The Forever Hero

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Of course.”

  “Notice any changes?”

  Gerswin frowned, not wanting to follow the conversation in the direction it was heading. “Not really. A few lines, perhaps.”

  “Not even that. In more than ten years, you haven’t aged. We may look a bit older, but haven’t you seen that devilkids don’t age as rapidly as the Impies? The Impies notice. I can tell you that. And they sure notice that about you.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Is it, Captain?” Lerwin’s voice was low, but gentle. “Is it really? I remember more than I should, that is, if I’m only as old as the medics tell me I am. Hard to say, when day follows day in the hills with the coyotes and the king rats.”

  “Time will tell.” Gerswin shrugged, and forced a soft laugh. “Time will tell.”

  He wanted to ignore the quick look between Lerwin and Kiedra, and the look of resignation and agreement, but decided against it.

  “You two. You think I know something special. Or am something different. I could die tomorrow, and I suppose I could live a long time. I don’t know, and all I can do is keep trying to do my best.”

  Kiedra lifted her mug.

  “To your best, Captain. To your best for a long, long time.” She sipped the tea before putting the mug down and standing. “If you will excuse me, it’s time to see if dinner worked out. Next time, Ler can do it.”

  Lerwin shifted his weight and turned toward Gerswin. “You think we’re crazy?”

  “No. Don’t like to think about it. Too much to do, and too little time even if you do have five score years. And if you have more…have to ask how human you are, especially…”

  “Especially if you’re a devilkid,” finished Lerwin.

  Gerswin nodded.

  The two officers sat in the sling chairs, silently, watching as the deputy administrative officer placed two low serving dishes on the narrow dining table.

  “That’s it, for what it is,” she announced.

  The scent was spicy, but clean, and carried a strong scent of vegetables, but fresh vegetables, not the few dehydrated types carried in on the supply ships or the standardized varieties grown in the base tanks.

  The two stood, and Gerswin pulled the straight-back chair from the corner to the place indicated by Lerwin.

  “Smells good.”

  “Should. All fresh.”

  “Fresh?”

  “Local gardens beginning to produce,” explained Lerwin.

  Gerswin took a mouthful. The taste was vaguely familiar, although he could not remember ever tasting anything like the dish. The meat was chicken, easily enough explained by the embryos he had ordered and received right after he’d become base commander. But the meat was wrapped in a thin coarse flour shell and covered with a reddish hot sauce.

  “Tastes good.”

  “Recipe from the archives, from that cache of old books they dug up and stored in the library. Had to modify it some because we didn’t have everything, but the second or third time it turned out pretty well.”

  “Second or third time?” Gerswin swallowed, suddenly realizing another facet of common town life he’d overlooked—food preparation.

  As a devilkid, he’d eaten whatever he could get, fresh, raw, or occasionally cooked over open coals. As a career unmarried officer, he’d eaten aboard ship or station, or rarely, in private homes.

  Now, Lerwin and Kiedra had to figure in food preparation, at least for off-duty periods, and who knew what other additional things, into their routine.

  He shook his head.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No,” he mumbled after swallowing. “Just a few things I hadn’t fully considered.” He took another mouthful, savoring the taste and trying to recall where he had tasted it before….

  on a clay plate…flickering lamp…

  The already dim lighting of the room seemed to dim more, and Gerswin stared at the table, at two tables—one smooth and plastfinished and narrow, the other heavy, covered with dark tiles. One with matched crockery, the other with cruder and darker pottery.

  Gerswin blinked, squeezed his eyes, uncertain whether he was trying to call up the image or push it away. His eyes burned.

  “Are you all right, Captain?”

  Lerwin’s voice sounded ages and kilometers away.

  “Captain!”

  Gerswin opened his eyes and took a deep breath. The boxlike room swam back into focus.

  “What happened? You all right?”

  “Was it the dinner?”

  He shook his head, strongly, then wiped the dampness from his cheeks. “Just realized where…why the food was familiar…that’s all.”

  Lerwin’s frown was half-puzzled, half-concerned.

  Kiedra’s mouth dropped open. She shut it, then asked, “Serious?”

  Gerswin shrugged. “Don’t know why I’d remember something so far back. Don’t know if it really happened. Couldn’t have been very old. Table seemed so big.”

  “Do you remember your parents?”

  “Just glimpses. Think my mother had the blond hair. Father was heavier. Maybe not. All men look big to children.”

  Gerswin reached for the heavy tumbler—local manufacture—and took a long swig of the water, still a trace metallic, but far better than the best once available.

  “Speaking of children, Captain,” Lerwin asked softly, “what do you think?”

  “Think about what?” Again, Gerswin caught the shared warmth between the two, and felt himself on the outside looking in at something he could not share.

  “It’s like this…,” added Kiedra.

  “Ki…we agreed…”

  Gerswin swiveled his head from one to the other. Children? Children. Children!

  Lerwin’s increasing protectiveness toward Kiedra, their pushing for their own quarters, the room for guests, for now, as Lerwin had put it—all of the indicators were there.

  “Congratulations,” Gerswin said softly, catching Kiedra’s eyes and holding them. He turned to face Lerwin. “Won’t be easy, but I wish you the best.”

  “You don’t object?”

  “To what? You love each other.”

  “But…”

  Gerswin barked a laugh. “Look. Why are we reclaiming our planet? To make it into a pastoral museum? Has to be for people. People and their children.”

  Gerswin could sense the relief in Kiedra, feel her tension ebb. But Lerwin still sat on the edge of his chair.

  “You mean that?” asked the other man.

  Gerswin did.

  “Yes.” He did not explain, but the absolute assurance in his voice seemed to satisfy Lerwin.

  “Obviously,” added the commander, “I made the wrong toast, but time enough to rectify that.” He looked back at Kiedra. “When?”

  “Seven months, if all goes well.”

  Gerswin shook his head and laughed quietly. “You’ll make an old man out of me yet.”

  “Never!”

  “Never.”

  Kiedra’s affirmation of his relative youth held a note of sadness, almost pity, that Gerswin pushed away with another mouthful of the dinner.

  Lerwin followed suit, but Kiedra stood.

  “I’m full. Be back in a minute.”

  Gerswin frowned. He’d never seen a devilkid full. Not hungry, but never full.

  “Pregnancy,” Lerwin answered the unspoken question. “Medics say that’s normal.”

  Neither said anything while finishing what remained.

  Lerwin stood and took both his plate and Gerswin’s.

  “No. Be right back. Kitchen’s too small for everyone.”

  True to his word, Lerwin reappeared with three steaming mugs, disappeared again, only to return with three tiny squat glasses.

  “Not brandy and cafe, but liqueur and liftea.”

  Behind him followed Kiedra, her face a shade paler. Lerwin helped her into her seat, and she immediately took a small sip of the liftea, and smiled faintly.

  “Some aspects of
motherhood I can do without. They’ll pass, I am told.” She took another sip, and Gerswin could see the color begin to return to her face.

  Lerwin eased his chair up to the table, and inhaled from the glass without drinking.

  Gerswin followed his example, trying to place the scent, half bitter grubush, half spice. “Another local product?”

  Lerwin nodded.

  Gerswin sipped carefully, expecting the liqueur to burn. He was not disappointed.

  Kiedra left the liqueur alone, but continued to sip from the liftea, saying nothing.

  “How much leave do you intend to take?”

  “Do I have to decide now?”

  “No. Just wondered who I’d get to do the job, and for how long.” He grimaced. “Shouldn’t get into shop talk, but too many Imperials are just putting in their time.”

  Gerswin took a swallow of the liftea to clear away the residual flame from the grubush liqueur, then stood.

  “Enjoyed the dinner. Enjoyed the company, and especially your news. Won’t mention it. That’s your joy to spread.”

  “You aren’t going? So soon?”

  The base commander forced a grin at Kiedra. “Duty calls. Lucky my locator didn’t already summon me.” He raised his right arm and let the sleeve slide back to reveal the wrist circlet. “Besides, you need the rest, and don’t tell me otherwise.”

  He stepped back from the table. “You’ve done a lot here, more than I could have expected. I appreciate your including me. Means a great deal.”

  Lerwin did not move to stop the commander, but eased toward the front entryway.

  Gerswin smiled at Kiedra. “Take care. See you.”

  He reclaimed his exercise clothes, and boots before making his way to the front door.

  “Good night, Lerwin. Wish you both the best. You deserve it.”

  “We owe it all to you, Captain.”

  Gerswin shook his head. “No. A bit perhaps, but we all owe a bit to someone.”

  Lerwin stood at the open door, waiting.

  Gerswin gave him a last smile and went down the walk in quick steps. A hundred meters down the walk, he glanced back over his shoulder. Lerwin still was outlined in the entryway. Gerswin did not look back again as he headed for the shuttle station.

  He looked up, instead, and toward the north. He could see a scattering of stars through a break in the clouds which closed even as he watched.

  His boot steps echo-whispered in the stillness, matched only by the faint swish of the southerly wind.

  His lips tightened as he thought of Lerwin, Kiedra, the two of them. Lerwin, with his arms around her, despite the whipcord steel that underlay her being.

  The single barked laugh that exploded from him cracked across the sleeping new town like thunder from a departing storm.

  He speeded up his steps toward the waiting shuttle, feeling one step ahead of the ice rain, and two ahead of the landspouts.

  The linked diamonds he had not worn to dinner weighed on his empty collars and on his thoughts.

  “Someday…someday…”

  The words sounded empty, and he could see the shuttle and the driver waiting, waiting, waiting to take the base commander back to command central.

  LVIII

  Thowp, thowp, thowp. thowp, thowp, thowp…

  Gerswin ignored the regular sound of the flitter’s deployed rotors as he surveyed the irregular patch of felled pines and the scattering figures of the shambletowners.

  “Not just a tree or two,” he observed, a wry smile invisible beneath the helmet’s impact visor.

  “Lower, Captain?” asked Lostwin from the pilot’s seat.

  “Barbarians,” a third voice murmured.

  Gerswin glanced up to see Glynnis leaning forward between the pilot’s and copilot’s positions, trying to get a better view of the damage to the trees, trees that she and her crew, or other crews, had laboriously tanked from seeds, then planted in the hillside they had treated earlier.

  “Anything else to see?”

  “Not for me,” answered Gerswin. “Glynnis, anything you need?”

  “No. Not here. Need mulchweed, and we’ll have to do it by hand. Slope’s too steep to leave uncovered, but we’d do too much damage with heavy equipment. Need the weed until the trees we replant take, and that’s another couple of years.”

  “Back to base?”

  “Back to base,” Gerswin affirmed, taking a last look over his shoulder as the flitter banked southward into a nearly one hundred eighty degree turn.

  As he suspected, even as the flitter turned, the industrious shambletowners were creeping back from cover with their ax-knives to worry down another batch of trees.

  “They’re at it again!” protested Glynnis.

  “Lostwin can’t run cover for the trees forever, Glynnis. Whenever we leave, they’ll be back. The wood, young as it is, is better than grubush on scrub. They’ll use it, now they have the habit.”

  “Just let me get my hands on them.”

  “My sympathies,” offered Gerswin sardonically.

  “Don’t you care?”

  Gerswin ignored the question. He cared, but his options were limited.

  Lostwin said nothing, leveling the flitter on a direct descent toward the base landing grids.

  Click, click, click.

  A swirl of ice rain slapped at the fusilage, ceasing as suddenly as it had pelted from the dark gray clouds overhead.

  “Been a cold year,” reflected Gerswin, leaning back in the copilot’s seat. “Not as much grubush since we reforested.”

  “We left a five kay patch around the shambletown. How many of them are left there, anyway?”

  “Enough to need more fuel. Maybe saving their grubush and using our pine.”

  “Are you defending them?”

  “No. Speculating.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to do to stop them, Captain?”

  “Not yet. Some things to consider.”

  “Opswatch, Outrider Two turning final. Commencing descent.”

  “Outrider Two, Opswatch. Field is clear. Ground crew waiting.”

  “Stet.”

  Gerswin checked his harness and straightened himself in his seat. Automatically scanning the gauges and finding no fault, he watched Lostwin as the younger man’s sure touch brought the flitter to a hover outside the number two hangar-bunker.

  As soon as the flitter was down inside the hangar, blades folded and shut down, Gerswin vaulted out, helmet under his arm, to head for his office.

  Glynnis was right, in one respect. The problem wasn’t about to go away.

  His quick steps covered the distance across the hangar, through the tunnels, and to his outer office.

  Nitiri looked up as Gerswin marched through.

  “Anything major?” the base commander asked the senior technician.

  “No, Commander. Two buzzes and a fax of some sort from Major Trelinn. Major Geron left word that he’s got most of the equipment he needs for the Scotia refining plant, all except one part. It’s all on your console.”

  “Thanks, Nitiri. Hold anything except an emergency.”

  “The tree thing?”

  Gerswin nodded. “More ways to botch it than to solve it.”

  He locked the portal behind him and set the helmet in the small locker.

  While he could have consulted the files through the console for exact citations, he did not. He knew the Imperial law that applied and that governed, since Old Earth had neither laws nor governing bodies larger than the individual shambletowns.

  Imperial law was simple. If the locals did not injure Imperials, the most that any base commander could do was to remove the locals from the area to avoid damage to Imperial property and citizenry—provided that did not conflict with existing treaties, local laws, or special provisions. None of the latter existed.

  The minute he issued a relocation order, Trelinn and who knew who else would be protesting, both on general principles and because they would have an issue with
which to assault the commander. On the other hand, if he didn’t, the devilkids, the civilian Imperials, and the people of the new town would be upset at his failure to protect the forest.

  Gerswin glanced at the I.S.S. banner on the wall, smiled a hawkish smile, and touched the console keyboard.

  “Get Major Trelinn and have him up here as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Trelinn arrived as if he had been on call.

  “Commander, I’m so glad you’ve found time in your crowded schedule. I was hoping we could discuss a number of things which have come up.”

  “Sit down, Linn. First thing is the tree problem.”

  “The tree problem?” Trelinn frowned. “The tree problem? You mean that bit of vandalism by the locals. Shocking, but minor. What else could you expect? No, I was hoping we could review your review of the annual performance standards—”

  “Linn. Performance standards can wait. The tree problem is more urgent. Now why did you say it was expected?”

  “There’s been no attempt at education, no ethnocultural field work, merely a strong-arm attempt to recreate a vanished ecology, rather than a thought-out and studied effort to build on the existent flora and fauna.”

  “How would you define a studied attempt?”

  Trelinn paused, giving Gerswin a long look, before continuing. “I would think that the first step should have been a study by a well-respected expert, backed by a full team data-gathering effort, plus, at a bare minimum, the in-depth study and analysis of at least one member of the culture.”

  “Would the ecology chair at a major Empire university qualify as such an expert? Say, from Medina, Saskan, New Augusta, or Hecate?”

  “What are you leading to, Commander?”

  Gerswin smiled. “Just trying to see where you stand, Linn. Now, would someone like that fit your definition?”

  The dapper major shrugged. “How could they not?”

  “The name Mahmood Dagati chime?”

  “The one who wrote Principles of Planetary Ecology?”

  “The ecology chair at the University of Medina?”

  “He’s the one,” confirmed Trelinn.

  “Is indeed, Linn. Conducted the field studies here. Took him nearly seven years. Give you the console keys to his work.”