Ciaphas Cain and the Tourist Trap (Part 4)

"So you see, Commissar," High Scrivener Jafar explained in his unexpectedly deep, booming voice, "Most of the fairgrounds can be readily adapted to host combat games suitable for both military practice and as a spectator sport." He waved a hand as spindly as his autoquill towards the existing steeplechase grounds, which, to my surprise, had obstacles the better part of eight meters off the ground. While I hadn't had much experience with horses, I knew from combat simulations and wargames at the Schola that they couldn't be expected to get over obstacles much higher than a meter.

That was before I'd discovered that the local Mechnanicus had somehow gotten involved in the steeplechase, and the resulting 'horses' were an unholy combination of muscles, valves, drugs, biology and speed. I was mildly interested in the potential military applications right up until discovering that most of the betting at these affairs was on which mashup of equine and machine would explode, catch fire, or fall apart first, and that everyone was still in a bit of a tiff with a techpriest named Tesilon-Kappa, who had apparently built one that went at a walking pace and could stick it's hooves to walls, and had won last year's premier cup at an excruciatingly slow, boring crawl two days every other competitor had collapsed entertainingly into a pile of exploded springs, singed horsehair and scorched cogs.

Tesilon-Kappa hadn't been seen since he'd taken the rather large silver prize cup and the considerable amount of prize money. Scuttlebutt said he'd been buried alive in the deep ocean power generators as punishment for his effrontery. Apparently the local mechanicus heirarchy appreciated sarcasm approximately as much as my old tutors at the schola progenium, which was why I had always been so careful to never let them catch me at it.

The upshot was that the steeplechases were drawing much less enthusiastic participation this year, making it simple to snatch their infrastructure on the grounds of military necessity and, as I was learning quickly here on Slawkenberg, potential boosts to the tourist trade.

I raised my brows at Captain Casper. "Well?" I invited. He was coming along quite nicely as a sparring partner, only needing the better part of a platoon to get the better of me, and I had decided the time had come to up the challenge level.

Or, more accurately, Father Peter had hinted that he would find it convenient if I amused myself elsewhere for the next week or so, and backed up the hint by completely cleaning me out of credits two nights in a row with far more speed and far less than his usual geniality. Something was eating at him, that was certain, and it was equally clear he had no intention of sharing what, so I took the hint and frakked off, creating makework for myself with an 'inspection tour' of the proposed tournament grounds.

Captain Casper nodded at me. "Looks promising." He allowed, his eyes scanning the terrain with interest. He then straightened, and suddenly barked out "Company! Skirmish formation!" and I nodded in approval as he neatly seized the initiative before I could do anything to liven things up. Of course, he'd had several rapid-fire experiences of the dangers of leaving the initiative entirely in my hands. He shot an inquiring glance at me. "Care to scout the grounds with us, Commissar?" He invited.

I nodded, impressed. Last time he'd issued such an invitation, he'd tacked on the unfortunate codicil, "Or would you prefer to be the opposing force?" and had suffered one of his more resounding defeats as I immediately took him up on it. He was learning quickly to only put effort into influencing my decisions towards ones he actually wanted instead of doing all the work to lay out options and leaving me to pick out which one would be most entertaining.

I briefly considered trying to seize the initiative back, but just as quickly decided against it. This was the perfect opportunity to practice training the soldiers in the fine art of watching my back and covering my ass, and the only way to effectively do that was to actually practice being a part of the group. They'd had plenty of experience for what it might be like facing off against me- it was time, I decided, to demonstrate the advantages of being *with* me.

I observed as Casper's company spread out by platoon and then broke into individual fire teams, and then attached myself to the command squad. They were still clumsy about it, but it was reaching the point that only continued experience and drill would give them the requisite expertise. I had no intention of hastening the process in the manner that the Schola Progenium did, since throwing soldiers into real live-fire life-or-death battles with real casualties would be precisely the sort of thing that would earn me a well-deserved shot in the back.

No, I was content to let things play out at the pace of peacetime practice, and I was quite pleased at how the deployment proceeded in precisely the way I hoped all deployments would- peacefully, uneventfully, and without a single casualty.

To be sure, there was literally nobody but us on the field, but I nodded in approval as every last trooper steadfastly playacted as if this were the most hostile of enemy territories. Paranoia, as I like to say, is not a one-time exercise but a lifelong, polished practice if one wishes a long life.

And it was as well we did, because the palms of my hands were tingling before it was all over, although we were nine tenths of the way done with our first sweep of the grounds before I realized why.

Jafar and his comet-tail of administratum flunkies had ensconced themselves in one of the lofted stadia. They were unusual in construction, being tall towers scattered the around the racecourse designed to give a birds-eye view of the various explosions, crashes, and ludicrous bursts of speed of the part-cyborg horses. Owing to the fact that Slawkenberg guarded its tourists with all the care and delicate consideration the shopkeeper of an emporium of fine porcelain, the first dozen or so meters of the tower were made of two meters of rockcrete. They weren't, quiet, fortresses, but I could see fifteen separate ways they could be readily adapted to become such.

And they were manned by more than just Jafar's Administratum flunkies.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerve, running my mind back through the last few maneuvers and realizing that if any of the observers had been murderously inimical, I would have been shot by sniper fire approximately half an hour ago, and three of Casper's platoons decimated to a man.

It would appear the observers were just...observing.

I steadied my nerve, resolving to brazen whatever this was out, find out who had been let on the grounds, and further resolving to keep my movements far more mysterious from here on out. I spent the last bit of the sweep fiddling with my combead. Fortunately, commissarial override codes are fairly comprehensive, and after about five minutes of tuning my way through various frequencies I'd found my answer. I finished the sweep with half an ear on Caspar's commands, and with far more interest in the running commentary on the voxnet I had just found.

We completed the sweep, and Captain Casper voxxed his subordinate commanders and calling them in with the scouting report. They did a workmanlike job with the reports, being succinct, precisely detailed, and pointing out several promising ditches, expanses that could be used as firing lanes and obstacles to be repurposed as fixed defensive positions.

"Would you care to comment, sir?" Captain Casper asked, and I nodded, setting my combead to continuous open broadcast.

"This is all well and good, with several sound strategies for winning the game, Captain Casper." I allowed. "Tell me- how many of you would be alive right now if we were at war?"

They looked at me blankly, and I spoke louder as suddenly every voice on the comnet I was so assiduously listening into shut up with suddenness of a sliced throat. "Soldiers of the Slawkenberg South Continent 47th." I said, thumbing some feedback into the voxunit to really grab their attention. "You've had some quite interesting commentary on the strategic and tactical possibilities of this battleground, as well as various amorous things to do to an enemy once you've, as one of you put it, 'pinned them like a paid-for joygirl.' I invite you to come down from your perches and share it with The Slawkenberg Capital 15th." I fed the commissarial signoff into the unit, a brassy blare of drum and trumpets, just to emphasize that I'd been listening in. For good measure, I commed Jafar, "To sit in on a chat between the some of the finest tacticians Slawkenberg had to offer."

I wanted to gauge how much he knew, if anything, about this little infiltration by seeing his body language and responses to the newcomers.

I left the unit running, mindful of my audience, and saw Lieutenant Casper goggling at me in vague astonishment. I returned his look with my blandest, most competently commissarial expression. "How long have they been there?" He asked.

"Not too long." I said mildy, mindful of my audience, and the quick bark of orders to 'get down there at the double.' He looked relieved, until I rounded out with. "Just long enough to have completely decimated this entire unit with sniper fire from all of the watchtowers conveniently stationed around the grounds."

I raised my voice slightly. It was a salutory lesson, one which I had every intention of passing on to them as effectively as possible, on the grounds that all of them were looking at me with the mixture of worry and respect that cadets at the schola had used to bestow on Myamoto De Bergerac when it was obvious that he *knew* something none of the cadets did. They thought I had known about the observers in advance. They thought I had set this up, as I had set up so many other little surprises, and quite a useful thing to me if they did.

Besides, misery loves company, and I was more than willing to pass on the shock and fear that the sudden insertion of potential hostiles into a peaceful practice maneuver had inspired in me.

I decided to drive in the lesson. "Your opponent used your prejudices against you." I continued. "Tourism is a matter of perceptions, and on this world, where tourism rules, you saw with the eyes of a performer pandering to an audience."

I nodded at the incoming group. "And the 47th saw with the eyes of war." They straightened slightly, like preening raptors, so I decided to continue my seizure of the initiative by buttering them up. "They captured all of the most defensible positions on the field, and they did it at the ideal time: far before the enemy-" I nodded at the Caspar's company arrayed around me, "ever arrived."

"That's not fair," I heard a trooper mutter in a betrayed undervoice, and I whipped around to pin him with my third-best commissarial glare.

"War isn't a game." I replied, somewhat tetchily. "Winning a game is a pleasurable way to increase skill, but winning a game isn't the point of this exercise. Training for war *is.* A lesson which the 47th is obviously taking to heart."

The newcomers had made it to our group. There weren't too many of them- barely a platoon's worth, uniformed in mostly red. They were armed, but with lasguns carefully slung and combat blades clearly sheathed. I tried to read their emotions in their stride- eagerness, certainly, and perhaps a bit too much bold bravado of the sort that betokened an attempt to hide uncertainty.

They clearly didn't know how long I'd been listing in.

Good.

They'd taken the initiative, and it was only by the grace of the Emperor and more luck than I deserved that I'd been able to seize it back.

I made my expression even blander, and forced the corner of my lip to curl up in imitation of Myamoto De Bergerac's most knowing smile. It was an article of faith amongst the cadets that it wasn't worth trying to pull anything on him, because he knew everything.

"Captain Mahlone." I greeted their leader with all the geniality of an old drinking buddy. "You had some quite cogent insights into the tactical possibilities offered by this little get-together by thinking like a warrior instead of like a tour guide."

"Not to interrupt this admiral display of military forward planning," Jafar interrupted smoothly, "But might I remind you of how vital to the strategic interests of Slawkenberg is to the tourist trade?"

"Might I remind you how shattered the vitality of that tourist trade will become if war decides to vacation here?" I immediately retaliated, nettled by the cloying obsequiousness of the beaurecrat. He was obviously used to manipulated that worthless sack of custard, Giorba, and frankly I found his attempt to use tourism as a crowbar to manipulate *me* to be insulting. I might have the same amount of spine as Giorba- that is to say, none whatsoever- but he could at least do me the courtesy of noticing I was approximately fifty times *smarter* that Giorba. Being mistaken for someone so foolish he probably couldn't seal his own shoes pricked my pride to the quick.

My survival instinct chimed in with a *perhaps it would be far better to be underestimated, but my mouth had already run ahead with me, so I stayed the course. "War changes everything. The fastest way to change the Slawkenberg Dream into a wartorn pit of misery and decay is to neglect military forward planning." I threw him a bone, "Of which logicistics and support structure is a key- dare I say *vital* part, and your insights into that aspect of the issue are valued. However, for now, we must tend to the *vital* matter of *training for war* in order of have chance at preserving the best parts of the Slawkenberg Peace."

I nodded at Captian Mahlone, who seemed to have an interesting variety of expressions warring across his face. Anger, interest, respect, and, disturbingly, an almost religious fervor. Emperor's bones, I hoped he wasn't an Emperor-botherer. Conversations with them could get stultifying extremely quickly. "Please continue." I invited, not letting a hit of my fears surface from the bubbling tarpit of cowardice in my stomach. My fears of boredom were immediately allayed when he launched into the most unexpectedly comprehensive dissection of the tactics, strategy, potential objectives, and potential pitfalls of a pitched battle on the steeplechase, his enthusiasm mounting with each component detail sliced apart and held up for inspection.

Captain Casper looked intimidated, then interested, then excited as several of the lessons I had been dribbling in his direction percolated like recaff through his mind and the counters to Captain Mahlone's various described evolutions rose readily to his thoughts. They flowed out of his mouth as readily as recaff from a teapot, and I could almost see the moment when when the respect between the two grew to mutual admiration, invited the other into a marriage of military minds of the sort that culminated in oaths of 'til death do us part' and usually ended, years later, back to back on some bloodsoaked battlefield surrounded by the heaped corpses of the emperor's enemies. Fortunately neither were Imperial Guardsmen and likely neither ever would be, so this would be a purely local romance as long as I had anything to say about preserving the peace of my little sinecure. That that didn't stop them from consummating the affair half and hour later with a passionate invitation to play a full game of Combat Patrol.

I smiled benignly. "Have fun." I invited, firmly sidelining myself. "Administrator Jafar, shall we watch from the bandstand?"

That would put me above it all, quite literally, and with a commanding view of anyone on the field. More to the point, it would put me in the most defensible position, with only an unthreateningly prissy bureaucrat and his equally drab retinue within stabbing reach. I was confident I could take them if they so much as waved an autoquill at me. I had no intention of putting myself within range of any of Mahlone's crew. Not until I had a far clearer idea of their intentions. After all, they'd introduced themselves to me by successfully putting themselves in sniper range of me earlier in the day, *while carrying working lasguns.*

A cold sweat tried to break out across my hairline at the thought.

Casper, for his part, occasionally surfaced from his passionate affair to send sneaking glances of admiration my way. Emperor on earth, by the time this day was done he would have convinced himself that I'd set the whole thing up. Scarecly less worrisome than the mystery that was Mahlone.

I settled in to watch with all the air of an honored guest in the reserved box of a scrumball match, making the occasional appreciative "mmm" or "interesting choice" or sucking air through my teeth in vicarious pain.

Eventually, Jafar broke down and with smooth diplomatic phrasing invited me to provide a running commentary on the combat playing out before us. I filed away the term 'it is of particular interest how I can support your interests' for later use- it was a fine turn of phrase and I quite fancied it. I obliged his curiosity, with specific emphasis on the logistical challenges of deploying men in company strength, my tone and manner indicating what, in particular, my interests were. If the man wanted to bribe me, at least he should know what coin I preferred- that is to say, a nicely well-trained shield of soldiers to cower behind if worst came to worst, not that he needed to know anything about the 'cowering' part. Jafar almost immediately turned it in into a reciprocal game, trading information on how similar- and different- it was from the logistics of managing a major tourist event, and indicating delicately that both intelligent conversation and a fine grasp of the challenges of moving material and personal was much appreciated, all the more appreciated given their rarity.

I'd take Father Peter and his boisterous bluntness any day, but at least Jafar seemed amenable to being worked with and I could throw him the occasional bone of working with someone in authority that had a functioning brain. There were some advantages in having the bar set so low by the Giorba's- literally anything I did was fifty times better by comparison. I refrained from telling him that all of my best thinking was fueled by rampaging terror.

"Oh interesting!" I breathed, and Jafar pulled away from his indirect negotiations to look back at the combat playing out below us.

"What?" he inquired.

"They both were doing well right up until the third squad made contact." I analyzed. "But then the 15ths primary voxop became a casualty, and you can see how their 4th platoon lost contact and cohesion. Then the 47 lost two platoon-level voxops, and everyone lost their heads.' I shook my head as I watched the whole field devolve into a melee, troopers fighting as squads or sometimes even pairs, with no overall intelligence guiding any of it. "You lose communication, you lose coordination and leadership. You lose leadership, you lose cohesion. You lose cohesion, you generally lose."

I shook my head. "See? Now it's just a free-for-all." Mahlone's men were piling in with enthusiasm and unexpected individual skill, I noticed, although Casper was, barely, edging him out with coordinated small group actions.

"Tell me." I turned to the administrator. "Where on Slawkenberg can I find several thousand combeads?"