by Steve Perry
“The secret might be lost, but the document was reclaimed. I think that was the end of it, for our family.
I never knew Cierto’s connection to all this until his man showed up here. The old stories were like fairy tales; there weren’t names connected to them.”
“Shit. That was why you were on Mtu,” Sleel said. It was not a question.
“Yes. To settle a very old score.”
Sleel shook his head. “From three hundred years past? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It has to do with honor,” she said. “Surely you know about righting wrongs. Would the passage of time make any difference. to you about what Cierto did to you and Jersey Reason?”
“Not to me, no. I wouldn’t expect my four-times-great-grandson to lose any sleep over it.”
She shrugged. “Karma. One can wait for the cosmos to balance things, or one can help it along, but balance has to happen eventually.”
“You sound like Emile. Cosmic justice.”
“Mayli believed that, too. Now, my question. Where did you learn to use a sword?”
It was Sleel’s turn to shrug. “Outside of the one I took from the guy who attacked us on Earth, I’ve never owned one. I can’t remember even touching one before that. Knives and laser cutters, sure, but swords as such, no. I don’t know dick about the things.”
A natural swordmaster, she thought. What she had been waiting for these last few years.
“You must learn,” she said.
“What?”
“About the sword.”
“My hands are enough, thank you. I’m not likely to be shooting anybody else since I parked my spetsdods, but I can defend myself with the Ninety-seven Steps if need be-”
“This is not about defense, Sleel, it is about art and spirit. Tell me, how did it feel when you were holding the sword?”
“Feel? What do you mean?”
“Was it clumsy? Awkward?”
“Nah. It felt pretty comfortable, you get right down to it. Like I’d done it all my life.”
She smiled again, bigger. “It took me three years of daily practice to get to the place where a sword felt ‘pretty comfortable’ in my hands. You have to train with me, Sleel. You are my student.”
“Shit. You’ve got dozens of students-”
“No, you don’t understand. They are just ordinary students. You are my perfect student. Every instructor searches until she finds him or her. They are like soulmates; you only get one. There might be others who are faster or more adept or stronger or whatever, but only a single person who is it.”
“And you think that’s me?” Sleel’s tone was halfway between amused and scornful.
“I know it. Not here”-she touched her head-“but here.” She touched her heart with two fingers.
“You’ve lost your track, fem. Busted a repellor.”
“No. It sounds mystical but it isn’t. I just know.”
Sleel stared at her.
He didn’t want any more entanglements in his life. Why the hell should he start playing with swords, just because Kee over there had gone geboo on him?
Then again, what else was he going to do with his life? It wasn’t as though he had a lot of prospects. As a writer, he had said all he wanted to say. As a matador, he had failed the most important of exams. He hadn’t been the son his parents wanted and he certainly didn’t want to compound that by fathering children of his own. So, where was he going to go and what was he going to do when he got there? If it didn’t matter, if one spot was as good as another, then why not here? If it made Kee Wu happy to show him how to waggle a bar of sharp steel, then why not? Might as well be of some use to somebody, right?
He looked at her again, at her knowing smile. It bothered him to be the focus of someone’s hopes and attention. Then again, the alternatives were pretty much null, weren’t they?
“Okay,” he said. “Why not? I’ll stick around and learn fancy carving.”
She laughed and actually clapped her hands.
“I knew it!” she said.
“Yeah? What if I’d said space it? What if I had just turned and walked out?”
“But you didn’t.”
“But what if I had?”
“You wouldn’t have. A student needs a teacher. That’s part of the equation.”
“Ah, Christo, you mystical types always have answers for everything, don’t you?”
“More or less. Maybe,” she said, “maybe I can help you find some answers, too, Sleel.”
Chapter EIGHTEEN
FROM HIS TRAINING in sumito, the countless hours practicing the complex patterns of those dances, Sleel knew how to move efficiently. And, since neither he nor Kee were interested in working on less efficient ways of moving such as classical kendo, she didn’t bother to try to teach that to him. He seemed to know instinctively how to hold a sword. Kee’s intent, she said, was to marry Sleel’s knowledge of motion to the steel.
They stood in the dojo, Sleel drenched in his own sweat, the heavy cotton workout jacket and pants soaked through in places. The warm-ups were done, his muscles were loose and a little sore from swinging the weapon this way and that. Kee stood next to him.
“It’s simple,” she said. “Where you would punch or chop or kick, we’ll substitute the sword.”
Simple to say. Not so easy to do. Even though the practice sword only weighed maybe a kilo and a half, having the weapon in his hand threw his timing off. Unlike Kee’s sword, the one Sleel now held was a mirror-bright stainless steel, but it was, like hers, sharp enough to shave with from its tip to the hilt. A mistake would mean a deep cut.
Kee told him a story about accidents: “When I was first training, I kept my sword under my bed. It was a replica of a fifteenth-century weapon, there was no catch, the sword was kept in the sheath by friction, a metal plug around the blade at the tsuba fitted snugly into the mouth of the scabbard. One morning when I was in a hurry, I reached under the bed and grabbed the end of the sheath instead of the sword. I jerked it out. The sheath slipped off the sword and the sharp edge fell about a third of a meter onto the top of my foot. I was wearing thick socks. The blade was sharp enough to cut through and into my flesh. I was lucky it missed the tendons, but it still took the medic nine staples to close the wound, plus orthostat glue to seal the cut bone.”
That hadn’t made Sleel feel any more confident. It was not so much the idea of being injured-he had been cut enough over his years-but the thought of looking bad. What’s the matter, Sleel, can’t hold a knife without slicing yourself with it? Always his curse, that worry.
He shuffled again through the early steps of the sumito dance, waving the shiny blade. When he finished, he shook his head. Despite his ability to feel comfortable just holding the sword, that didn’t give him automatic mastery of every movement. And the image of Jersey Reason’s head falling had often come back to haunt him in dreams. It was a gruesome way to die, being chopped into pieces, having your head cleaved from your body. He said as much to Kee.
“Like your deaths neat and clean, do you?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you shoot a man across a field or even a room, you don’t get the full impact of what you’ve done.
Facing an opponent one-on-one, hand-to-hand or with a sword, you have to accept your personal responsibility. Killing somebody ought to be messy. You should be sprayed with his blood, you should be able to hear him scream, catch the death rattle, smell the feces and urine as the bowels and bladder let go. You should have to dispose of the body. So you know exactly what it was you did.”
“Gory, aren’t you?”
She sighed. “My sister died in a war. She probably never saw the man who killed her. If you are going to deal in death, you should be willing to see the truth of it, not some glorious lie. If I have a battle with another swordplayer, it is between the two of us, our business, our truth. But if you run a planet and you get pissed off at somebody the next orbit over, you each might send a million soldiers to
recycling plants. A smart rocket can come from a thousand klicks away to kill you; it doesn’t care and it won’t be in the least upset that it has blasted you to atomic debris. That’s the real horror of modem war, that it is impersonal. Being cut with a sword hurts, and if you are close enough to do it, you can’t miss the other’s pain.”
“That’s great,” Sleel said. “A pacifistic swordfighter.”
“Not a pacifist, no.” A beat. “You’ve killed people,” she said. “Up close. With your hands.”
“Yes. A few.”
“Do you remember them?”
Sleel sighed. “Yes.”
“Then you understand what I’m talking about. Don’t try to play stupid, Sleel. That wall won’t hold anymore; I’ve seen the gate. I can get through. I know better.”
Sleel turned away from her, tightening his grip on the sword’s handle. Would that he could cut that knowledge down. His life had been simple when those around him thought he was the image he worked to project. There had been times, such as when he’d been in prison, when he could almost believe it himself. It was a safe game to play; people didn’t expect much from you. Good old Sleel, they would say. Predictable as a rock, never changing, single-minded. Thinks he’s the toughest guy in the galaxy, the epitome of maleness, testosterone’s own fair-haired boy. Cross me and get stomped. It had been a good place to hide.
“Let’s repeat the last sequence,” she said.
The information that came to Cierto was momentarily disturbing. The message arrived as he was teaching one of the new students, Rita, the pleasures of anal sex. She was not an eager learner, but he was patient.
His personal com chimed where it lay on the floor next to the bed. Only a few people had his private code, and therefore any calls to it were likely to be important.
Cierto fell full-length upon his partner. She groaned as his weight flattened her, the sound muffled as her face was pressed into the cushions by his chest when he reached over her for the com. He did not withdraw from her as he answered the call.
“Yes?”
“Patron, you asked to be informed of any changes.”
It was Alberto, one of his spies on Koji.
“Si. What has changed?”
“The woman is teaching the matador.”
“Teaching him?”
“The sword. She has given her classes over to her senior students and now works exclusively with the one called Sleel. “
For a moment, Cierto felt a stab of worry, a fluttery roil in his belly. Then Rita squirmed beneath him.
Her movement was a not-unpleasant sensation; still, control was important. Cierto thrust hard. Rita squeaked and lay still. He grinned. “Esta no importa,” he said to his spy. “The matador will die when our plan proceeds. Maintain your vigil.”
He discommed and dropped the unit back onto the thick carpet. He suddenly imagined that it was Kildee Wu pinned beneath him and the thought flashed and fired in him a hotter desire, a raging lust. The woman’s screams were muted by the cushions, but Cierto took pleasure in the sounds as he drove himself to his climax. Yes! Soon it will be Kildee Wu!
Sleel was exhausted. It was as much the newness of the exercises as anything, but after three hours of working out, he was tired and sore. He allowed the hot water thrumming from the shower to pound at him on full flow. In the shower stall next to him, Kee also washed away the sweat of their efforts.
After he was clean and somewhat refreshed, Sleel tapped the blower control. The jets of warm air wrapped themselves around him, drying the moisture. A thick towel finished the process.
He glanced at Kee as she dried herself. Very attractive. Sleel felt the pull, though he resisted it. Thinking with his dick had gotten him into enough trouble over the years, and he found himself reluctant to spoil this relationship, such that it was, by trying to become Kee’s lover. Didn’t mean he couldn’t look and appreciate. It was good that he had the towel, though. He held it carefully.
“Feel better?” she asked.
“Yeah. Hot water is one of the major joys of civilization.”
Kee draped her towel over her shoulders, unconcerned that the rest of her was exposed. “You think we’re civilized?”
“Well, no, not really. Too close to the days when we bashed each other over the head with some critter’s leg bones. Our reflexes are still back in the caves. A loud noise makes you duck, and any real danger makes you want to sprint like hell or smash it flat.”
He chuckled. “Dirisha talks about the reptile brain only having a thin overlay. First good thump and the cover comes off, leaving the lizard in charge. Some of us are better than others, but as a species, I figure we still have a way to go.”
“Spiritual development,” she said. “That’s what the arts are about, when you get past the self-defense part.”
“So I heard. I guess I haven’t gotten that far.”
She grinned. “Gives me something useful to do.”
There was a short but awkward pause. Sleel looked at her, she at him, and he was really glad he still had the towel. It didn’t seem fair that women didn’t show lust as easily as men did.
Wu watched Sleel as he dressed. He had a good body, his injuries were healed, at least visibly, and she admired the play of his muscles. Her thrill at having found her student was still vibrating in her. It had been a surprise; she had always thought that she would know the instant she saw him or her. Not so.
No, Sleel was not what she had expected. He was already highly trained, could in fact move better than she could herself. She had quickly discarded thoughts of trying to teach him classical sword forms, knowing they would be too restrictive. The sport forms of fencing were highly stylized and had no place in combat swordplay. There were no rules in a swordfight, save those the combatants might agree upon, and while you could trust your own honor, trusting the honor of someone who was trying to kill you was hardly wise.
What would Master Ven have thought of Sleel? The matador was physically adept but mentally crippled. Wasn’t that her task, then? To elevate his spirit? To help him become one with himself and the sword?
Tricky, she thought, as she slipped into her own clothes. She had always figured that once she found her student the teaching might be difficult, but it would not be particularly complex. So much for that idea.
Watching Sleel dance with the sword, she had already had to reconfigure her old thoughts. She had learned new things in the first moments and that had been unexpected. She knew that teaching and learning were intertwined, but such a rapid and graphic demonstration had surprised her.
Desire had surprised her, too. She was normal enough in her drives and it had been some time since she had indulged them, but something in Sleel aroused her more than she would have thought possible. That, however, would not be a good idea, to play with those warm feelings. Lovers were easy enough to come by, you only got the one real student.
No, she would keep it on a teacher-and-student plane. She hadn’t looked and waited all these past years to risk losing it to a sexual desire. The spirit was more important than the flesh.
Sleel’s life took on a different cast once he started playing with the sword. He spent four or five hours a day working with the blade, trying to dance the sumito patterns.
Sometimes his new hand ached, as did the new eye. When he had lost his foot and had it regrown, he had experienced the same kind of ache. It was a kind of phantom limb pain, the medics had told him then. It was not a missing part but a new one that was not quite the same as the old one that caused it, they’d said. It didn’t bother him that much.
In fact, the long days of exercise became his reason for getting up in the morning. True, he still walked at night sometimes, but less frequently and not as far as once he had. The routine became familiar, and was in its way comforting.
Dirisha called to see how he was doing, as did Bork and even Emile. Sleel found, somewhat to his amazement, that he was doing okay. Not great, but better.
So the day
s and weeks went, blurring past in a mostly mindless way as he strived to become adept with the sword. It still felt awkward much of the time and he realized he wasn’t very good at it, but he was getting better, if only a little.
It was something to do.
It was better than what he had been doing.
It was better than nothing.
Chapter NINETEEN
NIGHT LAY OVER this part of Thompson’s Gazelle like a shroud, speckled with stars but without the light of a moon. The town of Tofaa was smallish, quiet, and mostly asleep. Cierto stood in the shadow of a storage shed, watching the last of his six students move into position. The air had a dusty, manurelike smell, that from the corn-variant grain piled neck-deep inside the shed. An unappetizing odor at best.
The target, a police substation, was directly across the street from where Cierto stood. The three occupants were unsuspecting. There were five cools in Tofaa, the shift change coming up, so that in a matter of minutes all five would be in the station, two coming in from patrol, two more about to leave, the woman on the desk on for the entire night. All were armed with squeezers, compressed gas pellet pistols. Most police agencies were more enlightened than the cools of Tofaa; they carried hand wands or dart pistols or other stun weapons. But the Tofaa force was a throwback to the frontier days, slow to change. The pellets fired by their squeezers could be, properly placed, lethal. These weapons were why Cierto and his students were here.
The test had to be real.
Each of the six students wore a small camera, mounted to record his or her POV, but Cierto would not be satisfied to watch the replay. He would not use his own blade, but he would be close enough to watch the action.
“Patron,” whispered Basilio. “We are in readiness.”
“It is your operation,” Cierto said.
The student nodded once and hurried across the street. The other five were in place, swords drawn.
The timing was precise. Two minutes later, the patrol flitter arrived, fanned to a stop in its usual parking place, settling to the plastcrete. The doors gull-winged and the two cools alighted. The driver was telling a joke to the other one as they walked toward the front of the station.