Assumption of risk

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Alex nodded slowly. "What I hear you saying is that you're going to give her a meter because you think she'll overextend herself going for a kilometer. You will forgive me if I am not reassured by that."

  "There are other problems with which I have to deal." The prince turned and faced the window that looked out over the snowy capital city. "Aside from the fact that I don't want to start a civil war, the rest of the Federated Commonwealth needs me. I expect, with Kai taking over Free Capella from his uncle, that Sun-Tzu will step up his activities against the Sarna March. I want to be there to deal with him, so he will think twice about adventurism. Moreover, I must be there so the rest of the Federated Commonwealth won't think I've abandoned it."

  Galen smiled. "And military exercises that warn Sun-Tzu off from being foolish also allow us to pull units out of this half of the Federated Commonwealth. It blunts Katherine's ability to do anything overtly military."

  "But denuding the Lyran portion of the FedCom could prompt Thomas Marik to strike along the border," Alex objected, then seemed to think better of it. "Then again, with troops in the Sarna March, you could do much more damage to him than he could to you."

  Victor nodded without turning around. "My thoughts exactly. So the situation is this: Katherine remains here to clean up the mess Ryan bequeathed us. We can't act against her without solid evidence, and we don't have it. Revealing her treachery concerning Galen would only be seen as a dirty trick by me, so we'll save it for a time when we can have the desired effect. We have no choice, and as long as we have a viper in our midst, we might as well let it deal with vermin."

  "I don't like it, but there it is, my friends," Victor said as he turned to face them. "I have a nation to govern. Dealing with my sister must wait because my duty to my people cannot."

  39

  Solaris City, Solaris VII

  Tamarind March, Federated Commonwealth

  29 April 3056

  Upon leaving his uncle's—actually it was his now—palace, Kai directed Fuh Teng's grandnephew Tsen to drive the hovercar through Solaris. He told himself it was so he would have time to think, but then he did everything he could to avoid it. He called out instructions to his chauffeur to turn this way and that. When that failed to keep introspection at bay, he turned and stared out the window, leaving the driver to choose his own aimless course through the streets.

  Kai let himself be distracted by the sights and sounds of the city. He had lived here for nearly three years, yet it seemed as though he had never really seen it till now. The bright, garish lights hid none of the squalor, just dressed it up. The legion of people on the streets, from prostitutes and pimps to gawking tourists and seething, neo-Puritanical Wildmon sect missionaries, supplied an improbable cast for the dramas of Solaris. The images and the noises through which his vehicle slid silently made everything seem invention instead of reality.

  Solaris is a world for those who cannot handle reality. Kai sank back into the leather upholstery of the aircar. Solaris is a world for those who refuse to handle reality.

  It occurred to him that he was avoiding going home not because he wanted time to think, but because he was afraid. It struck him funny. Here he was, Kai Allard-Liao, the Champion of Solaris, the man who had killed Clanners and defeated Elementals in single combat, and no one would guess what it was that had his stomach tied in knots.

  A woman, a child—who would believe it? Kai shook his head. How can I fear facing them, when billions of others face and conquer that same fear?

  "Take me home, please, Tsen."

  "Yes, my lord." Tsen spun the wheel once to the right, then slid the car into the driveway to Kai's home. "Here we are."

  Kai looked up. "I didn't necessarily mean that quickly, Tsen."

  "I can drive in circles some more, if you wish, my lord."

  "No, that's fine. I'll get out now." He pulled the door open and climbed out of the vehicle. Closing the door, he mounted the steps up to the building's front door while Tsen drove off to park the aircar in the garage down the street. Kai dug into his pocket for the cardkey to the door, but Keith Smith opened it for him from inside.

  "Welcome home, Kai."

  "Keith? I hardly expected to see you here." Kai shook his hand. "Is there a problem?"

  The computer expert shook his head. "Not really. After you left the office to see your uncle, a ComStar representative arrived with the news that permission had been granted for a Star of Jade Falcon Elementals commanded by Star Colonel Taman Malthus to come to Solaris. The holodisk is on your desk, and the order was backdated to the beginning of March."

  Kai laughed aloud. "ComStar certainly knows how to cover themselves."

  Keith nodded. 'Tell me one thing."

  "Yes?"

  "If I looked at my JumpShip pattern projections back, say, to around the beginning of March, would I see a pattern that started near Jade Falcon space and ended in the village of Joppo here on Solaris?"

  Kai rested his left hand on Keith's shoulder. "Without your work, I couldn't have gotten them here. I hoped permission would come through so they could have watched the title defense from my box, but the bureaucracy is too slow for that. About the same time the Falcons reached Equatus, a message I prerecorded explaining who they were and what they were doing was forwarded to the ComStar Precentor here on Solaris. I think presenting ComStar with a fait accompli prompted their permission, and even that took two days.

  "I didn't want to keep you in the dark, my friend, but if you didn't know, ComStar couldn't hold you responsible. As I am an officer of the St. Ives government and the Falcons are here on a 'diplomatic' mission, well, ComStar can be upset with me, but there is very little they can do about it."

  "Thanks for protecting me." Keith again shook Kai's hand. "I have to go. Larry actually got a date with that model he met at your uncle's reception. Kristina and I are doubling up with them to attend the opening of a Kessler show over in Silesia. I'm already late."

  "Have fun, Keith, and thanks for what you did to rescue my son."

  "He's a beautiful kid, Kai. You're damned lucky." Keith headed out the door. "I'm just glad I was able to help."

  Kai latched the door behind his aide, but only got as far as the middle of the marble foyer before Taman Malthus appeared through the archway leading from the west wing. The unarmored Elemental stepped forward and swallowed Kai's right hand in his huge fist. "Kai Allard-Liao, I welcome you on your return."

  "Thank you, Taman Malthus." Kai shook the Jade Falcon's hand. "I owe you a debt I cannot repay."

  The blue-eyed Elemental shook his head. "You and I, we fought, we became allies, and we took a planet away from ComStar. Between us there is no account of favors. You honored me by entrusting your offspring to my men and me. If we were to compare debts, then I would owe you, for I have been far too long without fighting."

  Kai smiled, then rose on his tiptoes to look around and behind Malthus. "Surely you are not alone here. Where are the rest of your men?"

  "Most have returned to Joppo to pack our gear. With ComStar's permission secured, we will come to the city for a time." Taman pointed toward the ceiling with an index finger. "Locke and Slane are upstairs safeguarding your son against further predations by Tormano."

  Kai sighed heavily. "I don't think we have to worry about him. If the option were open to me I'd try to send him away with you and get him placed in a bandit-hunting Solahma unit. As it is, I will pension him off and keep him under control."

  "For what he did, we would have him and his offspring slain." Malthus' eyes grew cold. "Your son may be a freebirth, but he possesses your genetic heritage. Denying that to humanity would have been an unforgivable crime, and one for which your uncle's line should wither and die."

  "Yours is undisputably a cleaner solution than what I have arranged, but it is not one open to me. My uncle was ambitious and frustrated and felt forced to act." Kai frowned. "Were that a capital crime in the Inner Sphere, every world would be a charnel house."

&n
bsp; "And the harvest of one ambition crop would merely leave room for another to grow up in its place."

  Kai smiled up at the big man. "You have learned a lot about the Inner Sphere."

  Taman scratched at his closely cropped blond hair. "Joppo's only amusement comes from watching holovid dramas. The Immortal Warrior series is obviously art, however unrealistic, but the rest of the programs merely speak to the human condition."

  Interesting perspective you have there. "You said my boy is upstairs?"

  "He will make you proud, Kai. He is brave and strong." Malthus smiled. "And my calling him a freebirth was not meant as disrespect. The Clans would have matched you and his mother and bred a grand sibko of warriors."

  Kai started to respond, when he caught a sudden motion out of the corner of his eye. Thinking the other Elementals were coming down the stairs he turned in their direction with a smile on his face.

  * * *

  Deirdre Lear awoke with a start, for the moment disoriented and unable to place her surroundings. Lights blazed in the room, including the lamps on the tables at either end of the couch where she lay. Sitting up, she looked to her right and saw David huddled beneath a blue blanket on a day-bed. Behind him stood two Elementals, alert and awake, their expressions slightly bemused.

  She heard voices come up the stairs and through the open doorway, first the bass boom of Taman Malthus, then another, quieter voice. She recognized none of the words, but the tone and rhythm of the sounds pinpointed its author for her. She combed her fingers through her hair and tugged at the hem of her blouse, then ran past David's bed to the doorway.

  She paused at the top of the stairs, then descended, freezing when he looked up at her. "Kai?"

  "Deirdre?" He looked tired, but the smile spreading across his face banished all signs of fatigue. She saw the same light play through his eyes that had attracted her to him from the first, and he moved to the foot of the stairs with the grace she remembered from Alyina. "God, Deirdre, it has been too long."

  Her heart began to pound in her chest and she felt her face flush. She continued down the stairs, faster than was decorous but not so fast as to be dangerous. She flung her arms around his neck and hung on tightly. His arms enfolded her, crushing her to him, and the fears lingering from her time at the estate crumbled away to nothing.

  She slipped her hands down to his chest, then pushed gently back on his shoulders. He released her slowly and let his hands still touch her arms as they each stepped back. Deirdre looked up into his gray eyes, then looked down and away.

  "I've been stupid," they each told the other in unison.

  Kai threw his head back and laughed, and Deirdre luxuriated in a sound she had missed since Alyina. She could tell by his voice that he had not changed much from their time together. He looked more confident and sounded it too, yet the tentative gentleness of his hands as they slipped down into hers reminded her of his thoughtful caution.

  Her "Kai" drowned out his softer "Deirdre," and he bowed his head to acknowledge her the victor in the exchange. "Kai, I have to explain some things to you. I was very confused, unbelievably confused until not long ago. About you and about me. I made some judgements that I shouldn't have, and I'm sorry."

  Kai reached out and lifted her chin with his right hand. "Deirdre, it doesn't matter. The past is the past."

  "It does matter, Kai, please." She led him over to a padded bench beneath a mirror on the east wall. Only as they sat down did she catch a fleeting glimpse of Taman's heel disappearing upstairs. "I misjudged you. By the time I returned to Odell, you had already started on your rise to the top here on Solaris. I thought you had chosen to come here to spite me. My father's death here, on this world, at your father's hands was what kept us apart when we first met and I thought you were sending me a message."

  She tucked a lock of black hair behind her right ear. "When I had David, my stepfather urged me to contact you, but by then you had become big news. The media played up how you were so much like your father, and that ate away at me. I built you into the worst stereotype of a fighter I could imagine, making you into a boozing, womanizing ogre whose only true pleasure came from crippling and killing your foes. I wanted nothing to do with you and I wanted to shield David from you.

  "I wanted to believe the worst and, because of that, I missed all the signs that you hadn't really changed. Granted there was much I didn't know until I had a conversation with Keith today and learned about the reforms you've instituted, but my decision to blind myself to anything good about you meant I wouldn't have picked up any clue to your activities. Then, when I was on Zurich at a clinic that's funded by Cenotaph Charities, I chose to believe you merely gave money away because you had so much wealth you wanted to flaunt it. The charitable act of giving clothes to children became transformed, in my mind, to blatant self-promotion on your part."

  She gave his hands a squeeze. "I realized how blind I'd been when your uncle held us hostage. I knew that act was evil and could only benefit him if it somehow limited your actions. As you were acting in opposition to him, well, you obviously were not being evil. If you were the monster I had imagined, you would have abandoned us."

  Kai paled and a tremor ran through his hands. "I did."

  "No. Keith wouldn't tell me where you'd gone or what you'd done, but if it involved Lady Omi Kurita surreptitiously taking up residence in your home, it must have been very important. And that not withstanding, Keith told me all you had done to prevent your uncle from knowing you had defied him. As you had done in the past, you set aside your personal concerns for the welfare of others."

  Deirdre hesitated a moment and a tear rolled down one cheek. Kai brushed it away from her face. "You don't have to do this, Deirdre, you don't have to beat yourself up."

  "But I do, Kai, as much to chasten myself as to apologize to you." She looked up and met his unwavering gaze. "You see, I had turned you into a monster not because of anything you had done, but because I believed you had used what I'd said to prompt and justify your trip here. I was angry with you for perverting and betraying what we had known on Alyina, and for failing to live up to the potential I feared would consume me."

  Kai laughed deliciously, brought her hands up to his face and kissed them, "You were right to be angry with me. I did betray you and certainly did not deserve to be the father of your son."

  She frowned. "But the charities, the contract you handed out, what you did here to oppose your uncle. Those are all things of which you can be proud."

  "I suppose you're right."

  Deirdre raised an eyebrow. "I think I must have missed something."

  "As did I, Doctor ..." Kai looked at her and couldn't help but smile. "You see, when you sent me away on Alyina, you said it was because I had a military mindset. Taman and the other Elementals had finally convinced me that I was a damned good warrior, and your words made it a majority opinion. With that in mind, and damned little else, I'm ashamed to admit, I headed toward Solaris. I did get sidetracked to attend Hanse Davion's funeral and to visit my father's grave, but I never lost sight of my target.

  "You see, all my life my father had been the greatest warrior I'd ever known. I got it into my head that if I came to Solaris and duplicated his success, then I would also prove myself a great warrior. I would have validated your view of me, which I wanted to do because it meant that you had really seen the true me. Bits and pieces of Clan philosophy got mixed up in there so that after defeating all this world had to offer, I saw myself as paying homage to my father. With each victory my stature grew, and so did his. That was why I called my stable Cenotaph, because I saw it as a memorial to him. By helping other people who had been on Alyina or in the war, I expanded that to memorializing those who had died fighting the Clans."

  Kai swallowed hard. "What I didn't realize until I faced someone recently and had his dreams of glory collide with my hopes for peace, is that I mocked my father, not glorified him. The single strongest message I took away from him came from when h
e fought and killed your father. He told me that killing a man should never be easy, and I vowed that I would never violate that dictum. I had enough killing in the war and I thought I honored my father by winning here through skill, not mayhem.

  "What I missed was a far greater lesson. When I asked him once why he left Solaris at the moment when he had become its Champion, he told me it was because the real world needed him. Far away from here I realized that I had been hiding from the real world. All the charities, all the reforms, all the things I had done were sops to my conscience, bribes so I could remain here and stave off my destiny."

  Deirdre pulled his hands to her and kissed them. "But those programs helped people. They are a true window to your soul. On Alyina you told me that you were willing to accept the responsibilities of a warrior, terrible though they are, so others who could not bear them would not have to try. You've done that, here, and done it very well."

  "Yes, Deirdre, yes, but I have not accepted all the responsibilities I can. When I returned here and determined how I had to deal with my uncle, I did so without remorse. A warrior would have killed him, but I found a way to neutralize him without causing his death. I have Victor Davion's trust—an asset squandered here—and I must make myself available to him. I have responsibilities to my family and to the people my mother rules. In taking over the Free Capella movement from my uncle, I recognize my responsibilities for the dreams of many people who wish to see the Capellan Confederation united once again."

  Kai smiled. "Granted, I will reshape Free Capella, focus it and direct it toward preserving our culture and making Capellans stronger as a people, but I can and will guide it. At least, I think I can. I hope I can."

  Kai's heart swelled as Deirdre smiled. "You can and will—and will do it wonderfully."

  He looked down, refusing to meet her eyes. "And then there is the greatest responsibility of all, but I don't think it's one I can manage ..." Kai's head came up. "At least, not alone. Would you ... ?"