The Forever Hero

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I think I understand your interest and reasoning, ser…Corson.”

  “One final stipulation. He is not to be informed of the trust until he completes primary studies, or until ten years after majority, whichever comes first.”

  “At that time, do you want him to know the source of the trust?”

  “I would leave that to the trustee and his mother. She could also tell him that the money was left for him by a distant relative. An eccentric old Imperial officer. That might be best, but that would be her choice.”

  Ingmarr frowned. “Any other conditions?”

  “Not unless you think there should be.”

  “All right. Let me get started on this, if you don’t mind. We’d all feel better if it were completed and you could get on with…could get on with…whatever…”

  “I understand.”

  The outsider leaned back in the chair and transferred his sharp glance to the snow-drifted lake and the gray-clouded skies and the fine sheeting snow that appeared more like fog.

  He could tell the taller of the two women kept looking at him, although he did not need to turn to check, and his keen hearing could pick out some of the phrases.

  “…same eyes, same curly hair…”

  “…but her brother?”

  “…scary…when you think how old…”

  “…fascinating though…”

  Ingmarr continued to work with the legal terminology on the console, apparently oblivious to either his client or the rest of the office.

  After a time, the stranger straightened in his seat and removed a thin folder from inside his light jacket, which he had opened but not removed. He checked the contents, then left it in his lap and returned his attention to a line of skiers moving smoothly across the lake toward the town with practiced strides.

  “Ser Corson…if you would like to check this out…and fill in the necessary names and details.”

  “Fine.”

  The outsider slipped into the seat in front of the console, eyes running over the displayed text.

  Ingmarr noted the ease with which he operated the equipment, changing pages, cross-indexing, checking references.

  “No problem…except here. Think you should add something about ‘with the approval of the mother, Allison Ingmarr.’”

  The man in gray stood back from the console, still holding the folder that he had brought.

  “All right.” Ingmarr sat back down and made the changes, scanning through the text to insure that his client had supplied all the necessary information.

  The smaller man stepped up as Ingmarr looked up from the screen.

  “You’ll need these.”

  “Which are?”

  “The portfolio securities. In Corson’s name.”

  Ingmarr took the folder without opening it.

  “Let me run out the copies of this for authentication and registration.”

  The stranger nodded and half-turned toward the winter scene outside.

  As Ingmarr touched the last stud on the console, he stood, laying the folder on the flat top of the equipment. He moved away from the console. Looming over the stranger, he cleared his throat and flexed his shoulders as if to assure himself that his muscles were loose.

  “Who are you, anyway? As if I didn’t know.”

  “I told you, MacGregor Corson.”

  “I don’t believe that for an instant.” The Scandian reached out for the smaller man with a huge right hand and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  “Let go.” The words were quiet.

  “Who are you? Why are you here?”

  Thud.

  Ingmarr stared up from the carpeted floor into a yellow, hawkeyed glare. He appeared stunned.

  “Doing my best to hold to her wishes. Without disinheriting him. No more questions.”

  Each word, though whispered, seared. Ingmarr stiffened, but did not get off the floor.

  “You!…never believed…”

  “Get the trust finished. Sooner the better.” The stranger’s light baritone voice was calm.

  “Agreed,” conceded Ingmarr, rubbing his hand and then his shoulder. The smaller man had handled him as if he were a doll, and for the first time, he was beginning to understand his sister, her tears, and her fears. And her reasons for having to trust the man.

  Ingmarr stood up slowly and repeated himself. “Agreed.”

  Both men ignored the whispers from the other side of the open office as they moved toward the printing station in the middle of the office.

  “…like a child…”

  “…so fast…”

  “…has to be him…”

  Outside, the wind picked up, and the snow fog thickened until the gray light resembled twilight rather than midafternoon.

  Inside, two women shivered in thin tunics while a tall man continued to massage a sore shoulder, and a shorter blond man began to authenticate a legal document.

  XXXI

  Gerswin looked over at the innocuous set of plasteel shipping containers that filled the small aft hold of the Caroljoy. Twelve bore labels indicating they were high-speed message torps, and four bore labels indicating long range torps.

  Not that the labels were totally inaccurate, mused the commander. Someday they might have to be used to send a message of sorts, but he had obtained them now, when it was still possible, without too much difficulty.

  The maiden voyage of the refurbished former scout had gone well, well indeed, although it would have proved difficult, if not impossible, to have traced the supposed private yacht through three separate identities, two military, and four systems, not including Scandia. That diversion, on the return trip, had been for other reasons, later than he would have wished, but accomplished nonetheless.

  His eyes lost their sharp focus for a minute as he recalled the snow-covered firs of Scandia, and, more distantly, a pair of eyes as clear as a cloudless winter morning. He shook his head to bring himself back to the small hold.

  Gerswin checked the hold locks once again before extricating himself from the hold and climbing back into the former crew room. Loading the shipping crates from outside through the exterior cargo lock, an armed tender lock converted for his purposes, had been far easier than inspecting them from inside the ship. Small as the aft hold was, the forward hold was even smaller, containing only emergency stores and an emergency generator and solar array.

  There was less crew space under Gerswin’s internal redesign than in the ship’s original configuration. As a scout, the former Farflung had carried a four man crew under tight living conditions. Gerswin had reconfigured the newly and officially registered Caroljoy (IPS-452) as a single pilot ship, with emergency capacity for two passengers on short hauls.

  The drives were not those of a scout, but of a small corvette, with total power cross-bleed between the corvette screens and gravitics. The extra power and range had come at the cost of habitability and because Gerswin had installed higher quality control and communications systems—the lower weight and improved reliability offset by the considerably higher price.

  The commander sealed the hatch beneath him, which resembled another tiled floor square of the cabinlike section of the ship, which contained the fresher, wall-galley, and bunk. He stood, surveying the trim and efficient interior.

  “Stand down mode, full alert,” he ordered.

  “Stand down mode, full alert.” A voice, feminine, but impersonal, answered the commander.

  He sealed the locks behind him, and stepped out into the hangar, which, as he had rebuilt the Caroljoy from scratch, he had turned into a maintenance facility capable of handling all but the largest of private yachts. The equipment within the hangar could also have served virtually all Imperial scouts and corvettes, although that capability remained the secret of the commander.

  He had not kept secret from his subordinates that, after Allison’s departure, his sole vice was his “hobby”—building a private yacht from surplus scrap for his eventual retirement.

 
; Some of his officers had even visited the hangar and the Caroljoy—at suitably arranged times when the disarray was maximized—and while all were impressed by the commandant’s personal expertise, they shook their heads sadly behind his back at his tales of spending all his savings on his project.

  None knew that the Caroljoy was already spaceworthy. He had not registered her until after he had returned from the maiden voyage. While the fact that his ship was spaceworthy would leak out sooner or later, both the registration date and his officers’ memories would reflect a much later first launch than the reality.

  Gerswin smiled wryly at the recollection of some of the looks as they had seen the scout in the graving cradle, looking as if it would be forever before she lifted.

  His steps carried him across the hangar toward the outside lock and the groundcar that would carry him back to Standora Base, back to the empty quarters of the commandant. Back to a short night’s sleep before another day of shuffling priorities, fleet repairs, and the fragile egos of ship captains who had heard that Standora Base could perform miracles and who all wanted to be first in line.

  The commander shook his head as he thought of the sixteen slender missiles sealed in the Caroljoy’s aft hold. Just as he hoped he would not need them, he knew he would, although he could not say for what. Not yet. But that time would come, had to come, as the Empire began to crumble and the commercial barons began to grab for more and more.

  Not yet did he need them. But to reclaim Old Earth, he had no doubt he would need them, and that he would have little or no time to obtain them by the time he needed such power. By then, too, the source of the weapons might have been forgotten.

  As he slipped from the hangar, he automatically scanned the area, but the private shuttle port was quiet, as usual.

  He guided the official groundcar across the plastarmac and toward the south gate of Standora Base more than twenty kays away.

  XXXII

  The senior officer accessed the private personal line, fed in the privacy links, and scrambled.

  The screen colors swirled, then settled into the even lines of text provided by the agency.

  “Quarterly Report—Corson Ingmarr.”

  The title was scarcely larger than the text that followed, but the commodore devoured each word, line by line, of the ten pages that had been transmitted by torp, each page costing as much as a set of undress blacks.

  At last he keyed the report into his own personal files, though he doubted he would reread it, not for years, since he could remember the last reports verbatim.

  Finally, he shut down the small console, the single piece of furniture or equipment in the rambling quarters that he could truly say was his own, along with the private comm relay he had leased with it.

  Most of his creds had gone into the Caroljoy, along with the discretionary funds allowed him under the foundation bylaws, although his personal investments were still considerable, since he had attempted to fund the restoration out of income, rather than capital. The fact that his assets were more than comfortable was not surprising, not considering his years in Service, and his few personal needs.

  He stood, blond, slender, despite the loose-fitting flight suit he wore, and walked around the console and out of the paneled room that bore the archaic term of “library,” though there were neither books nor tapes within or upon the wooden shelves.

  The room echoed with his steps, and light-footed as he was, their echo recalled the tapping of other steps. She had never liked the library, and Corson, of course, had not been walking when she had taken him.

  “Why do you do it?”

  The words did not echo as he left the room. The issue carpeting in the front foyer insured that, and his steps were silent as he climbed the wide steps to the second floor. Only the commandant’s quarters had two stories, with the wide staircase, but then the quarters had been designed with entertaining in mind, back in the expanding days of the Empire, when energy had been more abundant, and before the rights of the occupied and colonized peoples had been taken quite so seriously.

  Most nights, the commodore did not mind the quiet and the isolation.

  Most nights…except for those when he thought about a curly-haired blond youth skiing across frozen lakes parsecs away.

  Most nights…except for those when he dreamed about another curly-haired blond boy scuttling in terror from flaring torches through a tunnel, toward a night filled with king rats and landpoisons.

  He shook his head as he entered the bedroom, not glancing at the overlarge bed he had never replaced when she had left.

  Not that he always slept alone…but none had ever asked or hinted to spend another night. Not that he was ever other than gentle…

  XXXIII

  Already the visitors’ stands were filled to overflowing, though the seats had been designed to hold more than five times the base complement. Civilians from Stenden were continuing to pour through the main gate.

  The woman who would be the next commandant stood behind the reviewing stand and surveyed the ad hoc parade ground, the rows and rows of I.S.S. technicians wearing silver and black dress uniforms creased to perfection, the thousands of Standoran civilians wearing their best brikneas, the crisp white and green dominating the stands.

  She wanted to stamp her foot, to stand on the podium when her turn came, and to bellow that she could do more than anything Commodore Gerswin could ever have done. She knew it was childish, that it might not even be true, but seeing the wistful look in the technicians’ eyes, she still wanted to. Instead, she looked down at the spotless gray-blue plastarmac and took a deep breath.

  Despite the base’s reconstitution as one of the busiest and most efficient refit yards in the Empire, the light breeze bore only the faintest tinge of ozone, and none of metal and oil. Underlying it all was the scent of trilia from the formal gardens planted around both the tech and officer quarters, and from the hedgerows that flanked the small squared sector for accompanied personnel.

  A cough at her elbow brought her head up.

  A young captain, wearing the crossed ships of a pilot on her breast pocket, stood at the commander’s shoulder.

  “Commander H’Lieu?”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “I believe the ceremony is about to begin.”

  The senior commander turned away from the crowds that flanked the reviewing stand, with a smile that could have been described as wry, straightened, and looked toward the steps of the reviewing stand itself.

  She would sit on the left side of the podium, on the left of the crossed banners, for the review. Then the commodore would say a few words before turning over his sword. She would take the podium to say a few words, then return his sword, and then change places with him to review the departure parade as the new commandant.

  All in all, a civilized and ritualized turnover of administrative authority. The only problem was that Headquarters had never told her that the man she was replacing had made himself into a living legend, both to the personnel he commanded and to the locals.

  She had reviewed the base procedures, seen the audit reports, and interviewed a few key people—quietly, of course. All gave the impression of a competent and dedicated Commanding Officer, fair, impartial, and knowledgeable. But the records and procedures still did not show how he had turned the base around, nor did anyone seem to be able to tell her.

  Yes, the man worked hard. Yes, he had improved operating procedures. Yes, he had instituted outreach programs with the locals. Yes, he insisted on absolute accuracy and perfection. Yes, he insisted on discipline and order.

  She pursed her lips and dismissed her misgivings. Putting her hand on the railing of the temporary stairs, she glanced over at the visitors’ stands. She could not recall a local community ever showing up for such a mundane affair as a change of command, even for a C.O. who had spent an unprecedented three five-year tours as the commodore had.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” asked the captain. “Even the locals prac
tically worship the ground he walks on.”

  The senior commander snapped her head back without commenting and stepped up to the landing.

  The commodore was already there to greet her. She remembered the piercing eyes from a meeting on New Augusta years earlier.

  “Welcome, Commander H’Lieu. Good to see you again.”

  “A pleasure to be here, Commodore.” From the landing she could survey the entire area, and she let her eyes do that. “You obviously command a great deal more than Standora Base.”

  He chuckled, a self-deprecating sound, and then met her eyes. Both their brilliance and intensity were too much, and she eyed the raised stage with the two empty chairs, the podium, and the backdrop with the crossed banners of the Empire and the Service.

  “I pleaded with the exec for something simple, but, as you can see, lost.”

  Face to face, she realized that she stood taller than he did, but that wasn’t the way she felt.

  “Commodore…Commander…” The captain’s voice moved them apart and toward their seats.

  As the commodore stood before the crowd, the rustlings stopped, as did the background conversation, until there was a hush.

  The sound of the ancient trumpet calls echoed back from the hangars at the bugler below. As the notes died away three squads of technicians snapped into motion.

  The tech drill team’s silent performance was marred by neither mistakes nor by excessive length.

  Commander H’Lieu glanced at her timestrap and realized that the performance had taken well less than ten standard minutes.

  As the drill team returned to position, the ranks of arrayed techs began to move, marching by units before the commodore, who still stood at attention, perfectly straight and yet perfectly relaxed, while giving the impression of total alertness.

  The commander stopped herself from shaking her head. The man looked less than forty stans, yet he’d been at Standora for fifteen, and, if the rumors and records were correct, had more than a century in Service, which was possible, certainly, but totally unheard of.