The pool was cooler than Konni had expected, not something for lolling in. In middle and upper school she'd been on the swimming team, and now began to swim laps, smoothly, powerfully, enjoying the unaccustomed feel of her muscles pulling and stretching. But she tired rather quickly, and hands on curbing, hoisted herself out of the pool without using the ladder. Varlik and Mauen were splashing each other while Wellem Bosler swam strong easy laps along the opposite side.
That Varlik's got almost a gymnast's physique, Konni thought, and Mauen looks like a dancer. She'd have to get her own weight down, she decided.
The one that surprised her was the T'sel master. His face said forty-five but his body suggested a vigorous thirty-five. She wondered which was closer. The face, she supposed. Konni, she told herself cheerfully, you need to get yourself a boyfriend and stop this secret ogling. Too bad Wellem doesn't live in Landfall.
Bosler too climbed out of the pool, and walked around to sit down by her. "How do you like it here?" he asked.
"So far so good," she answered. "I know for sure I like what's happened to me so far; I expect I'll like it even better when it's had a chance to settle in more. It feels as if things are changing in me that I don't even know about."
"That's the way it works," he said with a chuckle. "It's especially noticeable with adults. I had one call me up to tell me he'd just realized he hadn't felt regret for at least a year."
The concept startled Konni. Regrets were part of her standard repertory of feelings, or had been. She wondered if she'd regretted for the last time.
They were interrupted by Melsa, who announced that if they'd had enough of the pool, Garlan was in his study, ready to give them a rundown on "the conspiracy." She said the last two words with an emphasis after a pause, then waited. Varlik and Mauen swam to the ladder and got out, too.
"I'm ready," Varlik said. "How about the rest of you?"
Konni had already gotten up. "Me, too," she said, and looked at Bosler, who grinned back at her.
"I'll sit in," he answered, "although I'm probably familiar with most of it."
They separated to the two dressing rooms, dried, groomed briefly, and dressed, then regathered in Durslan's study. They'd just sat down when Elgen, in his role as butler, looked in without knocking.
"Excuse me, sir, but a hover van has just landed in the yard and armed men have gotten out."
"Thank you, Elgen. I presume they'll be coming to the door. Let them into the entry hall and then call me. I'll pretend surprise."
Elgen departed. "Well," said Durslan, "something unexpected to spice the day. Why don't we postpone my little seminar until we see what this is about."
They waited. Varlik wondered if the armed men had anything to do with the conspiracy. It occurred to him that for most of his life, a situation like this would have made him tense, guts tight, perhaps feeling half suffocated. Now he simply felt alert.
Konni wondered accurately if it had anything to do with Felsi Nisben and the packages.
Distant door chimes sounded. A minute later Durslan's intercom buzzed, and he pressed the receiver switch. "What is it?"
Elgen's voice answered; Durslan was taking it on the speaker so his guests could hear. "A group of gentlemen from the Justice Ministry, sir," said Elgen. "Lord Ponsamen, a Mr. Jomsley, a Miz Nisben, and eight armed personnel."
Shit! thought Konni. I blew it! How in the galaxy do we handle this?
"Armed personnel? Indeed! I'm with guests just now, but I suppose—Make the armed personnel comfortable in the front sitting room. They're no doubt on duty and can't drink alcohol, but have edibles brought out for them, and joma. Is Lady Durslan at hand?"
"She just came into the entry hall, sir."
"Good. Ask her if she'd kindly bring Lord Ponsamen and the two other persons you named to my study. A Mr. somebody and a Miz somebody."
"Yes, sir."
They could hear Elgen talking briefly to someone. More faintly others spoke. "Madam will bring Lord Ponsamen, Mr. Jomsley, and Miz Nisben down at once, sir," Elgen reported.
The comm went still then. "Armed men," said Durslan. "Curious." He sounded utterly unperturbed. Again no one spoke, and in a minute Lady Durslan opened the door. At that point, the three men present stood up—Durslan, Varlik, and Bosler.
"My dear," Lady Durslan announced, "Lord Ponsamen, Miz Nisben, and Mr. Jomsley." She ushered them in, then left. Jomsley was dour and Ponsamen genially businesslike. Felsi looked at Konni and almost cringed; clearly, Konni was perfectly well after all, and so were her friends.
"Good morning, Durslan," said Ponsamen, and looked around. "Seems we're interrupting something. Can't be helped, though; I'm here in an official capacity, and I need to speak with you."
He eyed Varlik. "You're Varlik Lormagen, aren't you? And one of you must be Konni Wenter," he added, looking at the two young women.
"I'm Konni Wenter," Konni answered. "I'm afraid I don't know what your official capacity is, Lord Ponsamen."
"As well you might not; I'm not exactly renowned. Lord Durslan knows me; I'm the Director of Enforcement, in the Department of Justice."
He turned his attention to Durslan again. "I'd like Lormagen and Miz Wenter to stay. Feel free to dismiss the others if you'd like, though if they leave, I'll require that they join my men in your sitting room until we're done and I approve their further departure."
"Perhaps you'd care to tell me first what this concerns," Durslan answered.
"It concerns information on a certain cube made in part by Miz Wenter and in part, I believe, by Mr. Lormagen."
Durslan nodded. "I see. In that case I suggest they all stay. I believe they're familiar with the information you're referring to. There's no use their sitting in my parlor wondering what's being said about it in here."
So dreams can be prophetic, Varlik thought to himself. He remembered what Ramolu had said in his dream last night: "Lormagen, you screwed the whole thing up." Funny that I picked Ramolu to say that in my dream. And Kusu said it would all work out.
Varlik's chuckle was soft, yet every eye in the room turned to him.
"You've something to tell us, Mr. Lormagen?" asked Ponsamen.
"Not really. I was just looking at how this all came about."
One eyebrow raised, Ponsamen's gaze stayed on him for a moment, without any hostility that Varlik could sense. Then the director looked back to Durslan. "Please turn on your wall screen," he said, and Durslan complied. "Mr. Jomsley, prepare to play the cube."
Jomsley had brought a player from his office, a quality machine. For the next ten minutes or so they all viewed the by-now-familiar scenes, heard familiar words, with Konni's paraphrased summary of Varlik's suspicions and conclusions, and her concern about Varlik's safety here. When it was over, Ponsamen cleared his throat quietly.
"Now I believe you understand the presence of armed marshals. And while it appears that Mr. Lormagen and Miz Wenter are in fact quite well, that leaves unanswered the implications of the material recorded off-planet. Tell me, Lord Durslan, how do you account for what appears to be criminal conspiracy?"
Durslan leaned back in his chair, arms folded. "Let me begin," he said, "by stating that I serve as a consultant to the Foreign Ministry. And as we just heard, Lord Beniker referred Mr. Lormagen to me—not because Lord Beniker is unfamiliar with the facts, but because I am more fully conversant with the details. The Foreign Ministry has been aware of the enigmas described for some time now, as also in part the army has been. And you can see why the Ministry has given them a top-secret rating.
He gestured casually at Varlik. "Mr. Lormagen encountered certain peculiarities and, being particularly energetic, thorough, and persistent, took them to Lord Beniker, who found himself confronted with the distinct danger of someone knocking over the soup, so to speak.
"So Beniker arranged for Varlik to visit me here. I was to explain matters to him, and make him privy to whatever data and work in progress I saw fit—which is a good deal more than I am free to do for you, I might add. From me you'll have to settle for a summary.
"At any rate, as it occurred to me that Mr. Lormagen might have shared his information and suspicions with his wife, she too was invited. And when he learned the facts, he called Miz Wenter, who had shared both his investigations and suspicions. She arrived yesterday.
"And now here you are! Without your swimsuits, I'm afraid, though well equipped in other respects." Durslan smiled perfunctorily.
"The Foreign Ministry has activities in progress on several worlds, directed toward the solution of the enigmas pointed out. And as I've indicated, I'm not at liberty to discuss them. Perhaps Lord Beniker will be willing; certainly the authority is his. You might wish to ask him . . ."
"As I will," Ponsamen put in.
"One thing I am free to tell you about," Durslan continued, "is the matter of the T'swa arsenal, which is not, I hasten to add, to be talked about. It is, however, less sensitive information than the rest, being rather peripheral. Some centuries ago the Sovereign, in his role as Administrator General of the Confederation, agreed that the T'swa could manufacture steel for their domestic use, and allowed them to import small quantities of technetium for the purpose. Then, several years ago, our present Sovereign licensed them to manufacture their own light weapons—indeed, the only kinds of weapons they use—for their own use. Existing regiments, of course, still carried weapons of Iryalan manufacture, but new regiments were to be equipped with T'swa-made arms as available.
"About three years ago, the T'swa requested a rush shipment of Iryalan-made arms to Frey Marzanik's World. It seems that a supply of T'swa-made weapons had been shipped there for a T'swa regiment en route—a virgin regiment on contract to one of the warring states there. Unfortunately, the supply base was overrun before the T'swa arrived, and the weapons were lost—weapons which the T'swa themselves weren't prepared to replace quickly. Thus their urgent request for replacement arms."
Durslan shrugged slightly. "From there the T'swa-made arms obviously found their way into some as-yet-unidentified smuggling channel, and thence to Orlantha, a fact of which we were well aware prior to Mr. Lormagen's independent discovery in the jungle. Our own intelligence branch is sorting out possible trails, which quite conceivably may provide us the identity of whoever made possible the Orlanthan insurrection."
Durslan straightened. "And that, Lord Ponsamen, is the story in a nutshell. Meanwhile, let me point out that even had there been some details in this mishandled by our government, I, as a consultant, would scarcely be liable. And as you can see, the Lormagens and Miz Wenter are quite well, so I believe your business with me here is at an end. I regret that your weekend was disrupted by this misunderstanding, but as we know, this sort of thing happens in government service."
Durslan stood then, signaling the end of their audience. He'd completely taken charge. "I trust you will keep all of this scrupulously confidential. To leak it could seriously compromise our investigations, and your positions as well, no doubt. I'll also trust you not to copy the cube you played here; I recommend you give it personally to Lord Beniker."
Ponsamen raised his large body from the chair more easily than might have been expected. A sour-looking Jomsley and an embarrassed Felsi got up, too.
"Indeed!" Ponsamen spoke a little stiffly now. "I shall personally take these matters up with Lord Beniker this coming week." He turned and followed Durslan from the room, accompanied by Jomsley and Felsi Nisben.
When the study door had closed behind them, the Lormagens and Konni looked at each other, while Wellem Bosler sat back smiling. After a minute, Konni spoke quietly. "I told Felsi to do nothing before Oneday night. She must have gotten curious, opened a package, and played the cube. And got all excited and worried. She may also have delivered a package to Captain Brusin."
"The Quaranth won't leave before Threeday, at the soonest," Varlik replied. "You'll have time to get it back if she gave it to him."
Lord Durslan returned several minutes later. "Well," he said, "they're off the ground. Now. Where were we?"
"You were going to tell us about the conspiracy," said Mauen. "Or was that it? What you told Lord Ponsamen?"
Varlik grinned. "I thought I detected some fictions in your story, sir. For example, in my experience, admittedly limited, a T'swa regiment travels with its weapons. They're not shipped ahead."
Durslan nodded. "No doubt. I thought I did rather well for spur of the moment fabrication, though." He held up an audio recorder. "I have it all on here, incidentally. When one lies, it's well to have a record of what one said."
"Maybe you'd better get a copy to Lord Beniker," Konni commented. "It sounds as if Lord Ponsamen is going to question him."
"I will get a copy to Beniker. But Ponsamen won't question him—not in any official sense, certainly. What Ponsamen and I said here was to mislead Jomsley, let him think that all of this was being handled and that Ponsamen was going to verify it himself. So that Jomsley could dismiss it all from his mind as a good Standard bureaucrat should.
"Incidentally, Ponsamen's an excellent actor, wouldn't you say? He needs to be. You see, he's an alumnus of our school here, as I am, of course. A classmate of Beniker's, matter of fact, and knows a good deal more about the conspiracy than you do. Which, if you will all sit and listen, I will now remedy."
He looked them over, smiled, and began.
"First of all, let me say that the conspiracy grew out of the T'sel, the Way, but began here on Iryala, not on Tyss. The T'sel is the T'sel anywhere, but persons who know the T'sel will create different activities in different environments.
"Until 630 years ago, interest in the T'swa was simply in their value as mercenaries. Then a son of the Ostrak family, Harden, decided to travel to Tyss and see how T'swa mercenaries were trained; it seemed to him that something of value might be learned there. He'd heard about the T'swa climate, and had planned to stay only two or three weeks—less, if it was too oppressive. He ended up staying four deks, though it was summer, retreating to his lander for sleep, some of his meals, and at any other time when the heat threatened to overcome him.
"On his return, to his wife's dismay, he arranged to send their second son, age five, to Tyss to learn the T'sel. They supplied him with an air-conditioned sleeping chamber, which, incidentally, the lad outgrew the need for. Within three years there were three Iryalan children on Tyss, and by the time the eldest was ready to come home there were seven. They returned wiser than their parents, by criteria Iryalan or T'swa, had already recognized the need for thoroughgoing change in the Confederation, and had begun to develop the basic features of a plan.
"Of course, they mentioned none of this to their families. Instead, with the backing of Barden Ostrak, they established a school on the Ostrak estate, which was later moved to this more secluded and aesthetic location.
"The alumni of the school, and of other schools which were established later, came to refer to themselves collectively as 'the Alumni,' as I mentioned to you yesterday. We do not have a formal organization, but we collaborate and keep one another informed.
"Incidentally, it's extremely unlikely that any other such illegal, conspiratorial society could have existed unknown in the Confederation for six centuries, or even six decades. Perhaps not for six years. There'd be dissension, group suppression of dissenters, desertions, and dissident splinter groups, and secrecy would be lost. And of course we are very non-Standard, and therefore susceptible to psychiatric imprisonment.
"The keys to our continuation have been the effectiveness of the T'sel in unlocking human potential, and the fact that its truths are sufficiently basic and self-discoverable that we act with a very large degree of agreement, to which are added mutual trust and respect.
"We impose no truths, incidentally, require no Beliefs or Standard behavior, preach no Basic Premises. Each of us discovers his own truth for himself or herself, but these have a high commonality from one person to another, and at the least are compatible. The T'sel drills simply make it possible and more or less inevitable that we do discover them. One person may come up with a talent or cognition that most others do not—to each his own, we say—and there are different levels of attainment, especially for those who play in the field of Wisdom and Knowledge. But there does exist that large area of commonality, of mutual experience and wisdom."
Varlik interrupted. "You said drills. What about guidance by questions, the sort of thing Wellem did with us?"
"What Wellem used with you are mostly techniques developed by Iryalan masters to help non-T'swa adults or older children. When children grow up in the T'sel, few such procedures are necessary. Mostly they grow up open and knowing, with few barriers to be removed."
Durslan drew his thoughts back to his dissertation. "At any rate, the early Alumni soon began to assume prominent positions in government. Firstly, they were very largely of wealthy, or at least well-to-do families, well connected, as is commonly still the case today. Secondly, their T'sel education and training allowed them to excel both in learning and decision making, and of course they were emotionally very stable. So when they left our school for college or the universities, they invariably did exceedingly well. And thirdly, their understanding of human behavior and their ability to deal with human emotions allowed them to manage human activities with unusual skill."
He grinned then at his audience. "There's a fourthly, too, but I'll leave you to discover it for yourselves.
"Unfortunately, though, because of the Sacrament and the social strictures and laws that grew out of it, the Alumni have been unable to break Standard Technology, despite the various high posts held—including the Crown for these many years."
"You talk about breaking Standard Technology," Varlik said. "What about Standard Management?"
"Standard Management is remarkably viable; it needs relatively little change. The limitations lie in Standard Technology and the psychoconditioning that underlies it."
Durslan paused, as if shifting gears.
"You've read now that humankind exists elsewhere, in the home sector from which our ancestors came, and you've also read about the garthid. There are other races, too, some of them wanderers, which our seers and those of the T'swa have perceived. Some of those cultures, human and nonhuman, are predatory, with the ability to conquer or ravage worlds and peoples no better prepared than ours to cope with them. There is physical evidence, as well as observations one can make while in advanced T'sel states, that certain of them visited this sector of the galaxy before our ancestors came here, with power that dwarfs anything the Confederation has."
"Can you give us an example?" Mauen asked.
"Certainly. There once were much more extensive seas on Tyss. Millions of years ago they were removed, drawn off to about the present level, by a race which for some reason wanted and was able to take that remarkable quantity of water." He scanned the others. "Consider, if you please, the technology required to accomplish that!
"So far as we know, however, none of them has the T'sel. While we, having it, have the apparent potential to grow beyond their force and to raise a civilization like no other we know of. Yet as it stands now, we're cemented into technical and cultural immobility. So our first challenge has been to break the grip of Standard Technology on the Confederation.
"The conspiracy is the second step in that; the first was to quietly gain widespread positions of influence and power in the Confederation.
"It has been necessary to move carefully, which in this case has also meant slowly. Nearly three centuries ago, Orlantha became the new technite planet. Rombil was given it in fief, and decided to use slave labor, which was their legal right per policies on the exploitation of resource worlds. Foreign affairs, as you may not know, is a field rather largely outside the purview of Standard Management. The administrative machinery is Standard with a capital S, but the purposes of interplanetary relationships, and in part how they are carried out, are not covered by Standard Management.
"Early, there had been a trickle of slave escapes which the Rombili didn't take seriously because replacements were easily gotten, and the Rombili correctly considered the condition of the fugitives so desperate as to render them no threat.
"But the Alumni saw opportunity there. Standard Technology has it that steel cannot be made without technetium. We already knew this was false, but dared not say it. The falsity was attested by the tiny steel industry of the T'swa, which the Alumni knew of early and which for millennia had made steel without technetium.
"If this had become known in the Confederation two centuries earlier, it might have brought down aerial attacks on the T'swa, and the destruction of the material progress they had made, setting them back into primitivism and hunger—depending on who was sovereign here, and who his advisors. At the least, Tyss would have been embargoed—quarantined as unfit for human contact. While here, the knowledge of steel without technetium would have been encysted, walled off as a singularity, an unimportance not allowed to influence Standard Technology. Steel made without technetium would have been described falsely as very inferior, not fit for civilized use.
"But if the Confederation's supply of technetium were cut off, and the need for steel became serious enough, non-technetium steel might be accepted if properly introduced. The people who provided it would have to be considered as somehow outside of Standard Technology, and thus free of the stigma of apostasy. And if somehow they were already admired, they might even be regarded rather as wizards, a concept from antiquity meaning, loosely, those who operate beyond understood reality."
Durslan scanned his guests, noting their lack of conviction. "At any rate, that is the basis we've operated on—and with promising results. For example, Varlik, because of your very effective help, the T'swa are already admired in the Confederation, most particularly on Iryala and Rombil.
"As for acceptance of non-technetium steel, and of whatever other non-Standard introductions and innovations we may undertake, who do you suppose has controlled the Sacraments on Iryala the last twenty-three years? Indirectly, of course. Twenty-three years ago last Sixmonth we obtained a Crown decision, written but of course not publicized, that Standard Technology did not require the hypnotic drug to be prepared at the individual Sacrament Station by the station's High Technician. The rationale was that absolute Standardness was better served by preparation at a central laboratory—run by Alumni, as it happens. So a generation of children on Iryala, and increasingly on other worlds, has been treated not with the hypnotic drug but with a strong soporific that puts the person into a sleep too profound for hypnosis."
Durslan scanned his guests for any sign of difficulty with that knowledge. There was none.
"That small alteration of Standard Technology," he continued, "in its guise as a bolstering of it, seems to have been the first since at least the Amberian erasure.
"As a result, there are billions of young people in the Confederation today whose attitude toward Standard Technology is social only, not enforced by the Sacrament. The attitudes of most of them toward Standard Technology are presently pretty much like everyone else's, but they are much more susceptible to change.
"Incidentally, the Sacrament and other psychoconditioning is not irreversible. You lost yours, and a great deal of other burdensome mental baggage, in your first session with Wellem.
"But that is only groundwork. We also instigated the insurrection and its step-by-step escalation. Recently, technite production began again on a small scale at Beregesh; a pod arrived with the news late yesterday, and the jubilation has begun. In four or five days another pod will bring news that the refinery there has been destroyed again, along with the mine head, by intense bombardment with superior lobber rockets of a design not known to Standard Technology, launched from well outside the new Beregesh defense perimeter by Standard infantry lobbers whose range is supposedly somewhat too short.
"You can imagine what the effect of that reversal will be. The technetium shortage has already become desperate. Steel mills have shut down entirely on several worlds. Then, by a major and highly publicized effort, the situation seemed to have been brought under control. And suddenly the primitive gooks come up with an unexpected resource, this one beyond Standard, and the situation suddenly looks hopeless.
"One of the weaknesses of Standard Management, let alone of Standard Technology, is its severely limited ability to adjust to the needs of large-scale emergencies. Take my word for it, throughout much of prehistory in humanity's home sector, an insurrection like that would have been suppressed in far less time. Normal procedures would have been suspended and all necessary ingenuity and resources concentrated on handling it."
Durslan grinned wryly. "Consider. The resources of all twenty-seven member worlds could have been mobilized to handle the Orlanthan insurrection, and no doubt would have been if Standard Management allowed. While in the absence of Standard Technology, the resources of either Rombil or Iryala alone would have been enough, although in that case the situation would never have come up in the first place.
"But getting back to reality. A few days after public announcement that the refinery has been destroyed again, a T'swa metallurgist will arrive from Tyss, imported by the Crown. He'll bring with him the T'swa formula for making steel without technetium. And under the circumstances, he and his gift to the Confederation will be gratefully accepted and abundantly praised.
"Beyond that, our program is mostly rather loose and conditional, depending on events. But we Alumni are serendipitous, and accordingly optimistic. There will be an offer of autonomy to the Orlanthans—their technite will still be valuable, just not essential—and much rewriting of law concerning the rights of resource worlds in general. We'll continue to publicize the T'swa, expand our T'sel schools, and further defuse the Sacrament network. And we'll begin to introduce, little by little, the concept of science, which you encountered in your reading here and which will come to mean more to you, I'm sure."
Durslan spread his hands in front of him. "And that's about all there is to that, unless you have questions."
"You haven't told us how the weapons were smuggled to the Birds," Konni said.
"Ah! Of course! Sorry I overlooked that. Even on most trade worlds we have Alumni in at least a few positions of power or influence. On Splenn, for example, there is the large and wealthy Movrik family, which owns the planet's only interstellar merchant fleet—eleven ships. The other Splennite interstellar carriers are one- or two-ship operations, and it's those small carriers who've earned the Splennites their reputation as smugglers.
"But it's the honest and highly reputable Movrik family who hauled arms to Orlantha. Before the insurrection began, Rombil had no surveillance or security system on Orlantha. None was considered necessary. So smuggling was simple, and precautions rudimentary. The smugglers needed only to avoid encounters with the ore barges, which was easy because the barges followed very regular approach routines.
"Since the insurrection began, of course, smuggling has required extraordinary procedures and been restricted increasingly to ammunition and medical supplies. It has involved landings on an island safely outside the area monitored by surveillance platforms, and uses modified harvester submarines protected from detection by the high turbidity of the larger jungle rivers. On the lesser rivers they operate on the surface, under cover of bank forest."
Varlik nodded; the picture was developing for him. "And the T'swa trained the Birds?" he asked.
"Centuries ago the T'swa educated an Orlanthan cadre—educated them as children, on Tyss, in the T'sel. That cadre then went home and trained a larger cadre, the foundation for the new Orlanthan culture, the jungle culture. Much later, when the time came, a new Orlanthan cadre, a military cadre, was trained on Tyss."
"How did the Orlanthans become so numerous?" Varlik asked. "Our military command on Kettle was continually having to raise their enemy manpower estimates."
"That was a matter of smuggling, too. We've been working on this for a long time, you understand. It was T'swa who found early escapees and led them south to the jungle. Later, T'swa-trained recruiters from the tropics were flown north to recruit additional Orlanthans. On some coastal islands, far to the north, lived tribes driven there from the mainland by rival tribes. Island resources are limited, and population pressures can develop which can't be successfully alleviated by emigration because the neighboring shores and fisheries are occupied by stronger tribes. Some entire island tribes were transferred south two centuries ago—several thousand people. Most of the insurgents are descended from them."
"It sounds to me," Varlik said slowly, "as if a lot of people have been manipulated."
Durslan's calm eyes met Varlik's without challenging. "Oh, definitely. Since the first Sacrament was delivered on the refugee fleet, hundreds of billions have been manipulated by coercion of the most extreme sort, and in early childhood at that."
"Touché," Varlik answered. "But I'm talking about Orlanthans."
"Ah. Of course. Since the first slave roundup by the Rombili . . ." He grinned abruptly. "Yes, we've manipulated them, too, in a manner of speaking, but never coercively. It is axiomatic in the T'sel that persons be given the broadest self-determinism appropriate to their ethical level. The island tribes were given an alternative to oppression and chronic hunger, and accepting it, were brought south to serve our purposes. By other Orlanthans, let me add, acting on their own determinism. For by that time the Orlanthans had made the idea of insurrection their own.
"You see, you cannot successfully manipulate people, once they learn the T'sel, but you can collaborate with them on the basis of overlapping interests and mutually held reality."
Varlik didn't respond for a long moment. His attention was elsewhere. When he spoke again, it was slowly. "All right. I can see that." Again he focused on Durslan. "There's another question that bothers me though."
"What's that?"
"The regiment, or regiments—sacrifice of. Why?"
"From our point of view and the viewpoint of our program, the use of T'swa mercenaries permitted strong and favorable publicity of the T'swa. From the mercenaries' point of view, it provided a good war."
Durslan leaned toward Varlik, forearms on knees, a pose unexpected of a nobleman. "Tell me, Varlik, are you familiar with a chart known as the Matrix of T'sel?"
"In a general way. It's been explained to me, but I forget the details. I probably have a copy somewhere."
"Good." Durslan got up and stepped to his desk, where his slender fingers tapped keys on his keyboard. The wall screen lit up, and a moment later a chart appeared on it, the now-familiar Standard translation, with an arrow. The arrow moved to the top row, the right-hand column. "Does this entry fit your impression of the Way of the T'swa warrior?" Durslan asked.
Varlik nodded. "Right. 'War as play,' " he read aloud, " 'Victory unimportant.' " Then the words of Usu, the T'swa medic on the hospital ship, came back to him, clearly, almost as if he were hearing them again. " 'If you are truly at Play,' " Varlik quoted, " 'death will not matter to you.' A T'swa told me that on the ship to Tyss. And I accepted it as a concept, but it wasn't really real to me. It still isn't."
It struck Varlik then what made it unreal. "How can the T'swa," he asked, "how can anyone, find satisfaction in a war without purpose? Without a purpose meaningful to them? On Kettle, did the T'swa know what was going on—that they were being used?" Or would they have cared if they'd known? he added to himself.
"They may have known," Durslan said, "but I rather doubt it."
He stroked his chin contemplatively. "You asked how they could find satisfaction in a war without a purpose meaningful to them. Recognize first that you asked that from a particular point of view. Now let me ask you a question—a very personal question. Do you have children?"
The seeming non sequitur stopped Varlik. "Not yet. We hope to, though. We've recently gotten clearance."
"Fine. What was the purpose of your sex life before you got clearance? Was it a source of joy and happiness? A form of pleasure without regard to production of offspring? Sex as play?" Durslan paused to smile. "And now that you have clearance for children, do you go to bed with the attitude of a worker going to his job?"
Varlik smiled back ruefully, then unexpectedly laughed. "Okay, I see what you're getting at. I've had several T'swa, two at least, talk about the matrix to me. But you're the first one to find an approach that worked. Or maybe I was just ready this time."
Durslan grinned. "Maybe you were. Now, one more thing while I have it on the screen: Where do you fit on this chart?"
"Huh! Well, when I first went to work I was at 'Work for Survival'—payday, the weekly credit transfer. Then I moved to 'Work for Advantage'—promotions and raises."
"Fine. And very valid, both of them. But right now, does it seem to you— Can you imagine yourself operating at the level of, say, Job as Play, with reward unimportant? Not 'no reward,' but 'reward unimportant.' "
"I can imagine it, but it's not entirely real to me."
He turned from the screen to look at Durslan again. "Where are you on the chart?"
Durslan moved the arrow. "Games as Play. So is Beniker. So are Tar-Kliss and Wellem, even though, as Masters of Wisdom, they were at Study as Play for years. They moved to Games as Play when they agreed to take part in the game of overhaul the Confederation. At any lower level—say, at Compete or Fight—they couldn't hope to succeed in a game like this one."
Varlik contemplated the chart, and the things that had been said to him by Durslan, Usu, Kusu, Bin. To T'swa mercenaries, war was an activity as pure as healthy sex, and apparently as satisfying. Eventually, through death or wounds, they lost the ability to play at war any longer. That would happen to him with sex someday, through death or age or whatever.
And the people that the T'swa fought and killed? They were people at War, too, participating in it at levels of Fight or Work, most of them, though apparently not the Birds. That's why the T'swa warred as they did—very personally, knowing who they shot at, not killing indiscriminately, but so far as feasible shooting or striking only those who'd chosen war or allowed themselves to be coerced into warring.
"Okay, I can see it intellectually," Varlik said, "and I'm beginning to feel it at a gut level."
Durslan reached and the screen went blank. "Fine," he said. "Can I interest you in employment?"
Varlik's brows rose. "What do you have in mind?"
"Formally, you'd be self-employed as a free-lance writer. But the Foreign Ministry would contract with you confidentially to write certain types of articles, scripts, and books that would help prepare the people of the Confederation for changes to come. And it would be best if you stayed here; you could have an apartment in our guest house. Information and consulting would be more readily available to you, and Wellem could work on your education. Mauen could be your secretary." He laughed again. " 'Reward unimportant' wouldn't mean you couldn't afford to pay a secretary. You'd be well paid."
Varlik looked at Mauen; her eyes were bright and on his, expectantly.
"Garlan," Varlik said, "consider me your free-lance writer." Job as Play! By Pertunis! It was beginning to feel real to him.
Durslan turned to Konni. "And as for you, Miz Wenter, in the new phase the program is entering, we have need of a video photographer, director, and producer. I'm sure that we—you and Wellem and I—can develop some attractive projects."
She laughed. "If you hadn't offered, I'd have refused to budge until you did. This sounds like the best game around."
"Good. Then let's talk about terms and timetables. I'll want you available as soon as possible."