But this officer-MechWarrior battle was special. The Star Commander was new among them, and the fact that she had been demoted because of Twycross made her an unknown quantity. Would she display the ferocity of the reputation that had preceded her? Or had Twycross shaken her confidence, as defeat sometimes did to a warrior? In their minds this Circle of Equals conflict was a test for Joanna as well as Diana. A few of them sent each other the hand signals that signified discreet betting on the event's outcome. If Joanna had bothered to read the betting signs going around the circle, she would have seen that the odds favored her by about two-to-one. It was better that she took no note of it. Any odds that gave this inexperienced warrior a chance to beat her were an insult to Joanna.
"Are you ready, MechWarrior Diana?" Joanna asked. "Yes."
"You do not wish to invoke surkai?"
"Neg."
"Good. Then prepare yourself for extreme pain."
Joanna spoke the last three words while leaping at Diana. Diana, accustomed to an opponent shuffling his feet, feinting, sending glares, or making some other slight move before going on the attack, was taken completely by surprise. Joanna had her tightly by the throat, choking off air for a moment, then sneeringly releasing her grip and hurling her sideways onto the ground. Diana landed on her side. As the Star Commander had promised, extreme pain surged through her body from the impact of her landing. Though she was up quickly, Diana felt a throbbing in her shoulder. Each throb made her want to flinch with pain, but she would show no sign to this arrogant officer.
Diana did not have much time to think about the pain, for Joanna was on her again, this time coming at her in a crouch, grabbing the younger warrior's midsection and wrestling her to the ground. Falling backward, Diana realized that Joanna was merely employing standard wrestling maneuvers, ones they taught in the first weeks of training. But why could she use them to such advantage? Moves that Diana might easily have countered in another young warrior became tricky when this old crone applied them.
The only good thing at the moment was that the pain in her stomach somewhat relieved that of her shoulder, or was she merely dividing the pain by dividing her concentration?
Joanna, holding down Diana's shoulders and staring into her eyes, could easily have declared victory because she had the young warrior pinned. Diana's legs thrust out futilely behind Joanna.
But before Joanna could speak, she saw something familiar in the struggling warrior's eyes. At first it was a flash, a sign that Diana would never capitulate, then Joanna saw another face, that of another young warrior from another time. It was something in this young woman's eyes, and now that Joanna looked more carefully, it was in her facial features, too. This Diana, this freebirth, bore an uncanny resemblance to the warrior Joanna had defeated in his first day of training and whose life had become so intimately connected with hers at certain points. Then he had been cadet Aidan. Now he was Star Colonel Aidan Pryde.
The revelation made Joanna rise up, releasing Diana from the pin, but then she clasped her hands together and, in a harsh sweeping arc, swung them at Diana's head. The hands hit with a stunning impact, and Diana fell backward, dazed.
Joanna looked around at the spectators beyond the line. Though they tried, in the Clan manner, to seem detached, it was obvious that the sudden brutality of Joanna's blow shocked some of them.
Looking down at the fallen warrior, whose eyes were now shut, Joanna thought that except for the greater delicacy of the features, she might have been looking at Aidan.
Diana did not give away with the slightest pre-movement the blow she now delivered. Kicking upward, she caught Joanna between the legs, the force of the blow lifting the old warrior slightly. Diana scrambled away from Joanna, who leaped at her with a growl of fury. Her timing off, Joanna smashed her face against the hard metal DropShip flooring instead of connecting with her prey. Before Joanna could get up, Diana had jumped onto her back and pushed her back down. Again Joanna's head smashed against the floor, and she was nearly overcome with dizziness.
Most warriors would have given up at that moment, but Joanna never gave up, would never give up. Helpless, she could not stop Diana from grabbing her hair from behind and slamming her head down against the metal floor again. Then, sensing a slight relaxation in Diana's grip right after the impact, Joanna twisted her torso enough to throw her elbow back at Diana's lowered head. She made contact, which further loosened her opponent's grip. Bellowing her special battle cry, Joanna twisted her body around and, with a magnificent effort, dislodged Diana, who fell sideways, rolled, and was back on her feet again instantly.
Diana did not give Joanna a second to recover. She ran straight at her. Dizzied by the banging to her head, Joanna was not sure who was coming at her. At first it looked like Aidan—not Aidan as he had been the last time she had seen him, but Aidan as a young cadet. Then the image seemed to switch back to Diana. Then to Aidan. Then again to Diana.
Whoever it was, the warrior was upon her, trying to ram her backward. The shuffling of Joanna's feet as she tried to stay upright struck some of the spectators as comical. When they laughed, the sound made her furious.
She pushed what looked like Diana away, and what looked like Aidan did a little stumbling dance. Shaking her head in an effort to throw off her grogginess, Joanna charged what looked like Aidan, but it was Diana who sidestepped her. Joanna quickly adjusted to Diana's quick move, grabbing Aidan's arm and wrenching it toward her. Joanna seized the head, not sure whose head it was anymore, and twisted it violently. Not enough to kill, but enough to cause a pain that would linger for some time.
Yes, enough.
Her opponent fell, dazed again, but this time finally helpless.
Looking down at the fallen warrior, Joanna was again seeing a double exposure of Diana, Aidan, Diana, and again Aidan. It was all she could do to walk without stumbling out of the Circle of Equals, but walk she did, past all those warriors who saw that their new commander might be old but could still outfight even the best of them.
4
"We are both pretty banged up, quiaff." Joanna asked.
"Are we? I can see you are, Star Commander. I did not look into any reflective surface. I rarely do."
They were in Joanna's quarters. Diana's cheek showed a large, ugly bruise where Joanna had struck her, and along the other side of her face were a couple of cuts. Joanna had glanced in a mirror, and saw she was worse off than Diana. One eye was black and her forehead was both bruised and cut. One side of her upper lip was slightly swollen, and tiny spots of blood had dried and caked around her nostrils. Overall, not a good appearance at all for a commanding officer.
The quarters were like every room in which Joanna had ever lived. She had never seen much use for neatness, especially when the place to which she was assigned was only temporary, as were all places for warriors. And this one, after all, was only a DropShip compartment.
Clothing was strewn all over the room, which was stained and dirty. When Joanna nodded for Diana to take a seat, the young warrior had to remove a tunic and boots from the chair, and deposit them onto an already crowded table.
"Would you like a fusionnaire, MechWarrior Diana?"
"I doubt it. What is a fusionnaire?"
"A drink. Very potent. I do not know what is in it. I have it packaged and sent to me on a regular basis. Sure you would not like a dose of it?"
"I have no liking for any substance that calms, releases, allows for fantasies, or sends one into a stupor."
There was an arrogant stubbornness in the way Diana held her head while giving her list of undesirable states that reminded Joanna of Aidan holding his head in the same way with the same boldness.
"I understand your feeling completely," Joanna said, "but I do not agree. I need to lose my awareness once in a while." She took a strong sip of the drink. "I wonder about what you said a moment ago—that you never look in a mirror."
"Not never. Sometimes we see ourselves when we do not intend to. I just never look
by intention, unless of course there is a practical need."
"But why? It cannot be hard for you to examine yourself. By most standards I am aware of you would be considered beautiful."
"Would I? That is interesting, but ultimately useless to me."
"Useless?"
"I have always wanted to be a warrior. As a freeborn, that is not an easy goal. People often attempted to discourage me from it. But I continued, was accepted into training, qualified in the Trial, and am now serving. I have many skills, which I have demonstrated, plus others I am eager to test. There is not much need for beauty in all that, is there?"
Joanna took another sip of the fusionnaire. Tasting especially harsh, the drink was going to her head quicker than usual. The fight with Diana had undoubtedly weakened her resistance to the drink. She would have to settle for only one. But, she thought, staring down into the volatile liquid, she would make the most of the one.
"Truth to tell, Diana, you are quite right. There is not much need for beauty in the ranks of Clan warriors. Here your looks are no more than a painting in a museum or a statue in a square. We admire you, but ours is not the kind of culture that places emphasis on beauty, after all."
"I am glad of that."
"But I should tell you that beauty like yours does have its uses in some circles. In political ones particularly. Among Clansmen who have forgotten the meaning of their lives, and who encourage a certain decadence."
"That is detestable, and I do not believe it exists."
"I notice that you do not have the freeborn love of contractions."
"I have resolved to be a warrior and to speak like one as well. Star Commander, if I may speak frankly?"
"As a warrior would. Proceed, MechWarrior Diana."
"I have been told about my beauty before. There were some who, well, wanted things from me because of it. I am not as free with coupling as others. Even in my cadet days. The others in my training unit respected that. Out here in the war zone, there is not as much respect. Perhaps I would have more experience with coupling if the other did not always have to mention my looks beforehand. But once someone speaks to me of that, I wish only to hit that someone and certainly not do anything more."
"Your honor duel with Trader was about that, quiaff?"
"Neg. Trader is a fine warrior, too. He wanted the BattleMech assignment. He would always choose a 'Mech over a sexual partner. I like him. I was sorry to have to fight him."
Diana straightened her back, holding it stiffly away from the back of the chair. When the younger woman looked off to the side, Joanna recalled several moments when Aidan had glanced aside in the same way, with the same tilt of the head and a duplicate indifference in his eyes. Diana's words and her resemblance to Aidan made Joanna want to take a big swallow of her fusionnaire. So she did.
The drink was gone. She should not have a second one, not with her head spinning the way it was now. She poured the second one and took several guarded sips.
"Star Commander Joanna, did you call me to your quarters for this discussion?"
Joanna shook her head. The movement made it ache. She blinked a couple of times before responding. "I had no purpose in calling you here, except to praise your tenacity in battling me in the Circle of Equals."
"Your praise pleases me." Diana did not show a bit of pleasure in her face, although her voice was softer.
"And there is another reason, which I should keep secret, but this fusionnaire is doing its job. It often loosens tongues." She took another large swallow of the drink. "You look like someone I once knew. Another warrior."
Diana nodded. "And his name was Aidan."
The statement astonished Joanna, who was not an easy person to astonish. "You know?"
"I have known since I was a small child. My mother told me his name. She held back much of my father's history, and hers, but she was honest in every other way."
An idea occurred to Joanna. "And what was her name, your mother?"
"Peri. She is a—"
"I know all about her, too. I was their falconer. I trained both of them."
Diana stood up suddenly, anger in the way she held her body if not in her face. "Then you are the one who came to Tokasha and took my father away, quiaff?"
"Aff. I was ordered to. Now you look as if you would like to fight me again."
Diana's body relaxed. "No, you are right, it is not worth fighting about. But you were part of the story my mother told me. She never mentioned your name."
"There have been times, MechWarrior Diana, when I wished I had not caught up with your father and brought him back. In some way that event has affected the course of my life, too. But that is irrelevant. Your father went on to become a warrior and a Bloodnamed officer. Do you seek him?"
"Once I intended to. But now I wish only to fight in this war."
"I know, I know. You are consistent, at least. If I were able to communicate with your father, would you want me to inform him about you?"
Diana seemed to consider the question for a moment. "No," she said. "If anyone tells him, it should be me."
Joanna toasted her with the fusionnaire, then drained it. "I salute you, MechWarrior Diana. I have to tell you that I despised your father, but I have seen him fight bravely and well. From what you showed today in the Circle of Equals, you may be quite like him. Now you must leave."
Diana obeyed the order without further comment. Once she was gone, Joanna allowed the darkness to overcome her. She fell, drunk, onto her bed, and passed out. In her frenetic dreams, images of Aidan and Diana kept flying toward her face and back and forth in front of it, sometimes one changing into the other, sometimes the two blending together. Several times she screamed out at the disembodied faces, cursing and vowing that she would kill both father and daughter.
5
For the next few minutes Aidan would be under more intense scrutiny than at any time outside of a Clan test or trial, and yet he would be unaware of most of it. He was, after all, merely performing the routine duty of a garrison commander.
* * *
As the DropShip descended, Horse studied the face of his Colonel with an almost scientific detachment. He hoped to see some telltale twitch or eyeblink, some slight twisting of the mouth that would reveal a reaction in this normally distant man. To Horse, Aidan Pryde represented all that was admirable in a Clan warrior, whether trueborn or free. Aidan held himself above mundane Clan conflicts, administered his command with fairness, fought with more skill than any two warriors, and was so imbued with the desire to succeed that he had often been criticized for overreaching himself. To Horse, it was exactly these qualities that made Aidan a superb Clan warrior, albeit one whose abilities were underused because of the taint that had plagued his career.
And perhaps, Horse thought, what he liked most about Aidan was that he might be the only trueborn Clan warrior who understood what it was to be a freeborn warrior. That insight came, of course, from having lived so long disguised as a freeborn. It was in one of Aidan's secret library books that Horse had read about men on Terra who had gone to live among peoples whose cultures were strange or even alien, but who had often been liberated from narrow preconceptions as a result. Sometimes these visitors were scientists, but just as often they were ordinary people thrown into unusual circumstances. Aidan was like that, one who had learned through the force of circumstance. It had made him someone different, someone special, in Horse's eyes. The one time he had tried to articulate all this to Aidan, however, his friend had scoffed gently, saying that his experiences had confused his understanding of life rather than enhanced it.
The DropShip landed in the field recently cleared for that purpose, disgorging a contingent of warriors. Horse would have recognized Joanna from any distance, even if she had been a pinpoint on the horizon. She wore the Clan trueborn haughtiness like a cloak, an aura as far removed from Aidan's empathy as the globular cluster was from the five original Clan worlds. Horse and Joanna did not like each other. Never had. Anytime
they had been forced to work or fight together, Joanna had, it seemed, found every way possible to remind Horse of his "inferior" origins.
Now, Horse took care to stand to the side, wanting to see both warriors' faces as they came together. Aidan's was composed, for he knew that Joanna was among the reinforcements. Horse wondered if Joanna was prepared for Aidan's presence on Quarell.
When the meeting occurred, neither Aidan nor Joanna displayed the least sign, not the slightest recognition. Of the three, Horse was probably the only one whose reaction would show. He was surprised at how much Joanna had aged. How humiliating for her, he thought. Though he never understood why the Clans were so harsh on their old warriors, Horse was himself a Clansman who could not help but be appalled by the signs of age on a face. His own was not so young anymore, but having always looked older than his years, the erosions of age were less noticeable to others.
But Joanna's visage was a horror. Her eyes seemed even meaner now that they bulged out a bit, making her look fierce even when not angry. Her lips had somehow tightened, and gray streaked her hair. Some warriors disguised their gray, but others seemed not to mind it. With Joanna it had to be her natural indifference to triviality that prevented her from being vain about her graying hair. Also on her face were some cuts and several fading bruises.
But mere physical details were not the only difference.
She walked differently, carried herself in a new way. She might be just as self-assured, just as proud, but her pace was slower and the way she swung her arms and moved her legs lacked energy. In all the time Horse had known Joanna, she had never moved with anything less than agile athleticism.
She came directly up to Aidan. More than a head shorter, she nevertheless faced him as though they were equals. The changes in her seemed even more pronounced when compared with the vigor in Aidan's stance.
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