The regiment's 1,178 troopers, along with the 106 surviving cadets and their remaining 47 T'swa cadre, had been gathered at several locations to be sent back to Iryala through the small teleport. Equipment larger than man-carried was stored at the Lonyer City landing field for later pickup. A single light utility floater stayed with the regiment, moving the teleport from one departure location to the next.
Headquarters Company would be the last to port home—Headquarters Company and what was left of its two attached rifle platoons. It hadn't yet struck its tents; its hour of departure wasn't certain, and neither was the weather, which had changed from persistently dry to sporadically showery. Lotta, after withdrawing from a trance a little earlier, had found Jerym. Now, together, they explored the creekbed above camp, mainly for something to do while they talked. Both carried sidearms. Neither wanted to be killed by some tiger or blue troll—certainly not on the day, the eve at least, of going home to Iryala.
The creek had swollen somewhat but was still small, bridged here and there by fallen trees in various stages of decay. Its pale amber water, still clear, ran mostly knee-deep now, or deeper, and four to eight-feet wide, in places striped with green water plants waving sinuously in the current. Mostly though it showed gravel bottom. Small fish swam in place, or disturbed, darted for cover under bank or log.
"If Tain was still with us," Lotta was saying, "what would you two do now?"
"I don't know. Why do you ask? She's probably half a parsec gone from here and getting farther fast. The chance of our ever seeing each other again is exactly zero."
Lotta bellied over a fallen log overgrown with what resembled a fine-leaved turf or coarse moss. "Right," she said. "But it might be useful to look at it with someone."
Jerym shrugged. "If Tain was still here . . ." He examined the question. "Romlar says we'll probably be sent back here in a week or two to continue our training. Not here in the jungle probably—I think we know jungle fighting pretty well now—but to the steppe, or the tundra prairie. Or maybe the coastal rainforest; I hear that's a lot different from this. Meanwhile Tain would be sitting here waiting for a ship." He turned and looked at his sister. "Unless you stayed and ran Ostrak Procedures on her so she could port back."
Again he shrugged; the matter was moot. "If we decided to be together, either she'd have to be with us here somehow, on some basis, and then go with us to Oven, or I'd have to leave the regiment."
"So what do you think you'd decide, the two of you?"
He shook his head. "It wouldn't be much of a life for her, with the regiment. I think she'd be too smart to try it. To be honest, I'm not sure she actually loved me; she might have just thought she did. It might have been a matter of the danger, of my going out every day or two to maybe get killed.
"No, if we were going to be together, I'd have to leave the regiment."
"Could you have done that?"
He stopped, looking thoughtfully at his sister. "I think so. One of the things the Ostrak Procedures do is make a person less compulsive. Right? You get more control over your decisions and actions. And look at the T'swa: When one of their regiments finally gets so shot up that it's down to a company or so, maybe understrength at that, the survivors get shipped back to Oven to do other things." He turned and led off again. "They stop being warriors," he added over his shoulder. "Our cadre weren't being warriors. They were being teachers.
"Maybe I could have become part of a training cadre. We're going to need cadres. The Klestroni might not come back, but I wouldn't bet on it, and His Majesty won't either."
"So," Lotta said, "as it is, what are you going to do?"
"No question. I'm staying with the regiment. It'll have to be my family." He used the word for marital family—spouse and children—then stopped again to look at Lotta.
"How about you? And Romlar? Anything developing there? I know he was interested in you, back on Iryala."
"We've had a strong mutual affinity from early on," Lotta answered. "I think it's scripted. Whatever; it'll have to wait. I'm going to tell Wellem I want to develop a program for training seers. Seers like the T'swa have. I intend to port to Tyss and train at the monastery of Dys Tolbash. Artus and I can get together later, when the regiment's disbanded."
Jerym's gaze was direct. "If Artus comes through alive."
"Right. If he comes through alive." And I'd bet on it, she added silently. I am betting on it.