“We-some friends and I-had taken an aircar to an island on Sirialis. It’s a planet my father owns.” She didn’t like the sound of that, now; she wasn’t boasting, but it sounded like it. He didn’t react. “We didn’t know that there were . . . intruders. A man-he was a Fleet officer-”
“Who?”
She felt a reluctance to answer, but could think of no way to avoid it. “Admiral Lepescu.” Was there a reaction? She couldn’t tell. “He and some friends-at least, I was told they were friends-had transported criminals . . . well, not really criminals, but that’s what they said . . .” He shifted, with impatience she could almost feel. “Anyway,” she said, hurrying now, “he and his friends transported these people to the island, to hunt. To hunt them, the supposed criminals. Lepescu and his friend stayed on a nearby island, which had a fishing lodge on it, and flew over every day to hunt. The hunted had cobbled together some kind of weapon, and shot down our aircar, thinking we were Lepescu. They captured us. When they realized their mistake, we realized that we would all be hunted; Lepescu would try to cover up his crimes.”
“And no one knew he was on this planet?” The man’s voice conveyed his disbelief.
“Dad found out later that one of his station commanders had been bribed. There was so much traffic in the system-it was the height of hunting season, with lots of guests coming and going-that the others had not noticed an extra ship at one station.”
“Umph.” Disbelief still in that, but a sharp nod made Brun go on with her story.
“So Raffa and I went off to an old hideout I remembered from childhood,” Brun said. She felt herself tense, felt the fine sweat springing out on her skin. She didn’t like thinking about that night or the next days. She rattled through the story as fast as possible: how she and Raffa had each killed one of the intruders and acquired their weapons, the discovery that the intruders had poisoned the water, their flight to the cave, and the final confrontation in the cave when Lepescu had been killed by Heris Serrano.
The man’s expression changed at the mention of Serrano, but he said only, “So you yourself actually killed someone who was trying to kill you . . .”
“Yes.”
“And did you enjoy it?”
“No!” That came out with more force than she intended.
“You were scared?”
“Of course, I was scared. I’m not a . . . a . . .” Military freak hovered on her tongue, but she was able to choke it back.
“Militarist crazy?” he asked. Brun stared. Mind-reading was impossible, wasn’t it? Then he sighed. “I do wish that somewhere in history people would quit diminishing courage in military personnel by assuming they aren’t subject to normal emotions.”
“Lepescu didn’t seem to have any,” Brun said.
“Lepescu was a serious problem,” the man said. “He damn near ruined the Serrano family, through Heris; he was probably responsible for more deaths than the enemy in any engagement he had to do with. But he was hardly typical. Even in his own family, there are good officers, not that any of ’em will have a career now.”
He took a long swallow of his ale, then put the mug down and gave her another straight look.
“So . . . back to you. What put you in a rage?”
“An argument.”
“With whom?”
“Esmay Suiza,” Brun said. Anger burst out again. “She was like you-she thinks I’m just a spoiled rich girl helling around the universe having fun. She had the nerve-the gall-to tell me I had no moral structure to my life.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do!”
“What, then, do you conceive as the purpose of your life? What is it that you do, to justify your existence? What are you here for?”
Put that way, in his easy voice that carried neither praise nor blame, Brun found the answers that floated into her mind clearly inadequate. She was her father’s daughter; she existed to . . . to be her father’s daughter. No. She didn’t want to be just her father’s daughter, but she had found nothing else.
“I’ve helped people,” she said lamely.
“That’s nice,” he said. She wasn’t sure if sarcasm edged his tone or not. “Most people have, at one time or another. You saved your friend’s life on that island. That’s a point for you. Is that your mission, saving peoples’ lives by killing those who want to kill them? If so, I must say you’re woefully undertrained for that and overtrained for other things.”
“I . . . don’t know.” Brun took another sip of her ale.
“Mmm. You’re in your mid-twenties now, right? By your age, most young people without your . . . advantages . . . are showing more sense of direction. Consider the officer you quarrelled with. By your age, she had chosen a profession, left home against some resistance to pursue it, and performed capably in her choice. She was not flitting around having adventures.”
“Just because I’m rich-”
“Don’t try that,” he said; this time contempt laced his voice. “It has nothing to do with wealth; your father, for instance, shows every sign of being an honorable, hard-working man whose service to the Familias-and his own family-are his mission. Your sister Clemmie, even before she married, had chosen to work in an area of medicine where her skills and ability actually served someone else. You, on the other hand, while willing to help out friends, have no consistent direction in your life.”
“Yes, but-”
“So I would say Lieutenant Suiza has the right of it. You are a fine lady, Brun Meager, but you aren’t anything else. And someday, if you haven’t developed the spiritual muscle, you’re going to find yourself in a situation you can’t handle-and with no tools at all to deal with it.”
Brun glared at him, unable to think of anything to say.
“All of us here have been in those situations,” he said, after a pause. “Brains aren’t enough. Physical strength isn’t enough. Life will throw things at you that brains and strength can’t deal with. Smart people and strong people can both go crazy-or worse, go bad like Lepescu, convinced that whatever they want must be acceptable, or should be acceptable. There must be spiritual strength.”
“And you think I don’t have any?”
He shrugged. “That’s not for me to say. I would have to say you haven’t shown any yet. You haven’t shown any ability to see yourself as you really are, for instance-and self-examination is one good clue to an individual’s spiritual state. You have the capacity, certainly-anyone does-but you haven’t developed it.”
“I think you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brun said. She drained the rest of that mug of Stenner. “You haven’t any idea what my life has been like, or what I’ve done, nor does your wonderful Lieutenant Suiza. You think being rich had nothing to do with it? Let me tell you something . . . the rich learn early on that you can’t trust anyone-anyone-but the other rich. And you Fleet people are just the same. You don’t trust anyone who’s not born to Fleet. Nothing I did would make any difference. You all decided I was just a spoiled rich girl, from day one, and there was no hope of changing your minds. What passes for your minds.”
She pushed herself away from the table and made her way outside, carefully not meeting anyone’s eyes. She had had it; there was no way to do what she wanted to do as long as no one would give her a fair chance. She would leave Copper Mountain; she would figure out for herself what she needed.
By the time she got back to base, she had cooled down enough to be icily polite to her security escort. They were icily polite in return. It was long after midnight; she could hear the snarling of the transports picking up teams for the field exercise. The exercise she should have been on.
She checked the outbound shuttle and transport schedules. No doubt there would be formalities, but she should be able to get away before Esmay came back. She put her name on the list for an appointment with the Commandant of Schools in the morning, and went back to her quarters to take what rest she could.
When she we
nt in, it was clear that the Commandant already knew something. She could see it in his face, and before she even sat down, he started to apologize.
“Sera Meager, I understand a junior officer acted very inappropriately-”
“You had scan on Lieutenant Suiza?”
He coughed. “On . . . you, Sera Meager. I’m sorry, but for your own safety-”
It was intolerable. She could not even have a quarrel without someone listening in. “Well, I suppose you got an earful.”
“Lieutenant Suiza was totally unprofessional; you have my-Fleet’s-apology . . .”
“Never mind that. She was rude, yes, but she made it clear I will never be accepted on my own merits. And I’m placing an undue burden on your staff, trying to keep me safe. I’m resigning my place, or whatever you call it.”
“Does your father know?”
She could have slugged him, but his question was another proof that she was right. “I am informing him by ansible transmission this morning, sir, as soon as public hours open. I plan to take Fleet transport to the nearest civilian transport nexus-” She could not think of the name. “I will probably lease a vessel from there.”
“You need not hurry . . .”
“I would rather be gone before the field exercise is over,” Brun said. She was determined not to see Esmay Suiza again. Or Barin Serrano, for that matter-she could just imagine what his grandmother would say.
“I see.” His lips compressed. “Again, while I think your decision is probably best under the circumstances, you have my assurance that Lieutenant Suiza’s behavior will not go without official rebuke.”
Exhaustion rolled over her suddenly like a heavy blanket. She didn’t care about Lieutenant Suiza; she just wanted to be away from these people with their punctilious rules, their unbending righteousness.
“I will cooperate with all necessary procedures,” Brun said, pushing herself up. What she really wanted was a week’s sleep; she could get that once she left this miserable place. She put on her public persona to get through the remaining hours; she smiled at the right time, shook the right hands, murmured the right pleasantries, assured everyone that she had taken no offense, harbored no grievances, had simply come to the conclusion that this was not right for her.
By nightfall, her father had replied to her request that he send his personal militia to replace the Royal Space Service security when she reached civilian space. He had agreed-with what enthusiasm she could not judge-to her plan of spending a few months visiting relatives and business contacts before returning to Sirialis for the opening of the hunting season. At local midnight, she boarded the shuttle offplanet . . . and hoped that Esmay Suiza was having a miserable time, wherever she was.
* * *
Thirty hours into the field exercise, Esmay wondered why she had ever thought this was a good idea for an elective. She had led her team safely through the first third of the course; they had spotted and evaded a number of traps. But they were hungry, thirsty and tired now, and she was fresh out of ideas. Ahead lay grassland-just grassland-to the line of fence that represented safety. They hadn’t been spotted in the broken ground, but out there they couldn’t hide-and it was too great a distance to cross in a rush. If they stayed where they were, they’d probably be found, and anyway they wouldn’t get the extra points for getting to the safehold.
“A tunnel would be handy,” Taras said.
She was right, of course, but why were her good ideas so impractical?
“I don’t suppose we could find an animal burrow?”
“I doubt it.” Briefing had said the native animals were all under five kilos. Of course, briefing had left a lot out. Esmay held them all where they were until dusk, then they began a slow, careful crawl through the grass toward the fenceline.
The hood cut off sight instantly; she struck out uselessly, knowing it was useless. Her blows fell on air, but the blows aimed at her landed . . . knocked her sideways, back, sideways again, until she finally fell, her head slamming into a hummock she had not been able to see. She tasted blood; she’d bitten her tongue in that fall. Before she could react, the assailants grabbed arms and legs, and in seconds she was immobilized like a calf for branding.
Had it been like this for Barin? No, for him it had been real . . . but the harsh voice that promised pain was real now, too. A fist grabbed her hair through the hood, and yanked her head back.
Think of something else, Barin had said. It does help, though you don’t believe it at the time. That was in the manual, too, so others had found it useful. As she felt rough hands on the fastening of her clothes, and the cold edge of a blade, and then the tug as her clothes were cut away, her mind slid back toward that other time, in childhood.
No. She would not go there. She would think of something that made her feel strong.
What came into her head was the argument with Brun. In her head, in this pain-filled dark, she could think of much more to say than she had said. As the hours passed-hours she could not count-she elaborated on the argument and its causes, all the way back to that first meeting with Brun, and imagined herself and Brun and Barin. What each said, what each was thinking, what each thought the other was thinking. The verbal assaults of her captors became the things Brun had said, or would have said if she’d thought of them. The blows they dealt were the blows Brun would have dealt if she had dared fight openly.
But in the story she was telling herself, she gave as good as she got-better, in fact. For Brun’s attacks, she now had the right counterattacks. For Brun’s invincible arrogance, she now had a response that brought Brun to her knees, that forced her to acknowledge Esmay’s position, skills, knowedge . . . In her mind, at least, she could triumph.
She was vaguely conscious that her captors were considerably annoyed with her for some reason, but nothing mattered as much as Brun’s appropriation of Barin, and her own determination to defend-not territory, exactly, but her chance at-
As suddenly as it began, it ended. She didn’t notice at first, though as she came back to real space and time, she was aware that her mind had noticed, and had begun pulling her back from the story she’d been writing in her mind. She felt the cool blunt snout of a hypospray against her arm, then a wave of returning clarity. When she opened her eyes, a medic smiled at her, and gave the code phrase that meant the exercise was over. And Lieutenant Commander Uhlis, looking no grimmer than usual, reached out a hand to help her up.
“Suiza, you’re tougher than I thought. Whatever you were doing inside your head worked-keep it in mind in case you need it.”
She felt shaky when she stood, and only then noticed that her hands were bandaged. He nodded at them. “You’ll need an hour or so in the regen tank. The team kept thinking they could get to you in just another little bit. But it’s all within regs.” Now she could feel the pain, working its way past the restorative drug. Uhlis put out his arm again. “Better take hold-we’ll get you into the transport. You’re the last here-”
“The team?” she asked.
“You all passed,” he said. “Even Taras. I don’t know how you got her through it, but you did.”
“She did,” Esmay said. She felt distinctly odd, with the combination of stimulant and residual imagination, but managed not to throw up or fall down. Once in the transport, she tried to let herself relax, but she couldn’t quite. It could still be a trick . . . it could still be . . .
She woke briefly back at the base, when the medics were easing her into the regen tank; one glimpse of her hands was enough. She didn’t fight the sedative they gave her, but slid into unconsciousness.
By the time she got back to her quarters, she was more than ready for solitude and sleep. The pain was gone, and there were no visible bruises, but her body insisted that something traumatic had happened. The medics said she’d feel much better in the morning, that tank healing often left people feeling slightly disoriented and peculiar.
She had just decided not to bother with undressi
ng, when her comunit chimed.
“The Commandant wishes to see you at your earliest convenience,” the voice in her ear said. “He will expect you within ten minutes.”
She tried to shake herself awake, staggered into the shower, and into a clean uniform. What could the Commandant possibly want? Some administrative matter, no doubt, but why the hurry?
Chapter Five
The Commandant did not look as if this were just an administrative matter. Esmay came to attention and waited. Finally he spoke.
“I understand you had an . . . er . . . disagreement with the Speaker’s daughter, Brun Meager.”
As if she didn’t know who it was; as if she did not know with whom she had quarrelled. And could this be what it was about? A simple quarrel?
“Yes, sir.”
“The . . . er . . . surveillance recordings indicate that you criticized Sera Meager on grounds of her moral failings . . .”
“Sir.” Certain phrases came back to her memory for the first time in days, as if highlighted in flame.
“Do you really think that was appropriate professional demeanor, Lieutenant?”
“If you have the tapes, you know why I said what I said,” Esmay said. She wished she’d been more tactful, but it was petty of Brun to have reported their argument.
“Let me put it another way, Lieutenant.” The voice was a shade cooler; Esmay felt it on her skin, like a cold breeze stiffening the hairs of her arms. “Whatever the provocation, do you think it is appropriate for a Fleet officer to lecture a civilian-a prominent civilian-as if they were rival fishwives?” Before Esmay could think of anything to say, he went on. “Because, Lieutenant, I can tell you that I do not consider it appropriate. I consider it an embarrassment, and I am quite seriously disappointed in your performance. Allowances have been made for your background-”
Esmay stirred, but he held up a warning hand and went on.
“Your background, as I said, would be some excuse, if you were not from a prominent family on Altiplano, and if you had not previously commented on the greater formality of manners there. I hardly think you would have spoken to a civilian guest of your father’s in such terms as you used to Sera Meager.”
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