The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  "I have heard that he does. And perceiving him as I did, I am sure of it."

  Perceiving him as you did. Esenrok wondered what the T'swa might perceive that he didn't. "How old are you T'swa when you get the Ostrak Procedures?"

  "We do not get the Ostrak Procedures. They are something originated on Iryala, I believe, for persons who did not grow up with the T'sel in a T'sel environment. "He gazed at Esenrok for a moment before continuing. "It was a man named Ostrak who brought knowledge of the T'sel to Iryala, you know."

  Esenrok hadn't known, and it occurred to him to wonder why. He was about to ask Dao—the sergeant knew so much else, he might know the answer to that too—when a hoarse croak interrupted them from behind, from the door they stood beside. He turned and stared; Dao reached and grabbed the form there as it teetered.

  "Mellis!" Esenrok said, staring. "What in Tunis happened to you?" Mellis's cheeks, nose, and ears were waxy gray from frostbite. Blood smeared his lower face and shirt, frozen blood granulated with snow.

  Others nearby, having heard Esenrok's exclamation, were turning to look.

  "They trashed the barracks." Mellis barely mumbled it; his jaw didn't move.

  "Bahn!" Dao bellowed. "Here!"

  The crowd nearby began to form a vortex through which Bahn pushed from not far off. "Take Mellis to the infirmary," Dao called to him, then started off himself with Esenrok at his heels. A few others followed till Dao told them to go back.

  The barracks was a mess. Mattresses and bedding were on the floor, slashed and torn. In the latrine, washrags had been flushed, and the overflowing commodes had flooded the place. Windows had been broken. Glow panels, dislodged from the ceiling, lay trampled and bent. Esenrok felt rage begin to swell, then saw Dao's calm, and felt the rage ebb.

  First Platoon, occurred to Esenrok; it was the 1st on whose barracks he'd led the raid that first night. But he rejected the thought immediately. First platoon had been interviewed too, most or all of it; it wouldn't have been them.

  These thoughts flashed while he followed Dao, striding back through the barracks and onto the stoop, where the big T'swi looked around. The latest snow had been a week earlier, and was trampled beyond tracking. Beside the stoop, it was stained red where Mellis had lain bleeding. Dao stood unmoving for a moment, frowning, lips pursed, then started for the main building at a lope, Esenrok close behind.

  Within five minutes, groups of T'swa were fanning through the compound. Two barracks and several T'swa cabins had been vandalized. Six men were busy vandalizing another barracks. They'd left two sentries outside. These yelled, then fled at the T'swa's approach. Two T'swa peeled off in pursuit, and surprisingly ran them down.

  The culprits were manhandled off to the main building, into the assembly hall, and up front. The regiment had been formed up as units, and stood waiting. The Ostrak teams and army service personnel stood curious in the rear of the room. Voker and Dak-So stood at the front of the podium, with the king and Lormagen to one side, observing, faces unreadable.

  Mounting the podium, Dao reported quietly to Voker and Dak-So. Bahn had already reported on Mellis's condition: A broken nose, bruised larynx, dislocated jaw, concussion, frostbite. And hypothermia; it was surprising and fortunate that he'd regained consciousness.

  Voker questioned the six captives then. They denied knowing anything about Mellis. While they were denying it, some T'swa frog-marched four more captives in. Sergeant Major Kuto informed Voker that all ten were from 3rd Platoon, F Company. And that only four regimental personnel remained unaccounted for, also from 3rd Platoon, F Company. He'd hardly said it when two more culprits were brought in, one unconscious across a T'swa shoulder.

  Voker gazed coldly down at the second group of captives. "Trainee Mellis is in the infirmary," he said, "with multiple injuries, hypothermia, and frost bite. Who did it?"

  One of the second group straightened and looked up at the colonel with glittering eyes. "Sir, we did! We couldn't let him spread an alarm."

  Voker's gaze turned thoughtful. "I see. What is your name?"

  "Trainee Jillard Brossling, sir!"

  "Brossling." Voker seemed to taste the name. "And why did you vandalize barracks, Brossling?"

  "Sir! This was our opportunity. Everyone—almost everyone—was here in the main building."

  "Ah. And why did you wish to vandalize barracks at all?"

  "Sir! It was something warriorlike to do. And we chose platoons the T'swa favored—their pet dog platoons!"

  "Mmm." Voker turned to Sergeant Major Kuto. "Sergeant major," he said mildly, "have the criminals, under T'swa guard, erect a squad tent to live in. Have them do it barefoot, so they won't take too long. The rest of 3rd Platoon, F Company, will erect a barbed wire enclosure on X-posts around the tent. When the tent has been erected, the criminals will be given their boots and sleeping bags and will sleep in the tent on the ground, manacled. The rest of 3rd Platoon, F Company, will stand sentry shifts around the fence. Between sentry shifts, the remaining members of 3rd Platoon will also repair and clean up the vandalized huts and barracks tonight. The building engineers will supervise the work and see that 3rd Platoon has the materials for the job.

  "The platoons which were vandalized will occupy 3rd Platoon's barracks tonight, and the overflow will move into other F Company barracks. While there, they will carefully abstain from doing any damage whatever."

  He turned his gaze back to the culprits. "We'll decide in the morning what to do with you. But know now that you will be required to make up the damage, make heavy amends, and petition the rest of the regiment to be accepted back into it when the amends have been satisfactorily completed. You are responsible for what you did, and it is a responsibility you cannot avoid. If we send you to Ballibud, it will not be before you have met that responsibility."

  23

  All his adult life, Wellem Bosler had made a point of getting enough exercise to keep his body functioning well. Here, for several weeks, he'd let it slip. Now he'd begun jogging and walking about the compound in the dark of pre-dawn morning. Sometimes it was snowing; more often the sky was clear, starlit, and cold.

  The detention section—sixteen youths from 3rd Platoon, F Company—had been digging on the intended swimming pool at night, breaking the hard-frozen earth with sledge hammers and long-handled chisels, throwing the larger chunks out by hand, the smaller with shovels. But they'd be sleeping exhausted in their squad tent, their jail—tronk was their slang for it—well before he came out.

  Not much, good or bad, surprised him about human beings, but the tenacity and morale of the detention section had. They trained hard all day, then dug till past midnight, yet the few times he'd made a point of strolling out to watch them dig, before he retired in the evening, they seemed to be in good spirits, vying to see what pair could move the most dirt.

  Third Platoon, F Company, had been the most aberrated in the regiment, the result of two dominant individuals who were reasoning psychotics. Second and 3rd Squads were the most aberrated in the platoon. Third would be the last platoon to undergo the Ostrak Procedures, and the fourteen men in the detention section, all from 2nd and 3rd Squads, would be the last individuals.

  Yet Voker had left Brossling with them—Brossling, their ringleader and chief troublemaker. The wise, tough old ex-soldier and the tough but crazy intentive warrior, had come to an understanding: Brossling would ramrod the amends project and maintain discipline, and Voker would grant them the privilege of not having a pair of T'swa corporals bossing the job, would let them do it on their own.

  Usually, when T'swa whistles rousted the trainees out of bed, Bosler jogged back to the Main Building for a hot shower and breakfast. This morning though, he stopped to watch, from a little distance, one of the platoons go through reveille, heard its squad sergeants reporting in their mellow T'swa voices. And recognized one of the trainees, even at forty yards in the predawn: Artus Romlar. Bosler himself had done the last two interviews on Romlar; the procedures needed were bey
ond Lotta's training and experience.

  That had been a week earlier. Romlar needed a few weeks to settle out before they did anything further with him. Then perhaps . . . Bosler turned and jogged toward the Main Building. Romlar had received three times the attention of any other trainee, but he had a potential unique in the regiment. He'd been born to a particular role, one they understood only vaguely. Which didn't necessarily mean he'd get to play it, or that he'd succeed if he did.

  * * *

  The trainees had eaten dinner—the midday meal—and had a half hour to loaf around before forming up for training. Jerym lay on his bunk, booted feet on the floor, looking at his hands. Before signing up, he'd never even seen hands like them, their palms and fingers callused like boot leather, with hard ridges and pads on the pressure points.

  "I never thought I'd be doing what I did this morning," he said, to no one in particular.

  "You mean giant swings?" Esenrok asked. "I knew you were ready. What impressed me was Romlar doing 'em. Remember when he was 'fat boy'? Less than four deks ago, for Tunis' sake!"

  Romlar had entered the barracks just in time to hear Esenrok's comment, and paused to raise the foot of Esenrok's bunk with one big paw, lifting it chest high, Esenrok on it, before setting it gently back down.

  Jerym had watched the little interplay. He really didn't feel that much changed himself, but Esenrok and Romlar now . . . Romlar especially; he still didn't say a lot, but somehow or other he was definitely no longer stupid.

  He explored his calluses with a finger, remembering the hard T'swa palm that had hauled him onto the straggler truck, that first, late summer night when he'd fallen out on the run. Give him another dek or so and he'd be able to juggle hot coals.

  Giant swings for Tunis' sake!

  * * *

  At 2000 hours, Artus Romlar stopped at the Charge of Quarters desk in the Main Building. CQ was an Iryalan soldier on detached service, good at obeying orders and not bad at thinking for himself.

  "What's your purpose here?" the man asked. Seated as he was, Romlar loomed above him, not threatening but impressive, almost T'swa-like in his size, his physical hardness, his sense of calm strength.

  "I've come to see the civilian interviewer, Lotta Alsnor."

  The CQ touched keys at his console, his eyes on the display. "Do you have an appointment?"

  "No. She'll see me."

  The soldier, a buck sergeant, looked Romlar over. "What's your name?" he asked, and Romlar told him. For brief seconds the sergeant hesitated. He knew how little free time these project people had, and this request was irregular. But then somehow he shrugged, and keyed the console again. The button in his right ear told him her room comm was buzzing. After three or four seconds he spoke to his collar mike. "Lotta Alsnor? This is Charge of Quarters. There's a trainee Romlar here to speak with you. Do you want to see him?"

  After a few seconds he touched a couple of keys, looking up at Romlar again. "She'll be down," he said, and gestured with his head. "Have a seat over there."

  Romlar did. A few minutes later Lotta came down the stairs, wearing coat, mittens, and fur cap. Romlar got up and met her at the door.

  "This is a surprise," she said as they stepped out into the cold.

  "I didn't know whether it would be or not. The way you looked into my mind in interviews."

  She grinned. "Those were special situations. A special environment, and the stuff I was helping you pull out to look at was pretty powerful, easy to see."

  They began to walk, nowhere in particular, beneath bare shade trees, stars glinting through the branches. "What brought you over?" she asked.

  "I wanted to say goodbye. Now, when we had an evening without training."

  "Goodbye?"

  "Yes. You're leaving, you know. Within the next day or two. Maybe three or four."

  She didn't ask how he knew. "For where?"

  He shrugged big shoulders. "That's not part of it—part of what I know. Where you came here from, I suppose. Lake Loreen, you said at Solstice."

  A move was news to her—they were extremely busy here—but she didn't challenge him. If he was wrong, it didn't matter. If he was right . . . He might be; she wouldn't be astonished at it. "It was nice of you to want to tell me goodbye," she said.

  He grinned, shrugged. "I'm not sure why I did, really." His tone changed then, became softer. "That's not true. It's because I've got a crush on you. I suppose everyone does that you interview. And I wanted you to know how I feel.

  "When you've gone, you're not likely to be coming back, and next fall we're supposed to go to Terfreya for a year, and then to Tyss for another one." He chuckled. "That'll be something, training on Tyss. No frostbite there! Tomorrow we'll be out in twenty inches of snow and probably below zero, with explosives and fire jets, learning how to clear fortifications.

  "From Tyss I'll go somewhere to fight, to some trade world or gook world." Again he chuckled. "And never see you again. It's the sort of thing that, on the cube, they'd make out to be sad, and me heartbroken. But somehow or other . . ."

  He shrugged, grinned, and with a hand on her arm, turned her, facing him. "Anyway I need to let you go now. I imagine you need rest as much as we do." Her face was clear, her features fine-boned, her eyes shadowed but somehow penetrating in the night, looking into him. "And thank you," he said, "for what you did. I feel as if I'm on the track now. Whatever that is, and wherever I'm going on it."

  "It seems that way to me too, Artus. That you're on the track."

  He walked her back to the Main Building—they hadn't gone a hundred yards—and said goodbye to her inside the door. From there he walked to the barracks and got ready for bed. It wasn't lights out yet, but near enough, and someone had turned the light intensity way down.

  Before he closed his eyes, it occurred to him that he really didn't know why he'd gone to see Lotta. He did have a crush on her, true enough, but that was only part of it.

  Then it struck him: I was demonstrating, he thought, showing off my precognition.

  He wondered, as he drifted toward sleep, if this precognition would prove an isolated occurrence. It seemed to him that for a warrior to get precognitions useful in battle would take the joy out of combat.

  It also seemed to him that the universe wouldn't be wired that way.

  24

  "Come in," said Wellem Bosler, and Lotta Alsnor entered.

  "Unless there's something you don't like in the session record," she said, "I've just completed Forey Benster. I'm ready to start three new cases tomorrow."

  Which makes this the ideal time for it to happen, she added silently, if Artus was right. It's unusual to turn over a full slate of operants on the same day.

  Bosler nodded and gestured her to a seat. "Tomorrow I've got a different kind of assignment for you."

  He looked at her curiously then, as if he'd picked up on her inner reaction. Which, she thought, he no doubt had. "You've always been good at melding with nonhuman life," he said, "mammals, birds, insects, plants. You've done more of it than anyone else I've known, of any age."

  He leaned his elbows on his desk, fingers interlaced beneath his chin. "I suppose you know what Kusu's been working on, and what he's run into."

  "You're referring to the teleport, and what's happened to the mammals he's tried to put through it."

  "Right. Theoretically there shouldn't have been any problem, but the theory was pretty sketchy, pretty incomplete. So when the mammals came out insane, at first he tried to tinker his way through it. When that got him nowhere, he went back to the theory, to expand and strengthen it. Which he did, appreciably. But when all's said and done, it made no difference in the apparatus or the results, and it didn't give him any leads."

  Bosler straightened. "Today he called me. He's decided he needs a study on what, subjectively, happens with a mammal's mind when it teleports. And asked me who I'd recommend to work with him. I told him you. He wasn't surprised."

  Lotta's look was steady and direct.
"I can already see some procedural problems."

  He nodded. She didn't elaborate.

  "You wouldn't be offering me this assignment," she said, "if you didn't think it was important enough to cut your staff here by one. But what makes it urgent? Is there something I'm overlooking? He could wait till we're done here."

  "True, he could. And I can't specify why it seems urgent. The initial sense of urgency was his, and he can't rationalize it either. But the feeling I get is that he's right; it is urgent." He paused. "Although not so urgent that it calls for reckless action."

  She made a face at Bosler, then nodded once in decision. "I'll do it. It does sound really interesting. Is there anything more you and I need to say about it before I leave?"

  Bosler shook his head. "Anything out of the ordinary in the session?"

  Lotta laughed. "Most people would say so. Actually it was pretty routine."

  "Good. I'll call Lemal and have one of the OSP floaters ready for you tomorrow after breakfast. Say 0800. You'll be at Lake Loreen for lunch."

  "Right." She got up. "I'll see if Jerym is still up. We've only visited once since I've been here." She stopped with a hand on the door. "Oh! There's something you should know." Then she ran down for him her brief conversation with Romlar the evening before. "And that was before Kusu called you," she added.

  "Hmh! Interesting." Bosler grinned. "I'm not too surprised, considering. But it's good to know."

  When she'd gone, he shook his head. The T'sel certainly saved a lot of teenaged anxieties. That fifteen-year-old girl—woman—was more mature and stable and intelligent than ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the middle-aged population on Iryala, and bringing the population at large to anything approaching Lotta Alsnor's level wasn't going to happen overnight. Or in a generation, or even several.

  25

  Wearing white winter field uniforms, A Company worked quickly in the bitter, midwinter dawn. They'd eaten breakfast—cold field rations—in their sleeping bags. Afterward each man stuffed his bag in the small sack provided for it, and each pair struck their tough if fragile-looking two-man winter tent, separating its velcroed halves and stowing them in their packsacks. They did more with their mittens on than looked possible, taking them off almost not at all. Their winter equipment, of recent issue, was designed with mittens in mind.