Then there was the fact that this particular survey crew had included Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr. Markan had never met the woman, and had nothing against her personally, but her exploits had been a direct affront to his own notions of proper female behavior, and he was scarcely alone in that. Not in Uromathia, at least. Nor did the fact that the Portal Authority had been using her so heavily in its own propaganda leave him feeling much more cheerfully inclined towards her, given how unfond of the Authority he was.
Like most Uromathians, Markan had always resented the Portal Authority. His resentment was less pointed than that of many Uromathian aristocrats, especially those closest to the Emperor, but it was nonetheless real. No Uromathian could quite forget that the Authority stemmed directly from a Ternathian demand (although courtesy had required that it be called only a "proposal," of course) for the internationalization of the Larakesh portal. Nor could any Uromathian forget that the then-Emperor of Uromathia's efforts to assert control over the portal and the proposed international authority had been stymied by a direct threat of Ternathian military action. Or that it was Ternathia which had insisted that the Authority's board of directors must represent all major nations yet remain completely and rigorously politically independent of any of them.
If pressed, Markan was prepared to admit?grudgingly?that Ternathia had no more direct control over the Authority than Uromathia did. Unfortunately, it didn't need direct control. Not when the "independent" Authority had fallen all over itself adopting Ternathian models for everything from its internal organization and exploration techniques to its military forces. Including, probably, the way they wiped their arses.
Stop that, the sunlord told himself sharply. You're letting your own paranoia get the better of you again!
He snorted in wry amusement, then shook his head when Garsal looked at him inquiringly.
"Just a thought, Tarnal," he said. "Just a thought."
He looked around for a moment longer.
It was appropriate, he supposed, that Fort Salby was located in what would have been Shurkhal on Sharona. At the moment, they stood on a plateau in the rugged Mountains of Ithal, which fringed the western coast of Shurkhal along the Finger Sea. Back home, the location was the site of the city of Narshalla, built around an oasis and bounded by an extensive lava field to the east and by the arid hills of the Ithal Mountains on the other three sides. In Traisum, where thousands of years of human habitation hadn't completely deforested the Shurkhali Peninsula, those hills were less arid than their Sharonian equivalent. They weren't what Markan would have called lush or luxuriant, even here, but they were far less forbidding and desolate than the ones Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr must have known.
Despite any improvement in the local climate, driving the rail lines from Traisum's entry portal on the flat coastal Plain of Shartha to Salby had been a gargantuan task. The straight-line distance between Fort Galsar and Fort Salby was over fourteen hundred miles; the actual distance imposed by the terrain was at least half again that far. To reach the rail ferry across the southern terminus of the Finger Sea while avoiding the rugged, tangled mountains of the Shartha Highlands, the engineers had been forced to run their lines clear up and around both sides of the Horn of Ricathia. The route from the ferry's western terminus through the Ithals hadn't been any picnic, either, he reflected, although at least they'd been able to make up some of the lost time in the fast, fairly straightforward run along the coastal plain at the Ithals' feet until they had to turn inland to reach Fort Salby.
He'd been impressed, as always, by the accomplishments of the TTE construction crews. Especially by the fact that they'd already more than half completed the construction of a multitrack bridge across the Strait of Tears which connected the Finger Sea to the Gulf of Shurkhal. The coral-encrusted Strait of Tears was shallow and constricted?back home, it required constant blasting and dredging to keep it open for deep-draft shipping, and the span across the narrower, two-mile-wide eastern channel was already complete. They were well advanced on the longer, sixteen-mile length required to cross the western channel, as well, and work on it was proceeding twenty-four hours a day.
No doubt, he thought sardonically, recent events further down-chain have something to do with all the overtime TTE is accumulating at the moment. I wonder who'll get the final bill for that?
"I suppose you'd better look after getting our people off the train while I go find this Regiment-Captain chan Skrithik," he said finally.
"Better you than me," Garsal muttered, but quietly enough Markan could pretend he hadn't heard. Then the windlord saluted. "I'll see to it, Sir," he said much more crisply.
"Good," Markan replied, and climbed down from the platform.
Actually, "go find" was scarcely the correct choice of verbs, he admitted as a tall Ternathian officer?and aren't they all tall? Markan thought wryly?stepped up to greet him.
"Lord of Horse," the Ternathian said in barely accented Uromathian. "Welcome to Fort Salby. I'm delighted to see you."
"Regiment-Captain," Markan responded in Ternathian, offering his right hand for a Ternathian-style handclasp. He was impressed by chan Skrithik's command of Uromathian, which was actually better than his own Ternathian. Nonetheless, there were appearances to maintain. A Uromathian lord of horse?and a pedigreed sunlord, to boot?could scarcely permit a Ternathian to be more cosmopolitan than he was, after all, he told himself sardonically, and rather suspected that he saw a matching flicker of amusement in chan Skrithik's eyes.
"We got here as quickly as we could," Markan continued. "Indeed, I was rather astonished by how quickly the TTE was able to arrange things once our troop movement was authorized."
"TTE's always been good at improvised movements," chan Skrithik agreed. "And just so we get off on the right foot, let me say that I'm as grateful as I am delighted to see you. I realize there's always been a certain degree of friction between Ternathia and Uromathia, and I don't imagine your men are going to be any more immune to that tradition than the Ternathians in my own garrison are. However, this isn't about Ternathia or Uromathia?it's about Sharona, and I've seen to it that everyone under my command understands that. As one Sharonian to another, then, welcome to Fort Salby."
"Thank you," Markan replied. He was impressed by chan Skrithik's willingness to confront the situation so openly. And pleased, as well. And the Ternathian had shown considerable tact in suggesting that the "friction" existed only between his own empire and Uromathia, he thought. Any Arpathians and Harkalans in the Fort Salby garrison were probably torn between welcoming Markan's troopers with open arms and shooting them in the back at the first opportunity.
"I've stressed the same points to my own personnel," the sunlord said, and indeed he had. "I'm sure there are going to be at least some incidents, anyway, of course. But my officers have been instructed that if?when?such incidents occur, they are to be reported first to you, as the base commander and the senior officer in the PAAF chain of command. They've also been instructed to warn their men that any breach of discipline will be severely punished under our own regulations after any penalties you may see fit to award under the Authority's."
He showed his teeth in a tight smile.
"That's good to hear," chan Skrithik said. "Of course, your troops' internal discipline is your own affair. I'm sure any difficulties which arise can be dealt with expeditiously."
"As am I," Markan said with a slight bow.