The Forever Hero

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  This time Gerswin did not comment.

  The major shrugged. “What else can I do? No equipment to do more is available. No one seems interested.”

  Gerswin repressed a nod.

  “Could be discouraging if the knowledge became widespread,” he volunteered.

  “It could be,” affirmed the major, “but it wouldn’t change anything. I doubt that the Emperor would broadcast that Old Earth had a pre-Collapse technology which we still cannot match.”

  “I understand, ser.”

  “I believe you do, Lieutenant. I believe you do, but not for the same reasons.” He sighed. “But that’s not the issue.” The major stood. “Do you have any more questions?”

  “No, ser. Appreciate your sharing this.”

  “Just my duty, Lieutenant. Just my duty.” He gestured toward the portal. “Have a good tour.”

  “Thank you, ser.”

  Outside in the staff office, Captain Carfoos glanced up and fixed a glare on Gerswin. “You done, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Then we’ll see you at mess some time.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Gerswin turned and walked out, not for the Officers’ Mess, but for his own quarters.

  He wished Mahmood were still on Old Earth, but the senior ecologist had left nearly a standard year earlier on the Casimir, which had carried in the new ratings and officers and carried out those going on to new and generally better opportunities.

  Not that Mahmood had continued in the Service. The former ecological officer was doubtlessly now fully ensconced in his new position as the Chairman of Ecology at the University of Medina.

  “But why?” Gerswin had asked. “Why?”

  “My studies and recommendations here are complete, Greg. There isn’t much more I can do. I’m a scholar, just a scholar. All I can do is to get people to think.”

  The memory of that statement still churned Gerswin’s stomach if he thought too much about it.

  So much knowledge…unused…lost…ignored…as if no one cared, as if no one remembered the tired planet that had destroyed itself to give men the stars.

  He tightened his lips without breaking step.

  XXVIII

  The Lieutenant showed the sketch and specifications to the technician.

  “Can it be done, Markin? With the balances like that?”

  “Strange-looking knife, if you ask me, Lieutenant.”

  “Need weight, penetrating power.”

  “I don’t see how it could be effective much beyond five, six meters.”

  “Computer says it will do what I want up to six meters all the time. Beyond that…” The lieutenant shrugged.

  “The weight specifications make it heavy. I’d sure rely on a stunner. Could you even throw this thing?” The technician lifted the sheet as if to somehow better picture the weapon.

  “Can’t throw it until I have one in hand. Like at least three, but probably need five or six, if we could manage it.”

  “We?”

  “I’d like to help. Want to understand how. They may have to last me a long time, and the next time you’ll be in some other forsaken system.”

  Markin chuckled.

  “Lieutenant, any time you want to use your hands is fine with me. We’ll use one of the out-of-the-way bays, where the commander doesn’t see one of his officers, Istvenn forbid, dirtying his hands and learning metalwork.”

  XXIX

  Gerswin checked the time. 1752. Too early to enter the mess.

  He passed the mess portal and entered the next one, the one to the junior officers’ lounge. Lieutenant Hermer sat in the recliner nearest the door, her tall figure buried in her own thoughts, hair as dark as the black finish of the chair in which she sat. The small room, less than six meters on a side, was otherwise empty.

  Gerswin saw a faxtab, obviously a recent reproduction of one from the latest supply ship, which meant the news inside was three to four weeks old. He picked up the flimsy sheets and began to read as he circled the table, unwilling to sit down in either the other recliner next to Lieutenant Hermer or in the too-soft bench couch.

  Usually he ignored the faxtabs for the technical publications which he took off the screen in his quarters at night. The Service kept its bases up-to-date on technical information through the torp network, but items such as soft news, the latest updates on the Emperor and his Court, came through personal torp messages or the straight news bulletins fed into the commnet.

  Faxtabs were a mixture of everything. Gerswin noted that New-parra was still under quarantine, and the Okelley was listed as returning from there, mainly because the son of a prominent baron was on the commodore’s staff. Gerswin knew the replacement ship was the Sandhurst, a fact ignored in the once-over of the faxtab.

  Absently, he turned to the second flimsy page. A name caught his eye, and he stopped.

  His mouth dropped open as he read the small item:

  His Grace, Merrel, son of the Duke of Triandna, and Caroljoy Montgrave Kerwin, daughter of Honore Balza Dirien Kerwin, Admiral of the Fleet and Marshall of the Marines, were married under the Old Rite ceremonies at the Triandna Estates recently. The ceremony and reception were private, but the Emperor is reported to have attended, according to informed sources. No comment was available from either the Imperial Court or His Grace the Duke.

  Gerswin put the faxtab down on the table.

  Could he have expected anything else?

  Five years, and he had sent nothing, said nothing, written nothing. Nor had she. Not that he had not thought about her. But what could he have sent to someone he was not even supposed to know?

  He glanced over at Lieutenant Hermer, who was still buried in the old-fashioned text, then at the table. He checked the time. 1755. Still too early, and right now, he didn’t want to stand at the edge of the table waiting for Captain Matsuko, who would arrive promptly at 1801.

  Gerswin looked back down at the faxtab and its slightly scattered pages, then away, as if it burned his eyes.

  “Forget it!” he muttered, louder than he intended.

  “Forget what?” Lieutenant Hermer’s head popped up from her text like a turtle’s from its shell.

  “Nothing, Faith. Nothing. Forgot anyone was here.”

  He turned away, shaking his head.

  Hard it was, sometimes, for him to remember that he was just a devilkid from Old Earth, and one lucky enough to have gotten an I.S.S. commission.

  “Are you all right, Greg?”

  Faith Hermer had not gone back to her book, but had marked her place and closed it. She was standing by her swivel.

  “I’m fine. Surprised, that’s all.”

  He refrained from glancing back at the faxtab, not wanting to call her attention to it, but wishing he had not left it folded to the page on which Caroljoy’s marriage announcement appeared.

  Marriage, of course. No mention of anything else, but the union announced as if it were a matter of state or of commerce. Probably it had been a bit of both, if the Emperor himself had attended.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  He jumped and turned at the sudden touch on his shoulder.

  “Hades!” He bit off the exclamation as soon as he had said it. After sighing and taking a deep breath, he looked up into the woman’s pale green eyes. He had to. Faith Hermer was nearly two meters high and stood taller than any other officer on Old Earth.

  “Faith. Sorry I jumped. Surprised and thinking about it. You caught me off-guard.”

  She chuckled, deep-throated, and the sound relaxed him even before she spoke again. “You must have been surprised. No one has ever caught you off-guard. Not to my knowledge.”

  He nodded and checked the time. 1800.

  “Late if we don’t blast.”

  “All right. You don’t want to talk about it now. I’ll be around if you do.” She smiled and pointed to the exit portal. “Blast, Greg. That is, unless you want to sit at the foot of the table opposite Matsuko.
”

  He was already moving toward the mess before she finished the sentence.

  Caroljoy—married, of course. So why did it surprise him?

  XXX

  Gerswin hefted the double-ended knife, cradled it, and flipped it from hand to hand. Not at all like the jagged blade he had carried as a devilkid, or the sterile, straight survival knife in his flight boot sheath.

  He looked up from the knife to the target—a plastic square set at man height on a hummock of clay five meters away. The plastic presented roughly the same resistance as an unarmored man.

  “Here goes,” he muttered to himself.

  The first cast missed the square entirely.

  The second knife wobbled, but hit the plastic and dropped onto the clay beneath the target.

  The third hit the plastic square at an angle and skittered off.

  Gerswin sighed and marched forward to reclaim the three knives, casting a sideways look at the clouds gathering over the plains. The afternoon’s pale sunlight had been the first in days, and, as usual, had not lasted more than a few hours.

  He leaned down to get the first knife.

  From what he had studied of the meteorological data, the only places where there was more sunlight than cloud cover was over open ocean. No one could explain to him the reason for the phenomenon, at least not in terms simple enough to be sure it wasn’t scientific doubletalk.

  He put the first two knives in the hidden belt sheath and picked up the third.

  The wind began to whine. Soon, if the darkness roaring in from the east were any sign, it would begin to whistle as the temperature again dropped toward freezing.

  With the one knife in hand, he retreated to the one spot he had measured out and scratched in the bare clay.

  Feel the knife; sense the balance; and…release!

  And miss.

  “Hades!”

  Gerswin took the second knife and let it fly with full force.

  The twinge in his left hand brought him up short. He realized he had gripped the double-edged blade far too tightly. A slash ran across the base of his thumb, scarcely more than skin deep, but blood welled out.

  He squeezed the edge closed with the fingers of the same hand, then let the cut bleed as he threw the third knife with his right hand.

  All three had struck the target, but none had stuck.

  Gerswin studied the target before starting after the knives.

  The gathering clouds choked off the last scattered beams from the sun, and the first gust of wind ruffled his tight-curled blond hair. Absently, he started to push the hair off his forehead before he realized that it was too short to get in the way, as it had been for nearly ten years.

  He reclaimed the three knives once more and straightened the target with his right hand. He walked back to his mark, juggling the unsheathed knife in his right hand. He intended to be equally proficient with either hand.

  “Right now, it’s equally inaccurate,” he mumbled.

  His next cast bounced off the plastic, but the second did not. Gerswin tried to reclaim the feeling of the second with the third. He did, and two heavy knives remained solidly within the plastic as he walked up to reclaim all three.

  Four steps to the target in the whine of the wind. Reclaim the blades and straighten the target. Four steps back to the mark.

  Three more throws.

  Reclaim the knives.

  Throw again.

  Reclaim.

  Throw.

  Reclaim.

  Throw.

  He kept up the pattern until it was automatic.

  When he finally quit, not because of darkness, though most would have had to, two out of three casts were sticking within the target, either right- or left-handed. He quit because the increasing wind gusts kept knocking over the target, not because the ice rain bothered him, light tunic or not, nor because of the nagging twinge in his thumb.

  The bleeding had stopped, but streaks of rain-diluted blood decorated his trousers as he headed first to stow the knives in his quarters and then to the medical section. He did not intend to wear the knives until he was one hundred percent accurate with them within their range.

  With practice every day, within weeks he would have that skill. After that…another weapon. But first, the knives, for they could be used anywhere.

  Anywhere in the Empire and on Old Earth.

  XXXI

  The flitter dropped from the clouded sky toward the plateau and its grasses and grubushes. Gerswin watched the readouts in the heads-up display as he eased the flitter down into the clearing nearest the site he hoped was there.

  From the topography maps, he had narrowed the search to six plateaus corresponding to his memories. This was the fifth he had actually investigated. His searches of the first four had failed to disclose any indication of the brick stairwell, the garden plots, and the hidden trail he remembered.

  The computer and the maps had been better in some ways than his memories. The pilot smiled wryly at the thought. In two of the first four sites he had discovered evidence of recent habitation. In the future he would look into recruiting possibilities, assuming those whom his descent had frightened away were indeed devilkid types.

  As the flitter settled, Gerswin let more and more weight drop onto the skids, leaving power on the rotors until he was certain that the flitter was solidly grounded on the mesa top. Next came the blade retraction and storage. Before shutting down the fans, he checked both the EDI and heat scanners. Both showed negative.

  He shook his head. A devilkid could be waiting in a below-grade gully, or a buried and fully charged laser pack could have been sitting right in front of the flitter, and neither detector would have shown a thing. They weren’t designed for terrain work.

  Much of the Service’s equipment wasn’t designed for Old Earth usage.

  After half-vaulting, half-climbing from the cockpit, he touched the closure plates and tapped in a lock combination. While it wouldn’t stop a trooper with a laser, the flitter was secure against anything less, and Gerswin didn’t expect to meet the equivalent of an Imperial Marine marching through the grubushes in the chill and steady wind of the gray fall morning.

  He sighted against the hills to the west, checking his orientation. If he were right, then the hidden stairs he hoped to find were nearly a kay to the west, just above a sharp drop-off to the more sheltered valley beneath.

  Light as his steps were, each one crisped slightly on the heavy sand that surrounded the flitter. His breath, slow and even, formed a trailing plume behind him as he slipped toward the shoulder-high grubushes a hundred meters westward.

  He sniffed the air gently, trying to detect a scent that might have been there once, a faint odor part soap, part perfume. All he could smell was the bitter-clean odor of the grubushes, nearly uncontaminated this far above the plains and near the mountains. Only a single line of foothills remained between the mesa and the granite peaks that divided the continent.

  The air was cold and, outside of the grubushes and the faintest scent of landpoison carried from the plains by the east wind, clean. No rat scent, nor the lingering odor of coyote or kill—the smell was right.

  His right hand brushed his waistband, under which was the double-ended sheath with the twin throwing knives, and touched the butt of the stunner. While he had practiced with the knives to the point where his accuracy was nearly one hundred percent on stationary targets, targets were only targets, and the stunner might be more reliable. For now, anyway.

  Glancing at the sky, he gauged from the thinning of the clouds whether there might be some sunlight later in the morning. He shook his head, although he could sense some warmth on his back. The thin jacket he wore over his flight clothes was enough to break the wind, and that was all he really needed. Imperial officers born on New Augusta or other warmer planets avoided the outside whenever possible, wearing the double-layered winter uniforms and parkas whenever they were exposed to the cutting winds of Old Earth.

  As Ger
swin neared the area he intended to search more closely he stopped to check the grubushes, looking at the waxy berries and branches for some sign of harvesting. He found none, not even any sign of the mountain mice that lived on little besides the berries, or so he recalled.

  He straightened and surveyed the western end of the mesa that lay before him, checking the hills to firm up his bearings. Turning more toward the north, he headed for the unseen drop-off he knew lay ahead.

  Suddenly he stopped, cocked his head, and looked at the all-too-even notch between the two hills to the west and at the dark wedge of gloom behind the notch. He compared that gray to the indistinct gray of the clouds and the line of gray leading to the notch.

  “The road of the old ones…” he murmured, not sure where he had heard the phrase, but knowing that he had, somewhere, sometime.

  His eyes traveled the small open sand and clay space around him, checking the bushes, trying to find a pattern, any pattern at all. Finally, he settled on a slightly wider spacing between two grubushes. He eased through what seemed almost a lane toward the western edge of the mesa, a path that became increasingly rocky as his steps closed the gap between himself and the nothingness that waited as the surrounding bushes became shorter and less closely spaced.

  Again, he stopped, not for a conscious reason, but because he felt he should, and studied the area around him.

  To his right, his eyes settled on an irregular heap of stones, seemingly random, but too regular and too high to have been an accident of geology.

  He took one step and paused, sniffed the air. He found nothing but the eastern plains odor of landpoison and the cleaner and nearer scent of grubush.

  He took another step, another pause, another sniff.