After the noon meal, the entire regiment crowded into the assembly hall, the first time they'd been there. The first time they'd all been inside anywhere together. Their cadre was with them—more than four hundred commissioned and noncommissioned T'swa officers. (But not administrative and service personnel—clerks, cooks, mechanics etc.—almost all of whom were Iryalan army people on detached service to the Office of Special Projects.) When the trainees were seated, a man white like themselves walked out on the podium, an old man of scarcely medium height and compact build, his gray hair thin and as short as their own, his face lined and leathery. He appeared to be in his sixties.
The chatter thinned to murmuring.
He ignored the lectern, which had been left at one side, and positioned himself front and center, where he stood for a minute without speaking, as if examining his audience.
Then: "At ease!" he bellowed, and the room went silent till he spoke again. His voice seemed quiet now, but it filled the hall. "I am Colonel Voker. I am your commanding officer."
He paused, then bellowed once more: "Who likes it here?"
There was a brief lag followed by a few tentative me's, then the hall erupted with cheers. He'd expected them, but their vehemence surprised him, though he didn't let it show. He gave them half a minute, then bellowed again, this time using the microphone in his hand in order to be heard over their cheering. "AT EASE!!!"
It took several seconds before he had quiet.
"Good!" He looked them over again. "Each of you is a would-be warrior. We knew that from your personality profiles. So I expected you to like it here. There's no other place in the Confederation that's worth a damn for warriors."
He paused then. "And I want you to like it here." Again he paused, then raised an admonishing finger. "But on my terms! T'swa terms! It will have to be on my terms!"
It seemed as if somehow Voker looked at every one of them at once. And spoke to each of them, not simply all:
"You've come a long way since you got here. You've come a long way—and you've still got a long way to go. I have no doubt you can make it . . . Most of you. But I will not hesitate to kick any one of you out, or any one hundred of you."
Abruptly he switched modes, from genial to hard. "Third Platoon, Company F, answer 'Here Sir!' "
Forty trainees, standing in ranks in the back of the hall, shouted "Here Sir!" in response. They were clothed in stockade uniforms, faded and patched. Their heads were covered by bags with eye-holes, and they wore handcuffs to assembly. In addition to their regular training schedule, they'd been sleeping on the ground in squad tents and doing two-hour midnighters nightly, all on beans, rice, bread and water, supplemented with raw cabbage and poor quality apples.
"Third Platoon, Company F, you are very lucky. Tell me you're lucky."
Their answer boomed: "Sir, we're lucky!"
"Right." Voker's voice was casual now. "And here's the reason you're lucky: If anything like what you did happens again, the people involved will be out of here the next day. In an army prison. That is not a threat. It is a promise! We are sparing you that."
The hall was very quiet. He left it that way for several seconds before he spoke again. "We are not trying to break you. We want to make you. Or more accurately, we want to help you make yourselves. Into White T'swa." He paused for emphasis. "And T'swa—would never, do, the kind, of stupid shit that many of you have been doing! They have too much pride to act like a bunch of savages.
"Last night two men from First Platoon, C Company, tried to burn down A Company's messhall. 'For something interesting to do,' they told us. One of them is no longer with us. He's on his way to Ballibud Prison. The other one helped put the fire out. He is here with us now. Tonight, immediately after supper, he will begin to repair the damage done to the messhall. When he has finished repairing his damage, he will make amends to the Regiment by starting a swimming pool. With a shovel. His contribution to it will be a three-yard span across the shallow end, a span 200 feet long and four feet deep. He will dig from 2300 hours to 0100 hours each night, or longer if his guard feels he hasn't worked hard enough.
"After I told him the conditions of his remaining, he thanked me for letting him stay. Because he is not basically stupid. I doubt that any of you are. He simply did a seriously stupid, destructive thing."
Voker paused again and pursed his mouth. "Now. I am going to ask you a question, a question for each of you. And I want you to answer honestly to yourself. If the answer is yes, I want you to stand up and remain standing. Don't think honesty might make you look bad. It won't."
He could feel the silence, the uncertainty. The tension.
"Would you, any one of you, like to leave here? And return to civilian life? If you do, we'll arrange it."
No voice spoke. No one stood. Not Pitter Mellis, not anyone.
"Good.
"In a few minutes, Colonel Dak-So will speak to you, and when he's done, you'll begin to realize a lot of things. But that'll be in a few minutes; I've got a few things to tell you myself yet. And show you.
"Your training has just begun. You've learned to do some of the basics. Among other things, you've learned to follow orders and to do some things as part of a unit. You've begun to toughen physically; you've begun to develop the needed strength. Soon you'll begin weapons training.
"But there are a lot of things you haven't begun to learn, that make the key difference between a unit of soldiers and a unit of T'swa warriors. I was a soldier for years myself, and proud of it, but a warrior—a warrior is something else."
He paused. "Trainees Coyn Carrmak and Varky Graymar, come to the front of the hall."
Neither man froze for more than a second, then each pushed his way to the aisle and walked to the foot of the podium, where they stood side by side, seemingly calm.
"Your first sergeants consider you the best fighters in your companies." He turned to the regimental sergeant major. "Sergeant Kuto, do you have the straws?"
A stocky T'swi answered. "Yes sir!"
"Fine. Bring them to me."
The T'swi did. Voker arranged them in one fist and turned to the trainees. "Each of you draw a straw. The short straw wins. Carrmak, you first. Step up here."
Carrmak stepped onto the podium and faced the colonel.
"Draw."
He did.
"Graymar, your turn."
Graymar, a bit taller and slimmer than Carrmak, also drew.
"Show your straws to Colonel Dak-So."
They did. "Colonel Voker," Dak-So said, "Carrmak's straw is shortest." He held them up.
"Fine. Carrmak, over here." He stepped to the center of the podium, Carrmak following. Then Voker spoke to him so all could hear. "You and I are going to fight," he said.
Carrmak looked carefully at the old colonel, a lot smaller and so much older than he. Voker took a jokanru stance.
"Are you ready?" Voker asked.
Carrmak flexed his knees, raised his fists. "Sir, I am ready."
Voker's left fist jabbed out, and the youth moved to counter. Carrmak wasn't sure what happened next—none of the recruits were—but in a second he was on his belly on the floor, left arm angled upward and twisted back, his wrist in Voker's grasp, Voker's knee on his kidneys.
The colonel spoke without getting up or letting go, still lecturing. "This is a warrior skill," he said. "In combat, I would have done it a little differently: I would have dislocated my opponent's shoulder and followed with a death blow."
Then he let go and stepped back. Carrmak got to his feet. "Thank you Carrmak, Graymar," Voker said. "Your cadre say you're both more than just tough. You have the making of outstanding warriors. Return to your seats now."
They did. The silence of the trainees had changed. It was swollen with attentiveness.
"How did I do that?" Voker asked. "What do I have that you don't? Besides long training and experience? Obviously it's not youth. Nor strength. Nor superior quickness. Those I lost years ago; I'm seventy-six now. For one thing, I have jokanru, the close combat techniques developed by the T'swa. You just saw one of those. They are more than physical; they are mental and spiritual. And they are very useful to a warrior.
"But they are far less important than something else the T'swa developed. Something called—the T'sel." Voker's voice shifted, still casual but louder. "Remember that word! T'sel!" He spelled it for them.
His voice softened then, though it was heard clearly in back. "It is the T'sel that makes the T'swa what they are. With the T'sel, much becomes possible that otherwise would not be.
"You have met challenges here already. Successfully. Challenges of the body, challenges of tenacity and endurance. You are beginning to discover, beginning to realize, how good you can become. Now we have a new challenge for you, a challenge of the mind and spirit, the attainment of the T'sel.
"It is not a challenge that requires great effort, only a willingness to look at things in a new way. It is a challenge that I expect each of you to meet. Without the T'sel, you will never be T'swa."
Voker turned then and looked at Dak-So. "Colonel, talk to them about it," he said, and joined the other regimental and battalion headquarters officers in a short row of chairs on one side of the podium. Dak-So got up and stepped to the center. A large screen lowered behind him. The lights went out.