Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

– Let him. Let him.

Lupus would try. Doubtless. And he would die. The mortality of the enemy: ever one of life's reliable satisfactions.

Then Hatch, reassured by the regular rhythms of the jungle, let his thoughts turned to the City of Sun and wondered if Takabaga, his house on the edge of Cap Uba, had been burnt out in riot. It was not much of a house, but it was his, and he did not like to think of it in ruins, the bamboo charred, his bedding reduced to feathery white ash, and every resident malatothapus fled or dead.

At least his wife was safe. For the moment. His wife, his daughter, and the Lady Iro Murasaki. And any other refugees who had entered the Combat College as Hatch's guests. By opting to settle himself in the swampland jungles rather than fight with Lupus in the skies above, Hatch had purchased them at least three days of life. As his guests, they could not be expelled from the Combat College until the competition for the instructorship had reached an end, so they were safe till then. And a lot could happen in three days.

And then Hatch thought about his own body, still seated in the initiation seat in the Combat College while his mind wandered the world of the illusion tanks. The initiation seat would be monitoring the condition of his physical flesh with the utmost diligence. If maintenance became necessary, then the initiation seat, obedient to its programming, would begin to interfere with that flesh, to feed and catheterize it, to clean it and massage it, to exercise the muscles and thus protect the flesh against wasting. Hatch disliked the thought intensely. To be petted, babied and investigated. He imagined his body helpless, mouth ajar, a trace of saliva easing down its chin.

– But that is there and this is here.

So Hatch told himself, but he could not free himself from the knowledge that the initiation seat was potentially dangerous. In the last two or three generations, a number of students had been killed by malfunctioning initiation seats which had bungled the medical tasks of body maintenance. The equipment was simply too old, too unreliable.

And Hatch might be dependent on that machinery for quite some time. For if Lupus Lon Oliver did not die quickly, then this trial by combat might stretch on. And on. And on. How long could they stay in the illusion tanks? There was a legal limit, wasn't there?

Yes. Hatch dredged up the relevant clause in the Regulations:

"Combat sequences in the illusion tanks will not be extended beyond twenty-one days." Twenty-one days. A long time.

– Still.

– There's no helping it.

And at least he had a reason for enduring those days. The protection of his wife and daughter… and his lover.

– So.

So Hatch began the diligent practice of conscious relaxation.

He tried to concentrate on all the things that were good. Here in his tree above the swamp, he was free from all the worries of Dalar ken Halvar. Here nobody could touch him. He was a world away from the City of Sun, and, equally, a world away from the Nexus. He was safe. Beyond all demands. Answerable only to the Great God Mokaragash, and to none other.

"Wah!" said Hatch, relaxing, reclining, feeling his steel become flesh, his bowstrings become spiderweb.

Abruptly, the million million clicketing insects of the jungle simultaneously fell to silence. Hatch listened. Heard, somewhere, a rhythmic squelching. A drop-drop-drop of water. Then the insects began to speak again, all at the same moment. What concerted their actions? Telepathy? Or did each incorporate in its makeup some kind of clock? Valid questions, these, for Hatch knew this jungle of illusions to be modeled on a real, literal boneand-water mud-and-blood pollen-and-wood ecosystem on some planet which did or had existed sometime, somewhere.

So the insects were not random aspects of a computerized fantasia, but accurate models of living creatures which – Hatch thoughts were interrupted as the world wavered, melted then abruptly brightened, his body suddenly seated, the hot and moist replaced by the dry and cold – For he was back in the Combat College.

Weirdly disorientated.

Hatch had made the transition from illusion tank to reality thousands of times before, but never under conditions quite so unexpected.

"Lupus!" said Hatch, blurting the word.

Lupus Lon Oliver must have killed him, must have, thus winning their encounter. Else how could Hatch possibly have been plunged back into the world of the Combat College?

"He demands," said Paraban Senk, speaking from the display screen in Hatch's combat bay.

"Demands?" said Hatch, bewildered. "Demands what?"

"What do you think?" said Senk. "He demands adjudication."

And Hatch felt a shuddering relief. So Lupus had not outguessed him, outfought him, outmatched him. Instead, the young Ebrell Islander was seeking to win this match by legal manoeuvre.

Well, it would be very interesting to see what he came up with.

Because as far as Hatch could see, his own position was watertight.

Warfare weakens. It generates chaos, crisis and unknowns in abundance. Battle is apt to compromise both psychic and physical integrity, and a predisposition to favor the enemy may further weaken your resolve to prosecute your duty.

This last factor is often ignored when we study warfare which sees the warrior locked into machines kept parsecs apart.

However, while the Nexus does train for intergalactic and transcosmic warfare, the military reality of the last millennium has been that most active operations involve civil interventions undertaken as a response to political or religious extremism.

Here we must consider the human element: and here note that the tactics of empathy are of particular value when your own resolve is weak.

Unfortunately humans cannot be taken out of the loop, least of all when dealing with the Nu-chala-nuth, who reject the authority of machines over humans. In any case, one could not, for example, entrust a dorgi with the task of policing the streets of any of the cities of the Nu-chala-nuth in the aftermath of one of the periodic upheavals inspired by that religion. So we rely upon the warrior.

If you are of the Nu-chala-nuth, then in the supervision of members of your own faith you may find that your discharge of your duty to the Nexus is difficult. This is an extreme case, but for any given individual we can wargame a situation in which that individual's loyalties will be divided.

In pitched battle, this may be of small account, but it matters greatly in civil interventions, which tend to revolve around negotiations. You as an officer of the Nexus may one day find yourself endeavoring to discharge your duty in a situation in which you have a predisposition to support the enemy in defiance of your duty.

Under such circumstances, you should attend first to the emotional dynamics of the negotiation scenario. If you can befriend your opposite number then that person will tend to refrain from using those tactics which will be most hurtful to you. Here we ask you to understand the first rule of the Characterization of the Enemy: the Enemy is someone to respect. As you come to understand the horrors of total war and the methods which can be used to avoid it, you will begin to understand the importance of this characterization. – from the Book of Negotiations So was it then a slip which let The hero fall and long odds claim the day?

Or was the one sword sharper, or the sand Made partial by its hungers?

"So what's Lon Oliver going to argue?" said Hatch.

"I've no idea," said Paraban Senk.

"Can we be heard?" said Hatch. "Right now, I mean? By those in Forum Three?"

"They get to watch you while you're in the illusion tanks," said Senk. "They get a full-color full-sound split-screen presentation of the battles. But right now you've got a guarantee of privacy."