Once a Hero

by Elizabeth Moon

"No . . . they said it was only dreams."

  "And now you know differently?"

  "I do." That sounded as grim as she felt. She met Annie's eyes. "I found out when I went home. After the court-martial. That it was true, it was all real, and they lied to me!"

  Annie sat quietly, waiting for her breath to steady again. Then she said, "What I understand you to say is that something happened when you were a child, before you joined Fleet, and your family lied, told you it had never happened and you only dreamed it. Is that true?"

  "Yes!"

  Annie sighed. "Mark down another one for the misguided abusive families of the world."

  Esmay looked up. "They're not abusive, they just—"

  "Esmay. Listen. How painful was it to think you were going crazy because you had unreasonable, disgusting, terrifying bad dreams?"

  She shivered. "Very."

  "And did you have that pain every day?"

  "Yes . . . except when I was too busy to think about it."

  Annie nodded. "If you tormented someone every day, made them miserable every day, scared them every day, made them think they were bad and crazy every day, would you call that abusive?"

  "Of course—" She saw the trap, and turned aside like a wild cow swerving to avoid a gate. "But my family wasn't—they didn't know—"

  "We'll talk about it. So the first problem you have is these dreams, that turned out not to be dreams, of something bad that happened when you were a child. How old were you when it happened?"

  "Almost six," Esmay said. She braced herself for the next questions, the ones she wasn't sure she could answer without coming apart.

  "Do you still have the same dreams, now that you know what it is?"

  "Yes, sometimes . . . and I keep thinking about it. Worrying about it."

  "And your second problem has to do with your experiences aboard Despite?"

  "Yes. The . . . the mutiny . . . I've had dreams about that, too. Sometimes they're mixed up, as if both things were happening at once. . . ."

  "I'm not surprised. Although you haven't told me yet what kind of childhood trauma it was, there are parallels: in both instances you were under someone's protection, that protection failed, and someone you trusted turned out to be against you."

  Esmay felt particularly stupid that she hadn't figured this out for herself; it seemed obvious once Annie had said it.

  "I presume the mutiny on Despite involved a lot of close-contact fighting aboard?"

  "Yes . . ."

  "So of course the Bloodhorde intrusion here would rekindle the same feelings—and tie into the earlier trauma as well."

  "I wasn't quite as scared this time," Esmay said. "Not at the time, anyway."

  "Luckily for the rest of us. Now—have you ever told anyone about the events in your childhood?"

  Esmay felt her shoulders hunching. "My . . . my family already knows."

  "That's not what I asked. Have you ever told anyone since you grew up?"

  "One person . . . Barin Serrano . . . because he was feeling so bad. About having to consult you, and . . . and what happened."

  "Barin Serrano . . . ? Oh. The ensign in sickbay—he's assigned to someone else. Interesting. You're friends?"

  "Yes."

  "It must have been hard for you to tell him . . . how did he react?"

  Esmay shrugged. "I don't know what a normal reaction is. He was mad at my father."

  "Good for him," Annie said. "That's what I'd call a normal reaction. Now . . . since you've told it once, do you think you could tell me?"

  Esmay took a breath and plunged into the story again. It was no easier . . . but no harder, even though Annie was a stranger. When she faltered, Annie asked just enough to get her started again. Finally—she was sure it had taken hours—she got to the end. "I thought . . . thought maybe I'd gone crazy. From the fever, or something."

  Annie shook her head. "That's one thing you don't have to worry about, Esmay. By any definition of sanity, you're well onto the sane side . . . you always were. You survived enormous trauma, physical and emotional, and although it damaged your development, it didn't stop it. Your defenses were normal ones; it was your family's response which, if it manifested in an individual, would be called insane—or at least unsound."

  "But they weren't crazy . . . they weren't the ones waking up everyone in the house at night screaming. . . ." It was absurd to think of her family as crazy, those normal people walking around in everyday clothes, carrying out normal lives.

  "Esmay, nightmares are not a symptom of insanity. Something awful happened to you; you had nightmares about it: a normal reaction. But your family tried to pretend it hadn't happened, and that your normal nightmares were the real problem. That's a failure to face reality—and being out of touch with reality is a symptom of mental illness. It's just as serious when a family or other group does it, as when one person does it."

  "But . . ."

  "It's hard to connect your normal family—living their everyday lives—with your mental image of insanity? I'm not surprised. We'll talk more about this, and your other problems, but let me reassure you: you are sane, and the symptoms you've had are treatable. We'll need to spend some time at it here, and you'll have some assignments to complete on your own. They should take about two hours, between our sessions, which I'm setting up twice a decad for now, every five days. Now: do you have any questions about the process?"

  Esmay was sure she had questions, but she couldn't think of them. She had an overwhelming desire to lie down and sleep; she felt as tired as if she'd been working out for two hours.

  "You will probably have some somatic symptoms for the first several sessions," Annie went on. "You'll be tired, perhaps achy. You may be tempted to skip meals or binge on desserts . . . try to eat regularly and moderately. Allow extra time for sleep, if you can."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  All very well to say that, but what good was time for sleep if she couldn't sleep? Esmay acquired an intimate knowledge of every flaw in the surface of bulkhead and overhead, every object in her quarters. When she shut her eyes, she felt wider awake than before, heart racing. At meals, she dutifully forced down one mouthful after another, mimicking whoever sat fourth down on the left, taking a bite when he or she did. No one seemed to notice. She felt suspended in a hollow sphere; nothing seemed quite within reach.

  To her surprise and relief, no one seemed to expect her to do more than routine work, even though the ship was shorthanded. Pitak handed her endless lists of inventory to check, progress notes on Wraith's repair to enter into the database. She was vaguely aware that this was routine clerical work, more suited to a pivot or corporal, but she felt no rancor. The simple tasks engaged her fully, kept her busy. Whatever burst of energy had sent her across the ship, into the enemy's craft, into battle, had vanished. Someone else could figure out how to get Koskiusko back to Familias space, back to the rest of the Fleet deployment. Someone else could worry about Wraith's repairs, about internal damage, even about casualties. She couldn't quite manage to care.

  In the next session, Esmay found herself defending her family again. "They didn't understand," she said.

  "You had the nightmares. You screamed so much, you said, that they banished you to a distant part of the house—"

  "It wasn't banishment—"

  "For a child to sleep alone that far from anyone else? I call that banishment. And you had changed in ways that most adults would recognize as a response to stress. Hadn't you?"

  Seb Coron had said she loved to ride, until after that. She had been outgoing, ebullient, eager, adventurous . . . but all children grew out of the easy joy of early childhood. She tried to say that to Annie, who insisted on reflecting it back to her in other interpretations. "Whenever a child's behavior changes suddenly, there's a reason. Gradual change is not so diagnostic—exposure to new experiences can mean new enthusiasms replace the old. But sudden change means something, and a child's family is supposed to notice, and look for the cause. In
your case, of course, they already had a cause they knew about."

  "But it wasn't connected . . . they said I'd just gotten lazy. . . ."

  "Children don't `just get lazy.' That's an adult's quick label for some behavior they don't like. You had liked riding before . . . then you quit, and forgot you'd ever enjoyed it. And you think that's not related to a sexual assault?"

  "I . . . suppose it could be." Her whole body twitched, like a horse's skin trying to flick off a biting fly.

  "Do you remember whether the assault was in a building or outside?"

  "All the buildings were destroyed . . . at least partly. I'd found a corner . . . taller than I was, but only a little . . . there was . . . was straw, and I'd crawled into it . . ."

  "What did it smell like?"

  Her breath caught again . . . a whiff of that smell, not the smoke but the other smell, blew across her mind. "Barn," she said, so softly she could barely hear herself. "It was a barn. It smelled like home. . . ."

  "That's probably why you were in it, your nose leading you to something that didn't scare you silly. So there, in a place you had thought safe—remember, smells go straight in to the emotional center of the brain—you were assaulted in the most terrifying way by someone whose uniform you had previously associated with safety. Is it any wonder you hated cleaning stalls later?"

  Astonishment all over again. "I wasn't just lazy," she said, half-believing it. "Or being a sissy about the horses moving around. . . ."

  "No—your accurate memory told you that barns weren't really safe, that bad things could happen if you were trapped in a corner. Your brain was working fine, Esmay, trying to keep you safe."

  Even as her ears heard, her mind denied. "But I should have been able to—"

  "Whoa." Annie held up her hand. "In the first place, you could no more change the new insight your experience gave you than a low-level computer can change the program you feed into it. The part of your brain that's concerned with survival is a very low-level computer; it doesn't care about anything but connecting sensory input to danger and food. If you'd had proper treatment early on, with neuroactive drugs, the worst of the damage could have been prevented . . . but there would always have been a trace of it. That's what life is, after all: that's why mindwipes are illegal."

  "You mean I'm stuck with it forever?" If she was going to be stuck with it, why go through therapy?

  "Not exactly. The kind of work you're doing now, thinking through it bit by bit, will lessen the effect. There are still drugs we can give, to stabilize your insights and put a sort of shield between your present awareness and the ingrained connections while the new connections become stronger."

  "What about the nightmares?"

  "Those should diminish, possibly disappear forever, though you might get a recurrence in another period of extraordinary stress. Other patterns of thought which have impeded your development—as a person and as an officer—will change with continued practice."

  "I don't like the idea of drugs," Esmay said.

  "Good. People who like the idea of drugs have usually medicated themselves with things that don't work and leave neurons flapping in the breeze. You don't have to like your medicine, you just have to trust me to know when you need it."

  "Can't I do it without?"

  "Possibly. Slower, and with more difficulty, and not as certainly. What do you think the drugs will do, turn you into one of those people in horror cubes, who drags around in an asylum in ratty slippers?"

  As that was the image that had come to mind, Esmay could think of nothing to say. Her head dipped in a weak nod.

  "When you're ready for drugs, Esmay, I'll tell you exactly what to expect. Right now, let's get back to the other connections between what happened and the things you quit doing, quit enjoying."

  She had quit enjoying horses; that still shocked her more than the nightmares. She had not even remembered enjoying them; the image Seb Coron gave her, of a child hardly ever off her pony, felt alien. How could she have been that child, and become this woman? Yet if she believed him about the rape, she had to believe him about the pony. It would mean nothing to Fleet, she was sure, but in her own family that by itself had made her different, inferior.

  Could it really be just a matter of smells, of her olfactory system going its own stubborn way, associating the smell of barns and horses with all the terror and pain of that day? It seemed too simple. Why couldn't her nose have associated all the pleasure she'd had, if that pleasure had been real?

  Her nose chose that moment to comment on the smell of dinner, which she had been forking into her mouth without thinking about it. She hadn't noticed anything for days, but now a smell got through, and she realized that her mouth was full of ganash stew. She hated ganash stew, but she couldn't spit it out. She gulped, managed that mouthful, and took a long swallow of water. "Come play ball, Lieutenant?" someone asked. Who was that? Her mind thrashed around, not finding a name for the pleasant-faced young woman. Barin would have known. Barin . . . had not been around for awhile. Therapy, she reminded herself. He probably felt like she did, in no mood for games.

  She needed an excuse. "No thanks," she said, putting the words together like parts of an intricate model, keeping careful control of tone and volume and pitch changes. "I need to work out—maybe another day."

  From there to the gym, uncrowded in the aftermath of the battles. Everyone's schedule was upset, not just hers; she scolded herself for being absentminded and climbed on one of the treadmills. When she glanced aside, her gaze caught on the mechanism of the virtual horse. She had not been on one in her entire Fleet career; she had never considered using one. If she didn't enjoy riding real horses, why bother with a simulator?

  It wouldn't smell like a real one. The thought insinuated itself, and her mind threw up a picture of Luci on the brown mare, two graceful young animals enjoying movement. Pain stabbed her—had she been, could she have been, like Luci? Could she have had that grace?

  Never, never . . . she lunged forward on the treadmill, driving with her legs, and almost fell. The safety rail felt cold against her palms. She forced herself to slow down, to move steadily. The past was past; it would not change because she learned more, or wanted it to.

  "Evening, Lieutenant." A jig, moving past her to the horse. He mounted clumsily, and Esmay could tell by the machine's movement that he had set it for basic mode, a slow trot in a straight line. Even so, he was off-rhythm, posting just behind the beat.

  She could do better. Even now, she could do better, and she knew it.

  She had no reason to do better. This life had no need for expertise in riding. She reminded herself of the smell, the dirt, the misery . . . her mind threw up images of speed and beauty and grace. Of Luci . . . and almost, tickling at the edge of awareness, of herself.

  On the wall of Annie's room—she thought of it that way, though she had no reason to think it was really Annie's room—a flatscreen displayed a vague, misty landscape in soft greens and golds. Nothing like Altiplano, where the mountains stood out crisply against the sky, but it was a planet; she felt grounded by even that little.

  "In your culture," Annie began, "part of the global definition of woman or girl is someone to be protected. You were a girl, and you were not protected."

  I wasn't worthy of protection ran through her mind. She curled into the afghan, not quite shivering, and focussed on its texture, its warmth. Someone had crocheted it by hand; she spotted a flaw in the pattern.

  "A child's reasoning is different," Annie said. "You were not protected, so your child's mind—protecting your father, as children do, and the more strongly because your mother had just died—your child's mind decided that either you were not really a girl, or you were not a good girl, and in either case you did not deserve protection. My guess would be that your mind, for reasons of its own, chose the `not really a girl' branch."

  "Why do you say that?" asked Esmay, who had been remembering the many times someone had told her she was a bad
girl.

  "Because of your behavior as an adolescent and adult. The ones who think they're bad girls act like bad girls—whatever that means for their culture of origin. For you, I suppose it would have been having affairs with anything that had a Y chromosome. You've been conspicuously good—at least, that's what your fitness reports say—but you haven't formed any lasting relationships with either sex. Also, you've chosen a career at odds with your culture's definition of women, as if you were a son rather than a daughter."

  "But that's just Altiplano . . ."

  "Yes, but that's where you were raised; that's what formed your deepest attitudes towards the basics of human behavior. Do you fit in, as a woman, in your society?"

  "Well . . . no."

  "Are you far enough from their norm to make them uneasy?"

  "Yes . . ."

  "At least you haven't taken the whole-bore approach: some people in your situation chose to reverse both parts of the definition and define themselves as `bad, not-girls.' "

  "Does that mean I'm . . . not really a woman now?"

  "Heavens, no. By the standards of Fleet, and most of the rest of Familias, your interests and behaviors are well within the definition. Celibacy's unusual, but not rare. Besides, you haven't considered it a problem until now, have you?"

  Esmay shook her head.

  "Then I don't see why we should worry about it. The rest of it—the nightmares, the flashbacks from combat, the inability to concentrate and so on—are matters for treatment. If, when the things that bother you are resolved, you find something else to worry about, we can deal with it then."

  That made sense.

  "My guess—and it's only a guess, not an expert opinion—is that when you've got the rest of this straightened out, you'll find it easy to decide whether you want a partner, and if you do, you'll find one."

  Session after session, in that quiet cozy room with its soft textures, its warm colors . . . she had quit dreading them, though she wished they weren't necessary. It still seemed slightly indecent to spend so much time talking about herself and her family, especially when Annie refused to excuse her family for their mistakes.