The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  * * *

  After the session, Lotta Alsnor went to a small office at the end of the hall, and knocked.

  "Who is it?"

  "Lotta."

  Wellem Bosler was in charge of the project. Because of the shortage of fully qualified people, he'd selected the best of his advanced students, his and others', and had coached them intensively for a week before bringing them here. And because their experience was limited and some of the cases promised to be especially demanding, he'd come with them to supervise, and to bail them out when necessary. One of the things he did was call up and look over each session record before any further session was scheduled with that particular case. So far everything had gone remarkably well, and his operators had quickly gained confidence in their ability to do the job here.

  Lotta was the second youngest, and the most gifted if not the most skilled.

  "Come in, Lotta," Bosler said.

  She did. "Wellem," she said, "I'd like you to check out the session I just gave Artus Romlar."

  He called it up, and his eyebrows raised as he scanned. When he'd finished, he looked up at her with a grin. "Marvelous, Lotta. I'm proud of you. Talk about the unanticipated! If I'd had any misgivings about your readiness for this job, and I didn't, this would lay them to rest." He paused then before adding, "You need to get him back after supper, you know."

  She nodded. "I thought—you might take him after supper. I'm afraid I might get in over my head."

  "Ah. But I want you to take him, and if you do get in over your head, then I'll take over. Okay?"

  She nodded. "If you think it's safe for him that way."

  Wellem Bosler grinned. "Even if you screw up to the maximum, we'll have him in good shape before morning."

  Then he outlined briefly the approach he wanted her to use.

  21

  Wellem Bosler's office was tiny but adequate. Much of its space was occupied by a work table on which sat a computer, the repository of session reports. With Voker and Dak-So there, seated on folding chairs, the room was crowded.

  "So you've got a preliminary evaluation for us," Voker said.

  "And a very positive one." Bosler paused to sip carefully the scalding joma that one of his runners had brought for the meeting. Usually he was too busy, too preoccupied, to have joma, or to remember to drink it when he had it.

  "We're getting very good results, even though my team is green. Or was green. By working with one platoon at a time, and by starting with its dominant trainee and the people closest to him, we're largely avoiding the problems of the individual's barracks mates getting on his case before he stabilizes. For a day or so after a session, and particularly during the first few hours, the individual is susceptible to being sharply introverted and invalidating what happened to him."

  He grinned. "It's a little like a new painting: You need to let the paint cure before you handle it much. Then, once a person's stabilized, he's pretty much immune to self-doubts. The nap helps with that, the nap and the dreams."

  "Will they know the T'sel when you've finished with them?" Voker asked. "Or is this treatment too abbreviated?"

  "Let's just say they're more sane, and stably sane, than the great majority of humankind. That's the bottom-line result; a regiment of sane warriors. Some will know the T'sel. All will have considerable T'sel wisdom,12 and this will increase bit by bit after we're done with them. They'll cognite on things, and grow, in the process of living."

  His eyes shifted to Dak-So. "As for the ancillary abilities that are general among your own warriors—useful degrees of psychic awareness, like the ability to orienteer without a compass, that sort of thing—they've already begun to crop up. I don't know how frequent they'll be. Don't look for them to be general though. Just take what develops."

  "When do you expect to finish here?" Voker asked. "Or is it too soon to predict?"

  "In about a dek and a half. It depends somewhat on how well the two new teams do; they'll carry out their first sessions here this afternoon. I didn't train them—one team's from the school at Kromby Bay and the other's from Ernoman—but I know the people who did train them; know them well. I anticipate that they'll do as well as my team. Six to eight more weeks should finish our work here."

  "Ah." Dak-So turned to Voker. "I would like your decision on whether to train our young warriors in jokanru, and if so, when. I have had thoughts on the matter."

  "Let's hear them." Voker looked at Bosler. "We'll take our discussion somewhere else—get out of your way."

  "Fine. Today's interview reports won't start coming in for another hour, but I need to review administrative procedures with the new teams."

  The two officers left, talking as they walked down the corridor. "Are you satisfied with the kind of results Wellem described?" Voker asked.

  Dak-So nodded. "Yes. They're not what we might prefer, but combined with their warrior intentions and their young strength and level of training, they will be superior to any troops I foresee them facing, given comparable equipment. Unless of course, as mercenaries they face my people."

  "Good," said Voker. Apparently the Klestroni were going to miss Confederation space after all, but presumably someday they would meet. Then there'd be the matter of equipment. T'swa seers had assured the Crown that the Karghanik level of military technology was not inordinately superior to their own, for planetary warfare. In fact, the empire had stagnated technologically, not as badly as the Confederation had under the Sacrament, but badly nonetheless.

  As for Iryalan regiments fighting T'swa regiments, that could be addressed in contracts or treaties—Kristal would work it out.

  "Okay," Voker said. "Let's hear your plans."

  "I have prepared a limited menu of close combat skills and drills," Dak-So said, "that young men like these can master quickly at an effective level. They do not constitute jokanru, but they are based on it. They emphasize aggressiveness and force, with less reliance on refined technique. The practitioner would be no match for someone trained in jokanru, someone reasonably well conditioned. But with their strong, flexible, gymnast bodies, these young warriors would quickly destroy ordinary soldiers in unarmed combat.

  "And jokanru is less a combat tool than a matter of developing the complete warrior, mentally and spiritually as well as physically. The time required for it would be difficult to justify, when we have only three years to complete their training.

  "What I propose can be completed in far far less time than full training in jokanru. I recommend we train the entire regiment simultaneously, during mud season. By then the trainees will have completed their basic training in other skills, and also the Ostrak operators will be done with them, even if they progress more slowly than Wellem envisions. Further, the more advanced gymnastics training they'll have had by then will have increased their flexibility."

  Voker nodded. "Not to mention their strength. And frankly, what you've described is the sort of thing I'd envisioned for them anyway. How long will this training take?"

  "I foresee three weeks of very intensive full-time training. If necessary, we can add a week to it. Then, when they're done, we'll begin their training in battalion and regimental actions."

  "Fine," Voker said. "That'll give us time to get the necessary equipment made: bags, dummies, whatever. I want a list as soon as possible."

  By that time they were standing at Dak-So's office door. "Can I see what techniques you have in mind for them?" Voker asked.

  "Of course. I made photocopies."

  They went in. A minute later Voker came out, examining a thin sheaf of papers, nodding as he scanned. These kids would love it. They were going to be a hell of a regiment.

  22

  The evening of Winter Solstice was clear and still, moonless and moderately cold, but inside the main building were warmth, light, and noise. Most of the benches had been removed from the big assembly hall, stacked in an adjacent storeroom. Scattered tables, surrounded by slowly eddying trainees and T'swa, held food in quantity, de
licacies, mostly prepared by the regiment's cooks but partly flown in. Here and there, mingling with the military, were young civilians about the age of the trainees—the Ostrak people—and army personnel on detached service there.

  "You were right," Esenrok was saying to Jerym. "No liquor. I suppose they were worried about the guys that haven't been defused yet, getting drunk."

  Jerym chuckled. "I'm pretty sure they weren't worried about the T'swa. I wonder what a T'swa would be like, drunk."

  "Huh! I can't imagine one ever getting that way. But if one did, I suppose he'd be as mild as if he were sober. Just not as well coordinated."

  "Yeah, I expect you're . . ." Jerym stopped. A slim, red-haired girl had walked up to him on his right, looking at him; he turned and stared.

  "Lotta!"

  "Hello, Jerym. You've changed. And grown."

  He reached out unbelievingly, and they held each others' hands between them. "It's been a year last Harvest Festival," he said. Then, "What are you doing here?"

  "I'm an interviewer."

  "An inter. . . . You must be one of the new ones."

  "Nope. I've been here for three weeks, working seven days a week from eight in the morning till 21 or 2200 in the evening—more than half around the clock. Otherwise I'd have looked you up."

  He stared, then recovered and turned to Esenrok, who stood watching and curious. "Esenrok, this is my sister, Lotta. She's— Well, you know as much about that as I do. Lotta, this is a buddy of mine, Esenrok. Eldren Esenrok, isn't it?"

  "You've got it." The blond trainee and the red-haired girl saluted each other formally, but grinning, hands raised to the sides, shoulders high, palms forward. "Jerym never told me he had a good-looking sister."

  "I do though," Jerym said. "And right now I've got first claim on her time. We've got some catching up to do."

  Esenrok shook his head. "And I thought we were friends. Ah well. Glad to meet you, Lotta."

  Jerym led her away toward a bench that had been left down, then spotted someone and steered her off in that direction. "There's someone else I want you to meet," he murmured to her. "I showed him one of your letters, and he said he wanted to write to you. But he never did. Too shy."

  Romlar's back was to them. He turned at Jerym's touch. "Hi, Alsnor. Oh! Hi, Lotta! I see you found him."

  "Hi, Artus. Yes, he brought me over to introduce us."

  Jerym's jaw had dropped, then he turned to Lotta. "You interviewed Romlar?"

  "That's right. We're good friends."

  Jerym looked from one to the other. "Well, then, let's you and I go sit somewhere and talk. You two have had hours to talk lately!"

  "Go ahead," Romlar said. "But, Lotta, when you're done, I want a chance to ask you some questions. So far it's been all one way."

  "Sure," she said, then left with her brother, stepping into the corridor to escape interruptions.

  "I guess you know Medreth," Jerym said. "My interviewer."

  "Medreth was yours? We've been at Lake Loreen together since she was eight and I was six."

  "You guys don't—" Jerym's grin was lopsided. "No, I guess you wouldn't. Share confidences about interviews."

  Lotta laughed. "Wellem would skin us alive if we did. No, it's never done."

  "When you're at home, why haven't you ever done for Mom and Dad what you guys have done for us?"

  Her eyebrows rose. "Consider the questions," she said, "the kinds of questions we ask, the things we ask you to do. Can you picture Dad or Mom sitting still for them? Especially from one of their kids!"

  He laughed, imagining.

  "Actually I have done some," she said, "in a sneaky way. Nothing ambitious, nothing formal, but it helps."

  They talked, about home, parents, life in the regiment, for about twenty minutes before Voker's voice overrode the lively hubub of hundreds of conversations. "At ease, men! At ease!" The noise level dropped abruptly. "At ease and face the podium!"

  The brother and sister stepped inside to watch and listen. Then His Majesty, Marcus XXVIII, strode out from the wings without the customary fanfare and attendants, a tall, lean, vigorous man of sixty-seven in a white dress uniform. The final murmurs of conversation stilled instantly. The trainees hardly noticed the man a step behind His Majesty on his right.

  The king stopped just back from the podium's front edge and looked the silent audience over. "Good evening, gentlemen!" he boomed, without electronic augmentation, and they responded instantly, almost in unison, as if drilled in it.

  "Good evening, Your Majesty!"

  He waited three or four seconds, then continued. "I had several other invitations for this evening. The most tempting was to spend it with my grandchildren. But I understand you don't have too many evenings off, so I decided to take this opportunity to see you instead."

  There were a few tentative hurrahs that grew into somewhat ragged, audience-wide cheering. The trainees were in a state of low-grade shock.

  "You men, you trainees, are a first in the Confederation—a regiment of warriors. You will not be the last such regiment, but you are the trailbreakers. It has not been easy for you, in more ways than one, but you are proceeding very well, and as you continue, you will do better and better."

  He paused, once more scanned them deliberately, then boomed again: "What do you think of your T'swa cadre?"

  The question released them from their awed bemusement, and they began cheering at the top of their lungs, the cheer shifting gradually to a chant of "T'swa, T'swa, T'swa!" This went on for the better part of a minute, until Voker's voice came over the loudspeakers: "That's it, men. At ease." The chant stumbled and stopped. "Thank you," Voker said.

  "And now—" His Majesty went on, "now I want to introduce someone to you—the man who first proposed we form such a regiment." He half-turned to the man who'd followed him onto the podium, and gestured at him with a white-gloved hand. "The man who told people what the T'swa truly were like, the man who was called 'the White T'swi,' Sir Varlik Lormagen."

  Again the crowd erupted with sound as a grinning Lormagen stepped up beside the king. After half a minute, Lormagen raised his hands overhead, so that the cheers faded. He too was a man in his sixties, taller than average and husky, recognizably the same man they'd seen on the old cubes from the Kettle War. When they were quiet enough, Lormagen spoke, using a microphone clipped to his collar.

  "I want to tell you just one thing," he said. "I'm proud of you, every last one of you."

  Again they cheered. Voker might have interrupted them, but the king looked toward him as if anticipating that, and still grinning, shook his head, then waved to his audience and left the podium with Lormagen. Cheers followed them into the wings and out of sight.

  After that the crowd began to eddy again around the tables, bemused at first. But soon their conversations were even livelier than before.

  * * *

  When the cheering was over, Pitter Mellis worked his way to a door and walked down the corridor to a latrine. It was crowded, the commodes occupied, the urinal lined with men, with others waiting. He turned and left, going to an exit and out into the cold. It was only 200 yards to the barracks; jogging would be better than waiting.

  No one was at the barracks when he got there, and he went quickly to the latrine, seating himself on a commode. After a minute he heard the barracks door open, heard footsteps coming his way, several sets of them. Others, he thought, had gotten the same idea he had.

  But the men that peered in at him were strangers.

  "What are you guys doing in this barracks?" he demanded.

  They looked at Mellis, then at each other, and came into the latrine, two, and then four more. When he started to get up, reaching to pull up his pants, they rushed him, grabbed him. He opened his mouth to yell, and a hard blow to the gut drove the wind out of him. One arm was free, and he swung it wildly, cursing. Someone hit him hard on the nose, breaking it, another slugged him in the kidneys. His head snapped back at that, so that a blow at his chin stru
ck his throat instead. Then, pants around his ankles, he was dragged bleeding and choking through the barracks. At the door their leader stopped them, measured his victim and hit him a heavy blow to the point of the chin, slamming Mellis backward off the stoop, unconscious. They left him lying there in the snow.

  * * *

  After the king had left the podium and the cheering had stopped, Lotta promised Jerym to see him again when she had a chance, and began to circulate, talking with other trainees. Jerym headed for a table, where he put hors d'oeu'vres of several kinds on a plate. A moment later he spotted Romlar again and worked his way to him.

  "So you know my sister."

  "Yep."

  "How'd you know she was my sister? By the name?"

  "I didn't know her last name. At first, to me, she was just a girl named Lotta. But the last interview I got, it came to me: 'This is the Lotta that's Alsnor's sister.' So I asked her, and she said she was.

  "But she asked me not to say anything. She said she'd surprise you at Solstice.

  "You know," he added, "the King made us out pretty special, and maybe we are. But without the T'swa training us, we'd be nothing, and what those interviewers are doing is as important to this regiment as the T'swa are. We need the training, but we need the Ostrak Project just as much."

  Jerym nodded, thinking that the changes in Romlar might be bigger than anyone else's in the platoon. And Lotta had been Romlar's interviewer.

  * * *

  Esenrok, with one of the hot, non-alcoholic drinks in his hand, saw Sergeant Dao standing beside the main entrance to the assembly hall, and went over to him. "What do you think of that?" Esenrok said. "The king came to see us." He peered at the big black man curiously. "Does the king know the T'sel, do you suppose?"