The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  Varlik's eyebrows rose.

  Durslan unfolded his legs and steepled his fingers. "There is a flaw in this 'golden age,' however. If our environment was as unchanging and self-contained as is generally assumed, it might not be a major flaw. But our environment is neither unchanging nor self-contained. You see, we, the humankind of this region of the galaxy, are not all the humankind there is. Nor is humankind the only intelligent life form."

  "I've read about the concept," Varlik put in. "Generally, it's ridiculed. Do you have actual evidence for it?"

  "You can read the evidence for yourself when we're done talking here. I believe you'll find it interesting. Basically, though, there is history which predates what the Confederation knows about—a great deal of such history.

  "Now, about this matter of not being alone in the galaxy: It poses a danger, one which the Confederation as it presently stands is seriously unsuited to deal with, should it present itself—as it surely will. The conspiracy you detected, and the insurrection on Kettle, are the beginnings of a program to correct that deficiency."

  The hands steepled again. "That is only some background to what I'll tell you about the conspiracy. But the rest must wait until you've read the outline of that 'prehistoric' history, and talked with friend Wellem again. How does that seem to you?"

  Varlik grinned. "I'll let you know when I've read the history and talked with Wellem."

  "Good enough," said Durslan grinning back, and they all got up.

  Varlik's changing, thought Mauen, just like I am. He'd never have said anything like that to a nobleman before. It'll be interesting, getting used to each other again. But she had no qualms.

  * * *

  For supper, Konni Wenter commonly used the meal service in her building, even though it was somewhat more expensive than preparing meals herself. She seldom felt much like cooking after a day's work anymore. Being a team leader was more demanding than being Bertol's assistant, especially with the green assistant they'd assigned her. Also, it paid somewhat more, making the meal service more affordable.

  She was eating in front of the video—braised beef cooked with gondel pods, over steamed barley with a side dish of steamed vegetables. There was a pint of ice cream in her locker for dessert. But tonight she was out of sorts, wasn't enjoying the meal. She should have invited someone for supper, she told herself—either a chum or the new guy in the sports department who'd taken her to lunch yesterday.

  Her communicator buzzed and she got up to answer it. The face on the screen was a grinning Varlik, with Mauen beaming over one shoulder.

  "Are you free tomorrow?" Varlik asked.

  Tomorrow was Sixday, and B-crew had the weekend duty. "Yes," Konni said, "I'm free."

  "Great! We're calling from Lord Durslan's. And look, things have sorted out beautifully up here. Can you come up? You have an invitation from Lord and Lady Durslan to get a rundown on things. We both really hope you'll come."

  Their faces seemed to peer out at her as if, she thought, the screen were a window. "Why, I suppose I can." Somehow she felt muzzy-headed, as if she'd just wakened from a nap.

  "Good. Look, Lakes Air Transit flies up here. I'm not sure what their weekend schedule is, but call and make a reservation. I'll call you back in an hour and you can tell me your arrival time. There'll be a car waiting for you at the terminal." He paused. "You okay?"

  "Yes, I'm okay. This is just kind of sudden."

  He looked back over his shoulder, as if someone was saying something to him.

  "Konni, Lady Durslan says forget calling for reservations. The flight is on her and Lord Durslan; she'll arrange your reservations from here, against her credit print. I'll call you back and tell you the flight and time. How's that?"

  "Uh, fine. That's fine. I'll be here."

  "Good. I'll talk to you again in a few minutes. Oh, and pack your swimsuit. They have a big natatorium here," he added, then switched off.

  She stared at the blank receiver, then went back to her meal. Something's strange about that, she told herself. That was Varlik, no doubt about it. And Mauen. And they both looked all right. But there was something different about them. Not as if they were being forced to call; there was no one off to the side pointing a gun at their heads. She tried to consider possibilities. Maybe they've been drugged. She didn't find the notion convincing, though. Things like that only happened in novels or holo dramas.

  She returned to her meal. They were all right, she told herself. They'd just taken her by surprise. Getting all that stuff explained and straightened out could easily affect Varlik like that, considering how it had troubled him all these deks.

  She finished eating and had just disposed of the debris when the communicator buzzed again. It was Varlik, and he gave her the flight number. He seemed just fine, but his grin was still not entirely real to her. She supposed she'd seen him grin before—she was sure she had, she could think of instances—but not like that.

  After he'd hung up, she tapped in Felsi's number. It took a moment; Felsi answered with tooth cleaner on her lips.

  "Oh, it's you," Felsi said.

  "Who'd you think it was going to be—Reev Stoner?"

  "I should wish. What's going on? Anything about . . . ?" she asked suggestively.

  "Sort of. Look, Varlik Lormagen and his wife are up in the Lake District, guests at the home of Lord Durslan. Lord and Lady Durslan are very interested in the Kettle insurrection, and the T'swa. And I'm invited to go up there; I'll fly up in the morning.

  "Now, I have no reason to think anything will happen to me while I'm gone, but it's possible. So look. I expect to be back Sevenday evening; I'm supposed to be at work on Oneday. If I don't call you by Oneday night, something will be wrong, and you know what to do. Okay?"

  Felsi nodded, big dark eyes staring out at Konni.

  "Fine. Like I said, I'm about ninety-nine percent sure that nothing's going to happen to me while I'm gone. I just don't want to take any chances. And thanks."

  When she'd hung up, Konni stared worriedly at the wall. She'd deliberately tried to put Felsi at ease. It seemed to her that in reality, the odds that nothing would happen to her while she was gone were more like sixty-nine percent than ninety-nine.

  * * *

  After "visiting" again with Wellem and talking with Konni, Varlik and Mauen retired to their room, but not yet to sleep. Lord Durslan had given them books from a classroom—books the children studied there—on the history of the Confederation, of the T'swa, and of T'sel. Hours passed before they went to bed, and the world changed even more for them.

  In his sleep, Varlik was once more with the regiment—the platoon, actually—and they were in the sawmill in the Jubat Hills. But it was too noisy there, almost impossible to talk (although afterward, remembering, Varlik could not recall any actual audio sensation; it was the concept of noise). So they were somewhere else—not went somewhere else but were somewhere else—in a beautiful, quiet landscape of neat lawns among wooded, storybook mountains. And the platoon—led now by Colonel Koda—examined him with questions. It was an incredibly warm and beautiful experience. And for every question they asked, he had the answer, an ideal answer, lucid and brilliant.

  He awoke at last, sat up in the darkness of the room with tears running down his cheeks. There was no grief, though, only a joy of reunion which seemed no less real for having been experienced in dream.

  Of the dream, he could remember nearly all, with images of the world where they had tested him, a world not Tyss or Iryala or anywhere he knew of. He could remember how good it had felt to be there with them. He remembered everything except the questions and the answers, and their absence didn't seem important at all.

  Because somewhere, he told himself, he knew. Smiling, he lay back down, rolled over, and went to sleep again, this time dreamless.

  41

  The night had brought hard frost, and a thin ring of ice along the lake edge, not at all like a night on Kettle or Tyss. But by a little past midmorning, when
Bren drove up in front, the sun had raised the air temperature to over fifty, and in the virtual absence of breeze it felt even warmer.

  Mauen had ridden in to meet Konni at the landing field. By the time they arrived at the estate, Konni was feeling relaxed; it was obvious that Mauen was all right, so Varlik must be, too. Mauen had smoothly avoided saying anything of substance about what had happened, slipping questions, letting Konni think she hadn't been privy to Varlik's conversations with Lord Durslan.

  Melsa and Varlik greeted them on the porch. And no, Konni admitted to Lady Durslan, she hadn't eaten. She'd slept too late for breakfast. So she had a late breakfast at the manor while Varlik, Mauen, Lady Durslan, and belatedly Lord Durslan, kept her company over joma. They'd already breakfasted.

  Konni, of course, was unwilling to question Varlik while the Durslans were present.

  When she'd finished eating, Lord Durslan suggested she get acquainted with the situation in the same order that Varlik and Mauen had, and they all trooped over the causeway to the ghao, where she met Wellem Bosler.

  She'd taken Bosler a bit longer to open up than had Varlik or Mauen; her distrust had reactivated, a distrust more deeply rooted in personality than Varlik's had been, but a half hour later she'd emerged in much the same state that Varlik and Mauen had.

  Then Melsa had shown her to her room and left her for a short nap. All three guests had spent the afternoon with books. Briefly, The Story of the Confederation had upset Konni, and Wellem had guided her into and through a brief, gentle procedure that had taken care of her problem with it. That evening, Lord Durslan had given her approximately the same rundown he'd given Varlik and Mauen the day before, with the others sitting in. Like Varlik, Konni came out defused.

  The next morning, Durslan promised, he'd give them the full story of the conspiracy.

  * * *

  Felsi Nisben had had a date for that evening, but he'd called to say he had to work. So she'd had a solitary supper followed by a solitary drink. Then she thought about the mysterious package Konni had left with her, and the strange, danger-spiced instructions.

  It seemed to Felsi that if Konni expected her to do something like that, she'd owed it to her to tell her what it was all about.

  Actually, Felsi resisted temptation for more than an hour—until drought hit the video and she'd had another drink. Then swiftly, not to argue herself out of it, she unwrapped one of the two packages, fitted the cube into her player, and turned it on. A quarter hour later she told herself she wished she'd never thought of it, wished Konni had given it to someone else. Actually she was thrilled; Konni and her friends obviously were in very real danger. Why Konni hadn't taken it directly to the authorities was more than she could understand.

  She took Konni's folded instructions out of her handbag. The business of taking a package to the spaceport and getting in touch with some Captain Brusin sounded altogether too difficult and complicated. And this Colonel Voker, deks away on the planet Kettle, wouldn't be able to do anything in time anyway. But the Director of Enforcement in the Ministry of Justice—he was only minutes away.

  Then she reminded herself that Konni had said to do nothing before Oneday night. If she hadn't heard by Oneday night, then she could do something. She also reminded herself that she'd broken faith with Konni by opening the package.

  Again swiftly, not to change her mind, Felsi rewrapped the package and returned it to her closet shelf. Then she had a double drink and went to bed.

  * * *

  The sign said "Cool Drinks." It was in Bird, and that surprised Varlik, even if it was in the middle of the Orlanthan jungle. Sergeant Kusu, wearing camouflage fatigues and his original chin, stood in the cantina door beckoning to him, and Varlik went over.

  The cantina was much bigger inside than out, not very wide, but long. And hazy. Lord and Lady Durslan were there, wearing only breechclouts. For a moment Varlik tried not to look at Lady Durslan's breasts, and realizing this, she laughed. They were much bigger than Varlik would have thought, jutting roundly. The sling on her rifle passed between them, and it seemed to Varlik that she'd have real trouble unslinging it in an emergency.

  All six of them then—Mauen and Konni were with him too now—walked along inside the cantina looking at the artwork. One of the pictures was of the arsenal in the Jubat Forest, and in it he could see Konni and himself looking out of the picture at him from behind door posts; both were waving to him from the picture, which seemed to Varlik very unusual. Kusu also saw them waving and, winking, nudged Varlik. Kusu was wearing a breechclout too now. Varlik took a rifle from one of the cases and looked for the serial number. Instead of a number, the words Made on Tyss were engraved on it.

  As they walked, it was no longer the cantina, but a long, greenly lit aisle through the jungle. Varlik was impressed because, as he reminded himself, he didn't usually dream in color. All along the aisle were small stone steles marking the places where men of the regiment had died. Kusu named them off as they passed. At each one, Lord Durslan saluted and laughed, and as he did, a holograph of the T'swi who'd died there rose out of the ground and laughed good-naturedly back. But they were only holographs, Varlik knew. He asked Tar-Kliss, who was with them now, why holographs? Tar-Kliss told him the bodies had decayed, so the T'swa were using holographs to greet visitors with.

  At the end of the aisle were the lake and the causeway, but the lake looked like the Lok-Sanu River and the causeway was a bridge. A bargeload of steel was passing beneath it, and Varlik looked down at it. Then Wellem Bosler called from the ghao, and they all hurried across and went inside. The whole regiment was there waiting, their new bodies looking just like the old ones, and General Ramolu was with them.

  Ramolu came up to Varlik, shook his hand, then told him good-naturedly that he'd screwed the whole thing up. No, Varlik answered, it will all work out. Wait and see. It will all work out. Kusu laughed. It always does, Kusu said. Either way, it always works out.

  With that, Varlik awoke and sat up. The moon had risen, and the curtains glowed with it. Very briefly he remembered the whole dream as a panorama, then most of it slipped away. All that was left, beyond some general impressions, was himself telling Ramolu that it would all work out, and a laughing Kusu saying it always did; either way, it always worked out. Varlik chuckled and shook his head. He didn't know what it was all about, but it felt right. He went back to sleep hoping to dream some more, but if he did, he didn't remember it afterward.

  PART SEVEN

  Resolution

  42

  Felsi Nisben woke up knowing what she had to do. Hurriedly, she got ready and left for the transfer stop with one of the packages Konni had given her, not taking time for breakfast. She often skipped breakfast on Sevenday anyway, and besides, she might think as she ate, and she couldn't afford to think. Right was right, and it was not okay to sit around rationalizing the way she'd done last night.

  It was a matter of withholding evidence, and delay could endanger Konni's life—if she wasn't already dead. The thought sent delicious shivers through Felsi.

  She'd gotten off the bus outside the Tower of Justice before it occurred to her that there might be no one available to see her. This was Sevenday, after all; that's why she was here instead of at work. Though this takes priority over work anyway, she reminded herself. It's a matter of—Planetary? Confederation?—Planetary security at least. The concept was so exciting she had another rush of shivers. They'd better be open here on Sevenday—this Sevenday, at least.

  The lobby was different from any she'd seen before: there was no receptionist, though a solitary security officer eyed her thoroughly and impersonally as she passed him. There was no place to sit, just a long hall with a row of elevator doors down each side, each door marked with a single floor number.

  There was a register; the Office of Enforcement was on the sixth floor. She went to one of the elevators marked sixth floor and touched the decal. The door opened at once. The elevator had been waiting for her, she told hersel
f. A good sign; she was doing the right thing. She hadn't had to wait for a bus, either. It had come within fifteen seconds, a minor miracle; usually it took at least a couple of minutes—as many as ten on a weekend.

  She wasn't aware of the electronic units that scanned her for various materials as she rode up. Had one of them detected contraband, the elevator would have taken her not to the sixth floor but to building security in the basement. And had she known that—duty be damned: Clean though she was, she'd never have gotten on the elevator.

  But she didn't know, and psychologically fortified by good omens, she exited the elevator confidently into a reception area. Here security, though not a dominating presence, could clearly be seen—three officers sitting in little corner booths. The receptionist wore civvies, and watched politely as Felsi came up to her.

  "How can I help you?" the receptionist asked.

  "I have a package I need to give to the Director of Enforcement."

  "Fine. May I have your name and registry number?"

  "Felsi, F,E,L,S,I, 686 Nisben, N,I,S,B,E,N, 2546—3129—3217 Iryala."

  As Felsi spoke, fingers moved on a keyboard, then the woman looked up and reached out a hand. "I'll see that the director gets it."

  Felsi's expression hardened with unwillingness. "I'm supposed to give it to him myself. It's very important."

  "I'm sure it is, Miz Nisben. But there are Standard policies we have to follow. Otherwise, this place would be a madhouse and nothing would get done." She kept her hand out, expectantly.

  Felsi shook her head stubbornly. "It's an emergency. And important."

  The receptionist nodded. "Are you reporting a crime in progress? If so, we need to inform the local or district enforcement authorities."

  "No, it's nothing like that. It's—special. Different."

  "I see." The woman made a decision. "Let me show you something on my screen. I'm going to write something into the computer, and I want you to see the read-out."