Editor's Introduction to:
PSI-REC: OF SWORD AND SITAR, THE WAR WITHOUT
by Peter Dillingham
It is not always the poet’s task to persuade. Sometimes the intention is something quite different.
Peter Dillingham has perfected the skill of communicating images. Some of them can be quite disturbing.
PSI-REC: OF SWORD AND SITAR, THE WAR WITHOUT
by Peter Dillingham
Free companions of the Milky Way, we enter their arena, Sword and Sitar, enter this spotlit containment of Earth air paved with mirrors, as perhaps on some other alien world, Misha the Danseur and Aaraatuag the Eskimo Song Duelist, our brethren, lovers, tomorrow’s enemy, mobilize Piseq and drum against Grand Jete, tour en l’air.
We enter this warzone, this theater, I Kensei, Sword Saint, sinister, he with the Sitar, dexter, Earth’s martial elite, mercenaries, masters of Earth’s most acclaimed art, most esteemed export—war—impeccable wars:
World Wars!
Star Wars!
Wars Waged Without Wrack Or Waste!
War more art than war. Wars arranged and hyped by Earth’s dog-faced war brokers, holograds touting our skills, recommending combinations of combatants—such artistry, oh my beloved warlots:
Shaman Sandpainter
Mere magic
Manilas de Plata
Malaguenas
VS
The Mime Marcel
The sculpture of silence
Miguelito the Matador
Margaritas in a suit of lights
We their champions, what alien belligerents there in the swirling, caustic darkness? What sparked this call to arms? Dabbling dilettantes? Deadly serious? What matter! The contracts signed, earnests given, he for the right, I for the left, we will fight. We are warriors.
Happo Biraki, open on all eight sides, long sword and companion in hand, I wait, considering Mushashi’s Five Rings, Way of the Warrior—Ground, Water, Fire, Wind, Void—I have learned, Master, the Five Attitudes, the Five Approaches. I have taught my body strategy, to hit the enemy in one timing. My sword my soul, I wait.
He begins. Raga, that which colors the mind. Alap, free flowing, without rhythm, ascending, descending like alien sword cuts, in rasa karuna. A trap this sentiment—pathetic, tearful, sad…Hypnotic, his intense singleness of mood. He would lure me with his loneliness, his longing. Jor.
Flowing Water Cut? Fire and Stones Cut? Red Leaves Cut? Kesagake, whiplike my sword slashes. One cut, calmly, to strike the King of Notes within the Lord of Melody’s Court…Jhala, the chickari strings sound.
What match, Musashi, the spirit of one cut against Sitar’s gentle curves, those minute, microtonic twinnings, shruti; what match to meend, that sliding, gliding note to note, winding whorls of detail, subtle ornament, intrinsicate…Sword snare that chain of melody, manrikigusari, with the power of ten thousand.
A primal scream torn from countless psi out there in the darkness sinister, the piercing agony of defeat. Visions of Hiroshima, forever etched deep in their souls. Poor, faceless fools to think our ritual combat, this supreme refinement of war, freed them of its horrors. And the victors? Scarred, tainted with their victory.
The sword sheathed, the sitar in its muslin bag, our road manager beckons us to our ship. We depart. Another world, another alien war awaits…this unconquerable lust.
Editor's Introduction to:
SILENT LEGES
by Jerry Pournelle
I wrote this story at a time when I was considerably less hopeful about the economic effects of technology, especially development of space resources, and considerably more hopeful about internal developments within the Soviet Union.
At that time I believed that the Soviet tyranny would evolve as tyrannies always have; that its leaders would become cynical; and that soon enough the Soviets would decide that, hate the U.S. as much as they would, it would be better to share the world with the U.S. than to admit any third party—such as China—to real power.
I also assumed that the U.S. might itself develop such a cynical view. This is not as unlikely as it seems. Certainly we have no lack of politicians who will sell out the real interests of the nation—as recognized by the politicians themselves—in order to win reelection. Take for example the California legislature, which cynically gerrymandered the state to insure the reelection of incumbents, this in the face of a statewide initiative demanding new redistricting. Take for example the spectacle of ever-mounting budget deficits while Congress continues to spend and spend and elect and elect and bombastically proclaim that the economy cannot withstand such terrible deficits. Take—but no need to break a butterfly on the wheel. Examples are all too easy to come by.
Given such trends in the U.S. and the Soviet Union, might they not agree to divide the world between them? If so, they might well set up a CoDominium government, in theory controlled by a Grand Senate but in practice dominated by the two superpowers. The CoDominium might have its own armed forces: Thus was born the stories of the CoDominium Fleet and CD Marines.
Could this happen in the real world? Probably not. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is governed by a troika: the Army, the Party and the KGB. Each has great power, but not sufficient to overcome the opposition of the other two. The Party has the fewest resources, but it controls promotions within the other two organizations; and it cannot share power with the West. Only the Army could do that, and it would do so only if it felt threatened from within.
After Stalin died in 1953, the Army and Party nearly destroyed the secret police. Then the Party discovered that it was unable to control the Army. There was, for a time, the possibility that the Soviet Empire would become yet another military despotism, subject to the usual factors that affect such despoties; a nation such as Ted Cogswell describes in the opening story of this volume.
Then the Party asked for help, and the KGB was reconstituted.
So long as the Party and the KGB prevail, the CoDominium is unlikely. It is not, however, impossible; and meanwhile, it gives birth to good stories.
Good soldiers do not make good butchers, and butchers seldom make good soldiers. There is an internal logic to any effective military force. Moreover, a small, powerful, volunteer military group, separated from and disliked by civilians, inevitably turns inward, receiving its rewards and taking its directions from its own traditions. The Legion is one such force. The United States Army in the period between the World Wars was another. Professional soldiers will often obey politicians, but they seldom respect them.
John Christian Falkenberg respects them not at all.
SILENT LEGES
by Jerry Pournelle
“Inter Armes, Silent Leges”
I
Eight thousand young bodies writhed to the maddening beat of an electronic bass. Some danced while others lay back on the grass and drank or smoked. None could ignore the music, although they were only barely aware of the nasal tenor whose voice was not strong enough to carry over the wild squeals of the theremin and the twang of a dozen steel-stringed guitars. Other musical groups waited their turn on the gray wooden platform erected among the twentieth-century Gothic buildings of Los Angeles University.
Some of the musicians were so anxious to begin that they pounded their instruments. This produced nothing audible because their amplifiers were turned off, but it allowed them to join in the frenzied spirit of the festival on the campus green.
The concert was a happy affair. Citizens from a nearby Welfare Island joined the students in the college park. Enterprising dealers hawked liquor and pot and borloi. Catering trucks brought food. The Daughters of Lilith played original works while Slime waited their turn, and after those would come even more famous groups. An air of peace and fellowship engulfed the crowd.
“Lumpen proletariat.” The speaker was a young woman. She stood at a window in a classroom overlooking the common green and the mad scene below. “Lumpen,” she said again.
“Aw, come off the
bolshi talk. Communism’s no answer. Look at the Sovworld–”
“Revolution betrayed! Betrayed!” the girl said. She faced her challenger. “There will be no peace and freedom until–
“Can it.” The meeting chairman banged his fist on the desk. “We’ve got work to do. This is no time for ideology.”
“Without the proper revolutionary theory, nothing can be accomplished.” This came from a bearded man in a leather jacket. He looked first at the chairman, then at the dozen others in the classroom. “First there must be a proper understanding of the problem. Then we can act!”
The chairman banged his fist again, but someone else spoke. “Deeds, not words. We came here to plan some action. What the hell’s all the talking about? You goddamned theorists give me a pain in the ass! What we need is action. The Underground’s done more for the Movement than you’ll ever–”
“Balls.” The man in the leather jacket snorted contempt. Then he stood. His voice projected well. “You act, all right. You shut down the L.A. transport system for three days. Real clever. And what did it accomplish? Made the taxpayers scared enough to fork over pay raises for the cops. You ended the goddamn pig strike, that’s what you did!”
There was a general babble, and the Underground spokesman tried to answer, but the leather-jacketed man continued. “You started food riots in the Citizen areas. Big deal. It’s results that count, and your result was the CoDominium Marines! You brought in the Marines, that’s what you did!”
“Damned right! We exposed this regime for what it really is! The Revolution can’t come until the people understand–”
“Revolution, my ass. Get it through your heads, technology’s the only thing that’s going to save us. Turn technology loose, free the scientists, and we’ll be–”
He was shouted down by the others. There was more babble.
Mark Fuller sat at the student desk and drank it all in. The wild music outside. Talk of revolution. Plans for action, for making something happen, for making the Establishment notice them; it was all new, and he was here in this room, where the real power, of the university lay. God, how I love it! he thought. I’ve never had any kind of power before. Not even over my own life. And now we can show them all!
He felt more alive than he ever had in his twenty years. He looked at the girl next to him and smiled. She grinned and patted his thigh. Tension rose in his loins until it was almost unbearable. He remembered their yesterdays and imagined their tomorrows. The quiet world of taxpayer country where he had grown up seemed very far away.
The others continued their argument. Mark listened, but his thoughts kept straying to Shirley: to the warmth of her hand on his thigh, to the places where her sweater was stretched out of shape, to the remembered feel of her knees against his back and her cries of passion. He knew he ought to listen more carefully to the discussion. He didn’t really belong in this room at all. If Shirley hadn’t brought him, he’d never have known the meeting was happening.
But I’ll earn a place here, he thought. In my own right. Power. That’s what they have, and I’ll learn how to be part of it.
The jacketed technocracy man was speaking again. “You see too many devils,” he said. “Get the CoDominium Intelligence people off the scientists’ backs and it won’t be twenty years before all of the earth’s a paradise. All of it, not just taxpayer country.”
“A polluted paradise! What do you want, to go back to the smog? Oil slicks, dead fish, animals exterminated, that’s what–”
“Bullshit. Technology can get us out of–”
“That’s what caused the problems in the first place!”
“Because we didn’t go far enough! There hasn’t been a new scientific idea since the goddamn space drive! You’re so damned proud because there’s no pollution. None here, anyway. But it’s not because of conservation, it’s because they ship people out, because of triage, because–”
“He’s right, people starve while we–”
“Damn right! Free thoughts, freedom to think, to plan, to do research, to publish without censorship, that’s what will liberate the world.”
The arguments went on until the chairman tired of them. He banged his fist again. “We are here to do something,” he said. “Not to settle the world’s problems this afternoon. That was agreed.”
The babble finally died away and the chairman spoke meaningfully. “This is our chance. A peaceful demonstration of power. Show what we think of their goddamned rules and their status cards. But we’ve got to be careful. It mustn’t get out of hand.”
Mark sprawled on the grass a dozen meters from the platform. He stretched luxuriantly in the California sun while Shirley stroked his back. Excitement poured in through all his senses. College had been like this in imagination. The boys at the expensive private school where his father had sent him used to whisper about festivals, demonstrations, and confrontations, but it hadn’t been real. Now it was. He’d hardly ever mingled with Citizens before, and now they were all around him. They wore Welfare-issue clothing and talked in strange dialects that Mark only half understood. Everyone, Citizens and students, writhed to the music that washed across them.
Mark’s father had wanted to send him to a college in taxpayer country, but there hadn’t been enough money. He might have won a scholarship, but he hadn’t. Mark told himself it was deliberate. Competition was no way to live. A lot of his friends had refused to compete in the rat race. None of them ended here, though; they’d had the money to get to Princeton or Yale.
More Citizens poured in. The festival was supposed to be open only to those with tickets, and Citizens weren’t supposed to come on the campus in the first place, but the student group had opened the gates and cut the fences. It had all been planned in the meeting. Now the gate-control shack was on fire, and everyone who lived nearby could get in.
Shirley was ecstatic. “Look at them!” she shouted. “This is the way it used to be! Citizens should be able to go wherever they want to. Equality forever!”
Mark smiled. It was all new to him. He hadn’t thought much about the division between Citizen and taxpayer, and had accepted his privileges without noticing them. He had learned a lot from Shirley and his new friends, but there was so much more that he didn’t know. I’ll find out, though, he thought. We know what we’re doing. We can make the world so much better—we can do anything! Time for the stupid old bastards to move over and let some fresh ideas in.
Shirley passed him a pipe of borloi. That was another new thing for him; it was a Citizen habit, something Mark’s father despised. Mark couldn’t understand why. He inhaled deeply and relished the wave of contentment it brought. Then he reached for Shirley and held her in his warm bath of concern and love, knowing she was as happy as he was.
She smiled gently back at him, her hand resting on his thigh, and they writhed to the music, the beat thundering through them, faces glowing with anticipation of what would come, of what they would accomplish this day. The pipe came around again and Mark seized it eagerly.
“Pigs! The pigs are coming!” The cry went up from the fringes of the crowd.
Shirley turned to her followers. “Just stay here. Don’t provoke the bastards. Make sure you don’t do anything but sit tight.”
There were murmurs of agreement. Mark felt a wave of excitement flash through him. This was it. And he was right there in front with the leaders; even if all his status did come from being Shirley’s current boyfriend, he was one of the leaders, one of the people who make things happen…
The police were trying to get through the crowd so they could stop the festival. The university president was with them, and he was shouting something Mark couldn’t understand. Over at the edge of the common green there was a lot of smoke. Was a building on fire? That didn’t make sense. There weren’t supposed to be any fires, nothing was to be harmed; just ignore the cops and the university people, show how Citizens and students could mingle in peace; show how stupid the damned rules were, and how needl
ess–
There was a fire. Maybe more than one. Police and firemen tried to get through the crowd. Someone kicked a cop and the bluecoat went down. A dozen of his buddies waded into the group. Their sticks rose and fell.
The peaceful dream vanished. Mark stared in confusion. There was a man screaming somewhere, where was he? In the burning building? A group began chanting: “Equality now! Equality now!”
Another group was building a barricade across the green. “They aren’t supposed to do that!” Mark shouted. Shirley grinned at him. Her eyes shone in excitement. More police came, then more, and a group headed toward Mark. They raised aluminum shields as rocks flew across the green. The police came closer. One of the cops raised his club.
He was going to hit Shirley! Mark grabbed at the nightstick and deflected it. Citizens and students clustered around. Some threw themselves at the cops. A big man, well-dressed, too old to be a student, kicked at the leading policeman. The cop went down.
Mark pulled Shirley away as a dozen black-jacketed Lampburners joined the melee. The Lampburners would deal with the cops, but Mark didn’t want to watch. The boys in his school had talked contemptuously about pigs, but the only police Mark had ever met had been polite and deferential; this.was ugly, and–
His head swam in confusion. One minute he’d been laying in Shirley’s arms with music and fellowship and everything was wonderful. Now there were police, and groups shouting, “Kill the pigs!” and fires burning. The Lampburners were swarming everywhere. They hadn’t been at the meeting. Most claimed to be wanted by the police. But they’d had a representative at the planning session, they’d agreed this would be a peaceful demonstration–
There Will Be War Volume III Page 32