Dalacott emptied the bottle into his cup of wine and, after only the slightest hesitation, took a tentative sip. The poison was scarcely detectable and might even have been said to have improved the rough wine, adding a hint of spicy sweetness to it. He took another sip and set the cup aside, not wishing to slip away too quickly. There was a final self-imposed duty he had yet to perform.
He looked around his tent, which was furnished with only a narrow bed, a trunk, his portable desk and some folding chairs on straw matting. Other officers of staff rank liked to surround themselves with luxury to ease the rigours of campaign, but that had never been Dalacott’s way. He had always been a soldier and had lived as a soldier should, and the reason he was choosing to die by poison instead of the blade was that he no longer regarded himself as worthy of a soldier’s death.
It was dim inside the tent, the only light coming from a single military field lantern of the type which fuelled itself by attracting oilbugs. He lit a second lantern and placed it on his desk, still finding it a little strange that such measures should be necessary for reading at night. This far west in Chamteth, across the Orange River, Overland was out of sight beneath the horizon and the diurnal cycle consisted of twelve hours of uninterrupted daylight followed by twelve hours of unrelieved darkness. Had Kolcorron been in this hemisphere its scientists would probably have devised an efficient lighting system long ago.
Dalacott raised the lid of his desk and took out the last volume of his diary, the one for the year 2629. It was bound in limp green leather and had a separate sheet for each day of the year. He opened the book and slowly turned its pages, compacting the entire Chamteth campaign into a matter of minutes, picking out the key events which — insensibly at first — had led to his personal disintegration as a soldier and as a man.… DAY 84. Prince Leddravohr was in a strange mood at the staff conference today. I sensed that he was keyed-up and elated, in spite of the news of heavy losses on the southern front. Time and time again he made reference to the fact thatptertha appear to be so few in this part of Land. He is not given to confiding his innermost thoughts, but by piecing together fragmentary and oblique remarks I received the impression that he entertained visions of persuading the King to abandon the whole idea of migrating to Overland.
His rationale seemed to be that such desperate measures would be unnecessary if it were established that, for some unguessable reason, conditions in the Land of the Long Days were unfavourable to ptertha. That being the case, it would only be necessary for Kolcorron to subjugate Chamteth and transfer the seat of power and the remaining population to this continent — a much more logical and natural process than trying to reach another planet… DAY 93. The war is going badly. These people are determined, brave and gifted fighters. I cannot bring myself to contemplate the possibility of our eventual defeat, but the truth is that we would have been severely tested in going against Chamteth even in the days when we could have fielded close on a million fully trained men. Today we have only a third of that number, an uncomfortably high proportion of them raw conscripts, and we are going to need luck in addition to all our skill and courage if the war is to be successfully prosecuted.
An important factor in our favour is that this country is so rich in resources, particularly in brakka and edible crops. The sound of brakka pollination discharges is constantly being mistaken by my men for enemy cannon fire or bombs, and we have an abundance of power crystals for our heavy weaponry. There is no difficulty in keeping the armies well fed, in spite of the Chamtethans’ efforts to burn the crops they are forced to abandon.
The Chamtethan women, and even quite small children, will indulge in that form of destruction if left to their own devices. With our manpower stretched to the limit, we are unable to divert combat troops into guard duties and for that reason Leddravohr has decreed that we take no prisoners, regardless of age or sex.
It is sound military thinking, but I have been sickened by the amount of butchery I have witnessed of late. Even the most hardened of the soldiery go about their business with set grey faces, and in the encampments at night there is a contrived and unnatural quality to the little merriment that one overhears.
This is a seditious thought, one I would not express anywhere except in the privacy of these pages, but it is one thing to spread the benefits of the empire to unenlightened and squabbling tribes — and quite another to undertake the annihilation of a great nation whose sole offence was to husband its resources of brakka.
I have never had time for religion, but now — for the first time — I am beginning to comprehend the meaning of the word “sin”…
Dalacott paused in his reading and picked up the enamelled cup of wine. He stared into its beaded depths for a moment, resisting the urge to drink deeply, then took a controlled sip. So many people seemed to be calling to him from the far side of that barrier which separated the living from the dead — his wife Toriane, Aytha Maraquine, his son Oderan, Conna Dalacott and little Hallie.…
Why had he been chosen to go on and on for more than seventy years, with the false blessing of the immunity, when others could have made much better use of the gift of life? Without any conscious thought on his part, Dalacott’s right hand slipped into a pocket and located the curious object he had found on the banks of the Bes-Undar all those years ago. He stroked his thumb in a circular motion over its mirrorlike surface as he again began to turn the pages of his diary. DAY 102. How does one account for the machinations of fate?
This morning, after having put off doing so for many days, I began signing the sheaf of award citations on my desk and discovered that my own son — Toller Maraquine — is serving as an ordinary soldier in one of the regiments directly under my control!
It appears that he has been recommended for valour disks no less than three times in spite of the brevity of his service and lack of formal training. In theory a conscript, as he must be, should not be spending so much time in the front line, but perhaps the Maraquine family has used its intimate connections with the court to enable Toller to advance his belated military career. This is something I must enquire into if I ever have some freedom from the pressures of my command.
Truly these are changed times, when the military caste not only calls upon outsiders to swell its ranks, but catapults them into the utmost danger and what passes for glory.
I will do my best to see my son, if it can be arranged without exciting suspicion in him and comment from others. A meeting with Toller would be the one gleam of brightness in the deepnight of this criminal war. DAY 103. A company of the 8th Battalion was completely overrun in a surprise attack today in sector C11. Only a handful of men escaped the slaughter and many of those were so severely wounded that there was no option for them but the Bright Road. Disasters like that are becoming almost commonplace, so much so that I find myself more preoccupied with the reports which arrived this morning suggesting that our respite from the ptertha will soon come to an end.
Telescopic observations from airships as far east from here as the Loongl Peninsula revealed some days ago that large numbers of ptertha were drifting south across the equator. The sightings have been patchy, because we have few ships in the Fyallon Ocean at present, but the opinion of scientists seems to be that the ptertha were moving south to take advantage of a “wind cell” which would carry them west for a great distance and then north again into Chamteth.
I have never subscribed to the theory that the globes possess a rudimentary intelligence, but if they really are capable of such behaviour — i.e. making use of global weather patterns — the conclusion that they have a malign purpose is almost inescapable. Perhaps, like ants and some similar creatures, their kind as a whole has some form of composite mind, although individuals are quite incapable of mentation. DAY 106. Leddravohr’s dream of a Kolcorron free from the scourge of the ptertha has come to an abrupt end. The globes have been sighted by fleet auxiliaries of the First Army. They are approaching the south coast in the Adrian region.
There has also been a curious report, as yet unconfirmed, from my own theatre.
Two line soldiers in a forward area claim that they saw a ptertha which was pale pink. According to their story the globe came to within forty or so paces of their position, but showed no inclination to draw nearer and eventually rose and drifted away to the west. What is one to make of such strange accounts? Could it be that two battle-weary soldiers are conniving to obtain a few days of interrogation in the safety of the base camp? DAY 107. Today — although I take little pride or pleasure in the accomplishment — I justified Prince Leddravohr’s confidence in my abilities as a tactician.
The splendid achievement, perhaps the culmination of my military career, began with my making the kind of mistake which would have been avoided by a green lieutenant straight out of academy.
It all began in the eighth hour when I became impatient with Captain Kadal over his tardiness in taking a stretch of open ground in sector D14. His reason for hanging back in the security of the forest was that his hastily prepared aerial map showed the territory to be traversed by several streams, and he believed them to be deep gullies capable of concealing sizable numbers of the enemy. Kadal is a competent officer, and I should have left him to scout the ground in his own way, but I feared that numerous setbacks were making him timorous, and I was overcome by a foolhardy desire to set an example to him and the men.
Accordingly, I took a sergeant and a dozen mounted soldiers and rode forward with them in person. The terrain was well suited to the bluehorns and we covered the ground quickly. Too quickly!
At a distance of perhaps a mile from our lines the sergeant became visibly uneasy, but I was too puffed up with success to pay him any heed. We had crossed two streams which were, as indicated on the map, too shallow to provide any kind of cover, and I became inflamed with a vision of myself casually presenting the whole area to Kadal as a prize I had won on his behalf with my boldness.
Before I knew it we had advanced close on two miles and even in my fit of megalomania I was beginning to hear the nagging voice of common sense warning me that enough was enough, especially as we had crossed a vestigial ridge and were no longer in sight of our own lines.
That was when the Chamtethans made their appearance.
They sprang up from the ground on both sides as if by magic, though of course there was no sorcery involved — they had been hiding in the very gullies whose existence I had blithely set out to disprove. There were at least two-hundred, looking like black reptiles in their brakka armour. Had their force been composed solely of infantry we could have outrun them, but a good quarter of their number were mounted and were already racing to block off our retreat.
I became aware of my men staring at me expectantly, and the fact that there was no sign of reproach in their eyes made my personal position all the worse. I had thrown away their lives with my overweening pride and stupidity, and all they asked of me in that terrible moment was a decision as to where and how they should die!
I looked all about and saw a tree-covered mound several furlongs ahead of us. It would afford some protection and there was a possibility that from high up in one of the trees we would be able to get a sunwriter message back to Kadal and call for help.
I gave the necessary order and we rode with all speed to the mound, fortuitously surprising the Chamtethans, who had expected us to flee in the opposite direction. We reached the trees well ahead of our pursuers, who in any case were in no particular hurry. Time was on their side, and it was all too clear to me that even if we did succeed in communicating with Kadal it would be to no avail.
While one of the men was beginning to climb a tree with the sunwriter slung on his belt I used my field glasses in an attempt to locate the Chamtethan commander, to see if I could divine his intention. If he was cognisant of my rank he might try to take me alive — and that was something I could not have permitted. It was while sweeping the line of Chamtethan soldiers with the powerful glasses that I saw something which, even at that time of high peril, produced in me a spasm of dread.
Ptertha!
Four of the purple-tinted globes were approaching from the south, borne on the light breeze, skimming over the grass. They were plainly visible to the enemy — I saw several men point at them — but to my surprise no defensive action was taken. I saw the globes come closer and closer to the Chamtethans and — such is the power of reflex — J had to stifle the urge to shout a warning. The foremost of the globes reached the line of soldiers and abruptly ceased to exist, having burst among them.
Still no defensive or evasive action was taken. I even saw one soldier casually slash at a ptertha with his sword. In a matter of seconds the four globes had disintegrated, shedding their charges of deadly dust among the enemy, who appeared to be quite uncaring.
If what had happened up to that point was surprising, the aftermath was even more so.
The Chamtethans were in the process of spreading out to form a circle around our inadequate little fortress when I saw the beginnings of a commotion among their ranks. My glasses showed that some of the black-armoured soldiers had fallen. Already! Their comrades were kneeling beside them to render aid and — within the space of several breaths — they too were sprawling and writhing on the ground!
The sergeant came to my side and said, “Sir, the corporal says he can see our lines. What message do you want to send?”
“Wait!” I elevated my glasses slightly to take in the middle distance and after a moment picked out other ptertha weaving and wavering above the grasslands. “Instruct him to
