The High Ground

by Melinda Snodgrass

  The shuttle’s maneuvering jets fired again, the pressure pushing him deeper into the acceleration couch. He was feeling cocky that he hadn’t felt any nausea then he realized there had been enough thrust that he hadn’t really experienced true weightlessness yet. The big capital ships were outfitted with gravity units, but the devices were expensive and weren’t mounted on shuttles. Tracy didn’t mind. Weightlessness was part of space travel. It was what the pioneers Glenn and Armstrong had experienced five hundred years before at the dawn of the space age, and one hundred years before the discovery of the Fold technology and gravity units.

  Orbital mechanics kicked in, sending the shuttle racing around Ouranos. With a flash of disappointment Tracy realized he was on the wrong side of the shuttle to see the planet. It was something he’d dreamed about. He tried to tell himself that there would be plenty of opportunity when he began fighter craft training, but it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t have been the first time he went into space. The engines shut down, and Tracy’s stomach gave a slow roll then settled.

  There was a handhold conveniently placed on the curving wall above his head. Looking across the aisle he saw others dotted along the wall and ceiling. He couldn’t resist; he unhooked the restraints and floated upward out of the couch. He caught the handhold and bounced there. Some of the servants glanced at him curiously, but most kept reading the holographic projections off their tap-pads.

  Running the numbers in his head—the orbital speed, his weight—Tracy calculated how to kick off from the wall. His trajectory was fine, but he hadn’t anticipated how little thrust it took to set a body in motion. His forehead connected painfully with the rim of the porthole, and he grabbed for the handhold, missed, and was ricocheted back across the shuttle. Tracy braced for his back to slam against the far wall, but one of the Isanjo servants reached up with his tail, wrapped it around Tracy’s ankle and brought him to a bobbing stop.

  Humiliation was a bad taste on the back of his tongue. He prepared to issue a rebuke to the alien, but the servant ducked his head respectfully, and said, “May I assist you, sir, in viewing the planet?”

  The humble tone and the sir went a long way toward ameliorating Tracy’s bruised feelings. He gave a curt nod. “Yes. Do so.”

  The Isanjo unclipped, and using feet, hands and tail he quickly moved them to a port that offered a view of Ouranos. Tracy forgot to be angry. Forgot to be haughty. The world rolled beneath him. Only one of the two great continents was visible, a mix of green and brown. The globe wore its ice caps like silver yarmulkes. A gossamer belt of clouds banded the belly of the globe.

  “It’s beautiful,” he breathed.

  “Yes, but you should see Cuandru. The trees stretch up to heaven and it glows like an emerald,” the Isanjo lisped.

  “I expect I will someday.” Tracy paused then added impulsively, “Thank you.”

  There was a flicker of surprise in the alien’s huge eyes, then he ducked his head and murmured, “My pleasure, sir.” A braying klaxon rang out. “That is the signal for boost,” the Isanjo explained. “It would be best if you returned to your couch. Do you need assistance?”

  “May I try on my own? Then if I need help you can step in.”

  “Of course, sir. As you wish.”

  This time Tracy modulated the amount of thrust, and he easily floated to the other side of the shuttle and caught the handhold. Twisting around he caught the arm of the acceleration couch with his right hand, pulled himself down into the form-adjusting foam, and buckled the restraints. He was surprised at the soft ripple of applause from the servants.

  “Well done, sir. It’s unusual to see a human take so readily to zero gee. You appear to be a natural, sir,” his new friend said.

  Tracy felt a flush of pride heating his cheeks, then he wondered if he’d showed too much familiarity? Aliens would take advantage if a human wasn’t careful. Instead of the pleased smile he instead gave a curt nod as the engines fired again, sending the shuttle hurtling out to the LeGrange point in orbit where the cosmódromo was located.

  Forty-three minutes later the Apex cosmódromo began to grow in the front window. The space station was immense, but also squat and rather ungainly. Tracy had seen pictures and had been reading up on the cosmódromo since he’d decided to attend the academy, but the pictures couldn’t capture the wallowing size of the thing. There was a fat central hub that extended above and below the central ring, which looked like a belt on a fat man. Four large spokes attached the bulbous ring to the hub, and eight massive cables stretched from the central ring to the top and bottom of the hub. Two stubby legs jutted out from the base of the hub in a V shape. Each cylinder ended in two round pill-like structures that looked to be about four stories high.

  Extending from the top third of the hub were vast solar arrays comprised of interlinking hexagonal panels like glittering blue and gold wings. They gave the illusion that the cosmódromo was some kind of exotic spacefaring insect.

  Tracy knew that one of those circular structures at the base of the hub held the academy. The other held the cosmódromo’s plant facilities—water recycling, oxygen production, waste disposal, and the fields that grew fresh food to help provide oxygen and also recycle the waste as fertilizer. The fresh food grown there also landed on the tables of the restaurants that served travelers, the students and the support staff of the cosmódromo.

  The ring was basically an upscale spaceport for those making their way from distant worlds to the League capital or transferring onto ships to other worlds. In addition to restaurants and stores there were also hotels, casinos, and joy houses, which were technically illegal on a planet’s surface, but completely legal on a cosmódromo or at a military Estrella Avanzada or “star port” as the aliens termed them.

  They were again in the midst of traffic. Everything from wallowing, fat-bellied freighters to elegant racing pinnaces, luxury space liners and utilitarian shuttles. All were dwarfed by the cosmódromo. The ships converged on the Apex cosmódromo like silver bees returning from a day’s labor, and vanished into the hive of docking bays. Their shuttle broke away from the pack and headed toward the docking bays that lined the circumference of the module housing The High Ground.

  The klaxon sounded, three sharp bleats. Front thrusters fired and the shuttle slowly slipped into a bay and settled with a bump onto the steel floor.

  He had made it. Now he just had to really make it.

  5

  GIFTS AND GUILT

  They had been met on the shuttle by an estrella hombre who had introduced himself as Farley and told them he would guide them to the quadrangle for muster. He was an older man, in his forties with short-cropped grey hair and skin like cracked leather. He had taken the lead and Mercedes and her ladies trailed after him like desperate ducklings. The bay smelled of hot oil and graphite. The metal decking rang beneath their boot heels, the sound driving like a spike into Mercedes’ temples and making her headache and nausea worse. She had not enjoyed zero gee. Only Sumiko had managed the flight without vomiting.

  The sour taste still filled her mouth and burned at the back of her throat. Some wisps of hair had pulled loose from her braid and clung to her sweaty face. She desperately wanted to bathe and then sleep.

  They were walking down a curving corridor. At one end were double doors, and Mercedes felt a breeze tickle her face that smelled of growing things and water. She caught the briefest whiff of gardenia and was seized by desperate homesickness. They were led away from those scents of home, through another set of sliding doors and into a flagstoned courtyard with a viewing platform at one end and jet columns all around the sides. It had the look of a parade ground, and it was filled with a seething mass of young men in uniform. Their voices were a rising and falling cadence of bass and tenor sounds with an occasional outbreak of nervous high-pitched laughter. No words could be distinguished and even in the large space the rank smell of male sweat, aftershave and hair pomade was carried to Mercedes. She gagged, turned away and
started breathing through her mouth.

  That was when she saw him. It was the boy from the beach. His back was against a column as if trying to merge into the stone. His fair hair stood out against the dark surface, and his uniform was a pale blue unlike the midnight blue of the others. He turned his head and looked at her, and Mercedes held her breath, but not by the twitch of an eyelash or the smallest quiver of a muscle did he indicate that he knew her. She felt herself relax and was a bit surprised at his delicacy. Her view of Tracy was cut off by an expanse of chest, the material pulled tight across the pectoral muscles.

  “Highness,” the man said, and kissed her hand. The green eyes were dancing with enjoyment as he glanced at her from beneath his lashes.

  “Hello, Boho.” Mercedes wasn’t a small woman, but Beauregard Honorius Sinclair Cullen always made her feel so.

  “Let me be the first to welcome you.”

  “I rather think that duty and honor belongs to the commandant, not a mere cadet,” she said dryly, and was pleased when his cheeks turned a dull red. Boho’s conceit was legendary. As were his appetites. More than a few of Mercedes’ set had had to withdraw to discreet country estates for a number of months after Boho had managed to cajole them into his bed.

  Upperclassmen and older men who Mercedes assumed were professors began circulating through the group of new cadets. One of them stopped by her and Boho, and executed a perfect court bow.

  “We understand you don’t yet know proper military order, but if you would all stand at your best approximation of attention the commandant will be here soon. And, ladies, if I may escort you to the front.” He indicated the raised platform at one end of the room.

  There was a door in the center of the wall behind the dais. To either side were flags. On the right was the flag of the Solar League which was blue/green with tiny globes all around the edges, and a cross of gold in the center. On the left was the flag of the Orden de la Estrella. It showed the Milky Way galaxy with a spear thrusting through its center, and over the door was the seal of The High Ground, a spaceship lifting on a plume of fire. Its landing pad was an open book, and on either side were crossed rifles. The bare expanse of the platform was broken only by a single podium.

  Mercedes inclined her head. “If you will excuse us, Boho.” She didn’t need to say that, but her father had driven home the idea that courtesy was the privilege of kings and cost them little.

  As their guide led them through the milling crowd of males Mercedes looked for the boy from the beach. He was being shoved, none too gently, into place at the very back of the crowd by a young cadet whose stripes indicated he was a second-year student. Tracy’s head was thrown back, chin up, glaring at the upperclassman. Mercedes noticed another young man also dressed in the pale blue uniform who was scuttling into line while an upperclassman paced behind him. This boy’s head was down, shoulders hunched in submission.

  The shifting and coughing, the mumble of conversation and the scrape of booted feet on the flagstones slowly subsided. There were a few final coughs and then Vice Admiral Conde Sergei Arrington Vasquez y Markov emerged through the door in the wall at the back of the dais. He was an imposing figure, tall and very broad, though some of it was due to a thrusting belly. Light gleamed on his nearly hairless skull. From her position in the front Mercedes could easily see the scars that twisted across his left cheek and fat-blurred chin, white against his dark skin. He stepped up to the microphone.

  “Welcome to The High Ground.” He paused and swept them all with a ferocious blue-eyed gaze. “This institution has stood for three hundred and forty-one years. First on the surface of old Earth, then on Ouranos, and for the past seventy-three years aboard this orbital station. Ours is a proud tradition. We honor the past. We also train officers and heroes for the challenges of the future. We have always been willing to embrace change in an effort to defend the Solar League and the billions of humans who live under its protection. This year we welcome a new change. This year The High Ground and the Orden de la Estrella welcomes the first class of women to these hallowed halls. Highness.” He saluted Mercedes.

  Her hand rose in the accustomed royal gesture of acknowledgment. Then she tried to turn it into a salute, misjudged and knocked her hat off. Danica leaped to pick it up and returned it to Mercedes’ head. There was the briefest ripple of laughter. Mercedes choked back a blazing flare of anger.

  “God save the Emperor.”

  “God save the Emperor,” several hundred male voices roared out, and went on to conclude with the Orden de la Estrella motto, “May we touch the stars with glory.” Markov saluted, whirled and left.

  Another man took his place, as spare as the admiral had been broad. He had an elongated head and a pointed chin that made him seem like a living embodiment of an ancient painting called The Scream. “I am Captain Lord Manfred Zeng. I am in charge of operations at the academy. If you have issues come to my office. First a few rules. Reveille at five thirty a.m., breakfast followed by physical training. Classes begin promptly at nine hundred. Lunch at thirteen hundred. In the afternoon there will be more classes and drills. Dinner is at nineteen hundred. The evenings are yours. I suggest you use them to do homework. No one is permitted down the gravity-well until three months have passed. You are permitted in the civilian areas of the station on Saturdays. Services on Sunday are mandatory. No male cadets will be permitted within five hundred feet of the ladies’ quarters. Their corridor has been blocked off with new pressure doors. You will display courtesy and behavior becoming an officer at all times toward the ladies.”

  Or what? Mercedes wondered. They had been set apart, caged like exotic animals in need of protection, but there was no mention of the penalty to any male who might try to break those rules. Or would the penalty be exacted against the woman? Mercedes had had a tutor (safely gay) who had talked about the Madonna/Whore dichotomy throughout human history. He had been replaced shortly after with an even safer governess who had been dull and very respectable and never said anything controversial.

  Zeng was continuing, “Please leave through the planetside doors. Your personal servants will be there to escort you to your rooms where you will find your undress blues. Those will be worn during regular classes. You are permitted civilian attire only on Saturdays. Tonight there is a welcoming banquet at twenty hundred in the mess hall, dress uniform required as the Emperor will be attending. I suggest you all see to your toilettes. Dismissed!” He saluted, whirled and was gone through the same door that had swallowed the vice admiral.

  Mercedes and her ladies found themselves in a bubble, separated from their classmates by ten or fifteen feet. At least for now the men were reacting as if the women were toxic.

  “Well damn. It’s going to be hard to find a husband now,” Cipriana said. Danica once again seemed on the verge of tears.

  “We’re trained to impress them while dancing,” Sumiko said. “Surely we can manage to make an impression during hours of class or hand-to-hand combat training.”

  Mercedes stayed silent. In addition to don’t fail there had been another instruction her father had given her in the days before she left for the academy. Find a consort. Pick the man who will share the throne with you. To protect yourself against the conservatives he will have to be a military leader. I can give you the throne. He will help you keep it.

  Her eyes slid across the hundreds of young men streaming toward the exits. Which one of you will I marry?

  * * *

  Tracy was at the back of the crowd heading out. Courtesy and servility at all times. His father’s mantra. It seemed to have been deeply ingrained in him because when the older student had muscled him into line Tracy had only briefly considered shoving the man back. The rebellion had quickly died, and Tracy hated himself for falling back into the old pattern. He comforted himself with the thought that perhaps a fight on his first day wouldn’t have been prudent. The other scholarship student was also at the back of the pack. He looked scared. Tracy wondered if his face mirr
ored that fear. He hoped not.

  As he reached the double doors he heard his name. “Tracy!” He looked to his right and saw Hugo Devris. “Hey, it is you. This is such a flare. I was afraid I wouldn’t know a soul up here.”

  Frozen with shock Tracy stared into the face of the boy who had taken his place as the class valedictorian. “What are you doing here?” he blurted.

  Hugo had tightly curled dark gold hair that set an odd contrast to his dark skin, and wide set, rather round eyes that gave him the look of a surprised lemur. He shrugged a gesture that seemed to encompass both regret and resignation. “We didn’t realize when the old man got knighted it meant I had to come here. Every FFH son has to do at least a year here. It kind of sucks—” He broke off then added mournfully, “I had a fútbol scholarship to New Caladonia.” Hugo had led the soccer team at their high school, and he had been a strong defense player. “Hope I get to play up here.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Tracy heard himself answering automatically. Why was Hugo greeting him like a long-lost brother? They’d scarcely interacted at school. Tracy pushed ahead, eager to escape this unwelcome and forced comradeship.

  Just outside the parade ground Hajin and Isanjo servants waited. Tracy noticed that the aliens waiting for the ladies were all female which was going to make the term “batman” a tad difficult to adapt, Tracy thought. A Hajin female whose greying mane and the deep lines around her muzzle indicated her advanced age approached Mercedes and dropped into a low curtsey, an awkward movement given the way a Hajin’s legs were jointed. The alien servants quickly paired off with various freshmen cadets. An Isanjo approached Hugo and bowed.

  “If I may guide you to your quarters, young lord.”

  “Hey, looks like I need to go. We’ll catch up later, okay?”

  Tracy nodded, not trusting his voice. All the cadets and their servants flowed away down branching corridors, vanishing as quickly as rain on the desert uplands. Tracy found himself alone with no idea where he was supposed to go.