wife, Varlik thought, I'll bet anything. How T'swa that felt! We'll see how nice they think it is when I'm finished here. Varlik himself felt ugly and somehow perverse, but neither analyzed nor resisted it. He merely nodded acknowledgement as she touched a key on her communicator.

  "Mr. Lormagen to see you," she said. Varlik couldn't hear the ambassador's reply—it came through the earpiece she wore—but the woman smiled and beckoned as she stood up. He followed her to a door which she opened for him, and he went in.

  The ambassador was standing, looking somewhat older than his secretary and a little hunched, the hunch seeming somehow the result of old injury instead of age. Yet hunched though he was, he was scarcely shorter than Varlik, and considerably heavier. His body looked solid, although his stubbly hair was white, his face wrinkled, and deeply creased knuckles gave his thick fingers a telescoped look.

  His eyes still showed large, not hidden by folds of aged skin.

  He reached a beefy right hand to Varlik and Varlik shook it, not surprised at its hard strength, then the old T'swi waved him to a chair. Varlik sat, putting his open shoulder bag on the floor beside him and surreptitiously pushing the "on" switch of the audio recorder it held.

  "Mr. Lormagen," the ambassador said, "it is a pleasure to meet you personally. My name is Tar-Kliss. Before we address your business, let me say how very much I enjoyed your reports. I hadn't been prepared for someone of your unusual ability and dedication, with the willingness to learn our language. To train with a regiment and accompany it in combat—especially in the Orlanthan climate! And your professionalism was the highest, your affinity with your regiment remarkable."

  My affinity with my regiment! Varlik's expression sharpened, his emotion hardening, focusing, targeting. What did this old diplomat, this player at intrigues, know about affinity with regiment!

  "You think so!"

  "Oh, yes. I am confident of it. You gave your readers, your
listeners and viewers, a remarkably accurate feel of the Red Scorpions—of any regiment. I know. I was a battalion commander—for a time the regimental commander—of the Rimla-Dok Regiment, which was also of the Lodge of Kootosh-Lan. With it to the end, or within hours of the end. Deactivated forty-six years ago."

  Varlik's hostility fractured and dissolved. "You were a T'swa mercenary?"

  The old head nodded. "And later a monk-scholar and master of wisdom, for the last twenty-seven years ambassador to the Royal Court of Iryala."

  He smiled, showing strong square teeth.

  "And—how did your regiment die?" Varlik asked.

  Tar-Kliss's smile became reminiscent, almost beatific. "In a war between pretenders to a throne, on the planet Grovald. Two princes, both quite corrupt. It was a lovely war. Each had very presentable fighting men, in quantities, and some nicely unpredictable allies. Qualities highly contributive."

  Though the smile remained, the old man's expression became shrewd now, yet kindly, the eyes penetrating but not aggressive, and he shifted the conversation into Tyspi. "But you didn't come to hear about me," he went on, "nor to hear me appreciate you. You have something to tell me, or something to ask."

  "Something to show you." With Tar-Kliss's invitation, Varlik's mouth had gone dry. It occurred to him that he could never have given his presentation—his accusation, for that's what it was—without visible hostility, even open anger, had not the old T'swi set the scene for him with his personal history, his little comments. Another T'swa colonel! Or major, in this case. How Biltong had handled the truculent Lamons that first meeting! In Lamons's own headquarters, surrounded by his staff, in the midst of his divisions! Using just the right words, the right tone, all spur of the moment. And Lamons, as arrogant and stiff-necked as any general, perhaps more than most, had backed down without apoplexy, in time coming to respect, even admire, the T'swa.