Sassinak

Chapter One

By the time anyone noticed that the carrier was overdue, no one cared. Celebrations had started two local days before, when the last crawler train came in from Zeebin. Sassinak, along with the rest of her middle school, had met that train, helped offload the canisters of personal-grade cargo, and then wandered through the crowded streets.

Last year she’d been too young - barely - for such freedom. Even now, she flinched a little from the noise and confusion. The City tripled in population for the week or so of celebration when the ore carriers came in. Every farmer, miner, crawler-train tech or engineer - everyone who possibly could, and some who shouldn’t have - came to The City. It almost seemed to deserve the name, with crowds bustling between the rows of one-story prefab buildings that served the young colony as housing, storage, and manufacturing space. Sassinak could pretend she was on the outskirts of a real city, and the taller dome and blockhouse of the original settlement, could, with imagination, stand for the great soaring buildings she hoped one day to visit, on the worlds she’d heard about in school.

She caught sight of a school patch ahead of her, and recognized Caris’s new (and slightly ridiculous) hairdo. Shoving between two meandering miners, who seemed disposed to slow down at every doorway, Sassinak grabbed her friend’s elbow. Caris whirled.

“Don’t you -! Oh, Sass, you idiot. I thought you were -”

“A drunken miner. Sure.” Arm in arm with Caris, Sassinak felt safer - and slightly more adult. She gave Caris a sidelong look, and Caris smirked back. They broke into a hip-swaying parody of the lead holovid’s “Carin Coldae - Adventurer Extraordinary” and sang a snatch of the theme song. Someone hooted, behind them, and they broke into a run. Across the street, a familiar voice yelled “There go the skeleton twins” and they ran faster.

“Sinder,” Caris said a block or so later, when they’d slowed down, “is a planetary snarp.”

“Planetary nothing. Stellar snarp.” Sassinak glowered at her friend. They were both long and lanky, and they’d heard as much of Sinder’s skeleton twin joke as anyone could rightly stand

“Interstellar.” Caris always had to have the last word, Sassinak thought. It might not be right, but it was last.

“We’re not going to think about Sinder.” Sassinak wormed her fingers through the tangle of things in her jacket pocket and pulled out her credit ring. “We’ve got money to spend…”

“And you’re my friend!” Caris laughed and shoved her gently toward the nearest food booth.

By the next day, the streets were too rowdy for youngsters, Sassinak’s parents insisted. She tried to argue that she was no longer a youngster, but got nowhere. She was sure it had something to do with her mother’s need for a babysitter, and the adult-only party in the block recreation center. Caris came over, which made it slightly better. Caris got along better with six-year-old Lunzie than Sass did, and that meant Sass could read stories to “the baby”: Januk, now just over three. If Januk hadn’t managed to spill three-months’ worth of sugar ration while they were trying to make cookies from scratch, it might have been a fairly good day after all. Cans scooped most of the sugar back into the canister, but Sass was afraid her mother would notice the brown specks in it.

“It’s just spice,” Caris said firmly.

“Yes, but -” Sassinak wrinkled her nose. “What’s that? Oh… dear.” The cookies were not quite burnt, but she was sure they wouldn’t make up for the spilled sugar. No hope that Lunzie wouldn’t mention it, either - she was at that age, Sass thought, when having finally figured out the difference between telling a story and telling the truth, she wanted to let everyone know. Lunzie prefaced most talebearing with a loud “I’m telling the truth, now: I really am” which Sass found unbearable. It didn’t help to be told that she herself had once, at about age five, scolded the Block Coordinator for using a polite euphemism at the table. “The right word is ‘castrated’,” was what everyone said she’d said. Sass didn’t believe it. She would never, in her entire life, no matter how early, have said something like that right out loud at the table. Now she cleaned up the cook-corner, saving what grains of sugar looked fairly clean, and wondered when she could insist that Lunzie and Januk go to bed.

“Eight days.” The captain grinned at the pilot. “Eight days should be enough. For most of it anyway. Aren’t we lucky that the carrier’s late.” They both laughed; it was an old joke for them, and a mystery for everyone else, how they could turn up handily when other ships were “late.”

“We don’t want to leave witnesses.”

“No. But we may want to leave evidence… of a sort.” The captain grinned, and the pilot nodded. Evidence implicating someone else. “Now - if those fools down there aren’t drunk out of their wits, anticipating the carrier’s arrival, I’m a shifter. We should be able to fake the contact, unless they speak some outlandish gabble. Let’s see…” He scrolled through the directory information and shook his head. “No problem. Neo-Gaesh, and that’s Orlen’s birthtongue.”

“He’s from here?”

“No, the colonists here are from Innish-Ire, and Orlen’s from Innish Outer Station. Same difference; same language and dialect. New colony - they won’t have diverged that much.”

“But the kids - they’ll speak Standard?”

“FSP rules: they have to, by age eight. All colonies provided with tapes and cubes for the creches. We shouldn’t have any problem.”

Orlen, summoned to the bridge, muttered a string of things the captain hoped were Neo-Gaesh, and opened communications with the planet’s main spaceport. For all the captain could tell, the mishmash of syllables coming back was exactly the same, only longer. Hardly a language at all, he thought, smug in his own heritage of properly crisp and tonal Chinese. He spoke Standard as well, and two other related tongues.

“They say they can’t match our ID to the files,” Orlen said, this time in Standard, interrupting that chain of thought.

“Tell ‘em they’re drunk and incompetent,” said the captain.

“I did. I told them they had the wrong cube in the lock, an out-of-date directory entry, and no more intelligence than a cabbage, and they’ve gone to try again. But they won’t turn on the grid until we match.”

The pilot cleared his throat, not quite an interruption, and the captain looked at him. “We could jam our code into their computer…” he offered.

“Not here. Colony’s too new; they’ve got the internal checks. No, we’re going down, but keep talking, Orlen. If we can hold them off just a bit too long, we won’t have to worry about their serious defenses. Such as they are.”

In the assault capsules, the troops waited. Motley armor, stolen from a dozen different captured ships and minor bases, mixed weaponry of all manufactures, they lacked only the romance once associated with the concept of pirate. These were muggers, gangsters, two steps down from mercenaries and well aware of the price of failure. The Federation of Sentient Planets would not torture, rarely executed… but the thought of being whited, mindcleaned, and turned into obedient and useful workers… that was torture enough. So they had discipline, of a sort, and loyalty, of a sort, and were obedient, within limits to those who ruled the ship or hired it. On some worlds they passed as Free Trader’s Guards.

Orlen’s accusations had not been far wrong. When the last crawler train came in, everyone relaxed until the ore carriers arrived. The Spaceport Senior Technician was supposed to stay alert, on watch, but with the new outer beacon to signal and take care of first contact, why bother? It had been a long, long year, 460 days, and what harm in a little nip of something to warm the heart? One nip led to another. When the inner beacon, unanswered, tripped the relays that set every light in the control rooms blinking in disorienting random patterns, his first thought was that he’d simply missed the outer beacon signal. He’d finally found the combination of control buttons that turned the lights on steady, and shushed the excited (and none too sober) little crowd that had come in to see what happened. And having a friendly voice speaking Neo-Gaesh on the other end of the comm link only added to the confusion, He’d tried to say he could speak Standard well enough (not sure if he’d been too drunk to answer a hail in Standard earlier), but it came out tangled. And so on, and so on, and it was only stubborness that kept him from turning on the grid when the ship’s ID scan didn’t match the record books. Damned sobersides space-men, out there in the stars with nothing to do but sneak up on honest men trying to have a little fun - why should he do them a favor? Let ‘em match their own ship up, or come in without the grid beacons on, if that’s the game they wanted to play. He put the computer on a search loop, and took another little nip.

The computer’s override warning buzz woke him again. The ship was much closer, just over the horizon, low, coming in on a landing pattern… and it was red-flagged. Pirate! he thought muzzily. It’s a pirate. It can’t be… but the computer, not fooled, and not having been stopped by the override sequence he was too drunk to key in, turned on full alarms, all over the building and the city. And the speech synthesiser, in a warm, friendly, calm female voice, said, “Attention. Attention. Vessel approaching has been identified as dangerous. Attention. Attention…”

But by then it was far too late.

Sassinak and Cans had eaten the last of the overbrowned cookies, and were well into the kind of long-after-midnight conversation they preferred. Lunzie grunted and tossed on her pallet; Januk sprawled bonelessly on his, looking, as Cans said, like something tossed up from the sea. “Little kids aren’t human,” said Sass, winding a strand of dark hair around her finger. “They’re all alien, shapechangers like those Wefts you read about, and then turn human at -” She thought a moment. “Eleven or so.”

“Eleven! You were eleven last year; I was. I was human…”

“Ha.” Sass grinned, and watched Cans. “I wasn’t human. I was special. Different -”

“You’ve always been different.” Cans rolled away from Sass’s slap. “Don’t hit me; you know it. You like it. You would be alien if you could.”

“I would be off this planet if I could,” said Sass, serious for a moment. “Eight more years before I can even apply - aggh!”

“To do what?”

“Anything. No, not anything. Something -” her hands waved, describing arcs and whorls of excitement, adventure, marvels in the vast and mysterious distance of time and space.

“Umm. I’ll take biotech training and a lifetime spent figuring out how to insert genes for correctly handed proteins in our native fishlife.” Caris wrinkled her nose. “You’re not going to leave, Sass. This is the frontier. This is where the excitement is. Right here.”

“Eatingfish? Eating lifeforms?”

Caris shrugged. “I’m not devout. Those fins in the ocean aren’t sentient, we know that much, and they could give us cheap, easy protein. Personally, I’m tired of gruel and beans, and since we have to fiddle with their genes, too, why not fishlife?”

Sassinak gave her a long look. True, lots of the frontier settlers weren’t devout, and didn’t find anything but a burdensome rule in the FSP strictures about eating meat. But she herself - she shivered a little, thinking of a finny wriggling in her throat. Something wailed, in the distance, and she shivered again. Then the houselights brightened and dimmed abruptly.

“Storm?” asked Caris. The lights blinked, now quickly, now slow. From the terminal in the other room came an odd sort of voice, something Sass had never heard before.

“Attention. Attention…”

The girls stared at each other, shocked for an endless instant into complete stillness. Then Caris leaped for the door, and Sass caught her arm.

“Wait - help me get Lunzie and Januk!”

The younger children were hard to wake, and cranky once roused. Januk demanded “mybig jar” and Lunzie couldn’t find her shoes. Sass, mind racing, dared to use the combination her father had once shown her, and opened her parents’ sealed closet.

“What are youdoing?” asked Caris, now by the door again with the other two. Her eyes widened as Sass pulled down the zipped cases: the military-issue projectile weapons issued to each adult colonist, and the lumpy, awkward part of a larger weapon which should - if they had time - mate with those from adjoining apartments to make something more effective.

Lunzie could just carry one of the long, narrow cases; Sass had to use both arms on the big one, and Caris took the other narrow one, along with Januk’s hand. “We should stop at my place,” Caris said, but when they got outside, they could see the red and blue lines crossing the sky. A white flare, at a distance. “That was the Spaceport offices,” said Caris, still calm.

Other shapes moved in the darkness, converging on the Block Recreation Center; Sass recognized two class-mates, both carrying weapons, and one trailing a string of smaller children. They made it to the Block Recreation Center just as adults came boiling out, most unsteady on their feet, and all cursing.

“Sassinak! Bless you - you remembered!” Her father, suddenly looking larger and more dangerous than she had thought for the last year or so, grabbed Lunzie’s load and stripped off the green cover. Sass had seen such weapons in class videos; now she watched him strip and load it, hardly aware that her mother had taken the weapon Caris carried. Someone she didn’t know yelled for a “PC-8base, dammit!” and Sass’s father said, without even looking at her, “Go, Sassy! That’s your load!” She carried it across the huge single room of the Center to the cluster of adults assembling some larger weapons, and they snatched it, stripped off the cover, set it down near the door, and began attaching other pieces. An older woman grabbed her arm and demanded, “Class?”

“Six.”

“You’ve had aid class?” When Sass nodded, the woman said “Good - then get over here.”Here was on the far side of the Center, out of sight of her family, but with a crowd of middle school children, all busily laying out an infirmary area, just like in the teaching tapes.

The Center stank of whiskey fumes, of smoke, of too many bodies, of fear. Children’s shrill voices rose above the adults’ talking; babies wailed or shrieked. Sass wondered if the ship was down, that pirate ship. How many pirates would there be? What kinds of weapons would they have? What did pirates want, and what did they do? Maybe - for an instant she almost believed this thought - maybe it was just a drill, more realistic than the quarterly drills she’d grown up with, but not real. Perhaps a Fleet ship had chosen to frighten them, just to encourage more frequent practice with the weapons, and the first thing they’d see was a Fleet officer.

She felt more than heard the first concussive explosion, and that hope died. Whoever was out there was hostile. Everything the tapes had said or she’d overheard the adults say about pirates ran through her mind. Colonies disappeared, on some worlds, or survived gutted of needed equipment and supplies, with half their population gone to slavers. Ships taken even during FTL travel, when according to theory no one could say where they were.

Waiting there, unarmed, she realized that the thrice-weekly class in self-defense was going to do her no good at all. If the pirates had bigger guns, if they had weapons better than projectiles, she was going to die… or be captured.

“Sass.” Cans touched her arm; she reached out and gave Caris a quick hug. Around her, the others of her class had gathered in a tight knot. Even in this, Sassinak recognized the familiar. Since she’d started school, the others had looked to her in a crisis. When Berry fell off the crawler train, when Seh Garvis went crazy and attacked the class with an orecutter, everyone expected Sass to know what to do, and do it. Bossy, her mother had called her, more than once, and her father had agreed, but added that bossy plus tact could be very useful indeed.Tact, she thought. But what could she say now?

“Who’s our triage?” she asked Sinder. He stood back, well away from Sass’s friends.

“Gath” He pointed to a youth who had been cleared for off-planet training - medical school, everyone expected. He’d been senior school medic all four years. “I’m low-code this time.”

Sass nodded, gave him a smile he returned uneasily, and checked again on each person’s assignment. If they had nothing to do now, they could be sure they knew what to do when things happened.

All at once a voice blared outside - a loudhailer, Sass realized, with the speakers distorting the Neo-Gaesh vowels. From this corner of the building, she could pick out only parts of it, but enough to finish off the last bit of her confidence.

“… surrender… will blow… resistance… guns…”

The adults responded with a growl of defiance that covered the loudhailer’s next statements. But Sass could hear something else, a clattering that sounded much like a crawler train, only different somehow. Then a hole appeared in the wall opposite her, as if someone had drawn it on paper and then ripped the center from the circle. She had never known that walls could be so fragile; she had felt so much safer inside. And now she realized that all together inside this building was the very last place anyone should be. Her shoulders felt hot, as if she’d stood in the summer sunlight too long, and she whirled to see the same kind of mark appearing on the wall behind her.

Later, when she had the training to analyse such situations, she knew that everything would have happened in seconds: from the breaching of the wall to the futile resistance of the adults, pitting third-rate projectile weapons against the pirates’ stolen armament and much greater skill, to the final capture of the survivors, groggy from the gas grenades the pirates tossed in the building. But at the time, her mind seemed to race faster than time itself, so that she saw, as in a dream, her father swing his weapon to face the armored assault pod that burst through the wall itself. She saw a line of light touch his arm, and his weapon fell with the severed limb. Her mother caught him as he staggered, and they both charged. So did others. A swarm of adults tried to overwhelm the pod with sheer numbers, even as they died, but not before Sass saw what had halted it: her parents had thrown themselves into the tracks to jam them.

And it was not enough. If all the colonists had been there, maybe. But another assault pod followed the first, and another. Sass, screaming like the rest, charged at it, expecting every instant to be killed. Instead, the pods split open, and the troops rolled out, safe in their body armor from the blows and kicks the children could deliver. Then they tossed the gas grenades, and Sass could not breathe. Choking, she slid to the floor along with the rest.

She woke to a worse nightmare. Daylight, dusty and cold, came through the hole in the wall. She was nauseated and her head ached. When she tried to roll over and retch, something choked her, tightening around her throat. A thin collar around her neck, attached to another on either side by a thin cord of what looked like plastic. Sass gagged, terrified. Someone’s boot appeared before her face, and bumped her, hard.

“Quit that.”

Sassinak held utterly still. That voice had no softness in it, nothing but contempt, and she knew, without even looking up, what she would see. Around her, others stirred; she tried to see, without moving, who they were. Crumpled bodies, all sizes; some moved and some didn’t. She heard boots clump on the floor, coming closer, and tried not to shiver.

“Ready?” asked someone.

“These’re awake,” said someone else. She thought that was the same voice that had told her to quit moving.

“Get’m up, clear this out, and start loading.” One set of boots clumped off, the other reappeared in her vision, and a sharp nudge in the ribs made her gasp.

“You eight: get up.” Sass tried to move, but found herself stiff and clumsy, and far more impeded by a collar and line than she would have thought. This sort of thing never bothered Carin Coldae, who had once captured a pirate ship by herself. The others in her eight had as much trouble; they staggered into each other, jerking each others’ collars helplessly. The pirate, now that she was standing and could see clearly, simply stood there, face invisible behind the body armor’s faceplate. She had no idea how big he really was - or even if it might be a woman.

Her gaze wandered. Across the Center, another link of eight struggled up; she saw another already moving under a pirate’s direction. A thump in the ribs brought her head around…

“Pay attention! The eight of you are a link; your number is 15. If anyone gives an order for link 15, that’s you, and you’d better be sharp about it. You -” the hard black nose of some weapon Sass couldn’t name prodded her ribs, already sore. “You’re the link leader. Your link gets into trouble, it’s your fault. You get punished. Understand?”

Sass nodded. The weapon prodded harder. “You say ‘Yessir’ when you’re asked something!”

She wanted to scream defiance, as Carin Coldae would have done, but heard herself saying “Yessir” - in Standard, no less - instead.

Down the line, the boy on the end said, “I’m thirsty.” The weapon swung toward him, as the pirate said, “You’re a slave now. You’re not thirsty until I say you’re thirsty.” Then the pirate swung the weapon back at Sass, a blow she didn’t realize was coming until it staggered her. “Your link’s disobedient, 15. Your fault.” He waited until she caught her breath, then went on with his instructions. Sass heard the smack of a blow, and a wail of pain, across the building, but didn’t look around. “You carry the dead out. Pile ‘em on the crawler train outside. You work fast enough, hard enough, you might get water later.”

They worked fast enough and hard enough, Sass thought later. Her link of eight were all middle-school age, and they all knew her although only one of them was in her class. It was clear that they didn’t want to get her into trouble. With her side making every breath painful, she didn’t want trouble right then either. But dragging the dead bodies out, over the blood and mess on the floor… people she had known, but could recognize now only by the yellow skirt that Cefa always wore, the bronze medallion on Torry’s wrist… that was worse than anything she’d imagined. Four or five links, by then, were working on the same thing. Later she realized that the pirates had killed the wounded: later yet she would learn that the same thing had happened all over The City, at other Centers.

When the building was clear of dead, her link and two others were loaded on the crawler train as well; pirates drove it, and sat on the piled corpses - as if they’d been pillows, she thought furiously - to guard the children riding behind. Sass knew they would kill them, wondered why they’d waited this long. The crawler train clanked and rumbled along, turning down the lane to the fisheries research station where Caris had hoped to work. All its windows were broken, the door smashed in. Sass hadn’t seen Caris all day, but she hadn’t dared look around much, either. Nor had she seen Lunzie or Januk.

The crawler train rumbled to the end of the lane, near the pier. And there the children had to unload the bodies, drag them out on the pier, and throw them in the restless alien ocean. It was hard to maneuver on the pier; the links tended to tangle. The pirate guards hit anyone they could reach, forcing them to hurry, keep moving, keep working.

Sass had shut her mind off, as well as she could, and tried not to see the faces and bodies she handled. She had Lunzie’s in her arms, and was halfway to the end of the pier, when she recognized it. A reflexive jerk, a scream tearing itself from her throat, and Lunzie’s corpse slipped away, thumped on the edge of the pier, and splashed into the water. Sass stood rigid, unable to move. Something yanked on her collar; she paid it no heed. She heard someone cry out, say, “That was hersister! “ and then blackness took her away. The rest of her time on Myriad, those few days of desperate work and struggle, she always shoved down below conscious memory. She had been drugged, then worked to exhaustion, then drugged again. They had loaded the choicest of the ores, the rare gemstones which had paid the planet’s assessment in the FSP Development Office, the richest of the transuranics. She was barely conscious of her link’s concern, the care they tried to take of her, the gentle brush of a hand in the rare rest periods, the way they kept slack in her collar-lead. But the rest was black terror, grief, and rage. On the ship, after that, her link spent its allotted time in Conditioning, and the rest in the tight and smelly confines of the slavehold. For them, no drugs or coldsleep to ease a long voyage: they had to learn what they were, the pirates informed them with cold superiority. They were cargo, saleable anywhere the FSP couldn’t control. As with any cargo, they were divided into like kinds: age groups, sexes, trained specialists. As with any slaves, they soon learned ways to pass information among themselves. So Sass found that Caris was still alive, part of link 18. Januk had been left behind, alive but doomed, since no adults or older children remained to help those too young to travel. Most of The City’s adults had died trying to defend it against the pirates; some survived, but none of the children knew how many.

Conditioning was almost welcome, to ease the boredom and misery of the slavehold. Sass knew - at least at first - that this was intentional. But as time passed, she and her link both had trouble remembering what free life had been like. Conditioning also meant a bath of sorts, because the pirate trainers couldn’t stand the stench of the slavehold. For that alone it was welcome. The link stood, sat, reached, squatted, turned, all as one, on command. They learned assembly-line work, putting together meaningless combinations some other link had taken apart in a previous session. They learned Harish, a variant of Neo-Gaesh that some of the pirates spoke, and they were introduced to Chinese.

The end of the voyage came unannounced - for, as Sass now expected, slaves had no need for knowledge of the future. The landing was rough, bruisingly rough, but they had learned that complaint brought only more pain. Link by link the pirates - now unarmored - marched them off the ship, and along a wide gray street toward a line of buildings. Sass shivered; they’d been hosed down before leaving the ship, and the wind chilled her. The gravity was too light, as well. The planet smelled strange: dusty and sharp, nothing like Myriad’s rich salt smell. She looked up, and realized that they were inside something - a dome? A dome big enough to cover a spaceport and a city?

All the city she could see, in the next months, was slavehold. Block after block of barracks, workshops, factories, five stories high and stretching in all directions. No trees, no grass, nothing living but the human slaves and human masters. Some were huge, far taller than Sass’s parents had been, heavily muscled like the thugs that Carin Coldae had overcome inThe Ice-World Dilemma.

They broke up the links, sending each slave to a testing facility to see what skills might be saleable. Then each was assigned to new links, for work or training or both, clipped and undipped from one link after another as the masters desired. After all that had happened, Sass was surprised to find that she remembered her studies. As the problems scrolled onto the screen, she could think, immerse herself in the math or chemistry or biology. For days she spent a shift at the test center, and a shift at menial work in the barracks, sweeping floors that were too bare to need sweeping, and cleaning the communal toilets and kitchens. Then a shift at assembly work, which made no more sense to her than it ever had, and a bare six hours of sleep, into which she fell as into a well, eager to drown.

She had no way to keep track of the days, and no reason to. No way to find her old friends, or trace their movements. New friends she made easily, but the constant shifting from link to link made it hard for such friendships to grow. Then, long after her testing was finished, and she was working three full shifts a day, she was unclipped and taken to a building she’d not yet seen. Here, clipped into a long line of slaves, she heard the sibilant chant of an auctioneer and realized she was about to be sold.

By the time she reached the display stand, she had heard the spiel often enough to deaden her mind to the impact. Human female, Gilson stage II physical development, intellectual equivalent grade eight general, grade nine mathematics, height so much, massing so much, planet of origin, genetic stock of origin, native and acquired languages, specific skills ratings, all the rest. She expected the jolt of pain that revealed to the buyers how sensitive she was, how excitable, and managed to do no more than flinch. She had already learned that the buyers rarely looked for beauty - that was easy enough to breed, or surgically sculpt. But talents and skills were chancy, and combined with physical vigor, chancier yet. Hence the reason for taking slaves from relatively young colonies.

The bidding went on, in a currency she didn’t know and couldn’t guess the value of. Someone finally quit bidding, and someone else pressed a heavy thumb to the terminal ID screen, and someone else - another slave, this time, by the collar - led her away down empty corridors and finally clipped her lead to a ring by a doorway. Through all this Sass managed not to tremble visibly, or cry, although she could feel the screams tearing at her from inside.

“What’s your name?” asked the other slave, now stacking boxes beside the door. Sass stared at him. He was much older, a stocky, graying man with scars seaming one arm, and a groove in his skull where no hair grew. He looked at her when she didn’t answer, and smiled a gap-toothed smile. “It’s all right - you can answer me if you want, or not.”

“Sassinak!” She got it out all at once, fast and almost too loud. Her name! She had a name again.

“Easy,” he said. “Sassinak, eh? Where from?”

“M-myriad.” Her voice trembled, now, and tears sprang to her eyes.

“Speak Neo-Gaesh?” he asked, in that tongue. Sass nodded, too close to tears to speak.

“Take it easy,” he said. “You can make it.” She took a long breath, shuddering, and then another, more quietly. He nodded his approval. “You’ve got possibilities, girl. Sassinak. By your scores, you’re more than smart. By your bearing, you’ve got guts to go with it. No tears, no screams. You did jump too much, though.”

That criticism, coming on top of the kindness, was too much; her temper flared. “I didn’t so much as say ouch!”

He nodded. “I know. But you jumped. You can do better.” Still angry, she stared, as he grinned at her. “Sassinak from Myriad, listen to me. Untrained, you didn’t let out a squeak… what do you think you could do with training?”

Despite herself, she was caught. “Training? You mean…?”

But down the corridor came the sound of approaching voices. He shook his head at her, and stood passively beside the stacked cartons, at her side.

“What’s your name?” she asked very quietly, and very quietly he answered:

“Abervest. They call me Abe.” And then so low she could hardly hear it, “I’m Fleet.”

Chapter Two

Fleet. Sassinak held to that thought through the journey that followed, crammed as she was into a cargo hauler’s front locker with two other newly purchased slaves. She found out afterwards that that had not been punishment, but necessity; the hauler went out of the dome and across the barren, airless surface of the little planet that served as a slave depot. Outside the insulated, pressurised locker - or the control cab, where Abe drove in relative comfort - she would have died.

Their destination was another slave barracks, this one much smaller. Sassinak expected the same sort of routine as before, but instead she was assigned to a training facility. Six hours a day before a terminal, learning to use the math she already knew in mapping, navigation, geology. Learning to perfect her accent in Harish and learning to understand (but never speak) Chinese. Another shift in manual labour, working at whatever jobs needed doing, according to the shift supervisor. She had no regular duties, nothing she could depend on.

One of the most oppressive things was the simple feeling that she could not even see out. She had always been able to run outdoors and look at the sky, wander into the hills for an afternoon with friends. Now… now some blank ugliness stopped her gaze, as if by physical force, everywhere she looked. Most buildings had no windows: there was nothing outside to see but the wall of another prefab hulk nearby. Trudging the narrow streets from one assignment to another, she learned that looking up brought a quick scolding, or a blow. Besides, she couldn’t see anything above but the greyish haze of the dome. She could not tell how large the moon or planet was, how far she’d been taken from the original landing site, even how many buildings formed the complex in which she was trained. Day after day, nothing but the walls of these prefabs, indoors and out, always the same neutral gritty grey. She quit trying to look up, learned to contain herself within herself, and hated herself for making that adjustment.

But one shift a day, amazingly, was free. She could spend it in the language labs, working at the terminal, reading… or, as most often, with Abe.

Fleet, she soon learned, was his history and his dream. He had been Fleet, had enlisted as a boy just qualified, and worked his way rating by rating, sometimes slipping back when a good brawl intruded on common sense, but mostly rising steadily through the ranks as a good spacer could. Clever, but without the intellect that would have won him a place at the Academy; strong, but not brutal with it; brave without the brashness of the boy he had been, he had clenched himself around the virtues of the Service as a drowning man might cling to a limb hanging in the water. Slave he might be, in all ways, but yet he was Fleet.

“They’re tough,” he said to her, soon after they arrived. “Tough as anything but the slavers, and maybe even more. They’ll break you if they can, but if they can’t…” His voice trailed away, and she glanced over to see his eyes glistening. He blinked. “Fleet never forgets,” he said. “Never. They may come late, they may come later, but they come. And if it’s later, never mind. Your name’s on the rolls, it’ll be in Fleet’s memory, forever.”

Over the months that followed, Sassinak began to think of Fleet as something other than the capricious and arrogant arm of power her parents had told her about. Solid, Abe said. Dependable. The same on one ship as on any; the ranks the same, the ratings the same, the specialties the same, barring the difference in a ship’s size or weaponry.

He would not say how long he had been a slave, or what had happened, but his faith in the Fleet, in the Fleet’s long arm and longer memory, sank into her mind, bit by bit. Her supervisors varied: some quick to anger, some lax. Abe smiled, and pointed out that good commanders were consistent, and good services had good commanders. When she came to their meetings bruised and sore from an undeserved punishment, he told her to remember that: some day she would have power, and she could do better.

She could do better even then, he said one evening, reminding her of their first meeting. “You’re ready now,” he said. “I’ve something to show you.”

“What?”

“Physical discipline, something you do for yourself. It’ll make it easier on you when things get tough, here or anywhere. You don’t have to feel the pain, or the hunger -”

“I can’t do that!”

“Nonsense. You worked six hours straight at the terminal today - didn’t even break for the noon meal. You were hungry, but you weren’t thinking about it. You can learn not to think about it unless you want to.”

Sass grinned at him. “I can’t do calculus all the time!”

“No, you can’t. But you can reach that same core of yourself, no matter what you think of. Now sit straight, and breathe from down here -” He poked her belly.

It was both harder and easier than she’d expected. Easier to slip into a trancelike state of concentration on something - a technique she’d learned at home, she thought, studying while Lunzie and Januk played. Harder to withdraw from the world without that specific focus.

“It’s in you,” Abe insisted. “Down inside yourself, that’s where you focus. If it’s something outside, math or whatever, they can tear it away. But not what’s inside.” Sass spent one frustrating session after another feeling around inside her head for something - anything - that felt like what Abe described. “It’s not in your head,” he kept insisting. “Reach deeper. It’s way down.” She began to think of it as a center of gravity, and Abe nodded when she told him. “That’s closer - use that, if it helps.”

When she had that part learned, the next was harder. A simple trance wasn’t enough, because all she could do was endure passively. She would need, Abe explained, to be able to exert all her strength at will, even the reserves most people never touched. For a long time she made no progress at all, would gladly have quit, but Abe wouldn’t let her.

“You’re learning too much in your tech classes,” he said soberly. “You’re almost an apprentice pilot now - and that’s very saleable.” Sass stared at him, shocked. She had never thought she might be sold again - sent somewhere else, away from Abe. She had almost begun to feel safe. Abe touched her arm gently. “You see, Sass, why you need this, and need it now. You aren’t safe: none of us is. I could be sold tomorrow - would have been before now, if I weren’t so useful in several tech specialties. They may keep you until you’re a fully qualified pilot, but likely not. There’s a good market for young pilot apprentices, in the irregular trade.” She knew he meant pirates, and shuddered at the thought of being back on a pirate ship. “Besides,” he went on, “there’s something more you need to know, that I can’t tell you until you can do this right. So get back to work.”

When she finally achieved something he called adequate, it wasn’t much more than her normal strength, and she exhausted it quickly. But Abe nodded his approval, and had her practice almost daily. Along with that practice came the other information he’d promised.

‘There’s a kind of network,” he said, “of pirate victims. Remembering where they came from, who did it, who lived, and how the others died. We keep thinking that if we can ever put it all together, everything we know, we’ll find out who’s behind all this piracy. It’s not just independents - although I heard that the ship that took Myriad was an independent, or on the outs with its sponsor. There’s evidence of some kind of conspiracy at FSP itself. I don’t know what, or I’d kill myself to get that to Fleet somehow, but I know there’s evidence. And I couldn’t put you in touch with them until you could shield your reactions.”

“But who-”

“They call themselves Samizdat - an old word, some language I never heard of, supposed to mean underground or something. Maybe it does, maybe not. That doesn’t matter. But the name does, and your keeping it quiet does.”

Study, work, practice with Abe. When she thought about it - which she did rarely - it was sort of a parody of the life she’d expected at home on Myriad. School, household chores, the tight companionship other friends. But flunking a test at home had meant a scolding; here it meant a beating. Let Januk spill precious rationed food - her eyes filled, remembering the sugar that last night - and her mother would expostulate bitterly. But if she spilled a keg of seeds, hauling it to the growing frames, her supervisor would cuff her sharply, and probably dock her a meal. And instead of friends her own age, to gossip about schoolmates and families, to share the jokes and dreams, she had Abe. Time passed, time she could not measure save by the subtle changes in her own body: a little taller, she thought. A little wider of hip, more roundness, even though the slave diet kept her lean.

It finally occurred to her to wonder why they were allowed such freedom, when she realised that other slave friendships were broken up intentionally, by the supervisors. Abe grinned mischievously. “I’m valuable; I told you that. And they think I need a lovely young plaything now and then -”

Sass reddened. Here girls younger than she were taught arts of love; but on Myriad, in her family’s religion, only those old enough to start a separate family were supposed to know how. Although they’d all complained mildly, life on a pioneer planet kept them too busy to regret. Abe went on.

“I told ‘em I’d instruct you myself. Didn’t want any of their teachings getting in my way.” Sass stared at the floor, furious with him and his amusement. “Don’t fluff feathers at me, girl,” he said firmly. “I saved you a lot of trouble. You’d never have been assigned that full-time, smart as you are, and saleable as tech-slaves are, but still…”

“All right.” It came out in a sulky mutter, and she cleared her throat loudly. “All right. I understand -”

“You don’t, really, but you will later.” His hand touched her cheek, and turned her face towards his. “Sass, when you’re free-and I do believe you’ll be free some day - you’ll understand what I did and why. Reputation doesn’t mean anything here. The truth always does. You’re going to be a beauty, my girl, and I hope you enjoy your body in all ways. Which means you deciding when and how.’*

She didn’t feel comfortable with him for some time after that. Some days later, he met her with terrifying news.

“You’re going to be sold,” he said, looking away from her. “Tomorrow, the next day - that soon. This is our last meeting. They only told me because they offered me another - “

“But, Abe -” she finally found her voice, faint and trembling as it was.

“No, Sass.” He shook his head. “I can’t stop it.”

Tears burst from her eyes. “But -but it can’t be -”

“Sass,think!” His tone commanded her; the tears dried on her cheeks. “Is this what I’ve taught you, to cry like any silly spoiled brat of a girl when trouble comes?”

Sass stared at him, and then reached for the physical discipline he’d taught her. Breathing slowed, steadied; she quit trembling. Her mind cleared of its first blank terror.

“That’s better. Now listen-” Abe talked rapidly, softly, the rhythm of his speech at first strange and then compelling. When he stopped, Sass could hardly recall what he’d said, only that it was important, and she would remember it later. Then he hugged her, for the first time, his strength heartening. She still had her head on his shoulder when the supervisor arrived to take her away.

She passed through the sale barn without really noticing much; this time the buyer had her taken back to the port, to a scarred ship with no visible registration numbers. Inside, her escort handed her collar thong to a lean man with scarlet and gold collar tabs. Sass recalled the rank-senior pilot-from a far-distant shipping consortium. He looked her over, then shook his head.

“Another beginner. Bright stars, you’d think they’d realise I need something more than a pilot apprentice. And a dumb naked girl who probably doesn’t even speak the same language.” He turned away and poked the bulkhead. With a click and hiss, a locker opened; he rummaged inside and pulled out rumpled tunic and pants, much-mended.

“Here. Clothes. You understand?” He mimed dressing, and Sass took the garments, putting them on as he watched. Then he led her along one corridor, then into a pop-tube that shot them to the pilot’s “house” - a small cramped compartment lined with vidscreens and control panels. To Sass’s relief, her training made sense of the chaos of buttons and toggles and flicking lights. That must be the Insystem computer, and that the FTL toggle, with its own shielded computer flickering, now, in not-quite-normal space. The ship had two Insystem drives, one suitable for atmospheric landings. The pilot tweaked her thong and grinned when she looked at him.

“I can tell you recognise most of this. Have you ever been off-station?” He seemed to have forgotten that she might not speak his language. Luckily, she could.

“No… not since I came.”

“Your ratings are high - let’s see how you do with this…” He pointed to one of the three seats, and Sass settled down in front of a terminal much like that in training - even the same manufacturer’s logo on the rim. He leaned over her, his breath warm on her ear, and entered a problem she remembered working.

“I’ve done that one before,” she said.

“Well, then, do it again.” Her fingers flew over the board: codes for origin and destination, equations to calculate the most efficient combination of travel time, fuel cost of Insystem drive, probability flux of FTL… and, finally, the transform equations that set up the FTL path. He nodded when she was done.

“Good enough. Now maximise for travel time, using the maximum allowable FTL-flux.”

She did that, and glanced back. He was scowling.

“You’d travel a.35 flux path? Where’d you get that max from?” Sass blushed; she’d misplaced a decimal. She placed the errant zero, and accepted the cuff on her head with equanimity. “That’s better, girl,” he said. “You youngers haven’t seen what a high flux means - be careful, or you’ll have us spread halfway across some solar system, and you won’t be nothin’ but a smear of random noise in somebody’s radio system. Now - what’s your name?”

She blinked at him. Only Abe had used her name. But he stared back, impudent and insistent, and ready to give her a clout. “Sass,” she said. He grinned again, and shrugged.

“Suits you,” he said. Then he swung into one of the other seats, and cleared her screen. “Now, girl, we go to work.”

Life as an indentured apprentice pilot - the senior pilot made it clear they didn’t like the word “slave” - was considerably more lax than her training had been. She wore the same collar, but the thong was gone. No one would tell her what the ship’s allegiance was - if any - or any more than its immediate next destination, but aside from that she was treated as a crew member, if a junior one. Besides senior pilot Krewe, two junior pilots were aboard: a heavy-set woman named Fersi, and a long, angular man named Zoras. Three at a time worked in the pilot-house when manoeuvring from one drive system to another, or when using Insystem drives. Sass worked a standard six hour shift as third pilot under the others. When they were off, one or the other of the pilots gave her instruction daily - ship’s day, that is. Aside from that, she had only to keep her own tiny cubicle tidy, and run such minor errands as they found for her. The rest of the time she listened and watched as they talked, argued, and gambled.

“Pilots don’t mingle,” Fersi warned her, when she would have sought more interaction with the ship’s crew. “Captain’s due respect, but the rest of ‘em are no more spacers than rock is a miner. They’d do the same work groundside: fight or clean or cook or run machinery or whatever. Pilots are the old guild, the first spacers; you’re lucky they trained you to that.”

History, from the point of view of the pilots, was nothing like she’d learned back on Myriad. No grand pattern of human exploration, meetings with alien races, the formation of alliances and then the Federation of Sentient Planets. Instead, she heard a litany of names that ran back to Old Terra, stories with all the details worn away by time. Lindberg, the Red Baron, Bader, Gunn - names from before spaceflight, they said, all warriors of the sky in some ancient battle, from which none returned. Heinlein and Clarke and Glenn and Aldridge, from the early days in space… all the way up to Ankwir, who had just opened a new route halfway across the galaxy, cutting the flux margin below.001.

If she had not missed Abe so much, she might almost have been happy. Ship food that the others complained about she found ample and delicious. She had plenty to learn, and teachers eager to instruct. The pilots had long ago told each other their timeworn stories. But long before she forgot Abe and the slave depot, the raid came.

She was asleep in her webbing when the alarm sounded. The ship trembled around her; beneath her bare feet the deck had the odd uncertain feel that came with transition from one major drive to another.

“Sass! Get in here!” That was Krewe, loud enough to be heard over the racket of the alarm. Sass staggered a little, working her way around to her usual seat. Fersi was already there, intent on the screen. Krewe saw her and pointed to the number two position. “It’s not gonna do any good, but we might as well try…”

Sass flicked the screen to life, and tried to make sense of the display. Something had snatched them out of FTL space, and dumped them into a blank between solar systems. And something with considerably more mass was far too close behind.

“Fleet heavy cruiser,” said Krewe shortly. “Picked us up awhile back, and set a trap-”

“What?” Sass had had no idea that anything could find, let alone capture, a ship in FTL.

He shrugged, hands busy on his board. “Fleet has some new tricks, I guess. And we’re about out. Here -” He tossed a strip of embossed plastic over to her. “Stick that in your board, there on the side, when I say.”

Sass looked at it curiously: about a finger long, and half that wide, it looked like no data storage device she’d seen. She found the slot it would fit, and waited. Suddenly the captain’s voice came over the intercom.

“Krewe - got anything for me? They’re demanding to board -”

“Maybe. Hang on.” Krewe nodded at Sass, and slid an identical strip into the slot of his board. Sass did the same, as did Fersi. The ship seemed to lurch, as if it had tripped over something, and the lights dimmed. Abruptly Sass realised that she was being pressed into the back of her seat - and as abruptly, the pressure shifted to one side, then the other. Then something made a horrendous noise, all the lights went out, and in the sudden cold dark she heard Krewe cursing steadily.

She woke in a clean bunk in a brightly lit compartment full of quiet bustle. Almost at once she missed a familiar pressure on her neck, and lifted her hand. The slave collar was gone. She glanced around warily.

“Ah… you’re awake.” A man in a clean white uniform, sleeves striped to the elbow with black and gold, came to her. “And I’ll bet you wonder where you are, and what happened, and - do you know what language I’m speaking?”

Sass nodded, too amazed to speak. Fleet. It had to be Fleet. She tried to remember what Abe had told her about stripes on the sleeves; these were wing-shaped, which meant something different from the straight ones.

“Good, then.” The man nodded. “You were a slave, right? Taken in the past few years, I daresay, from your age -”

“How do you know my -”

He grinned. He had a nice grin, warm and friendly. ‘Teeth, among other things. General development.” At this point Sass realised that she had on something clean and soft, a single garment that was certainly not the patched tunic and pants she’d worn on the other ship. “Now - do you remember where you came from?”

“My… my home?” When he nodded, she said, “Myriad.” At his blank look, she gave the standard designation she’d been taught in school, so long ago. He nodded again, and she went on to tell him what had happened to the colony.

“And then?” She told of the original transport, the training she’d received as a slave, and then her work on the ship. He sighed. “I suppose you haven’t the faintest idea where that depot planet is, do you?”

“No. I-” Her eyes fixed suddenly on the insignia he wore on his left breast. It meant something. It meant… Abe’s face came to her suddenly, very earnest, speaking swiftly and in an odd broken rhythm, something she had never quite remembered, but didn’t worry about because some-day- And now was some-day, and she found herself reciting whatever he had said, just as quickly and accurately. The man stared at her.

“You -! You’re too young; you couldn’t -!” But now that it was back out, she knew… knew what knowledge Abe had planted in her (and in how many others, she suddenly wondered, who had been sold away?), hoping that someday, somehow she might catch sight of that insignia (and how had he kept his, hidden it from his owners?) and have the memory wakened. She knew where that planet was, and the FTL course, and the code words that would get a Fleet vessel past the outer sentinel satellites… all the tidbits of knowledge that Abe had gleaned in years of slavery, while he pretended obedience.

Her information set off a whirlwind of activity. She herself was bundled into a litter and carried along spotless gleaming corridors, to be set down at last, with utmost gentleness, in a cabin bunk. A luxurious cabin, its tile floor gentled with a brilliant geometric carpet, several comfortable-looking chairs grouped around a low round table. She heard bells in the distance, the scurry of many feet… and then the door to the cabin closed, and she heard nothing but the faint hiss of air from the ventilators.

In that silence, she fell asleep again, to be wakened by a gentle cough. This time, the white uniform was decorated with gold stripes on the sleeves, straight ones that went all the way around.Rings, she thought vaguely. Four of them. And six little somethings on the shoulders, little silvery blobs. “Stars are tops,” Abe had said, “Stars are admirals. Butanything on the shoulders means officer.”

“The Medical Officer says you’re well enough,” said the person with all that gold and silver. “Can you tell me more about what you remember?” He was tall, thin, grey-haired, and Sass might have been frightened into silence if he hadn’t smiled at her, a fatherly sort of smile.

She nodded, and repeated it all again, this time in a more normal tone.

“And who told you this?” he asked.

“Abe. He… he was Fleet, he said.”

“He must be.” The man nodded. “Well, now. The question is, what do we do with you?”

“This - this is a Fleet ship, isn’t it?”

The man nodded again. “TheBaghir, a heavy cruiser. Let me brief you a little. The ship you were on - know anything about it?” Sass shook her head. “No - they just stuck you in the pilothouse, I’ll bet, and put you to work. Well, it was an independent cargo carrier. Doubles as a slave ship some runs; this time it had maybe twenty young, prime tech-trained slaves and a load of entertainment cubes - if you call that kind of thing entertainment.” He didn’t explain further, and Sass didn’t ask.

“We’d heard a shipment might be coming into a neighbouring system, so we had a fluxnet in place. You don’t need to know how that works, only it can jerk a ship out of hyperspace when it works right. When it works wrong, there’s nothing to pick up. Anyway, it worked, and there your ship was, and there we were, ready to trail and take it. Which we did. The other slaves - and there’s two from Myriad, by the way - are being sent back to Sector HQ, where they’ll go through Fleet questioning and court procedures to re-establish their identities. They’re innocent parties; all we do is make sure they haven’t been planted with dangerous hidden personalities. That’s happened before with freed slaves; one of them had been trained as an assassin while under drugs. Freed, and back at school, he went berserk and killed fourteen people before he could be subdued.” He shook his head, then turned to her.

“You, though. You’re our clue to what’s really happened, and you know where the slave depot is. You’ve told us what you know - or what you think you know - but I’m not sure your Fleet friend put all he had to say in one implanted message. If you were willing to come along when we go -”

Sass pushed herself upright. “You’re going there? Now?”

“Well, not this instant. But soon - in a few shipdays, at the most. The thing is, you’re a civilian, and you’re underage. I have no right to ask you, and no right to take you. But it would be a help.”

Tears filled her eyes; it was too much too soon. She struggled to regain the discipline Abe had taught her, slowing her breathing, and steadying against the strain. The officer watched her, his expression shifting from concern through puzzlement to something she could not define. “I… I want to go,” she said. “If… if Abe -”

“If Abe is still alive, we’ll find him. Never fear. And now you, young lady, need more sleep.”

There had been another implanted message, one that came out under the expert probing of the ship’s medical team. This one, Sass realised, gave details of the inner defences, descriptions of the little planet’s surface, and the name of the trading combines which dealt in the slaves… including the one which had purchased and trained her. She came from that session shaken and pale, regaining her normal energy only after another long sleep and two solid meals. For the rest of the journey, she had nothing to do but wait, a waiting made more bearable by the friendly crew-women who showered her with attention and minor luxuries - real enough for someone who’d been a slave for years. Although the captain would not let her join the landing party, when the cruiser had cleared the skies and sent the marines down, she was on hand when Abe returned to the Fleet. Scarred and battered as he was, wearing the ragged slave tunic, and carrying nothing but his pride, he marched from the shuttle into the docking bay as if on parade. The captain had come to the docking bay himself. Sass hung back, breathless with awe and delight, as they went through the old ritual. When it was over, and Abe came to her, she was suddenly shy of him, half-afraid to touch him. But he hugged her close.

“I’m so proud of you, Sass!” He pushed her away, then hugged her again.

“I didn’t do much,” she began, but he snorted.

“Didn’t do much! Well, if that’s the way you want to tell the story, it’s not mine. Come on, girl - soon’s I’ve changed into decent clothes -” He looked around, to meet the grins of the others in the bay… kind grins, Sass noticed.

One of the men beckoned to him, and he followed. Sass stared after him. He belonged here; she could tell that. Where would she belong? She thought of the captain’s comments on the other freed slaves… Fleet questioning and court procedures… hardly an inviting prospect.

“Don’t worry,” one of the men said to her. “There’s enough wealth here to give every one of you a new start - and you most of all, being as you found the place.”

Still she worried, waiting for Abe to reappear, and when he did, clad in the crisp uniform and stripes of his rank, she was even more worried, A new start, somewhere else, with strangers… she knew, without asking for details, that none of her family were left.

“Don’t worry,” he echoed the other man’s comment. “You’re not going to be lost in the system somewhere. You’re my girl, and I’m Fleet, and it’s going to be fine.”

Chapter Three

By the time Sassinak arrived at Regg with Abe, she was as ready as he to praise the Fleet, and glad to think of herself as almost a Fleet dependent. The only thing better than that was to be Fleet herself. Which, she soon found, was exactly what Abe planned for her.

“You’ve got the brains,” he said soberly, “to make the Academy list and be a Fleet officer. And more than the brains, the guts. You weren’t the first I tried to help, Sass, but you were one of only three who didn’t fall apart when the time came to leave. And both of those were killed.”

“But how?” Sass wanted nothing more than to enter the gleaming white arches of the Academy gates… but that required recommendations from FSP representatives. How would an orphan from a plundered colony convince someone to recommend her?

“First there’s the Fleet prep school. If I formally adopt you, then you’re eligible, as the daughter of a Fleet veteran - and no, it doesn’t matter that I’m not an officer. Fleet’s Fleet.”

“But you’re - “ Sass reddened. Abe had been retired, over his protests; his gimpy arm was past treatment, and wouldn’t pass the Medical Board. He had argued, pled, and finally come back to their assigned quarters glum as she’d never seen him before.

“Retired, but still Fleet. Oh, Cousins take it, I knew they’d do it. I knew when the arm didn’t heal straight - after six months or so, it’s too late. But I thought maybe I could Kipling them into it.”

“Kipling?”

“Kipling. Wrote half the songs the Fleet sings, and probably most of the rest. Service slang is, if you’re sweet - talking someone into something, ‘specially if it’s sort of sentimental, that’s Kipling. Where you came from, they probably said ‘Irish them into it,’ and I’ll bet you don’t know where that came from. But don’t worry - I can’t be active duty, but disabled vets - “ His expression made it clear that he refused to think of himself as disabled. “ - we old crips can usually get work in one of the bureaus.” Sass asked again about the prep school.

“Three or four years there, ‘til you pass the exams - and I don’t doubt you will. Don’t worry about the letters you need. You impressed the captain more than a little, and he’s related to half the FSP reps in this sector.”

From there, things went smoothly: the adoption, the entry into the prep school. Although the other students were her age, none had her experience, and they were still young enough to show their awe. Sass found herself ahead of schedule in her math classes, thanks to the slave tech training, while Abe’s lessons in physical discipline and concentration helped her regain lost ground in the social sciences. She felt out of place at first in the social life of school - she could not regain the carefree camaraderie of younger years - but she looked forward to the Academy with such singleminded ambition that everyone soon considered her another Academy-bound grind.

Abe’s apartment, in a large block of such buildings, was unlike any place Sass had ever lived. Her parents’ apartment on Myriad had been a standard prefab, the same floor plan as every other apartment in the colony. Large families had had two or three, as needed, with doors knocked through adjoining walls. None of the living quarters were more than one story high, and few of the other buildings. At the slaver depot, all the buildings were even cheaper prefabs, big ugly buildings designed to hold the maximum cubage. There she had slept in a windowless barracks, in a rack of bunks.

Abe had a second-floor corner apartment, with a bedroom for each of them, a living room, study, and small kitchen. From her room, Sass looked into a central courtyard planted with flowers and one small tree with drooping leaves. From the living room she could see across a wide street to a similar building across from them. It felt amazingly spacious and light; she spent hours, at first, watching people in the street below, or looking out across the city. For their apartment, like most, stood on one of the low hills that faced the harbour.

Regg itself was a terraformed planet, settled first by the usual colonists, in their case agricultural specialists, and then chosen as Fleet Headquarters because of its position in human-dominated space. Here in its central city. Fleet was the dominant force. Abe took Sassinak touring: to the big blocky buildings of Headquarters itself, all sheathed in white marble, to the riverside parks that ended in the great natural harbour, a wide almost circular bay of deep blue water edged in gray cliffs on the east and west, opening past a small, rocky island to the greater sea beyond. By careful design, the river mouth itself had been left clear, but Sass saw both the Fleet and civilian ports set back on either side. Although FSP regulations forbade the eating of meat, fishing was still done on many human-settled worlds, whose adherence to the code was less than perfect. Ostensibly the excuse was that the code should apply only to warmbloods and intelligent (not just sentient) aquatic coldbloods such as the Wefts or Ssli. Sass knew that many of the civilian locals ate fish, though it was never served openly in even the worst dockside joints. The fish, originally of Old Earth origin, had been stocked in Regg’s ocean centuries before.

Besides the formal Headquarters complex, there were the associated office buildings, computer centers, technology and research centers… each in a landscaped setting, for Regg was still, after all these years, uncrowded.

“Fleet people do retire here,” Abe said, “but they mostly homestead inland, upriver. Maybe someday we can do a river cruise during your holidays, see some of the estates. I’ve got friends up in the mountains, too.”

But the city was exciting enough for a girl reared in a small mining colony town. She realised how silly it had been for the Myriadians to call their one-story collection of prefabs The City. Here government buildings soared ten or twelve stories, offering stunning views of the surrounding country from their windswept observation platforms atop. Busy shops crowded with merchandise from all over the known worlds, streets bustling from dawn until long after dark. Festivals to celebrate seasons and historical figures, theater and music and art… Sass felt drunk on it, for weeks. This was the real world she had dreamed of, on Myriad: this colorful, crowded city connected by Fleet to everywhere else, ships coming and going every day. Although the spaceport was behind the nearest range of hills, protecting the city from the noise, Sass loved to watch the shuttles lifting above forested slopes into an open sky.

In the meantime, she’d had a chance to meet some of the other survivors of Myriad’s raid. Caris, now grim and wary, all the playfulness Sass remembered worn away by her captivity. She had found no one like Abe to give her help and hope, and in those few years aged into a bitter older woman.

“I just want a chance to work,” she said. “They say I can go to school.” Her voice was flat, barely above a whisper, the voice of a slave afraid of discovery. “You could come here,” said Sass, half-hoping Cans would agree. Much as she loved Abe, she missed having a close girlfriend, and her room was big enough for two. And Caris had known her all her life. They could talk about anything; they always had. Her own warmth could bring Caris back to girlhood, rekindle her hopes. But Caris pulled back, refusing Sass’s touch.

“No. I don’t - Sass, we were friends, and we were happy, and someday maybe I can stand to remember that. Right now I look at you and see - “ Her voice broke and she turned away.

“Caris, please!” Sass grabbed her shoulders, but Caris flinched and pulled back.

“It’s all over, Sass! I can’t - I can’t be anyone’s friend now. There’s nothing left… if I can just have a place to work in peace, alone…”

Sass was crying then, too. “Caris, you’re all I have - “

“You don’t have me. I’m not here.” And with that she ran out of the room. Sass learned later that she’d gone back into the hospital, for more treatment. Later, she went off-planet without even telling Sass, letting her find out from the hospital records that her friend had left forever. For this grief, Abe insisted that work was the only cure - and revenge, someday, against whatever interests lay behind the slave trade. Sass threw herself into her classwork… and by the time the Academy Open Examinations came around, she’d worked off the visible remnants of her grief. She passed those in the top five percent, to Abe’s delight. His scarred face creased into a grin as he took her to buy the required gear.

“I knew you could do it, Sass. I knew all along. You just remember what I told you, and in a few years I’ll be cheering when you graduate.”

But he would not walk her to the great arch that guarded the Academy entrance. He went off to work that morning, as he did every day (she never knew which of the semi-military bureaucracies had found a place for him; he never volunteered the information), leaving her to stare nervously into the mirror, twitching one errant strand of hair into place, until she had to walk fast or risk being late. She made her entrance appointment with time to spare, only to run into a marauding senior on her first trip through the Front Quad. She had carefully memorised the little booklet she’d been sent, and started to answer his challenge in the way it had instructed.

“Sir, Cadet Sassinak, reporting - “ Her voice faltered. The cadet officer she had saluted had crossed his eyes and put his tongue out; he had his hands fanned out by his ears. As quickly, his face returned to normal, and his hands to his sides, but the smile on that face was grim.

“Rockhead, didn’t anyone ever teach you how to report to a senior?” His voice attempted the cold arrogance of the pirate raiders, and came remarkably close. Sass realised she’d been tricked, fought down the responsive anger, and managed an equable tone in return. Abe hadn’t told her they called the entering cadets “rockhead.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Well, then… get on with it.”

“Sir, Cadet Sassinak, reporting…” This time both eyes slewed outward, his mouth puckered as if he’d bitten a gari fruit, and he scratched vigorously at both armpits. But she wasn’t fooled twice, and managed to get through the formal procedure without changing tone or expression, ending with a crisp “… sir!”

“Sloppy, slow, and entirely too smug,” was the senior cadet’s comment. “You’re that petty officer’s orphan tagalong, aren’t you?”

Sass felt her ears burning, started to nod with clenched teeth, and then remembered that she had to answer aloud. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“Hmph. Sorry sort of recommendation, letting himself get captured and slaved all those years. Not much like Fleet - “ He stopped as Sass opened her mouth, and cocked his head. “Something to say, rockhead? Someone give you permission to speak?”

She didn’t wait. “Sir, Abe is worth four of you, sir”

“That’s not the point, rockhead. The point is that you - “ He tapped her shoulder. “You have to learn how to behave, and I don’t think anything in your background’s taught you how.” Sass stared at him, back in control, furious with herself for taking the bait. “On the other hand, you’re loyal. That’s something. Not much, but something.” He dismissed her, and she set off to find her assigned quarters, careful not to gawk around.

For reasons known only to the architects, the main buildings at the Academy had been constructed in a mix of antique styles, great gray blocks of stone that looked like pictures of ancient buildings on Old Earth. Towers, arches, covered walkways, intricate carvings of ships and battles and sea monsters around windows and doorways, enclosed courtyards - paved in smooth slabs of stone. Six of these patriarchal buildings surrounded the Main Quad Parade: Themistocles, Drake, Nelson, Farragut, Velasquez, and the Chapel. Here, where the boldest street urchins could peer through the entrance gates to watch, cadets formed up many times a day to march to class, to mess, to almost every activity. Sass soon learned that the darker gray paving stones, which marked out open squares against a pale background, were slippery in the rain. She learned just where a flash of reflected sunlight from an open window might blind a cadet long enough to blunder into someone else. That meant a mark off, and she wanted no marks off.

Through the great arching salleyport of Velasquez, wide enough for a cadet platoon, were the cadet barracks, these named for the famous dead of Fleet battles. Varrin Hall, Benis, Tarrant, Suige. By the time they had been there a half-year, cadets knew those stories, and many others. Sass, on the third deck of Suige Hall, could recite from memory the entire passage in the history. Other cadets complained (quietly) about their quarters, but Sass had spent years as Abe’s ward. She had never been encouraged to spread her personality around her quarters, “to acquire bad habits” as Abe put it, although he admitted that Fleet officers, once they were up in rank, could and did decorate and personalise their space. But the regulation bunk with its prescribed covers folded just so, the narrow locker for the required uniforms (and nothing else), the single flat box for personal items, the single desk with its computer terminal and straight-backed chair - that was enough for her. She didn’t mind sharing, or taking the top bunk, which made her popular with a series of roomies. She felt the neat, clean little cubicles were perfect for someone whose main interest lay elsewhere, and willingly did her share of the floor-polishing and dusting that daily inspections required.

She had actually expected neutral or monotone interiors, but the passages were tinted to copy the color-code used on all Fleet vessels. By the time the cadets graduated, this system would be natural, and they would never have to wonder which deck, or which end of a deck, they were on. Main or Command Deck, anywhere, had white above gray, for instance, and Troop Deck was always green.

Most classes went on in the “front quad” or in the double row of simpler stone-faced buildings that lay uphill from it. History - from Fleet’s perspective, which included knowing the history of “important” old Earth navies, all the way back to ships rowed or sailed. Sass could not figure out why they needed to know what different ranks had been called a thousand years ago, but she tucked the information away dutifully, in case it was needed for anything but the quarterly exams. She did wonder why “captain” had ever been both a rank and a position, given the confusion that caused, and was glad someone had finally straightened it out logically. Anyone commanding a ship was a captain, and the rank structure didn’t use the term at all. “You think it’s logical,” the instructor pointed out, “but there was almost a mutiny when the first Fleet officer had to use the rank ‘major’ and lieutenant commanders and commanders got pushed up a notch.” Sass enjoyed far more the analysis of the various navies’ tactics, including a tart examination of the effect of politics on warfare, using an ancient text by someone called Tuchman.

Cadets ate together, in a vaulted mess hall that would have been lovely if it hadn’t been for the rows and rows of tables, each seating eight stiff cadets. Looking around - up at the carving on the ceiling, for instance - was another way to get marks taken off. Sassinak, with the others, learned to eat quickly and neatly while sitting on the edge of her chair. Students in their last two years supervised each table, insisting on perfect etiquette from the rockheads. At least, thought Sass, the food was adequate.

The Academy was not quite what she’d expected, even with the supposedly inside information she’d had before. From Abe’s attitude towards Fleet officers, she’d gotten the idea that the Academy was some sort of semi-mystical place which magically imbued the cadets with honor, justice, and tactical brilliance. He had told her about his own Basic Training, which he described succinctly as four months of unmitigated hell, but that was not the same, he’d often said, as officer training. Sass had found, more or less by accident, a worn copy of an etiquette manual, which had prepared her for elaborate formalities and the fine points of military courtesy - but not for the Academy’s approach to freshman cadets.

“We don’t have hazing,” the cadet commander had announced that first day. “But we do have discipline.” The distinction, Sass decided quickly, was a matter of words only. And she quickly realised that she was a likely target for it, whatever it was called: the orphan ward of a retired petty officer, an ex-slave, and far too smart for her own good.

She wished she could consult Abe, but for the first half-year the new cadets were allowed no visitors and no visits home. She had to figure it out for herself. His precepts stood like markers in her mind: never complain, never argue, never start a fight, never boast. Could that be enough?

With the physical and mental discipline he’d taught her, she found, it could. She drew that around her like a tough cloak. Cadet officers who could reduce half the newcomers to red rage or impotent tears found her smooth but unthreatening equanimity boring after a few weeks. There was nothing defiant in that calmness, no challenge to be met, just a quiet, earnest determination to do whatever it was better than anyone else. Pile punishment details on her, and she simply did them, doggedly and well. Scream insults at her, and she stood there listening, able to repeat them on command in a calm voice that made them sound almost as silly as they were.

Abe had been right; they pushed her as hard as the slavers had, and the cadet officers had - she sensed - some of the same capacity for cruelty, but she never lost sight of the goal. This struggle would make her stronger, and once she was a Fleet officer, she could pursue the pirates who had destroyed her family and the colony.

That calm reticence might have made her an outcast among her classmates, except that she found herself warming to them. She would be working with them the rest of her life - and she wanted friends - and before the first half-year was over, she found herself once more the center of a circle.

“You know, Sass, we really ought to do something about Dungar’s lectures.” Pardis, an elegant sprout of the sector aristocracy sprawled inelegantly on the floor of the freshman wardroom, dodged a feinted kick from Genris, another of her friends.

“We have to memorise them; that’s enough.” Sass made a face, and drained her mug of tea. Dungar managed to make the required study of alien legal systems incredibly dull, and his delivery - in a monotone barely above a whisper - made the class even worse. He would not permit recorders, either; they had to strain to hear every boring word.

“They’re so… so predictable. My brother told me about them, you know, and I’ll swear he hasn’t changed a word in the past twenty years.” Pardis finished that sentence in a copy of Dungar’s whisper, and the others chuckled.

“Just what did you have in mind?” Sass grinned down at Pardis. “And you’d better get up, before one of the senior monitors shows up and tags you for unofficerlike posture.”

“It’s too early for them to be snooping around. I was thinking of something like… oh… slipping a little something lively into his notes.”

“Dungar’s notes? The ones he’s read so many times he doesn’t really need them?”

“We must show respect for our instructors,” said Tadmur. As bulky as most heavyworlders, he took up more than his share of the wardroom, and sat stiffly erect. The others groaned, as they usually did. Sass wondered if he could really be that serious all the time.

“I show respect,” said Pardis, rolling his green eyes wickedly. “Just the same as you, every day - “

“You make fun of him for his consistency.” Tadmur’s Vrelan accent gave his voice even more bite. “Consistency is good.”

“Consistency is dull. Consistently wrong is stupid - “ Pardis broke off suddenly and sprang to his feet as the door swung open without warning, and the senior monitor’s grim face appeared around it. This weekend, the duty monitor was another heavyworlder, from Tadmur’s home planet.

“You were lounging on the deck again, Mr. Pardis, weren’t you?” The monitor didn’t wait for the reply and went on: “The usual for you, and one for each of these for not reminding you of your duty.” He scowled at Tadmur. “I’m surprised atyou most of all.” Tadmur flushed, but said nothing more than the muttered “Sir, yes, sir” that regulations required.

Sassinak even made some progress with Tadmur and Seglawin, the two heavyworlders in her unit. When they finally opened up to her, she began to realise that the heavyworlders felt deep grievances against the other human groups in FSP.

“They want us for our strength,” Tadmur said. “They want us to fetch and carry. You look at the records - the transcripts of the Seress expedition, for instance. How often do you think the med staff is assigned heavy duty, eh? But Parrih, not only a physician but a specialist, a surgeon, was expected to do the heavy unloading and loading in addition to her regular medical work.”

“They like to think we’re stupid and slow.” Seglawin took up the complaint. Although not quite as large as Tadmur, she was far from the current standard of beauty, and with her broad forehead drawn down into a scowl looked menacing enough. Sass realised suddenly that she had beautiful hair, a rich wavy brown mass that no one noticed because of the heavy features below it. “Pinheads, they call us, and muscle-bound. I know our heads look little, compared to our bodies, but that’s illusion. Look how surprised the Commandant was when I won the freshmen history prize: ‘Amazingly sensitive interpretation for someone of your background.’ I know what that means. They think we’re just big dumb brutes, and we’re not.”

Sass looked at them, and wondered. Certainly the heavyworlders in the slave center had been sold as cheap heavy labor, and none had been in any of her tech classes. She’d assumed they weren’t suited for it, just as everyone said. But in the Academy, perhaps five percent of the cadets were heavyworlders, and they did well enough in classwork. The two heavyworlders looked at each other, and then back at Sass. Seglawin shrugged.

“At least she’s listening and not laughing.”

“I don’t - “ Sass began, but Tad interrupted her.

“You do, because you’ve been taught that. Sass, you’re fair-minded, and you’ve tried to be friendly. But you’re a lightweight, and reasonably pretty enough, to your race’s standard. You can’t know what it’s like to be treated as a - a thing, an animal, good for nothing but the work you can do.”

It was reasonable, but Sass heard the whine of self-pity under the words and was suddenly enraged. “Oh, yes, I do,” she heard herself say. Their faces went blank, the smug blankness that so many associated with heavyworlder arrogance, but she didn’t stop to think about it. “I was a slave,” she said crisply, biting off the words like so many chunks of steel. “I know exactly how it feels to be treated as a thing: I was sold, more than once, and valued on the block for the work I could do.”

Seglawin reacted first, blankness then a surging blush. “Sass! I didn’t - “

“You didn’t know, because I don’t want to talk about it.” Rage still sang in her veins, lifting her above herself.

“I’m sorry,” said Tad, his voice less hard than she’d ever heard it. “But maybe you do understand.”

“You weren’t slaves,” Sass said. “You don’t understand. They killed my family: my parents, my baby sister. My friends and their parents. And I will get them - “ Her voice broke, and she swallowed, fighting tears. They waited, silent and immobile but no longer seeming inert. “I will get them,” Sass continued finally. “I will end that piracy, that slavery, every chance I get. Whether it’s lights or heavies or whoever else. Nothing’s worse than that. Nothing.” She met their eyes, one and then the other. “And I won’t talk about it again. I’m sorry.”

To her surprise, they both rose, and gave a little bow and odd gesture with their hands.

“No, it’s our fault.” Seglawin’s voice had a burr in it now, her accent stronger. “We did not know, and we agree: nothing’s worse than that. Our people have suffered, but not that. We fear that they might, and that is the source of our anger. You understand; you will be fair, whatever happens.” She smiled, as she offered to shake hands, the smile transforming her features into someone Sass hoped very much to have as a friend.

Other times, more relaxed times, followed. Sass learned much about the heavyworlders’ beliefs. Some reacted to the initial genetic transformations that made heavyworld adaptation possible with pride, and considered that all heavyworlders should spend as much time as possible on high-gravity planets. Others felt it a degradation, and sought normal-G worlds where they hoped to breed back to normal human standards. All felt estranged from their lighter-boned distant relations, blamed the lightweights - at least in part - for that estrangement, and resented any suggestion that their larger size and heavier build implied less sensitivity or intelligence.

Cadet leave, at the end of that first session, brought her home to Abe’s apartment in uniform, shy of his reaction and stiff with pride. He gave her a crisp salute and then a bear hug.

“You’re making it fine,” he said, not waiting for her to speak. Already, she recognized in herself and in his reactions the relationship they would have later.

“I hope so.” She loosened the collar of the uniform and stretched out on the low divan. He took her cap and set it carefully on a shelf.

“Making friends, too?”

“Some.” His nod encouraged her, and she told him about the heavyworlders. Abe frowned.

“You want to watch them; they can be devious.”

“I know. But - “

“But they’re also right. Most normals do think of them as big stupid musclemen, and treat them that way. Poor sods. The smart ones resent it, and if they’re smart enough they can be real trouble. What you want to do, Sass, is convince ‘em you’re fair, without giving them a weak point to push on. Their training makes ‘em value strength and endurance over anything else.”

“But they’re not all alike.” Sass told him all she’d learned, about the heavyworld cultures. “ - and I wonder myself if the heavyworlders are being used by the same bunch who are behind the pirates and slavers,” she finished.

Abe had been setting out a cold meal as she talked. Now he stopped, and leaned on the table. “I dunno. Could be. But at least some of the heavyworlders are probably pirates themselves. You be careful.” Sass didn’t argue; she didn’t like the thought that Abe might have his limitations; she needed him to be all-knowing, for a long time yet. On the other hand, she sensed, in her heavyworlder friends, the capacity for honesty and loyalty, and in herself an unusual ability to make friends with people of all backgrounds.

By her third year, she was recognized as a promising young cadet officer, and resistance to her background had nearly disappeared. Colonial stock, yes: but colonial stock included plenty of “good” families, younger sons and daughters who had sought adventure rather than a safe seat in the family corporation. That she never claimed such a connection spoke well of her; others claimed it in her name.

Her own researches into her family were discreet. The psychs had passed her as safely adjusted to the loss of her family. She wasn’t sure how they’d react if they found her rummaging through the colonial databases, so she masked her queries carefully. She didn’t want anyone to question her fitness for Fleet. When she’d entered everything she could remember, she waited for the computer to spit out the rest.

The first surprise was a living relative (or “supposed alive” the computer had it) some three generations back. Sass blinked at the screen. A great-great-great grandmother (or aunt: she wasn’t quite sure of the code symbols) now on Exploration Service. Lunzie… so that was the famous ancestor her little sister had been named for. Her mother had said no more than that - may not have known more than that, Sass realised. Even as a cadet, she herself had access to more information than most colonists, already. She thought of contacting her distant family members someday… someday when she was a successful Fleet officer. Not any time soon, though. Fleet would be her family, and Abe was her father now.

He took his responsibility seriously in more ways than one, she discovered at their next meeting.

“Take the five-year implant, and don’t worry about it. You’re not going to be a mother anytime soon. Should have had it before now, probably.”

“I don’t want to be a sopping romantic, either,” said Sass, scowling.

Abe grinned at her. “Sass, I’m not telling you to fall in love. I’m telling you that you’re grown, and your body knows it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but you’re about to want to.”

“I am not.” Sass glared at him.

“You haven’t noticed anything?”

Sass opened her mouth to deny it, only to realise that she couldn’t. He’d seen her with the others, and he, more than anyone, knew every nuance of her body.

“Take the implant. Do what you want afterwards.”

“You’re not telling me to be careful,” she said, almost petulantly.

“Stars, girl, I only adopted you. I’m not really your father, and even if I were I wouldn’t tell you to be careful. Not you, of all people.”

“My… my real father..”

“Was a dirtball colonist. I’m Fleet. You’re Fleet now. You don’t believe all that stuff you were taught. You’re the last woman to stay virginal all your life, Sass, and that’s the truth of it. Learn what you need, and see that you get it.”

Sass shivered. “Sounds very mechanical, that way.”

“Not really.” Abe smiled at her, wistful and tender. “Sass, it’s a great pleasure, and a great relaxation. For some people, long-term pairing is part of it. Your parents may have been that way. But you aren’t that sort. I’ve watched you now for what? Eight years, is it, or ten? You’re an adventurer by nature; you always were, and what happened to you brought it out even stronger. You’re passionate, but you don’t want to be bothered with long-term relationships.”

The five-year implant she requested at Medical raised no eyebrows. When the doctor discovered it was her first, she insisted that Sass read a folder about it “… So you’ll know nothing’s wrong when that patch on your arm changes color. Just come in for another one. It’ll be in your records, of course, but sometimes your records aren’t with you.”

Once she had the implant, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. Who would it be? Who would be first, she scolded herself, accepting with no more argument Abe’s estimate of her character. She watched the other cadets covertly. Bronze-haired Liami, who bounced in and out of beds with the same verve as she gobbled dessert treats on holidays. Cal and Deri, who could have starred in any of the romantic serial tragedies, always in one crisis of emotion or another. How they passed their courses was a constant topic of low-voiced wonder. Suave Abrek, who assumed that any woman he fancied would promptly swoon into his arms - despite frequent rebuffs and snide remarks from all the women cadets.

She wasn’t even sure what she wanted. She and Caris, in the old days, watching Carin Coldae re-runs, had planned extravagant sexual adventures: all the handsome men in the galaxy, in all the exotic places, in the midst of saving planets or colonies or catching slavers. Was handsome really better? Liami seemed to have just as much fun with the plain as the handsome. And Abrek, undeniably handsome, but all too aware of it, was no fun at all. What kind of attraction was that kind, and not just the ordinary sort that made some people a natural choice for an evening of study or workouts in the gym? Or was the ordinary sort enough?

In the midst of this confusion of mind, she noticed that she was choosing to spend quite a bit of time with Marik Delgaesson, a senior cadet from somewhere on the far side of known space. She hadn’t realised that human colonies spread that far, but he looked a lot more human than the heavyworlders. Brown eyes, wavy dark hair, a slightly crooked face that gave his grin a certain off-center appeal. Not really handsome, but good enough. And a superior gymnast, in both freeform and team competitions.

Sass thought about it. He might do. When their festival rotations came up at the same shift, and he asked her to partner him to the open theater production, she decided to ask him. It was hard to get started on the question, so they were halfway back to the Academy, threading their way between brightly-decorated food-stalls, when she brought it up. He gave her a startled look and led her into a dark alley behind one of the government buildings.

“Now. What did you say?” In the near dark, she could hardly see his expression.

Her mouth was dry. “I… I wondered if you’d… you’d like to spend the night with me.”

He shook his head. “Sass, you don’t want that with me.”

“I don’t?” Reading and conversation had not prepared her for this reaction to a proposal. She wasn’t sure whether she felt insulted or hurt.

“I’m not… what I seem.” He drew his heavy brows down, then lifted them in a gesture that puzzled Sass. People did both, but rarely like that.

“Can you explain that?”

“Well… I hate to disillusion you, but - “ And suddenly he wasn’t there: the tall, almost-handsome, definitely charming cadet senior she’d known for the past two years. Nothing was there - or rather, a peculiar arrangement of visual oddities that had her wondering what he’d spiked her mug with. Stringy bits of this and that, nothing making any sense, until he reassembled suddenly as a very alien shape on the wall. Clinging to the wall.

Sass fought her diaphragm and got her voice back. “You’re - you’re a Weft!” She felt cold all over: she had wanted to embrace that?

Another visual tangle, this time with some parts recognisable as they shifted toward human, and he stood before her, his face already wistful. “Yes. We… we usually stay in human form around humans. They prefer it. Though most don’t prefer the forms we choose quite as distinctly as you did.”

Her training brought her breathing back under full control. “It wasn’t your form, exactly.”

“No?” He smiled, the crooked smile she’d dreamed about the past nights. “You don’t like my other one.”

“I liked you,” Sass said, almost angrily. “Your - your personality - “

“You liked what you thought I was - my human act.” Now he sounded angry, too, and for some reason that amused her.

“Well, your human act is better than some who were born that way. Don’t blame me because you did a good job.”

“You aren’t scared of me?”

Sass considered, and he waited in silence. “Not scared, exactly. I was startled, yes: your human act is damn good. I don’t think you could do that if you didn’t have some of the same characteristics in your own form. I’m not - I don’t - “

“You don’t want to be kinky and sleep with an alien?”

“No. But I don’t want to insult an alien either, not without cause. Which I don’t have.”

“Mmm. Perceptive and courteous, as usual. If I were a human, Sass, I’d want you.”

“If you were human, you’d probably get what you wanted.”

“Luckily, my human shape has no human emotions attached; I can enjoy you as a person, Sass, but not wish to couple with you. We mate very differently, and in an act far more… mmm… biological… than human mating has become.”

Sass shivered; this was entirely too clinical.

“But we do - though rarely - make friends, in the human sense, with humans. I’d like that.”

All those books gave her the next line. “I thought I was supposed to say that - no thanks, but can’t we just be friends?”

He laughed, seemingly a real laugh. “You only get to say that if you don’t make the proposal in the first place.”

“Fine.” Sass put out her hands. “I have to touch you, Marik; I’m sorry if that upsets you, but I have to. Otherwise I’ll never get over being afraid.”

“Thank you.” They clasped hands for a long moment: his warm, dry hands felt entirely human. She felt the pulse throbbing in his wrist. She saw it in his throat. He shook his head at her. “Don’t try to figure it out, Sass. Our own investigators - they’re not really much like human scientists - don’t understand it either.”

“A Weft. I had to fall in love with a damned Weft!” Sass gave him a wicked grin. “And I can’t even brag about it!”

“You’re not in love with me. You’re a young human female with a nearly new five-year implant and a large dose of curiosity.”,

“Dammit, Marik! How old are you, anyway? You talk like an older brother!”

“Our years are different.” And with that she had to be content, for the moment. Later he was willing to say more, a little more, and introduce her to the other Wefts at the Academy. By then she’d spotted two of them, sensitive to some signal she couldn’t define. Like Marik, they were all superb gymnasts and very good at unarmed combat. This last, she found, they accomplished by minute shifts of form.

“Say you grab my shoulder,” said Marik, and Sass obligingly grabbed his shoulder. Suddenly it wasn’t there, in her grasp, and yet he’d not shifted to his natural form. He was still right in front of her, only his hand gripped her forearm.

“What did you do?”

“The beginning of the shift changes the surface location and density - and that’s what the enemy has hold of, right? We’re not where we’re supposed to be, and we’re not all there, so to speak. In combat, serious combat, we’d have no reason to hold too tightly to the human form anyway.”

“Does it… uh… hurt, to stay in human form? Are you more comfortable in your own?”

Marik shrugged. “It’s like a tight uniform: not painful, but we like to get out of it now and then,” He shifted then and there, and Sass stared, fascinated as always.

“It doesn’t bother you?” asked Silui, one of the other Wefts.

“Not any more. I wish I knew how you do it!”

“So do we.” Silui shifted, and placed herself beside Marik. «Can you tell us apart?» The question echoed in Sass’s head. Of course. In their own form they hadn’t the apparatus for human speech. But telepathy? She pushed that thought aside and watched as Silui and Marik crawled over and around each other. No more brown eyes and green, although something glittered that might be eyes of another sort. Shapes hard to define, because they were so outlandish… fivefold symmetry? She finally shook her head.

“Not by looking, I can’t. Can you?”

“Oh yes.” That was Gabril, the Weft who had not shifted. “Silui’s got more graceful sarfin, and Marik immles better.”

“That might help if I knew what sarfin and immles were,” said Sass grumpily. Gabril laughed, and pointed out the angled stalklike appendages, and had Marik demonstrate an immle.

“Do you ever take heavyworlder shapes?” asked Sass.

“Not often. It’s hard enough with you; the whole way of moving is so different. They’re too strong; we can make holes in the walls accidentally.”

“Can you take any shape?”

Silui and Marik reshifted to human, and joined the discussion aloud. “That’s an argument we have all the time. Humans, yes, even heavyworlders, though we don’t enjoy that. Ryxi is easier than humans, although the biochemistry causes problems. Our natural attention span is even longer than yours, but their brain chemistry interferes. Thek - “ Marik looked at the others, as if asking a question.

“Might as well,” said Silui. “One of us that we know of shifted to Thek form. A child. He’d meant to shift to a rock, which any of us can do briefly, but a Thek was there and he took that pattern. He never came back. The Thek wouldn’t comment.”

“Typical.” Sass digested that. “So… you can take different shapes. How do you decide what kind of human to be? Are you even bisexual, as we are?”

“Video media, for the most part,” said Gabril. “All those tapes and disks and cubes of books, plays, holodramas, whatever. We’re taught never to choose a star, or anyone well-known, and preferably someone dead a century or so. And then we can make minor changes, of course, within the limits of human variation. I chose a minor character in a primitive adventure film, something about wild tribesmen on Old Earth. At first I wanted blue hair, but my teachers convinced me it wouldn’t do. Not for an Academy prospect.”

Silui grinned. “I wanted to be Carin Coldae - did you ever see her shows?”

Sass nodded.

“But they said no major performers, so I made my hair yellow and did the teeth different.” She bared her perfect teeth, and Sass remembered that Carin Coldae had had a little gap in front. She also noticed that none of them had answered her questions about Weft sexuality, and decided to look it up herself. When she did, she realised why they hadn’t tried to explain: four sexes, and mating required a rocky seacoast at full tide with an entire colony of Wefts. It produced free-swimming larvae, who returned (the lucky few) to moult into a smaller size of the adult form. Wefts were exquisitely sensitive to certain kinds of radiation, and Wefts who left their homeworlds would never join the mating colony. No wonder Marik wouldn’t discuss sex - and had that combination of wistfulness and amused superiority toward eager young humans.

By this time, some of her other friends had realised which cadets were Wefts, and Sass found herself getting sidelong looks from those who disapproved of “messing around with aliens.” It was this which led to her worst row in the Academy.

She had never been part of the society crowd, not with her background, but she knew exactly which cadets were. Randolph Neil Paraden, a senior that year, lorded it over all with any social pretensions at all. Teeli Pardis, of her own class, wasn’t in the same league with a Paraden, and once tried to explain to Sass how important it was to stay on the right side of that most eminent young man.

“He’s a snob,” Sass had said, in her first year, when Paraden, then a second-year, had held forth at some length on the ridiculousness of letting the children of non-officers into the Academy. “It’s not just me - take Issi. So her father’s not commissioned: so what? She’s got more Fleet in her little finger than a rich fop like Paraden has in his whole - “

“That’s not the point, Sass,” Pardis had said. “The point is that you don’t cross Paraden Family. No one does, for long. Please… I like you, and I want to be friends, but if you get sour with Neil, I’m - I just can’t, that’s all.”

By maintaining a cool courtesy towards everyone that turned his barbs aside, Sass had managed not to involve herself in a row with the Paraden Family’s representative - until her friendship with Wefts made it necessary. It began with a series of petty thefts. The first victim was a girl who’d refused to sleep with Paraden, although that didn’t come out until later. She thought she’d lost her dress insignia herself, and accepted the rating she got philosophically. Then her best friend’s heirloom silver earrings disappeared, and two more thefts on the same corridor (a liu-silk scarf and two entertainment cubes) began to heighten tension unbearably in the last weeks before midterm exams.

Sass, in the next corridor, heard first about the missing cubes. Two days later, Paraden began to spread rumors that the Wefts were responsible. “They can change shape,” he said. “Take any shape they want - so of course they could look just like the room’s proper occupant. You’d never notice.”

Issi told Sass about this, mimicking Paraden’s accent perfectly. Then she dropped back into her own. “That stinker - he’ll do anything to advance himself. Claims he can prove it’s Wefts - “

“It’s not!” Sass straightened up from the dress boots she’d been polishing. “They won’t take the shape of someone alive: it’s against their rules.”

Issi wrinkled her brow at Sass. “I suppose you’d know - and no, I don’t hate you for having them as friends. But it’s not going to help you now, Sass, not if Randy Paraden has everyone suspecting them.”

Worse was to come. Paraden himself called Sass in, claiming that he had been given permission to investigate the thefts. From the way his eyes roamed over her, she decided that theft wasn’t all he wanted to investigate. He had the kind of handsome face that is used to being admired, and not only for its money. But he began with compliments for her performance, and patently false praise for her “amazing” ability to fit in despite a deprived childhood.

“I just wish you’d tell me what you know about the Wefts,” he said, bringing his gaze back to hers. “Come on - sit down here, and fill me in. You’re supposed to be our resident expert, and I hear you’re convinced they’re not guilty. Explain it to me - maybe I just don’t know enough about them…”

Her instinct told her he had no interest whatever in Wefts, but she had to be fair. Didn’t she? Reluctantly, she sat and began explaining what she understood of Weft philosophy. He nodded, his lids drooping over brilliant hazel eyes, his perfectly groomed hands relaxed on his knees.

“So you see,” she finished, “no Weft would consider taking the form of someone with whom it might be confused: they don’t take the forms of famous or living persons.”

A smile quirked his mouth, and his eyes opened fully. His voice was still smooth as honey. “They really convinced you, didn’t they? I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so gullible. Of course, you haven’t had a normal upbringing - there are so many things beyond your experience…”

Rage swamped her, interfering with coherent speech, and his smile widened to a predatory grin. “You’re gorgeous when you’re mad, Cadet Sassinak… but I suppose you know that. You’re tempting me, you really are… d’you know what happens to girls who tempt me? I’ll bet you’re good in bed - “ Suddenly his hands were no longer relaxed on his knees; he had moved even as he spoke, and the expensive scent he wore (surely that’s not regulation! Sass’s mind said, focussing on the trivial) was right there in her nose. “Don’t fight me, little slave,” he said in her ear. “You’ll never win, and you’ll wish you hadn’t… OUCH!”

Despite the ensuing trouble, which went all the way to the Academy Commandant (and probably further than that, considering the Paraden Family), Sass had no happier memory for years than the moment in which she disabled Randolph Neil Paraden with three quick blows and left him grunting in pain on the deck, there was something so satisfying about the crunch transmitted up her arm, that it almost frightened her, and she never considered telling Abe, lest he find a reason she should repent. Nor did she confess that part to the Academy staff, though she left Paraden’s office and went straight to the Commandant’s office to turn herself in.

Paraden’s attempt to explain himself, and put the blame for theft on the Wefts, did not work… although Sass wondered if it would have, given more time, or if she had not testified so strongly against him. When the first theft victim found that Paraden was involved, she realised that her “missing” dress insignia might have been stolen instead, and her testimony put the final seal on the case. Paraden had no chance to threaten Sass in person after that, but she was sure she’d earned an important enemy for the future. At least he wouldn’t be in the Fleet. Paraden’s clique, subject to intense scrutiny by the authorities after his dismissal, avoided Sass strictly. Even if one of them had wanted to be friendly, they’d not have risked more trouble.

Sass came out of it with a muted commendation. “You’ll not say anything of this to your fellow cadets,” the Commandant said severely. “But you showed good judgment. It’s too bad you had to resort to physical force - you were justified, I’m not arguing that, but it’s always better to think ahead and avoid the need to hit someone, if you can. Other than that, though, you did exactly the right things at the right time, and I’m pleased. The others will be wary of you awhile, and I would be most unhappy to find you using that to your advantage… you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” She did, indeed, understand. It had been a narrow scrape, and could have gone badly. What she really wanted was a chance to get back to work and succeed the way Abe would want her to: honestly, on her own merits, without favoritism.

“We may seem to be leaning on you a bit, in the next week or so: don’t worry too much.”

“Yes, sir.”

No one had to lean; she seemed sufficiently subdued, and eager to return to normal, as much as Academy life was ever normal. Her instructors were not surprised, and she would not know for years of the glowing comments in her record.

Chapter Four

Graduation. Sassinak, scoring high on all the exam postings, came into graduation week in the kind of euphoria she had once dreamed of. Honor graduate, with the gold braid and tassels. Cadet commandant: and the two did not often go together. She felt on fire with it, crackling alive a centimeter beyond her finger-tips, and from the way the others treated her, that’s exactly how she looked. At the final fitting for graduation, she stared into the tailor’s mirror and wondered. Was she really that perfect, that vision of white and gold? Not a wrinkle, not a rumple, a shape that - she now admitted - was nothing short of terrific, what with all the gymnastics practice. The uniform clung to it, but invested it with dignity, all at once. Nowhere in the mirror could she see a trace of the careless colonial girl, or the ragged slave, or even the rumpled trainee. She looked the way she’d always wanted to look. The mischievous brown eyes in the mirror crinkled… except that she’d never intended to be smug. She hated smug. Laughter fought with youthful dignity, as she struggled to hold perfectly still for the tailor’s last stitches. Dare she breathe, in that uniform? She had to.

Abe would be so proud, she thought, leading the formation into the Honor Square for the last time. He was there, but she didn’t even think of glancing around to find him. He would see what he had made, what he had saved… for a mood went grim, thinking of the latest bad news, another colony plundered. Every time such news came in, she thought of girls like her, children like Lunzie and Janek, people, real people, murdered and enslaved. But the crisp commands brought her back to the moment. Her own voice rang out in answer, brisk and impersonal.

The ceremony itself, inherited from a dozen military academies in the human tradition, and borrowing bits from all of them and the nonhumans as well, lasted far too long. The planetary governor welcomed everyone, the senior FSP official responded. Ambassadors from all the worlds and races that sent cadets to the Academy had each his or her or its speech to make. Each time the band had the appropriate anthem to play, and the Honor Guard had the appropriate flag to raise, with due care, on the pole beside the FSP banner. Sassinak did not fidget, but without moving a muscle could see that the civilians and guests did exactly that, and more than once. A child wailed, briefly, and was removed. Sunlight glinted suddenly from one of the Marine honor guard’s decorations: he’d taken a deep breath of disgust at something a politician said. Sass watched a cloud shadow cross the Yard and splay across Gunnery Hall. Awards: Distinguished teaching award, distinguished research into Fleet history, distinguished (she thought) balderdash. Academic departments had awards, athletic departments had theirs.

Then the diplomas, given one by one, and then - at last - the commissioning, when they all gave their oaths together. And then the cheers, and the hats flying high, and the roar from the watching crowd.

“So - you’re going to be on a cruiser, are you?” Abe held up a card, and a waiter came quickly to serve them.

“That’s what it said.” Sass wished she could be three people: one here with Abe, one out celebrating with her friends, and one already sneaking aboard the cruiser, to find out all about it. Everyone wanted to start on a cruiser, not some tinpot little escort vessel or clumsy Fleet supply ship. Sure, you had to serve on almost everything at least once, but starting on a cruiser meant being, in however junior a way, real Fleet. Cruisers were where the action was, real action.

They were having dinner in an expensive place, and Abe had already insisted she order the best. Sass could not imagine what the colorful swirls on her plate had been originally, but the meal was as tasty as it was expensive. The thin slice of jelly to one side she did know: crel, the fruiting body of a fungus that grew only on Regg, the world’s single most important export… besides Fleet officers. She raised a glass of wine to Abe, and winked at him.

He had aged, in the four years she’d been a cadet. He was almost bald now, and she hadn’t missed the wince as when he folded himself into the chair across from her. His knuckles had swollen a little, his wrinkles deepened, but the wicked sparkle in his eye was the same.

“Ah, girl, you do make my heart proud. Not ‘girl,’ now: you’re a woman grown, and a lady at that. Elegant. I knew you were bright, and gutsy, but I didn’t know you’d shape into elegant.”

“Elegant?” Sass raised an eyebrow, a trick she’d been practicing in front of her mirror, and he copied her.

“Elegant. Don’t fight it; it suits you. Smart, sexy, and elegant besides. By the way, how’s the nightlife this last term?”

Sass grimaced and shook her head. “Not much, with all we had to do.” Her affair with Harmon hadn’t lasted past midyear exams, but she looked forward to better on commissioning leave. And surely on a cruiser she’d find more than one likely partner. “You told me the Academy would be tough, but I thought the worst would be over after the first year. I don’t see how being a real officer can be harder than being a cadet commander.”

“You will.” Abe drained his wine, and picked up a roll. “You never had to send those kids out to die.”

“Commander Kerif said that’s old-fashioned: you don’t send people out to die, you send them out to win.”

Abe set the roll back on his plate with a little thump. “He does, does he? What kind of ‘win’ is it when your ship loses a pod in the grid, and you have to send out a repair party? You listen to me, Sass: you don’t want to be one of those wet-eared young pups the troops never trust. It’s not a game any more, any more than being hauled off by slavers was a game. You’re back in the real world now. Real weapons, real wounds, real death. I’m damned proud of you, and that won’t change: it’s not every girl that could make it like you have. But if you think the Academy was tough, you think back to Sedon-VI and the slave barracks. I daresay you haven’t really forgotten, whatever polish they’ve put on your manners.”

“No. I haven’t forgotten.” Sass stuffed a roll in her mouth before she said too much. He didn’t need to know about the Paraden whelp, and all that mess. A shiver ran across her shoulder blades. He must know she hadn’t changed that much… but he sure seemed nervous about something. As soon as they’d finished eating, he was ready to go, and she knew something more was coming. Outside, in the moist fragrant early-summer night, Sass wished again she could be two or three people. She’d had her invitation, to the graduation frolic up in the parked hills behind the Academy square. It was just the night for it, too… soft grass, sweet breeze. Mosquito bites where you can’t scratch, she reminded herself, and wondered why the geniuses who’d managed to leave the cockroaches back on Old Terra hadn’t managed the same thing with mosquitoes.

Abe led her across town, to one of his favorite bars. Sass sighed inwardly. She knew why he came here: senior Fleet NCOs liked the place, and he wanted to show her off to his friends. But it was noisy, and crowded, and smelled, after the cool open air, like the cheap fat they fried their snacks in. She saw a few other graduates, and waved. Donnet: his uncle was a retired mech from a heavy cruiser. Issi, her family’s pride: the first officer in seven generations of a huge Fleet family, all noisily telling her how wonderful it was. She shook hands with those Abe introduced: mostly the older ones, tough men and women with the deft precise movements of those used to working in a confined space.

It took them awhile to find a table, in that crowd. Civilian spacers liked the place, too, and Academy graduation brought everyone out to raise a glass for the graduates. Even the hoods, Sass noted, spotting the garish matching jackets of a street gang huddled near the back door. She was surprised they came here, to a Fleet and spacer bar, but a second, smaller gang followed the first in.

“Go get our drinks, Sass,” said Abe, once he was down. “I’ll just have a word with the Giustins.” Issi’s family… Sass grinned at him. He knew everyone. She took the credit chip he held out and found her way to the bar.

She was halfway back to him with the drinks when it happened. She missed the beginning, never knew who threw the first blow, but suddenly a row of tables erupted into violence. Fists, chains, the flash of blades. Sass dropped the tray and leaped forward, already yelling Abe’s name. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything but a tangled mass of Fleet cadet uniforms, gang jackets, and spacer gray. Her shout brought order to the cadets, or seemed to. At her command they coalesced, becoming a unit; with her they started to clear that end of the room, in a flurry of feints and blows and sudden clutches. From the corner of one eye, as she ducked under someone’s knife and then disarmed him with a kick, she saw a move she recognized from one of their opponents. For an instant, she almost recognized that combination of size, shape, and motion. She had no time to analyse it; there were too many drunken spacers who reacted to any brawl with enthusiasm, too many green-jacketed, masked hoodlums. The fight involved the whole place now, an incredible crashing screaming mass of struggling bodies. She rolled under a table, came up to strike precise blows at a green-jacket about to knife a spacer, ducked the spacer’s wild punch, kicked out at someone who clutched her leg. Something raked her arm; the lights went out, then came on in a dazzle of flickering blue. Sirens, whistles, the overloud blare of a bullhorn. Sass managed a glance back toward the entrance, and saw masked Fleet MPs with riot canisters.

“DOWN…” the bullhorn blared. Sass dropped, as all the cadets did, knowing what was coming. Most of the spacers made it down before the MPs fired, but the hoods tried to run for it. A billowing cloud of blue gas filled the room; a thrown canister burst against the back door and felled the hoods who’d headed that way. Sass held her breath. One potato, two potato. Her hand reached automatically to her belt, and her fingernail found the slit for the release. Three potato, four potato. She flicked the membrane mask open, and covered her face with it. Five potato, six potato. Now she had the tube of detox, and smeared it over the nose and mouth portions of the mask. Seven, eight, nine, ten… a cautious breath, smelling of nutmeg from the detox, but no nausea, no pain, and no unconsciousness. Beside her, a spacer already snored heavily. She looked up, eyes protected by the mask. Already the gas had dissipated to a blue haze, still potent enough to knock out anyone without a mask, but barely obscuring vision.

The MPs spread around the room, checking IDs. Several other cadets were clambering to their feet, protected by their masks. Sass pushed herself up, looking for Abe. She wondered if he carried a Fleet emergency mask.

“ID!” It was a big MP in riot gear; Sass didn’t argue but pulled out her new Fleet ID and handed it over. He slipped it into his beltcomp, and returned it. “You start this?” he asked. “Or see it start?”

Sass shook her head. “It started over here, though. I was coming across the room - “

“Why didn’t you get out and call help?”

“My father - my guardian was over here.”

“Name?”

Sass gave Abe’s name and ID numbers; the MP waved her out to search. She veered around two fallen tables… was it this one, or that? Three limp bodies lay in an untidy pile. Sass shifted the top one; the MP helped. The next wore spacer gray, a long scrawny man with vomit drooling from the comer of his mouth. And there at the bottom lay Abe. Sass nodded at the MP, and he took a charged reviver from his belt and handed it to her; she put it over Abe’s gaping mouth. He looked so… so dead, that way, with his mouth slack. The MP had dragged away the tall spacer, and now helped her roll Abe onto his back.

They saw the neat black hole in his chest the same moment. Sass didn’t recognise it at first, reached down to brush off the smudge on the front of his jacket. He’d hate that, dirt on the new jacket he’d bought for her graduation. But the MP caught her wrist. She looked at him.

“He’s dead,” the MP said. “Someone had a needler.”

Even as the room hazed around her, she thought “Shock. That’s what’s happening.” She couldn’t think about Abe being dead… he wasn’t dead. This was another exercise, another test, like the one in the training vessel, when half the students had been made up to look like wounded victims. She remembered the realistic glisten of the fake gut wound, trailing a tangle of intestines across the deck plating. Easier to think about that, about the equally faked amputation, than that silly little black hole in Abe’s jacket.

Later she heard, through an open doorway in the station, that she’d acted normally, not drugged, drunk, or irrational. She was sitting on a gray plastic chair, across a cluttered desk from someone who was busy at a computer. The floor had a pattern of random speckles, like every floor she’d seen for the past four years. She turned her head to look out the door, and an MP with his riot headgear under his arm gave her a neutral glance. She was Fleet, she hadn’t started it, she hadn’t had hysterics when they found Abe’s body. Good enough.

It didn’t feel good enough. Her mind raced back and forth over that minute or so the fight lasted, playing back minute fragments very slowly, looking for something she couldn’t yet guess. Where had it started? Who? She had been carrying the drinks: Abe’s square, squatty bottle of Priun brandy, and the footed glass for it, and a special treat for herself: Caprian liqueur. She’d been afraid the tiny cup of silver-washed crystal - the only proper receptacle for Caprian liqueur - would bounce off the tray if someone bumped her, so she hadn’t been looking more than one body ahead when the fight started. She’d looked up when… was it a sound, or had she seen something, without really recognizing it? She couldn’t place it, and went on. She’d dropped the tray, and in her mind it fell in slow-motion, emptying its contents over the shoulders of someone in spacer gray at the table she’d been passing.

Suddenly she had something, or a hint of it. In the midst of that fight, someone to her right had blocked a kick with a move that had to come from Academy training… a move that almost had to be learned in low-grav tumbling, although you could use it in normal G. Only it hadn’t been one of the graduates, nor… her mind focussed on the anomaly… nor one of the spacers. It had been someone in purple and orange, with blue sleeves… a gang jacket. She’d tried to take a fast look, but like all the second gang, the fighter’s face had been painted in geometric patterns that made identification nearly impossible. Eyes… darkish. Skin color… from the way it took the paint, neither very light nor very dark.

“Ensign.” Sass looked up, ready to curse at the interruption until she saw the rank insignia. Not local police; Fleet. And not just any Fleet, but the Academy Vice-Commandant, Commander Derran.

“Sir.” She stood, and wished she’d had time to change uniforms. But they hadn’t run the scan over all the spots yet, and they’d told her to wait.

“I’m sorry. Ensign,” the Commander was saying, “He was a good man. Fleet to the core. And on your graduation night, too.”

“Thank you, sir.” That much was correct; she couldn’t manage much more through a tight throat.

“You’re his only listed kin,” Derran went on. “I assume you’ll want a military funeral?” Sass nodded. “Burial in the Academy grounds, or - “

She had only half-listened when he’d told her, years ago, how he wanted it. “I don’t hold with spending Fleet money to send scrap into a star,” he’d said. “Space burial’s for those who die there. They’ve earned it. But I’m no landsman, either, to be stuck under a bit of marble on a hillside; I hold by the old code. My life was with Fleet, I had no homeland. Burial at sea, if you can manage it, Sass. The Fleet does it the right way.”

“At sea,” she said now. “He wanted it that way.”

“Ashes, or -?”

“Burial, sir, he said, if it was possible.”

“Very well. The Superintendent’s told me they’ll release the body tomorrow; we’ll schedule it for - “ He pulled out his handcomp and studied the display. ‘Two days… is that satisfactory? Takes that long to get the arrangements made.”

“Yes, sir.” She felt stupid, stiff, frozen. This could not be Abe’s funeral they discussed: time had to stop, and let her sort things out. But time did not stop. The Commander spoke to the police officer behind the desk, and suddenly they were ready for her in the lab. A long-snouted machine took samples from every stain on her uniform; the technician explained about the analysis of blood and fiber and skin cells to identify those she’d fought. When she came out of the lab, she found a Lt. Commander Barrin waiting for her, with a change of clothes brought from her quarters, and the same officer escorted her back to Abe’s apartment. There, another Fleet officer had already opened the apartment, set up a file to receive and organize visits and notes that required acknowledgment. Already dozens of notes were racked for her notice, and two of her class waited to see her before leaving for their new assignments.

Sass began to realize what kind of support she could draw on. They knew what papers she needed to find, recognized them in Abe’s files when she opened the case. They knew what she should pack, and what formalities would face her in the morning and after. Would he be buried from the Academy, or the nearby Fleet base? Would the circumstances qualify him for a formal military service, or some variant? Sass found one or the other knowledgable about every question that came up. Someone provided meals, sat her in front of a filled plate at intervals, and saw to it that she ate. Someone answered the door, the comm, weeded out those she didn’t want to see, and made sure she had a few minutes alone with special friends. Someone reminded her to apply for a short delay in joining her new assignment: she would have to stay on Regg for another week or so of investigation. Her rumpled, stained uniform disappeared, returned spotless and mended. Someone forwarded all required uniforms to her assignment, leaving her only a small bit of packing to do. And all this was handled smoothly, calmly, as if she were someone of infinite importance, not a mere ensign just out of school.

She could never be alone without help, as long as she had Fleet: Abe had said that, drummed it into her, and she’d seen Fleet’s help. But now it all came together. No enemy could kill them all. She would lose friends, friends close as family, but she could not lose Fleet.

Yet this feeling of security could not make Abe’s funeral easier. The police had offered her the chance to be alone with his body, a chance she refused, concealing the horror she felt. (Touch the body of someone she had loved? For an instant the face of her little sister Lunzie, carried in her arms to the dock, swam before her.) Wrapped in a dark blue shroud, it was taken by Fleet Marines to the Academy mortuary. Sass had no desire to know how a body was prepared for burial; she signed the forms she was handed, and skimmed quickly over the information given.

The body of an NCO, retired or active, could remain on view for one day. That she agreed to: Abe had had many friends who would want to pay their respects. His flag-draped coffin rested on the ritual gun-cradle in a side chapel. A line of men and women, most in uniform, came to shake hands with Sass and walk past it, one by one. Some, she noticed, laid a hand on the flag, patted it a little. Two were Wefts, which surprised her… Abe had never told her about Weft friends.

The funeral itself, the ancient ritual to honor a fellow warrior, required of Sass only the contained reticence and control that Abe had taught her. She, the bereaved, had only that simple role, and yet it was almost too heavy a burden for her. Others carried his coffin; she carried her gratitude. Others had lost a friend; she had lost all connection with her past. Again she had to start over, and for this period even Fleet could not comfort her.

But she would not disgrace him. The acceptable tears slid down her cheeks, the acceptable responses came from her mouth. And the old cadences of the funeral service, rhythms old before ever the first human went into space, comforted where no living person could.

“Out of the deep have I called unto thee, 0 Lord - “ The chaplain’s voice rang through the chapel, breaking the silence that had followed the entrance hymn, and the congregation answered.

“Lord, hear my voice.”

Whatever the original beliefs had been, which brought such words to such occasions, no one in Fleet much cared - but the bond of faith in something beyond individual lives, individual struggles, a bond of faith in love and honesty and loyalty… that they all shared. And phrase by phrase the old ritual continued.

“0 let thine ears consider well - “

“The voice of my complaint.” Sass thought of the murderer, and for a few moments vengeance routed grief in her heart. Someday - someday, she would find out who, and why, and - she stumbled over a phrase about redemption following mercy, having in mind neither.

Readings followed, and a hymn Abe had requested, its mighty refrain “Lest we forget - lest we forget” ringing in her ears through another psalm and reading. Sass sat, stood, knelt, with the others, aware of those who watched her. It seemed a long time before the chaplain reached the commendation; her mind hung on the words “dust to dust…” long after he had gone on, and blessed the congregation. And now the music began again, this time the Fleet Hymn. Sass followed the casket out through the massed voices, determined not to cry.

“Eternal Father, strong to save…” Her throat closed; she could not even mouth the words that had brought tears to her eyes even from the first.

Across the wide paved forecourt of the Academy, the flags in front of the buildings all lowered, a passing squad of junior middies held motionless as the funeral procession went on its way. Out the great arched gates to the broad avenue, where Fleet Marines held the street traffic back, and the archaic hearse, hitched to a team of black horses, waited. Sass concentrated on the horses, the buckles of their harness, the brasses stamped with the Fleet seal… surely it was ludicrous that a spacegoing service would maintain a horsedrawn hearse for its funerals.

But as they followed on foot, from the Academy gates to the dock below the town, it did not seem ludicrous. Every step of human foot, every clopping hoofbeat of the horses, felt right. This was respect, to take the time in a bustling, modern setting to do things the old way. As Abe’s only listed kin, Sass walked alone behind the hearse; behind her came Abe’s friends still in Fleet, enlisted, then officer.

At the quay, the escort commander called the band to march, and they began playing, music Sass had never heard but found instantly appropriate. Strong, severe, yet not dismal, it enforced its own mood on the procession. On all the ships moored nearby, troops and officers stood to attention; ensigns all at half-mast. TheCarlyPierce, sleek and graceful. Fleet’s only fighting ship (a veteran of two battles with river pirates in the early days of Regg’s history, before it became the Fleet Headquarters planet). The procession halted; from her position behind the hearse, Sass could barely see the pallbearers forming an aisle up the gangway. Exchange of salutes, exchange of honors: the band gave a warning rattle of drumsticks, and the body bearers slid the casket from the hearse. Sass followed them toward the gangway. Such a little way to go; such a long distance to return…

And now they were all on the deck, the body bearers placing the casket on a frame set ready, lifting off the flag, holding it steady despite a brisk sea breeze. Sass stared past it at the water, ruffled into little arcs of silver and blue. She hardly noticed when the ship cast off and slid almost soundlessly through the waves, across the bay and around the jagged island in it. There, in the lee of the island, facing the great cliffs, the ship rested as the chaplain spoke the final words.

“ - Rest eternal grant to him, 0 Lord - “ And the other voices joined his, “And let light perpetual shine upon him.”

The chaplain stepped aside; the escort commander brought the escort to attention and three loud volleys racketed in ragged echoes from island and cliffs beyond. Birds rose screaming from the cliffs, white wings tangled in the light. Sass clenched her jaw: now it was coming. She tried not to see the tilting frame, the slow inexorable movement of the casket to the waiting sea.

As if from the arc of the sky, a single bugle tolled the notes out, one by one, gently and inexorably. Taps. Sass shivered despite herself. It had ended her days for the past four years - and now it was ending his. It had meant sunset, lights out, another day survived - and now it meant only endings. Her throat closed again; tears burned her eyes. No one had played taps for her parents, for her sister and brother and the others killed or left to die on Myriad. No one had played taps for the slaves who died. She was cold all the way through, realizing, as she had not ever allowed herself to realize, that she might easily have been another dead body on Myriad, or in the slaver’s barracks, unknown, unmourned.

All those deaths… the last note floated out across the bay, serene despite her pain, pulling it out of her. Here, at least, the dead could find peace, knowing someone noticed, someone mourned. She took a deep, unsteady breath. Abe was safe here, “from rock and tempest, fire and foe,” safe in whatever safety death offered, completing his service as he had wished.

She took the flag, when it was boxed and presented, with the dignity Abe deserved.