"The rules of the cantonment are not complicated. You may not fight. I will adjudicate quarrels, and my judgment is final. You may not sing, shout, or whistle. You may not indulge your sexual desires without prior arrangement. You must be tidy; disorder is not tolerated. There are two principal roads to advancement. First, zeal. A dedicated man will become a corporal. Second, communication. If you learn the Great Song, you will gain valuable privileges, for very few persons can sing with the Ka. It is difficult, as those who try will discover, but fighting in the first rank is worse."
Etzwane said, "I have a question. Whom must we fight?"
"Ask no idle questions," snapped Polovits. "It is a useless habit and shows instability. Look at me! I have asked never a question and I have survived on Kahei for long years. I was taken from Shauzade district as a child during the second slavings. I saw the Red Warriors created, and it was a hard time. How many of us survive now? I could count their names in a trice. Why did we survive? " Polovits peered from face to face. "Why did we want to survive? " Polovits' own face showed a haggard triumph. "Because we were men! Fate has given us the one life to live, and we use it to the best! I make the same recommendation to you: do your best! Nothing else is valid."
"You cautioned me in regard to idle questions," said Etzwane. "I ask a question which is not idle. Are we offered any inducement? Can we hope to see Durdane again as free men?"
Polovits' voice became hoarse. "Your inducement is persistence of life! And hope-what is hope? On Durdane there is no hope; death comes for all, and it comes here as well. And freedom? It is at your option here and now. Notice the hills; they are empty. The way is open; go now and be free! No one will halt you. But before you go, take heed! The only food is weed and wort; the only water is mist. You will bloat on the herbs; you will call in vain for water. Freedom is yours."
Etzwane asked nothing more. Polovits pulled the cloak around his thin shoulders. "We will now eat. Then we will commence our training."
To eat, the squad stood up to a long trough containing lukewarm mush, stalks of a crisp, cold vegetable, and spiced pellets. After the meal Polovits put the men through calisthenics, then took them to one of the low, lizardlike vehicles.
"We have been assigned the function of 'stealthy attack.' These are the strike cars. They move on vibrating pads and are capable of high speed. Each man of the squad will be assigned his car, and he must maintain it with care. It is a dangerous and valuable weapon."
"I wish to ask a question," said Etzwane, "but I am not sure whether you will consider it 'idle.' I do not want to be struck dead for simple curiosity."
Polovits put a stony gaze upon him. "Curiosity is a futile habit."
Etzwane held his tongue. Polovits nodded curtly and turned to the lizard-car. "The driver lies flat, with his arms ahead. He looks down into a prism which shows him an adequate field of view. With arms and legs he controls the motion; with his chin he discharges either his torpedoes or his fire-stab."
Polovits demonstrated the controls, then took the squad to a set of mock-ups. For three hours the group trained at the simulated controls; there was then a rest-break, then a two-hour demonstration of maintenance techniques which each man would be required to use on his vehicle. The sky darkened; with twilight came a fine rain. In the dismal graveloom the squad marched to the barracks. For supper the trough held a bland, sweet soup which the men dipped up with mugs. Polovits then.said, "Who among you wishes to learn the Great Song?"
Etzwane asked, "What is involved?"
Polovits decided that the question was legitimate. "The Great Song recounts the history of Kahei through symbolic sounds and sequences. The Ka communicate by singing themes of allusion, and you must do the same through the medium of a double-flute. The language is logical, flexible, and expressive, but difficult to learn."
'I wish to learn the Great Song," said Etzwane.
Polovits showed him a harsh grin. "I thought you. would decide as much. " And Etzwane decided that he did not like Polovits. The need for dissembling therefore increased; he must truckle and submit; he must throw himself into the program with apparent zeal.
Polovits seemed to perceive the flow of Etzwane's thoughts and made a cryptic observation, "In either case I will be satisfied."
For a period existence went quietly. The sun-or suns-never appeared; the dank gloom oppressed the spirits and made for dreariness and lethargy. The daily routine included calisthenics, periods of training in the lizard-cars, and work sessions, which might consist of food preparation, sorting of ores, shaping and polishing of swamp wood. Neatness was emphasized. Detachments policed the barracks and groomed the landscape. Etzwane wondered whether the insistence upon order reflected the will of the asutra or the Ka. Probably the Ka, he decided; it was unlikely that the asutra altered the personality of the Ka any more than they had affected Sajarano of Sershan, or Jurjin, or Jerd Finnerack, or Hozman Sore-throat. The asutra dictated policy and monitored conduct; otherwise it seemed to remain aloof from the life of its host.
Asutra were everywhere evident. Perhaps half the Ka carried asutra; mechanisms were guided by asutra, and Polovits spoke in awe of asutra-guided aircraft. The latter two functions seemed somewhat plebeian activity for the asutra, Etzwane reflected, and would indicate that asutra, no less than Ka, men, ahulph, and chumpa, were divided into categories and castes.
At the end of the day, an hour was set aside for hygiene, sexual activity, which was permitted on the floor of a shed between the male and female barracks, and general recreation. The evening rain, occurring soon after light left the sky, put a term to the period, and the slaves went to their barracks, where they slept on mounds of dried moss. As Polovits had asserted, no guards or fences restrained the slaves from flight into the hills. Etzwane learned that on rare occasions a slave did so choose to seek freedom. Sometimes the fugitive was never again seen; as often he returned to camp after three or four days of hunger and thirst and thankfully resumed the routine. According to one rumor, Polovits himself had fled into the hills and upon his return had become the most diligent slave of the camp.
Etzwane saw two men killed. The first, a stout man, disliked calisthenics and thought to outwit his corporal. The second man was Srenka, who ran amok. In both cases a Ka destroyed the offender with a spurt of energy. The Great Song of Kahei was for Etzwane a labor of love. The instructor was Kretzel, a squat old woman with a face concealed among a hundred folds and wrinkles. Her memory was prodigious, her disposition was easy, and she was always willing to entertain Etzwane with rumors and anecdotes. In her teaching she used a mechanism which reproduced the rasps, croaks, and warbles of the Great Song in its classic form. Kretzel then duplicated the tones on a pair of double-pipes and translated the significance into words. She made it clear that the Song was only incidentally music; that essentially it served as the basic semantic reference to Ka communication and conceptual thinking.
The Song consisted of fourteen thousand cantos, each a construction of thirty-nine to forty-seven phrases.