Return To Kaldak

Chapter 13

«Commander's School Company-attention!»

Blade slammed his booted heels together with a smart thump. On either side of him, a hundred and fifty men and women did the same thing.

«Flag Guard-forward!»

Blade took three steps forward, then to the right to close up with the other members of the squad. Membership in the Flag Guard was a considerable honor for a Commander Cadet. You needed a spotless record, high grades, and a natural talent for close-order drill. Or at least they thought it was «natural talent» in Blade's case. He'd fitted in so well at the Commander's School that he sometimes wondered if anyone would believe the truth if he told them.

He still wasn't tempted to do it, though.

Gravel crunched under booted feet to his left as the inspection party made its way along the ranks of the Company. Blade had to keep his eyes rigidly forward, but they walked slowly enough so that he got a good long look at them.

Sidas led, a sash across his broad chest but otherwise looking much the same as he had in his office. Some of the high-ranking Kaldakans went in for fancy uniforms, but not Sidas.

He was escorting Councilor Geyrna. She would be in her mid-forties now, and her red hair was turning gray. She was still a handsome woman, with the full bosom and ready smile Blade remembered in the fifteen year old merchant's daughter who'd loved the chief's son. He wondered what might have happened between her and Bairam, to make her divorce him and stay in Kaldak, rather than share his exile. Had he played around a little too freely with other women? That would be like the man, Blade thought.

Geyrna had her own personal staff, headed by a striking dark-haired woman. She must have been close to six feet tall, with a magnificent figure, although her face was too long and her nose too big for classic beauty. She carried herself like a thoroughbred mare. Blade had to force himself not to stare.

Then the inspection party was past, and the drillmaster was shouting, «Company-right face! Flag Guard-lead!» As the Flag Guard took their position at the head of the company, the band struck up, and the drillmaster gave his final order.

«Forward march!»

The company passed in review. Blade kept perfect step, and the angle of his laser rifle never varied by a single millimeter. He still could not quite get the dark-haired woman out of his mind. He hadn't seen her before in this Dimension, he was sure. Did she remind him of someone he'd known elsewhere? Perhaps-there'd been so many women.

After the ceremonies, the School Commander announced an unexpected half-day's holiday. Blade was taking a shower and wondering what to do with the free time when one of his comrades stuck his head into the bathroom.

«Huh, Voros. You free tonight?»

«So far, Kabo. Why?»

«Good. Commander Baliza's inviting a few of us to dinner in her quarters.»

«Baliza?»

Kabo grinned. «The chief of Councilor Geyrna's staff. Remember her?» His hands outlined a well-built woman.

«Now I do. Dinner, you say?»

Kabo leered. «Don't get your hopes or anything else up, Voros. She's cast-iron all the way through and all the way up and down. Save your balls for women who'll give them back when they're through.»

Blade tried to look innocent. «I won't do anything without orders.»

Kabo laughed. «Good. If the evening breaks up early, knock on my door. We can go into town and visit the Golden Munfan. They say the dancers there are even better than Rokhana.»

«I'll believe that when I see it.»

Baliza's dinner party started off rather bleakly. Blade felt rather like a small boy at a fancy tea party, watched over by a particularly grim nurse. From the look on the faces around him, he wasn't the only one. Baliza sat at the head of the table, her face so expressionless that it was hard to think of her as alive, let alone a woman. She wore civilian clothes cut even more severely than her uniform, and her hair was bound up tightly on top of her head. It made her look positively horse-faced. At least the food and drink were good, and Blade was hungry enough to let that make up for the frigid atmosphere.

Over desert Baliza began to relax, drawing out each of the cadets on what he or she had done before joining the army. She saved Blade for last, so he was able to organize his lies about a loss of memory even better than usual. So why did he get the feeling afterward that she was skeptical? It was a vague feeling, not much he could really put his finger on, rather like the feeling that he'd seen Baliza or someone like her before.

Added together, the two vague feelings gave him one which wasn't vague at all. He wanted to see as little of Baliza as he could manage, because he didn't want her to see much of him. He'd heard that Geyrna carried more weight on the Council of Nine than any other three members put together. If that was so, the suspicions of anyone who had Geyrna's ear could be much more dangerous to Blade than even High Commander Sidas's.

When they got up from the table, Blade headed for the balcony outside. There he might stay out of Baliza's sight for the rest of the evening. Even if she came out on the balcony, the light there was poor. Baliza's quarters were on the third floor, and the balcony faced a lightless garden.

Blade was noticing that the garden would provide excellent cover when he heard footsteps behind him. They sounded almost like Baliza's usual brisk stride, but not quite. He turned. There was enough light to show him that she now wore soft sandals instead of boots. She'd also made a few other changes. She wore a knee-length skirt and a snug top which left her shoulders bare. Blade couldn't help staring at her fine breasts outlined under the cloth, and her well-formed bare legs.

Baliza stepped closer. Somehow Blade wasn't surprised to discover that she was now wearing perfume.

«Hello, commander,» said Blade, feeling that he ought to do more than stand and wait for her to make her move. «Would you like to go down and walk in the garden?»

«Does it remind you of home?» she said with a smile.

«It reminds me of-somewhere I've been before,» he said. «Whether that place was my home or not, I don't. . know.»

«Do you think you ever will?»

«I can't say. I know that I'm quite happy where I am now. Happy enough not to spend much time worrying about the past.» He hoped that would turn her aside from this line of talk before the matter of the truth-seer came up.

He was disappointed. «Perhaps you are happy enough. Certainly you ought to be. You have done well for Kaldak and for yourself. Perhaps you will do even better in time. But what of those you may have left behind, in the darkness where your memory does not go?»

Blade hid his uneasiness. «I do not know that there are any such people.»

«So you say.»

Blade pretended to be indignant. «I hope you are not calling me a liar, commander. Even from you, I will not take that willingly.»

«I do not call you a liar.» She stepped closer to him. «I believe you are telling the truth, as you know it. But how much of it can you be sure that you know?»

«Not very much.»

She was now so close that he could have taken her in his arms if he'd wanted to. Certainly she seemed ready for it. To Blade's heightened senses, the smell of her perfume and her arousal together was overpowering.

«Then can you be sure there is no woman, no child left alone in a place you have forgotten, thinking you are dead, grieving for you? Can you?» She emphasized her words further by pressing herself against his chest. Her hair was unbound and it whispered softly as she moved her head.

Blade decided to yield to the inevitable. If he exhausted her with lovemaking, it might turn her aside from this rather alarming line of questioning she was pursuing. He slipped a hand inside the waist of her skirt. It fell on the curve of bare buttocks. She was wearing nothing under the skirt.

She sighed with obvious pleasure at the feel of his hand on her. «I am sorry. Perhaps I am asking more of you than you can give. I hope not, though,» She giggled, then was serious again. «It is just that I feel sorry for anyone you may have left behind. My mother was killed when I was nine. I wanted for nothing, because I was the Sky Master Blade's daughter, but-«

Blade tried to say something, and realized that it had come out a wordless croak. He jerked his hand away from Baliza.

The Sky Master Blade's daughter. His own daughter? But-

«Your mother was-?» he managed to get out.

«Kareena, daughter of Peython. As I said, I wanted for nothing. But those who gave me everything else could not give me back my mother, and my father had returned to the sky, this we knew. So I know what it is to be alone. I will not be alone tonight, though. I–Voros, what is wrong?»

Blade was as close to being completely speechless as he'd ever been in his life. The narrowness of the margin by which he'd avoided committing incest with his own daughter did not make for a clear mind or a nimble tongue. Since he doubted he could say anything sensible, he said nothing.

That was a mistake. Baliza seemed to take his silence as a sign he was too aroused to speak. That wasn't entirely wrong. Blade's mind was digesting the fact that Baliza was his daughter; his body was still reacting to her as a desirable woman. He had the feeling that in another moment she would notice this fact, and then the fat would really be in the fire!

He took a step backward. Another mistake. She laughed. «Are you afraid you've lost interest, Voros? Well, I'll see what I can do to bring it back.» With impossibly swift movements she stripped off her upper garment. Her hard-nippled breasts had no sag in them anywhere. They would have aroused a dead man-or Richard Blade, if they'd belonged to any other woman in any Dimension. Instead he took another step backward.

Baliza took two steps to his one and pressed herself against him. At the same time she caught up one of his hands and drew it hard against one breast. Blade's fingers twitched involuntarily. Baliza broke into a giggle as she felt his erection against her.

«So. You haven't lost interest after all. Neither have I.» She pressed harder, until he could feel her nipples through his shirt. She threw one arm around him, and with her other hand fumbled at the catch of her skirt.

In another moment she would be completely naked, and that thought was the end of the matter for Blade.

If the stakes had been higher, he might have let her go ahead. If he would have been saving lives or the Dimension X secret by committing incest, he would probably have done so. Blade's conscience was not that tender, particularly when the daughter in question was a grown woman, obviously no virgin, and quite ignorant of who it was that she was so expertly seducing.

However, in the present situation there wasn't enough at stake. Blade's scruples took over. He jumped back, opening a gap of several feet between him and Baliza. As her skirt slipped off, he put both hands on the balcony railing. She stepped forward, naked and ready, and he vaulted over the railing and dropped into the garden.

Bushes under the balcony broke his fall. They also absorbed the flower pot Baliza threw after him. They did nothing to muffle the curses she shrieked after him.

The old proposition that «Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned» was receiving new proof tonight.

Baliza's curses followed Blade as he hurried through the garden. Halfway to the back wall, he nearly stumbled over two of his comrades from the dinner party. They were entwined on the ground, busily putting a moonlit night and a secluded garden to a traditional use. He reached the back wall and wasted no time looking for a gate. Five minutes after leaving Baliza's embrace, Blade was out in a back street, heading back toward the barracks. He would have run, but he didn't want to attract attention. Also, he wanted to give himself a little time to think about what to do next.

The simplest and most obvious course was to just keep moving, out of Kaldak and into the wilderness where he could hide until the time came to return to Home Dimension. Apart from his dislike of simply running away from trouble, Blade decided that would be too drastic for now.

Once her anger cooled, Baliza might be embarrassed by the night's incident. In fact, she might be too embarrassed to say anything, let alone retaliate. She might owe some of her rank to being the Sky Master's daughter, but she didn't sound like a complete idiot!

If Baliza kept her mouth shut, nothing would happen to Blade. But if in the meantime he'd disappeared, it wouldn't matter what Baliza said. Suspicion would be aroused, the manhunt would be on, and his position would be precarious, to say the least. So would the position of the Dimension X secret.

The best thing was to go back to the barracks as if nothing had happened. Baliza could hardly take any action tonight. If she made her move tomorrow, he would be more likely to get advance warning of it in the barracks, among his comrades. He could also keep weapons and food ready to hand in case he had to flee, instead of leaving Kaldak with nothing but the clothes he stood up in.

Blade returned to the barracks just as Kabo was leaving for his night on the town. Unable to think of any better way of making things look normal, Blade let himself be talked into joining the party.

He never did find out if the dancers at the Golden Munfan were better than Rokhana, though. He wasn't calm enough to pay full attention to the first one, and though the second one was definitely not as good as Rokhana, after her act she came over and sat on his lap. One thing led to another, he missed all the rest of the dances, and it was nearly dawn when he got back to the barracks.