Way Of The Clans

by Robert Thurston

  "I think I know," Alexey said. Methodically, he went among the bandits, pulled three of them from their horses, throwing them roughly to the ground. Then he ordered Joanna and Nomad onto two of the horses, while he swung his bulky body onto a third magnificent steed.

  Once settled onto the smooth unsaddled back of the horse, Alexey lost no time urging the animal forward, Joanna and the remaining bandits close on his heels. Nomad was not so quick to respond. Timidly, he suggested to the oversized beast he rode that it might be suitable if it followed the others. The horse, apparently used to keeping with the pack, took up a position at the rear. The two of them bounced along after the others for what seemed to Nomad an uncomfortably long distance, during which he periodically had to resist the urge to deposit some of his last meal along the roadside.

  Alexey led them to a small outpost at one end of the forest, a garrison composed of warriors whose main task was to keep the bandits in check. As the group came through the outpost gates, they heard a sudden roar as a small hovershuttle quickly rose above the outpost, and with a rush of power, flew away. Alexey cursed, knowing the story that the freebirth captain of the garrison would tell even before he heard it.

  The captain reported that, indeed, a naked bandit had climbed the walls, disarmed a sentry, forced her to give him her uniform, knocked her out, descended from the guard post, ambushed the warriors guarding the shuttle, and then ambushed the craft—taking the shuttle pilot with him. Alexey said that of course that was the outpost's only shuttle. The captain replied that it was, and Alexey rendered him unconscious with a single, hard, abrupt left jab.

  These warriors have rather limited responses to crises, Nomad thought, but was careful to keep it to himself. Joanna would not be shy about raining some of her best blows on him.

  Though they sent a message to the spaceport that Aidan be taken prisoner if he showed up there, the message was garbled by a sleepy comm specialist. Aidan, posing as a personnel evaluator on a tour of military encampments, had hooked a ride on a ship just before it lifted off.

  "Damn!"

  "What is it, Falconer?"

  "Nomad, I am beginning to admire our quarry. And now our search is going to get even tougher."

  Nomad cocked his head inquiringly.

  "Because now he knows we are looking for him."

  "I'm not sure that's a problem."

  Joanna shuddered at Nomad's continuing use of contractions, but she had stopped cautioning against such vulgarity. "Yes?"

  "Aidan still has the instincts of a warrior, Falconer. He will try to flee, but he'll always be willing to meet us on the field of battle. He'll get showy. Just you watch."

  "I do not know why I talk to you, Nomad. You are clearly mad."

  "True, but that doesn't impair my judgment."

  "Go to bed."

  "Will you join me? I am not Alexey, but—"

  "You are not Alexey. And I do not, as you know, believe in intercaste relationships. So, good night."

  Joanna decided there might be some validity to Nomad's logic when they easily traced Aidan to the planet Barcella, where he joined another bandit group. They expected to corner their quarry there, and would have-except the report they received upon arrival on Barcella was that Aidan, disguised as the commander of the local battalion, had been found out and executed.

  27

  When I first read Falconer Joanna's dispatch from Barcella, it astonished me, wrote Falconer Commander Ter Roshak. I could not believe that the chief participant of my master plan would ruin it by getting himself killed in some foolish local politics. Despite my Clan blood and upbringing, which teaches us to accept necessity, I still could not allow that I had put my faith in the wrong person, that in fact, no destiny marked Aidan, no special aura because he was the reincarnation of his genetic father.

  At the very least, I was disappointed. Not merely because I would not be able to put my plan into practice, but because I was being deprived of the opportunity to see if it would work or not. I have always felt cheated by lost opportunities. The battle for which I was outbid, the campaign from which I was excluded, the return to the Inner Sphere which I will miss if it does not occur soon-all these make me feel as though I have trained to run a race that, at the last minute, has been switched to another universe.

  In reply to Joanna's dispatch, I sent back one of my own telling her to verify Aidan's demise. I could envision her, bureaucracy-hater to the core, despising the performance of that order. But it turned out to be an order worth sending.

  Came the reply from Barcella:

  "Corpse in question not that of Astech Aidan. I am told it was not even a member of the bandit group, nor was it the man they thought they had executed. Some grand strategy was involved. Aidan tricked them, perhaps to mislead us. We have no present indication of his whereabouts, but Tech Nomad is certain we will find him. I have learned to respect Nomad's instincts. We carry on. Falconer Joanna."

  I was as elated now as I had been downcast before. The master plan was still in operation.

  There is still time. I have selected the unit to be destroyed, and can do so at any time. We will lose one warrior training officer, which is unfortunate. But I purposely selected a unit whose officers include some with questionable service evaluations. None would be missed, least of all the one who will die.

  Aidan's physical specifications, and for that matter, his general abilities, match up with one Jorge. They say Jorge has shown some pronounced anti-social traits, which could link his behavior type with Aidan's occasional rebelliousness. The main difference is that Aidan's streak may translate into admirable officer traits, while Jorge-being a freebirth—would have to suppress his rage, a dangerous quality out in the field. Jorge might have some potential for piloting a 'Mech—and is, in fact, at the top of his group in that department—but he would not make a good officer. And, besides, he is only a freeborn.

  28

  She had changed a bit in the short time since he had last seen her. Her face had grown older in some indefinable way, her eyes more serious. Her eyebrows also seemed to have been reconstructed into a permanent scowl. She had become thinner, but her body had lost some of its cadet tautness. In the intense sunlight of Tokasha, she had developed a permanent tan that also aged her. He wondered how she could stand the odd, decaying smells of the laboratory where she now worked so determinedly.

  On the pocket of her lab coat was a Jade Falcon warrior patch, which former cadets, even those who had flushed out, were allowed to wear in whatever caste they served. The patch showed a Jade Falcon in flight, magnificent wings outspread, keen, small black eyes searching for prey. The Jade Falcon was native only to the planets of Ironhold and Strana Mechty, and then it was seen only rarely. Legend had it that Jade Falcons disappeared from nature for precise periods, hibernating or perhaps hiding in some spirit world until it was time to fly again. Aidan had never seen one.

  The patch was also intended to remind people in other castes that sibkin, even those who had not qualified as warriors, were among them. Their genetic origins were respected—and frequently resented—all over the Clan worlds.

  "Peri," he whispered.

  Startled, she looked up suddenly. From the look on her face, she might have been staring at a ghost. Then again, he probably did look phantasmal.

  "Aidan? Is it you?"

  "Yes," he said, and fell unconscious.

  He did not come fully awake for several days. In that time, he would stir a bit, and it seemed that Peri was always at his bedside. Once he said blearily, "I am keeping you from your work, Peri."

  "Not as much as you think. Are you ..."

  But he was asleep again.

  Another time he was conscious of someone dabbing at his head with a damp cloth. Opening his eyes, he saw Peri again.

  "You are looking better," she said quickly, as if she had been waiting for him to waken so she could. "You looked so awful when you came into the lab. You looked like—"

  "I had been in th
e jungle. There were . . . terrible things there."

  "That is Tokasha for you. This part of Tokasha, anyway. Yesterday I saw—"

  He passed out again.

  The next time: "Peri, I failed."

  "Hush, let the medicine work."

  "I was in the Trial and Marthe—"

  "No. Do not tell me. When I left Crash Camp, I put all that behind me. I do not want to hear."

  "But—"

  "Do not excite yourself. This fever is still dangerous, especially when you involve—"

  Another time. Maybe not the next one, maybe it actually came before. Later he could not be sure of what he remembered and what he might only have dreamed.

  "Do not scratch your arm, Aidan. That rash can become permanent. A never-ending itch, and you do not want that, do you?"

  "Peri, I think Joanna is after me."

  "Oh? What makes you think so?"

  "I was escaping in a shuttle. On ... on Grant's Station, I think."

  "I have been there. A true hellhole."

  "And there was a port in the shuttle. When I looked out, I saw people who were pursuing me, bandits and others on horses. They came into the camp. The bandits were the ones I had been with."

  "Bandits? You have led an odd life since last I saw you."

  "No, listen. It was Joanna on one of the horses, I am sure of it. How can you miss that—"

  "Hush. You are getting too excited."

  "And Nomad, I think, too."

  "Nomad?"

  "My Tech. I was his assistant, his Astech."

  "This sounds too fantastic to me. Calm down."

  She smoothed his forehead with her fingertips until he fell asleep again.

  When he was better, Peri fed him soup.

  "This is delicious. Did you make it in your lab?"

  "No. There is a cook in the village. He is teaching me some of his simpler concoctions."

  "Village?"

  "It has no name, but it is nearby, on the other side of the small forest that helps to isolate our scientific community. The village is where the service personnel for this facility are housed. I think they have some vulgar terms for it."

  "And this is an experimental station?"

  "Yes. But you knew that. How could you have found me otherwise?"

  "Luck, for one thing. But, yes, I intended to come here, find you. You are right about that."

  "I am a scientist. On the way to becoming one, at any rate. I do not accept coincidence until all the chance factors have been analyzed. I have the impression you did not come here by, shall we say, the main routes?"

  "No, I was running away. They saw through my fake credentials at the spaceport, tried to detain me. It took only a few of the fighting tactics we learned back on Ironhold to lay my captors out. Warrior training does have its advantages, quiaff?"

  "I do not know. I have not had as many opportunities to test them as you apparently have. My life is relatively quiet."

  "It will not be if I stay here."

  "I have thought of that. Stay. I accept the risk. So far everyone in the facility thinks you are a stray citizen who got lost in the jungle. I told them you were with a geological team, but that you got separated from them and have been wandering for days."

  "The wandering for days is the truth. What with that and my sickness, I have lost all sense of time."

  "You have been out for about nine days. And now your voice is weakening again. Eat some more soup and then hush for a while. We will have much time to talk later. I intend to keep you around for a while."

  "But Peri—"

  "Hush. I have saved your life—more or less—and you are obligated to serve me. Here, let me wipe that dribble off your chin."

  In a few days, Aidan felt normal again. Peri had arranged with someone in the village to not only launder his clothing but to restore it to a tensile strength duplicating brand-new garments. It was the first time he had encountered the procedure, and he marveled at how fresh the clothing felt.

  Apprenticed to Genetic Officer Watson, Peri often had to leave Aidan on his own. When Watson made his suspicion of Peri's story obvious, Peri had taken a chance on telling him the truth. Apparently the tall portly scientist was pragmatic enough to respect their secret in the interests of keeping his prize apprentice content.

  Peri was engaged in a project devoted to the improvement of genetic procedures. The scientists were attempting to isolate all the traits in DNA and RNA in the hopes of extracting any small bit to combine it with the best traits from other genetic sources.

  "Sounds horrible!" was Aidan's first reaction when Peri explained the work.

  "Why do you say that? Is it not a Clan goal to breed the best warriors available in gene pools?"

  "Well, yes, but-"

  "Think of how many recessive traits come though in sibkos, even though the genes of the best warriors have been combined to form them. If we can isolate—"

  "No. It is precisely because the genes come from the best warriors that we should continue the present methods. It is not just an assortment of traits that we want, but all those that go into the makeup of a—"

  "Easy, easy. I know all those arguments. We all do. But, as things stand, neither view is proven at the present time, and you cannot begrudge our efforts to find a better way. Perhaps our work will merely lead to the elimination of the lesser traits of a chosen warrior from the gene pool."

  Aidan sulked. "I do not know. Something about that does not sound quite right, either. Take away a single trait and you are no longer transmitting the genetic material of the individual warrior."

  Peri laughed suddenly.

  "What amuses you? Do I seem so much a fool?"

  "Oh, no. No, not that at all. The laugh comes from pleasure. It reminds me of when we were all young and together in the sibko, before so many of us were reassigned. Remember all the bedtime chats when Glynn and Gonn and the others were trying to force us to sleep?"

  "Yes. Yes, I do. I think of such things often. Too often, Marthe told me. She calls it nostalgia, says it is a sickness."

  "She is probably right. But, frankly, I enjoy the memories." Peri touched his arm. "At any rate, Aidan, let us do our research. It may simply end up forgotten on a shelf somewhere, like so many files and reports of scientific studies. But should the Clans approve the results and put them into practice, then we will know all is for the best."

  "What difference does it make what I think? I have failed, I will never—"

  "Hush. You pity yourself too much. You are human and you are Clan, that is enough, quiaff?"

  He nodded. "Aff. I am glad to be with you again, Peri, even if only for this short time."

  "Oh? Are you leaving so soon?"

  "No. But they will find me, and I will have to—"

  She put her hand on his lips. "Hush. If it is true that you are glad to be with me, then hold me. Touch me. I have not . . . not been touched in that way since I left the sibko. The people here do not have much interest in coupling, and I have discouraged those few who show inclinations. But you are sibko, Aidan. I do, against my better judgment, long for you."

  "Peri, I-"

  "I know I am not Marthe. But that made no difference when we were younger. I remember what your body feels like next to mine, Aidan, and I do not mind the thought of it."

  "Marthe has nothing to—"

  "Quiet now. I am giving the orders here," Peri said, laughing as she slipped the lab coat off over her head. "I have a staff meeting in an hour. That is more than enough time."

  29

  Nomad felt as if he were being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, he wanted this mission to end so he could return to Ironhold and continue doing what he loved, tinkering and fixing. On the other, his respect had grown each time the young man wriggled out of their imminent grasp, and he began secretly to wish Aidan would succeed. But with someone as tenacious as Joanna under the orders of someone as stubborn as Roshak, this mission threatened to go on forever. Roshak had said they
could not return until they had found Aidan, and only universal catastrophe or Roshak's death could change that.

  Joanna was positive that Aidan was somewhere on Tokasha. He had, after all, been identified at the spaceport, and all departing ships and shuttles since then had been searched thoroughly. The worldwide surveillance network indicated that no prohibited vehicles had been spotted anywhere on Tokasha. Unfortunately, Aidan's trail had grown cold. Nobody seemed to have seen him after he had subdued his captors and fled the spaceport.

  "It is as if he vanished into thin air," Joanna said. She and Nomad were in the spaceport's officer's lounge, filled with oversized chairs and long tables. Joanna relaxed in one chair, her head nearly buried in the long, dark fur of her dress cape. They had just finished interviewing the base commander.

  "Perhaps he did vanish. He is, as you have said so often, resourceful."

  "I am never sure what your sarcasm means, Nomad."

  "Are you sure it's sarcasm?"

  She suddenly gave him a backhanded slap against the side of his head. His vision blurred. It was the first time she had struck him, though she had previously not hidden the fact that she wanted to.

  Joanna made no explanations or apologies. All she said was: "I think we have been on this mission for too long. If it goes on longer, I may have to kill you."

  "Just to relieve tension, Falconer?"

  She stiffened as she mentally examined the remark for its implications, then replied, "Something like that."

  "So what do we do next?"

  "I suppose we could travel around, ask questions."

  "Tokasha's a large planet. It could take a few days."

  Clearly disturbed by his continued sarcasm, she tightened her fists. But it was not in Nomad's nature to retreat, even if it meant suffering another slap from Falconer Joanna.

  "I know the planet's large and, for that matter, heavily populated."