by Diann Read
Tristan studied him, and Weil’s advice suddenly slipped across the back of his mind. “What about Pulou?” he demanded abruptly. “If I have to go, Pulou does, too!”
The governor appeared annoyed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Tristan,” he said. “Your friend can’t read. He doesn’t even speak a human language. I doubt—”
“That doesn’t matter!” Tristan curled his hands tightly about the arms of his chair, digging his fingernails into its upholstery and gathering himself as if for a spring. Near his feet, Pulou had bristled his mane and bared his teeth. “You won’t take us away from each other!” Tristan said.
The governor’s jaw worked and his dark eyes fixed on Tristan’s. Tristan met that gaze and held it, letting feigned fury mask his mounting fear. Several silent seconds passed before the governor said, “Very well, he may go with you. But you will attend the Academy, young one.”
Tristan said nothing after that. He let his vision drop to the drink in his hand, red as blood in the goblet, and kept sliding his thumb and first finger up and down its stem.
He felt the other’s vision still fixed on him. Sensed a suppressed threat when the governor said, after a long minute, “Tristan.”
He looked up, glaring.
“Most young people in the Issel Sector can only dream of attending the Aeire City Academy,” Renier said. “It would be very poor manners not to thank someone who gives you such a generous gift.”
Tristan met his narrowed gaze. Held it once more, and let the silence stretch for as long as he dared before he said sullenly, “Thank you.”
* *
He lifted his attention from the Pocket Tutor only long enough to glower when Larielle entered the sitting room the next afternoon and sat down before the desk terminal. She winced when she met his eyes, and her dim smile melted into a sigh. “You’re still upset about going to the academy, aren’t you, Tris?”
“Yes.” He clipped the word.
“But you want to learn piloting, don’t you?” she said. “I saw how that demo flight affected you, and the way you admired that starcraft in the hangar.”
He ducked his head. “Yes. But I can’t do it right now.”
“You’re worried about your mother.”
“Yes.”
She sighed again. Sat silent for several moments before she said, “Remember how, the first time you tried to run away, I told you to be patient?”
He studied her, wondering at her. Said warily, “Yes.”
“It’s even more important that you be patient now,” she said.
“But there isn’t time!” He made a desperate gesture with both hands. “My mother is dying! I have to find my father!”
“Tristan.” Larielle placed a firm hand on his arm, cast a furtive glance back at the doorway, and leaned nearer him. “Listen to me for a minute. Your father knows where you are, and where your mother is.”
“How do you know that?” he demanded.
“Because my father made sure that he knows,” she said. “He—”
“Your father doesn’t like my father,” Tristan told her. “Why would he tell him?”
“Because he wants to use you and your mother to force your father into—a very dangerous situation,” Larielle said. “You’re the bargaining pieces in a complex political game, the —the bait in a massive trap.”
Tristan stared at her, shocked. He shook his head, and started to shove his chair back from the table, to rise. “I have to get away from here!”
Her hand tightened on his arm. “No!” she said.
The urgency in her voice, the suggestion of her fear, caught him up short. He let her pull him back down by her hold on his arm. “That’s the worst thing you could possibly do right now, Tris. This is a very precarious situation, for a lot more people than just you and your mother. It could cost the lives of thousands, maybe millions of people, on Sostis and Issel and who knows how many other worlds if—if something goes wrong.
“Your father knows it, too, and he doesn’t want that to happen. He’s going to have to be very careful to get you and your mother out and that’s going to take time. You’ve got to trust him. Can you do that?”
He didn’t know if he could or not; the whole thing seemed impossible. Whole worlds at risk over me and my mother? He sat stiff in his chair, every muscle tight, his mouth so dry he could barely ask, “How do you know all of that?” He rasped the question.
Larielle lowered her eyes. She let go of his arm to rub it with her fingers. “My father told me,” she said quietly. She didn’t look up. “He feels it’s important for me to know about these things, since he’s named me to be the next Governor of Issel. He’s trying to prepare me, he says.” She shook her head slightly, spilling her long hair about her shoulders. “I know this is wrong but I haven’t been able to change his mind about it.”
She looked into Tristan’s face, and he saw in her eyes the same fear he’d seen there on the morning he first met her. “I’m so sorry about all of this,” she whispered, and lay her hand over his. “Right now, Tris, the best way you can help your mother is to cooperate with my father. Don’t complicate things. Just go to the academy and be patient.”
Tristan managed a nod. He felt too shaken, too drained to do anything else.
Fourteen
In the darkened lecture hall, the instructor pointed out the components of an altimeter as a diagram of one rotated in the holotank behind his podium. Tristan slipped into the viditorium, motioning Pulou to stay with Rajak just inside the door as he made his way to an empty seat in the middle of a row near the back.
The cadet to Tristan’s left, a narrow-faced young man named Siggar, glanced up as he dropped into his seat. “Five demerits for coming late to formation, Sergey,” he said, holding up his hand with fingers spread as if to let Tristan count them.
Tristan took off his coat, flung it over the back of his chair, and shot him a silent glare.
“That’s about six tardies now, isn’t it?” Siggar persisted. “Man, you’re gonna spend your whole off-duty day on the drill field!”
“Shut up, Siggar,” said the cadet on his other side. “I can’t hear what McAdam’s saying.”
With Siggar distracted, Tristan switched on the desk attached to his chair. The altimeter diagram in the holotank appeared in its display. He studied the labeled parts.
“. . . The only time your altimeter will show the true altitude,” the instructor said, “is when the actual air temperature and pressure match those of the ‘standard atmosphere.’ Since that seldom happens, your altimeter reading will usually be off, and how much it’s off depends on how much the in-flight temperature and pressure differ from the standard. Anybody who doesn’t understand that?”
Tristan furrowed his brow, trying to make sense of it, but with Siggar watching his every move he didn’t dare tap the button on his desk to request a repeat or a more basic explanation.
The instructor scanned his audience and continued, “All right then, even though you have the right altimeter setting, changes in in-flight temperatures are going to cause differences in your indicated altitude. For example, colder temperatures are going to put your aircraft at a lower altitude than what your altimeter shows, and warmer temps will put it higher. Any questions?”
None must have appeared on his podium monitor because he said, “Good. Do the problems on your desks.”
Fifteen questions replaced the diagram on Tristan’s desk display. He read through them carefully to be sure he understood them.
4.1 The altimeter is essential only to the pilot of an atmosphere-bound craft flying in IFR conditions. (True/False)
4.2 Identify the components of the altimeter diagrammed below and explain its operation.
Tristan keyed in FALSE for the first question. He labeled the altimeter components and then paused. “I didn’t hear him explain how it works,” he said.
“Maybe you would’ve if you’d been here on
time,” Siggar said without looking up from his own desk.
Tristan ignored him. “Sajatte?” he asked of the cadet at his right.
“Nothing to it,” said Sajatte. “When your ‘craft climbs, the air leaves this outer case,” he tapped the diagram on his display, “and these discs spread apart. That makes your readout change. It works the opposite way when you descend.”
“What?” Tristan wrinkled his brow.
Sajatte’s expression showed mild exasperation, but he explained again anyway. “D’you get it now?”
“Yes,” Tristan said. “Thanks.” He looked over the next few questions:
4.3 According to Ministry of Aerospace Activity regulations, an atmospheric craft flying at or over 18,000 feet above planetary sea level (PSL) will have its altimeter set to _____________.
4.4 Determine density altitude when launching from a spaceport at 5279 feet PSL. Reported temperature is 86oF, altimeter setting is 29.8 in., and pressure altitude is 5400 feet. Note: Set your altimeter to 30 in.
Tristan keyed in 5400 and P/ALT, entered 30, then wavered between IndicatedoF and TrueoF before he chose IndicatedoF and hit COMP.
A cue line appeared at the bottom of the display:
ERROR. WORK PROBLEM AGAIN.
He sagged back in his chair and scowled at the screen for a moment before he reached out to jab the CLEAR key. The cue line vanished.
From his left came a muttered curse and the thump of a fist on the computer desk, followed by a rapid tapping of fingers on keypad.
Tristan didn’t glance over. Brow furrowed, he entered the givens again and closed his eyes to sort out the formulas in his mind. He punched the COMP key once more.
The cue line reappeared:
ERROR. WORK PROBLEM AGAIN.
Frustrated, he locked his teeth in a hiss and hit the CLEAR key again.
The instructor’s voice interrupted his third effort. “All right, if you’re not done with the questions yet, do them during study period. We’ve got more material to cover on altimeters before we move on to vertical speed indicators.”
Tristan lingered over the problem for some moments before he hit SAVE, watched his display go blank, and hit WRITE.
His monitor remained empty when the instructor cleared the holotank behind his podium and said, “We’ll wrap up instruments tomorrow. Your test will be the day after that, and then we’ll start on propulsion systems. Those of you who are having trouble with this stuff, I want to see you in the multimedia booths during study period. You know who you are.”
Siggar flicked a glance at Tristan’s empty desk and smirked. “So do we.”
Tristan shut off his desk and shoved it away. “You didn’t do very well on the last test yourself!”
“At least I passed it the first time.”
“By one point!” said Tristan.
Sajatte collected his coat and cap. “Get moving, Siggar, you waste of skin,” he said. “You’re holding up the rest of the row.”
Siggar slogged toward the aisle, and Tristan and Sajatte and the others followed.
Tristan didn’t so much as glance in Rajak’s direction, but he felt the servant’s presence like an unwanted shadow as he filed into the corridor. Glimpsing Pulou, however, observing everything through half-closed eyes, he let out a sigh of relief.
Stay in line, stay in step, no talking while in formation. The rhythm of boots rang in the hallway. Square your corners, keep your vision caged, show some discipline!
Tristan could almost hear the drill master’s voice in his mind. “This is so stupid!” he said under his breath.
After a month and a half it seemed even more stupid than it had at the outset. Tristan’s impatience had heightened and his frustration had mounted. He knotted his hands into fists at his trouser seams until his blunt fingernails bit into the heels of his hands.
The line turned a corner where the corridors intersected, and entered another viditorium’s double doors. The cadets marched down its steep aisle and filled its encircling rows of seats, like a small stadium, one after another.
“There’s only one good thing about Isselan history,” Siggar said as he slouched way down in his chair. “I can catch up on my sleep.”
“This is better than having to read it,” Tristan replied.
“Aw, this Great War stuff isn’t so bad,” said Sajatte. “My old man’s war stories finally mean something.” He watched Siggar settle his head back against the seat and turned to Tristan. “Did your old man fight in the War?"
Tristan hesitated. “Yes.”
“Does he talk about it all the time, too?”
“No,” Tristan said. “My mother told me.”
In the darkness, the other’s face showed as only an oval with shadows for eyes, but Tristan saw the questions in them. “I was about a year and a half old the last time we saw him,” he said.
“Oh,” Sajatte said. “Sorry.”
Tristan only shrugged.
A globe-shaped holotank filled the stage of this viditorium, a holotank so large its life-size projections gave one the impression of being on location in history instead of viewing it as holocordings compiled from decades of newsnet transmissions. Blocky words appeared in the tank, three-dimensional white against a starfield.
A UNIFIED BLOW: DOMINION STATION
The words faded. The projection took the cadets aboard a shuttle making final approach to a battle station orbiting a green world called Yan. As if through tinted viewpanes, they surveyed communications towers, antispacecraft emplacements, docking arms for resupply and warships. Monotone narration cited statistics on manning, on firepower, on basing for strategic operations.
Holography provided passes into briefing rooms and command councils conducted by participants long since dead or deposed, documenting dramas of decision as the Dominion’s leadership sought to bring a collection of balking worlds under its galactic government. When those worlds joined as allies, Dominion war efforts had begun to meet a coordinated resistance. The Unified Worlds forces used unconventional tactics and struck from unpredictable quarters, but their direction came from the ruling house of Sostis. The resistance had to be killed in its cradle.
Yan’s station served as both staging area and command post. Dominion destroyers and troop ships arrived in the system one after another and prepared to move against Sostis.
But on the eve of their departure, the Unified Worlds attacked. A spacecraft carrier group had erupted from lightskip into Yan’s space, disgorging squadrons of one-man attack craft that penetrated the station’s defenses. Despite heavy losses from low altitude surface guns, the Unified fighters decimated the Dominion fleet in its berths with men and munitions aboard. The station itself lost eighty percent of its solar power production, all of its communications, and a third of its area to depressurization.
Three-dimensional graphics diagrammed inadequacies in the defenses and demonstrated how the enemy ships had reached their targets, undetected until too late.
As the resistance gained momentum, the Dominion began to gather dossiers on its most important enemies: warriors, political figures, spies. Pilfered portraits appeared in the holotank, accompanying biographies pieced together by war correspondents and historians.
Tristan gave it little attention until the narrator said, “. . . Lujan Sergey, fighter pilot from Topawa. Credited with twenty-six kills in space combat throughout the war, his career is believed to have begun with the attack on Dominion Station. He was appointed Chief Commander of the Unified Worlds’ Spherzah assassins in thirty-three-oh-four and still holds that position.”
Tristan sat forward in his seat to study the young man in the flightsuit, his blue eyes squinting and hair disheveled in a wind, a young man whose image he’d seen before only in a holodisc.
Siggar leaned over and poked him with an elbow. “You any relation to that Topowak, Sergey? He looks enough like you to be your father!”
Tristan met his look. Held it
for a long moment. “What if he is?”
“You must be a real disappointment,” Siggar said. “He was a supposed to be a really hot pilot and you can’t even tell an altimeter from an attitude indicator! That’s probably why he sent you here instead of the Sostis Aerospace Institute, isn’t it?”
Tristan let his hand curl. “I’ll beat you out for Alpha Flight, Siggar!”
“Aw, you couldn’t beat me out for anything but the cut list!”
“Cadets Siggar and Sergey!”
They both twisted around.
An instructor stood at the end of the row, barely discernible in the amphitheater’s darkness. He said, “Write up three, both of you, for talking in formation.”
Siggar waited until the officer moved out of earshot to mutter, “Thanks a lot, Sergey. That’s eighteen demerits this week!”
* *
When his eyes would no longer focus on the display’s configurations and the ERROR line appeared for the fifth time on problem 6.3, Tristan touched CLOSE to disconnect from his online text subscription and fumbled for the ‘off’ switch. Without the monitor’s glow, the only light in the sitting room came from the projected fire on the grate. Waiting for his eyes to adjust, Tristan rubbed at his temples, trying to ease their throbbing.
The governor and b’Anar Id Pa’an had come in after dinner, the bearhounds wagging thick tails against their legs and whuffing at them for tidbits. When one of the dogs followed the governor over to the table where Tristan sat working, Pulou retreated into a chair, pulling his legs up away from the dog’s nosiness and baring his teeth at it.
“Well, Tristan,” the governor said, “what’s so important that you’ll miss dinner for it?”
“Aerospace Dynamics, sir,” Tristan said. “Exams are next week and if I fail, I’ll be cut from the program.”
The governor arched an eyebrow. “Suddenly so urgent, and you didn’t even want to enter the Academy.” He smiled. “There’s no need to be so concerned. I rather doubt you’ll fail.”