The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  And how, with the help of the far-listening serpents who call themselves Vrronnkiess, the sullsi, people of the waves, had gone to war to save Juliassa's people from the big-ship humans who'd come to enslave them. (Two verses were given to explain enslavement, and another for war.)

  The bard was describing the gathering of the packs, when Tso-Ban felt himself drawing out of the sellsu he'd melded with, a sellsu who'd been aware of him as a psychic presence, a visitor silent and benign, and by now was used to him. For just a moment, Tso-Ban was aware of his tiny tower room. Then, unexpectedly, he was with—

  Tarimenloku! Nearby! Quickly but gently he melded, and found himself looking at a screen, the bridge's version of a window, looking at a world, his own world, Tyss, a tan ball with a visible area of blue flecked with white. The Klestronu flotilla was parked 50,000 miles out, beyond the radiation belt.

  Tso-Ban stayed unnoticed with Tarimenloku for hours—till after sunup. Because Tyss was technologically so backward, at 50,000 miles the ship's instruments failed to perceive that it held people. Instead, from those instruments he reluctantly decided that this planet was not habitable. Most of its surface he judged too hot for human life, while in the polar regions it was utter desert. Closer examination would not be worthwhile.

  Although it was the most nearly habitable world that Tarimenloku had found in the systems he'd examined. In a sour mood he moved his two ships away from Tyss, accelerating in a warp field toward a point far enough from any gravitic nodus that he could generate hyperspace safely. Meanwhile his astrogator was taking data on the nearest other stars, deciding which to visit next.

  Gently Master Tso-Ban disengaged, woke his body from its trance, then stood and stretched, and stepped outside. Desert rocks steamed beneath the newly risen sun. He would go and notify Master Deng before his exercises. This unexpected visit by the Klestroni was something the Confederatswa would want to know about.

  33

  It was a lovely late-spring day—one might say presolstice summer—when Lord Kristal called Wellem Bosler. Bosler didn't answer. Reception referred the call to Laira Gouer Lormagen, who wore the coordinator's hat at Lake Loreen. She paged Bosler while Kristal waited, and when there still was no response, told His Lordship that Bosler must be at the ghao, a small, rather Pagoda-like building on the islet in Gouer Cove. The ghao had no commset. She'd go herself and see if he was available.

  There was a wooden causeway to the islet, giving quick access. She found the red light glowing on the door of Bosler's inner sanctum, warning her away.

  Kristal knew that much of what went on at the ghao was not to be interrupted short of serious emergency. And while his business, which was the Crown's business, was extremely important, it was not immediately urgent. He told Laira this, and asked her to have Bosler call him back at his earliest opportunity. And that Kusu was to sit in on the call if at all possible.

  Within The Movement there was a large amount of mutual respect. That, not rank, was the basis of their operation, for all of them knew the T'sel. Although there was rank, and one gave orders as needful. But usually it was only necessary to make known what was wanted, what needed to be done.

  It was the better part of an hour before Kristal's commset chirped. When he switched it on, his screen was split, showing both Bosler's face and Kusu's.

  "Ah, good!" Kristal said. "Wellem, this is mainly for you, but Kusu needs to be in on it too." Then he read them a message to His Majesty, a message that had just come by pod from Tyss, from the Grand Master of Ka-Shok. One of their seers had discovered the Klestronu flotilla in the Confederation Sector, parked off Tyss. It was looking for habitable worlds, and decided that "Oven" didn't meet their criteria of habitability.

  "That was twenty-eight days ago. It could already have landed on some other world, and it might not be known on Iryala for weeks."

  "But the Ka-Shok are monitoring it again?"

  "Right. But there's still that twenty-eight-day communication lag. That's one reason I'm calling you. Can you meld with their monitor? You or anyone else you know of on Iryala?"

  Bosler frowned. "I've never melded with anyone as far away as the next room. Very few can meld without eye contact, and of the few who can, it's generally with someone they know and have strong affinity with." He paused thoughtfully. "When we're done with this conference, I'll see what I can come up with. I have an advanced student who might, just conceivably, work out. Meanwhile I recommend you check with the other institutes."

  Kusu spoke then. "Why didn't the Ka-Shok have one of their seers connect with you, Emry? Or with Bosler? That'd take care of the lag."

  "They recognize the situation. But they're communicating by message pod, so there may be technical reasons. On the other hand they may simply have chosen not to. I don't try to understand the Ka-Shok; I believe the word is 'inscrutable.' Wellem?"

  Bosler shook his head. "They have reasons, I'm sure. Which can be as trivial as curiosity about how we'll handle the situation, or as profound as"—He gestured. "As curiosity about how we'll handle the situation."

  Kusu grunted. "Did the Ka-Shok alert the warrior lodges?"

  "It wasn't mentioned," Kristal answered. "They may have, of course, but they may not have. The war lodges are rather like the Ka-Shok in that respect: They look at things in their own way, with their own sense of importances.

  "But even if they had alerted the lodges, it could easily take a dek or more to get a troopship from Tyss to wherever it was needed. Assuming they had a regiment available at the time. Or a fledgling regiment they were willing to send short of graduation, which seems very unlikely. But then, this is not the sort of thing that's come up before.

  "And Kusu, that brings up what I need to talk with you about. How ready is the teleport for the interstellar transfer of humans?"

  "Umh!" Kusu's response was a grunt, almost as if he'd been elbowed in the stomach. "You're talking about people who've been through Ostrak Procedures of course. We're not nearly ready. Haven't been looking at the problem as urgent. The people working on it didn't even come down last weekend. Family activities."

  "When can it be ready?" Kristal asked.

  "I don't even have a respectable guess for you; I haven't been following their progress very closely lately. I'll get in touch with them today, get a status report for you, and tell them we have an urgent need. That's the best I can do. That and start an independent analysis of the problem myself, when I have their report."

  "Hmm." Frowning, Kristal pursed his lips. "If you had to guess, are we looking at a dek, two deks? A year?"

  "Possibly as soon as a couple of deks. If all we have to do is get people onto a planet's surface. Getting them on the right continent is something else."

  "Is there any reason I can't have the teleport from Ernoman?" Kristal asked. "For Blue Forest? How long would it take to build another?"

  "You're welcome to the one at Ernoman. And I can have another one ready within about a week. Meanwhile if you can get some qualified people sent here from L.U., we can start building a large one for teleporting smaller teleports to places. Along with small floaters—things like that."

  "Good. You asked for qualified people. Give me some names and I'll see what I can do."

  Kristal's fingers quick-stepped on his keyboard while Kusu named. There weren't many. We've got too few scientists in The Movement, Kristal told himself. And in the culture at large. And too few highly qualified technicians.

  The long-term job was to transform the Confederation from a calm but stagnant, firmly aberrated order to a sane one, from quasi-religiously imposed conformity under the Sacrament to consensus under the T'sel. The recognized priority need, toward that goal, had been for human services—the delivery of Ostrak Procedures on twenty-five Confederation worlds and two key trade worlds. All of it very quietly, covertly.

  The job had been more dangerous when virtually the entire population was under the Sacrament, although caution was still important. But so was acceleration now,
because with the Sacrament defused, the problems of slow but accelerating centrifugal forces in society would surely assert themselves. And strain the fabric of a confederation that had long depended on the Sacrament, the canons of Standard Practices, common origin, and basic cultural similarities to compensate for vast distances, slow communication, and little personal contact. The first signs of strain were evident already, small but unmistakable. So The Movement, under Crown leadership, was trying to shorten the job from centuries to hopefully not more than three generations, with the hump to be crossed within fifty years.

  Now the Klestronu expedition was complicating and crowding the timetable.

  Bosler spoke when Kristal had finished writing the names he'd been given. "If you're considering teleporting the regiment from Blue Forest," he said, "we need to run them through more Ostrak Procedures. Some might arrive safely, but I've examined Lotta's analysis of the experimental animals, and I can almost guarantee a dangerous fiasco if we send our young warriors as they are."

  Kristal bobbed a nod. "Right. Which leads to my next question: Can you get them all processed in, say, a dek?"

  "It's barely conceivable. Two or three deks seems more likely. It depends on how much need we'll have for advanced procedures. There aren't many operators qualified to use them; not on Iryala. They're scattered all over the sector."

  His Lordship's gaze was steady. "Do what's necessary. I'll back you. But don't disrupt other work more than you need to. Kusu, I'll get you the people you need to make the larger teleport.

  "Meanwhile I'll have the teleport at Ernoman flown to Blue Forest. Wellem, I suppose you'll have to establish the hard way what case levels can be teleported safely. If you want to, use trainees for your tests."

  His Lordship straightened. "We'll talk again at 2000 hours, or sooner if necessary. Any questions you need to ask right now?"

  There weren't.

  "Good. At 2000 then."

  Kristal cut the connection. Each of the others began at once to jot down a working plan.

  34

  When she stepped into the Main Building, Lotta smelled fresh lumber again. Of course. The Blue Forest Reservation was on loan from the Army, which had used it at intervals over the centuries. The Main Building had been built not only as reservation headquarters, but as an officers' dormitory, and the new interview rooms, like the old, would have been made by subdividing offices and sleeping rooms.

  Her team got brief instructions in the lobby, then went to find their sleeping rooms.

  The one she'd been assigned was a virtual duplicate of the one she'd been in before, but instead of two beds, it now had two double bunks and two large dressers, and the couch was gone. A narrow metal cabinet had been added in the bathroom. She unpacked and put her things away, then the four of them found their supervisor's office, knocked, and were let in. Eight empty folding chairs were crowded in front of a desk.

  Two people were there ahead of them, both middle-aged: a woman behind the desk, and a man standing. Lotta had never seen either of them before. "You're from Lake Loreen?" the woman asked.

  As senior in operating qualifications, Lotta answered for her team. "Yes ma'am."

  "Good. We'll start when the others arrive." Gray eyes examined them briefly. "You're Lotta Alsnor?"

  "Yes ma'am."

  "Were all of you in the previous project here?"

  "We four were. Two of the other Lake Loreen team weren't; they're brand new Intern-Twos."

  There was a knock. The other four entered and took seats.

  "All right," the woman said. "We'll get started. I'm Meteen Voranis Kron, your supervisor." She gestured at the man. "This is Jomar Kron, my husband and your bail-out operator." She grinned. "The ideal is not to need him. We were here in Iryala, vacationing from Rombil, and Wellem tabbed us for this emergency project; we're old students of his. Which of you are the new I-Twos?"

  A boy and girl of fourteen or fifteen raised hands.

  "Congratulations." Her eyes took in the rest of them then. "I suppose you all got a technical briefing before you left Lake Loreen."

  "Yes," Lotta said, "from Wellem over the comm. But it was short and pretty general."

  "I'll give you another. You can ask questions afterward.

  "There'll be eight teams of us—fifty-three operators plus eight bail-outs. Wellem is in overall charge, of course. Jomar and I are Masters. We've spent the last five days here with Wellem, setting things up.

  "We selected a sample of twenty trainees, stratified by case level, to send through the teleport. Ran them through 'a space-time loop,' as Kusu calls it, bringing them back to the same place and same time they'd left. The level 5s weren't phased by it. Which was expected, but we had to know for sure. They knew something had happened, but that was all. The 4s were disoriented and more or less spooked, but they weren't a serious problem. We snapped them out of it with two or three minutes of 'Look at That.'

  "The 3s came out either scared stiff or semi-comatose, but at least we could get through to them. Took a little while though to get them back to normal. Had to give them each a session."

  Meteen smiled slightly. "We almost didn't send a 2 through; we could assume he'd be worse. But would he be manageable? It was worse than we'd thought. He came out totally berserk—it was a good thing we had a couple of T'swa on hand to control him—and for a little bit we thought we might even lose him, it was that bad.

  "And of course, we don't have any 1s or zeros here. The earlier project took them all at least to 2s."

  Again she smiled. "We sent a T'swi through too, just for the record. All he had to say was, 'Interesting.'

  "So—" She paused and looked them over again. "We have a lot for you to do. The 5s don't require any processing, but there are only three of them in the regiment. We need the whole 2,000 at 5. That's our job, ours and the other five teams. Sixty-eight percent are 2s, which any operator in the project can upgrade to 3s. Another twenty-seven percent are 3s, which most of you can handle. Roughly five percent, a total of ninety-one, are 4s. They'll require Experts, which we're short of." She scanned them. "Lotta and Bart— Which one of you is Bart?"

  He raised his hand.

  "I presume you're aware that Wellem has raised you to provisional E-Ones. Congratulations. He says you can handle it, and if he says so, you can.

  "Granted it usually takes only one session—seldom more than two—to take a 4 to Level 5. But we've got nearly 2,000 men here who'll need a session or two from an Expert or higher. And aside from supervisors and bail-outs, we've only got eleven E's or higher in the project.

  "And we can't have the bail-outs doing routine sessions. They have to be available when an emergency comes up. While the supervisors will have their hands more than full, supervising.

  "Wellem's gotten agreement from a number of E's to come and help out when the 4s start to pile up on us. You may not appreciate how few Es and Ms there are on Iryala, planet-wide, or on any world; not nearly as many as there'll be ten years from now. For too long the need for lower-level operators has had the institutes sending most of us out when we'd reached journeyman."

  She scanned them again, grinning now. "So you journeymen—that's Feelis and Norla and Rob, right?—as much as we need you to process Level 2s and 3s, in the evenings you'll be training instead, under Jomar. We plan to make provisional E-Ones out of you, to help with the 4s. It'll be a crash course, but we're depending on you.

  "Any questions?"

  There weren't.

  "Fine. The exception to that is tonight. All of you will be giving sessions this evening." Meteen got up and gestured. "You'll find the summary and instruction for your next trainee on a shelf in the ready room, above your name. Now I'll show you what session rooms are yours. You'll be there no later than 1845 this evening, and familiarize yourself with the case summary. A page will bring your trainee to you at 1900. You'll get another one at 2100, unless the first one gets into something that takes unusually long to lead him through."

&n
bsp; They left the small office then. To Lotta's surprise, she had the same session room as before. She still had time to look up Bosler, if he was available.

  * * *

  Bosler was tied up, so she waited till supper and caught him on his way to the dining hall. They got their food and sat down side by side; their conversation was casual until they'd finished eating.

  "So," he said then. "What is it you need from me?" Lotta's gaze, as always, was direct. "I'd like to give a session, sort of, to Artus Romlar. Tomorrow evening would be a good time."

  Bosler's eyebrows raised slightly. "Romlar's a 5. In fact, he's already been through the teleport. Unfazed. I have no session lined up for him at all."

  She nodded. "Right. I'd like to give him one anyway."

  " 'Sort of a session,' you said. What do you have in mind? An Expert-One is pretty limited in what they're qualified to do with a 5."

  "I know. I want to do a meld with him."

  Wellem Bosler wasn't often surprised. He was now. "Before I ask you why," he said, "let me remind you that that's tricky business with a 5. For an E-One certainly; especially a provisional. If he was a Level 3 or 2, it would be pretty safe; most 2s wouldn't even be aware of a meld, and most 3s probably wouldn't know what was going on—feel a bit spooky perhaps, or exhilarated. While a 7 and probably most 6s have enough stability to deal with it easily. But a 5's got a lot of power freed up, Romlar especially. The meld could easily get out of control. Then we'd have to bail you both out, and it could take awhile." He eyed her curiously. "What do you hope to accomplish?"

  "I'm not sure. But you know what he is, what his potential is. And you said you wanted to get him in session again before he left Iryala."

  "Hmh! I did, didn't I. I've had so much to do, I'd lost track of that. But—" He smiled slightly. "I was talking about me, not you. Supposing that's what we do? I'll give him a session—get him up to a 6—and maybe you can meld with him then. Will you settle for that?"