The Regiment-A Trilogy Page 2

  Now, they knew that some of the people with them, called "mentechs," had worked in primitive technologies of the mind, which they regarded entirely as an electrochemical* system. So they sent to the mentechs and asked them if they could suggest anything.

  And they could. They thought it might be possible to treat everyone who was on the ships, and their children forever, so that they would never follow the way of science. They could still follow freely the way of technology, but research—the activity of science, the exploration of the rules of the universe—would become impossible. Hopefully, even the possibility of science—the thought that there could be such a thing—would no longer occur to them.

  The rulers decided to try it.

  But, you may be thinking to yourself, that is going about it in a strange and illogical way. Why not simply decide not to make such weapons? Why not simply respect the different Ways? But they did not have the T'sel. So they did the best they could think of.

  Soon the mentechs had developed a sequence* of actions, a treatment. This treatment caused the person to not look for understanding beyond that which people already had. It would not even occur to them that there was any further understanding to be had, and they would dislike and fear and reject any idea of it.

  And secret tests showed that it was successful. People treated and then tested thought exactly the way the mentechs had predicted.

  Here is how the treatment worked. The person was given a certain special substance which, to put it briefly, made him very susceptible to obeying commands. Whatever the command might be. The commands given him were, in summation,* that the understanding of nature was already as complete as possible; nothing further was knowable. And these commands were enforced by brief shocks of great pain. It did not take long to do this, and numerous people could be treated each day on each ship.

  Now, people of different septs had been put to live in different compartments, so far as possible. And when the mental treatment had been tested and proven, the rulers approached the sept leaders. They told them only that they had a mental treatment which would make it impossible to develop great weapons. They did not tell them how it was done, or what the commands were. And they asked them to prepare their people to accept treatment.

  And because they feared and hated the great war so much, many agreed to accept the treatment. Some accepted because their leaders told them to; other septs voted, and accepted because a majority agreed. But five septs refused the treatment. They voted, and most of their members said they should not accept. They said that while they abhorred* the great weapons, they did not trust anything which tampered with the mind and would make them less able in any way.

  The rulers then discussed whether they should force the treatment on those five septs. But they could not bring themselves to do that, because they had at least some respect for different Ways. On the other hand, they could not make up their minds, at first, on what else to do. So for the time being, the five septs were kept locked up, totally apart from everyone else, and the rest of the people were treated—even the rulers. Even the mentechs. And by so doing they denied themselves the satisfactions of playing or working at science. In fact, there appears to have been some loss of the willingness to question authority on anything.

  What that meant was that they became less willing to decide each for himself, and thus tended more than before to follow orders and usual ways in directing their lives.

  Soon after that, something happened that helped the rulers make up their minds about the five septs. They were by then far outside the garthid sector, and they found a planet where people could live. It was not a planet where any of them would want to live, for it was too hot there for the people of that time, and the gravity* was stronger than they were used to. But people might survive there. And because the conditions seemed so severe, it was considered that anyone living there would never be able to make great weapons. So they put three of the five septs there, with certain animals and the seeds of certain plants, which they thought might also be able to live there.

  That planet was Tyss, our home, and those three septs were our ancestors. And here we have lived for a very long time. Now we think the heat natural, and no more than proper, and the gravity seems just right.

  Then the ships went on.

  In far later times we learned what happened to the rest of the people. After Tyss, they found other planets on which people could live. Rather soon they found another that was too hot except in a northern region, and they put there the other two septs that had refused the treatment. And after looking at several more planets, they found one which they liked very much. They called it Iryala, and made it their home.

  In time they became very numerous on Iryala, and sent ships out to select other planets where some of them could go to live. Some people on Iryala wanted to follow ways that were not welcome there, and some wanted to adventure, and some, wanting to acquire wealth* and power,* thought it would be easier to do so elsewhere. After thousands of years, they peopled many worlds in this region of space. But Iryala held to itself alone the right to have manufactories to make spaceships, so Iryala was predominant.

  Now, when the people of the ships landed on Iryala, they still had the machines used to prevent people from doing basic research, and they could easily make more of them. So it was arranged that each child would also be treated when it was old enough to survive the treatment.

  For thousands of years they have done this, and have never regained the concepts* of science or research. The most they could do was to recombine information they already knew into new configurations* and test them, which, of course, was very useful in colonizing Iryala and doing the many things needful to establish a self-sustaining* technology there.

  But after several centuries, even making new configurations became disapproved of. So they created the concept of Standard Technology. This assumed that the existing technology was complete and perfect. Any changes in it, they believed, would degrade it from that perfection.

  Meanwhile, because of the treatment, they could not know what the treatment was intended to suppress. Except of course at the deepest, least available subconscious level, the commands were no longer understood by the technicians who chanted them. The treatment, which they had named "the Sacrament," was thought of as simply a formula* which would protect the people from great wars.

  And after 20,000 years, knowledge of their origins faded to legends among those people because of certain things that happened. . . .

  3

  Mauen 685 Hothmar Lormagen had been home from the shop nearly half an hour. Small, cute, she looked as pretty as the girls in the ads for the beauty aids she sold. Varlik was usually home before her, but there was no sign of him, and no message.

  She considered taking out her paints. She was working on a very famous and popular theme—the Coronation of Pertunis. Occasionally Varlik worked quite late, and when he did, might have no chance to call. She might have a long or a short wait, and didn't like to just get started at painting, then have to stop for supper. Intelligent and rational, she understood the demands of his job, and was ambitious for him, but it did have certain drawbacks.

  The sun's rays, softened by lateness, came horizontally through open glass doors, tinging the room with gold. Mauen went out onto the west balcony. Spring was in full flush, the trees of the parklike grounds light green with new leaves. Partly screened by the half-woods, she could see the next apartment building, Media Apartments Four, a hundred yards distant. To her left, surrounded by its broad open ring of apartment buildings, stood the heart of Media Village, the towers of the Planetary Media Center. In that direction, her eyes turned four stories down to the sidewalk, on the chance that she would see Varlik just returning, but all she saw was a groundskeeper riding her sibilant lawn mower.

  A flutebird sang nearby to the west, a song somehow nostalgic, though Mauen couldn't have said why. Then she heard the door open, and turning, saw her husband enter the apartment. She went in
to meet his embrace and kiss. When they were through nuzzling, she stepped back.

  "They gave you your new assignment," she said.

  "Yes. How did you guess? Ah. Because I'm late."

  She nodded. "What would you like me to key up for your supper?"

  "I'll eat whatever you eat; I need some extra togetherness this evening." He moved toward the balcony, then looked back as she stepped to the services panel. "Just be sure there's brandy with it," he added.

  Outside he leaned on the railing, inhaling deeply through his nose. For him, the smells of spring and autumn had special character, and of the two he liked spring best. He wondered what Kettle would smell like. Not like spring here in Landfall; not like anywhere on Iryala, he supposed.

  Kettle, a world generally ignored. The public curriculum treated it—treated all the gook worlds—very slightly: a listing in a table, and perhaps a paragraph or two. Kettle was the Confederation's sole source of technite, and had been these past several centuries. And Kettle was hot, a jungle planet. That was almost all he knew about it, that and the fact of some crazy workers' revolt there. Neither the paper nor the video had much more than mentioned the insurrection, as if it were unimportant.

  Mauen came out to stand beside him, her arm around his waist, her head against his shoulder. After a little she looked up at him. "I ordered a chicken casserole, with beng nuts and gondel pods. It will be a few minutes. Tell me about . . . Oh! I almost forgot! I have news, too!"

  "News? What news?"

  "Hmm. Maybe I ought to wait till later to tell you. You probably won't be interested anyway."

  He turned and grabbed her, grinning. "You're teasing! And you know what I do to teases!"

  "Um-hm. That's why I tease you." Mauen stepped back from him, smiling, eyes on his. "Tomorrow morning I go to the clinic. We've gotten approval from the genetics board—for three! They finally decided that because our C22.1734 match is so favorable, they can accept the possibility of the C.6.0023 recessives matching. They'll dissolve the Fallopian implants tomorrow morning."

  Her happy expectancy faltered at his expression. "Is anything the matter?" she asked.

  "How long after the removal before you're receptive?"

  "I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure I can have intercourse practically right away, but I don't know when I'll be receptive. I can ask them, though. Varlik, what is it?"

  "Come inside and let's sit down. I need to tell you about my new assignment. I'm going to be away from home for a while."

  They went inside and sat—he on a fat, lightweight chair, she on the end of the matching couch—leaning toward each other, her knee almost touching his. With the partial setting of the sun, evening had taken the room, the remaining sunlight dusky rose and failing by the moment.

  She said nothing, waiting.

  "I've been given a great opportunity," Varlik began. His words sounded strange to him—forced, recited. And that seemed unreasonable, because they were patently true. "It's a chance to do a series that can establish me as a really prominent feature writer. Fendel knew that when he gave it to me; he likes my work. But it's going to be a bigger story than he realizes."

  As he said it, he believed it. He hadn't thought of it that way before, but now it seemed true beyond doubt.

  "Where?" she said.

  "On Kettle."

  "Kettle?" From her expression, he realized she hadn't heard of the trouble there; she'd probably forgotten the planet since school.

  "A gook world, the planet Orlantha. Kettle is its nickname because it's so hot. There's an insurrection there, and I'm going to cover it."

  "Is it going to be dangerous?"

  "Not really. There's some danger in almost anything. Getting out of bed in the morning. What makes it interesting is that the government is sending in two regiments of T'swa mercenaries—the 'super soldiers' of adventure fiction. That's where the real story is. Usually they get hired into regional wars between governments on this and that trade world, and no one even hears about it until it's over with. Then these hearsay stories come seeping out, ninety-five percent fiction, mostly in the men's magazines. Remember the holo drama, Memories of a Traitor? The mercenaries in that were supposed to be T'swa. What I'm going to do is give people an eyewitness report—interviews with real T'swa and video clips—all on the jungle world of Kettle."

  It made sense. It was the approach to take, and he could do it nicely. He pulled his attention into the present again. Mauen wasn't staring, just looking quietly at him in the dusk, her face a pale oval with dark eyes.

  "How long?" she asked.

  "I don't really know. It'll take twenty-six days to get there, and presumably twenty-six back. And I could be there for as long as a dek,3 I suppose, although Fendel is a little worried that the fighting will be over before I get there." Varlik paused. "Say three deks—four at the outside."

  "When do you leave?"

  He didn't answer for several seconds. "The day after tomorrow, at 13.20.4 But I can take tomorrow afternoon off. I took care of most of the preparations today; there's really not that much more. And I can do my background study on the ship!"

  He had planned to spend the next afternoon at his desk, calling up material from the archives bank and the Royal Library, but that was selfish thoughtlessness.

  "You can get off work tomorrow, can't you?" he asked.

  Her response was to get out of the chair and move to the couch beside him.

  4

  "Reasons" as stated and believed are seldom true, and their seniority is illusory. Rather, intentions and events, in their order, precede the reasons perceived and give them birth. The most common order is intention, event, reason, but it may also be sometimes event, intention, reason. Be aware also that the operative intention may not be apparent, even to its originator, on this side of reality. On this side he may not be aware of his actual intention, which, of course, originates on the other side.

  You may ask how an event can precede the reason. And this brings into question the nature of reasons. More instructive is the question of how the event can precede the intention, which brings into question the nature of time, and once more of reality. But the latter question could only be posed from a this-side viewpoint, which is, of course, very restricted.

  —Master Fo, speaking to Barden Ostrak in the peanut field behind the Dys Hualuun Monastery (unedited from the original cube).

  It would be Varlik Lormagen's first time off planet. Space travel was expensive, and why should an Iryalan leave the queen of worlds if he didn't need to?

  He sat in the small observation lounge with the vessel's two other civilian passengers, watching a phlegmatic ground crew clear hoses and conveyors, then move aside on hover carts, away from the impending AG distortion that occurred when a large ship activated. The ship moved, almost imperceptibly, the ground crew pausing to watch. One tall heavy man, arms folded high on chest, left a brief image on Varlik's mind as the ship raised. Liftoff was gradual but acceleration constant. The ground fell away, the spaceport shrinking. The city spread its pattern, a grid of indistinct transitways with "villages"—function centers ringed by apartments—at intersects.

  Smoothly, with increasing speed, surface features drew together, lost resolution, until the continent spread white and green and tan to a perceptibly curving horizon. Lake Kolmess was a cold-blue, two-hundred-mile pennant far to the south—poleward here, for Landfall was in the southern hemisphere. Then the cobalt ocean, marked with white, appeared over a horizon whose curvature grew as he watched.

  He continued watching until their trajectory had left the planet out of sight of his large bulging window, then looked around him. The other two in the viewing compartment were a man and woman—a news team from Iryala Video. He knew who they were, had seen them occasionally but had never met them. There was no hurry to now; he had twenty-six days. He got up and left, not even nodding to them.

  There were two men in the officer's lounge, an off-duty mate and a warrant officer. Varlik struc
k up a conversation. The ship was army, the mate a genial captain in rank who was happy to give him a brief tour. His name was Mikal 676 Brusin. And yes, it was perfectly all right to use any of the ship's library consoles. There would probably always be at least one available. Varlik got the feeling that Brusin was pleased to have him there, that he liked to have new people to talk with.

  When they parted, Varlik went back to the library. The consoles were Standard, of course. The entire ship was the Standard military cargo design. He'd now be able to find his way around any H-class military cargo ship. These things never crossed his mind, though; he took them for granted.

  Sitting down, he called up the file on Kettle by its official name, Orlantha. He'd given even less time than intended, the previous day and a half, to background study for the assignment. Mainly he'd reviewed the archives for the little that Central News had said about the war. Even less had been said about it on video, which was understandable. There were always wars of one sort or another on the trade worlds—presumably, it was even worse on the gook worlds—and only devotees paid much attention. But Kettle wasn't your ordinary gook world, sitting out there with no one caring much one way or another. Kettle was where technite was found, the source of the technetium used in steel manufacture throughout the Confederation. The amount used in making a pour of steel was tiny, but it was used in every batch of every alloy; that was Standard.

  Kettle had been assigned as a fief to the Confederation planet Rombil, and Rombil had been mining technite there for 279 years—since the Year of Pertunis 432—apparently without earlier trouble with the natives. Now the Rombili had more trouble there than they could handle, and Iryala was bailing them out, obviously because of the importance of technite.

  Varlik called up Kettle's planetological parameters and read over them. Most were meaningless or unimportant to him, but some stuck. Surface, 86 percent water. Surface gravity, 0.93—that sounded nice. Rotation period, 0.826 Iryalan Standard—pretty short days. Axial tilt only 2.01 degrees—no seasons, apparently. Briefly, a map appeared beside the text. The inhabited continent, which was the one with the mines, extended from the high middle latitudes in the north to the low middle latitudes in the south.