The Forever Hero

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Was it the growing awareness of social change, manifested Empire-wide in such movements as the Ateys, the Droblocs, the Aghomers? Or was the Empire merely one of those accidents of history that lasted so long as it did because it took fifteen centuries for its peoples to discover that it had really never lived?

  The Last Great Empire

  Ptior Petral, IV

  New Avalon, 5467 N.E.C.

  XXIV

  Lyr D’Meryon stepped out of the electrocab and into the warmlights of the entry tunnel.

  To her right was a towering figure—a doorman—whose weight and bulk might have qualified him for the Imperial Marines’ Front Force.

  She hesitated, then began a series of quick steps toward the portal, where she presented the card that Commander Gerswin had left for her. Was he the trustee or the commander to her?

  She didn’t know, but apparently the invitation was his apology. At least she hoped that was all it was.

  The portal accepted the card, but did not return it as it opened for her.

  Inside, the lighting was brighter, though fractionally, and the tiles were replaced with carpeting. She looked again as her eyes took in the decor. The foyer where she stood was about the same size as her private office and was floored in dark wood, over which laid an individual carpet with a central design, in turn bordered by a more geometrical design, both woven in a harmonious blend of blue and maroons.

  “Administrator D’Meryon?”

  The voice came from a short, gray-haired man who stood by the tall wooden table flanking the exit from the foyer into the next room.

  “Yes?”

  “Your patron has arrived already and is expecting you. If you would follow me?”

  Lyr inclined her head in assent and followed the man through the archway into a dining area, dimly lit, with the tables arranged in a circular pattern, each in its own paneled recess to create a sense of full privacy without closeness.

  The dark and heavy carpeting, the wood paneling, and the crisp white linen all gave the impressions of a time from history, of a place removed from the here and now.

  Commander Gerswin, in a formal gray tunic and trousers that resembled a uniform, stood as she neared.

  She almost smiled, more in embarrassment than in pleasure, as his eyes came to rest on her. She wondered if he saw through people the way he seemed to when he looked at them.

  “Lyr. Pleasure to see you.”

  “I appreciate your asking me, Commander.” Her tone was as cool as she could politely make it.

  He nodded in response, but said nothing until she was seated in the comfortable armchair opposite him at the square table.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Squierre and flame.”

  Lyr did not see the waiter until the commander looked up over her head and repeated the order.

  “Straight fizz,” he added.

  She surveyed the room as well as she could from her chair without turning around, and waited.

  He waited.

  And the waiter returned with both drinks, set them down in the appropriate places, and departed without saying a word.

  “Owe you an apology. Perhaps more. Start by saying I apologize.”

  The directness of his words took her breath away. She took a sip of the squierre before answering.

  “It’s not that simple, Commander. You don’t ask me to an obviously expensive private club, say, ‘I apologize,’ and assume that everything is forgotten and forgiven.”

  “No. I know that. So do you.” He paused. “Have to start somewhere. Foundation needs you. I need you.”

  “Fine. I’ll accept that. But it means more trust on your part. Why don’t you start by telling me who you really are?”

  He shrugged. “You know a lot already. Broken-down and passed-over I.S.S. Commander. Pressed into public service in my off-duty time. One reason why I need you.” After sipping the nondrug, nonalcohlic drink, he waited for her response.

  “That doesn’t compute. Broken-down commanders don’t end up as sole trustees of powerful foundations, unless they’re related to Court families or the Imperial family.”

  “I’m not. I’m originally from an impoverished and forgotten outer system. Used the Service to improve myself, but, as ambitious officers will do, ran into difficulties with High Command. Finis to promotions.”

  “It couldn’t have been too bad or you would have been cashiered or had to resign.”

  “Delicate orbit. Some pushed for that. Public opinion ran my way, and High Command backed off.”

  Lyr smiled wryly. “And you’re just a poor, broken-down commander? If they backed off because of the publicity, you must have had an extremely high profile.”

  “Wasn’t like that at all. Would have been inconvenient for the Service to deal with me.”

  “The more you say, the more mysterious it gets. But you offer no substance. No glorious battles from years in the I.S.S. It sounds more like a series of screen-pushing assignments in headquarters.”

  “Ha!”

  The single barked laugh startled Lyr, and she set down her goblet too hard, hard enough for the liquid to splash and dribble down the outside of the crystal. She dabbed at it with the napkin.

  “I take it you have done more than screen pushing.”

  “A bit. Rated skitter and flitter pilot. Had command of a cruiser for two tours.”

  “Which one?”

  “Fleurdilis.”

  “The Fleurdilis? The one that discovered the bearlike aliens? The…Ursans?”

  “Same one. Yes.”

  “Yes?” Lyr’s face screwed up into an inquiry. “Yes to what?”

  “Was the C.O. at the time.”

  “Oh…” A slow smile crossed her face. “I suppose I owe you a bit of an apology, Commander.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve been thinking of you as more of an administrative officer, a man who postures more than acts.”

  “All men posture,” snorted the commander.

  “Some have reason. And I can see why High Command left you well enough alone for whatever else you did.”

  The commander nodded with an odd expression on his face, one which Lyr could not place.

  “Did you actually engage in hand-to-hand combat with an alien, the way the faxers showed?”

  “Combat, one on one, but not so romantic as the newsies recreated. Pretty grubby. Should have been able to avoid killing him, her, it. Wasn’t good enough for that. Turned out all right in the end. Better than the Dismorph first contact.”

  Lyr took a sip from the goblet.

  “What about you?” the commander asked.

  “Me?”

  “Know your background, and you’re a good administrator. Can tell that from what you’ve done with the assets, new investments, even the protection of the few early research returns. Why do you do it? What do you want? More money? More time off? Or more knowledge about…anything in particular…”

  She set down the goblet and frowned, then worried her lower lip.

  “Think about it. We’ll come back to that. Time to pick out your dinner.”

  “As your guest, Commander, I’ll defer to your taste. I’m not terribly fond of red meat. Other than that, anything is fine. Whatever you think best.”

  The commander looked at the silent waiter, whom Lyr had not heard approach this time either, then cocked his head to the side momentarily, as if trying to remember something.

  “The lady will have the flamed spicetails, the bourdin cheeses, the house salad, and the d’crem. I will have the scampig, the cheeses, the salad, and lechoclat.”

  The waiter vanished.

  “You eat here often?”

  “When I’m in New Augusta. Not all that often. Car—one of the founders proposed the membership, I suspect. Took it. It’s helpful.”

  “Helpful? That’s an odd way of describing it.”

  He shrugged, then picked up his glass for another sip.

&n
bsp; She emulated his example, but set the goblet down as the waiter reappeared with the two salads.

  She glanced up from the salad to find him studying her face.

  “Lyr? If you could do something entirely different, what would it be? Where would you go? What are your dreams?”

  The laugh bubbled up in her throat even as she tried to swallow the remaining drops of squierre in her mouth.

  “Phhhwwwww…uuouugh…ucoughhh…”

  He stood, but she waved him away, dabbed her chin with the cloth napkin, coughed twice more to clear her throat. Finally she managed to swallow.

  “Dreams yet, Commander. Please…”

  This time she held up her hand before he could interrupt.

  “Dreams? Commander, you must be joking.”

  “No joke.” He laughed once, the hard bark that chilled her, that reminded her that for all his directness, the directness that bordered on uncouthness, he would be a dangerous adversary. For anyone.

  “I’m sorry,” she added in a softer voice. “But the question was unexpected. You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Unexpected? Why?”

  Lyr frowned. Should she tell him? Subtlety wasn’t likely to work, one way or another.

  She sighed. “It’s like this. You said once that there were more than a hundred foundations with greater possible endowments than OER. It’s more like fifty—”

  “That’s now. Because of your efforts.”

  “—and they have one thing in common. That’s a lack of initiative. My job isn’t good. It’s the best in my field. That’s why I’ll stay unless you force me out. You handed me something that no one ever expects, much less at my age, and said, in effect, and despite all the mystery, go and do your best. And you didn’t second-guess every investment and every fund transfer. So I’ve done my best.”

  “Very well,” added the commander.

  She stopped and worried her lip. “So you see why I have to laugh at your asking about dreams. I’m worried about your forcing me to leave a dream, and you’re asking me about a dream beyond a dream. You don’t want me to leave, do you?”

  “No. Your work is just beginning, now.” His voice softened on the last word.

  She saw his eyes lose their intensity momentarily as he repeated quietly one of her phrases.

  “A dream beyond a dream…” Then his eyes were back on her, boring into her. “Humor me. Give me a dream beyond a dream.”

  Lyr looked away, damning herself for revealing too much, feeling like she had worn nothing to the table.

  “Do you have dreams beyond your dreams?” she countered quietly.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I dream of rolling hills covered with grass, and streams, sparkling from mountain rocks.” He looked up. “Land…so…poor…where I grew up…no green grass.” He looked away and took the last gulp of his fizz. “What about your dream, Lyr?”

  She did not answer, but took a sip, a small sip, of the squierre, ignoring the salad before her, and stared at the white of the linen on the table as she let the warmth trickle down her throat.

  “If I couldn’t do this…I’d have to get away. Some place like Vers D’Mont…with mountains but culture. I haven’t been there, not even on my salary, but you asked me to dream. People, but with privacy. I—” She stopped, watching him nod as she spoke.

  “A small cottage?”

  “A chalet, on a hill, not a sharp peak, but one where you could see the high mountains, and the valley below, with a lake. A chalet that had balconies on all sides.”

  The commander continued to nod as if her fancy were as possible as sitting across the table.

  “But that’s impossible!” she burst out, then lowered her voice. “Why encourage an impossible dream?”

  “No dream is impossible. Wasn’t encouraging, but inquiring.”

  “But why?”

  “Dreams are important.” He said nothing to amplify that, but took a last bite of his salad, then sat back as the waiter placed the scampig before him.

  Lyr nodded at the man to take her unfinished salad.

  “What are they?” She studied the question-marklike objects on the porcelain plate.

  “Spicetails. Seafood delicacy. My second favorite dish, but should I tell you that?”

  She smiled in response to the commander’s gentle self-deprecation.

  “I’ll try them anyway.”

  The longer the meal went on, the more confused she became as to the commander’s motivations. His attitude was not apology, exactly, nor seduction, nor exactly interest, though he continued to ask gentle questions.

  “Do you have other interests…hobbies…besides numbers?…Would you travel widely?…Your family? Were you close?…Whom of the public figures do you admire the most?”

  Those questions she could not avoid, she answered, gently and as briefly as possible, not forgetting to enjoy the dinner.

  The cost of the meal had to have been astronomical. The setting, the cutlery, which was worked sterling silver, the antique porcelain, the linen, the use of well-trained help—they all pointed to an establishment for the extraordinarily affluent.

  And yet, the man across from her, while born a leader, had obviously not been born to wealth. For all his Service training and accomplishments, he was only a commander.

  Or was he?

  Even when she had left the Aurelian Club, headed back to her own more than comfortable apartment, the hundredth floor of the Hegemony Towers, she could not decide.

  He was more than a Service commander, she knew. But what?

  XXV

  SCF-EC-4 (Sector Red, CW-3)

  SCF-EC is a spectral type G-2, population 3 anomaly. Seven planet system, four inner hard core/crust. Planets three and four within T-compatible life zone. Planets five and six are gas giants. Planet seven is captured comet accretion satellite with irregular orbit…

  Planet three possible for future intelligent NH life. Wide spectrum, classification range O/N, WAL, LP/MP, FSR…

  Planet four limited organic classifications N/N, SMS/MS. CrB. Site of nonidentified intact Class I artifact (See Aswan, legends section, and SCF-EC-4—Engineering/Structures)…

  Chartbook, Sector Three

  Commonality of Worlds

  5573 N.E.C.

  XXVI

  Both circuit blocs remained black.

  With a sigh, the man in the working tech’s jumpsuit set them aside and stood up.

  Each aspect of rebuilding the courier took more time, more credits, and more equipment than even he had anticipated. He reset the test probes, and reattached the cube blocs. His fingers played across the tester’s console.

  This time, the circuit bloc on the right turned crimson. But the one on the left remained black.

  He sighed again and stood up, glancing across the hangar at the incomplete structure in the graving cradle, the structure that he hoped would someday be the ship he needed.

  His eyes strayed to his wrist and the comp-timer there.

  2230—far too late already. Allison would be asleep, assuming that Corson was not giving her trouble. But Corson seldom did, despite his intense interest in the world around him and his already too active efforts at crawling.

  Corson and Allison—there was never enough time for them, not with the demands of being Standora Base Commander and the invisible deadlines for completing the courier that crept up toward him.

  How could he tell Allison that he had to finish the ship before his last tour at Standora? She thought he had all the time in the universe.

  Caroljoy had thought that, too.

  Perhaps they were right, but he could be killed as easily as any other man, and would be, once the Empire discovered his plans. On that basis, he had little enough time, and no one in whom he could confide.

  Allison, wrapped up in her moments of joy, and in Corson, could not understand the desperate need of a distant and antique planet forgotten by all but the myth tellers, the historians, and one Imperial senior commander.

&
nbsp; Caroljoy, who had understood, had also opted for her moments of joy in her son. But she had left him the means and, indirectly, yet another pressure, to pursue his obsession.

  “Obsession?” he asked himself wryly.

  “Obsession,” he conceded as he placed another circuit bloc into the tester, ignoring the tightening in his guts as he felt the night inch toward morning, as he could sense the loneliness radiating from a large house on a high hill.

  The third circuit bloc flared crimson, and he smiled, using his lips only, as he placed it inside the screen relay he was reconstructing.

  “Only five more,” he muttered as he selected yet another bloc from the case of scrapped components he had obtained through the Ydrisian free market.

  He shifted his weight as he began once more to work the testing console, probing the minute circuits before him to insure their integrity and functions.

  Taking a deep breath, he settled back into the routine. Select, set up the test patterns, scan, and test. Select, set up, scan, and test.

  He hoped Corson was sleeping well.

  And Allison. And Allison.

  XXVII

  “Congratulations, Admiral. Congratulations.”

  “Appreciate it, Medoro.” The newly sworn Admiral of the Fleet surveyed the palatial office, the wide armaglass windows that overlooked New Augusta from the hillside that the I.S.S. had claimed generations earlier, and the small group of Imperial courtiers, functionaries, and subordinates who waited at the far end of the high-ceilinged room.

  He repressed a smile as he glanced back at Medoro. The senior commodore, who had served as Chief of Staff for the last two Fleet Admirals, obviously would lose no time in pressing his own agenda. The admiral nodded at his Chief of Staff. “It’s time to play politics, I gather.”

  “It’s always time to play politics, Admiral.”

  The admiral let the smile come to his lips. “Always and forever, from now on. Right, Medoro?”

  “If you want a long and healthy tenure, ser.”

  Medoro’s tone was light, but the admiral caught the bitterness of underlying truth. The most senior officer of the Service took a step toward the white linens of the over-laden table where the official “informal” celebration of his swearing-in would commence.