March Upcountry

"Poetry?" Roger laughed. "What in the hell would Pahner be doing talking about poetry?"

"There is poetry and poetry, my Prince," the shaman said with a grunt. "Ask him about 'The Grave of the Hundred Dead.' Or 'Recessional.' Or 'If.' " The shaman rolled over to find a more comfortable position. "But ask him in the morning."

"Poetry?" Roger said. "What in hell would I want with poetry?"

"Eleonora?" Roger asked. The chief of staff was on her way to another of the numerous meetings she had arranged with the Voitanese forces. She apparently considered herself a one-person social reengineering team, or at least the best equivalent available. She was determined that when she left, the Voitanese would have the strongest governmental structure available to the situation. Since that was probably a rational oligarchy it fit in well with the Voitanese plans.

"Yes, Ro... Your Highness?" she asked hurriedly. Her pad was almost overloaded with notes and there were only a few days left to get everything in place. Whatever Roger wanted had better be quick.

"Have you ever heard of a poem called 'The Grave of the Hundred Dead?' "

The chief of staff stopped and thought then consulted her toot. "The name is familiar, but I can't quite place it."

"Or 'Recessional.' " Roger's brow wrinkled but he couldn't think of the other. "Or something like 'If?' "

"Ah!" the historian's face cleared. "Yes. That one I have. Why?"

"Uh," Roger stopped, caught. "Would you believe Cord recommended it?"

O'Casey laughed merrily. It was a twinkling sound that Roger realized he had never heard. "Not without some sort of body transference, Your Highness."

"I think he heard of it from someone," Roger explained stiffly.

"Set your pad," she said with a smile and transferred the file.

There was a blip and Roger looked at the translation remark on his pad. "You keep it on your toot?" Roger asked, surprised.

"Oh, yes," O'Casey said as she started back down the path. "I love that poem. There are very few pre-space poets that have even one poem known. Kipling has to be right up there with the Earl of Oxford. You might see Captain Pahner. I believe Eva said he has the collected works in his toot."

Warrant Officer Dobrescu tossed the chunk of reddish ore from hand to hand as he gazed up at the towering wall of red and black.

And, lo, the answers come clear, he thought.

The last two weeks had been good for the company. The troops had been given time to rest and get some separation from the terrible losses inflicted in the battle. Since Voitan was going to be held by "friendly" forces, Captain Pahner had decided to leave all of their dead. If they made it through alive, they would come back for them. If they fell along the way, these Marines, at least, would be honored.

The Voitanese had opened a vault in their own catacombs, which had been looted by the Kranolta. The sepulcher had been the resting place of the city's royal guards before its fall, and there were still a few of their bones moldering in the back. The Marines had been bagged but not burned and laid to rest along with their brethren. Sergeant Major Kosutic, as the only registered chaplain in the company, had performed the ceremony, and if any of the Marines had objected to their honored dead being prayed over by a High Priestess of Satan, they hadn't mentioned it.

The pause had also given the wounded time to recover, and a regimen of heavy eating and bed rest had done wonders. All but the most critically injured were back on their feet and training, and, from a purely selfish point of view, it had given Dobrescu time to scratch a few itches.

The first itch had to do with the local steel. The point had been made again and again that only the "water steels" made in Voitan were of the finest quality. That steels from other areas, even if processed in what they thought was the same way, did not possess the "spirit" of Voitan's Damascene steels.

The second itch had to do with the Mardukan biology. Something had been bugging him ever since they landed and ran into D'Nal Cord, and the downtime and necessity of working on Mardukan wounded, as well as human, had given him the opportunity to do a little studying. What he'd discovered would startle most of the company, but the warrant thought it was hilarious. He hated it when people made assumptions.

Time to go watch some people cringe, he thought with an evil smile.

"So the steel has a high percentage of impurities," O'Casey said. "So what?"

"It's not just that it has a high percentage," Dobrescu said, consulting his pad. "It's what the impurities are."

"I don't know what this 'impurity' is," Targ said.

"That's going to be difficult to explain," Eleanora said with a frown. "It involves molecular chemistry."

"I'll give it a shot," Roger said. "Targ, you know how when you first smelt the ore, you get 'black iron.' The brittle stuff, right?"

"Yes," T'Kal Vlan agreed. "It's what was given to Cord's tribe, that broke so easily."

"You have to remelt it," Cord put in. The wounded Mardukan was seated behind Roger, as was proper, but stretched out on cushions to save his ravaged legs. "Very hot. It's hard and expensive, which is why black iron is cheaper."

"Okay," Roger went on. "Then when you heat it in a crucible, 'very hot,' as Cord said, you get a material that's gray and very easy to work."

"Iron," Targ said. "So?"

"That's what we call 'wrought iron,' and it actually is almost pure iron. Iron is a molecule. Black iron is iron with carbon, which is what's in charcoal, mixed into it."

"What about steel?" T'Kal Vlan asked. "And why do I think we need an ironmaster here?"

"Somebody else can explain it later," Roger said with a laugh. "The point is that iron is a pure element, a kind of molecule. Is that sort of clear?"

"I hear the words," Targ replied, "but I don't know their meaning."

"That would be hard to really explain without teaching you basic chemistry first," Dobrescu said. "You're just going to have to take our word for most of this and I'm not sure how much you can do with it."

"The point is that steel is also iron with carbon in it," Roger said. "But less carbon, and heated to a much higher temperature."

"That much is well known to our master smiths," Targ said, with a human-style shrug. "Yet mere heat and tempering does not produce the water steel. Even in exile, our smiths have forged weapons far superior to those of other city-states, but never the water steel of Voitan."

"No, steel is complicated," Roger agreed. "Especially 'water steel'—what we call 'Damascene.' We—well, I—was really surprised you had it and of such quality. It's unusual at your technology level."

"I think it's driven by their pumping industry," O'Casey interjected. "They have quite a bit of refined technology dedicated to pumps. Once that starts to spread out a bit, look for an industrial revolution. I wish they were just a bit further along. If they were, I'd introduce the steam engine."

"Let's stick to the subject, if we can," Pahner suggested with a slight grin, "and reengineer their society when we can do it with a regiment at our back. Okay?"

"His Highness is right," Dobrescu went on to Targ, ignoring the captain's amusement. "Normal steel is specially formed iron with a bit of carbon and high temperature, but you need some other impurities, if you want good steel, which explains Voitan blades. The first thing to realize is that the local ore is what we call 'banded iron.' "

"I know," Roger said. "Geology, remember? It's formed by early oxygen-generating organisms. Prior to their evolution, atmospheres are mostly reducing, and iron can remain on the surface in a mostly pure state. But once the first green or blue-green organism occurs and starts producing oxygen, the iron rusts. Then the oxygen gets used up over millions of years, and there's a band of non-rusted ore, then another band of rusted ore. Right?"