Hell's Gate

"No, I don't imagine I would," Shaylar replied, trying to hide her shock at what Gadrial had just said. It was less than forty thousand miles from New Uromath to Sharona. She and Jathmar had already realized that the Arcanans had clearly been exploring the multiverse longer than Sharona had, but still …

"Well," Jasak said as the boarding gangway once again lifted itself out of its brackets and settled into place between the ship's deck and the pier, "I suppose we might as well tell the captain goodbye and get ourselves ashore."

Division-Captain Arlos chan Geraith broke off his conversation with Division-Captain chan Manthau as the conference room door opened. They turned away from the snowcapped mountains, visible along the northern horizon outside the window, and stood respectfully silent as Corps-Captain Fairlain chan Rowlan, commanding officer of the Fifth Corps of the Imperial Ternathian Army came through the open door, followed by his chief of staff and his senior logistics officer.

chan Rowlan headed directly for his chair at the head of the conference table. The corps-captain was of little more than moderate height for a nativeborn Ternathian, and he normally moved with a certain deliberation, as if to compensate for his lack of height. There was no sign of that today, however. His movements were quick, almost urgent, and his expression was grim.

Which doesn't exactly come as a tremendous surprise, now does it, Arlos? chan Geraith told himself sardonically. There was real, if trenchant, humor in the question, but he was entirely too well aware of his own grim worry?and anger?simmering away beneath it.

"Good morning," chan Rowlan said to chan Geraith and his companions. "I'm glad you were all on the base this afternoon, but time's short. So let's get seated and get to it."

chan Geraith crossed to the table and took his own seat. Fifth Corps' other two division-captains?Yarkowan chan Manthau of the Ninth Infantry and Ustace chan Jassian of the Twenty-First?seated themselves to his left and right respectively, and he reflected (not for the first time) on how different the Ternathian military was from that of its only true rival, Uromathia. Uromathians were much more addicted to flashy uniforms, rank insignia, and salutes?not to mention bowing and scraping properly to one's superiors. Ternathians, by and large, preferred to get on with the job in hand. They'd been doing it for a very long time, after all. There weren't very many current-service units in any army which could trace their battle honors in unbroken line of succession for over four thousand years.

The Third Dragoons was one of them … which made chan Geraith's division substantially older than the entire Uromathian Empire. Or, for that matter, the Uromathian language.

With that sort of history behind them, Ternathian officers felt no particular need to emphasize their own importance and prestige. Even division commanders like chan Geraith, with the next best thing to nine thousand men under his command, normally eschewed dress uniform in favor of the comfortable, practical field uniform he wore at the moment. And while there was no question about chains of authority and military discipline, the Ternathian tradition was for senior officers to discuss military problems and strategy like reasonable adults. Unlike certain other empires whose relative youth caused them?and their senior officers?to act like touchy adolescents whose insecurity had them playing the bully on a playground somewhere.

chan Geraith knew he was being at least a little unfair to the Uromathians, but he didn't really care. The fact was that he didn't like Uromathians. He was always scrupulously polite in his dealings with them and in his public comments about them, but he saw no reason to waste fairness on them in the privacy of his own mind.

"I'm sure you're all as well aware as I am of events in the Karys Chain," chan Rowlan said.

For just a moment, the corps-captain's face twisted with a spasm of intense pain mingled with something far darker and uglier. Unlike chan Geraith, who wasn't Talented at all, chan Rowlan's wife was a Voice, and the corps-captain had a fairly powerful telepathic Talent of his own. chan Geraith hadn't often seen raw hatred on his corps commander's face, but he was seeing it now, and he didn't blame chan Rowlan one bit.

"What you don't know yet," the corps-captain went on a moment later, with a certain forced briskness, "is that I've just received orders from Captain-of-the-Army chan Gristhane, placing Fifth Corps on immediate notice to deploy forward."

chan Geraith felt his fellow division commanders coming upright in their chairs with him as if they'd rehearsed the choreography ahead of time.

"There are several reasons we were selected," chan Rowlan continued. "One of them is purely political, and not to be discussed outside this room. Specifically, Chava Busar has already placed the better part of two cavalry regiments at the Authority's disposal. They're being given absolute priority for transport forward on the basis that they're the closest non-PAAF force available. We don't want to see Chava get his military toe any further into that door than we can avoid, hence the offer of our own troops.

"Among the purely military reasons, we're the closest Ternathian corps HQ to Larakesh. For that matter, Fort Erthain is closer to Larakesh than any major non-Ternathian?" he very carefully did not say "Uromathian," chan Geraith noted "?military base, as well. We can entrain and get to the portal more rapidly than anyone else, and with a lot more combat power when we go. In addition, at the moment the railhead hasn't quite reached Fort Salby in Traisum. That leaves us almost four thousand miles?four thousand unimproved miles, all of them overland?from Hell's Gate."

He used the new, unofficial name for the contact portal without hesitation, chan Geraith noticed, and the division-captain raised two fingers in a request for attention.

"Yes, Arlos?"

"Should I assume that, for my sins, the Third gets to take point?"

"Yes, you should," chan Rowlan replied, and chan Geraith nodded.

Fort Emperor Erthain, on the mountain-ringed plains of Karmalia, was one of the Imperial Ternathian Army's largest military bases. In fact, it was by most measures the largest military base in the entire multiverse. Well, in our part of it, anyway, he reminded himself. It was also home to the Empire's major military proving grounds, and the place where the Imperial Army played with its newest toys to see what they could do.

For the last two years, Fifth Corps in general?and the Third Dragoon Division, in particular?had been experimenting with a radically new approach to military logistics. The basic concept had suggested itself following the improvements in heavy construction equipment produced by the Trans-Temporal Express's insatiably expanding rail net. There were those who believed the newfangled "internal combustion engine" was going to be the powerplant of the future because it was so much lighter and more efficient than steam, and chan Geraith wasn't prepared to tell them they were wrong. But those noisy, oil- and gasoline-burning contraptions were still taking the first, hesitant steps of infancy, and out in the field, where the TTE did most of its heavy construction work (and where the army might be called upon to maneuver), refined oil products might not be available. So TTE had specialized in developing ever more efficient steam-powered excavators, bulldozers, and tractors. Designed to burn just about any fuel which could be shoveled into their fire boxes, they'd grown steadily more powerful, lighter, and more reliable for over fifty years now.

In fact, they'd grown reliable enough for the Imperial Army to take a very close look at them. chan Geraith was one of the general officers who continued to nurse serious reservations about their maintainability in the field, but he'd seen enough over the past twenty-odd months to become convinced they were, indeed, the future of military transport.