The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  "I'd like to have you give him a session. But meanwhile, I'm asking to do a meld with him myself. As he is."

  "Hmm." Bosler frowned, contemplating the suggestion. Ordinarily he'd have said no, out of hand. But ordinarily the matter would never have come up. And Lotta Alsnor had more native talent than perhaps any student he'd ever had. Including Meteen Voranis. Someone like that needed as free a rein as possible, when their intuition spurred them.

  And when someone as sane and talented as Lotta asked to do something crazy-sounding, he couldn't help but wonder if she was giving birth to a breakthrough of some sort.

  Although he still couldn't see what a meld would accomplish. Melds were not in themselves therapeutic.

  "All right," he said after a slow minute. "I'll speak with Meteen about it. If she's willing to spare you, you can have him tomorrow evening. I'll have her alert Jomar, in case you get into trouble. And you be sure your monitor is on before you start, so he can keep half an eye on you."

  She nodded soberly. "Thanks," she said. She got up and took her tray to the wash belt, then left, wondering if she really had any business doing what she'd proposed. She caught herself half hoping Meteen would refuse.

  35

  Romlar came in and closed the door behind him. "Hi, Lotta," he said cheerfully, and sat down. "I hadn't expected to see you again."

  She smiled. "I hadn't expected to be here again. How have things been going?"

  "We're doing battalion exercises now. And good old 2nd Platoon's been hogging the command posts. Coyn Carrmak and I have been switching off as battalion commander and battalion EO. And Jerym is A Company exec under Eldren Esenrok, when it's not the other way around."

  "Well! Congratulations! Did you have a good supper this evening?"

  "Always. Almost always."

  "Good. Did you get enough sleep last night?"

  "Yep."

  His aura reflected good health and good spirit. "All right. We'll start the formal interview then. I want you to sit back and relax. Get nice and loose. You can close your eyes if you'd like."

  He did.

  "All right. Now just let your mind relax too. Let it drift if it wants to. And if you feel anything strange happening, it'll be all right. Just let it happen and ride along with it. It'll be no big deal."

  He didn't nod, didn't move, just let himself go. For almost all his life, it would not have been possible except while falling asleep; resentments, worries, and thoughts had tended to crowd his mind. Now letting go was easy. An idea drifted through and he watched it pass, was aware of watching it, then aware of its absence, all very relaxed and unimportant.

  Then something else was there that for a moment he couldn't identify. His awareness sharpened a little with curiosity. Of course! [Hello, Lotta! What are you doing?]

  [It's called a meld. Our minds join.]

  [What do we do next?]

  [Relax and let things happen. Or not happen.]

  His awareness softened again. Another thought came to him. His thought? Or hers? He decided it didn't matter. After that, for a while, nothing seemed to be happening, and he lost track of time. There was time, but he had no real notion of how much was passing. His main awareness was of a sense of intimacy and dormant power, power that was his and that he hadn't recognized before.

  Then he saw his own face, as through Lotta's eyes, and the thought was there, her thought, that it was time to separate. [All right,] he thought back to her. And felt her withdraw slowly, gently, till his mind was alone.

  Alone but not the same. He was aware of himself at a depth beyond anything he'd experienced or suspected. In spite of so little having happened.

  He opened his eyes. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you very much." And when he left the room, it seemed to him he was bigger, had expanded, was seeing the floor from a foot higher than before.

  * * *

  Wellem Bosler awoke gradually, uneasy in the dark of his small room. It struck him then why. [Who,] he asked, [is in my mind?]

  [Lotta, Wellem.]

  [Huh! Where are you Lotta? Physically I mean?]

  [In my room.]

  [You can meld at a distance then.]

  [I thought I could. After I melded with Artus. I felt such power when we were together, he and I. So did he. Wellem, you need to have a session with him. To know where he's at. At what level. He's not just a 5; not now anyway.]

  [All right. And I need to do an eval on you, to find out what level you're at now. You've changed too, I'm sure of it. Huh! I've melded with Konni, and with others a few times, and never got any personal change out of it. Never before heard of anyone getting any.]

  She didn't respond, seemed relaxed. After what might have been a minute or two, her mind stirred. [I'm going to leave and go to sleep now,] she thought to him, and he felt her disengage.

  When she was gone, he lay awake for a while. Remarkable, he thought. He'd heard of a few Iryalans—Masters like himself, and Experts—who could contact friends at a distance, perhaps on another continent, and might even meld with them. The T'swa of course had a long history of producing seers who could meld at a distance with almost anyone, as if distance didn't exist for them. But the entire population of Tyss knew the T'sel—or ninety-nine percent did, something like that—and had for millennia. They'd long since needed no procedures to gain it. And every T'swi who was born to Wisdom/Knowledge was trained as a seer. It wasn't terribly remarkable that some, a few of them, could find and meld with someone hundreds of parsecs away.

  And now— His psyche quickened. Could Lotta learn to? Learn to find the T'swa seer? Or even the Klestronu flagship and its captain? He'd have to look into this, even if it required slighting his work a bit as project leader.

  36

  Voker's commset chirped. He touched a key. "Yes?"

  "Sir, Lord Kristal wants to speak with you."

  "Thanks." He touched another key and the screen lit up. Kristal was sitting at a desk which, by Voker's criteria, was cluttered. "Good morning, Your Lordship."

  "Good morning, Carlis. His Majesty and I have a plan. I want to run it by you before we decide on the details and implement it."

  "Okay."

  "We want to publicize the regiment. Judiciously of course. And later the Klestronu intrusion—and the teleport. The Klestroni will be used to make the teleport necessary and acceptable. It's touchy business of course. Some thirty percent of our population on Iryala, more than fifty percent in the Confederation as a whole, underwent a real Sacrament as children. And a lot of the rest are about as conservative, if less compulsively so. But circumstances seem to be forcing our hand. And if we handle it well, it will broaden the public tolerance of change.

  "Varlik Lormagen's publicizing of the T'swa did wonders for us thirty-two years ago. So we've been screening feature journalists. Women, mainly."

  "Emry," Voker interrupted, "a suggestion. Whoever it is should be in excellent physical condition. If she or he's going to follow these young men around effectively enough to get to know what they do."

  Kristal nodded. "Good point."

  And chances are, you've already considered it, Voker told himself. "Another thing," he added: "Any such person around here just now, or for the next two or three weeks, can't help but be aware of the Ostrak Procedures, and wondering what it is that involves so much time and activity. Are you willing for that to become public?"

  "Obliquely, yes. Wellem suggested we call it 'special psychological drills to provide the trainees with T'swa calmness of mind. Very useful for fighting men.' Which is the truth, presented from a particular point of view. But we won't send her to you till the larger part of the activity is over with, and all the men have been processed to 3 and higher. Quite a few will be 5s by then, and done with."

  "Umm." Voker cleared his mind for a moment, to let anything else come up that needed to. "And you're going to publicize the teleport too, you say."

  "Yes. Assuming the Klestroni land in this sector in other than a properly peaceful, ambas
sadorial manner."

  Which makes disclosure close to a certainty, Voker told himself. "What cautions shall I give the trainees? What shouldn't they say?"

  "Wait till we've selected the young lady. I'll let you know."

  Kristal shifted subjects. "Meanwhile Kusu's people are assembling a teleport for shipment to Tyss. We're sending it on a fleet supply ship, with a pair of technicians to operate it. They'll leave in four days if no complications arise, and it'll take fifty-one days to get there by hyperspace. Including a quick stop at Terfreya to deliver some new-model equipment to the cadets there."

  "Why not send the teleport directly to Tyss, and send the cadets their equipment separately?"

  "We'd only save four days that way. Iryala, Terfreya, and Tyss are as nearly aligned as any three inhabited worlds in this sector." Kristal paused. "Do you have some thoughts on that?"

  The colonel looked at it, frowning. "I guess not. What time of year is it on Tyss?"

  "What? Ah, I see your point. We've looked at that. At Kootosh Moks it's early winter." Kristal chuckled. "If I may use the term."

  "How large are the vehicles it can teleport?"

  "Small; almost the smallest. Light utility vehicles and armed scout floaters. It had to be something we could construct with components on hand or easy to make. Kusu's still designing the big one, the one we'll send the regiment's vehicles with. Although he has men fabricating parts already. It's quite a project."

  Voker nodded. It would be, when most of the components couldn't be bought off the shelf anywhere.

  "Oh, and Carlis," Kristal said, "your floater crews should arrive next Oneday morning. All with warrior profiles, you'll be glad to hear, and cross-trained for maintenance. And the eight-man regimental medical team you asked for. They'll all need Ostrak Procedures of course. Do you want me to tell Wellem?"

  "No, I'll tell him. I'll be seeing him in a few minutes at lunch."

  Having said everything necessary, they ended the conversation and disconnected. A full contingent of floater crews with warrior profiles! Voker thought. Hmh! He hadn't thought the army had that many warriors in its air branch. Not that six scouts, eight combat personnel carriers, and four gunships required a lot of personnel; mental arithmetic made it 120, with two crews per aircraft.

  The sad thing was, their senior officers would be glad to see most of them go. Well, he'd be glad to see them arrive.

  He was very glad there'd be a teleport on Tyss. Although he still felt a little—uncomfortable about sending it by way of Terfreya. But a four-day delay wasn't going to mean anything when the war lodges wouldn't be graduating new regiments until equinox there, still a couple of deks away.

  37

  Spring was on the verge of summer, even at Blue Forest, in the Subaustral Zone. The night smelled of things growing, and it was warm enough that Lotta carried her jacket as she walked through the gate into the compound. The new leaves were fully expanded, and the woods behind her sounded with the stridulations of small courting creatures, both insects and amphibians.

  She'd found a place in the woods to be away from human busyness, physical and mental, a dry place where she could sit on the ground. She'd been going there at night after her last session. From there she contacted people she knew, people all over Iryala. Melded with them if they were sufficiently advanced and agreed to it, and occasionally if they were unaware and wouldn't be harmed by it. She was becoming adept at this by now, could have done it in her room with others present, but she liked getting away.

  Entering the Main Building, she switched off her insect repellent field and walked briskly to the project dining room, where snacks were available for those who worked late. Meteen Kron was there; she'd finished reviewing the evening session reports. After drawing a cup of thocal, Lotta went to the table where Meteen was sipping joma, and sat down across from her.

  "Been practicing?" Meteen asked.

  Lotta nodded. "In the woods."

  "Have you tried reaching anyone off planet?"

  "I'm not sure I know anyone off planet. I suppose I do, but I don't know who they are."

  "Did you know Kari Frensler? You were probably at Lake Loreen when she was still there."

  Kari Frensler. Lotta recalled a tall, rather gangly teenager who'd graduated and left years ago, when she herself had been—nine; newly nine. "Is she off planet?"

  "Nine parsecs off planet. She's on Sandhill's staff on Rombil, with Jomar and me. Teaches history. It would be interesting to see if you could reach her."

  Lotta felt a small surge of excitement. "Yes it would," she said. "Especially since I hardly knew her. We may have spoken all of three times. It would be a good test."

  She and Meteen exchanged small talk then, briefly, and Lotta finished her thocal more quickly than usual. She'd go outside and sit on one of the benches—it would be quiet there, this late—and try the contact before she went to bed.

  38

  It was the most promising-looking world yet—blue and white, blue-green and tan—ocean and clouds, forest and steppe, and no doubt desert. At higher latitudes, some of the white clearly was snow or ice, even in the summer hemisphere. In fact, the instruments insisted on it. They'd already reported temperatures in the habitable range, though the mid-latitude summer was rather cooler than one might wish. Nothing serious.

  And the atmosphere promised to be breathable.

  There was a complication though, of course: it had an obviously sapient life form. Broad-band monitoring had long-since found an object bearing a beacon, parked outside the planet's radiation belt. Commodore Tarimenloku examined the object on the viewscreen. Considering its location 55,000 miles above the planet, he told himself, it could be a processor for incoming mail pods, a processor with a homing beacon. It was assuming a lot to think that a race out in this Kargh-forsaken sector would have mail pods, but if they had hyperspace generators, mail pods would no doubt have to be invented.

  There was radio here, there was no question about that, though only one broadcast source had reached the Blessed Flenyaagor. The voice even sounded human, and while that could be coincidence, the commodore was not addicted to coincidence as an explanation for anything. The words, of course, meant nothing to a son of Kargh.

  That this object was here at all indicated a reasonably advanced civilization. If it was a pod processor, it indicated a multi-system civilization. And it was already clear that this was not a world with cities or the extensive use of powerful electronics—not a major planet. It would seem then to be a very minor world. Very minor.

  Tarimenloku gave an order to pick up the pod processor or whatever it was; it should tell them something worth knowing about the technology here. He also gave an order to be alert for and destroy any missile sent up from the surface. These beings might detect them and send out either a war missile, or a message pod programmed to go to the nearest naval base, reporting an intruder.

  39

  The sides of the tent were rolled up for light, and cadet Varlik Krellzo sat on a folding camp chair, at a folding table, figuring a food supply order the hard way, with stylus and writing board. His rolled-up sleeves exposed arms that were still slender but very sinewy. Varlik was nearly thirteen years old.

  A command radio sat on the table, with a long-life power slug. It beeped a standard warning, and Varlik touched the record key, just in case.

  After a moment, a voice spoke from it. "Attention! Attention! This is the Confederation Ministry at Lonyer City, with information to whomever it may concern." A sense of suppressed panic in the voice sharpened Varlik's attention. "This morning, at Lonyer City 0746:22, our systems monitor informed us that the pod processor's homing beacon had ceased to signal. At 0829:09, a shuttle lifted from the Lonyer City port to repair the processor. At approximately 0846:43, the shuttle crew reported two nonstandard ships—repeat, nonstandard ships!—one of them extremely large, parked in the vicinity of the processor's gravitic coordinates. The processor seemed to be absent. The shuttle crew undertook t
o return to the Lonyer City port and abruptly went off the air. It may have been destroyed by the nonstandard ships.

  "We recommend that you leave your radio on for possible further information."

  Varlik Krellzo was on his feet by that time, grinning. When the broadcast ended he tipped his head back. "YEEEE-haaah!" he whooped, then got on the radio to Colonel Jil-Zat. Young Krellzo had a definite feeling that he was going to be in a for-real war very soon.

  40

  Excerpts from "Terfreya," article in the Standard Encyclopedia, YP 748, Landfall, Iryala.

  Terfreya, or Karnovir 02, is a trade planet. Local tradition has it colonized early in the prehistoric era, in the 15th millennium before Pertunis. There is abundant evidence that mining was extensive there for centuries and possibly millennia.

  By the historical era, however, mining had ceased. A native spice, kressera, had become almost the sole export. It was popular throughout the sector, and Terfreya became or remained a prosperous world. However, in the 2nd century before Pertunis, a substitute "kressera," growable on many worlds, preempted much of the market. . . .

  During the prehistoric era, probably in the early years of human settlement, Terfreya was nicknamed "Backbreak." This nickname is sometimes used in the literature, and was the vernacular usage both on Terfreya and Confederation worlds. Presumably it derived from the rigors of hard labor in Terfreya's gravity of 1.19 gee. . . .

  The Terfreyan year contains 434.471 Terfreyan days, each day being 26.551 standard hours long, making the Terfreyan year 1.316 times as long as the Standard year. The orbit is somewhat eccentric, the maximum radius being 134 million miles and the minimum 118 million miles. . . . The axial tilt is 24.19, making the swing of the seasons almost as great as on Iryala, but as virtually the entire human population of recent millennia lives in the equatorial zone, axial tilt does not directly impact the lives of Terfreyans. . . . The relatively low solar constant makes Terfreya, overall, somewhat cold, but the temperature regime of the equatorial zone is comfortable year-round, if one disregards occasional chilly periods of winter rain. . . .