Natural Selection

by Michael A. Stackpole

  She held up one hand. "No, Victor, I have already met her. She helped my staff create this dress while the Taizai was coming into the system. Your Katrina is very nice."

  Victor sighed audibly. "But a bit much, yes?"

  "She is very vivacious, I think." Omi politely stifled a yawn. "I came here this evening because I promised her I would. I should have followed my own counsel and gone to bed early."

  "Yes, no, I mean, I understand, but I am happy you decided to come." Victor glanced back at where his sister still had the crowd enthralled. Of course they won't notice me. Captain Moran did look over, scowling instantly, but that fact barely registered in Victor's mind. "Would you like me to escort you to your quarters?"

  Almost immediately he realized how the question sounded. "I mean, I would consider it an honor to be sure you made your way back safely."

  Omi's blue eyes sparked for a second, but her face remained politely expressionless. "I can find my way from the garden. If you would accompany me that far, I would be in your debt."

  Victor pointed her back down the corridor. While on his way to the party, the same hallway had seemed to go on forever, but now, escorting Omi back the same way, it seemed so pitifully short. They did not speak, nor did they touch, even by accident, but it didn't matter. Even keeping his eyes forward, Victor could feel her beside him. The rustle of her dress whispered seductively and the hushed sound of her breathing sounded like music in his ears.

  Opening the door at the corridor's end, he ushered Omi into the cool evening air and the garden the Kell Hounds maintained so carefully.

  Victor remembered how much the spot had impressed him on his first morning on Arc-Royal. Over the years the Kell Hounds had managed to bring back specimens of the various plants native to the many worlds where they had served. Little greenhouses dotted the large compound, providing the appropriate atmosphere for flora from planets entirely dissimilar to temperate Arc-Royal. The rainbow display had been impressive enough by day, but the perfume of night-blooming flowers more than made up for what it lacked in color by night.

  A sparkling riot of stars filled the black sky overhead. The Milky Way slashed across the sky, north to south. Victor tried in vain to spot a constellation he recognized and could point out to Omi, but he saw none.

  Looking back toward her, he saw her shiver. "Are you cold?" He deftly unknotted the sash of his robe and had it half off even before she shook her head. "Are you sure?"

  "Quite, Victor." She looked around and then smiled. "I was just remembering the last time we were alone, at night, in a garden like this."

  "Outreach, four years ago."

  "You and Hohiro were heading off to fight the Clans. I thought I would never see you again. There was so much uncertainty and fear then." She smiled at him. "And fear now."

  "Fear?" He looked at her and tried to read her shadowed expression. "What do you have to fear?"

  "I fear that I may succumb to my desires and ask you to guide me all the way to my chambers this evening."

  Victor's guts twisted in on themselves. Knowing she felt as he did made his spirits spike up through the top of his skull, but then they crashed down as her caution and implied warning came through to him. For the two of them to be together would be utterly wrong and hopelessly irresponsible. It could literally fracture the trust between the Federated Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine. That, in turn, could open the way for the Clans to successfully crush the Inner Sphere. What would be a passionate lark for any other two people became, for them, the overture to the downfall of civilization.

  You are being overly dramatic, Victor. Not everything leads to Gotterdammerung. He shook his head as he realized she was asking him to be strong, and yet, at the same time, she was willing to abide by his decision. His heart ached as his personal desire crashed headlong into his sense of responsibility.

  "You know there is nothing in this life I would rather do." Victor, what are you saying? No one need ever know! As part of him screamed at him to stop, the easing of Omi's shoulders told him he was right. "In a garden just like this, four years ago, we asked each other if we were falling in love. We talked of the problems of such a union. While our answers from that time may have changed—mine has, in any event—the problems have not."

  She reached out and caressed the right side of his face with the back of her right hand. "There is a legend of a place, a Utopia, in which one person is kept in squalid and torturous conditions so that all the others may live lives of peace and plenty. There are times I have wondered, since my answer to our question changed, whether the universe does not require such anguish to keep it viable."

  "And there are times when even the destruction of the universe would seem a worthy price for a moment of ecstasy." Victor reached up and gently pulled her head down toward his. He kissed her lightly on the lips, and then again. She returned his kiss a third time and then a fourth.

  Victor's left hand knotted into a fist and he pulled back. "Too close, too fast." He took in huge lungfulls of the night air through his nose, hoping the flower scents would supplant Omi's jasmine perfume. "You and your family trust me far more than you should."

  "The Combine owes you the life of the Dragon's heir. If they can trust you with that, they believe they can trust you with my honor." Omi turned away from him. "They are shrewd judges of men. They knew you would be stronger than me."

  "Do not rebuke yourself, Omiko." Victor shook his head. "Tonight it was my turn to be strong. I think you will yet have your chance before we leave this world."

  "And if I fail?"

  "Then the universe can find someone else to make miserable for one night."

  10

  Arc-Royal

  Federated Commonwealth

  16 April 3055

  As Omi moved off into the darkness, Phelan cleared his throat. "There are times that love seems to bring as much pain as it does pleasure."

  Victor whirled on him, his left foot spraying out a fan of crushed white stones as it came down. "How long have you been standing there?" he demanded. Shadows hid the Prince's face, but the anger in his words was loud and clear.

  "I only just came to find you. I heard nor saw anything that you would consider a confidence. Moreover, if I had, I would never use it against you."

  "Wouldn't you?" Victor folded his arms across his chest. "You're the one who said we of the Inner Sphere were afraid of what you would do to us when the Clans came at us again. Wouldn't you use privileged information against me if we were to face each other in a bidding war?"

  "I cannot figure out what you want me to answer, Victor." Phelan ticked the alternatives off on his fingers. "I could say that you are, of course, correct, but that would only confirm the image you cling to so tightly of Clanners being shallow, single-minded death machines. I could tell you that I would not use the information because you are my cousin and I value our blood ties, but you'd laugh yourself silly with that one. Or, as I already have, I could tell you I saw nothing and will have nothing to report if I am called upon to give a report."

  "You have superior officers, Phelan. You will give a report."

  "I am a Khan, Victor. I do what I want. If the ilKhan were to demand a report and I withheld information, no one would know." Phelan held his hands up. "Wait, wait, this is getting out of hand. I didn't come out here to argue with you."

  The Prince's head came up. "Then why did you come?"

  "To give you a warning."

  "It must be an important one if you managed to free yourself from my sister's web." The sardonic note in Victor's voice told Phelan that the Prince was beginning to question why he had let Omi walk off.

  "I am like you in that. Because she is a cousin, the incest taboo renders me somewhat immune to her charms. I also seem to remember her at your grandmother's funeral, when she dyed her hair to appear more adult."

  Victor's silhouette hunched over as he laughed. "Yes, she went for red hair, like Natasha Kerensky, but ended up with orange. She did look f
unny."

  "And she turned it to her advantage. She turns all disadvantages to advantages. She is very good." Phelan sat down on a concrete and tile bench, and the chill in the tile worked its way straight through his clothes. "I think, if she were a Wolf, I would have her shot."

  "If that is your warning, forget it." Victor combed his hair into place with the fingers of one hand. "The death of Romano Liao will be the last regicide in the Inner Sphere if I have anything to say about it."

  "Good. I agree." Phelan rested his hands on the bench and leaned back. "That was not my warning, however. I had been wondering why Captain Moran was going after you so hard back at the party. After you walked away, but before you left with the Coordinator's daughter, Michelle caught sight of you. Her face closed snap-shut."

  "Her brother died on Trellwan and I didn't. I was ordered off even though I didn't want to go. Galen slugged me and put me on a DropShip."

  "That could be the core of her resentment, all right. I think it runs deeper, though."

  Victor came over and sat down beside him. "What?"

  "I am probably mistaken, and you might not want to hear it."

  "Tell me."

  "Are you sure?" Victor nodded silently.

  Phelan took a deep breath, then started. "You and I have never really seen eye to eye. I've always resented authority figures who assumed they knew best because of their rank. You know I had a friend at the Nagelring who died when she got her commission because some moron Kommandant had her lance working by the book. Free Worlds League troops killed her, but that Kommandant escaped. I hope one of the Jade Falcons got him.

  "Tor Miraborg, on Gunzburg, is another case of someone who had authority because of what he had once been. When I met him, he was just a bitter old man intent on breaking me. In me he saw something to hate, and that was fine because I hated him right back. That hatred cost us both a lot—me my life as a member of the Inner Sphere and him his daughter."

  Phelan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You were like my nemesis. You had authority purely because of an accident of birth. At the Nagelring I stayed away from you because I didn't want courtiers kissing my butt just to get close to you. I took great pains to antagonize those who thought they could use me to get to you. There were times I hated you so much I could have wrung your little neck."

  Victor smiled. "The feelings were mutual, Phelan. I saw everything you did as a personal affront to me and my family and the memory of our kin. Part of me thought you were pushing things just to see how far I would go to protect you. I was also disgusted to see you wasting your potential, which was so much greater than what others had, precisely because of your position of birth. I was glad you got bounced when I was at NAMA for that year because I didn't want to have to put up with you begging me to let you remain at the Nagelring."

  "Figures you were conceited enough to think I'd come asking you for anything."

  Victor picked up a handful of the stones lining the garden walkways and started pitching one after the other out into the darkness. "You're projecting your own worst fears onto me. You would have hated to beg, so you figure I wanted you to. You don't understand something really basic here, Phelan."

  "And that is?"

  "And it is that I hate being accorded privileges and rights that I've not earned. I hate being bound by who I was born to be, not what I have made myself." One stone arced far into the darkness. "If I was just a soldier in the AFFC, I wouldn't be sitting here on a cold bench talking to you. I'd be somewhere very warm and cozy with someone I love."

  "Maybe so, but it wouldn't be her. " Phelan picked up his own little handful of stones and also began tossing them into the shadows. "And I do know you hate the honors and rigors of being the Prince, the heir. Because I know that—or knew it deep down back at the Nagelring—I didn't strangle you. I saw how you tested everyone to see if they were seeking an advantage. I guess I kept distant because I didn't want to see you look at me as though I was just another sycophant using my tie to you. Truth be told, that is."

  "Honesty. That's different." Victor clapped his hands together to get rid of the pale dust on them. "Outside of Omi, Galen, and Kai, I don't see much of that."

  Phelan smiled. "I have a little larger circle of critics, but that's because I work differently than you do. See, for you, the fact that both you and Omi are royalty sort of cancels out and you can be yourselves. I don't know what Kai or Galen have going for them, but I'll take it as given that each is special in his own way."

  "They are. When I first met Kai he was so down on himself that I felt compelled to help build him up. He wouldn't have dreamed of asking for a favor or any other thing because he was so sure he wasn't worthy of it." Victor moved his jaw back and forth and laughed. "Galen, well, I got saddled with him so I couldn't accidently kill the Twelfth Donegal Guards. I managed to do it anyway, but he stuck with me."

  "My people are like that, too. Each of them saw me and my worth when I was just a bondsman. Evantha . . ."

  "The Elemental?"

  "Right. She saved my life even though I had stunned her with a punch in front of the Clan Khan and some other Elementals. That punch mortified her, but she decided a warrior like me shouldn't be wasted. If not for her training, I'd have died long ago."

  "Phelan, how can you survive in a culture that is hyper-authoritarian when you hate authority?"

  Good question, that. Phelan shrugged, giving himself time to think. "I guess it is because Clan society so clearly distills conflict that I always have a very direct route toward resolving a problem. For example, if your mother thought a new tax should be raised throughout the Commonwealth, she would have to get the legislatures to agree to it. That means power chits would be exchanged and deals would be cut. Everything would have to balance and someone who disagreed would do his best to destroy that balance."

  "That balance is politics, cousin. You can't tell me the Clans are without politics."

  "Not at all, but the Clans have a swift court of final arbitration. If someone disagreed with something I had done, I would be challenged to settle the dispute in a Circle of Equals. There, fighting according to odds determined by the Khan or a vote by the Clan Council, we would have it out. Often even the hint of a good battle or two being put up to defend an issue will forestall a fight."

  The Prince laughed aloud. "So, if you don't like something, you get to hit someone!"

  Phelan shifted uncomfortably on the bench. "Crudely put, but accurate."

  "Had we a Circle of Equals at the Nagelring, you'd never have been tossed out." Victor scratched at the back of his neck. "Still, you must agree that politics is a necessary evil."

  "Stress on evil. "

  "Stress on necessary. As satisfying and cathartic as the Clan way might be, it doesn't work outside the military." Victor looked over at Phelan. "What does your scientist class do to settle disputes—draw a circle, then challenge one another to prove theorems?"

  The Clan Khan shook his head. "Their disputes can be solved through repeating an experiment. I agree that compromise is part of life, and our bidding process does that nicely, but being able to put your life on the line for what you believe is a good way to cut through a lot of hot air and posturing for position."

  "And what is decided in a Circle or Equals is final?"

  "Final. What goes into the Circle stays in the Circle." Phelan smiled. "It's almost as good as confession for relieving guilt."

  "Guilt I don't mind, it's the feeling that others see me as guilty that bothers me." Victor shook his head. "And yes, I know that sounds like the beginnings of clinical paranoia, but it isn't. I understand why Captain Moran doesn't like me and I accept it. But it's the others seeming to chime in with her so fast that has me a bit worried."

  We come full circle. "That is what I came to talk to you about, Victor. Because you're always judging people, evaluating them to determine what they want, you put up a wall between you and them. Sure, there are going to be people who want to ge
t to know you because, to them, you're a larger-than-life figure. You are a symbol to them, a bona fide hero. All the public images of you make you seem vibrant, alive, carefree, and very attractive."

  "It's all propaganda concocted by scandal-vids that want to make money."

  "Yeah, but the reason it is propaganda is because it works." Phelan sat up straight and gently slapped Victor's right shoulder with the back of his left hand. "Coming in-system I saw dozens of news reports about you. Arc-Royal was going nuts because you are here. You're the Inner Sphere's most eligible bachelor, quiaff? You're not half bad-looking and you're a war hero. You are a somebody. "

  "But I don't like it."

  "The hell you don't."

  "I don't."

  "Victor, you're afraid to like it. You are afraid you will begin to believe the courtiers and then you'll isolate yourself in a world of sycophants. You're afraid you'll end up as out of touch as Maximilian Liao and be overthrown. So you insulate yourself from that possibility, which means you insulate yourself from a lot of normal folks." Phelan chewed his lower lip for a second. "For all her show, do you think Katrina believes half the things she's told?"

  "No." Victor shook his head confidently. "She knows that the second she's out of earshot some of the women are going to start sniping and she knows that many of the men are complimentary in hopes of one night they can build memoirs around. She's no fool."

  "No, she isn't. She comes in and befriends everyone. She manages to be kind to them, making each one think they are important to her. If she has to refuse an invitation to dance or spend the night or visit an estate, it's always with deep regrets. If Katrina detested someone, he'd never know it, he'd never have a clue. You, you'd take him out and shoot him."

  "Yeah, or send him up against the Wolf Clan," the Prince chuckled. "And her name is Katherine."

  "There you go again."

  "What?"

  "What difference does it make if she wants to change her name to that of your grandmother? It's a nice gesture and one that was received quite well back there at the reception." Phelan glanced toward the building behind them. "In fact, it played much better in the trenches than your exit."