Once a Hero

Chapter Eleven

Over the next few decads, Esmay found herself chatting with Barin Serrano even away from the mess hall. They had gone climbing once, with the club, and after a couple of hours of sweating on the Wall, she could not be shy with any of the climbers, let alone Barin. Then they had found themselves in the same corner during one of the officer socials, simply because Ensign Zintner had cornered a tray of the best cookies and they’d spotted her doing it.

Esmay did not let herself notice that the nightmares were not as intense on the evenings she spent with Barin and his friends. Instead, she concentrated on what he could show her about the unofficial customs of Fleet. Gradually, she thought of him less and less as “that nice Serrano boy” and more and more as the kind of friend she had not known she wanted.

In his company, she found herself making other friends. Zintner, whose lifelong background in heavy engineering made her the ideal person to ask for references when Pitak had handed Esmay a problem she couldn’t solve. Lieutenant Forrester, who came to the climbing club meetings about half the time, and whose sunny attitude brightened any gathering. She began to realize that not all the people who approached her were interested only in her notoriety.

Once she began to enjoy herself more, she started worrying that she was being too social, neglecting her studies. “I still don’t know what I should to help Major Pitak,” she said to Barin one shipnight. She felt guilty about going to the gym to play wallball when she could have been studying. Pitak seemed pleased with her progress, but if a ship needed repair right now, what could she actually do?

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Barin said. “And I know what I’m talking about. Serranos have a reputation for being hard on themselves and each other . . . you’re off the scale.”

“It’s necessary,” she said. When had she first discovered that if she had high enough standards, no one else’s criticism mattered?

“Not that far,” he said. “You’re locking down a lot of what you could be, could do, with that kind of control.”

She shied away from that. “What I could do, is study.”

He punched her arm lightly. “We need you; Alana’s not feeling up to a game, and that leaves us short.”

“All right.” She wanted to cooperate, and it bothered her. Why was she reacting like this, when she was immune to the tall, handsome Forrester, who had already asked her what Barin probably never would? She didn’t want complications; she wanted simple friendship. That was pleasure enough.

The wallball game turned into a wild melee because most of the players agreed to play a variable-G game. Esmay argued, but was outvoted. “It’s more fun,” Zintner said, setting the AI control of the variable-G court for random changes. “You’ll see.”

“Out of black eyes,” said Alana, who was refereeing this match. “I won’t play VG games, and neither should you, Esmay.”

“Be a sport,” someone on the other team called. Esmay shrugged, and put on the required helmet and eyeguard.

An hour later, bruised and sweaty, she and the others staggered out to find that they had plenty of spectators.

“Chickens,” Zintner said to those watching through the high windows of the court.

“It’s easier on you shorties,” said the tallest player on the other team. “If all the blood rushes to your head, it doesn’t have time to go as fast.”

Esmay said nothing; her stomach was still arguing about which way was up, and she was glad she had eaten little for lunch. She refused an invitation to take a cooling swim with the team, and instead showered and changed. By then she was hungry. Outside the showers, she found Barin nursing a swollen elbow.

“You’re going to have that checked, aren’t you, Ensign?” she said. They had discovered a mutual distaste for medical interventions, and now teased each other about it.

“It’s not broken, Lieutenant,” he said. “I believe surgery won’t be necessary.”

“Good—then perhaps you’ll join me for a snack?”

“I think I could just about manage to get my hand to my mouth,” he said, grinning. “It was Lieutenant Forrester’s fault, anyway. He went for my shot, and got his knee in the way of my elbow.”

Esmay tried to work that out—in a variable-G game, a lunge could turn into an unplanned dive and end in a floating rebound—and gave up.

As they ate, she brought up her past experience with his family for the first time. “I served on the same ship as Heris Serrano, back when I was an ensign. She was a good officer—I was in awe of her. When she got in that trouble, I was so angry . . . and I didn’t know what I could do to help, if anything. Nothing, as it turned out.”

“I met her just one time,” he said. “My grandmother had told me about her—not everything, of course, only what was legal. She sent me with a message; she wanted to use only family as couriers. We weren’t sure which of us would find her, and I was the lucky one.” From the tone, Esmay wasn’t sure he thought it was lucky.

“Didn’t you like her?”

“Like her!” That, too, had a tone she couldn’t read. Then, less explosively, “It’s not a matter of liking. It’s—I’m used to Serranos; I’m one myself. We tend to have this effect on people. We’re always being accused of being arrogant, even when we aren’t. But she was . . . more like Grandmother than any of the others.” He smiled, then. “She bought me dinner. She was in a white rage when I first showed up, and then she bought me dinner, a really expensive one, and—well, everyone knows what she did at Xavier.”

“But you ended up friends with her?”

“I doubt it.” Now he looked down at his plate. “I doubt she’s friends with any Serrano now, though I hear she’s speaking to her parents again.”

“She wasn’t?”

“No. It’s all kind of tangled . . . according to Grandmother she thought they would help her when Lepescu threatened her—and they didn’t—and then she resigned. That’s when Grandmother told everyone to leave her alone.”

“But I thought she was just on covert ops then.”

“That too, but I don’t know when—or what was going on. Grandmother says it’s none of my business and to keep my nose out of it and my mouth shut.”

Esmay could imagine that, and wondered that he broke the prohibition even this much. She had prohibitions of her own that she had no intention of breaking, just because she’d found a new friend.

“I met her, of course, after Xavier, but only briefly,” Esmay said. In the dark times before the trial, when she had been sure she’d be thrown out of Fleet, the memory of the respect in those dark eyes had steadied her. She would like to have deserved that look more often. “There were legal reasons for keeping us apart, they said.” Then she turned the topic to something less dangerous.

A few days later, Barin asked her about Altiplano, and she found herself describing the rolling grassy plains, the mountain scarps, her family’s estancia, the old stone-built city, even the stained glass she had liked so much as a child.

“Who’s your Seat in Council?” Barin asked.

“Nobody. We have no direct representation.”

“Why?”

“The Founder died. The Family we served. Supposedly, half the militia died along with the Family. There are those who say otherwise, that the reason no one from Altiplano has a Seat in Council is that it was a mutiny.”

“What does your grandmother say?”

“My grandmother?” Why should he think her grandmother’s words had any weight . . . oh, of course, because his grandmother was Admiral Serrano. “Papa Stefan says it’s a ridiculous lie, and Altiplano should have a Seat or maybe four.” At his look, she found herself explaining. “On Altiplano, we’re not like Fleet . . . even if we’re military. Men and women don’t usually do the same things . . . not as life work, that is. Most of the military, and all the senior commanders, are men. Women run the estancias, and most of the government agencies that aren’t directly concerned with the military.”

“That’s odd,” Barin said. “Why?”

She hated to think about it, let alone talk about it. “It’s all old stuff,” she said dismissively. “And anyway, that’s just Altiplano.”

“Is that why you left? Your father was a—a sector commander, you said?—and you couldn’t be in the military?”

Now she was sweating; she could feel the prickle on the back of her neck. “Not exactly. Look—I don’t want to talk about it.”

He spread his hands. “Fine—I never asked, you never got upset, we can just talk about my relatives again if that’s all right.”

She nodded, stabbing her fork into food she barely saw, and he began a story about his cousin Esser, who had been consistently nasty during long vacations. She didn’t know if it was true; she knew it didn’t matter. He was being polite; she was the occasion for more politeness, and that in itself was humiliating.

That night the nightmares recurred, as bad as the worst she’d had. She woke gasping from the battle for Despite only to find herself in the body of that terrified child, helpless to beat off her assailant . . . and from that relived the worst of the time in hospital. Dream after dream, all fire and smoke and pain, and voices telling her nothing was wrong even as she burned and writhed in pain. Finally she quit trying to sleep, and turned the light on in her compartment. This had to stop. She had to stop it. She had to get sane, somehow.

The obvious move presented itself, and she batted it away. She had enough bad marks on her record, with the Board of Inquiry and the court-martial and then that ridiculous award from Altiplano . . . let her get a psych note in her record and she’d never get what she wanted.

And what was that? The question had never presented itself so clearly before, and in that bleak night she looked at it straight on. She wanted . . . she would have said safety, awhile ago. The safety Fleet could give her from her past. But the man was dead, the lie exposed . . . she was safe, in that way. What did she really want?

Fragments popped into her mind, as brief and bright as the fragments of traumatic memory. The moment on the bridge of Despite when she had given the order to go back to Xavier system . . . the moment when she’d given the order to fire, and the great enemy cruiser had gone up. The respect she’d seen on the faces of those at her briefing, when even the admirals—even the captain, in spite of himself—had admired the way she presented the material. Even the admiration of the juniors, which she half-hated herself for enjoying. The friendships she was beginning to have, fragile as young plants in spring.

She wanted that: those moments, and more of them. Herself in charge, doing the right things. Using the talents she had shown herself were hers. Recognition of her peers; friendships. Life itself.

The critical side of her mind pointed out tartly that she was unlikely to have many such moments as a technical specialist, unless she made a habit of serving on ships with traitorous or incompetent captains. She wasn’t as good at the technical bits as others; she studied hard, she achieved competence . . . but not brilliance.

You’re too hard on yourself. She was not hard enough on herself. Life could always be harder; it was necessary to be hard first. You’re locking down what you could be. What did he think she could be, that Serrano ensign? He was only a boy—a Serrano boy, her critical self reminded her. So . . . he thought she wasn’t using all her talents. If he knew anything. If, if, if . . .

She could hardly apply for command track now, this many years into technical. She didn’t even want command track. Did she? She had hated combat, from the first moment of the mutiny through to that last lucky shot that burst the enemy cruiser like a ripe seedpod. She pushed down the memory of the feeling that had accompanied the fear, the sick disgust with the waste of it . . . that feeling entirely too seductive to be reliable.

Who knew what they felt at such times anyway? Perhaps she could go into teaching—she knew she was good at presenting complex material. That history instructor had even suggested it. Why had she fled from that offer into the most unsuitable specialty? Her mind thrashed around like a fish on a hook, unable to escape the painful reality that she had trapped herself stupidly, blindly. Like a fish indeed . . . she, who was meant to swim free. But where?

The next morning, she was tired enough that Major Pitak noticed.

“Late night, Suiza?”

“Just some bad dreams, Major.” She made it as dismissive as she could without rudeness. Pitak held her gaze a long moment.

“Lots of people have post-combat dreams, you know. No one will think less of you if you talk them over with someone in Medical.”

“I’ll be all right,” she said quickly. “Sir.” Pitak kept looking, and Esmay felt herself flushing. “If it gets worse, sir, I’ll keep your advice in mind.”

“Good,” Pitak said. Then, just as Esmay relaxed, she spoke again. “If you don’t mind telling me, what made you choose technical instead of command track?”

Esmay’s breath shortened. She hadn’t expected to face that question here. “I—didn’t think I would be good at command.”

“In what way?”

She scrambled to think of something. “Well, I—I’m not from a Fleet family. There’s a natural feel.”

“You honestly never wanted to take command of a unit until you ended up with Despite?”

“No, I . . . when I was a child, of course I daydreamed. My family’s military; we have hero tales enough. But what I really wanted was space itself. When I got to the prep school, there were others so much better suited . . .”

“Your initial leadership scores were quite high.”

“I think they gave me some slack for being planet-born,” Esmay said. She had explained it to herself that way for years, as the leadership scores dropped bit by bit. Until Xavier System, until the mutiny.

“You’re not really a technical-track mind, Suiza. You work hard, you’re smart enough, but that’s not where your real talent is. Those briefings you gave the tactical discussion groups, that paper you wrote for me . . . that’s not the way a tech specialist thinks.”

“I’m trying to learn . . .”

“I never said you weren’t trying.” From the tone, Pitak could have intended the other meaning; she sounded almost annoyed. “But think of it this way: would your family try to make a draft horse out of a polo pony?”

For some reason the attempt to put the problem in her culture’s terms made her stubborn; she could almost sense her body changing, long dark legs and hard hooves sinking into mud, leaning backwards, resisting. “If they needed a load hauled, and the pony was there . . .” Then, before Pitak exploded, she went on. “I see your point, sir, but I never thought of myself as . . . as a pony mismatched to a load.”

“I wonder what you did expect,” Pitak said, half to herself. “A place to work,” Esmay said. “Away from Altiplano.” It was the most honest thing she could say, at that point, without getting into things she never intended to discuss with anyone, ever.

Pitak almost glared. “Young woman, this Fleet is not ‘a place to work away from home.’ ”

“I didn’t mean just a job—”

“I should hope not. Dammit, Suiza, you come so close . . . and then you say something like that.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“And then you apologize. Suiza, I don’t know how you did what you did at Xavier, but you had better figure it out, because that is where your talent lies. And either you use your abilities or they rot. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Clear as mud in a cattle-trampled stock tank. She had the uneasy feeling that Barin wouldn’t be able to explain this one, in part because she would be too embarrassed to ask.

“I put the bug in her ear,” Pitak said to Commander Seveche.

“And?”

“And then I nearly lost my temper and pounded her. I do not understand that young woman. She’s like two different people, or maybe three. Gives you the impression of immense capacity, real character, and then suddenly flows away like water down a drain. It’s not like anything I’ve seen before, and I thought I’d seen every variety of strangeness that got past the psychnannies. She’s all there . . . and then she isn’t. I tried to get her to go talk to Med about her combat experience, and she shied off as if I’d threatened her with hard vacuum.”

“We aren’t the first commanders she’s puzzled,” Seveche reminded her. “That’s why it was such a surprise . . .”

“One good thing is she’s coming out of her shell with some of the other juniors,” Pitak said. “She and that Serrano ensign and some others.”

“The young Serrano? I’m not sure that’s a good idea. There were two Serranos at Xavier.”

Pitak shrugged. “I don’t see a problem. This one is too young; those were much her seniors. Besides, they’re not plotting; they’re climbing the Wall and playing team games together occasionally. My thought was that maybe the Serrano arrogance would get through her shell, whatever it is, and release that natural command ability.”

“Maybe. She’s not seeing just him, you say?”

“No. I hear about it mostly from young Zintner, who plays wallball with them. She says Suiza hates variable-G games but is a good sport. I haven’t asked, but she’s told me that two or three young men are pursuing Suiza, without much success. ‘Not really a cold fish when you get to know her, but reserved,’ is what Zintner said.”

Seveche sighed. “She must be hiding something; they always are, the juniors, even when they think they’re not.”

“And we aren’t?” Pitak said.

“We are, but we know we are. The advantages of maturity: we know where our bodies are buried, and we know that anything buried can be exhumed. Usually at the wrong moment.”

“But Suiza?”

“Let her be for a bit; see if she gets somewhere on her own, now that you’ve planted the idea. We’ve agreed she’s not stupid. She’ll be here a couple of years, anyway, and if she hasn’t unstuck herself by the end of the next review period we’ll try again. If, as we said before, life doesn’t give her the necessary kick in the pants.”

Esmay stared at her work, feeling resentful. She knew that was an unsuitable feeling for any junior officer . . . unproductive, not useful, even if justified. In this case it wasn’t even justified. She liked Major Pitak and trusted in her honesty; if Pitak said she didn’t have a technical mind, then she didn’t have a technical mind. She tried to ignore the self-pitying self that wanted to whine about all the hours of study, the diligence, the self-sacrifice . . .

“Stupid!” she said aloud, startling herself and Master Chief Sivars, who had come in to bring something to Major Pitak. “Sorry,” Esmay said, and felt her face heat. “I was thinking about something else.”

“That’s all right, Lieutenant,” he said, in the indulgent voice of the very senior NCO to the very junior officer he tolerates out of misguided affection. Or so it seemed to Esmay, making her even more resentful.

“Chief, how can you tell which junior personnel are going to have a knack for technical stuff?”

He gave her a look that clearly said this wasn’t her business, or his, but then leaned back against the bulkhead and answered. “Some of ’em come in with such a genius for it you don’t have the slightest doubt. I remember a pivot, six or seven years ago, straight out of basic, who had blown the top off the placement exams. Well, we’d had high-scorers before . . . but this kid couldn’t touch something without making it work better. In two days, we knew what we had; in a decad, we were just holding our breath hoping he wouldn’t get crosswise of anyone important, because he did have a way of speaking his mind.” He grinned at the memory. “That was before we were on Kos, you understand; she was under construction, and we were working out of Sierra Station. Major Pitak was a lieutenant then, same as you are now, except she was herself, if you know what I mean. Well, this kid snapped back at her one day, and she went the color of bad polyglue. Then she blinked, and looked at me, and said the kid was right, and walked out. Told me something about both of ’em, though of course I had to give the kid what-for, for sassing an officer. It wasn’t really sass; he just knew what he knew, and didn’t bother to hide it.”

“And the ones that aren’t quite that good?”

“Well . . . I can tell the ones that’ll work hard, of course. That always helps. Anyone with enough smarts to pass the placement exams can learn enough to be useful if they work at it steadily, the way you’ve done. But nothing replaces the knack, the feel . . . I can’t explain it, Lieutenant. Either they have a feel for the material, or they don’t. Some of ’em have it real narrow . . . they may be technical geniuses in scan, say, and useless for anything else. Others have a knack for a lot of things in the technical area—they can work almost any system.”

“Are you ever wrong?” Esmay asked.

He chewed his lip. “Sometimes . . . but usually it’s not to do with their talent. I’ve missed other things about them, things that interfered. I remember a sergeant minor, transferred in from Sector 11, with scores off the chart. That was odd in itself—why would another sector let him go, if he was so good? But we were short-handed, like we always seem to be, and he was awfully good.”

“So what was wrong with him?”

“Pure meanness. Turned out he got his kicks making trouble: on his own crew, in barracks, everywhere. Set people against each other, skinned the truth to the bone but always in ways that he could explain as not really lies. Nothing he did was against regulations . . . he was careful about that . . . but by halfway through his tour we’d have done anything to get rid of him. I would, anyway. I’d just been promoted to master chief; I wanted my section to run smoothly and here he was stirring things up. We finally got rid of him, but it wasn’t easy.” By the tone, he did not want to explain how, and Esmay didn’t ask. “Then there was a kid who was smart enough when he could keep his mind on the job, but he was always in emotional hot water over something. Or rather, somebody. We finally got him to Medical and they had some treatment, but then he wanted to transfer. I heard later he was doing fine over in Sector 8.” He gave Esmay a smile as he pushed himself up and started out. “Just keep plugging away, Lieutenant; you’re doing fine.”

So even he knew she wasn’t that good at this. Esmay resisted the childish urge to throw something at that broad back.

At dinner that evening, she said less than usual, listening to the chat at her table. The self-proclaimed genius of special materials research wasn’t talking either; he had the abstracted expression of someone trying to solve problems in his head. Barin Serrano was describing his attempt to recalibrate a gravscan in which, as he put it, “someone had been tap dancing on the connections.” He sounded happy enough, and the jig at the far end, talking about her current love affair, sounded even happier.

Perhaps it was only lack of sleep that made her want to crawl under the table. She had had nightmares all night, and a confusing and disappointing talk with her commander; of course she felt down. She didn’t eat dessert, and decided to go to bed early.

“Found it,” Arhos said. “It’s a good tricky one, too.”

“Not too different from what we were told, I hope,” said Losa.

“No . . . but apparently the captain’s a bit paranoid, moves it around from time to time. And checks out the circuitry periodically, to make sure it works.”

“So we have to fix it with a built-in test circuit to fake the test?”

“Yes. I’ve got the details . . . amazing how some of these people will talk if they think you sympathize with their problems. There’s a petty-light who’s convinced the captain is down on him because of a practical joke actually concocted by someone else . . . he was so anxious to convince me how unfair and unreasonable Hakin is, that he practically handed me the whole mechanism on a chip.”

“So when can we do it?”

“The captain tested it two days ago. He’s using some schedule of his own devising, but he’s never yet tested it within five days of a previous test. So if we do the main part tomorrow, that should give us a few days to test the test, as it were.”

“I hope this is all right,” Losa said, frowning. “I mean—we’re stuck on this ship now, and we can’t pretend we don’t know what it’s for . . .”

“I can,” Arhos said. “In anticipation of immortality, I can pretend any number of impossible things.”

“But if the Bloodhorde shows up . . .”

“Here? Where our very efficient escorts will chase them into the arms of the neighboring cruisers? I refuse to worry; there’s nothing we can do. As far as I’m concerned, there’s a dangerously paranoid captain on this ship, who might at any time see a dust spot on a vidscan and decide it’s an enemy fleet—and then decide it’s his duty to blow us all away. While I’m on this ship I particularly want that device out of his control, lest I lose my chance at a long happy life because of some knotheaded captain’s mental quirk.”

“You’re not happy about it either,” Losa said with satisfaction.

“Yes, I am.”

“No . . . every time you get flowery like that it means you have doubts. Serious doubts. I think we ought to put the controls in our own hands.”

Arhos considered. “Not a bad idea, that. If nothing else, it will keep you satisfied. Gori?”

“I like it. What time tomorrow?”

“Well—the easiest access will be through the inventory bay on Deck Ten, the one across from T-4. And there are weapons components in that bay.”

“How fortunate,” Losa said.

“Especially since the computer indicates they’re located in exactly the right place . . .”

“You fiddled, Arhos.”

He grinned. “What use to have the ability, if no use is made of it? It’s true that I . . . transposed some numbers in the database, but . . . it was in a good cause.”

“I hope so,” Losa said soberly. “I do hope so.”

With their most advanced equipment, they were able to locate and fox the scan which supposedly kept anyone from tampering with the device. It took a day or so to create the blind loops they’d insert while they worked. Another day or so to create a convincing errand in that bay again.

Then they were in, and the device in its casing looked just as they’d expected.

“The tricky bit,” Arhos said, but he didn’t sound worried. Rapidly the case came open, the controls yielded to their intrusion, the codes changed . . . and the telltales stayed a friendly green.

“Might as well run the test,” Gori said.

“Might as well—we’ve got ten minutes.” Arhos nodded to Losa, who pricked her intercept into the captain’s control line and then inserted a two-layer code. The telltales changed, in sequence, from green to yellow. She inserted another code, and they went back to green.

“Lovely,” Gori said. “I really do like it when we’re right the first time.”

“If we were right,” Losa murmured.

Arhos grinned. “Three rejuvs, Lo. Three, first-class, guaranteed with the best drugs. We were right.” He finished cleaning up, putting everything back as they’d found it, even to the tiny piece of metal filing that just happened to have lain a half a centimeter in from the right front corner of the case. “We’re going to live forever,” he said, backing out, wiping the deck behind him. “Forever, and be very, very rich.”

That night they brought out one of their treats from home, and toasted each other. For the benefit of the ship’s scan, they congratulated themselves on their progress so far in getting the weapons rekeyed. It made a delicious joke. Arhos sank into sleep and dreamed of the future, when he would be so rich, and so well known, that he’d never have to take a Bloodhorde contract again.