After Tain had fallen asleep, Lotta had taken time to find her way around Headquarters Company. Their outgate site was fifteen miles from the nearest farming district and probably somewhat farther from any area patrolled by Klestronu ground forces. But there seemed a risk of discovery by Klestronu aircraft, so the regiment was bivouacked in the forest. Even the combat personnel carriers had been maneuvered back among the trees.
It seemed important now that she find the Klestronu ground forces commander, meld with him, and learn whether he was aware of anything unusual happening. But camp held a lot of people and a lot of activity, some of it hectic. She'd learned back on Iryala that to make a first contact with someone she only knew about, and not much about, she needed freedom from distraction.
So she left camp and hiked far enough into the jungle that none of the activity intruded on her attention. Two troopers went with her as bodyguards; there were tigers, blue trolls, and other dangerous wildlife in these equatorial forests.
It took a few minutes to still her mind, after a day so eventful, but it was no real problem. There were a few seconds during which her body seemed to resonate like a harp chord—an occasional personal symptom of readiness. Then, eyes closed, she reached.
She was surprised at how easy it was. She was with him at once, and the meld was effortless. But not terribly informative. She stayed with Saadhrambacoora for half an hour. He was working intently on administrative matters, and apparently was not much given to ruminating on things other than business while working. But it seemed obvious that he hadn't an inkling of a new enemy force on Terfreya. If he had, it would have been apparent to her, even if his conscious mind had been engaged with other matters. It would have been just below consciousness, with a discernible unit of attention stuck to it unavoidably.
So Lotta had pulled her attention back and returned to Romlar's command tent to let him know that so far their secrecy hadn't been compromised.
That done, it was supper time—field rations—and by the time she'd eaten, it was getting dark. The troopers were retiring to their tents, and stillness was settling over the bivouac. She wore a visored helmet to find her way in the darkness. Romlar offered her a parked scout-craft, a small three-man floater, as a private place to sit while she sought and melded with the enemy commodore in his flagship.
The scout sat not many yards from the command tent, just within the jungle's edge. She chose the pilot's seat. From there she could see between trees into the open, starlit valley bottom. From somewhere came a distant, keening howl; perhaps a Terfreyan wolf, she thought. She felt very relaxed now, and the trance came easily. Commodore! she thought softly, and reached outward with her attention. Commodore!
There was brief darkness, a familiar sense of otherness, then of beingness that was not her own. The beingness ignored her; that was good—
Terfreya nearly filled the commodore's window, blue and white, blue-green and tan. The half that wasn't night-dark, for the terminator was creeping westward toward the ocean. Tarimenloku sat in his lounging pajamas, gazing out at it. He'd have liked a dharvag, but denied himself; he'd been drinking more than he should lately, and it was time, he'd decided, to assert his self-control.
By ship's time it was late evening. And so it was at the marine base, 55,000 miles out. Or down. The terminator had passed Lonyer City, leaving it in darkness, or twilight at least. Darkness didn't mean relaxation and inactivity for the marines down there, he knew. Stealth was the enemy's ally, and the child warriors, the cadets, were often active at night.
He'd gotten brigade's daily casualty report shortly before retiring: sixty-three—fifty-two dead plus eleven wounded and unfit for service. A bad day. More and more the cadets were using captured beam guns, which usually killed what they hit. Although the killed-to-wounded ratio had been surprisingly high from the beginning, reflecting the enemy's excellent marksmanship.
The day's reported enemy body count was 115, 113 of them cadets, and 2 large black men. Tarimenloku knew from his informants that the black men were the cadets' training cadre, and renowned fighting men. He also knew that they were mercenaries, and not numerous anywhere.
A body count of 115! If the body counts I'm given are correct, he thought wryly, then we've killed a total of more than 3,000 cadets and cadre. And all from a beginning number estimated at 500 to 1,000! Remarkable!
He thought about having just one drink, and pushed the thought away, focusing his eyes again on the world outside his window, a world on which Klestronu colonists could prosper and multiply. One of dozens of such worlds in this sector. Again he thought of disengaging—of going home with what he'd learned. But there'd be an evaluation, legal and military, and any claim that he'd been driven away by greater military forces would be uncovered as a lie. He was fighting a small force, a single battalion, mostly of children!
Considering the value of what he'd discovered, it was possible, though not likely, that he wouldn't be executed. But if death were all he'd have to face at home, he told himself, he might well start back tomorrow, or as soon as he could bring his people off that world out there. Disgrace was what he feared most, and disgrace there would be, for himself and his family, whether he was impaled or not. If he allowed himself to be driven away by forces less than clearly superior in numbers or armament.
The commodore realized he was sagging in his chair, and stiffened, straightening. Getting old, he thought sourly, old and pessimistic. With the entire brigade on the ground, and far better armed, surely his marines would outlast the cadets, who might in truth be nearing extermination. It seemed likely that, in a week or two, the opposition would melt, the ambushes and raids dwindle to nearly nothing. Then he could go home with honor.
Lotta Alsnor opened her eyes and stared out through the night forest toward the star-lit valley. She felt depression and shook it off; it wasn't hers.
She felt something else, too, and realized it was the T'swa seer who'd been melded with Tarimenloku when she had. Now, for a moment, he was with her, an amused but friendly presence. Inwardly she saluted him, felt a glow at his acknowledgement, and realized that now she could find and touch him at will—meld with him if she wished.
She opened herself to deep perception. At least that was what she intended; neither experience nor education had anything to say about the possibility of deep perception. But it seemed to her it was possible, and she wanted the T'swa seer to know as much and as quickly as he could.
Then the T'swa presence was gone, and it seemed to her that it wouldn't be back, that it was leaving surveillance in her hands. She got up and stretched. She'd report to Artus, then check on Tain. And then go to bed. It had been a long day.