In a time which your people have long forgotten, when the many nations of man spoke each its separate language, it was well known that children up to a certain age—about seven of your years—could learn to speak foreign languages quickly and with ease. Then, over the course of a few more years, it became much more difficult, the degree of difficulty varying markedly among individuals.
In part the same is true of learning the T'sel. But in learning the T'sel, the effect of age seems more marked, for we have been able to teach some of your people to speak Tyspi—all of the few who wished sufficiently to learn it—but we have never succeeded in leading one of them to the T'sel. Of course, only perhaps a dozen before you have asked to be taught. But if you really wish your people to know the T'sel, it would be advisable to send small children among us and let them live as T'swa until they are well grown. Send children of five of your years. Then they would come to know T'sel without effort. They would know it as do those born to it, but with an additional viewpoint, for even as little children they would have an initial affinity with their own world and culture, and a greater personal, nonverbal knowledge of them than you might suspect.
And once trained, it is they who would be best suited to bring the T'sel to your world.
But even then, unless new techniques were developed, I suspect that most interested adults on Iryala would, in the main, only learn about the T'sel, and that is not having it. They would no doubt have pieces of it, which would not be without value to them and to Iryala, but it would be exceptional for one to gain the entirety. Therefore, it would be most effective if those children, once grown, returned to Iryala and formed a small community of their own, where more children could learn. If nothing else, that would save others from suffering the heat of Tyss.
Meanwhile, you do not yourself have that option for learning. But you are here, and much of value can be accomplished, so let us begin. Perhaps you will find your stay with us sufficiently rewarding that you will decide to see to the other when you have returned to Iryala.
And if you wish to propagate on Iryala an interest in the T'sel, let me suggest further that you not propound it, or expound on it, or talk much about it at all. Say only a little, to this one and that, and very casually, as if you found it mildly interesting but not important. Those who wish to know will no doubt hear of it, and of you, without effort on your part, and if any seek you out and question you, perhaps you will wish to speak with them about it at greater length.
—Master Fen Dys-Gwang to Dr. Barden Ostrak, by the waterfall
at Tashi Dok (unedited from the recorded comments).
The two T'swa regiments stood in the late afternoon heat, heavily laden with weapons and gear, waiting to board the armored troop carriers, while Varlik, sweating copiously, walked nearby with busy camera.
Around them on three sides of the broad landing field were acres of ordnance, other equipment, supplies, minutely organized, with an armada of tarp-covered cargo movers parked and ready, waiting for the intensive activity of the morrow and days after, when the invasion proper would take place. Varlik wouldn't try to cover that; for better or for worse, he was committing his time and efforts to covering the T'swa. Even Bertol and Konni were giving the T'swa raid their full attention today. With their deluxe Revax camera, they would go with the Night Adders to Kelikut to film the raid there.
Lieutenant Trevelos and his own small staff of cameramen and copywriters would cover the actions of the Confederation Army, and their material would be available to Central News and Iryala Video.
The T'swa marauder groups had already left, on utility floaters like they'd jumped from in practice, and Varlik had recorded their departure. Now he moved to the assault floater that would carry the first and second platoons of Company A, and stood beside the ramp. An order was whistled—he knew the code well now—and he recorded the approach and loading of the T'swa. They loaded quietly, showing no sign of nerves, only a clear and quiet sense of controlled exhilaration.
Even as he recorded, their exhilaration troubled Varlik. Not that he begrudged them, but it seemed unreal, scarcely conceivable, that men who had known battle so intimately and for so long, had seen so many of their fellows killed or maimed, could feel that way. He himself felt nothing remotely like exhilaration; he was grateful that he had his work to do, to hold his attention and keep down the intensity of his fear. When all the T'swa were aboard, he followed; his seat was waiting for him at the end of First Squad, First Platoon.
The assault carriers were not large. With floaters, because they could take off and land vertically and had a long range, there was little advantage in larger craft for combat landings. These, which carried only two platoons each, could put down on rough ground, in small openings, and relatively few men would be lost if a ship was destroyed by heavy rockets.
A row of padded bench seats ran down each side of the craft, and two more rows extended back to back down the middle, divided by a padded back rest, neck high. The result was two wide aisles with facing seats. Now the aisles were partly filled with gear, notably large petards, and pole charges fitted with shoulder straps, their poles telescoped. If a rocket should penetrate the hull, the result could be spectacular.
With the state of his nerves, Varlik was grateful there'd been so little delay in boarding. Once closed, the carriers were cooled somewhat, and when they lifted, pressurized. Now there would be the long haul to Beregesh, 1,900 miles south, where the climate would make Aromanis seem balmy. He was glad the attack would be by night, that they'd be back in the air before dawn, and these thoughts he recorded.
Out by dawn. That was assuming everything worked out more or less as planned. Colonel Koda seemed confident, but Koda—Koda was Homo tyssiensis, not Homo sapiens. That also he murmured into the voice pickup at his throat; he could edit it out later if he wanted to.
Varlik used his camera again, recording the T'swa troopers who sat facing each other along the sides, seemingly relaxed, though only a few were talking. It would be hours before they landed, and he wondered how he, at least, could survive the trip, commenting to the cube that there weren't even windows available to look out of.
The T'swi beside him was a man named Bin, not much older than himself but whom he thought of, as he thought of all the regiment, as considerably older.
"Bin, how do you feel about the possibility of dying?" Varlik asked quietly. As usual, he spoke in Standard when recording, knowing that the T'swi would answer in kind.
Bin looked at him and smiled mildly. "How do you feel?" Bin countered, not bothering to keep his voice especially low. "We're in the same squad. It seems to me that you are at greater risk than I, because I have experience of battles and surviving them. How do you feel about the possibility of dying?"
"But you're T'swa," Varlik persisted, "and it's the T'swa that people on Iryala want to read about and see and hear on video."
Bin only grinned at Varlik, his T'swa eyes failing to look ingenuous despite their size and roundness.
"Well, tell me this, then," Varlik said. "How many of us do you suppose will be alive at this hour tomorrow?"
"Hmm." Bin appeared to calculate in his mind, frowning soberly. "I'd say . . . There are eighty-nine of us on this floater now, not including the crew. While tomorrow . . . tomorrow there will be approximately that number minus the number killed. That is as close as I can tell you."
For just a moment Varlik felt miffed, then the T'swi chuckled, and after a moment's lag, Varlik joined him. Somehow the throaty sound of the T'swi's laughter not only removed any sense of offense, but added a facet to T'swa humanity. It was the first time Varlik had been joked with by one of them.
And now Bin surprised him. "You asked," he said, "how many I suppose will be alive tomorrow. Most of us, I suspect; perhaps almost all. But ask me how many will be alive at the end of this contract."
Casually as it was delivered, the question seemed to paralyze heart and lungs. "How many?" Varlik managed to ask.
"Very few; possibly none." He looked at Varlik with an expression the newsman could only think of as kindly. "In war there are winners and losers. And who are they? The question is irrelevant. I've been told that your people tend to think of us as the supreme warriors, against whom none can stand except sometimes with a strong advantage of numbers or position. And that is not far from true. Yet we of the Red Scorpion Regiment are not much more than half our original number. Many of our brothers have lost their game pieces, their bodies, looking down at them bloody and lifeless in dust or mud or snow. Or have sat leaning against some wall or tree or rock, looking at a shattered limb, at some wound that takes away their warriorhood. The winner becomes a loser.
"Eventually the regiment will be so decimated that the lodge will deactivate it as too small for further contracts. Then the survivors will be finished as warriors. This war will do it for the Red Scorpions, I suspect: The conditions appear to be difficult, and the enemy reputedly quite competent." He peered quizzically at Varlik. "Wouldn't you say?"
Varlik didn't say anything. Despite the somber content of the T'swi's words, he still felt that the trooper was somehow playing with him. He was also aware now that the T'swa around them were listening and watching.
"Yes, the winner eventually becomes the loser," Bin continued, "in any activity in the real world. And if things don't balance out in this lifetime, there will always be other lifetimes to complete the equation."
The T'swi stopped there, but his eyes remained on Varlik's, as if he expected the journalist to reply. Varlik started tentatively.
"Then . . . It sounds as if you feel it's your fate to die. Or be maimed."
"Fate? I am aware of the term from my student days; we study something of your philosophy, you know. What you refer to here as 'fate,' we simply look at as one of the laws—a tertiary, not a primary or even secondary law—but one of the laws regulating the activities of man in this universe. One may sometimes win predominantly, or lose predominantly, through an entire lifetime or even a sequence of lifetimes, but the equation will eventually tend toward a balance. Or perhaps it is just then balancing from some earlier winning or losing sequence."
Varlik frowned. "But why do you fight then, if you feel doomed to lose eventually? Why would anyone go through the pain and exhaustion and danger, and see his friends killed or mangled, when he's only going to lose in the end?"
"Ah! But we have no doom, and it is not the end."
The T'swi looked at Varlik for several seconds without saying anything further, as if considering how to make his answer more meaningful. "Varlik, why do you live?" he asked at last.
"Why? Because I can't help myself. A person is born living, and with the instinct to survive. That's why I live."
"Um." The blue-black warrior nodded thoughtfully. "Yet if you stay with us, you will see us put ourselves repeatedly in great danger. How is it then that the instinct you speak of is inoperative in so many of us? Including you, it seems, for here you are, going to battle with us.
"What you call 'the instinct to survive' is simply an emotional attachment to a body, growing in part from the misapprehension that if it is destroyed, you cease to exist. But in fact, while bodies are notably destructible, you yourself cannot avoid survival.
"The challenge is to live with interest. Unless one's fear is too great, which seems to be rather common among the worlds of man, one normally prefers that that existence be interesting."
A hint of smile touched the wide mouth. "And even then, consider the possibility that the person who is fearful, who perhaps is even in hiding, may at some hidden level enjoy the experience.
"As warriors, we find our greatest interest and pleasure in battle, and our next greatest in preparing for battle. Winning is preferred, but the preference is slight. We are not allowed to—ah, 'graduate' is your nearest word to it. We would not be allowed to graduate if we did not know deeply and truly that the fullest joy and reward of the warrior is in being a warrior, and performing the actions of a warrior, with artistry! And that winning is something to favor only very slightly. We do prefer to win, but it is not important to us. We do not allow the matter of winning or losing, surviving or dying, to interfere with our pleasure. We go into battle ready to enjoy the experience, without anxiety over the outcome."
Varlik didn't answer, but after a moment looked away. He could see a certain logic in what the T'swi had said, but it wasn't what he felt in his guts.
After a moment he turned off his recorder, buckled his seat belt, and closed his eyes. Maybe, he thought, he could go to sleep; sleeping was the best way to kill time in a situation like this.
But instead he sat there, more or less slumped, thoughts drifting through his mind on no particular theme. There were questions, speculations, things that were or might have been. He was relaxed now, and it occurred to him that this was not much inferior to sleep itself as a way to kill time. Then, after an hour or so, he slept.
Varlik awoke gradually, nagged into consciousness by the discomfort of prolonged, unrelieved sitting. It was night; the four windows, two flanking each troop door, told him that. The lights had been dimmed, and almost all the T'swa seemed asleep, some propped against one another. Sergeant Kusu's eyes were open, though; they moved to Varlik, and the T'swi smiled, nodding acknowledgement of Varlik's notice. Varlik looked at his watch; he had almost two hours to wait.
It struck him then that among the more than eighty men, most of them apparently asleep, not one was snoring, and he wondered if they'd somehow been trained not to. Perhaps men who'd slept so often where a prowling enemy might hear, somehow subconsciously didn't allow themselves to snore.
He stood and stretched, twisted his trunk, rotated his shoulders, then sat and closed his eyes once more. It seemed to him he hadn't really gone to sleep again, and that no more than twenty minutes could have passed, when Platoon Sergeant Tok's voice barked out. "Ten minutes to Beregesh! By squads! First Platoon, stand and stretch!" Behind him on the other aisle, Varlik heard a similar command to the Second Platoon.
The first squad, with Varlik, stood and stretched, raised their knees, squatted and straightened, touched toes, twisted trunks, some with a quiet comment or chuckle, then sat back down, giving the aisle to the second. Varlik began to feel tension again, and it occurred to him to wonder what the tension would be like if they all felt it, if it fed back from man to man, building.
The two platoon leaders, with their sergeants, had gone to the two windows flanking the portside door. Varlik wondered what they could see. Then it occurred to him that he was not a trooper here, but a journalist with a journalist's functions, and he went over also. The windows were large, from deck level to above the head and forty inches wide, to let officers examine the scene before landing and unloading. From their elevation of perhaps 15,000 feet, Varlik could see low mountains, fairly rugged, silvered softly with moonlight. The four T'swa were gazing intently at a forward angle, as if they knew where to look, but Varlik could see nothing significant there. He decided they must be getting information over the radio speaker each wore in an ear. His camera alternated between landscape and men.
A minute later he saw a bright spark—an explosion, he realized—seemingly on the surface miles ahead, followed seconds later by two more. His muscles tightened. The four T'swa seemed as relaxed as before, strong black presences waiting for something more. The troop carrier was rapidly drawing up on the site, and Varlik could feel their craft descending, contributing to the weakness of his jellied knees. He could see in abundance now the tiny flashes of what he assumed was gunfire, or perhaps the hits of rockets. His colon felt extremely nervous.
The sporadic firefights drew nearer as the floater lost altitude, and Varlik lost himself in watching. Suddenly he realized his fear was gone, replaced for the moment by something like the exhilaration the T'swa seemed to feel. Lieutenant Zimsu called the order to belt down and be ready. Varlik moved back to his own place as the troopers fastened buckles, his camera recording T'swa faces, powerful forms, then he too buckled down. Around them somewhere was an entire fleet of assault floaters, with someone coordinating their movements, and it occurred to him to hope that the someone was competent.
Twice in the last half minute, Varlik flinched at the loud frightening bangs of light rockets exploding against the armored hull, and the carrier touched down harder than he'd expected, as if the pilot had been caught unaware by the ground, or felt hurried. The T'swa were striking the instant-release buckles of their seat belts and getting quickly to their feet, he scarcely slower. The troop doors opened and the ranks of troopers double-timed out, their weapons in their hands, Varlik carrying his camera in front of him, recording what he could from within the hurrying ranks. He'd lowered his monitor, but now he peered beneath it for wider vision, to see where he was going, his camera continuing to record.
Then he was on the short ramp and into the night, the T'swa dispersing to the sides, Varlik trying to stay within a couple of steps of Bin as he'd been told to do. The sound of gunfire was loud, sharp, immediate, and Bin was shooting short bursts. It occurred to Varlik that they ought to hit the ground, take cover, but they didn't.
Then the T'swa almost stopped shooting, and he realized that the nearby gunfire had been theirs, that Bin had not been answering it but adding to it. Still they ran, not hard but steadily, a trot. The low dark humps ahead must be the bunkers they were to destroy. Suddenly they came to a shallow ditch, and there Bin hit the dirt, Varlik landing next to him, most of the others running on. Varlik lay panting, wondering what was happening, why they had stopped. It occurred to him that they'd been off the floater for no more than twenty seconds. He raised his camera above the ditch's shoulder, panning, using his monitor now, seeing what he was capturing on his cube.
Gunfire burst out ahead to their right, and the men who'd stopped at the ditch directed concentrated fire in that direction. Except for Bin and himself, the men who'd stopped in the ditch all seemed to carry blast hoses; their racket was terrific, shocking, stunning, and in seconds the enemy fire had stopped.
Then they simply lay there, waiting in what seemed like silence, although less intense gunfire continued, apparently directed elsewhere. He thought to question Bin; why had the two of them stayed here? But he knew without asking: Bin had been told to take care of him; keep him alive.
From somewhere well ahead a rocket rose, followed quickly by another, and another, and more. Varlik knew from night exercises in his army days that the enemy had lobbers. He followed their upward flight, realized they were aimed at this ditch and its hosemen. As they began to descend, he saw others arching overhead in answer from behind. He tucked his camera under an arm and pressed his body hard against the forward ditch slope, waiting, aware of increasing gunfire. Seconds later he heard and felt the exploding rockets, a string of five evenly spaced crashes that threw rocks and dirt on the men prone in the ditch, echoed by a series well ahead, a booming background to the racketing gunfire.
Opening his eyes, he raised to his knees on the hard stony dirt, camera ready again for whatever was offered. The enemy firing seemed directed mainly elsewhere now, but the T'swa in the ditch with him were triggering leisurely bursts in the direction the earlier enemy fire had come from, so he recorded that.
Then massive explosions sounded ahead, a series of them overlapping, and Bin jerked the shoulder of Varlik's shirt. They all leaped up and ran forward, apparently not coming under fire. There were more big explosions somewhere. The bunkers, when they got there, were collapsed. Varlik lay with the others on the sloping heaps that had been bunker walls, in a smell of explosions and settling dust, sweating hard. For the first time Varlik realized how hot it was.
The troops that had charged the bunkers were gone—he hadn't even seen a body—and it seemed for a while that he and the men he was with had been forgotten, overlooked, the gunfire unrelated to them. Bin's attention was to their original right; the T'swa had lined up facing that direction now. Varlik could see muzzle flashes ahead that must be enemy fire, and when this increased in intensity, the men he was with opened up with their blast hoses again, the sound shredding the night while still more heavy explosions sounded, preceded by big flashes that flared and were gone. When they paused, a minute later, Varlik wasn't sure whether it was truly that quiet or if perhaps he'd been deafened.
The next ten or fifteen minutes alternated between relatively quiet inaction, brief outbursts of firing, and sporadic heavy explosions. Twice they came under brief fire from lobbers, and several rounds landed very near. He could smell hot hose barrels. A number of times he wiped at the sweat pooling in his eyebrows, his wet hands gritty with the dirt he crouched on, converting the sweat of his face into mud. He was recording constantly now—even when the lobber rockets arced downward and struck—commenting frequently for the audio pickup.
Then he heard T'swa bugles well behind them, and shrill whistling from several directions: somewhere troops were pulling back, but not those he was with. Instead, the hosemen opened fire again, shooting without benefit of seen targets, spraying covering fire ahead and to their left. From the general direction of the carrier, lobber rockets left bright thin trails that threaded the sky, then stitched the blackness ahead with flashes.
Nearby whistling commanded, and he stood up with the T'swa around him, trotting back in the direction of the carrier, not coming under fire again so far as Varlik knew. There was gunfire, but no sounds of blast slugs striking near or rockets landing. Like the others, he jumped the little ditch, pleased that he was able to, and after a minute could see their floater ahead of them, no lights showing. They slowed to a near-walk, jogging up the ramp past the two platoon lieutenants and their sergeants, who stood by the foot of it peering past them.
Most of the T'swa were already on board, had returned ahead of those who'd stopped at the ditch, and even in the darkness, Varlik was aware of gaps in their seated ranks. The door to the rear compartment—the aid station—stood open, a blackout curtain blocking the light within, and Varlik felt a lump in his stomach.
But the carrier did not lift; the platoons' four leaders were still outside by the ramp. Three troopers were helped in, wounded. They pushed the curtain aside and disappeared into the aid station.
Still the floater sat. Four more T'swa entered, each pair carrying a wounded man, and also went into the aid station. The lieutenants followed, with the platoon sergeants, and the troop doors finally hissed softly shut.
Seconds later the floater began lifting rapidly, pivoting as it rose, then Varlik felt horizontal acceleration as they headed north toward Aromanis. No rockets struck them. When the acceleration had stopped, the compartment lights came on low. Varlik looked around; the gaps were not large or numerous. Soberly, camera in hand, he got up and headed for the aid station.
It was daylight when they landed, but not by much; the daytime heat was only starting to build. Thick-witted from dozing, Varlik went straight to his old media quarters, showered, then went to the officers' mess for whatever he could get. They were still serving breakfast. When he'd finished, he returned to the air-conditioned comfort of his room to begin editing and narrating. He'd been at it only briefly when someone knocked.
"Come in," he said.
It was Konni. She was sweaty, dirty, and he could see she'd been crying. He got to his feet. She simply stood there, her face writhing with the effort not to cry again. Once more Varlik's stomach knotted.
"What?" he asked simply.
"Bertol," she said. It was all she got out before she broke down and began to cry like a little girl, utterly despondent. Oh shit, Varlik thought, and feeling wretched, went to her, wet-eyed himself now, to stand holding her till she'd cried herself out.