The Forever Hero

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Gerswin let the other approach, glancing over his shoulder and listening for a change in breathing patterns or steps. He would rather have faced the Guild assassin down in the lounge except for one thing—the Imperial inquest, which would doubtless have delayed his departure long enough for another Guild assassin to strike.

  As he walked, Gerswin slipped the leather thongs and rounded stones from his belt.

  The corridor narrowed as the two men neared the three beta concourse, then made a gentle left turn.

  Gerswin decided Lazonbly would move as soon as they were screened from the other monitors. He readied the thongs of the sling.

  Click. Click.

  Gerswin threw himself to the left, rolled, and came up with the thongs whirling.

  Thunk!

  Thud!

  Lazonbly’s body pitched forward onto the tiles, his face as impassive in death as it had been in life. The laser cutter lay centimeters from his hand.

  Gerswin walked away after pocketing the round stone, not looking back. There was nothing to connect him to Lazonbly, and nothing on Lazonbly to connect him either to Gerswin or to the Guild. And there was no record anywhere of one Commodore Gerswin’s proficiency with the sling weapons of Old Earth, let alone anyone on New Augusta who would deduce with certainty the exact cause of death of the Guild agent. Gerswin had no doubt “Lazonbly” was at least noted as a potential Guild agent in Imperial files.

  He turned the last corner. Several other shuttle passengers now waited near the portal, obviously ready to board the same shuttle on which Gerswin was booked.

  Gerswin and the Caroljoy were now headed for Scandia, which represented a sudden change in destination. He wondered if he would be in time, or if it were a false alarm. If so, so much the better. If not, there was not much else he could do. No one else could get there sooner, not even a message torp.

  Would he lose another son he scarcely had known? He shook his head at the thought.

  With less than ten minutes before the shuttle lifted, Gerswin doubted that even the Imperial authorities would be able to react in time to block off the entire shuttle port to resolve the strange incident with Lazonbly. Particularly when the tools which were doubtless in Lazonbly’s case were found to have been those that disabled the corridor monitors. Either that or the entire case had melted itself down, which would certainly intrigue Imperial intelligence.

  Fifteen minutes later he sat on the shuttle as it hummed toward the accelerator. His thoughts were already in orbit, already plotting the jump points for Scandia.

  XXXIX

  It is an article of faith for the Believers that their captain destroyed the first and only Empire without legions, without loss. A number of scholars, Elender among them, have made the case for such a sweeping generalization.

  Certainly, what records were salvaged from the rape of New Augusta do contain limited references to a foundation promoting biologics, and the fragmentary information which outsiders have been allowed to examine in detail would seem to show a definite series of links between the foundation’s research grants and the systems where the biologic innovations which brought down the Empire were first introduced and commercialized.

  That biologics hastened the fall of the Empire is not the question, though some have questioned the importance of that hastening, nor is the fact that the biologic revolution foreshadowed the development of the Commonality in question. Neither, for that matter, will this commentary question whether the captain actually developed or merely spread such biologic techniques.

  This, of course, lays aside the central question of whether there was a captain in the sense that those on Old Earth or the Believers have consistently claimed. That is a question for another time, since someone, or some series of individuals, did in fact promote biologics, and that promotion was the cause of a great and widespread unrest among the majority of systems then associated with the Empire.

  What must be questioned most strongly, however, is the naivete that unhesitatingly assumes that such tremendous social and political changes were accomplished “without legions, without loss.” It is conceivable that the initial introduction of such techniques may have been accomplished with minimal unrest, but the subsequent history has been, if one wills, illustrated in the blood of the casualties.

  One can only wonder, at times, assuming there was a captain, at either the callousness or the obsessions which could have motivated him, not to mention the personal burden…

  From COMMENTS

  Frien G’Driet Herlieu

  New Avalon

  5536 N.E.C.

  XL

  Since Corson had not left Scandia yet, if the Guild were after him, that was where the Guild operatives would be, reflected the pilot with the impassive face.

  He had debated not using the orbit station and grounding directly on Scandia, but could find no advantage to doing so. He had not yet been forced to reveal that capability of the revamped scout, and did not want to any sooner than he had to, especially with the Guild involved.

  So now he sat in a rear seat in a Scandian shuttle as it dropped toward the port below.

  He wished he had been able to reach Allison, but the orbit comm center indicated that her receiver had been blanked. Corson had no separate outlet. He had been forced to leave a message that he was arriving, and hoped that he was either in time or unnecessary. He was afraid he was simply too late.

  His fingers drummed on the armrest, and he looked at the pale metal overhead. Scandians did not believe in passenger ports or screens in their shuttles, and he always worried about the piloting of others.

  He sensed the nose lifting into a slight flare as the shuttle came out of the port turn, and he imagined the view as the pilot centered in on the landing grids, stark black against the winter white of the Scandian hills.

  “Please recheck your harnesses. Three minutes until touchdown.”

  The shuttle pilot’s voice was repeated by the overhead speaker with the metallic overtones of equipment typically Scandian—durable, long-lasting, and not designed to do a single bit more than necessary for the complete job at hand. No stereo or full fidelity capabilities for mere voice repeating speakers.

  Clump.

  Gerswin’s grip on the armrests relaxed as the shuttle touched the grids, and one hand reached for the harness release as the other rechecked the belt knives and sling leathers. He wore no stunner for the simple reason that all energy projection weapons were forbidden on Scandia. While he had no doubts that the Guild had circumvented that prohibition, he saw no sense in wearing one only to have the Scandians secure it for the length of his stay. If he used it, then more explanations would be required.

  Gerswin stood at the lock before the others had even begun to unstrap, forcing himself to remain relaxed as he waited for the ground crew to open the double portals.

  A senior commander, I.S.S., his brown hair shot with gray, joined him, while the couple who had been sitting in front of him waited in their seats.

  “You spent time in the Service?”

  Gerswin nodded with a faint smile, then added, “Some.”

  “I thought so. You had that look on your face before touchdown.”

  “Look?”

  “You had to be a pilot or nav type. You people all seem uncomfortable when someone else is doing the piloting.”

  Gerswin permitted himself a half-sheepish grin.

  “Guess you can’t hide it.”

  Clank.

  “You being stationed here?” Gerswin asked, though his attention was more on the unsealing locks.

  “No. I’m retiring. My wife’s from here, and I decided to join her.”

  “Scandians do stick together,” observed Gerswin before turning back to fact the pleasant-faced young functionary who was standing in the lock.

  “That they do,” agreed the retiring commander.

  “Your entry forms, ser?”

  Gerswin preferred the folder.

  The woman checked the name, and
her face took a distinctly sympathetic look, not even a professionally concerned one, but an expression showing real emotion.

  “Commodore Gerswin…uhhh…your…they’re waiting for you…”

  “Gerswin?” asked the commander behind him. “The Commodore Gerswin?”

  The Scandian official’s look darted from Gerswin to the older-looking and uniformed officer.

  “Is there a problem, Commander?”

  “No. Not at all. I just didn’t realize…to have been on the same shuttle…”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Commander…”

  “Snyther…Commander Snyther.”

  “Commodore Gerswin is not here on pleasure, unfortunately, and unless there’s a problem, I would like to clear him immediately.”

  “No, miss. Not at all. Please clear him. Please.”

  The woman shook her head, returning her attention to Gerswin’s documents and scanning them quickly. She ran his pass from the orbit station through the hand scanner, and then nodded.

  “You’re clear, Commodore Gerswin. The Ingmarrs are waiting right outside the debarking gate.”

  Gerswin felt the emptiness inside him grow. The signs were clear enough. Too clear. The “Ingmarrs” had to be Allison and her brother Mark.

  The Guild had gotten to Scandia before New Augusta.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly, aware that his face had become more impassive and grim, but unwilling to make the effort to change it.

  His steps echoed through the narrow tubeway as he marched toward the small concourse. As he stepped from the tubeway, he glanced around the space in which he stood. Ahead was the portal into the central concourse area, where doubtless Allison and Mark waited. The floor tiles were the same light ceramic as they had been on his only other visit, and the walls were the same yellowed cream, decorated with wood-framed scenes of Scandia.

  “Reacting, that’s all you’re doing,” he muttered as he stopped and stared at the pictures, stopping before proceeding through the next portal.

  “If Corson…” He let the words trail off, and a grim smile creased his lips.

  The woman functionary wouldn’t have been a Guild agent, because escape routes would have been closed off. That was no longer true once he was inside the main concourse. And the Guild didn’t forbid energy weapons on Scandia, even if the Scandians did.

  His hands checked his belt again.

  He took a deep breath, sighed, and walked through the portal.

  On the other side he scanned the entire visible concourse, before focusing on Allison and Mark, who stepped forward from where they had been talking less than ten meters away, at the foot of one of the two-meter-square structural columns that supported the soaring ceiling of the terminal.

  Mark Ingmarr had put on weight. While he had not been slight or slender, he was now more than merely solid, though short of outright obesity, and the clean-shaven look had been replaced with a square cut, full beard. His blue eyes were bloodshot.

  So were Allison’s, but her face was thin, nearly to haggardness, and her face was pale beneath the light tan, the incipient wrinkles, and the lines of strain and grief.

  “How…how…did you know?” began Allison even before he was close enough for comfortable conversation, as if the question had been waiting for his appearance and could restrain itself no longer.

  Gerswin’s eyes flickered to Mark Ingmarr’s face. The look behind the apparent concern was enough for him.

  “I…just…knew…,” Gerswin answered, letting the words space themselves as he moved more toward Mark.

  Gerswin looked past them, to see who or what remarked his arrival, and took another step, at an angle, to Allison’s puzzlement, to place himself directly before Mark Ingmarr. He glanced over his left shoulder as he did.

  The movement was slight, imperceptible to anyone else, but clear enough to a devilkid on the hunt.

  Gerswin threw himself forward, brushing by Mark, rolling left before meeting the tiles, and turning as he came to a crouch next to the wide structural column.

  Wssstttt!

  “Unnnnhhhhh.”

  The commodore ignored the falling figure of Mark Ingmarr and picked out the man in the quiet business tunic who dropped his faxtab as if in surprise with the rest of the open-mouthed bystanders. As the others began to scatter, he moved with them.

  In less than three steps Gerswin was crossing the terminal at full speed toward the Guild assassin.

  The man glanced back, as if to protest, yanking his case around so that the long edge pointed toward Gerswin.

  Thunk! Thunk!

  Both knives buried themselves in the assassin’s chest virtually simultaneously, and his case spilled to the floor, where it rested momentarily, before smoke began to drool from the corners, as it began to consume itself.

  Gerswin retrieved his belt knives, wiped them on the dead man’s tunic, and replaced them in his belt.

  He walked back to the center of the concourse where Allison, dry-eyed because she could cry no more, stroked her brother’s forehead.

  Screeee!

  Gerswin looked away from Allison to see the emergency medical cart whining down the center of the open section of the terminal toward them. He did not shake his head, but had Allison not been looking at him, he might have.

  “Why…? Why?”

  “Because he and you were close to me,” lied Gerswin.

  “That many enemies, Greg? That many?” Her voice broke.

  Gerswin nodded. He saw no reason to tell her the whole truth now. Except for the Guild, his enemies lay in the future. Now that Mark was out of the picture, they would continue to chase him, to destroy him merely from professional pride.

  He stared down at the clinically dead man that the medical team had connected to three separate life-support systems.

  The body called Mark Ingmarr might live, but the warped personality that had paid for Gerswin’s and Corson’s deaths would not survive the treatment, one way or another.

  Gerswin sighed slowly. Once again, it had been his fault. If he had not tried to provide for Corson, if he had not treated Mark so cavalierly…

  He shook his head.

  Allison’s eyes followed the medical team as they moved the tubed and connected figure into the mobile treatment center, and as the whole apparatus began to move toward the far end of the terminal.

  A uniformed figure motioned to them.

  Gerswin ignored the officer and remained standing beside Allison, not that he could say anything.

  Allison ignored the officer as well, turning to Gerswin, looking down on him once more.

  “This means that Corson’s—accident—it wasn’t really an accident?”

  Gerswin nodded.

  “But why?”

  Gerswin glanced down at the hexagonal floor tiles, knowing that he could not tell her the exact truth, but knowing she would detect an outright lie.

  Finally he lifted his eyes, aware that additional law enforcement officers had surrounded the area of the concourse where the Guild assassin had died and where his case had melted itself down into metal and plastic. Had the assassin panicked and fired hurriedly? Or had it been planned? Gerswin would never be certain whether the man had fired to protect Mark from Gerswin, or to silence Mark because he thought Gerswin’s appearance meant that the Guild had been crossed, or because Gerswin was to be killed at all costs.

  In the long run, the reason was lost, and irrelevant.

  Now, a pair of enforcement types stood behind him, and another pair waited beside Allison.

  “Because death seems to strike those I love, Allison. I did not avoid Scandia because you asked me, you know.”

  He waited.

  “I thought so. Now I know.”

  The silence stretched out.

  “Wasn’t there anything you could do?”

  “I did my best. If I had tried to guard you two, that would have been like posting a sign, and it would have put you in a cage. Did you want that? Ever?”


  This time Allison looked at the six-sided floor tiles.

  “No. I guess it was better this way. Especially for Corson. Happy…never knew what happened…”

  Despite his own resolve to be impassive, Gerswin could feel the wetness in his own eyes. He said nothing, although he could feel Allison’s eyes on him, and kept his gaze fixed on the far end of the concourse, on the portal through which the emergency medical team had taken one dead man, and then another.

  “But you care…you loved him…you loved me…and you never insisted. I don’t understand. Why didn’t you?”

  Gerswin took a deep breath, refusing to wipe his cheeks, but his voice was like cold lead as he gave her his answer.

  “Because you were right. Because Corson deserved his own life, not mine. Because you deserved your own life in the sunshine of Scandia. Because I have…miles…miles to go.”

  Allison touched the back of his hand, then withdrew her fingers. She looked away from him.

  The silence stretched like the distance between the stars that had separated them and still did.

  “Commodore?” asked a softer, apologetic voice. “Could we have a moment?”

  Gerswin looked up to the tall officer who stood next to him with a sad expression.

  “A moment?” he answered. “Yes. Time is what I am rich in.”

  At the sound of his voice, Allison took a step away from him and toward the officer who waited for her.

  Gerswin doubted he would ever see her again, but he followed the enforcement officer.

  He had left Allison what he could, little as it was.

  He shivered and swallowed, and the taste was bitter. But he took another deep breath, and another step. And another.

  XLI

  “The Gerswin affair…not exactly a shining example of our prowess, was it?”

  “We did not have all the facts.”

  “The late client assured you that the commodore was formidable.”

  “A client recommendation only.”

  “A Scandian client recommendation. Can you recall when a Scandian was prone to admit personal deficiencies or to exaggerate?”