The High Ground

by Melinda Snodgrass

  Tracy was in the back sewing a cuff on a jacket when he heard the bell chime. He and Bajit were both working shirtless in the sweltering workshop. They could only afford to run the air conditioning in the front of the shop and the fitting rooms. The workshop and the small apartment upstairs were torturous in the summer months. The Hajin’s sweat had a sharp, almost medicinal smell. It mingled with the rank smell of Tracy’s sweat in a really unpleasant way. He hoped the stink wasn’t working its way into the bolts of cloth that lined the walls.

  Tracy pulled on a shirt, the material clinging uncomfortably to his damp skin. Walking to the back door dislodged a bead of sweat that ran into his left eye, stinging as it landed. He opened the door to find a deliveryman holding a long white box and a tap-pad.

  “Thracius Belmanor?”

  “Yeah.” The tap-pad was shoved out for his signature. “What is it?” he asked as he scrawled his name.

  The man shrugged. “It’s from the Admiralty.”

  Tracy shoved the box back at him. “I don’t want it.”

  “Too bad, you signed for it.” The man returned to his flitter.

  The dumpster across the alley beckoned, but he was curious now. Tracy carried it back into the shop. His father came into the workshop, muttering to himself as he stared at his tap-pad.

  “Outrageous. The cost of spider silk. Everything’s gotten so expensive. And what the bank is charging for my loan—What’s that?”

  Tracy held out the box. Alexander carried it over to a table, sliced through the static tape and lifted away the lid. There was a cadet’s uniform inside. Tracy watched his father’s eyes slide to the bolts of the shop’s stock of spider silk, their color a deep midnight blue. The uniform in the box was pale blue, constructed from cheap synthetic material, and the low-grade silver piping was beginning to flake, leaving metallic dandruff across the cloth. There was a letter lying on the uniform.

  Tracy lifted it out, unfolded the paper, scanned it. After the usual salutations he read:

  While it is normally required that all recruits at The High Ground possess a dress uniform as well as an undress uniform an exception has been made for our scholarship students. They may wear this undress blue at all times.

  He thrust the letter at his father and turned away. He tried to return to his work, but his hands were shaking too hard to set a stitch.

  “I suppose the deserving poor are only so deserving.” Tracy jammed the needle through the material. “And like this wouldn’t have set me apart from all the others.” He then hastened to add, “If I were going. Which I’m not.”

  “Though your tailoring relation in my set could never pass, though you occupy a station in the lower middle class,” Alexander sang, altering the H.M.S. Pinafore lyrics somewhat. He had a pleasant baritone voice, and had bequeathed his singing ability to his son. It was as close as Tracy had ever heard his father come to criticism of the FFH and it both surprised and comforted him.

  Alexander once again looked at the bolts of fabulously expensive spider silk that would become the uniforms for Space Command officers. His father sighed, shook out the cheap uniform and hung it on a rack.

  “Should we send it back?” Tracy asked.

  “Best we not draw attention to ourselves,” his father answered.

  Tracy checked the watch set in his sleeve. “Shall I go get us lunch?”

  His father nodded. As Tracy left he saw his father walk over to Bajit, lay his hand on a bolt of spider silk, bend in close and say something.

  * * *

  That night Tracy ate alone for his father had gone to deliver new evening wear to Lord Palani. It was a horribly hot July night, and he found the leftover paella nauseating. Grabbing his tap-pad he went out in search of a breeze, and rode the loop rail down toward the one public beach near the capital city.

  The beach was more rock than sand, and dangerous rip tides could sweep the unwary far out to sea, but it was the one place where “cottages” of the wealthy didn’t commandeer the coastline. The scent of brine and rotting seaweed filled his nose as Tracy scrambled down a hillside toward the seawall. Coarse grass clung to his pants legs, and the sand shifted and squeaked beneath the soles of his sandals.

  He settled onto the wall, feeling the rough surface of the rocks bite through the fabric of his trousers. There was a breeze off the ocean. Tracy threw back his head, allowing the sighing wind to cool his cheeks and carry to him the boom and hiss of the waves hitting the shore. After a few moments he opened his eyes. The nebula blazed across the sky, a riot of twisting colors with stars inset like diamonds in the fabric of a mad painter’s dream. The smallest moon—Lynx—was already up. Soon the other two, Panacea and Thalia, would join her.

  With a sigh Tracy pulled his gaze from the display overhead, and pulled out his tap-pad. He had two new messages and they were from SolTech and Caladonia. A hard knot settled into his gut, and Tracy’s breath shortened. He clasped his hands together, both desperate and terrified to open the messages. With shaking hands he opened them both in quick succession, putting them up side by side on the screen.

  For a moment his heart tried to fly to meet the glowing nebula. Both universities had accepted him! Then he hit the next to last paragraph in each missive.

  We are, however, unable to offer you a scholarship at this time as our records indicate that you have been offered a full scholarship to The High Ground, and we would prefer to offer our funds to a student who has not already qualified for aid at another institution of higher learning.

  The final paragraphs detailed registration, the dates classes began, and links to housing requests. None of it mattered. There was no way his father could afford to send him to either premier institution. For a moment he allowed himself to hope that New Oxford would still offer him a scholarship, but he knew it was a vain hope. He had been offered a full ride to The High Ground, and the other colleges knew it. He should take the Fortune Five Hundred’s largesse and be appropriately grateful.

  His throat ached. Tracy stared stonily at the frothing waves and examined possible plans for his life. He wasn’t very successful. All he could see was continuing to work with his father, ultimately inheriting the tailor shop, becoming as blind and stoop-shouldered as Alexander, and then dying.

  * * *

  A ghost in the palace, that’s what I’ve become. Mercedes walked the halls.

  That hadn’t stopped her being saddled with a new title. A public announcement by the Office of Peerage declared she was now to be known as the Infanta, signifying she was the heir to the throne. Even thinking about it set her stomach roiling.

  Despite her elevated title her attendants had been withdrawn and reassigned among her sisters and stepsisters. Servants still cleaned her rooms and brought her meals, but she was barred from all other public and social events. Her stepmother had carried her father’s directive, and had seemed to enjoy delivering the news that Mercedes was no longer welcome at any state or family events.

  So many women with nothing to do. We are like caged and bored animals so we tear at each other, Mercedes thought as she slipped out a door and into a side garden.

  Her dress was sticking to her back in the heat of this July night. Through the windows she could hear the roar of conversation and tink of silverware on china as the state dinner rolled on. They were entertaining the governor of Kronos tonight. Mercedes should have been sitting at her father’s right with Constanza on his left. Instead she sweltered in the garden.

  Is it cooler on the coast? she wondered. Usually the palace’s position on the highest of Hissilek’s hills caught a breeze, but not this night. She was struck by a mad thought. She would check out a flitter and go down to the beach.

  Usually such an outing required days of planning. Traffic had to be blocked, security details arranged, but she was the lost daughter. The one nobody cared about because she had defied the Emperor. She could probably dispense with even a single guard. Excitement and terror warred in her breast. The thrill and sense of
an adventure won out over the fear. She hurried off toward the garages.

  * * *

  The hum of a flitter coasting in for a landing pulled Tracy’s attention skyward. The vehicle was a shadow ringed by lights against the glow of the nebula. Tracy sat on the seawall and watched as it came in for a somewhat inexpert and wobbling landing on the sand down near the water. Whoever was piloting it also wasn’t very familiar with the tides. All three moons were now up and soon that inviting beach would be underwater. The door irised open and a girl stepped out. Tracy waited, but she was unaccompanied. A thrill of excitement was followed almost instantly by the prick of worry.

  Unchaperoned young woman on a beach with an unchaperoned young man, and judging from the make and model of the flitter and the dress she wore the girl was wealthy. She stood at the edge of the water, the sluggish breeze tugging loose tendrils of dark brown hair from the mane that hung down her back. She suddenly danced back as a chuckling, white-frothed wave lapped at her feet. Tracy wished she would turn around so he could see her face. He was sure she was pretty.

  An internal debate began. Tracy knew he should leave, but if he didn’t warn the girl soon she and her expensive ride would be waterlogged, and the flitter might not lift off if the jets got flooded. But approaching an upper class and unchaperoned woman could bring down trouble on his head.

  Tracy also had little experience talking with girls. His entire world was male dominated aside from the alien females he met. After his mother’s death his father had given up their female clients and took to catering only to gentlemen. He said he had no ability with the frills and furbelows that graced a lady’s gown. There was no way his father was going to remarry so they would have had to hire a seamstress, which would have been expensive, and human women who worked were viewed with distrust by the FFH. In their world there was no reason for a wife or daughter to ever have to work, and they assumed the same held true for the working class as well.

  Every school in the Solar League, both private and public, was gender segregated. The only opportunity Tracy had to speak to this mysterious and intriguing sex was at carefully chaperoned dances and picnics. And since Tracy didn’t dance well and hated to look a fool, he usually leaned against a wall, glowered at the couples twirling past and tried to pretend he was being aloof and mysterious. In more honest moments he suspected that he only ended up looking surly, shy and awkward.

  She turned. Her skin was café au lait, and the rather straight eyebrows accentuated the almond shape of her eyes. Her nose was too long and very patrician, and her jaw a bit too square. She didn’t fit the current standards for beauty. Tracy thought she was gorgeous, and his chest was suddenly too tight to hold air. He jumped down off the seawall, forced himself to breathe, and headed down toward the strip of rapidly disappearing sand.

  “Hoy,” he called. She stared at him with alarm. “The tide’s coming in. You need to move before the flitter gets swamped.”

  * * *

  It was a boy with wind-tousled pale hair and equally pale skin, gaunt cheeks and an adolescent’s gawky boniness. Not a threat. He was trying to help her. The fear remained, but it was no longer directed at him. It was focused on the rising waters. Mercedes hit the key bracelet and the flitter doors irised open. The water was coming up fast. The boy ran to her, swept her up in his arms and sat her in the cockpit just before the water reached her feet.

  At first she was shocked, then offended. “How dare you!”

  “Fine. I should have just let you get wet since you’re an idiot!”

  They glared at each other. The boy stood in rising water now up to his knees. Offense faded to gratitude. She wouldn’t have wanted to try and explain a pair of ruined shoes.

  She snapped at the boy, “Well, come on! Get in!” He gaped at her. “Or do you want to be an idiot and get even wetter?”

  He gave a nod, and climbed into the flitter. She settled the headband on her forehead, and her fingers flew across the virtual screen that shimmered to life in front of her. The engine coughed rather than hummed, but they managed to lift off and bounced more than flew over the seawall to land on the coarse beach grasses. She opened both doors.

  “Thank you,” they both said at once. Then fell into an awkward silence. She waited for an introduction that didn’t come, and Mercedes decided she had never met anyone as socially inept as this boy.

  “You are?” she finally asked, exasperated with his silence and darting gaze that would never quite look at her.

  “Tracy. Belmanor,” he added hurriedly.

  “Tracy?” she repeated. The pale skin went blotchy red as he flushed.

  “It’s really Thracius, but who wants to get saddled with that? I wanted people to call me Trace, but it never—” He broke off, pressing his lips tightly together. Clearly an unpleasant memory had surfaced. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re not interested in any of this.”

  “Do you live near here?” she asked. He gave her an incredulous look, and that was when she was finally able to see his eyes. They were far and away his best feature: pale grey surrounded by a dark ring around the iris and set beneath arching brows.

  “No, I live in Pony Town.”

  Now she felt embarrassed and awkward. She should have seen from his clothing and demeanor that he didn’t live in any of the “cottages” that dotted the coast. He could have been a servant in one of the households but it was clear he was an intitulado—untitled.

  “I wanted to get away from the heat,” he explained.

  That shared experience delighted her in a way she couldn’t explain. “Me too.”

  “It’s always cooler at the beach,” he continued. It was inane, but this conversation with one of the lower classes and a male while unsupervised was proving to be very exhilarating. “Are you going to get in trouble?” he asked. “I mean, should you be here? Alone?”

  “Nobody cares what I do any more.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve refused to do something my father wants,” Mercedes said.

  “Me too,” Tracy said and he smiled. It transformed his face. He still wasn’t handsome, but the large grey eyes were suddenly bright and expressive as well as beautiful. “He pretends like he’s supporting my decision, but…” He fell silent for a moment. “After what I learned tonight he’s going to start pushing me.” Mercedes stayed quiet. Caution and discretion had been trained into her from the cradle. The boy went on. “I worked hard, and I’m really smart.” He shot her a contrite glance. “Sorry, that sounded really conceited, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it’s all right,” Mercedes said.

  “Anyway I thought I would have options. The League needs smart, hard-working people. I’m very good at math so I thought maybe I could become an auditor or work in purchasing or a big accounting firm.”

  They sounded like dreadful jobs to Mercedes. She schooled her features so none of that would show. “So, what’s happened?”

  “I’ve had a lot of doors slammed in my face, leaving me with just one option. I feel like a cow going down the chute at a slaughterhouse.” Tracy seemed to realize he had been monopolizing the conversation. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You?”

  “I think I’m the opposite of you. Why are options such a wonderful thing? I know what I’ve been trained for. I thought I knew what my life would be. Now I’ve been told I can’t have that life and I have to do this other thing.”

  “Sounds like you don’t actually have choices either,” Tracy said.

  She stared at him, then said slowly, “I hadn’t thought about it quite that way. I don’t have to decide anything.” The knot in her chest began to relax. “I just have to do what I’m told.”

  “And doing what you’re told is a good thing?”

  “Yes.” She impulsively held out her hand. “Thank you.”

  He took it, his grip loose and awkward. “Uh… you’re welcome?”

  “I must go now.”

  “Okay.” He climbed out of the flitter.

  “Thank
you for saving me.”

  He grinned up at her. “Oh, you wouldn’t have drowned. Just gotten really wet and had to get the flitter towed out.”

  “Well, adios, Tracy.”

  “Goodbye.” The doors began to close. “Hey, what’s your name?”

  “Mercedes.”

  She took off. His head was canted back watching her climb into the nebula-bright sky. He dwindled to a small figure and then was gone.

  When she reached the palace the state dinner had ended. She caught the majordomo overseeing the cataloging of the silver as it was returned to its drawers.

  “My father?”

  “The Emperor is in his study.”

  She moved through the halls, busy even at this time of night. She found herself studying the faces of the passing servants. None of them would meet her gaze. Rather like Tracy at the beginning. Then he had really started talking to her. She wondered if she could do the same with all these people? Probably not. Setting was everything.

  The door to the study was closed. Mercedes gave a gentle rap on the ebon wood panel.

  “Yes? What?” came her father’s voice.

  “Daddy, it’s me.”

  A moment later the door opened. He looked down at her and he seemed tired and rather sad.

  “Daddy, I’m sorry. I’ll do what you want. I’ll go to The High Ground.”

  He folded her in his arms and the world righted itself. She was still scared, but facing those fears could wait for another day.

  * * *

  When Tracy got home his dad still hadn’t returned. Tracy sent the university letters to the flimsy press and laid the physical copies on his father’s desk among the litter of invoices and bills. He climbed slowly up the stairs to the personal quarters and tossed his sandals into the shower to wash away the sand and salt.

  He then crawled into bed, folded his arms behind his head, stared at the ceiling fan beating slowly against the overheated air like a tired boxer flailing at an opponent. Mercedes. From her accent and the pricy flitter it was clear she was a member of the FFH. He wondered if he could find out which family.