The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  When their packs were ready and their snowshoes clamped on, they donned their new helmets. The optical visors, face shields were pivoted into the up position, headphones snug over ears, microphone tucked out of the way. Every man could hear his platoon leader and sergeant, and talk to them if necessary. Sounds from the environment—squad mates, wind, the hiss and occasional clack of snowshoes—were also mediated electronically, could be amplified by a simple finger adjustment or reduced in the din of combat. But they took some getting used to, and some of the trainees still felt cut off by them. The visors none of them much liked yet. They weren't supposed to ice up or fog, but on days like this they did when they were down, even if lowered only to the end of the nose.

  They'd just spent their second night in the field; this would be their third day on this exercise, in thirty-two inches of snow. The first two days had been on the march, on snowshoes, at first making as much speed as conditions allowed. It was undesirable to sweat heavily; there was a limit to what the gills in their winter uniforms could vent.

  On most of the second day they'd kept to the most difficult and unlikely terrain: a series of steep, timbered recessional moraines; burned-off swamp forest, thickly brushy; fens where the snow, supported by sedge and heath, had not settled but lay more than forty inches deep, so that even wearing snowshoes, the scouts and lead men sank to their knees.

  (Covert troop movement was often feasible for mercenaries. A substantial part of the mercenary market was on resource worlds, the so-called "gook worlds," where off-surface equipment, including reconnaissance aircraft, were generally prohibited for military use by the Confederation. This was true even when the combatants were, or more often had the support of, rival Confederation commercial interests. It was one of the strictures installed more than seven centuries earlier by Pertunis, in the Charter of Confederation, to reduce the ravages of war. While on the trade worlds, the national governments had planetary compacts, though they were not always strictly adhered to, which prohibited the use of aircraft in one or more military roles.)

  The T'swa had begun assigning trainees as acting officers and noncoms, with the cadre observing and coaching. Mostly Carrmak had served as A Company commander, although others had worn the hat. On this exercise it was Romlar, who no longer feared to lead, and who, as acting squad leader and platoon leader, had discovered both taste and talent for leadership.

  The exercise was to attack an enemy encampment, hopefully by surprise. Of course, there was no assurance that the camp would still be where the map showed it, nor that the enemy wouldn't have learned of their coming and have an ambush set. Enemy patrols could be expected. Certainly pickets would be posted, and presumably fields of fire would have been cleared.

  The map was in part a fiction: It showed things that weren't there in reality, but for the sake of the exercise must be treated as if they were. The first two days the company had followed a marked route with no other rationale than to give them a variety of difficult terrains. However, for this third day the map showed no marked route; the commander was to find his own. Using his map, and information from his scouts, Romlar moved his company out. The men were free to talk as they went, but softly, and there wasn't much talking. They'd done plenty of drills on scouting, picket duty, and reconnaissance, training each man to stay highly aware of his surroundings, so their attention was mostly outward.

  Romlar's orders were to be in position to attack by midday. Supposedly another company was to approach by a different route and attack at the same time: 1200 hours. Romlar suspected it was an imaginary company, pretended for the purpose of the exercise. If it wasn't there, A Company was to attack by itself. After the enemy was destroyed, Romlar was to march his company to a rendezvous by 1530 hours.

  For the most part he followed the crest of a broad ridge that ran for miles, generally about fifty or sixty feet above the country flanking it. Which on the map was marked liberally with wetland symbols, much of it with the subsymbol for brush, and also with occasional small round ponds that suggested fen pools, roofed thickly with ice in this season.

  It seemed apparent to Romlar that the planners intended him to stay on the ridge crest. The required time of arrival seemed to demand it. The side slopes would be much more difficult, and slower, to snowshoe on, and on them he'd have been more vulnerable to attack, though less to detection. While if he traveled through the adjacent brushy flats, with their real and imaginary fens, he'd arrive too late to make the attack.

  It was a design for ambush, and on a hunch, he marched the company faster than he might have, sweat or not.

  After more than two hours, the point radioed back that they'd come to a stringlike fen not shown on their map. All the map showed was the creek that flowed through it. Romlar ordered the company to stay put, and with Jerym, his trainee first sergeant, moved up to see for himself. Lieutenant Toma followed, observing, saying nothing.

  The scouts lay back a bit from the fen, close enough to observe it but keeping back among the trees and behind the sapling fringe. They were nearly invisible in the snow, white hoods hiding their helmets; even their rifles were white. Romlar took off his snowshoes, then crawling, slipped slowly forward between his scouts and down to the edge of the fen, where he could see better. Jerym followed, and Lieutenant Toma.

  Jerym judged the fen to be 250 to 300 yards across, with no visual cover except for isolated patches of tattered cane grass, head tall, dead leaves fluttering and rustling in a light breeze. The nearest way around was a mile to their right, where the fen ended in evergreen forest. He watched Romlar scan the woods on the opposite side with white binoculars.

  Toma spoke while Romlar scanned. "What will you do?"

  Romlar didn't answer till he'd put his binoculars away. "Go around," he said.

  "How near are you to the enemy encampment?"

  "According to the map, two and a half miles plus a little bit, if we cross here."

  "Going around will add considerable distance and take additional time. Consider whether you'll be in position to attack by midday."

  Romlar didn't even glance at Toma. He's not interested in advice, Jerym told himself.

  "I allowed for the time," Romlar said. "There's no cover in the fen, and if we were attacked there, we couldn't move fast in the loose snow. We'll go around."

  The T'swi said no more, and the three of them backed away into the woods, to their snowshoes. Back with the company, Romlar changed its course. In something less than half an hour they'd flanked the fen and were at the creek. There was sag ice on it, something they'd run into before and learned about the hard way. It had frozen over in autumn, then the ice had gotten snow-covered. Afterward the creek had fallen, leaving an air space beneath the ice, which had sagged. Insulated by the thick snow atop the ice, the new water surface had probably not frozen thickly enough to carry a man. It looked like a good place to fall through and soak your feet, maybe even lose a snowshoe—serious incidents on a day of minus fifteen or twenty Fahrenheit and with snow up to your ass.

  Romlar had scouts cross, moving carefully. When they'd checked the forest on the other side, he had the company advance, spread out, a few at a time, not crossing in bunches. It slowed them, but not critically.

  After they'd crossed, Romlar had them form a column of twos again, Toma not questioning, letting him function, and they moved out once more, angling now to regain their old line of travel.

  Romlar spoke quietly into his throat mike. "Rear guard, be alert and keep well back. Flankers on the left, stay wide. I suspect there was an ambush laid at the fen, across our old line of march."

  "Yes sir."

  He moved them fast. Thirty minutes later they hit snowshoe tracks headed from the encampment toward the fen, and Romlar adjusted their direction of march, following the trail toward the encampment. After a bit they heard rifle fire not far ahead. His scouts reported contact with pickets. Romlar ordered 1st and 2nd Platoons into a skirmish line and sent them forward, leaving immediate tactics to
their platoon leaders. Shortly the volume of fire increased, now including blast hoses. The T'swi with the enemy pickets reported that the pickets all were casualties. The T'swi with Romlar's scouts reported light casualties. First Platoon reported sighting the encampment in a meadow. A minute later, 4th Platoon's lobbers could be heard thumping. The rocket launchers weren't loud enough to hear.

  Romlar had ordered 3rd Platoon to backtrack down their trail aways, to form a crescent facing their would-be ambushers from the fen, who'd probably be coming at a run. Ahead, an imaginary force at the encampment was counterattacking 1st and 2nd Platoons, and the T'swa informed him that the company which should have been helping in the attack on the encampment seemed not to have arrived. Romlar wasn't surprised. He had 4th Platoon concentrate their fire, lobbers and rockets both, on "the counterattack" instead of on the encampment. Minutes later the T'swa reported the counterattack broken, with heavy enemy casualties. Fourth Platoon then began bombarding the encampment again.

  Romlar then called 2nd Platoon back and ordered them to join 3rd Platoon, to move toward the fen in a broad crescent, horns forward. The T'swa with 2nd Platoon had tagged twelve of its people dead or disabled, including Carrmak as platoon leader. Esenrok, as platoon sergeant, was unwounded and took command. Overall command of the two platoons fell to 3rd Platoon's leader, a trainee named Kurlmar.

  * * *

  About nine hundred yards back, Kurlmar stopped his advance at the top of a mild slope, the steepest locally available. The assumption was that the enemy, pressed for time, would follow his old, straight-line snowshoe trails, rather than detour and break new ones. Nonetheless, Kurlmar separated two squads from each end of his line, half his force, and sent them well to the sides, with orders to send scouts out farther, just in case.

  Six minutes later he saw enemy movement in the forest to his front, and gave the order to fire. The enemy began to advance, moving from tree to tree as much as possible. Blank ammunition from rifles and blast hoses ripped the forest with their racket.

  It was quickly apparent that the force they faced was a full company. Kurlmar's outlying squads too began firing; enemy troops were moving to flank him. He was tempted to withdraw, but instead called for reinforcements.

  By the time Romlar arrived with 1st Platoon, most of the 2nd and 3rd had been tagged by their T'swa as casualties, but the enemy had suffered substantial casualties too. (Fourth Platoon had been left to watch for an attack by whatever [imaginary] enemy might have survived at the encampment.) A few minutes later the T'swa called the fighting off, and everyone, dead, disabled, and operational, mushed to the enemy encampment. There the cadre took command and led them all on a forced snowshoe march back toward the compound, fifteen miles away on snowburied roads.

  26

  It was midafternoon at Lake Loreen, but dark enough that Kusu Lormagen had the lights on in the lab. Thunder muttered, and sleet rattled on the windows. He sat at his desk reading a thin sheaf of papers, while Lotta Alsnor watched from a tall lab stool. When he'd finished, he looked up at her.

  "You're convinced then," he said.

  "Right. A ported mammal goes berserk because teleportation reactivates every terror, every pain, every rage it ever felt. Or inherited, so to speak. Its whole case turns on, all at once, full force and out of context."

  Kusu grunted. "Even those that were sedated and unconscious . . ."

  "Right. Beneath that unconsciousness, an absolute mental frenzy broke out.

  "Since then you've exposed mammals to each of the constituent fields, separately and in partial combinations, without severe effects. Mostly they didn't even notice. The most logical conclusion is that it's the actual transfer that activates their cases."

  She paused for emphasis. "The point is, that if you teleported a mammal without a significant case, it would come through sane and safe."

  He smiled at her. "Can you provide me with a mammal like that?"

  She nodded. "As near as need be, yes. Me."

  Kusu laughed. "Serves me right for asking." Then, more seriously: "You haven't proved your thesis though. The evidence is highly suggestive, but by no means conclusive." She said nothing. "I know," he went on. "You're volunteering to be the proof.

  "But consider: It's not vital that we teleport humans. Or any mammals. Teleporting manufactured goods, foodstuffs, mail, almost anything else you want to name, will make this far and away the biggest technical advance since the invention of hyperdrive."

  Lotta shook her head. "Human teleportation is where the biggest potential lies," she said. "And you've got a made-to-order experimental subject: me. Use it."

  " 'No significant case,' " he said. "How do you know what the level of significance is?"

  She shrugged. "The evaluation is subjective, obviously. But it's the only informed evaluation you're likely to get."

  "Why shouldn't we test it with someone else who knows the T'sel? Me for example."

  "Why don't you answer that?"

  "Sure. Because you feel significant uncertainty about your evaluation. You don't want someone else to risk their life on it, or at least their sanity."

  Lotta nodded. "Certainly not your life. It might take quite awhile before someone else could digest your logbooks and interim write-ups and figure out what to do next."

  Kusu laughed again. "What makes you think I know what to do next?"

  "You know several things you could do next. You're just not sure which to choose."

  "True. Well. To paraphrase a famous Pertunian principle: When you don't know what to do, grab an option, at random if you have to, and do it. So. Supposing we subject you to some constituent fields, one at a time, and you can evaluate subjectively what each of them feels like. To a human, not a sorlex or soney. A human that knows the T'sel. And after light tranquilization, just to hedge our bet."

  She shook her head. "We know tranks don't help. The rest of it I'll go with."

  Kusu smiled. "It's a deal. It'll take some time to build a port big enough for a human. We have the design and some of the components, but others are still being built. You draw up a set of safety precautions for my approval, and meanwhile I'll expedite the hardware."

  She nodded. "I'll have a draft of the safety proposals for you in the morning."

  "Good. Oh! And one thing more: Be sure they include having Wellem standing by. If you come through like the sorlex did, maybe he can bail you out."

  27

  Kusu watched while Wellem Bosler and the Institute's physician fastened Lotta to the table with a rubber body sheet. When she agreed to draw up a set of safety proposals, Kusu thought, she went all the way.

  The jury-rigged teleport was not a single unit. Made of metal tubing, the gate itself resembled a door frame without a wall, with a ramp to accommodate the gurney. Modules sat on a lab bench and on a small wheeled work table, with cables to the gate. But it had passed a series of tests without problems of any kind—a series that ended with the successful teleportation of horn worms and sand lizards.

  Lotta lay patiently while the fastenings were secured. She hadn't expected to be uneasy, but she was. And so, she sensed, was the student technician who stood at her head, waiting to push the gurney.

  When they'd finished with the fastenings, it was Bosler who spoke. "Are you ready?" he asked her.

  "Ready," she said. Her speech was thick; she wore a rubber mouthpiece to protect her tongue and cheeks from her teeth, a mouthpiece too big to spit out.

  With the physician, Bosler walked a dozen feet past the gate, to stand beside the target site. He could feel Lotta's unease, and the physician's, and the student's. And Kusu's most of all. Each had its own flavor, distinguishing it from the others, including his own. None was severe, but the tension was there, and as sensitized as he was just now, it was palpable to Bosler.

  He looked at Kusu and nodded.

  Kusu threw a switch. A red light came on beside the gate. Bosler turned his gaze to Lotta. Hers too was on the light. Her face was calm but the tensio
n remained. The red light switched off, and the green one beside it flashed on. He saw her eyes close as the technician rolled the gurney up the ramp, onto the platform—

  And into the gate.

  It was the length of the gurney that made it conspicuous: The foot end began to appear in front of Bosler while the rest was still on the runway. The effect was startling and disorienting: Lotta's feet and legs were a dozen feet from her torso. Then all of her was there. Her eyes still were closed, her face relaxed as before.

  His nerves settled. "You made it," he said quietly.

  "I know," she answered, and her eyes opened, her face turning to him. "Now if you'll let me loose . . ."

  28

  Equinox was well past, and the snow, still twenty inches deep, had been settling wetly beneath the springtime sun. That noon, A Company had reached a "village"—a set of buildings crudely framed—only to find signs informing them that it had been "burnt" by "the enemy" when he'd left. Then, by snowshoeing hard all afternoon, they'd reached a meadow with supposedly an "enemy camp," arriving between sundown and dark. The "enemy" wasn't there, and when "he'd left," of course, he'd "destroyed his camp and taken his supplies with him."

  It had been a tough bivouac. They'd been out for five days and four nights, breaking camp each morning and carrying it with them. Once a radioed message from regiment had routed them out at midnight, and they'd moved in darkness. On top of that they hadn't gotten their scheduled resupply, and had been on half rations. They'd been drizzled on and snowed on, and definitely preferred the snow. One morning they'd been ambushed, and one night their camp had been assaulted. In turn they'd ambushed or assaulted other companies twice, once in the night.