Company A, still hungry and almost without sleep, hiked hard and fast, marching into the compound soon after sunup. It was the first night in nearly four deks that it hadn't frozen, and they arrived sweating. Breakfast was toast and jam, baked omelets, juice, and buttermilk. Delicious, and enough but not enough. They got only one large serving each, to avoid the risk of getting sick. The mess sergeant, a somewhat overweight Iryalan, announced that at dinner they could eat all they wanted. And here, dinner was at noon.
After showering, the trainees crashed. It was the first time in more than five deks of training that they'd been allowed to sleep during normal training hours after a night exercise.
The alarm bells were used to waken them at 1145, the first time the alarms had sounded since their first week. It gave them fifteen minutes to get ready for dinner. The meal was steaks and baked potato, with mixed vegetables barely cooked, and corn fritters. There were seconds, even thirds. Dessert was hot fruit cobbler with ice cream. Then they were ordered to the assembly hall.
While the trainees filed into the rows of benches, Voker and Dak-So came onto the podium and stood waiting. When the regiment was seated, Voker grinned and spoke:
"Good afternoon, warriors!"
The response was deafening. "Good afternoon, sir!"
"I'm up here to say I'm proud of you. When you came here, I knew you were going to be good. As I watched you, those first rough deks, I never doubted, in spite of all the trouble you made for yourselves. All I had to see was the way you trained, the spirit you put into things, to know you were going to be as good or better than I'd originally expected."
He paused, looked them over, then continued. "Now, though you've been here for less than six deks, you're already better, as individuals, platoons, and companies, than any other light infantry in the Confederation. Unless you count the T'swa, and they're determined to make you as nearly their equal as possible in three years. T'swa pride doesn't let them do anything less than their best, and I know yours won't either.
"You've all just come in from a tough, wild five days. Your companies have reconnoitered each other, ambushed each other, assaulted each other. And last night we exploded a whole lot of takite and other good stuff, giving all of you the sound and feel of gunnery, and plowed up a lot of dirt doing it. Then marched you back in on almost empty stomachs, for distances of fifteen to twenty-three miles. In the last five days and nights you hiked about a hundred and seventy miles on snowshoes and short rations, most of it with full winter packs, and some of it in tough terrain. That would have killed a lot of troops, and had most of the rest of them bitching their heads off."
Again the old man looked them over, then nodded emphatically as if approving what he saw. "You've completed a phase of your training," he went on, "the phase in which you've operated solely as platoons and companies. This spring and summer you'll be working as battalions and as a regiment. And between now and then . . . We'll talk about that later—before we're done here today. I think you'll like it.
"Now I'm going to turn this meeting over to Colonel Dak-So. He's the man in charge of delivering the training, and he's got things to talk to you about. Colonel," he said turning, "they're yours," and took a seat to one side.
"Thank you, Colonel Voker." Dak-So flashed a quick grin at the regiment. "You are good," he said. "You are tough, enduring, strong, and growing smarter. Even wiser! And wiser is very important to a warrior. We have given a number of you responsibilities as acting officers and noncoms, and you have shown growth and skill in carrying these out. I have no doubt that the rest of you could function in those posts, too, because all of you are warriors. But some men have a special, innate talent to lead, and we will take full advantage of that."
He stood silent for a moment then, drawing their attention more strongly. "I mentioned wisdom. Your company commanders have, on occasion, discussed further with you the Matrix of T'sel. You have shown by your responses and questions that you have rather largely absorbed its principles and made them yours. That is very reassuring, because without them, a warrior is not complete. I now want to look at some principles with you which heretofore you have been introduced to only casually."
Again Dak-So paused, his eyes settling on Artus Romlar. "Trainee Romlar," he said. "What is the most important thing a warrior must be able to do?"
Romlar stood. "Sir, a warrior has to do the right thing at the right time."
"Good! And Trainee Brossling, how does a warrior know what the right thing is?"
Brossling got easily to his feet. "He just knows. He either knows or he doesn't."
"Good. Now Brossling, both you and Romlar got in trouble early on, doing the wrong things at the wrong times—" He paused, grinned, went on. "Although you exceeded Romlar in that. What made the difference in your early performances and your recent performances?" He cocked an eyebrow at the trainee C.O. of F Company, earlier the regiment's number one troublemaker.
"Sir," Brossling answered, "most of the difference comes from getting our heads straightened out. The colonel made us see our responsibility and make it up to the regiment. You T'swa never let us run over you. And the Ostrak Procedures took it from there."
Dak-So raised an eyebrow again and nodded. "Excellent. You may sit down now . . . All right. A wise warrior knows correctly. An unwise warrior knows incorrectly. You might say there is a state of knowingness and a state of false knowingness.
"And the difference is what the Ostrak teams call one's 'case.' When you, with their help, unloaded the heavier and more active parts of your cases, you became far more able to know correctly.
"Incidentally, some might say there is also a state of unknowingness. Such a state only seems to exist. Knowingness and false knowingness are very often at a level below awareness, hence the appearance of unknowingness. Even so, our knowingness or false knowingness drives our decisions."
His eyes sought again. "Klarister, how many times have you been killed since you've been here?"
Klarister rose. "Twice sir," he said. "Twice that I got tagged for. Last night they weren't tagging us, but if that had been a real barrage, intended to hit us instead of miss, it might have been three times. Seems likely."
"Ah. And how many cadre are we here?"
"T'swa? Uh, probably three or four hundred I'd guess, sir."
"Four hundred twelve. We are almost the totality of the able-bodied survivors of three regiments—of nearly fifty-four hundred men originally on our rosters. Thank you, Klarister." His gaze took in the entire assembly then. "You do know, I trust, that most warriors die violent deaths, mostly while still more or less young."
His eyes stopped on another trainee. "Benster, doesn't that worry you?"
Benster stood. "Not particularly, sir. I'm a warrior. Because I want to be. The danger is part of it; you can't have the game without the risk."
"But getting killed!? . . ."
Benster grinned. "Call it recycled, sir. Lotta, my interviewer, helped me see lots of times I got killed, died in bed, what have you. Old and young, what have you. Seems like I keep coming back."
"Ah! Seems! And suppose that what you saw during your interviews was all hallucination, somehow an outgrowth of suggestion."
Benster shrugged, the grin undimmed. "I suppose that possibility has occurred to most of us. But what it comes down to, sir, is that if we recycle, death isn't that big a deal. And if, when we die, that's the end of it for us, then we won't miss it, because we'll be dead. So we might as well live the life we're here for, and enjoy it."
"Thank you, Benster, for a good exposition." Benster sat down, and Dak-So's eyes moved again, stopped.
"Trainee Alsnor, Benster mentioned his interviewer, his Ostrak operator, Lotta. As I recall, she is still a young girl, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Suppose she was in danger, Alsnor. In immediate danger of being murdered. How would you respond?"
Jerym's face was stiff. "Sir, I'd do anything in my power to keep it from happening."
"I'm sure you would, Alsnor, I'm sure you would. Be seated please, and thank you." Dak-So scanned the assembly again. "The operator we talked about, as some of you know, is Alsnor's sister. I did not ask him that question to make him uncomfortable. I wanted to make something real to all of you: That there are circumstances which tend to carry strong polarity with them. Even when a warrior is neutral about his own survival, prepared to accept death, there may be matters about which he has strong preferences. Things he wants and rejects, must have and must not have.
"As a warrior or a workman, a father, an athlete—whatever roles one plays in life, one can be appraised by the excellence of his performance. Aside from whether he wins or loses. And the excellence of that performance is a reflection of his decisions.
"T'swa warriors for millennia have been humankind's most successful warriors, but sometimes we lose engagements, even wars, and the great majority of us die in battle. We always intend to win, we always intend to survive and see our friends survive, and most often our actions are such as to bring about victory and survival. But these actions are not compulsive. They are not burdened with a sense of 'must have' or 'must not have.' We are perfectly willing to lose, or to die, or to see our friends die, if that is what transpires."
The T'swa major paused. "I do not insist that you agree with me on this. If you do, that is fine. If you don't, that is fine too. And in either case it is all right to change your mind. But I will tell you that to the extent you have strong preferences and strong aversions, to that degree you will make decisions which do not conduce to high performance as a warrior.
"In fact, strong preferences and aversions are likely to result in losing that which one strongly wishes to keep. And in experiencing that which one despises.
"Feel free to disagree with me. I've told you these things not with insistence, but because I want you to be aware that T'swa warriors hold such a philosophy. Nonpolarity is a key to what we are like."
Again Dak-So paused to scan them. "Very well, enough of that." He turned to Voker. "Colonel, your regiment."
Voker stood, stepped forward, grinned. "Feel the floor with your feet!" he ordered. Genially. The wooden floor resounded with the clomping of field boots, the room changing auras with the release of tension.
"Was the floor there? Did you feel it?"
"Yes!" came an answering roar.
"Good. Look at the person on your right! If you're on the extreme right, look at someone else . . . Good! Now tell that person hello! . . . Good! Now stand up! . . . Good! Now stretch! Hard! . . . Good! Now sit down again, and I'll tell you something I believe you'll like to hear."
They sat.
"Tomorrow you will begin to learn unarmed combat. You have three weeks to learn it. You will train at it all morning and all afternoon. In the evening you will study various other things, many things. But during the daytime you will learn to fight with your hands and feet.
"For a week after that, you'll receive training with and against the knife, and improve your skill with the bayonet."
He felt their incipient cheer, and held up a hand, postponing it a moment. "Do you like that idea?" he asked.
Their enthusiasm came bellowing out, the most deafening cheers yet. He let it continue till it started to weaken, then cut it off with a single motion. "Good. The people who analyzed your civilian records and tests told us you were intentive warriors. It's obvious they knew what they were talking about.
"This afternoon, however, you will clean your barracks to the satisfaction of your company commanders, and they will be hard to satisfy. This evening—" He grinned again. "This evening there will be a holo show here from 1915 to approximately 2100. How would you like to see, um . . . 'For Love of Thora'? I understand it's a good cube."
There was applause.
"Or would you rather see 'A Crown Prince on Ice,' a cube about a T'swa campaign?"
Hands beat, feet drummed, throats roared. After some seconds he cut them off. " 'A Crown Prince' it will be then. But I warn you, it's an old cube from before the Kettle War, and the T'swa in it are figments of an uninformed imagination. Considering your experience, you'll no doubt look at it as comedy.
"Now, when I dismiss you, leave the building in an orderly manner. You are free till 1430. At 1430, you will start cleaning your barracks. Dismissed!"
Voker and Dak-So watched the trainees file out, talking as they went. They are good young warriors, progressing very well, Dak-So told himself. Given three years training, they will be very good indeed.