by L D Inman
“My pleasure, sir.” Marag bowed and went on his way, as Barklay reached for the com pad at his desk.
“Barklay.”
“Lieutenant Ahrens, sir. I’ve just taken delivery of a recorded message for you. Name’s not marked; it’s from a private address in the capital.”
Barklay’s breath suspended; he let it out silently. “Very well, Lieutenant. Send it down to my com-deck and I’ll take it from there.”
“Regular security?”
“…Yes.”
“Right, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Barklay waited, chewing his lip, for the transmission to finish; his eyes flicked to his open door, and he got up to shut it. He sat down again and tapped in the code.
The familiar face he was expecting sprang up on the projection: once handsome, it was now marked with permanent lines of strain; there was an undeniable coarseness in the expression of the lips and the skin under the eyes. A coarseness growing too quickly, Barklay thought, but time had got away from them both, years slipping away frame by frame.
“Thaddeys,” he said. Not “General Barklay, sir,” not since years ago when his bitter lips shaped the phrase one last time.
“Thaddeys…look, I know I said I wouldn’t come asking again. But it’s only a small favor I need, really. I’ve started a new job…I’ll tell you all about it when I get the time, but I think it’s going to be good. I just need a little bit to smooth things so I can move house. Not very much. It’s a better situation I’m going to, so I may even be able to pay you back soon.” You could have spared me that, Barklay thought; did he realize how much his sponging had come to?
“In any case, let me give you my direction—” He gave the code and address of a public com exchange, and finished, “I know I strain your kindness, Thaddeys, but I’m doing better now. Till later.”
He hadn’t floated a specific amount, Barklay noted. Which meant that he was hoping Barklay would come across with something a little more substantial than not very much. Barklay knew he ought to refuse. It was cruel to drag him along like this: better to let him break, and grow from whatever hatched out of the disaster.
But what if he couldn’t?
Barklay got up and went out to the com tower. The sun was sparkling on dew-wet grass, the quad between compound and tower turned to a wide avenue of fresh dazzling light.
He rode up through the dark shaft of the lift into the renewed brightness of the tower’s crest, and relieved Ahrens of his post for the time it would take to send a secure message. Ahrens did not take this order with surprise; Barklay sometimes did need to commandeer the tower for classified exchanges. He saluted Barklay respectfully and rattled down the lift. Barklay watched him set off with firm stride across the quad, the morning sun’s rays turning his bluff figure to hazed silhouette in Barklay’s vision.
He sat down at the com officer’s desk, recorded an answering message, and opened a line to the public exchange. “This is Allan Wharf Station, Ilona capital district three. Go ahead, Ryswyck One.”
“I need to transfer a recorded message under code to a public account.”
“Name on the account?”
“John Selkirk.”
“Mm…I’ve got more than one John Selkirk here. Is there a second name?”
If the district three hadn’t given it away, the phrasing of this request would now; an establishment in a respectable neighborhood would assume a second name existed.
“Dangra.”
“Ah. Very well. All I need’s the code, and the transfer’s ready.”
Barklay tapped it in, waited for confirmation, and closed the line. Then he called down to the cadet at the com desk and asked him to recall Ahrens to his post.
The sunlight clarified as the meridian rose, making the shapes of Ryswyck’s solid buildings clear-edged and open and perfect. Barklay stood at the windows, unsmiling, waiting for Ahrens’s return. The quiet, obvious light shone all around him and lit up the coastal hills to summer’s blond green.
The scene was disturbed first, not by Ahrens’s emergence from the main compound, but by the approach of the depot shuttle from the northeast. It used the short airstrip to lose height, engaged its landing gear and hover engines, and buckled to the earth with an ungainly, controlled clank.
The hatch opened, and a number of Ryswyckians in gray descended; they were among the last wave of students returning from break for the summer term. They swung their packs to their shoulders and moved companionably in a loose-knit group across the airfield to the front quad, just as the last of them emerged and stood for a moment with her pack on the ground at her side. Barklay recognized Lieutenant Speir’s small, sturdy figure.
Her shoulders were set in their habitual stance of determination, and the cant of her head as she looked toward Ryswyck seemed to speak of forlorn hopes and last charges. What must it be like, Barklay thought, to face such hazard with a clean conscience? He couldn’t remember, though surely he must have been like Speir, once—the picture of straightforward decision, though he had probably never risen to her level of graceful clarity.
As he watched, Speir seemed to draw herself up in a long breath; then she swung up her pack nimbly and followed her comrades across the airfield, moving with an even vitality that seemed at one with the quickening sun.
His eyes were still following her progress when the heavy clack of the lift-gate sounded below. Barklay shook himself to attention. He was ready with a smile when Ahrens reappeared, bringing with him a scent of warm soda-cakes and honey.
“I am much obliged,” Barklay said.
“Oh, no, sir,” Ahrens said, with evident sincerity, “the obligation is mine.”
His irrepressible cheer moved Barklay to half a grin. He clapped Ahrens on the shoulder and went down to follow Speir and the others across the quad.
~*~
After breakfast, Barklay settled down to shift some paperwork, listening to the bustle around his office as students and officers prepared for the resumption of classes the next day. He worked steadily, miraculously uninterrupted; it was an hour before the knock came on his doorframe.
Barklay looked up. “Cadet Rose. Come in. Come in.”
Rose entered, tentatively and then more confident at Barklay’s welcome. He came to rest at attention before Barklay’s desk, hands clasped behind his back in the formal pose. Barklay sat up straighter, sensing that Rose’s formality betokened an anxious purpose. “What can I do for you, Cadet?”
“Sir,” Rose said, “I wish to ask permission for Cadet Corda and me to spar privately, till he’s back in form.”
“On the hair-of-the-dog principle?” Barklay said, dryly.
“Something like, sir,” Rose answered, with a faint blush.
“Mm,” Barklay said. “Which duty rota is on training this week?” —though he knew perfectly well.
“A Rota, sir,” Rose said.
“That’s your section, isn’t it? You’ll need to speak to Lieutenant Douglas about this.”
“Yes, sir. I did that. He said I needed to ask you.”
“Right.” Barklay contemplated Rose thoughtfully. The rumors said that Rose and Corda had taken up together, though to his knowledge they hadn’t asked to switch quarters with their respective roommates. This request was the first public evidence of their attachment. Barklay smiled to himself at Ryswyckian priorities. Yet the situation called for care and delicacy; romantic disasters could be recovered from, but nobody wanted a complete disruption of the sparring court.
“I’m told you and Corda have reached a private understanding,” Barklay said. The words were blunt but he made his voice gentle.
Rose’s flush deepened, but he kept his head high. “Yes, sir. That is so.”
“Then tell me, Rose,” Barklay said, more gently still. “Do you and Corda propose to spar because you think your closeness will help his recovery? Or do you want to hasten his recovery for the sake of your closeness?”
Rose clearly took the questio
n seriously, because he took a moment to answer. “I would say it is both, sir,” he answered slowly at last. “He’s been shy of the contact in sparring court. But he isn’t afraid of me at all. It’d be good to redress the balance, sir.”
Barklay tried unsuccessfully to swallow a smile. Seeing it, Rose took an easier breath and smiled back.
“An honest answer,” Barklay said. “How much sparring are you proposing to do?”
“We were thinking a couple times a week, for a month or so, would do it.” Rose looked elated.
Barklay lowered his brows and fixed him with a stern, curbing look. “Let us say one month, and one session a week. There are other balances that must be maintained, you know.”
“Yes, sir,” Rose said, holding back a grin with difficulty.
“And I want to see noticeable results from you both in sparring court.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Go take Corda and schedule the sessions with Lieutenant Douglas. You’ll report to him on your progress and take his direction on training details. Make sure Corda’s section leader—Lieutenant Stevens, if I’m not mistaken—is properly informed. And have Douglas come see me at his earliest convenience.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rose managed to make his bow and exit keeping a dignified lid on his enthusiasm, but only just. Some time later Douglas arrived with his authority cloaked in calm amusement: level-eyed, stable Douglas, who would no more foul himself out of a military career than forget his own name. He came to rest in the place where Rose had stood, in an attention more relaxed but no less respectful.
“Well,” Barklay said. “I suppose Rose and Corda found you?”
“Yes, sir,” Douglas said, with a brief smile. “I put them on the training room schedule per your guidelines.”
“Right.” Barklay paused. “What…is your opinion of that situation?”
Douglas twisted his mouth a moment, thinking. “I think…four sessions is quite adequate for their purposes. I don’t get the impression from Stevens that it will take more than a month to get Corda back in form. And he’s not on the match schedule for another two months after that. But I’d advise against extending the private sparring sessions till then; they’re not yet a distraction to each other, but they could be.”
“Mm.” Barklay wanted more from Douglas than a practical assessment. “Do you think their attachment is the type to lend itself to distraction?”
“Well, I’m sure there’s a well of experience for dealing with it if it falls that way,” Douglas said. “It’s not a unique occurrence, is it?”
“By no means,” Barklay said. “The possibility is practically inherent in arena combat,” and Douglas lowered his eyelids on a level look. “It takes different forms depending on the participants, of course. Which is why I ask—”
“Do we seek to develop romantic attachments with our foes?” It was a definite glint in Douglas’s eye now: he was in a mischievous mood, which never failed to startle Barklay when it surfaced.
“No,” Barklay returned, “just to get naked with them.”
He was rewarded to see Douglas stifle a snort of outright laughter; but all the same Douglas had the last word.
“I invite you to remember that when you’re sitting next to Commander Jarrow during tomorrow’s match,” he said. “I’ll keep you apprised of how things go with Rose and Corda, sir.”
“You do that,” Barklay said as Douglas bowed himself out. Blast the man, not only had he refused Barklay a direct answer about the cadets’ attachment and capped him on their ongoing argument over Jarrow, he’d left Barklay with a grin on his lips doing it.
Laughter sweetened the longing, he thought. Or revived it, may be. Fortunately Douglas had gone before he could betray himself, but would it have been so horrible if he had? Barklay thought of nakedness to foes, of Jarrow, of du Rau. Of John.
No. I won’t go down that road again.
He inhaled, and exhaled, a sharp breath, and got back to work.
~*~
“Ah, good, you’re back,” Douglas said when Speir presented herself at the training-hall desk shortly before sparring court. “I was hoping to give you first shift tonight.” His eyes crinkled in that way they did when Douglas was in a bait of mischief. Speir looked at him suspiciously. On the one hand, Douglas’s cheer was something approaching a balm to her secret anguish. On the other, one never knew exactly how his sense of humor would break out. Speir thought she probably had the fortitude to absorb any prank directed her way, but the disparity between his state of mind and hers was jarring.
But never mind. Speir summoned a smile. “I would be glad to. I was just going to ask you for the week’s schedule.”
“You’ll have it by evening. I want to rejigger a few things—Barklay gave Rose and Corda permission to spar privately once a week, and I want either you or me to be on duty at the desk when I scheduled them.”
“Ah,” she said. “How long are they allowed to carry on?”
“A month. Keep an eye on them when you see them in sparring court, will you? I’ve been put in charge of supervising their progress, and I could use the extra opinion.”
“I’ll do it,” Speir promised.
Douglas’s eyes crinkled again, this time in scrutiny. “Are you all right?” he asked, casually.
Damn. “I’m fine,” she assured him, credibly she hoped. “Thanks for asking.”
He would have said more, but as she spoke the carillon distantly chimed the change of hour, and in the next moment the first men and women bound for sparring court began to stream in through the doors. Douglas gave her a look, as much as to say I hope you’re telling the truth, and got out from behind the desk to supervise warm-up.
But this was a truth she couldn’t tell Douglas, though a small part of her wanted to give over and tell him everything. She dreaded the thought of how he would look at her, after. Pity would scald, but that could be got through, if it was only pity; but pity compounded with judgment….
Speir shook herself and followed.
~*~
Douglas had not happened to be at sparring court on the day Corda had attempted to train, but he had heard from his fellow junior officers that Corda had sweated and flinched in combat. He hadn’t given up until ordered to stand down; but he’d collapsed shaking in the changing room afterward, and had had to be helped to his feet and down the hall to the infirmary, where he had submitted (angrily) to being kept overnight for observation. It seemed wise, therefore, to find some less conventional way of working Corda out of his anxiety, and though he reserved judgment as to whether it would work, Douglas wholeheartedly approved of Rose’s scheme.
What he didn’t approve of was Barklay’s attempt to appropriate Rose and Corda’s relationship for his own purposes. Douglas knew that Barklay’s probe for his opinion was an attempt to herd him into agreeing that what Barklay did was not a trespass. Douglas would, for love, accommodate Barklay’s trespass, but he would not, could not, say it wasn’t one. He wondered how long he would be able to evade hurting Barklay with that truth—till he passed out of Ryswyck into his first commission, out of the locked orbit of their arrangement? A long shot, but Douglas was committed to attempt it.
The alternative was a conflict that would make the disruption of sparring court look like a shallow skirmish.
Fortunately for the delicate balance of his light mood, Barklay did not call him to his office to reopen questioning about Rose and Corda, which spared Douglas being driven again to insubordination, or worse. Douglas holed himself up in his quarters to finish the schedule after supper, and then went and tracked down Speir in the weight room to deliver her copy. She accepted it gratefully with a sweaty hand, and the smile she gave him seemed less strained; but she went back to her training routine without lingering to talk to him. Douglas took the hint and went away.
The night duty shift had begun by the time Douglas got back to his quarters, but Ryswyck was by no means quiet: the high spirits attending the
start of term usually carried over late into the evening. Patient to the laughter and banter outside in the corridors, Douglas read in his bunk till his eyelids grew heavy, and then slept in peace.
~*~
The sun was hot, hot and the shadows were like black blades where they lay on the ground in the motionless air. His own shadow moved ahead of him, a malevolent dwarf, as he paced toward the bunker. Outside the door, the only sound was the relentless cicadas, undulating in their buzz like so many merciless chanters; their position was secure. He opened the door.
Cool darkness, complete once the door was shut again. The cicadas’ hum was cut off, exchanged for the groans and wails of men.
No, this was not how it had been; they had not all wailed at once, but they were wailing now, a helpless, accusing chorus. They could accuse all they liked; he relished the sound; he knew, with surgical accuracy, exactly to whom each voice belonged and how to twist their torment tighter. He knew the curselike syllables of their names. He knew their ranks and divisions, and oh so much more than that.
Into the bowels of the bunker he paced. The voices moaned and echoed above and around and behind him, but he kept forward, to the one brightly-lit room that was waiting for him.
A man knelt on the white tile, naked and covered with sweat, suspended by cords at the wrists, wiry arms held wide. His head was bowed before the man in fatigues who attended him. At the sound of footsteps the attendant turned to show a sideways smile of heart-cracking beauty.
“Lieutenant John Dangra Selkirk, First Army, Reyswick Division, at your service, sir,” he said.
You don’t need to tell me that. I know you. And there is no Reyswick Division; don’t mock me.
“I’ve done what you asked me,” John said, and the bound man began to weep, begging incoherently for him to stop the pain.
He felt himself humming with pleasure, a tuneless sound like the cicada’s song, a lamination of feeling through which he could also sense the dread and certainty of what would come next.