Why can’t at least part of this frigging operation be at least remotely simple? he wondered. For that matter, why can’t the Arcanans be the only opposition I need to worry about?
“In the meantime,” he continued more briskly, “I’m rather relieved by the reports from Battalion-Captain chan Yahndar, Master Yanusa-Mahrdissa and Master Banchu. I especially like Yanusa-Mahrdissa’s plans for getting heavy equipment forward, and we damned well should have thought about sending chan Yahndar the Mules from the get-go.”
A grimace of disgust accompanied the second half of his last sentence as he castigated himself once more for not having had the same thought in time. Mostly, he supposed, because he’d been so focused on the Bisons and their massive towing capacity, but he still ought to—
“We should have thought of that, Sir,” Regiment-Captain chan Isail agreed in the overly respectful tone he saved for times when his superior was being unreasonable with someone else…or himself. “Except, of course, for the minor fact that while we were planning this entire movement at Fort Emperor Erthain no one expected them to get forward as quickly as they have. I certainly didn’t, and neither did Therahk.” Chan Geraith’s chief of staff nodded in Regiment-Captain chan Kymo’s direction. “Neither did Corps-Captain chan Rowlan or anyone on his staff, now that I think about it.” He shrugged slightly. “We put this entire deployment together so quickly it’s a wonder our organic transport units got forward with us more or less in order, much less any of the QMG’s attachments. For that matter, all the movement arrangements up-chain from here are still a little…chaotic,” he added dryly, and despite himself, chan Geraith snorted at the massive understatement.
“I like Yanusa-Mahrdissa’s suggestions, too, Sir,” Regiment-Captain chan Serahlyk put in. “At the same time, I’d really like to pull out the Hundred and Twenty-Third and take them across to New Ternath. Chan Hurmahl’s going to need all the help he can get.”
“Agreed. But he’s got Yanusa-Mahrdissa’s work crews, not to mention the crews Master Banchu will be moving across. That’s a lot of skilled manpower and equipment, Lyskar, and it’s equally important that we keep the Arcanans’ attention fixed here on Fort Salby. The more dust you and your people kick up preparing for us to either advance from here or go over onto the defensive and dig in as deeply as possible, the better.”
The dark-complexioned engineer didn’t look particularly convinced by the division-captain’s logic, but he didn’t raise any further objection…for the moment, at least. Chan Geraith was prepared to settle for that. Chan Serahlyk’s engineers were occupied very obviously further improving the approach roads to the Traisum Cut. They were also building a truly impressive encampment for the thousands upon thousands of infantry who were clearly en route to Traisum. Only a handful of the Arcanans’ eagle-lions were getting through the portal these days, but a trickle still seeped past the defenders on a semiregular basis. Chan Geraith hoped their masters were enjoying whatever reconnaissance they were bringing back, and he was perfectly happy to use their recon capabilities against them by giving them all sorts of preparatory activity to see right here in Traisum.
And, of course, if his hopefully brilliant flanking maneuver blew up as spectacularly as it had the potential to blow up, they might just end up actually needing all of chan Serahlyk’s preparation work here in Traisum after all.
So far, however, none of the wheels had come off. Or not any that he knew about, at any rate. The delays in Voice transmissions to and from Sharona imposed by the water barriers in Haysam and Reyshar were sufficiently irritating, was one reason he was so profoundly grateful chan Rowlan’s HQ had moved as far forward as Camryn. Bottlenecks in transportation were likely to keep the corps commander in that universe for at least another month or two, unsnarling the endless snafus which were inevitable when such a massive troop movement was undertaken on so little notice. It was unlikely he’d be moving any farther down-chain until at least one of his two infantry divisions could come up, but the Voice chain meant he and chan Geraith were in effective communication. It took only a few hours for messages to be transmitted as far as Camryn, which made it even more frustrating that it had taken the better part of nine days for chan Yahndar’s report from the other side of Traisum’s Vandor Ocean to reach him.
Don’t complain, he told himself sternly. If the Authority hadn’t already brought up and assembled the relay boats it would take a hell of a lot longer than that!
That observation didn’t make the delay a lot more palatable, although he knew he would have been much unhappier if it hadn’t been true. The Portal Authority had shipped forward a half-dozen of its prefabricated small, extremely fast steamships to shuttle Voices back and forth to get them into range of one another. The relay “boats” displaced almost two thousand tons, so they weren’t exactly tiny, but they consisted of remarkably little besides fuel bunkers, boilers, and engines, and those engines were twin-shaft turbines, not the more fuel efficient reciprocating engines TTE’s Voyagers used. That gave them a top speed of almost thirty-five knots in calm sea conditions, but not even that fleetness made the vast, wave-tumbled wilderness of the North Vandor in winter any narrower.
Still, the messages did get through, and chan Yahndar and Yanusa-Mahrdissa seemed to have matters under control. Chan Geraith felt his own nerves itching to move forward to the New Ternath side of the Vandor, but—like chan Rowlan in Camryn—he was far better employed where he was, at least for the moment. It was his responsibility to coordinate the movement of the rest of the 3rd Dragoons to Kelsayr; this was the best place for him to do that coordinating, and there’d be plenty of time to relocate his HQ before young chan Mahsdyr reached Thermyn.
Assuming he does reach Thermyn, of course. And that he doesn’t get spotted after he gets there. And that we’re able to get the rest of the division up to him without being spotted. And that we’re able to pounce on Fort Ghartoun and take it before Harshu reacts. And—
He made himself stop worrying at all the things that could still go wrong like a terrier worrying a dead rat. There wasn’t a thing in the world he could do to prevent any of them from happening, if that was what the gods had decided to allow. So it made a lot more sense to concentrate on getting the parts he could control right and hope that someday history would confirm Sunlord Markan’s diagnosis of “inspired genius.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Darikhal 31, 5053 AE
[January 19, 1929 CE]
Larakesh City, on the Sharonan side of the portal to New Sharona, wasn’t a place to be. “Being” was too stagnant a verb to describe anything in Larakesh. The portal city in the birth universe of Sharonan civilization was all movement.
Trans-Temporal Express Director Tyamish had offices somewhere in the space between all the rail lines, but Larakesh’s schedule—her beating heart—was in the keeping of her handpicked stationmasters.
The mass of train tracks running in and out both sides of the portal bristled off into dozens of yards with cars waiting for engines and full loads waiting for their timeslots to run hurtling down-portal to New Sharona, Haysam, and beyond. Larakesh the city had given way entirely to the needs of Sharona’s TTE railways, and Port-of-Larakesh extended the massive rail yard of a city out to the Ylani Sea, an ocean port almost as busy as Portal City Center itself. The deadhead trains once sent empty or nearly so down-chain were deadheading no more. Instead, troops assembled and marched aboard transports bound for the outer universes. Supply cars with weaponry, munitions, and food fitted into every available siding, with shunters busy shuffling the cars as needed to keep the portal tracks hot with constant traffic.
Stationmaster Rinlin Torrash all but tore his hair out at the latest request from TTE, and he didn’t have very much hair left to spare.
“Whales now? Whales!” He stabbed a finger at the train priority list. “I have troop transports to work in and supplies! Entire doubleheaded heavy loads to send down-chain, and who is this lady?”
“Cetacean a
mbassador,” Fadar Shelthara supplied. Shelthara was the current shift freight manager for Larakesh Central, which made him effectively Torrash’s second in command. “Very important woman. Kingdom of Shurkhal’s Cetacean Institute. Skip the request from the simians if you have to, but you probably want to fit in at least a few cars for the whale lady.”
“You sure about that, Fadar?” Torrash pointed at the now empty tin of honeynuts in the outer bay. “That Mr. Monkey Man bribed the stevedores, and you know we can’t get a darn thing done without the stevedores. They’ll be putting aquarium cars on the lines with potted banana trees and gorillas in them if I insist on granting all the cetacean requests and none of the simians’.”
“They were good snacks.” Shelthara acknowledged. “You don’t suppose he’ll drop by with some more if we expedite, do you?”
That earned him the snarl he’d expected.
“No one bribes the TTE in this office!”
“Of course not.” Shelthara didn’t point out the sugar crystals on Torrash’s shirtfront. “Just wondering is all, Boss. Very tasty they were, very tasty.”
Torrash snapped his fingers, coming to a decision. “I’ll give ’em the Uromathian slots. That’s enough space for both of ’em for the moment.”
“And when the Uromathian troops show up?” Shelthara asked.
“Thirty-two percent!” Torrash slapped the table. “I had plans and loading documents all worked out, and their last troop train mustered with only thirty-two percent of the scheduled load out.”
“They’ll have to be coming later though, right?” Shelthara did insist on bringing up the human issues behind the headaches in Torrash’s life. The trains planned for Uromathian units and their supplies hadn’t been light because someone packed exceptionally well. They’d been light because the units had been so badly understrength, and the ones who had reported had been equipped but not particularly well supplied. It’d surely play hell with the Sharonan Empire’s military logistics down-chain, but for the moment, Torrash had made the best of it and slotted in available cars of Ternathian Army supplies to make up weight for what the assigned engines could pull.
The Windlord arriving with yesterday’s Uromathian troop transport concerned Torrash. The man had clearly expected to meet up with more men and supplies here at Larakesh. It’d been all Torrash could do to convince him to keep to his transport time and go with the assigned engine at least as far as Haysam. At least a Windlord was senior enough to understand the value of keeping the logistics lines as smooth as they could be when subjected to volumes of transport so much greater than the portal could easily manage. Of course, there was the little matter that the Uromathian commander in question had expected more troops. If their logistical planning was so bad their own officers didn’t know what was really on its way…
Portals were a chokepoint—as simple as that—and Larakesh’s portal was the Sharona side of the most developed and populous Sharonan universe at the top of the long chain. Everyone knew that—or damned well ought to—and it bothered Torrash that the man’s reaction to missing troops had been a desire to turn straight around and head back to his corner of the Uromathian Empire with all the troops he did have instead of proceeding to the reporting location.
The Larakesh track was red-hot for the duration of the war, as far as Torrash was concerned, and he wasn’t about to let track be wasted on deadheading.
One of TTE’s stevedores—Ratatello Dolphar—beat a fist against the door to get their attention and then stuck his head in.
“Thought you’d want to know, the Voicenet just announced the election results. We’ve got us a parliament to go with our empire now. Gorda’s got a list of all the reps if you want to see. He’s going to paste it up on the staff board. But let’s see. Fadar, you’re from New Farnal right? You’ve got Kinlafia for the House of Talents, just like they said. And, Boss man, you’ve got Ruftuu. There’s a whole group of them, the newly elected I mean, talking about forming a caucus and passing a bunch of statutes to get the supply situation for the war going more smooth-like.”
“About time,” Torrash grunted.
“Damn sure, Stationmaster.” Dolphar agreed. “Know what I’d like to see is more of that chan Rahool character. You see the size of the arms on that guy?” He patted his own, far from insignificant biceps. “I felt like I was a new kid having my first day on the job again when he shook hands all gingerly-like.”
Shelthara laughed. “Now you know what we little office workers suffer through all the time. Women at the bars offering to hold our mugs for us ’cause our toothpick arms look too scrawny to lift ’em.”
“Right.” The stationmaster shook his head. Shelthara had a natural charm and never seemed to lack for female companionship. It was a source of continual amazement to the stevedore crews that the freight manager managed to do so well for himself with such a thin physique. “And excellent taste in trail food had nothing to do with the simian ambassador’s charm did it?”
“Hey now.” Dolphar objected. “He didn’t try to give us liquor like the more mercantilist types do. That chan Rahool’s a working man. He understood all about regs, and staying clearheaded while working the track. In fact he’s a veteran too! Might even be returning to active service with the war, for all you know.”
“Doubt it,” said Shelthara. “Looked too old to me.”
The three men exchanged a moment of understanding that cut across their work divisions. All of them were too old for enlistment, though Shelthara might be able to get in with the help of a recruitment officer’s blind eye, so Shelthara was the one who volunteered the next tidbit.
“The guy said he wasn’t much of a Voice, if you can believe it. Darn fortunate to be able to communicate across species lines and happy to have the simian ambassadorship, he said.” Shelthara nodded to Dolphar. “Did he warn you he thought chimps would want to help with loading?”
“He might of said something like that. I sent him off with one of my loading crews. Said he spent the day with ’em lifting as much as anybody and asking questions the whole while. He’s a quick study. He’ll do plenty fine.”
“You can’t draft an ambassador.” Torrash glared warningly at his senior day shift stevedore. “Don’t even try.”
Dolphar laughed. “Don’t worry, Bossman. I won’t try to impress anyone who can hold his own with gorillas. I know my limits.”
The glint in the man’s eyes hinted to Torrash and Shelthara both that Dolphar knew no such thing, but that at least his efforts to recruit the simian ambassador when next he came through wouldn’t be physical. Rumor had it that the stevedores had already taken the ambassador out drinking after shift in an effort to get him to join the crews and found his tolerance far exceeded their own.
“Did your boys talk to the cetacean ambassador too?”
“Yup,” said Dolphar. “That job’s going to be tough. The port haulers are doing most of the work setting up the aquarium cars for us. Talked to my cousin at Port-of-Larakesh about that, but the lady’d already worked it out with him. Very efficient. Not so friendly as the simian, but I figure she’s got her reasons to be glum.”
They nodded. Everyone knew the story of Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr, and while they didn’t all know Cetacean Ambassador Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr, no one had failed to make the connection once they’d heard her full name and seen the family resemblance.
A triumphant train whistle cut through their conversation, and they all paused a moment to savor it. It was 3:05 pm, and that was the steam blast of a Paladin—the mammoth workhorse engine of the TTE—set to begin her straight transit from Larakesh through the New Sharona portals direct to the Haysam coast city of Cejyo. She’d reach the enormous seaport in eighteen hours and twenty minutes, arriving at 9:25 am on the dot. Trains were a beautiful thing.
When the whistle from the departing ten thousand-ton haul cut off at the portal boundary, Torrash turned back to the two men.
“Think this Parliament will be a help for the war? T
hat they’ll actually do anything that makes sense or that it’ll just be people making decisions about stuff they don’t really understand?”
“Can’t say. But I hope they know what they’re doing,” Dolphar said, grimly.
Shelthara puffed up his chest. “We’ve got Darcel Kinlafia in office. He’s not a railroad man, but he’s been out as far as the lines go. He’ll make sure they don’t go making decisions in Parliament that are better made at the railhead—or the trailhead for that matter. I bet you he backs TTE on everything we need and pushes the rest of the reps to get the Army what it needs. We’ll be winning those lost universes back in no time once we get enough troops and guns down-chain.”
“Everything’s pretty hard to muster. We need some more signalmen further down track. And lay crews—lots of lay crews from what I hear.” Torrash mused.
“Figure TTE’s asking them for everything we need?” Dolphar asked.
“I imagine so, but who’s to say.” Shelthara looked questioningly at Torrash.
“The director’s on it. Don’t worry that the emperor isn’t being asked. Might not prioritize us as high as we’d like, but you can be sure Director Tyamish’s talking to the Privy Council regular and probably even plans on meeting with the Parliament as soon as they sort themselves out in committees and all.”