Trullion: Alastor 2262 (3 page)

Glinnes turned to Glay. “There you are: join the Whelm and see the cluster. Get paid while you travel!”

“It’s a thought,” said Glay.

In the end it was Glinnes who went to Port Maheul and there enlisted in the Whelm. He was seventeen at the time. Glay neither enlisted in the Whelm, played hussade, nor became a starmenter. Shortly after Glinnes joined the Whelm,Glay also left home. He wandered the length and breadth of Meriank, from time to time working to gain a few ozols. as often living off of the land. On several occasions he attempted the ruses Akadie had recommended in order to travel to other worlds, but for one reason or another his efforts met no success, and he never accumulated sufficient funds to buy himself passage.

For a period he traveled with a band of Trevanyi,* finding their exactness and intensity an amusing contrast to the imprecision of the average Trill. After eight years of wandering he returned to Rabendary Island, where everything went about as before, although Shira last had given up hussade. Jut still waged his nocturnal war against the merlings; Marucha still hoped to win social acceptance among the local gentry, who had absolutely no intention of allowing her to succeed. Jut, at the behest of Marucha, now called himself Squire Hulden of Rabendary, but refused to move into Ambal Manse, which, despite its noble proportions, grand chambers and polished wainscoting, lacked a broad verandah overlooking the water.

The family regularly received news from Glinnes, who had done well in the Whelm. At bootcamp he had earned a recommendation to officer training school, after which he had been assigned to the Tactical Corps of the 191st Squadron and placed in command of Landing Craft No. 191-539 and its twenty-man complement.

Glinnes could now look forward to a rewarding career, with excellent retirement benefits. Still, he was not entirely happy. He had envisioned a life more romantically adventurous; he had seen himself prowling the cluster in a patrol boat, searching out starmenter nests, then putting into remote and picturesque settlements for a few days’ shore-leave a life far more dashing and haphazard than the perfectly organized routine in which he found himself. To relieve the monotony he played hussade; his team always placed high in fleet competition, and won two championships. Glinnes at last requested transfer to a patrol craft, but his request was denied. He went before the squadron commander, who listened to Glinnes’ protests and complaints with an attitude of easy unconcern. “The transfer was denied for a very good reason.”

Trevanyi: nomadic folk of a distinctive racial stock, prone to thievery, sorcery, and other petty chicaneries; an excitable, passionate, vengeful people. They consider cauch a poison and guard the chastity of their women with fanatic zeal.

“What reason?” demanded Glinnes. “Certainly I am not considered indispensable to the survival of the squadron?”

“Not altogether. Still, we don’t want to disrupt a smoothly functioning organization.” He adjusted some papers on his desk, then leaned back in his chair. “In confidence, there’s a rumor to the effect that we’re going into action.

“Indeed? Against whom?”

“As to this, I can only guess. Have you ever heard of the Tamarchô?”

“Yes indeed. I read about them in a journal: a cult of fanatic warriors on a world whose name now escapes me. Apparently they destroy for the love of destruction, or something of the sort.”

“Well then, you know as much as I, said the commander, “except that the world is Rhamnotis and the Tamarchô have laid waste an entire district .I would guess that we are going down on Rhamnotis.”

“It’s an explanation, at least,” said Glinnes. “What about Rhamnotis? A gloomy desert of a place?”

“On the contrary.” The commander swung about, fingered buttons; a screen burst into colors and a voice spoke: “Alastor 965, Rhamnotis. The physical characteristics are-” The annunciator read off a set of indices denoting mass, dimension, gravity, atmosphere, and climate, while the screen displayed a Mercator projection of the surface. The commander touched buttons to bypass historical and anthropological information, and brought in what was known as “informal briefing”: “Rhamnotis is a world where every particular, every aspect, every institution, conduces to the health and pleasure of its inhabitants. The original settlers, arriving from the world Triskelion, resolved never to tolerate the ugliness which they had left behind them, and they pledged a covenant to this effect, which covenant is now the prime document of Rhamnotis, and the subject of great reverence.

“Today the usual detritus of civilization discord, filth, waste, structural clutter-have been almost expelled from the consciousness of the population. Rhamnotis is now a world characterized by excellent management. Optimums have become the norms. Social evils are unknown; poverty is no more than a curious word. The work-week is ten hours, in which every member of the population participates; he then to the carnivals and fantasies, which attract tourists from far worlds. The cuisine is considered equal to the best of the cluster. Beaches, forests, lakes and mountains provide unsurpassed scope for outdoor recreation. Hussade is a spectator sport, although local teams have never placed high in Cluster rankings.”

The commander touched another button; the annunciator said: “In recent years the cult known as Tamarchô has attracted attention. The principles of Tamarchô are unclear, and seem to vary from individual to individual. In general, the Tamarchists engage in wanton violence, destruction and defilement. They have burned thousands of acres of primeval forests; they pollute lakes, reservoirs and fountains with corpses, filth and crude oil; they are known to have poisoned waterholes in game preserves, and they set poison bait for birds and domestic animals. They fling excrement bombs into the perfumed carnival crowds and urinate from high towers upon the throngs below. They worship ugliness and in fact call themselves the Ugly People.”

The commander tapped a button to dull the screen. “So there you have it. The Tamarchô have seized a tract of land and won’t disperse; apparently the Rhamnotes have called in the Whelm. Still, it’s all speculation; we might be going down to Breakneck Island to disperse the prostitutes. Who knows?”

Standard strategy of the Whelm, validated across ten thousand campaigns, was to mass a tremendous force so extravagantly overpowering as to intimidate the enemy and impose upon him the certain conviction of defeat. In most cases the insurgence would evaporate and there would be no fighting whatever. To subdue Mad King Zag on Gray World, Alastor 1740, the Whelm poised a thousand Tyrant dreadnoughts over the Black capitol, almost blocking out the daylight. Squadrons of Vavarangi and Stingers drifted in concentric evolutions under the Tyrants, and at still lower levels combat-boats darted back and forth like wasps. On the fifth day twenty million heavy troops dropped down to confront King Zag’s stupefied militia, who long before had given up all thought of resistance.

The same tactics were expected to prevail against the Tamarchists. Four fleets of Tyrants and Maulers converged from four directions to hover above the Silver Mountains, where the Ugly People had taken refuge. Intelligence from the surface reported no perceptible reaction from the Tamarchista.

The Tyrants descended lower, and all during the night netted the sky with ominous beams of crackling blue light In the morning the Tamrachists had broken all their camps and were nowhere to be seen. Surface intelligence reported that they had taken cover in the forests.

Monitors flew to the area, and their voice-horns ordered the Ugly Folk to form orderly files and march down to a nearby resort town. The only response was a spatter of sniper fire. With menacing deliberation the Tyrants began to descend. The Monitors issued a final ultimatum: surrender or face attack. The Tamarchists failed to respond.

Sixteen Armadillo sky-forts dropped upon a high meadow, intending to secure the area for a troop-landing. They encountered not only the fire of small arms, but spasms of energy from a set of antique blue radiants. Rather than destroy an unknown number of maniacs, the Armadillos returned into the sky.

The Operation Commander, outraged and perplexed, decided to ring the Silver Mountain with troops, hoping to starve the Ugly Folk into submission.

Twenty-two hundred landing craft, among them No. 191-539, commanded by Glinnes Hulden, descended to the surface and sealed the Tamarchists into their mountain lair. Where expedient, the troops cautiously moved up the valleys, after sending Stinger combat-boats ahead to flush out snipers. Casualties occurred, and since the Tamarchô represented neither threat nor emergency, the Commander withdrew his troops from zones of Tamarchist fire. For a month the siege persisted. Intelligence reported that the Tamarchists lacked provisions, that they were eating bark, insects, leaves, whatever came to hand.

The Commander once again sent Monitors over the area, demanding an orderly surrender. For answer the Tamarchists launched a series of break-out attempts, but were repulsed with considerable harm to themselves.

The Commander once more sent over his Monitors, threatening the use of pain-gas unless surrender was affected within six hours. The deadline came and went; Vavarangi descended to bombard shelter areas with cannisters of pain-gas. Choking, rolling on the ground, writhing and jerking, the Tamarchists broke into the open. The Commander ordered down a “living rain” of a hundred thousand troops, and after captives, numbered less than two thousand persons of both sexes. Glinnes was astounded to discover that some were little more than children, and very few older than himself. They lacked ammunition, energy, food and medical supplies. They grimaced and snarled at the Whelm troops “Ugly Folk” they were indeed.

Glinnes’ astonishment increased. What had prompted these young people to battle so fanatically for a cause obviously lost? What, indeed, had impelled them to become Ugly Folk? Why had they defiled and defouled, destroyed and corrupted? Glinnes attempted to question one of the prisoners who pretended not to understand his dialect. Shortly thereafter Glumes was ordered back aloft with his ship.

Glinnes returned to base. Picking up his mail, he found a letter from Shira containing tragic news. Jut Hulden had gone out to hunt merling once too often; they had laid a cunning trap for him. Before Shira could come to his aid, Jut had been dragged into Farwan Water. The news affected Glinnes with a rather irrational astonishment. He found it hard to imagine change in the timeless fens, especially change so profound.

Shira was now Squire of Rabendary. Glumes wondered what other changes might be in store. Probably none-Shira had no taste for innovation. He would bring in a wife and breed a family; so much at least could be expected — if not sooner, then later. Glinnes speculated as to who might marry bulky balding Shira with the red cheeks and lumpy nose. Even as a hussade player, Shira had found difficulty enticing girls into the shadows, for while Shira considered himself bluff, friendly and affable, others thought him coarse, lewd and boisterous.

Glinnes began to muse about his boyhood. He recalled the hazy mornings, the festive evenings, the starwatchings. He recalled his good friends and their quaint habits; he remembered the look of Rabendary Forest-the menas looming over russet pomanders silver-green birches, dark-green prick-lenuts. He thought of the shimmer that hung above the water and softened the outline of far shores; he thought of the ramshackle old family home, and discovered himself to be profoundly homesick.

Two months later, at the end of ten years service, he resigned his commission and returned to Trulllion.

Glinnes had sent a letter announcing his arrival, but when he debarked at Port Maheul in Staveny Prefecture, none of his family was on hand to greet him, which he thought strange.

He loaded his baggage onto the ferry and took a seat on the top deck, to watch the scenery go by. How easy and gay were the country folk in their parays of dull scarlet, blue, ocher! Glinnes semi-military garments-black jacket, beige breeches tucked into black ankleboots felt stiff and constricted. He’d probably never wear them again!

The boat presently slid into the dock at Welgen. A delectable odor wafted past Glinnes nose, which he traced to a nearby fried-fish booth. Glinnes went ashore and bought a packet of steamed reed-pods and a length of barbecued eel. He looked about for Shira or Glay or Marucha, though he hardly expected to find them here. A group of offworlders attracted his attention: three young men, wearing what seemed to be a uniform-neat gray one-piece garments belted at the waist, highly polished tight black shoes-and three young women, in rather austere gowns of durable white duck. Both men and women wore their hair cropped short, in not-unbecoming style, and wore small medallions on their left shoulders. They passed close to Glinnes and he realized that they were not offworlders after all, but Trills … Students at a doctrinaire academy? Members of a religious order? Either case was possible, for they carried books, calculators, and seemed to be engaged in earnest discussion. Glumes gave the girls a second appraisal. There was, he thought, something unappealing about them, which at first he could not define. The ordinary Trill girl dressed herself in almost anything at hand, without over-anxiety that it might be rumpled or threadbare or soiled, and then made herself gay with flowers These girls looked not only clean, but fastidious as well.

Too clean, too fastidious … Glinnes shrugged and returned to the ferry.

The ferry moved on into the heart of the fens, along waterways dank with the scent of still water, decaying reedstalks, and occasionally a hint of a rich fetor, suggesting the presence of merrling. Ripil Broad appeared ahead, and a cluster of shacks that was Saurkash, the end of the line for Glinnes; here the ferry veered north for the villages along Great Vole Island. Glinnes unloaded his cases onto the dock, and for a moment stood looking around the village. The most prominent feature was the hussade field and its dilapidated old bleachers, once the home-field of the Saurkash Serpents. Almost adjacent was The Magic Tench, the most pleasant of Saurkash’s three taverns. He walked down the dock to the office where ten years before Milo Harrad had rented boats and operated a water-taxi.