The season seemed later than it was, with the peiok trees around the hayfield tinged purplish bronze by early frost.
It was obvious to Lord Kristal why Kusu had chosen this place. It was a level open field, secluded, and less than a mile from the Lake Loreen Institute.
Although it was none too large. He could see why Voker didn't have the whole regiment there at once; the place was already on the verge of being crowded. First Battalion was there, and Headquarters Company with its 158 personnel including floater crews and medical section. The regiment's floaters were parked at one end: four gunships, six scouts, and eight CPCs—combat personnel carriers that could haul two squads each with gear. Not much compared to army regiments, but for a T'swa-type regiment, unprecedented.
Kristal eyed the quiet troopers standing relaxed in ranks and wondered idly what it would be like to step from this rural, mellow, somewhat sylvan late summer landscape into equatorial jungle. What would the weather be like there today?
The focus of attention here was the teleport, looking much different than the small apparatus he'd stepped through on the roof of the Research Building, not so many deks earlier. It was wide enough for the floaters and seemed needlessly tall, a gate-like structure on a low platform. No doubt, thought Kristal, there was good reason for its height. On one side was a metal housing resembling a narrow shed or overgrown cabinet, presumably holding whatever made the teleport function. This in turn was connected by cables to an instrument van with the door open. He'd seen Kusu go inside. An assistant knelt on the platform, comm set in hand, seemingly waiting for something.
A small media contingent had been invited, had arrived with an eagerness grown in part from sharp public interest in the Central News series. In fact, they were the busiest-seeming people there, those from Iryala Video shifting around with Revax cameras on their shoulders. Two small camera floaters positioned and repositioned themselves, like hoverbirds over a flowerbed. The young woman from Central News had dressed in the camouflage uniform she'd been given by the regiment, wearing it like a badge as she walked quietly around, talking to one and another of the troopers.
Kristal himself didn't really need to be there, had no function there. But this was an important event, the climax of an activity that had held more than a little of his attention for over a year. He'd developed a considerable affinity with its young men, even though his knowledge of them was largely indirect. Very soon now—perhaps before this day was over—some of them would die. Probably many would over the next weeks, perhaps most of them. Presumably none with regret. For not only were they warriors; they knew the T'sel now.
He would not regret either, of course. Though he would miss Lotta Alsnor, should she die. To him she was a symbol of the future, and he'd been tempted to veto her accompanying the regiment to Terfreya. But he'd rejected the thought at once. One did not interfere with the self-chosen role of someone like her.
And in a few more generations, perhaps no more than six or eight, the people of Iryala and the Confederation as a whole would know the T'sel. They'd be comparable to the people of Tyss then, their children wise and playful.
Assuming there was no serious invasion from the empire. Conquest could not kill the T'sel, but it would doubtless throw the timetable out, and change the nature of the playing field, perhaps for a long time.
Carlis Voker rarely fidgeted, but he did now. And noticing, stilled it with a T'sel order to himself: "Turn around and look at you." In response he felt a brief wave of chills and a sense of unfocused amusement.
He scanned the assembled troopers again. This was incomparably the best regiment he'd ever been part of, and now it had a new commander—a commander still short of twenty years old. And with more talent, Voker told himself, than I ever dreamed of having. Too, the floater crews, a late addition to the Table of Organization, had fitted in beautifully. There was good reason to hope that the regiment would accomplish its objective: Chew up the enemy ground forces, and send the imperial ships home convinced that the Confederation sector was not a promising place to invade.
He was sending no T'swa advisors with the regiment, a decision that hadn't been easy to make. Dak-So had agreed though, without reservation. The regiment was good, very good, from top to bottom, and Dak-So said that, even by T'swa standards, Romlar was a tactical genius.
Besides, 2,000 new recruits would be arriving at Blue Forest at week's end, needing cadre to train them. This batch would average less troublesome than the first. The recruiters had used a much slower screening system to identify candidates—winnowing through many thousands of innate personality profiles, rather than starting with a preliminary selection by behavior records. For not all, or even most intentive warriors on Iryala were troublemakers.
A command on the bullhorn broke Voker's thoughts, and his gaze sharpened, focusing on the port. One of the gunships had begun to move toward it.
Tain Faronya had found a good angle, where she could see the gunship float into the gate. And disappear! She'd been briefed on arrival, she and the video people—had been told what would happen. And she'd believed; it seemed to her some hadn't. But seeing it happen excited her in a way she'd never imagined. She felt suddenly eager, and at the same time queasy, her knees momentarily weak.
A slow-moving column of troopers followed the gunship, stepping onto the platform in two files, and she recorded the first few pairs disappearing. Then she took her eyes from them, looking around as if for another vantage or another shot. Climbing down off the hood of the hovercar where she'd been standing, she moved back along a column of waiting troopers, her helmet camera on their tan young faces as if to document their fearlessness, their eagerness.
When she came to the rear, she stopped behind them and looked around again. Her excitement manifested as a seeming need to relieve herself. As best she could, she ignored it. Here the personnel carriers were parked, loaded not with troopers but supplies. Their pilots were visible in their cockpits; other crewmembers were standing on top, where they could better see the troopers disappearing.
As casually as possible, and certain that everyone's eyes were turning to her, Tain went to one of the rearmost carriers, stepped up the ramp and inside.
The cockpit door was open, and she could see the pilot's right arm and shoulder. In the troop cum cargo compartment, there was hardly any room at all except for a narrow aisle between stacks of cases. The cases were of different sizes, and in several places there was room enough for a person to lay down on top of them.
She stepped quickly to one such place, grabbed a tie strap and pulled herself up, then squirmed sideways as far back as she could, all the way to the side of the floater. From there, all she could see were the ceiling and the tops of boxes.
Only then did she feel her heart thudding. She'd committed herself! Tunis only knew what they'd say when they found her, somewhere on Terfreya—wherever they arrived there. But they couldn't send her back, not through the teleport. The briefing had made clear that a teleport was a one-way gate.
Her wait seemed long; long enough that her heart slowed to something like normal, and she had time to imagine discovery scenarios—exposure scenarios, actually, with her coming out of hiding. Then the rest of the crew was boarding; it must be time! She had no doubt she'd know when they arrived: She'd feel the craft sit down, hear the crew talking.
It lifted. She felt it, barely, but she was sure. Felt it move forward, shift direction slightly, accelerate a little. She realized she was holding her breath. And then . . .