They were the glory of the race of rangers,
Matchless with horse, rifle, song, supper, courtship,
Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate,
Bearded, sunburnt, drest in the free costume of hunters . . .
Retreating they form'd in a hollow square with their baggage for breastworks,
Nine hundred lives out of the surrounding enemy's, nine times
Their number, was the price they took in advance . . ."Song of Myself"
Walt Whitman
"What does that boy think he's doing?" muttered Lieutenant Thomas Melville. He sat on the Pier in the oppressive heat of mid-afternoon. He'd received only one wound in their recent battle, an ignominious clawing of his right buttock. Not too deep, but sufficient to make him sit carefully. Spread before him was the emerald shade of the copse of huge trees they'd fought so hard to defend. Exhausted and spent from desperate battle, he watched little Midshipman Aquinar as he crawled into the white bones of their beached cutter.
He looked out on the vast expanse of forest that encompassed their hill. Reaching up and behind him he put a hand on the Keel of his Ship, which now formed the Pier. <<Funny, we know nothing about this world, except what we can see from here, or what our scouts tell us. We're like some old sailors. Like Columbus, making first landfall on a new continent. All we could tell from two-space was that it was a green world, and would probably support life. Then we had to crash, like some sailing ship smashing itself on a reef to enter into a new land. Now you, my friend, my old Ship, are the link, the Pier across that reef.>>
<<Yep, yep.>> Answered Swish-tail, <<I'm there, and I'm here!>>
Through this strange, telepathic link with his faithful Ship, Melville "heard" these words, but they came with a great weight of context and additional information that was subtly communicated, so that Melville knew exactly what Swish-tail meant. The Keel of his little ship now disappeared up into two-space, into Flatland, forming a link between the two realms. It was here, and there.
<<Funny, in the old, classic science fiction novels they were always talking about going into the fourth or fifth dimensions to go between planets. Ha! Things just get further apart when you add dimensions. I wonder why none of them thought about going the other way, into the second dimension. Into Flatland. A book called Flatland was one of the very earliest science fiction novels, dating all the way back to the nineteenth century. It seems so simple, really. Just pop into two-space where things are so much closer together, sail to where you want to go, and pop back out. The problem is that instead of orbiting around a world, looking at it from outer space, in Flatland all you see is this big green and blue blob that you sail into. Just like seeing green shores on the other side of the reef. Unfortunately, you have to crash your ship to get across the reef, and you have no idea what's waiting for you.>>
<<Yep, yep. Came down with a crash!>>
Melville thought back, <<This world could work you know. We were supposed to find an unclaimed world on the frontier between the Guldur and Stolsh empires. This was a historical first, a cooperative effort with the prominent Sylvan world of Osgil. A trading base right between Guldur and Stolsh would have really paid off for us and the Sylvans. Still might, if only Kestrel would come back for us. Do you really think she's still out there?>>
<<Think so . . . Feel her there . . . >>
<<But we had to wreck you to get here.>> Melville added, looking sadly at his old command, his little cutter, lying on its side next to the copse of trees that topped this hill. <<Do you regret it?>>
<<Nope. Is good world.>>
Still, it was sad. Was there anything in the universe quite so sad as a beached sailing ship? Especially a Ship of two-space, looking like two old-time wooden sailing ships joined at the waterline, with masts protruding out from both top and bottom. They were majestic and grand, with their sails spread as they sped from star to star, across the shoreless seas of Flatland. But even a one-masted cutter like his lively little Swish-tail was pathetic and sad the instant you cut the contacts to the Keel and beached it in three-space.
Immediately after their crash landing, Melville and his small crew pulled out the precious Keel and lovingly planted it in the living earth like a mast, or a flagpole at the top of the hill. The rest of Melville's company came down the Keel from the Kestrel and their mothership left them, never to return. Or at least not yet.
Many of the pure white Nimbrell timbers were stripped from Swish-tail's hull to form a platform around the Keel, which now became a Pier. Melville was here to "talk" with Swish-tail after their battle. She was his friend, and a commander needed someone outside the chain of command to visit with. She seemed to be happy there, planted in the living earth. A Ship died and a world was born. Soon, she would merge with this world, becoming its gateway to Two-Space.
They paused in companionable silence as Melville leaned back against the Keel and watched little Midshipman Aquinar make another trip from the bowels of the old cutter. Again he reached lovingly up and put a hand on the white Moss coating the Keel and asked, <<What does that boy think he's doing? Usually our midshipmen and ship's boys are only interested in food and sleep. "Nasty, brutish, and short," that's them. So what's this all about?>>
Early in their forays into Flatland, humans had discovered the remarkable white fungus they'd named Lady Elbereth's Gift or Elbereth Moss. Like everything in Two-Space, Elbereth Moss existed only in two dimensions. But it was also capable of growing on the portion of a Pier that extended into normal, three-dimensional space, like the encrusted sea creatures on the pilings of a dock at low tide.
In two-space it just appeared, like a fungus, adhering to and eventually coating Nimbrell wood and Keels in two-space. It was white and impossibly thin. It also provided oxygen and light. Most of all, across time, it became sentient, giving life to the white Ships of two-space. The men of Westerness communicated their awe and respect by making proper nouns out of terms like Keel, Pier, and Ship, when referring to a sentient life-form.
Melville felt the Ship respond to his idle question. <<Good boy. Trust him.>>
But he wasn't really thinking about the boy. Melville was thinking about Kestrel, their mothership. Wondering if it would ever return to take them home to Westerness and Evereven, where "softly silver fountains fall." Most of all, at this moment, Melville wondered if he would ever again take a long cold drink of water. To distract himself from his thirst and exhaustion, he watched the boy's trips with detached bemusement. The little barefoot midshipman had taken off his blue jacket, and was dressed now in a dirty white shirt and sailcloth trousers, like some crawling worm or moth flitting back and forth.
This was the boy's fourth journey. He couldn't be after the water barrel; the tap to the barrel was on the other end, and the area where the little midshipman was crawling was considerably lower than that.
Each time, Aquinar crawled over the bodies of the creatures they had just killed, cut down in windrows, with rifled musket, pistol and sword, as their little company defended the tiny perimeter. This was Melville's miniature world. A grove of trees with their precious shade atop a grassy hill, the bones of their cutter with its precious water barrel, and the Pier where he sat.
Within the bowels of the cutter, and spread out on the west side, the far side from the little midshipman's approach, was the aid station. Here, under the shade of sailcloth tarps, were many marines and sailors, and one dog, all seriously wounded in their recent battle. They were tended by Lady Elphinstone, their Sylvan surgeon. She'd been attached to their ship as a part of this cooperative effort between Westerness and Osgil. She was fair of face, with her golden hair pulled back behind her head in a bun. She wore a buttercup yellow gown, with a grass green sash about her waist. Both were now stained and smeared with the leaking lifeblood of many men. The surgeon was assisted by Petreckski, their monkish purser, his brown robe well concealing the blood of their wounded. Their two buckskin-clad rangers, bone weary after their long chase and fierce battle, were also contributing their extensive healing skills.
Deep in the shade of the trees were their dead. Six men, two ship's dogs, and one cat were lovingly laid out under careful guard, lest their bodies be defiled by local creatures. They rested amidst the trees they'd died to defend. Soon they would be buried there.
Melville had no idea what the boy thought he was doing, going back and forth from the bowels of their cutter to the depths of the woods. But he knew just exactly what these dead aliens were doing here.
Several of the strange, six-legged, dingy white "apes" had died up here on the Pier as they tried to work their way around the left flank. There was one close to him. Close enough to prod with his foot.
In books, the writers often talk of people voiding their bowels when they die. You could get the impression from these gritty, realistic writers that this always happened. But the truth was that it only happened if you had a "load" in the lower intestines. Thus, Melville could tell which creatures had fed well last night, and which hadn't. This fellow, with the local equivalent of flies crawling in and out of his mouth and across the facets of his compound eyes, had eaten very well last night.
The mouth was located at the top of the creature's skull, the vertical nose slits below that, and the compound eyes were low in the skull. Except for when the head launched forward on its accordion neck (mouth first, teeth first, in violent attack), it remained nestled back into the creature's . . . chest? . . . thorax? The end result was that the mouth (a very respectable mouth, full of very nasty and creditable teeth) was at the top of the skull, with the compound eyes protected, barely peeking out from where they crouched in the chest cavity. Now, relaxed in death, the head protruded from the body and the ape's eyes seemed to look reproachfully up at him, ignoring the intruding flies.
An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Well, this was no "man" thought Melville, it probably wasn't even sentient, but it was a living creature that he'd helped to kill. "Your fault," he muttered, looking his accuser in the eye. "Don't blame me. You were the ones that had to go and attack us, with all that howling and screeching. What did you expect?"
<<Bad monkey!>> added Swish-tail, <<Bad!>>
<<It's a dead monkey! That makes it a good monkey!>> replied Melville, jokingly, prodding it again with his foot.
<<Ha! Yup!>> replied the little Ship, getting into the spirit of their grim little jest. <<Good monkey. Goood Monkey.>>
The thing that the "realistic, gritty" genre of writers generally didn't write about was the fact that, in the intensity of battle, many of the living combatants also voided their bowels. Again, it generally happened to those with a "load" in the lower intestines.
All energy was redirected toward survival. "We need more power, Captain! Bladder control? I don't think so. Sphincter control? We don't need no stinking sphincter control! Ye laddies get that energy down in the legs where we need it!"
And, as usual after battle, when the normal postcombat nausea set in, several of the young ones lost their breakfast as well.
It was going to be hard to clean up the mess, living and dead, with barely enough water to keep them alive for another few weeks. There was plenty of ships biscuit, salt pork and dried peas, but precious, precious little water.
They had been digging a well into the hill ever since their arrival. After all, if the trees were alive, they must be getting water from somewhere. They were down a hundred feet and still going through dry dirt, the walls shored up with logs.
Melville smelled the reek from his own troops and looked out at the stinking heaps of their dead attackers. How were they going to clean up this filth, and return things to shipshape navy fashion? Somehow the books never talked about this. Did I miss a class at the academy?
Actually, on his first day at the academy they told him this might happen. "Adventure," they called it. "A rendezvous with destiny."
Captain (retired) Ben James, Dean of the Department of History had lectured them on their first day. Five foot, eight inches tall, well over two hundred pounds, he looked like he would tire just combing his hair, deadly only with a red pencil . . . until you got a look at the ribbons on his dress uniform, and then you learned to pay attention to him. He was indeed a history professor full of surprises.
"Cadets," he began, looking at them with steely intensity, "you are on the first day of an adventure that, if you stick with it, will ultimately see you in command of ships sailing the shoreless seas of two-space. When you enter into two-space, you'll truly understand why our culture and society is the way it is.
"Most of you are from here on Westerness, and have never even traveled in two-space, or 'Flatland' as it's often called." Young cadet Melville puffed up his chest and felt very superior upon hearing this. He had served for several years as a ship's boy before being selected for the academy. On his first day at the academy he was happy to embrace any comforting source of superiority.
"In this strange environment any complex or advanced technology can't exist. What builds and prospers our empire are wooden ships . . . and iron men. We depend on the relatively crude technology of our ships, similar to eighteenth-century Napoleonic-era sailing ships. Even simple block-and-tackle pulleys tend to decay quickly, and there is no need for jibs or stay sails, so the rigging is very simple.
"Even simple weapons technology, such as muzzle-loading muskets, require daily maintenance in this environment. Thus we are back to Napoleonic-era weapons. Namely cannons, swords, rifled muskets, and bayonets.
"But never forget that you are warriors, and the most formidable weapon in two-space lies between one's ears! 'This is the law: The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.' So says Steinbeck, and so . . . say . . . I."
Melville was sitting, reflecting on all the advantages his prior service would give him here at the academy. Visions of academic glory were unfolding before him when Captain James brought him crashing back down to earth.
He was just envisioning himself as the Brigade Captain in his fourth year when Captain James singled him out, "Mr. Melville . . ." Boom. His heart began to pound in his chest and all eyes were suddenly on him. The cunning old sea dog knew when someone wasn't paying attention, and he wasn't about to tolerate it. "When did our ancestors make the first landing on Westerness?"
Okay, this was easy. This was the year 422, and the years were tracked from the founding of Westerness. "Four hundred and twenty-two years ago, sir!"
A disappointed sigh and condescending look came from his tormenter. "Wrong, Mr. Melville. I thought you had some prior experience with the Navy. Didn't you ever get around to learning that in the Navy we track all dates by Earth years? You, of all people should have known that. Gig yourself. Ten demerits."
Oh good. Just great. The very first demerits handed out, and they were to him, "mister prior service." For a few seconds there was a roaring in his ears and tunnel vision shut out everything but his tormentor's face. But he never again made the mistake of not paying attention to Captain James, and he vividly remembered every word the crusty old sailor said that day.
"I want you never to forget that mankind made it into two-space on its own, without the aid of any foreign planet and with our own science and technology, in 2104. However, we were a while learning how to survive in that strange environment.
"When that great innovator and researcher, Kenny Muraray, created the first Pier, he was amazed to see it disappear up into nothing. Like Aladdin's rope or Jacob's ladder. Perhaps it had happened before, perhaps this is the source of these legends. Soon, Moss grew on the Keel and they went up and studied two-space.
"Westerness was colonized by the men of Old Earth, four hundred eighteen Earth years ago, in the year 2210. This was almost a century after mankind's first, disastrous entry into Flatland, when the computers came back from the two-space with the Elder King's Gift. This was a devastating virus that brought about the Crash, a complete and irrecoverable collapse of their worldwide Info-Net. But still the Pier was there, and those early pioneers went from the equivalent of the dugout canoe to the mighty frigates of today in just a few centuries.
"Over the following centuries the vast majority of human colonies emanated from Westerness, with our vast, ancient forests of Nimbrell trees. Earth's high technology couldn't be exported across two-space. Since no technology can exist in Flatland, technology can't be transported between worlds. A computer program, printed out on paper, can be a full cargo for a ship—and that's the only way such a program can be moved between worlds! Indeed, any bio-technology, nano-technology, gene manipulation, or artificial organs in a body will result in a rapid, horrible death if brought into Flatland. On major, starfaring worlds there is little need for technology beyond Victorian levels, so we simply don't bother with it.
"On a few high-tech worlds, like Earth, the citizens have decided to embrace nano- and bio-technology, which gives them long lives. But the price they pay is that they can't travel beyond their world! The poor, poor bastards are trapped on their world. They gained a few extra decades of life in their old age, but they lost the universe." He said that with such sincere sadness, disgust and disdain that the cadets couldn't help but be influenced.
"On Earth, only the very young, at great risk, will dare to travel off-world. The result is that within two hundred years of our colonization they lost control of their empire. Westerness, supported by other low-tech, retroculture worlds, took over. Gentlemen, we . . . are . . . determined not to let that happen to us," he said with a pointed finger and intense fierceness.
"Since the demands of maintaining a two-space empire drives our train, and since the allure of high tech can destroy our empire, as happened to Earth, we chose to stay at a basic technological level. 'Retroculture' is the name for what we've done, a term first coined by a man named Bill Lind in the late twentieth century, when the backlash against their toxic modern culture began to spontaneously spawn organizations like the Society for Creative Anachronism, the 'Victorian' craze in women's culture, the antiques craze, old house renovations, and Renaissance festivals. The result is that today we live in a hodgepodge of Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian technology. That is, generally the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. The homes and communities of sailors, those ultimate conservatives, are some of the most dogmatic about keeping low tech."
Then the old sailor's face smiled gently and lovingly. "In the Navy this is reinforced by our veneration of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and the extensive biographies of great sailors such as Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey."
Suddenly glowering out at them from beneath his bushy eyebrows he added, "And, I will say right now, that I won't tolerate any young wiseacre who wants to espouse the errant belief that the narratives of these great sailors, who have been such an inspiration to us, were actually fiction."
Having made his point, he relaxed and continued. "Thus we live in a world of intentional, creative anachronism. We've established a true retroculture, reaching back into our past to build the best community we can. The people of Earth, when they deign to come off their planet, sometimes refer to us as 'Hokas.' It's quite appropriate to challenge them to a duel and to kill them without mercy or pity for such an insult." Suddenly the steel in this seemingly roly-poly old navy officer was coming through in his voice. "As though any earthworm would risk his sad, dull, centuries-long life by participating in a duel. Thus social ostracism is the only acceptable response if no duel or abject apology is forthcoming." The cadets in the classroom found themselves leaning back in their seats as they looked into the feral eyes of a man who had meted out death in duels and combat.
"Because, you see gentlemen, we are not 'Hokas,' we are the Kingdom of Westerness. Our culture and our values now rule one of the greatest empires in the galaxy, while their values and their decaying culture sit festering and rotting on one lonely, sick old world.
"But, do you see? It is the nature and demands of two-space, which most citizens will never see, that makes our culture the way it is. And keeps it there across the centuries. Most citizens will never see two-space, but you, you gentlemen, will travel in that mystical realm.
"And the most amazing thing of all about that realm is what we found when we finally got there." Here the old sea captain's voice grew low. He leaned forward and rested his hands on the front desk. His eyes, his voice, his whole body communicated wonder and reverence. "Others had already been there. Somewhere in the primordial past some ancient, Ur-civilization appears to have seeded much of the galaxy with genetically similar stock. Other races were there before us for centuries, even millennia. Sailing the seas of Flatland, moving from world to world in wooden Ships, we found the fair elves who live high up in the vast trees of low gravity worlds, and the doughty, stouthearted dwarfs who mine deep into high gravity worlds.
"There are even orcs and ogres! And wolves, complete with goblin riders. All can be found out in the vast galaxy. There are even legends of a silicon-based troll-like life-form! And so gentlemen, today you begin your rendezvous with destiny, in a universe filled with exotic creatures, wooden sailing ships, elves, dwarfs, and adventure! What was for centuries, nay millennia, our wildest fantasies will become your reality!
"Now, polite folk speak of Sylvan and Dwarrowdelf rather than elves and dwarfs, because, quite frankly, we are uncomfortable talking about it. Our feeling toward this whole matter has, as one writer put it, 'almost a religious nature, like the favor of some god . . . to be treated with great respect, rarely named, referred to by allusion or alias, never explained.'
"Even the Sylvan and Dwarrowdelf themselves have embraced Tolkien as a fascinating form of semi-prophecy. Tolkien always did insist that the power of his work was in its "applicability" not its allegory, and now the applicability of his writing has come to have a form of widespread cultural influence very much like the Bible, but more secular and perhaps even broader in its impact. Yet they too are uncomfortable talking about it. Just as the Greek culture and language was embraced by the conquering Romans, so has our culture and language become the lingua franca for the elder races, and our literature, especially Tolkien, was key to that.
"Gentlemen, we may actually be looking at literal telepathic quality possessed by some of the most 'prophetic' earthworm authors. It's truly remarkable to observe how many modern-day, high-tech marvels have their antecedents in fable. Scrying glasses, flying carpets, telephones, they're all there. Almost makes you wonder. Though personally I believe we are looking at a case of parallel evolution. Fantasy makes our dreams and nightmares real. So does technology."
Huh? thought Melville. Is this old geezer completely nuts?
Well, Melville had thought so at the time, but now here he was, stranded on a distant planet with a mad dwarven marine sergeant, a monkish purser, a beautiful elven surgeon, and a crew of stranded sailors, surrounded by dead aliens. And a pair of rangers who seemed to think they were Strider and Legolas, bringing the hosts of Mordor along behind them. "Ha!" he muttered, " 'rendezvous with destiny,' my bleeding arse."
<<Yep, yep!>>
Their attackers had first appeared in close pursuit of his two rangers, Josiah Westminster and Aubrey Valandil, as they returned, posthaste, from an extended foray downslope. They were looking for water. Instead they found company and brought them home for lunch.
Their gunshots, louder and louder as they drew near, heralded their return and marked their running battle through the woods for nearly a full turn of the glass. The entire company stood ready as the two buckskin-clad rangers burst from the emerald green tree line and began to race up the slope, their two dogs loping along at their heels, framed by the mouse gray trunks of two huge trees.
From his position on the military crest of the hill, Melville could look south at an endless sea of forest. How it stayed green in this arid land was a subject of discussion. Probably deep roots that reached into the water table. The thickly wooded forest ended abruptly around the hill, to form a bald knob covered with golden stubble, with a little clump of trees just below the crest on this south slope.
The exits from Flatland into living worlds usually came up on high ground. High ground which they now must defend or die.
Valandil was a Sylvan, and along with their surgeon he represented his species' contribution to this first cooperative endeavor between the Sylvans and the Kingdom of Westerness. He was from Osgil itself, the oldest and greatest of the low-gee, heavily forested worlds that they loved. This world felt close to a standard Earth gravity, but even in a full gee the Sylvan ranger's long strides carried him with the effortless grace of his race. He was slender and fair of face with his blond hair flowing behind him.
Josiah was Westerness born and bred. "Large, turbulent, generous, handsome, proud, and affectionate," indeed. He was also broad shouldered, dark haired with a thick black mustache, and deeply tanned by a lifetime of experience under distant suns. His strides almost matched Valandil's as they loped up the slope.
Few men can load a musket on the move, but this pair can load their double-barreled, rifled muskets at a dead run. At present, anything other than a run and they'd surely be dead.
The paper cartridges in their ammo pouches are actually two cartridges, held loosely together, side-by-side, by bits of waxed paper, with two percussion caps on top. There is a flash of their hands that is too fast to see even at close range. The rangers slap a paper tube of powder and minié ball into each barrel. At the same time the percussion caps are bitten off and held in their teeth. A flash of the double-barrel ramrod, the butt of the weapon bounces once on the ground as the ramrod seems to flick in and out. Another blur of hands as both hammers come back and the percussion caps are spit into place. They both spin and fire. Their dogs turn with them, looking on with doggy glee, adding their bark to their masters' deadly bite.
"Ch-BANG!" The sound of percussion cap and black powder explosion blends into one sound as both rangers fire their first barrel. Their targets are still concealed behind the mouse gray boles of the emerald trees, but there can be little doubt that the two leading foes have suddenly been distracted by recent difficulties in normal biological processes . . . like breathing. Melville had never seen Josiah miss a man-sized target at 250 yards, and Valandil simply refused to waste the powder to prove that he could.
"Ch-BANG!," again, as they both fire their second barrels. The instant the second shot is fired, the two rangers and two dogs spin and trot uphill. Four loads a minute is a good rate of fire for a veteran marine standing still. At a dead run these two rangers have their weapons loaded again before Melville can count to fifteen. Nothing less is expected from a ranger.
This time as they spin and fire, Melville can see their targets. A wave of dirty white apes surge out of the wood line, approximately a hundred yards behind them. "Ch-BANG! Ch-BANG!" Four gaps appear in the wave, only to be immediately filled.
In a running retreat such as this there are two possible strategies. Against cautious enemies who value their lives you can spread out your fire, and keep their heads down. The brave and foolish die first, and the rest will hopefully stay honest and cautious, keeping a respectful distance.
Against a truly determined and fearless enemy, the best you can do is pick off the ones in the lead. In a sort of enforced natural selection, the fastest die first. If you do this long enough and hard enough, and if you're fast enough and lucky enough, maybe you can outrun the rest.
The furry white wave coming at Melville's little company appeared to be singularly determined and fearless. What did they do to irk this lot? thought Melville as he watched them swarm out of the wood line. Probably the eternal story. Boy sees alien, alien sees food. Boy objects, alien takes offense. Whatever the reason for the alien attack, Melville's force clearly wasn't going to outrun this bunch. The only option was to stand and fight somewhere, and this was the spot.