The Forever Hero

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He wondered if she had dimmed the light to the study, as, for a moment, the light-strewn study dimmed to call up an evening parsecs and generations away. He did not look up, but concentrated on the intertwining of the two themes, the strength of a weary Old Earth and the fire of love won and lost.

  As he let the last paired notes trail off, his eyes came to rest on the Duchess. Her cheeks were wet, and the dampness showed him that after all the years, she still needed no cosmetics for that perfect pale complexion.

  Gerswin swallowed again, hard, and looked away. Looked out into the afternoon that was shading into twilight, looked for the shadows he felt gathering in the back of his mind. Looked and waited.

  After watching the sun touch the distant trees, he turned back to Caroljoy, who met his eyes.

  Without smiling, he extended his right hand and took her left, squeezing it gently.

  She returned the pressure, holding his hand as he held hers. After a time, she lifted her long fingers from his.

  “I believe the tea is ready.”

  Her Grace, the Duchess of Triandna, nee Caroljoy Montgrave D’Lir Kerwin, touched the inset controls on the arm of the loveseat. A younger woman entered instantly, also wearing the Duke’s colors, and guided a slide table toward them.

  On the table were two lustral teapots and a pair of Djring cups in their saucers, the porcelain already glowing as the light level in the study dropped.

  A faint clink echoed through the silent room. Gerswin glanced at the woman serving the tea, catching sight for the first time of the pallor beneath her already pale face, and the tightness of the muscles in her arms which had nearly snagged the table on the chair across from the loveseat.

  The younger woman had also wiped tears from her cheeks, as Gerswin could see from the smear beneath her left eye. Unlike Caroljoy, she relied on cosmetics.

  “Almost,” said the Duchess. “Almost I could reach back.”

  There was another clink as the server placed the porcelain cup and saucer on the elbow height table that had appeared beside Gerswin. A second clink followed as another cup was placed next to Her Grace.

  “That will be all, Drewnique.”

  Gerswin took a sip of the liftea.

  “Liftea is both simple and complex, and has a clean taste,” she said quietly. “Martin didn’t like flavor mixtures, and I assumed that preference came from you. But he did like liftea, and I thought you might.”

  Gerswin frowned. Martin? From him?

  The sense of chill returned to his bones.

  He looked into the Duchess’s eyes, Caroljoy’s eyes. This time, he dropped his glance, feeling a hint of tears that never came.

  “Martin?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “Martin MacGregor D’Gerswin Kerwin.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “Because I wasn’t brave enough to leave New Augusta. Because I did not want to continue bouncing from Service planet to Service planet. Because I came to love Merrel and because it was important to my father that we marry.”

  She stopped and took a sip from the Djring cup.

  Gerswin stared out through the armaglass at the shadowed lawn and took a breath deeper than normal, mentally cataloguing the scents in the room as he tried to gather himself together.

  Caroljoy…the spice of her was richer, fuller, but had not quite peaked to the cloying of age.

  The liftea…the pungency similar to cinnamon, but without the dustiness and with the orangeness and mint.

  Trilia…the background fragrance that hinted of flowers that were not present.

  “He didn’t object?”

  “How could he?” The statement was simple, the implications of strength profound.

  Gerswin did not pursue. He darted a look at the glowstones before taking another sip of the liftea from the Djring cup that weighed less than a trilia blossom in his fingers.

  “Martin…looked much like you, with the hawk-eyes, except his were green, and with the fantastic reflexes. Of course, he became a pilot, after he graduated with honors, and then went from the corvette to commander of his own scout. He was so proud, and even Merrel was proud of him.”

  Weight, with the inexorable chill and mass of a glacier, settled on and around Gerswin.

  “Firien’s Star?”

  “He could have escaped, but he covered the Sinta Mare…and the others. The Emperor’s Cross…upstairs with my jewels.” She shrugged, as if trying to lift a burden off her shoulders and not quite succeeding. “Now, once in a while, I can look at it.”

  Again, silence cupped the room in its unseen hands.

  What could he say? He caught himself before he started to shake his head.

  “Lieutenant…I mean, Commander, we all have our chains to the past. I am not asking you to share mine, nor would I trade anything that has been, and that includes you. At times, I have wondered, but I would not. Martin’s childhood was one of the most wonderful times of my life, but that time had passed already when he died, and I had not understood that. All parents die a little when their children become real.”

  She smiled, and while the smile was faint, the warmth brought a benediction to Gerswin.

  “Young Jane made up for it, later, some, but neither Analise nor Jerzey were comfortable here. Jane liked to visit, and who could deny her? She had Martin’s eyes, and saw everything. She still cubes me, but they come in batches, now that she’s on the Rim expedition.”

  Gerswin felt more lost at each word, and concentrated on trying not to shake his head at all the implications that tumbled from her words. If Analise had been Martin’s wife or the woman who had his child, who was Jerzey?

  “Jane? Jerzey?”

  “Jerzey was Analise’s husband. I’ve lived with it all for so long it’s really quite clear. Lieutenant…pardon me, but, you know, dear Commander, I still think of you as that dashing young lieutenant.” She cleared her throat, softly, and took another sip of the liftea. “Like his father, Martin fascinated the ladies, but he never even knew he had a daughter. Neither did we. I found that was a possibility several years later, well after Firien, from his friend Torvye, who brought it up to console me.”

  She held up her hand. “No need for details, but Analise was adopted out, and by the time I found her, had married Jerzey, a decent sort, if a rather mundane barrister on Herkimer. Jane found it too mundane as well.”

  “So she joined the Service?”

  “A familial weakness, I would guess,” suggested Her Grace, her mouth upturned slightly at the corners. “She also took her grandfather’s name, but, enough of the history. You do well to humor an aging lady.”

  “Not humoring,” he protested. “Not at all.”

  Martin a grandfather? What did that make him? Or Caroljoy?

  “You’ve been most kind,” he began hesitatingly, “particularly in view…of everything…” This time, he did shake his head. There were no words to express the conflicting feelings ricocheting back and forth under the black undress armor he wore.

  “No,” she answered with a smile best described as sad, “I am not kind. I had always wondered, but never had the will to search you out, to learn whether you had survived the deserts of Old Earth and intricacies of the I.S.S. I’m the type who always wants to know how the story ends, even my own story, but not at too great a cost…. You should understand…those of us who are weak, dear Commander.”

  Weak? While he could understand, weak was not a word he would have applied to the woman beside whom he sat. He touched her hand again, grasped it gently.

  He could not ask the favor for which he had come, not for Old Earth, but, most of all, not for himself.

  Instead, he glanced at the glowstone floor tile once more, then around the study, finally settling his eyes on the small flower bed visible straight through the armaglass and centered in the lawn ten meters out from where the two of them sat.

  “You hold your keepsakes in your thoughts, don’t you?” he asked.

>   Gerswin suspected that from the villa itself, from a hundred little signs, from the lack of solideo cubes on display, from the simplistic lack of ornateness that surrounded him. Only the oil painting in the main hall that would someday be acclaimed a masterpiece was an exception to that pattern, and even the deep feelings behind the painting were cloaked in simplicity.

  What else could he say? Except his good-byes, and he was not ready for those. Not quite yet, not when he had just discovered he had lost two precious things he had never known he had had.

  Instead, he picked up the Djring cup and sipped the single cold drop of liftea left in the bottom. That single drop was no more pungent than the first, but held a hint of bitterness that he welcomed.

  “That is where they mean the most. Most keepsakes, I have found, are displayed for the impact on others. For memorials, that is suitable, but not for one’s self.”

  “The painting?”

  “Martin deserved that, and more. Every spacer who sees it will never forget it, and what else is a memorial for? The sorrow is mine, and, now, perhaps a small bit of it will be yours.”

  The senior commander nodded to the Duchess, Her Grace, as if to acknowledge a pleasantry, and put his hand to his cup. He did not drink, belatedly remembering he had finished the last bitter droplet already. He centered the cup and saucer on the table by his elbow.

  “Getting late,” he observed, his eyes flickering toward the western panorama. His right hand covered hers gently.

  “Yes. It is. Night falls sooner for some.”

  He shifted his weight, edging slightly closer to her, but without turning to look at her. A faint breeze brushed his cheek, as if the conditioners had come on, but noiselessly.

  Gerswin worried his upper lip with his teeth, then decided.

  The senior commander eased his hand from hers and stood, bowing to Her Grace.

  “Again…you’ve been most kind.”

  “Commander dear, is that all you have to say?”

  Gerswin felt the sigh go through him, stiffened his shoulders against a slump, and forced a slight smile.

  “No…Caroljoy…Not all that I would say, not all I can say…. Never good with words…Not from the heart. Guess I came to them too late. Time has passed differently for us. For all your sorrows, you have your loves, your joys, a past, a clear conscience, and memories you can treasure.” He stopped, swallowed, and looked directly into her still-clear dark eyes. “I have your memory…your warmth…some hope for the future. One of the ancients said it. Miles to go before I sleep. It’s a long way home. If I get there, then you or…Jane…or others from your blood will have a home…and I will not.” His lips quirked. “Sounds too dramatic. Overdone—”

  “You’ve never given up your dreams. That is why you will always be my lieutenant, Commander dear, why you will be loved, why you will be followed, and why you will never rest. Because you cannot surrender.”

  Caroljoy, his lover and Her Grace, one and the same, young and old, stood. She took a step toward him, and a second, until her hands reached for his. Her fingers were cold within his already cool hands.

  “You came to ask for something, and you will not. You cannot.”

  He nodded, unable to deny the truth as she looked into his eyes, unflinching.

  “You are too direct, still, to deceive those whom you love. That is why you love so seldom, my Lieutenant. Because you care, you will not use me, though I used you.” She laughed, gently. The sound echoed sadly in the study lit only by the glimmer of the glowstones and the dimness of the twilight. “And I, the more fool, for all the same reasons, will ask you to tell me.”

  Gerswin told her. Told her about the need for the arcdozers, about the only way he could find to get them for Old Earth, and how both the Duchess and the Duke could help without personally being involved.

  “All you want is the opportunity to borrow one of Merrel’s yachts on its way for a refit?”

  “Steal,” corrected Gerswin, smiling wryly. “And it seems like a great deal to me.”

  “I suppose it would, but for the stakes for which you play, and the price you have already paid, how could I refuse?”

  Gerswin looked down, but squeezed her hands in his, feeling how cool and smooth, how strong, even after all the years, they seemed in his.

  “A foolish old lady. But more fortunate than you know. Far more fortunate, and someday, when the stars have dimmed, and you look into your own twilight, you may see why. I have loved, and been loved, three times, and that was almost too much, even though I treasure each of you.”

  He looked up to see her smile.

  “You will have the yacht, of course, but the Duke will offer it to transport you and your man back to your duty station. Would that suffice?”

  Gerswin nodded, unwilling to speak. The lump in his throat made it difficult even to swallow.

  “Consider the arrangements made, Lieutenant. Consider them made.” She tightened her fingers around his.

  His arms slipped around her, and his lips brushed hers, and, cheek to cheek, two sets of tears mingled while the twilight flowed into night, and while a younger woman watched the embrace on a screen while her own tears streamed unchecked, unknown to the two who had loved only once, yet always.

  LXVIII

  Crimra, Communications Technician Second, frowned and studied the comm board again. Had there been a flicker on the lavender band?

  He peered at the register plate below the indicator light, but no signal strength was registering, even if there had been a flash a moment before.

  The Sanducar was loaded, except for the small priority and security items that would come aboard when the captain returned. The old lady was planetside, along with the third section, and wasn’t scheduled back for another twenty standard hours.

  Crimra glared at the offending light that refused to glow lavender, but it remained dark.

  “Lots of luck, Crimra,” he muttered aloud. “No Imperial comms for your watch.”

  Tomorrow, after the captain came back and delivered her usual rivet-scouring inspection, Crimra and the Sanducar would push away from New Glascow to cart their load of combat decon dozers off to New Hades, where the Imperial engineers would use them to train the latest crew of planet busters and clean-up troops.

  The comm tech shook his head. He was not totally thrilled with the thought of all those deactivated fusactors in the holds. If even one was operating…Crimra didn’t want to think about that, not that it would matter one millisecond after the Sanducar began to jump-shift. The return trip would be more dangerous, since they would doubtless be carrying busted dozers for rebuilding, and Crimra wondered if the field engineers were as scrupulous as the factory types. There wasn’t much of an option, since New Hades was not exactly conducive to large scale on-planet repairs.

  Crimra leaned forward in the standard ship swivel and looked at the seamless gray deck beneath his feet.

  From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw the same lavender flicker, but when he stared at the board and the register, there was no indication on any transmission.

  He licked his lips and scanned the entire board, indicator by indicator. Next he checked the cube board, to insure the fields were holding for all the E-mail the Sanducar was carrying.

  Everything was as it should be.

  Slowly, slowly, he leaned back into the swivel and waited.

  Cling! Cling!

  As the communicator chimed twice, both the green and lavender lights above the blank main screen lit.

  Crimra pursed his lips.

  Cling! Cling!

  Finally, he leaned forward and tapped the acknowledgment stud.

  “H.M.S. Sanducar, Communications, Comm Tech Crimra.”

  The officer in the screen wore a uniform similar to the standard Service undress blouse, but in lavender, with cream piping and no rank insignia.

  “Tech Crimra, this is the Sindelar, ducal flag of His Grace, the Duke of Triandna. I am Commander Carlesir, commanding for th
e Duke. His Grace would like to make a courtesy call, if that would be possible. After that, His Grace would be pleased to have the captain and the senior officers as his guests.”

  “Yes, ser, Commander. Would you hold while I patch in the exec? Captain Cortalina is planetside.”

  The sharp-eyed yacht-master nodded.

  Crimra’s fingers danced across the panel.

  “Sindra, there’s a Duke’s yacht out there. Came in on the lavender. Can you locate and verify?”

  Another flicker of fingers.

  “Niter. Crimra here. Yacht out there that claims it’s a Duke’s boat. Sindara’s trying to find it. Want to put a turret on the tracer?”

  “Crimra, take it easy. If it’s small enough and far enough out not to trigger the screens, it can’t be a danger yet. Besides, who’d dare to impersonate a ducal boat, and who’d have the equipment to come in on a reserved Imperial band?”

  Crimra’s eyes glanced from one screen to another, from the frozen image of the yachtmaster to Sindra in navigation, to Niter in gunnery, to the fourth screen where he was calling the executive officer’s rating.

  “Fores, Crimra here. Yacht blasted in on the lavender. Duke of Triandna, or so the yachtmaster claims, would like to pay a courtesy call, then return the favor by having the exec and senior officers over for grub.”

  “Gerro will love that. I’ll get him ready. Not really started on this run, dozers yet, and he’s grumbling about the mess.”

  Ping!

  The navigation screen indicator lights blinked.

  “Get back to you with the details, Fores.”

  “Yes, Sindra? What’s the gather?”

  “According to every single code, outline, and verification, you have indeed the Sindelar, number two yacht of the Duke of Triandna, and she’s statted one and a half screens out, precisely, just like protocol says. No heavy weapons or energy concentrations.”

  The Gunnery screen indicators blinked, and Crimra switched to Niter.