Текст книги "Way Of The Clans"
Автор книги: Роберт Торстон
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Keeping track of his proper trio of opponents, Aidan had not seen the fourth 'Mech that came toward him, running. It was a legal Trial move, for he had opened up the combat into a melee. But with all the others so actively engaged, he had not expected a move toward him.
His hoped-for finishing shots at the Hellbringerwent wide as the intruding 'Mech made a direct hit against the cockpit of Aidan's Summoner.He could feel the heat of fire rushing at him as the computer announced the beginning of the automatic eject sequence. Desperately, he wanted to get off another barrage, hoping for a lucky shot before his 'Mech expelled him.
He flew high into the air as the cockpit area of his Summonerexploded behind him. His consciousness left him just as he realized that he had been beaten by Marthe. She had not only shot him down in the Trial a moment before he would have qualified, she had obtained her own second Trial victory, earning her the right to enter the Jade Falcon Clan as a Star Commander, the very rank for which he had been aiming. Now there would be no rank for him, no chance to become a MechWarrior. Marthe had destroyed those chances for him. Marthe, to whom he had been devoted from the earliest days of the sibko. Marthe, who had once thought she might love him. How could she have double-crossed him just as he was about to qualify? Was this the true way of the Clan? It was with these last thoughts that Aidan hit the ground in his ejection seat, immediately passing out from the excruciating pain in his left arm.
22
I saw my chance and I took it," was Marthe's succinct explanation as she stood by his hospital bed, casually holding her brand new Star Commander's field cap in one hand. Aidan wondered if the cap was meant as a further insult as he gingerly touched his legacy from the battle, a broken left arm.
"But the sibko, Marthe, what about the sibko?"
"What about it? There is no sibko any longer. We outgrow the sibko. That is the way."
"We were once so close."
"As children. We are not ..."
"I know, I know. We are not children now."
"Do not be bitter."
"What do you expect me to be? I neededto be a warrior. "
"Need is not a good warrior trait, I suspect. We are trained, we succeed or fail, we find our place in the Clan. Those who succeed at beingwarriors earn their Blood-names and find their place in the gene pool. That is all that happens, or should happen. You nearly succeeded in becoming a warrior. So few get even that far. Now you are assigned to the technician caste. You will be a good Tech. The Clan has found the proper place for you, and you accept that, quiaff?"
He wanted to deny it, but he said, "Aff."
She turned to go.
"Marthe?"
"Yes?"
"You had already made your first kill, and you had a fine chance at a second among the opponents selected for you."
"I remind you that one of them did defeat me finally, stopping me from achieving a third triumph."
"All right. But you might have won, without turning on me, without—"
"Do not say more. I did what was proper. The rules provide that, in a melee, any 'Mech on the field is a fair target in a Trial. You were a fair target."
"But what of all the time we spent together, all the feelings, all the—"
"Do not talk to me of feelings. Such things are illusions for which we have no time—"
"But once you said perhaps you loved me."
"A child's game. It was only the foolish stories Glynn told us that led to such statements, not any so-called feelings. I was merely a child imitating what happened to be in my environment. We grow up. Or, at least, I grew up."
He could not mistake the sarcasm in her last statement. Not only did she place herself above him, but in terms of Clan castes, she now occupied a higher social position. He would never persuade her of the unfairness of her tactic—nor, deep down, did he actually believe it was unfair. It was unfortunate, yes, and he was bitter about it, but he could not call it unfair. No matter that he had formed an excellent strategy. He had not been able to achieve it because, like a failed commander in a battle, he had not anticipated something in the forces aligned against him.
"It makes no sense for us to talk together any further," Marthe said. "I came, obeying the customs of politeness. Defeated and hospitalized enemies must be visited once. So I have done. If we meet again, it will be as members of different castes, and caste rules will apply. Goodbye."
"Wait."
She turned wearily. "Another question?"
"One more."
She spoke like a queen bestowing a favor. Her tone made him feel helpless, inferior. This must be what it was like, he thought, to realize for the first time, the caste difference.
"Do you know," he said, "that had I been in your position, seeing you vulnerable in the melee, I would never have attacked you?" She sighed.
"I thought you might say that. And I admit having given the matter some thought. Aidan, I know you would not have . . . not have attacked me in such a circumstance. But perhaps that shows the essential difference between us, the one that made me a MechWarrior and you a Tech. I took the opportunity that you would have refused. Perhaps you were not destined to be a warrior."
"Marthe, you have become so—"
"I have not become anything. I am a warrior, and that is everything. You have had your question. Now I must leave."
He let her go. What more could he say to her? All he could do was lie in bed, refighting the Trial over and over in his head, wondering if he—had he seen Marthe coming—would have shot her down in self-defense. He was not sure he could have, although in his thoughts he killed her over and over.
Was she right? he wondered. Was it destined that he not succeed in the Trial to become a Mechwarrior? Yet he had come so close. If Marthe had not intervened, he would have defeated the Hellbringer,he knew it! He could probably also have taken out the already-wounded Warhawk.Even if the Dire Wolf hadlumbered into the battle, he would have had a chance at it, too. Well, that was perhaps getting too carried away. The one victory was certain, the others he could fight in his mind for the rest of his life laboring away as a Tech.
Aidan shuddered at the thought. He had never even considered being assigned to a subcaste. Marthe might have been able to accept whatever came, but Aidan was not so comfortable with that attitude. He had to accept it, yes. It was, after all, the way of the Clan. But he did not have to like it. He did not.
As he eased into sleep, a new thought came to him: Did he have to accept it? It was the way of the Clan, yes, to fulfill the proper role. But people walked away, did they not? If he could get help, or learn schedules, or something,he could hitch a ride on some ship going away from Ironhold, pursue life in some other place, find new uses for whatever skills he proved he did have. Clan society held wanderers in almost as much contempt as bandits, but what had he to lose anymore? So far, he had known only the sibko and then the life of a cadet. Perhaps there was another life out there for him among other parts of the Clan, among other Clan worlds.
Did he think these thoughts or were they just figments on the threshold between waking and sleep? As Aidan drifted off, the questions dissolved into dreams where he fought mighty battles—sometimes in BattleMechs, sometimes on his own, sometimes in bizarre vehicles or on fantasy animals. He kept winning. Nothing or no one could defeat him.
23
Damn, wrote Falconer Commander Ter Roshak. Damn it to some appalling Inner Sphere hell! Warriors are warriors and the Clan is the Clan, but sometimes the rules do not fit the game; the standards do not apply to the particular social action or even the individual experience. As I watched the risk-taking cadet fall to a barrage that was more luck than skill, thoughts raced through my brain and I felt an uncharacteristic frustration, even a sadness for a fate I did not believe in. It was all I could do to keep a tight rein on my emotions before Falconer Joanna and the other training officers in the control room.
We all know the necessity for luck in warfare, yet I do not like to see a cadet defeated by shots fired from virtual ambush, especially when it is another cadet rather than one of our Trial cadre doing the shooting.
Yet, Cadet Marthe is to be praised. Her improvisation was brilliant. She will become a fine MechWarrior, a fine officer. Aside from the personal interest I have taken in Cadet Aidan, I have other reasons for regretting that the incident occurred. Aidan's strategy was clever, too. Indeed, he accomplished something that had never been done before. He threw the whole Trial into disarray, and then would have won it with actions that would have been heroic in a real battle, but for Cadet Marthe's tactical quickness. As a good tactician myself, I appreciate her skill, but it is not pleasing to see it used against another candidate who was equally deserving of success.
At one time, I used to believe that exceptional cadets should have a second chance at the Trial, but I was voted down by chiefs of staff. Eventually, they won me to their point of view, which faithfully adheres to Clan military beliefs.
But any rule has its exception, and I believe Aidan should be one of these. If I had it in my power to reinstate him, I would.
But there is no way.
Or is there?
I know I am not through with this Aidan, this generational twin of my old comrade, Ramon Mattlov. The first thing I will arrange is to keep him within my command. That strategical maneuver is, at least, within my power.
And then—
And then—
Who can say what will happen then?
24
After his first week as a Tech, Aidan knew he could not stand the life, especially not here, in the same place where he had failed, where hopeful cadets, confident in their abilities, were still in training and reminding him of what he had been. When he chanced to pass by Falconer Joanna on several occasions, she had looked right through him. That, more than the hard work and the certainty that being a Tech was a demotion in caste, discouraged him. He could not abide being continually reminded of his failure in the Trial, but neither could he avoid the constant reminders.
Nomad, for whom he now worked as an apprentice, perceived Aidan's problem from the first day. "Take the work as it comes," he advised. "Work is the best cure for anything. It numbs the feelings."
"What makes you think I am feeling anything, Nomad?"
"If you say you're not, you're not. I don't argue what's in somebody else's head and body. That's a problem for them and any doctors whose scrutiny they have the misfortune to come under."
"Do you have to use so many contractions when you speak? It sounds coarse."
"Away from your old friends, the cadets and warriors, we are by their standards—coarse. We use contractions, we use ancient cursing styles. The lesser castes do; the freeborns have made a ritual of it. We chat about forbidden subjects. You'll have to learn all this. You're a Tech now, Friend Aidan."
"Do not call me friend either. I will work with you but . . ."
"With us, Friend is just another title. Like Cadet or Falconer or Commander. You'll get used to it."
"Never."
"Techs are not petulant either, Friend Aidan."
Now that they were Tech to Tech, Nomad was more talkative than when he had been Aidan's virtual servant. The outcome of the Trial had dissolved the class barrier, Aidan realized, and Nomad had dissolved the emotional distance between them almost immediately. Cheerful when away from warriors, he had done much to ease Aidan's immediate transition into a new caste. Aidan's chiding of Nomad's speech flaws was done with a similar affability. Indeed, he experienced an almost sibko-like friendship with the other man now. Perhaps, after all, Aidan wouldsomeday fit in as a Tech.
But he could not accept Nomad's counsel, could not lose himself in work. The work was not a cure. If anything, it depressed him more. So much of it was meaningless. Awaiting their assignment to a 'Mech, they were doing futile mechanical tests on transport vehicles, repainting surfaces, adding plates of new armor, adjusting weapon calibrations, learning to reconfigure 'Mechs in the field, all dull work from which Aidan could not find the sense of accomplishment that it seemed to provide Nomad continually.
From the first day, Aidan realized that he would have to find some way to numb his mind in order to perform the monotonous tasks that were now his lot. Not that Nomad's mind was at all diminished by it. He seemed to relish the least task, taking a high degree of satisfaction from transforming something that was not working right into an efficient component.
One day, after finding that a chest-mounted medium laser was jamming because of a structural flaw in the surrounding casing, Nomad sang while tearing one section out and welding in a new one. Except for the chanted, almost monotonous tunes of the warrior rituals, Aidan had never heard much music. Nomad's song was lively and melodic. Some of the words, too, were unfamiliar.
"They're farmer's words," the Tech said. "Rural language. All the castes have some music. But we don't all have to warble that dry stuff that cadets are stuck with in their stiff and stuffy rituals."
"You find our—theirrituals unappealing."
Nomad looked all around him before speaking, then he kept his voice low: "I never said that. I meant that their songs or chants or whatever are not as lively as the music in the lower and freer castes."
"Free? What does that mean? You work all day, lead a subservient existence, are dominated by routines and restricted by laws, follow caste customs—how is that free?"
"We don't have to jump into magnificent dustbins and risk our lives at the command of others."
"But that is honor, glory, hero ..."
"That is just so much of what the bull leaves behind him on the road."
"Sometimes I do not grasp your slang, but it is as repellent as your overuse of contractions."
"You make too much out of contractions and slang. You're headstrong but a bit dim, Friend Aidan. Contractions, slang, they're just words, words like your honor and glory and such. Just words."
"That sounds like treason to me."
"In a cockpit, maybe, but down here, among the Techs, it's just chatter. Do you seriously think a warrior is going to hang a Tech for treason? They need us. There are not enough Techs to go around. Nobody ever gets hanged who's indispensable."
"You pretend to a wisdom beyond your station, Nomad."
"Who's pretendin'? And it's your station now, too, Friend Aidan. If you want to keep from steppin' into the pile of wisdom that's available to you, that's your business. In the meantime, hand me that wrench."
Every morning, Aidan found it more difficult to roll out of his bunk. He dreaded facing another day of tinkering with some piece of machinery while cadets and training officers passed him by, oblivious to him. Their snobbery enraged him. What right had they to ignore the people who maintained the essential vehicles, the buildings they lived in, the 'Mechs they might fight in? Now they cut him dead, but a few weeks ago, he had been one of them. (And, Aidan realized suddenly, he had ignored Techs just as blithely.)
It especially bothered him to have been assigned to remain at Crash Camp, when most failed cadets were sent away to more geographically distant positions. Was someone trying to punish him? Perhaps so. Perhaps he deserved further punishment for overstepping his boundaries in the Trial, for defying the rules. If so, it was all the more reason to want to escape the camp.
Though Aidan felt trapped, his urge to get away might have agitated him for some time, left him smoldering in his bunk with plans unacted on, had a particular incident not prodded him .That day he had been on a real garbage job, hauling new coolant containers to a freight skimmer that was to take them to a 'Mech repair facility on the other side of Crash Camp. Nomad had said that they were scheduled for permanent assignment to that very facility fairly soon. They were only on the Trial site until after a new crop of cadets arrived.
Aidan was thinking of the new crop as he drove a fork-lift loaded with coolant tanks to the skimmer. In his mind, he saw the cadets arriving nervously, then going through all the tests that Aidan and his sibkin had endured, finally facing the Trial itself. Nomad told him that all this would become just so much routine. All the new cadet sibkos would start to look alike, their experiences so repetitious that eventually Aidan would forget he had ever been one of them. Aidan doubted that, but he would have to wait and see, see if he would, after all, adjust.
As cargo Techs unloaded the forklift at the skimmer, he strolled around the general area, noting that there were three freight skimmers being dealt with in various ways. One was obviously being repaired, another was unloading food supplies.
Suddenly he saw Marthe walking toward him, a clipboard in her hand. She was dressed in her crisp new warrior fatigues, a slate gray jumpsuit with dark blue piping. On her chest was the medal given to cadets who had succeeded in their trials. She wore her cloth cap, also gray with blue piping, at a jaunty angle. Whatever was on the clipboard, she was studying it. As she passed near him, he called: "Marthe!" She stopped for a moment without looking at him. The way she held her body, the indifference in it, reminded him of the snubs hed already endured from Falconer Joanna. Then she resumed her walk, her eyes ever intent on her clipboard.
Rage hit him like a cluster round, expanding within him just as quickly. He whirled around and chased after her.
"Marthe!"
She picked up her pace, but that was her only reaction.
"Marthe! Talk to me!"
He started running toward her. She hesitated, then resumed walking at normal pace and did not even look back.
The indifferent set of her shoulders and the fact that she would not look at him enraged Aidan even more. For the last few steps between him and Marthe, he ran even faster. When he reached her, she turned around suddenly and brought up her clipboard. With a backhanded blow, she struck him just in front of his temple. The blow diverted his attack just enough so that he missed grabbing her and fell to the ground next to her, landing on his back.
For a brief moment, he saw her looking down at him, a benign and inscrutable look on her face. The pain in the side of his head made him blink several times. She nodded once, then turned to walk away. Turning over and crawling forward, he seized her ankles and pulled at them. She fell forward, onto her knees. The clipboard dropped out of her hand, its papers curling up beneath it as it skidded along a patch of ground.
He waited for a counterblow of some kind, but she merely stayed on her knees, with his hands around her ankles. She stared forward. Scrambling to his own kneeling position, he released her ankles and quickly grabbed her around the shoulders. He pulled her slightly toward him, realizing that the movement placed her in an extremely uncomfortable position, her legs bent backward, her back curved painfully. For the first few seconds, she made no move to resist his hold. Aidan meanwhile tried to get to his feet without freeing her, but the attempt loosened his grip. She responded almost automatically, thrusting her arms outward and breaking the hold. Putting her hands on the ground, Marthe pushed herself to her feet in one smooth and graceful movement. When he came toward her, she elbowed him in the chest without turning around, then spun about and gave him a high kick to the jaw. Aidan reeled backward, as Marthe merely leaned down to brush dirt from the legs of her jumpsuit, then calmly retrieved her clipboard. With quick but unhurried steps, she walked away. The set of her shoulders was tense now, anticipating another attack, but Aidan merely watched her go.
A resolution to their skirmish no longer mattered. Somewhere between her first and last blows, Aidan had suddenly known he had no other choice but to get away from Crash Camp and even from Ironhold. Marthe had decided that for him.
As he walked back to the skimmer to reclaim his fork-lift, it was not the result of her blows that hurt him. What pained him was that she had not uttered a word, nor even a sound of any kind, neither before, during, nor after the fight.
