"I'm sure you're right, Sir." In fact, that had been the basis for Toralk's greatest reservation about the wisdom of this entire operation from the outset. "But eventually we're going to have to get past that, unless we're planning on remaining at war with these people forever. And, forgive me, Sir, but sooner or later they're going to have Arcanan prisoners of their own. It seems to me that the way we treat their people when we capture them is going to have a significant impact on how they treat our people."
"No doubt it will. To be honest, though, I'm inclined to cross that bridge when we reach it. At some point, this front is going to stabilize. Frankly, I intend to get quite a bit deeper into their rear areas before that happens, but it is going to happen, Klayrman. When it does, we're going to be looking at new negotiations, probably debates on prisoner exchanges, and quite probably demands—from both sides, I imagine—that those responsible for the deliberate abuse of POWs face punishment. Exactly how all of that will play out is more than I'm prepared to speculate upon at this point. One thing I do know, though, is that no matter how angry one side or the other may be, everything is going to be subject to reinterpretation and negotiation when that time comes. They may be as angry with us as they like, may distrust us as deeply as they please, but sooner or later, we're still going to have to talk to each other, and we will. Whatever's happened between us, we will."
"Sir, are you saying that the mistreatment of POWs by Arcanan personnel doesn't matter?" Toralk asked carefully.
"No, I'm not," Harshu replied just a bit frostily. "I'm saying that, at the moment, there are aspects of our situation and our mission requirements which concern me more than the rumors—no, let's be honest and call them what they are, the reports—you're referring to.
"We're flying completely blind out here, Klayrman. We don't know squat about these people. Oh, we've captured quite a stack of maps and other information, but unfortunately, our translation spellware doesn't let us read written documents just yet. It's not going to for at least several more weeks, according to the Intelligence people, either. From the maps we've found so far, this Sharona's explored territory doesn't appear to be anywhere near the size of our own, but we can't be certain of that. And I've got to know what's out there in front of us if we're going to continue to advance without heavy losses. And we can't afford heavy losses, since there's nothing immediately behind us to hold any Sharonian counterattack that gets by us.
"Those are the concerns which are floating around the front of my brain, Klayrman."
Toralk looked at his commanding officer for several seconds which seemed like minor eternities.
"Sir," he said finally, quietly, "if you don't stop this, and stop it quickly, it's going to stick to your name, your reputation, forever."
"Fuck my reputation," Harshu said flatly. Toralk's eyes widened in astonishment, and the two thousand snorted in harsh amusement. "Oh, I won't pretend I'm not as vain as anyone you're likely to meet. Hells, I'll go further than that—I've got an ego big enough for any three other men I know! So what? Reputation isn't worth a fart in a windstorm—not when it gets in the way of the mission. I've got fourteen thousand men out here with us or spread out behind us. My responsibility is to them and to the mission. I need the information that little bastard Neshok is bringing me if I'm going to keep as many as possible of those men alive and accomplish what we're out here to do."
So there it is, Toralk thought. You know exactly what I'm talking about, exactly who it is that worries me, and you're willing to accept it in the name of expediency.
The thousand knew he wasn't being entirely fair. "Expediency" was an ugly word, but what Harshu had said about keeping his men alive was also true. And the fame-seeking two thousand's indifference to what posterity made of him was what had surprised the Air Force officer so deeply.
"Sir," Toralk said after a moment, "I'm not sure I can agree with you. I don't mean that I disagree with anything you've said about the responsibility to our men, or even the importance of our mission, now that we're out here and engaged on active operations. But I'm worried about what simply ignoring violations of the Accords is going to do to us, not what it's going to do to the enemy. We do have a moral responsibility where the treatment of the Sharonians is concerned, and if we shirk it, it's going to poison us."
There was a long silence, then Harshu inhaled deeply.
"You may be right, Klayrman. In fact, you probably are."
He paused for another long moment, then shrugged ever so slightly.
"Actually, as I suspect you realized perfectly well before you broached the subject, there's not really all that much . . . free enterprise prisoner abuse going on. There is some of it, I'll grant you, but it's small beer compared to the other concerns you've raised. It's also in direct contravention of my standing orders where the Kerellian Accords are concerned, so if you want to talk to the MPs about it, point out to them that abusing prisoners is against the rules and kick them in the arse until they do something about it, I have absolutely no objection.
"On the other hand, let's not pretend we don't both know exactly who really concerns you tonight. It speaks well of you, as an officer and a man, that it concerns you enough you were actually willing to call me on it. I respect you for that. But I've still got to have that intelligence. We can't read their documentation, but interrogation is telling us enough for us to make some pretty solid interpretations of the maps we've captured. I'd be happier if we could orient them properly to our own maps and feel confident that we're reading the scales accurately. I'd especially prefer to be able to do that without prisoner interrogation. I can't do any of those things yet, though, which makes what Neshok is bringing me the closest I can come to solid planning information. For example, we know now that this chain splits—that it comes back together again at some place called Traisum, and that something called a 'railroad' that sounds a lot like our sliders has been extended to that point from their own home world. We know there are only very weak forces along the other side of this split chain, and we have the critical information we need for your SpecOps teams to find the next links in the Voice chain.
"I need that kind of intelligence, and I'll do what I have to to get it."
The two thousand's voice was flat, inflexible, and Toralk sat very still. Then, finally, he cleared his throat.
"And what happens to the people who get it for you in the end, Sir?" he asked softly.
"In the end?" Harshu smiled bleakly. "I'm sure Five Hundred Neshok has visions of promotion, of power. I'm sure he probably thinks I'm going to be promoted for my glorious victories out here. No doubt he expects the patronage of such a rapidly rising star to pull him up in the wake of my own meteoric elevation. But that's not going to happen. I suppose it's possible I will be promoted, and even that I'll garner all sorts of public testimonials and praise . . . in the short term, at least. In the end, though, Klayrman, people are going to start asking the questions you've had the guts and integrity to start asking already. They're going to look at how I got the intelligence I needed, and after that, I don't think there'll be that many more promotions, that many more field commands. Not for the commanding officer who winked at his subordinates' use of torture and even murder."
"And Neshok, Sir?" Toralk asked in an even softer voice.
"And Neshok, Klayrman," Harshu's bleak smile turned terrible, "is going to discover that I never authorized a single thing he's done outside the Accords. That's not going to save me from whatever happens, but it's not going to save him, either. There won't be any orders he can use for cover, no way he can say 'I was just following instructions,' or 'Everything I did was in policy.' You said the Sharonians are going to demand punishment for anyone who's abused their POWs? Well, who do you think they're going to punish? I know why Neshok thinks he reports directly to me, why there's no one in the chain of authority between him and me. But why do you think it's that way, Klayrman?"
Vothon, Toralk thought. You've been planning this all along. You're usi
ng Neshok, and you're making sure that when he finally goes down, he can't take anyone else—except maybe you—with him.
"Sir—"
"No, Klayrman. We're not going to discuss this any more. Not tonight, at any rate. Tonight, we're going to have supper together, and we're going to discuss the latest intelligence data from Five Hundred Neshok and how it affects our future planning.
"I've decided we're going to have to split our forces. We can't afford to leave this other sub-chain just sitting there, waiting to serve as a conduit into our own rear areas, especially if we don't manage to punch out Traisum cleanly, after all. So, I'm going to send Carthos up the other branch first thing in the morning. He'll have four universes to cross before he gets to Traisum, whereas we'll only have two more, but according to the Five Hundred's reports—" the two thousand showed his teeth in a cold, humorless smile "—those are very recently discovered universes, compared to the ones along the other route, and they're covered only by very light forces. I'm not that worried about the opposition he might hit, but it's also a lot longer route, almost twice as long as the shorter, better-explored one. Even with dragons, it's going to be a long, bitter haul, and it will be even worse for the other side if they hold us short of Traisum and try to exploit the other sub-chain to get at our rear. That means it's going to be a secondary theater for both sides, and that we're a lot more likely to hit serious resistance in Failcham and Karys than he is on his axis of advance.
"And that, in turn, means I'm going to need my best Air Force commander here, so I'm keeping you on this side. I'm afraid you'll be acting under my direct orders, while Carthos gets a more independent command." The two thousand met Toralk's gaze levelly. "I'm sorry about that. It means he'll get more credit for making the decisions about everything, ranging from tactics to supply considerations . . . even methods of intelligence-gathering. I'm afraid no one's going to give you a lot of credit for any decisions like that which have to be made during our own advance."
Toralk looked back at his commanding officer and realized what Harshu was truly saying.
I shouldn't, he thought. I shouldn't let him do this. I should either support his decisions, his policies, openly, or else ask to be relieved, not let him cover me while he throws Carthos and Neshok to the dragons . . . along with himself.
For a long, quivering instant, he hung on the brink of saying that out loud. But then—
"That's all right, Sir. I won't pretend I'm happy about everything you've just said, but you're right about at least one thing. We do have a job to do out here, and I suppose it's time we rolled up our sleeves and got on with it."
* * *
Division-Captain Arlos chan Geraith stepped out of the comfortably heated car onto the rear platform. The noise of steel wheels drumming along steel rails, the hammer of wind, the vibrating rattle of fittings and glass windows, filled his ears, and it was bitterly cold (although not nearly so cold as it would get in a few more weeks) as the enormous train rushed through the night.
The vast breadth of the Grocyran Plain stretched away to the north and east, an endless land of swamps, birch forests, and conifers in the center of the vast continent of Chairifon. The double strand of rails stretched thirty-nine hundred miles, as a bird might fly, from this universe's Lake Arau in the eastern foothills of the Arau Mountains to the southwestern mountains of Harkala, close to the ancient city of Aeravas. But this massive train, loaded with the men, horses, vehicles, and artillery of the First Brigade of his Third Dragoon Division of the Imperial Ternathian Army was no bird. The compromises forced upon the Trans-Temporal Express's construction engineers by uncooperative terrain had added at least seven hundred miles to that theoretical straight-line distance.
They were less than halfway across the universe of Faryika, pounding furiously down-chain towards Traisum, with almost nine thousand miles still to go. The good news was that there was only one more water gap to be crossed; the bad news was that the gap was over a thousand miles wide and that shipping would be agonizingly hard to come by in the thinly inhabited universe of Salym. It was going to take time to get his men and equipment across that stretch of saltwater.
Time, he thought. Please, Vothan give me the time! It's not supposed to take months just to get my troops into the likely theatre of operations! The War College never prepared any of us for a move like this one. Or, his thought turned grimmer, a war like this one could turn into.
He unbuttoned the top button of his coat and took the flat, thin case from an inside pocket. He opened it and extracted one of the long, slender, handrolled New Ternath cigars, then returned the case to his pocket. He took a moment to savor the rich smell of the tobacco, passing it slowly under his nose, then clipped the end, put it in his mouth, and struck a match. He shielded the fragile flame in his cupped palms until it had burned away the last of the chemical taste, then lit the cigar slowly and carefully, turning the tip in the match flame until it was evenly alight. Then he tossed the match from the platform and watched it arc out into the carriage's slipstream like a short-lived comet, snuffed out the instant it left the wind-shadow of the platform.
He stepped to the right side of the platform and leaned on the rail as he gazed out westward across the plains. Thick stands of birch, trunks gleaming silver-white in the moonlight, stretched away on either side of the right-of-way, interspersed with equally thick stands of evergreens. The reflected light from the coach windows raced along the ground, keeping pace with the train, flickering hugely as it crossed boulders or the sides of the occasional rail cutting. Stars gleamed overhead, and a halo of ice crystals encircled the high, white moon as it floated in a sky of midnight blue. Far ahead, invisible from chan Geraith's position on the platform, three powerful engines thundered down a diamond cavern, carved through the darkness by the lead engine's powerful headlamp, and a thick streamer of funnel smoke trailed back from them like a twisted banner, shot silver and black with moonlight.
They were the only bubble of life and light—of human life, at least—for literally thousands of miles. The permanent human population of this entire universe was less than twenty thousand, which meant First Brigade's three thousand men had increased it by over fifteen percent. And it also meant that those less than twenty thousand human souls were a tiny, tiny presence on this vast and empty world.
They'd had to leave the mighty Paladins of their original train behind. None of the immediately available heavylift freighters had boasted the capacity to carry those enormous locomotives across the water gap in Haysam. Besides, they'd been too badly needed for the Sharona to Haysam run. Hayrdar Sheltim, chan Geraith's train master, had needed three of the Norgamar Works' individually smaller and less powerful Windcleaver-J 2-8-4 locomotives to replace the pair of Paladins, but it was probably just as well. The Windcleavers were nimbler than their larger cousins, better suited to the mountainous terrain between them and Harkala.
He drew heavily on the cigar, watching its tip glow brightly, savoring the moment of privacy and the pristine beauty of the world racing past him at least as much as he savored the rich taste of the smoke. He treasured moments like this. Moments when he could step away from his staff, his unit commanders. When he could take off the persona of a division commander, allow himself to step off the stage where his performance must engender confidence and determination.
I suppose it's sort of sad that I have to stand out here freezing my posterior off to find what Misanya calls my "comfort zone."
He smiled at the thought of his wife. She was a soldier's daughter, as well as a soldier's wife, and she understood what that meant, how their joint lives must be subordinated to the sometimes harsh demands of his chosen profession. But it had also left her with a refreshing irreverence for the sort of posturing and grand tragedy that certain soldiers of their acquaintance liked to embrace. She was quick to exterminate any tendencies in that direction in her own husband, at least, for which chan Geraith was profoundly thankful.
Then his smile faded as he ref
lected upon how many weary thousands of miles behind him Misanya was.
Stop that! he scolded himself. You're not the only soldier who's missing his wife tonight, Arlos!
Which was true enough. And it wasn't as if he didn't have enough other things to worry about. He particularly disliked what Company-Captain Lisar chan Korthal, his staff Voice, had been reporting from the negotiations at Hell's Gate. The obstructionism Platoon-Captain chan Baskay's messages described made no more sense to chan Geraith than it did to chan Baskay himself. Nor had the division-captain much cared for the suspicions chan Baskay and Arthag had reported up the chain.
The bastards are up to something, he thought moodily. It's not just my ingrained paranoia, either. I just don't know what they're up to . . . but I'm afraid we may all be going to find out.
He took the cigar out of his mouth long enough to grimace properly, then put it back.
At least chan Tesh and chan Baskay haven't sent any more bad news our way in the last couple of days. That's something. And the fact that these godsdamned Arcanans don't have a clue how much firepower an entire dragoon brigade represents is another something. Of course, I don't have a clue what else they may have available, now do I?
He snorted at the thought. It wasn't precisely the first time he'd had it, and he suspected it wouldn't be the last.
In fact, I'm going to go right on wondering about that until—and unless—I find out. And if I do find out, it's going to be because everything's fallen straight into the shitter. So I suppose it's actually one of those little mysteries of the multiverse I'd really rather not solve, if it's all the same to the Triad.
He shook his head and stood, gazing out at the untouched beauty of the moon and stars, and wondered how long he could last tonight before the chill finally drove him back inside.
'Chapter Seventeen
Nith mul Gurthak closed his office door carefully, then crossed to his desk and seated himself behind it. Outside his windows, a chill, moonless night wrapped itself about Fort Talon, and he smiled crookedly. There was no reason he had to do this during the hours of darkness, yet it always felt curiously satisfying.