You ask how the newly entitled T'swa warrior, a youth barely full-grown who has lived from childhood in a warrior lodge, never been off his home world, never seen a city or a ship or a foreigner, seems so considerably educated in what you term "the liberal arts." The answer is that on Tyss, all learn the T'sel, which is translated as "the Ways of Life on Tyss." However, it might as accurately be translated simply "the Ways of Life," for it applies as well anywhere; it is universal. But only on Tyss is it recognized and practiced—thus the term T'sel. And it is useful to rational living, which is to say wisdom, for anyone—the follower of any Way—whether on our world or yours. It is not simply a subject for scholars. It is also a subject for warriors, for example—including the young men you have observed and spoken with.
As to how every T'swa warrior can speak your language fluently, be conversant with your history and culture as well as his own, and know more than a little of your technology—it is largely a matter of learning them, which is less difficult than you might suppose for one who knows the T'sel. When your children undertake to learn, they are beset by many hindrances, encounter many obstacles—those from without and, more importantly, those from within. But when our children are still small, they are early helped to . . . let us say, dissolve the inner obstacles and hindrances, at which point those hindrances outside them, already at a practical minimum, become of much less effect and more easily deflected. With that, learning becomes swift and smooth.
And the use of knowledge far easier, which use is part of wisdom.
The Confederation, I must tell you, is fortunate that the T'swa do not lust for power, for we are the swiftest of learners, and the greatest at the exercise of knowledge. But we have looked far, and have seen that such a lust degrades the field for all—for the one who lusts as well as for all others. And indeed, when one knows T'sel, there is no lust. Nor can the T'sel be known while there is lust.
It is not the having of power which ruins; that belief is an error, though an understandable error. There is nothing wrong with having power. Rather it is the lust itself that ruins, the scale of ruin increasing exponentially with the success of the lust.
—Lodge Master Gun-Dasaru to Harden Ostrak,
following the graduation of the So Binko Regiment of the
Lodge of Kootosh-Lan (unedited from the recorded comments).
The day promised to be even hotter than the two before, and a line of towering thunderheads were visible along the southwest horizon when the T'swa officers, with Varlik, arrived at the bivouac. On the flat ground behind the encampment, Varlik could see hundreds of men in groups, doing what appeared to be choreographed tumbling in a thin haze of dust. Even at a distance it was a remarkable sight.
And they definitely were not the entire T'swa force; perhaps the rest were on a field march, he told himself.
The hovercar stopped outside the headquarters of the Red Scorpion Regiment, a largish tent that nonetheless seemed to Varlik too small for its function. Its sides were rolled up for maximum ventilation. There he, Colonel Koda, and the colonel's executive officer and aide got out, and the vehicle left to deliver Colonel Biltong and his own E.O. and aide. Inside the tent were only three men besides themselves. Koda, in Tyspi, told the sergeant major to have Varlik put on the rolls as civilian aide in charge of publicity, on the usual warrior's allowances, and to assign him to Lieutenant Zimsu's platoon for purposes of quarters, supply, and mess. When he'd finished, he turned to Varlik, speaking again in Standard.
"Sergeant Kusu told me you spoke Tyspi with him. Did you understand what I just told the sergeant major?"
"Yes, sir," Varlik answered, and repeated it quite closely in Tyspi, without too much stumbling or hesitation. "I expect to do much better with experience," he added.
"Excellent." The colonel's eyes reexamined the Iryalan. "You are very unusual among your people."
Despite himself, Varlik was pleased and embarrassed at the comment. After a pause, Koda continued. "Lormagen, I feel very—optimistic over what we did this morning, you and I. Colonel Biltong and I have intended, since we received this assignment, that the people of Iryala should get a much improved understanding of the T'swa through our regiments, and I have no doubt that you will prove most helpful in this."
Again the colonel withdrew his attention, this time to his desk and in-basket. Varlik looked around, found a folding camp chair, and sat down. With nothing to do for the moment, he felt the heat as a heavy fluid settling around him. The sergeant major, a one-eyed man scarred from hairline to jaw, had used his field communicator, and in two or three minutes another enlisted man entered the tent. Speaking Standard, the sergeant major introduced the soldier as Bao-Raku, with no mention of rank, and told Varlik to follow the man. Then the sergeant major too withdrew his attention, definitely the T'swa form of dismissal, and Varlik left behind a quick-footed, if limping, Bao-Raku.
It took less than a minute to walk to the headquarters tent of Company A, First Battalion. It was not at all like any company orderly room or field headquarters that Varlik had seen in the Iryalan army; it had three small folding tables and a small file cabinet, no computer, and five visible folding chairs. No one at all was there except he and Bao-Raku. The T'swi pulled out a file drawer, removed a chart, sat down, and looked up at Varlik who, after waiting a moment for an invitation, sat down himself, unbidden.
Bao-Raku also spoke in scarcely accented Standard. "I am to assign you to a squad in the First Platoon. Do you have a preference?"
"Not really, unless . . . Except for Colonel Koda, I'm acquainted with only one other man in this regiment, a Sergeant Kusu. I don't suppose he's in this company, though."
"Sergeant Kusu is the leader of the Second Squad, First Platoon. Is that the squad you prefer?"
"Yes."
Coincidence? Or had Koda sent him to this platoon because Kusu was here? That didn't make any sense, but it occurred to him nonetheless.
The company clerk, Varlik supposed the man was, got up. "Have you any clothes besides those you are wearing? Supply will have difficulty providing you with uniforms that fit, until we've had a chance to procure some from the Iryalan Quartermaster."
"I have some on base. I can get them when I go there next."
The man nodded. "Good. And you have eaten today?"
"Yes, I have."
"Then I will take you to your squad."
Without saying anything further, the T'swi went out the door and, despite his limp, broke into a lope, Varlik hurrying behind him through the encampment over trampled bunchgrass clumps. By the time they'd run the quarter mile to the drill ground, sweat was running from Varlik's every pore.
The T'swa troops were in separate groups of ten, squads apparently, each with its own drill square defined and separated from its neighbors by harness belts, with knives and canteens attached, which had been removed for the drill. Each squad trained independently; in a sense, each individual or pair seemed to work independently, for there was no apparent leader. Yet their movements were integrated, whether by long practice or some nonevident communication, Varlik couldn't tell.
"That is the Second Squad of the First Platoon," Bao-Raku said pointing. "They will take a break soon, and you can talk to Kusu then."
Varlik nodded, and the clerk turned and loped away in the direction of the company area. Varlik returned his attention to the drilling troops, recording with his camera.
In part the drill resembled tumbling, in part some strange and acrobatic ritual dance, but withal, it was clearly training for some art of combat. Some of the movements were broad and flowing, others abrupt and accompanied by audible, forceful expulsions of breath. There were gliding movements, striking movements with hands and feet, some independently by an individual trooper, some with two interacting. Or a man might grasp another and throw him to the ground with a quick sweeping movement or a short choppy one, perhaps to be followed without pause by another, somehow all synchronized with the movements of every other. Men rolled smoothly, swiftly, leaped high, bodies amazingly flexible despite their physical bulk. Varlik watched entranced, even as he recorded the scene.
Then, without command, the entire drill stopped, and each T'swi went to his belt and drank from one of his two canteens, synchronization suddenly replaced by individuality. After drinking, men sat on the ground or stood around, most talking or laughing quietly together, while others lay quietly, perhaps with a forearm shielding their eyes from the sun.
Varlik walked over to Kusu, who looked up and rose at his approach. The T'swa face was gray and grinning, greased with muddy sweat.
"So you came," Kusu said in Tyspi, and reached out a hand. "I am glad to see you."
Varlik took it and was startled. He'd expected its hard, beefy strength; what surprised him was its hardness of palm and the inner surface of the fingers, as if they'd been armored with tempered leather. He didn't have callus like that even on his feet! It seemed impossible that it resulted from training—it almost had to be inherent, he thought, inborn—and for a moment his surprise impeded answering.
"Yes," he answered, also in Tyspi. "With the help of your colonels. I'll tell you about it when we have time. I came to report to you; I've been assigned to live with your squad. How long is your break?"
"We still have two or three minutes. But we have only one more drill cycle, of about ten minutes. Then we break for lunch. Wait and watch if you wish."
Varlik retreated outside the square and waited in the intensifying heat. Someone whistled shrilly, a quick piercing pattern, its instrument human lips, and those who'd lain down or sat got up at once, all moving into a pattern of positions. When the drill began again, Varlik once more recorded with his camera until they were done. When it was over and the T'swa formed ranks, Varlik, on his own volition, fell in with them at the end of Kusu's squad, feeling awkward and out of place but doing it nonetheless, then semi-sprinted with them to the encampment's edge, where they halted and were dismissed.
He was enormously pleased that he'd done it, grinning through his sweat as they walked among the tents to that of Kusu's squad, rubbernecking now as he walked. T'swa grinned back at him as they went, the grins friendly, and a few thumbs were raised in his direction, a salute of friendship common enough at home among friends, but surprising him here.
The tent was floored with dirt, and had five cots along each side, with a duffel bag at the foot of each and a barracks bag beneath. From the roof pole hung an insect repeller. On each of the cots sat a field pack attached to a harness, the harness also holding assorted pouches and pockets. A rifle lay beside it.
An eleventh cot stood in the middle of the tent, like the others complete with pad, pad cover, and thin pillow. "That must be yours," Kusu said pointing. There was even a towel, wash cloth, belt with canteens and knife, a potlike helmet with liner, and a small block of what he surmised was a cleaning agent.
Bao-Raku must have brought the things, Varlik told himself. And he'd been half afraid—more than half—that these would be cruel and vicious men! Instead, this. And no one had sneered or needled or even been condescending.
Meanwhile, one of the T'swa had taken a plastic jerry can of water and poured some into each of a row of the potlike helmets outside. There was no rack for the helmets; there'd been nothing to build one with. They'd simply been set into shallow holes dug for them. Borrowing a trenching tool from the nearest T'swi, Varlik quickly gouged out a place and put his own helmet into it, then poured in water and, on his knees, joined in the pre-meal washup—face, hands, wrists.
The T'swa had stripped to their waists, and he was deeply impressed by the massive yet sinewy torsos and arms he saw, muscles sliding and bunching as they washed. Varlik was muscular by Iryalan standards, sinewy now as well, and as tall as most of the T'swa, but almost any of them would outweigh him by more than twenty pounds, all of it muscle.
He wondered what they'd do at day's end in lieu of a shower. In novels, gooks were usually filthy, but clearly not the T'swa, not where there was any choice.
When they'd washed, he followed the casual train of still shirtless black men to the A Company mess tent. Apparently they ate without shirts if they wished! Such a thing was unthinkable in any Standard army. Varlik felt ill at ease now in his shirt, and moved quickly through the mess line. The food seemed of low quality, though doubtlessly nourishing. It consisted of a single, to him unidentifiable, mixture from a pot. Each man scooped his own serving into a broad bowl. In place of joma was some unfamiliar drink, tepid and sweet. Each squad had its own table with a bench on either side—long enough, with a little crowding, for an extra man. Following the example of the T'swa, Varlik poured a sauce onto his food, fortunately with caution, for the sauce was hot, currylike.
There was not much conversation at the meal, and what he heard seemed small talk, although some of it he couldn't follow. Most of the words he knew, but the referents weren't always familiar; he lacked the contexts necessary to give parts of it meaning. An uneasy feeling touched him, not for the last time, a certain sense of unreality that he could not dispel. These T'swa were so non-Standard!
Men began to leave, and he left too, his food unfinished, like them scraping his bowl into a garbage can before stacking it. Then he returned to his tent. He too was sweaty, and somewhat dusty. To avoid getting dirt on his bed he lay down on the ground outside, in the shade of the tent. It wasn't as if he was tired. He wasn't, despite the heat, and the humidity which seemed to be increasing. But the others were resting and there wasn't much else for him to do.
Minutes later Kusu arrived, strolled over to him and squatted down on heavy haunches as Varlik sat up. "We are going on a field march this afternoon," Kusu said, in Tyspi again. "But not a very hard one; we're too soon off shipboard. You are welcome to come if you'd like."
"Of course I'll come," Varlik replied. "It's the sort of thing I expected to do. In fact, I trained for it on shipboard, doing heavy workouts in a firefighter's suit, every day coming out from Iryala. If the march is too much for me, I'll find out soon enough by trying."
Kusu nodded. "You have almost an hour then to rest before we fall in. I suggest you sleep; I intend to. And if you are coming with us, you'll need to bring your canteens."
Varlik got up, filled his canteens from a jerry can, then lay back down again, draping the harness belt over his body. He closed his eyes and put his field cap over them, not anticipating sleep, but intending at least to rest. Sleep came nonetheless, to be broken by another shrill pattern of human whistling that brought him awkwardly to his feet, sluggishly aware of hustling bodies. He fastened the belt around his waist, then trotted after them, the dopiness dissipating with exertion, to where the T'swa were forming ranks on the mustering ground.
In ranks, he became aware that the others carried rifles and wore field packs, with magazines and other pouches clipped to their harnesses in front and assorted smaller pouches secured to their belts. Then, without verbal command, another quick whistle pattern started the column in motion at a brisk swinging stride, a column of fours broken into platoons.
He looked around him more alertly now as they moved away from the bivouac area. Rolling hills lay ahead, and in moments they were running through belly-deep prairie grass, where somehow the air seemed hotter, as if the mass of plant stems had trapped or perhaps exuded heat. At about sixty degrees from their line of march and a half-mile distant, he saw a vehicle coming along the track from the Aromanis base. Even from there he recognized it as a staff car, not open like the T'swa field vehicle but enclosed and undoubtedly cooled. Apparently the general wasn't waiting till tomorrow, but had sent someone to meet again with the T'swa. Probably to determine what was needed and wanted in the way of proper facilities for the regiments.
For a brief few seconds he played with the fancy that they had come here to claim him back, and began to imagine the T'swa refusing to give him up. Then a single whistle shrilled, breaking his fantasy, and the column began to jog through the tall grass. In half a hundred yards the ground began to slope upward. The column alternately ran and walked, roughly in quarter-mile installments, the sun beating down on them, the ground heat stirring into sullen life with their passage. At the end of a local hour, another whistle stopped them. After drinking, and licking the salt that a T'swa trooper had offered him, he lay down like the others on the lumpy ground for a break. There was no shade, and the heat was suffocating near the ground. Varlik began to realize what kind of campaign environment this planet was—even here, more than halfway to the pole.
Silently he thanked Colonel Voker for ramrodding him through the twenty-six days of fire-suit workouts on the Quaranth.
Then, in about ten minutes, whistling got them up again. They formed ranks, there was another whistling command, and once more the column moved out, walking the first quarter mile, then running again, then walking, and the air he sucked into his lungs seemed stifling hot. After a bit, his legs began to go wooden on him, and he began to worry, wondering if he'd make it. The last thing he wanted to do was fall out, perhaps collapse, so he gathered himself, willing energy to his muscles, strength to his knees. He realized that his eyes had been directed at the ground and the boots of the man in front of him, and raised his face to look ahead.
The long row of thunderheads, though still distant, was nearer now, billows towering to form a single anvil top, an opaque veil of rain slanting from its blue-gray base as it marched on legs of lightning, too far away for thunder to be heard. It seemed to Varlik that if he could hang on till it reached them, he'd be all right.
His eyes soon turned back to the ground without his realizing it, but he persisted, running slack-mouthed, sucking the hot air, his right hand at frequent intervals wiping sweat to keep it from his eyes as much as possible. Then there was whistling again, another break, and somehow he was still with them. Again he drank, the water hot as soup, gratefully licked offered salt, and flopped on the ground, closing his eyes, his face turned away from the sun.
Behind the lids was red, with idly floating spots like tiny oil globules. Then a voice called his name—Sergeant Kusu's voice—and Varlik first sat up, then with an effort stood. A hovercar was coming up from behind—seemingly a T'swa vehicle—and they watched its approach until it drew up a dozen yards to the side.
"Get in," Kusu said gesturing, and despite himself, Varlik started to object. "No, get in," Kusu repeated firmly. "You'll do no one a service collapsed in the base hospital, or maybe dead. It's been standing by, waiting for a call, and I've been watching you. You've done extremely well, but it's time for you to ride."
Varlik found his legs taking him to the vehicle, and he got in, feeling not so weak after all. The sides were open, but the vehicle's top was up to keep the sun off. The steady-eyed driver handed him a vacuum flask—surely a luxury among the T'swa!—with some cool liquid that seemed to be fruit juice.
"Steady there," the driver said, "don't make yourself sick," and Varlik paused in his drinking. Then, after a pause and one more swig, he handed it back, and the T'swi capped it and put it in a bag without taking any himself. In another minute there was whistling again, the ranks reformed, and the battalion moved out, jogging through the grass, the hovercar keeping pace to one side.
Varlik started to take off his shirt to let the hot air flow over his body, the better to cool himself, then became aware of the forgotten camera he'd carried inside it, and raised it to record a few minutes of the march, enough to include one of the run segments, while murmuring comment for its sound pickup. When he felt he'd recorded enough of that, he tucked the camera away again, wondering if any of the T'swa felt resentment at his riding. Somehow, he didn't think so.
He was surprised at how far they went in the hour before the next break, over the rolling hills, curving around to head eastward again in the direction of the bivouac. He licked salt again, drank more of his hot water, then more from the vacuum flask, and all in all felt much recovered. After they stopped, he got out and walked over to Kusu. They shared salt, and he drank again.
"I feel a lot better now," said Varlik. "I'd like to finish this on foot with the rest of you."
Kusu looked him over, smiling a little, and nodded. "Fine," he said, "if you want to. But the last will be the hardest, and there will be no disgrace in riding again if the need arises."
Varlik nodded back, then took out his camera and recorded the resting T'swa, their shirts sweat-soaked, rings of whitish salts marking where it was most concentrated. And they look as content as anyone I've ever seen, he thought. The T'swa in Gorth Hasniker's novel couldn't touch the reality, at least in character. Briefly, he wondered what these men would be like in combat; he couldn't picture them cruel.
Then the command came whistling and he put the camera back inside his shirt as they formed ranks. Another whistle and they started off. They walked twice, then the second run continued until he realized they were to trot the rest of the way, and his heart sank. This was what Kusu meant by the last hour being the hardest. Only once more did they slow to a walk, just long enough to drink and let the water settle in their bellies before the whistle brought them to a trot again.
Just once he looked back over his shoulder, praying that the rain would arrive. It was nearer, in fact not terribly far, and he let that hearten him. Rain! Cooling rain! Thunder rolled. Then his attention was trapped again by the travail of running.
Topping a long low ridge, he saw the encampment ahead, no farther than half a mile, and for just a moment his heart leaped with exultation. Then a whistle shrilled, once and long, and the battalion broke into a gallop, almost a headlong run, so that he veered off to the side to keep from being trampled, speeding up as best he could, seeing black men in sweat-soaked mottled green run past him. He sucked wind into tortured lungs, felt his legs flagging, staggering, slowing to an unsteady shuffling jog. He was unaware of Kusu running backwards to keep watch on him, of the hovercar close behind, but kept doggedly on, gasping, half-blinded by stinging sweat, until he stumbled onto the mustering ground. The nearing thunder hadn't registered on him, nor had the puffs of cooling breeze. The T'swa had already been dismissed but had not dispersed. They were waiting more or less in ranks, grinning, all eyes on him, and somehow, as he staggered up, he did not collapse. And when he stopped before them, they applauded, big hard hands clapping, throats cheering. Those nearest stepped up to him, clapped his back, shook his hand.
And when they stopped, Varlik became aware of another sound, behind him, a soft murmur. He turned, stared, fumbled at his shirt. A wall of rain was sweeping from the southwest across the steppe, its murmur gaining force. Sudden wind whipped. A hammer of thunder smote the earth so that even the T'swa flinched, and the first fat drops splatted around them, the T'swa's white teeth flashing a choir of grins, then rain swept over them, a body of it, an assault of it, and instantly they were drenched, water streaming over black faces that beamed and gloried—desert people receiving the gift of storm. And Varlik's camera, in his right hand, sheltered by his field cap, was registering all of it on the molecules of its cube.