Текст книги "Way Of The Clans"
Автор книги: Роберт Торстон
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6
For a long while Aidan just sat on the ground, his gaze fixed on an odd pattern of rocks that seemed deliberately centered between his legs. Aware that no one in the sibko was allowed to comfort him, and probably did not want to, he ignored them by concentrating on getting his head cleared and on watching the rocks. His head stubbornly refused to clear, and his vision went in and out of focus. Whenever the rocks came into focus, he tried to look up to see what was happening around him and in the Circle of Equals, but the slightest movement of his head returned him to dizziness. The sensation was something like looking into firelight: everything became hazy and there was pain where intense illumination struck the retina. He would have tried to shake his head clear, but after doing it once, the pain it caused had nearly knocked him out completely.
The pattern of the rocks was irregular, which fascinated Aidan. He realized that if one were to isolate any group of rocks strewn across the ground of this exceedingly rocky planet, one would find any number of irregular patterns. The regular pattern would be the exception. Nevertheless, everything elseabout life was in such a fixed pattern that he never, until now, thought much about irregularities. Growing up in the sibko, days and nights were arranged, schedules were kept, a regular process of regular progress was meticulously noted and recorded so that a warrior's codex, his or her lifetime in a collection of data, could be maintained. If this entire process were to be significantly violated, Aidan was certain that the Clan would devise some other pattern to replace it. Patterns were all, all was pattern. Had not Dermot said that last week? The sibko itself was a pattern, created out of patterns in a gene, itself a pattern in a cell. Their differences were minimal, their similarities praiseworthy. A sibko joke: DNA means Don't Need Anything. (The use of the forbidden contraction seemed, to childish minds, a bit of rebellion, and they loved to say it.) They did not need anything because all was planned for them. Their lives were table arrangements, utensils in the right place, at the right angles next to a perfectly arranged set of plates. Training on Ironhold merely continued the regular pattern.
He could discover no pattern in the rocks, and that troubled him. With his training, he should be able to see the pattern in anything.He picked up one rock and placed it down again so that it formed a triangle with the two other rocks, so that there was at least one pattern amid the anarchy. But it didn't satisfy him, the triangle. It was more out of place than the irregular setup had been. Because he had formed it, he could not help but concentrate on it. Now the triangle was taking on too much importance among the other rocks. He picked up all three rocks and tossed them away, refusing to note where they fell.
The sounds coming from the Circle entered his consciousness, but he refused to look up. He did not want to see what was happening there, not even when it was Joanna who screamed in pain. Her pain gave him no satisfaction. By rights, he should want to see her writhing in agony on the ground. He should want to see her deeply tanned skin stained with her blood. He should want to see her neck broken or her limbs hanging uselessly. But those prospects were just as repulsive to him as was Joanna herself. He did want to see her dead, or even hurt.
What he would have liked would be for her to tell him that he had done something well. It was wrong, he knew, to wish for credit from anyone because after the nurturing stage came the warrior training stage; after the pattern, the pattern—and there was no praise for achievement. There was, in fact, only one achievement—the victory at the Trial of Position that waited for the few who survived the training to the end. By that time, praise was no longer necessary. Dermot had said that a kind word could alter the quickness of a warrior's response and that could mean the laser blast could catch you in the throat instead of your enemy.
A wave of surprise swept among the sibko, punctuated with gasps that were sudden enough to make Aidan finally look up.
Ellis now knelt on Joanna's chest. With terrific thrusts of her torso, Joanna was rocking Ellis while trying to squirm out from under him, but she could not dislodge him. A cruel look of triumph came into Ellis' eyes as he suddenly locked his hands together, shifted his body back along Joanna's legs. Bringing his hands down, he directed them at her head in what should have been a killing blow, or one that would at least have knocked Joanna out if it did not fracture her skull.
How she did it, Aidan was not sure, but instead of trying to avoid the blow, Joanna, whose arms were pinned, blocked it with the top of her head. In spite of the block, the force of impact of Ellis' hands against her head should have knocked her out and made it easy for him to dispose of her.
Joanna had always said she had the resources of the kind of mythic beast that, in Clan myths, came back to haunt heroes. Perhaps she did possess such power because, not only did she retain consciousness, but she took advantage of a slight shifting in Ellis' pressure on her torso to roll sideways and free one arm. She faked a backhanded punch toward his stomach, one whose weakness could not possibly have hurt Ellis. Nevertheless, in instinctive reflex, he moved to block it, and she opened her hands. Eluding his defense, and reaching above it, she grabbed the lower end of his leather tunic and pulled his close to her. In another situation, the move might have been that of a lover drawing to her the object of her sexual desire, but in this case it was the move Joanna needed to break Ellis' leverage. Artfully squirming through his legs as he struggled to regain equilibrium, she shot out the other side of his legs, rolled over, stirred up a lot of dust, and came up on the attack.
Ramming him from the rear, she knocked the already off-balance Ellis onto his face. He quickly curled up his body, however, and somersaulted to his feet, a maneuver at which Ellis had always been particularly adept. Unfortunately, Joanna anticipated it. She made no move toward him and instead scooped up a rock from the ground and hurled it at his head while she was still bent over. To Aidan the rock seemed to sail slowly toward Ellis' head, when in fact the missile was thrown with some force and speed. Later, he would remember this as the first of many moments in his life when movement around him seemed to slow down, to occur at some different speed from that of reality. There were times when he doubted that any change had occurred and attributed it to some dislocation of memory rather than time.
The rock caught Ellis, who was turning around at the moment and consequently stepped right into its path, on the side of his forehead, just above his temples. He blinked hard a couple of times after the impact, looking for a moment as though he might pass out, then he growled fiercely and charged at Joanna.
Until his last step, Joanna stood her ground, a look of arrogance on her face and a scornful smile on her lips. In a sense, the fight was over. She had won. All she had to do was finish Ellis off. She could have done that with a well-timed jab at his stomach or a strike to the side of his neck. Simple procedures would have done the job.
But Joanna eschewed simple procedures.
In a move that seemed to Aidan more dancelike than warriorlike, Joanna deftly sidestepped, allowing Ellis, who apparently expected some other response, to stumble his way past her. His attempts to regain his footing would have been comic to Aidan if he had not seen, and correctly interpreted, the killing look in Joanna's eyes. Joanna had often told the sibko that feeling her own killing look, at the time when victory was certain and disposal of the defeated only a matter of routine, was the greatest intoxication a warrior could know.
Aidan had wanted to ask her if she did not also feel disgust at the results of carnage. But even if he had been allowed to speak it would have been unnecessary. A Clan warrior could not look back, could not care what thought or feeling might preoccupy his or her victim. To be warriors, they must, in fact, stop thinking about such minor details.
Joanna's killing look must have been obvious to Falconer Commander Ter Roshak, for he rushed forward from his observing station toward the combatants. But his move came too late.
Joanna rushed at Ellis. Leaping feet-first, she kicked at his backside, sending him sprawling and sliding across the ground. Joanna came down on balance and ran to Ellis' now-crawling body. He was trying to get to the rim of the Circle, which meant capitulation. It was shameful, but sometimes worth the discredit. Warriors were more concerned with the art of victory than the shame of defeat, and a disgraced warrior could always erase the memory of a loss with a convincing victory the next time around.
If Ellis could pull himself across the rim, Joanna could no longer press the attack. His fingers were stretched out, the tip of his middle finger only a centimeter away from one of the stakes that formed the rim, when Joanna landed on him. Aidan's view of the kill was partially obscured as Rena, screaming with delight, slipped in front of him. As he maneuvered for a better view, he saw the result of Joanna's assault. Descending from what seemed a great height, she landed on Ellis' back, crushing Ellis' neck with her left knee. It was probably a broken neck that killed Ellis, though Aidan never learned. It could also have been another blow. Perhaps his back had been fractured. At any rate, Roshak ordered the body taken away, and after Ellis' death had been officially announced, the rumor mill furnished many causes of death, including the idea that Joanna had ripped out his heart. Some of the sibko even seemed to believe that absurdity, despite having been witness to the actual event. It was just that Falconer Joanna seemed capable of anything.
After ordering the disposal of the body, Ter Roshak wheeled on Joanna. The emotion in his angry face, the tension in his body, seemed a complete reversal of his normal demeanor. Aidan had never seen wrath erupt so suddenly or with such full involvement of every part of the body.
"Falconer Joanna, I cannot let this pass. Ellis was a fine warrior, a—"
"I am a warrior," Joanna said softly. "Too much a warrior. There was no need to kill him."
"It would have been dishonorable not to."
"There is no dishonor in mercy."
"You would have had me maim him, paralyze him, disable—"
"You know what I mean! We have had this out before. We are not fighting a war. We do not have to—"
"How dare you criticize me publicly, old man? Here, in front of them!"
She gestured toward the cadets, all of whom were lined up and watching so intently that they seemed partially to form a second outer rim to the Circle. Taking quick glances to both sides, Aidan thought he could see in the stances of his sibkin a definite split between supporting Joanna and clear antagonism toward her. He tried to show neutrality. He was not sure why. He was clearly against Joanna, yet he did not want to join that faction, because a part of him considered any insubordination to be wrong for a warrior. For the first time, as he watched Joanna gather her resources and stand up to Ter Roshak, he realized that he had a grudging admiration of this officer who had provided such hell for him. But then he decided it must be one too many blows to the head, and that this feeling would pass.
Ter Roshak's anger had grown, apparently due to Joanna's defiance. He seemed to waver on his legs and his prosthetic arm gestured threateningly, as if he wished to dispatch Joanna with the same ruthlessness she had used for Ellis.
"I can say anything I want to you, in public,Falconer Joanna! The proper question should be how dare youspeak to methat way in front of them?"
"Sir, you claimto allow us freedom."
"Yes. I did not interfere in your battle with Ellis."
"You are not allowed to. You are not allowed to cross into the Circle during a dispute, unless invited."
Ter Roshak seemed momentarily disconcerted.
"Of course you are right," he finally said. "But it is a rule I would willingly break if it meant saving a life. If I had had any idea that you would—"
"What hypocrisy is this? You heard our bids. The battle was to the death, we both said it."
"But in an honor duel, that is figurative."
"Not in my understanding."
"Damn it, Joanna, you should not have killed him."
"That is a moral decision. By my morality, I had no choice. It is the way of the Clan. An honor duel must be fought by the arranged terms."
"It is not the way of the Clan to pursue personal vengeance."
Joanna looked ready to kill Roshak now.
"How dare you speak of personal vengeance? You, of all people? Did you not—"
Her words were stopped as Roshak hit her with the back of his false hand. The blow was hard and sent her reeling, a stream of blood coming out of the side of her mouth. She started to raise her hand, to touch the blood, then seemed to see that as a gesture of capitulation and dropped her hand abruptly. The blood reached the line of her chin and some drops fell onto her leather tunic.
For a moment, she stared at Ter Roshak, her body trembling with anger, then she composed herself and relaxed her body.
"Your orders, sir?"
"I would transfer you to another training unit, but we are already shorthanded. You are confined to your quarters until the start of the training day tomorrow. At that time, you will report to me."
"As you wish, sir."
Joanna strode right at the group of cadets, defying them to take any note of her. The sibko occupied itself with diversionary maneuvers, not one of them looking into Joanna's eyes as she passed through them.
Turning his back on the cadets, Ter Roshak loudly dismissed them. They returned to the barracks slowly, disconsolately, not speaking. In the barracks, the silence broke and most of them could not stop talking. Aidan did not join in but went to his cot instead. Looking at Marthe, his eyes invited her to join him. She shook her head no, with just the slightest, quickest movement.
Later, in the middle of the night, Aidan was summoned to the quarters of Falconer Joanna. Others, Bret the most often, had received such a summoning, but it was the first time for Aidan. He had always felt that her distaste for him as a cadet was carried into her sexual life. In fact, she rarely needed the sexual attentions of any member of the sibko, but once in a while the summoning came and had to be obeyed. Bret and the others said she always made them maintain the vow of silence the whole time. When the order came for Aidan to report to her, he considered refusing, defying her once more, treating her quarters as another Circle of Equals. However, sex—unimportant as it was, annoying physical compulsion that it also was—never seemed vital enough to put one's life on the line for, and so Aidan went to her. The night was, as Bret and the others predicted, silent. The coupling was perfunctory, athletic and combative, like most Clan sex.
The entire night with Falconer Joanna was almost silent. She spoke only twice, both times after the sessions of coupling were ended. The first time she said, "I know your codex, and I know that, a few years ago, you killed a bandit, roughly and brutally. I was surprised by that, frankly, since I see in you a constitutional weakness, the seeds of failure. Maybe I have misjudged you. Time will tell, as the old saying goes. Until then, I will watch you, push you, punish you, have you close to me on nights like this. You will be with me like this often, until you do fail or you die or you choose to leave your sibko. Perhaps you will succeed." The second time she said, "I am the only warrior left from my sibko."
Even though, as a sexual partner, Aidan was allowed to speak freely with Joanna, he refused to say anything. He even suppressed sounds during the act. She did not seem to mind that.
Before leaving her quarters, standing in the doorway, looking back at the now strangely languid Joanna, he said, "I will not fail."
He may have been mistaken, but he thought he saw the hint of a smile prodding the corners of her mouth.
"You may not," she said. As he walked out the door, she added, "But I am afraid that you will."
If she had said that he definitely would fail, her words would not have bothered him. But she said, "I am afraid that you will," and he often stopped to wonder why she had used the word, afraid. Joanna showed no concern for anyone in the sibko, for anyone anywhere, for that matter. She could not possibly have concern for his success or failure.
Or could she?
7
Using a telescope that had been removed from some service battlefield weapon, Aidan had the freeborn in his sights. He could not kill him because the single weapon he had chosen for this exercise, a medium laser in the right arm, had been phased down and at best could only cause a mild stun, enough to make his opponent dizzy but not enough to render him or her unconscious. Perhaps choosing the single weapon had been a miscalculation, Aidan thought, especially since the others had made more conventional choices—machine guns and short range missiles.
The freebirth cadet he had centered on for his segment of the battle was a bland-looking boy, his hair cut so short that, except for the light gray stubble, he would have been taken for bald. Aidan had been told that his hairstyle was the current custom among freeborn cadets who defiantly wanted to distinguish themselves from trueborns as much as trueborns did not want any association with freeborns. Perhaps because of the grayness of the stubble, the boy's face seemed unnaturally red, giving him a demonic look in spite of his average features.
Anti-freebirth curses hissed through the staticky comm-link. All the members of his sibko were contributing their own creative denunciations in deliberately chosen language. Because of the immobility of his 'Mech, he could not see any of his sibkin in their own reconstructed 'Mech shells, but his hearing perked up whenever Marthe's voice came online. He had not been able to adjust to her newfound reticence, and in the year it had taken them to get to this point in training, the distance between them seemed to have grown. Sometimes they still met in his or her bunk, but even the coupling now seemed to separate them. It had become no better, and no worse, than sex with anyone else in the sibko.
Aidan still had the boy in his sights, not that the calibration of the view was particularly accurate. He was sitting in the torso of a partially reconstructed Wasp,an obsolete pile of junk, but still suitable for exercises early in the cycle, as Joanna had told them. It was more or less complete from the head through the torso, but had no legs, and so was not maneuverable. Testing the right-arm medium laser, he had found its effective range to be about a third normal and the power turned down so that he could only stun rather than kill any target. He would have bid to equip the machine with an LRM rack instead of the medium-range laser, if Joanna had not discouraged him two nights ago, when he had last been with her, from adding too much weaponry to his proposed battle plan. The lowest bids got the most strategic positions on the training field, the most protection from the surrounding landscape, the better chance to win the points that would mean the awarding of a victory from the training officers from other units who were there to judge each cadet's performance.
The 'Mech also rested on an insecure foundation, a specific difficulty factor that was a part of the exercise. It was claimed that if a real 'Mech became immobile and lost its stabilizing gyros in the field, its pilot would have difficulty keeping it upright, so the swaying of this 'Mech was deliberate. If Aidan made any kind of extensive move, he felt his machine rock slightly under him.
It was frustrating not to be able to employ BattleMech maneuverability, but—according to the instructors—the sibko was a long way from stepping into genuine 'Mechs. About all the combat activity he could manage was to move the 'Mech's arms or manipulate the laser weapon. He had sent one beam that he thought was well-aimed past the boy. It sailed over his head by a few meters. Another had done no more than create an uneven singe line across the ground in front of his antagonist.
The freeborns participating in this exercise were told that they were getting anti-'Mech training, while the trueborns' purpose was anti-infantry. But it was clear to Aidan that caste distinctions would never allow freeborns to have advantageous positions against trueborns, and so could not possibly be in BattleMechs against them. The freeborns, like Aidan's sibko, were allowed their own choices of weapons. This particular one had taken a couple of potshots in Aidan's direction with a conventional rifle, but had also missed completely. They had struck the lower part of the 'Mech torso but were not strong enough to do significant damage.
Inside the 'Mech, the cockpit was quite primitive, simplified for training purposes, as Joanna had told them. The nearly bare command console contained no monitors and not much in the way of recording devices, not even a minimal computer to go with the minimal 'Mech. All the recording of Aidan's performance was being done at command level, where the trainers were measuring and judging the performance of each individual sibko member.
The single cockpit device meant for his attention was a gauge that allegedly measured the heat level of the machine. Though most Clan 'Mechs were equipped with double heat sinks that virtually made overheating impossible, the training cadre wanted all cadets to be made conscious of the danger of rising heat in the event of a malfunction or of an overeager warrior putting his 'Mech in such jeopardy. The gauge was fake, controlled by those who were guiding the exercise. They could arbitrarily place any cadet in a dangerous situation and announce that the 'Mech had overheated. Then the cadet was declared "dead" in his seat (unless he or she had cleverly anticipated the event and scrambled out of the cockpit before the controller noticed), and his mock battle machine judged as defeated and taken out of the exercise.
Still, frustrating as the test conditions were, primitive as the partial 'Mech was, Aidan was exhilarated by the experience of finally being in a cockpit after all the verbal abuse from instructors and the endless classroom tests and the 'Mechless combat maneuvers the sibko had undergone. This exercise—at last—began the real training, the training that he and the sibko had been looking forward to so desperately. Instead of pretending to be a warrior while shooting imaginary weapons from his bed or in the midst of rare sibko recreation, now he had the chance to operate a genuine machine with real, if decrepit and barely loaded or charged, weapons.
It was time to dispose of the boy. Leaning toward the front viewing window, all the while longing for a holographic display of the whole battlefield, Aidan took a bead on the freeborn, then slowly pushed down the button on the arm of his command couch that would direct a laser beam at the target. He wanted to relish his first training kill.
He relished it for too long. Joanna had drummed into the minds of the sibko that timing was critical, and Aidan had forgotten the lesson.
The boy, standing between two tall trees whose bark shone wetly from a recent rain, fired a flare right at Aidan's 'Mech. Aidan had not even detected a flare gun among his enemy's weaponry. Its projectile exploded, apparently against the 'Mech's left arm, where the laser was mounted. There was a long moment of fierce blinding light. Aidan shut his eyes tightly and watched, on the inside of his eyelids, large, abstract, dark blobs that seemed to be engaged in their own personal combat. At the same time, he considered his second mistake, regarding the freeborn as subhuman. Sensing the light of the flare dying out, he opened his eyes. With that, the dark blobs turned into blinding light that, for a moment, prevented him from focusing. As clearer sight returned, he sensed a hard knock against the front of the cockpit. The 'Mech seemed to shake on its already shaky foundation.
When he could finally focus on what was happening, Aidan saw the freeborn boy clinging to the outside of the cockpit, staring in at its bewildered pilot. He grinned in a way that might have seemed friendly from a trueborn, but was spookily turned into a malicious smirk on the face of a freeborn. One of the boy's hands firmly grasped the rim of the viewport, while the other clutched to his chest what at first looked to Aidan like a bundle.
Before Aidan could adjust to the boy's presence on his 'Mech's surface, the freebirth suddenly disappeared from the viewing window, leaving a streak of dirt behind him as proof that he had not been Aidan's hallucination. The last thing Aidan saw was the bundle, now held downward away from the boy's body, reminding Aidan of a suitcase.
It was a moment before Aidan realized the significance of the object. It was neither bundle nor suitcase. The little bastard was carrying a satchel charge and he was going to attach it to Aidan's 'Mech.
In her weaponry briefing, Joanna had said nothing about satchel charges, though she had pointed out that no weapon would be life-threatening; this boy's was undoubtedly powered down, like all the rest of the weapons in the exercise. Aidan felt cheated. A satchel charge seemed like a violation of the rules, but of course, as Joanna had also pointed out, this exercise had no rules. As she had said, all was fair in love and war, and on the training ground, "what's unfair is even fairer." One had only to win.
And he could not win with the freeborn scrambling around the outside with a satchel charge in a suitcase. Aidan pushed himself out of the command couch and virtually leaped at the escape hatch, working it open rapidly. As he stepped out onto the 'Mech's shoulder, he felt, in a slight movement of the 'Mech on its shaky foundation, that the boy was somewhere on the back of the machine, behind the cockpit section. Looking there, he saw that the satchel charge was now secured by metal hooks to the back of the Wasp'shead. The boy had positioned it so that it would blow through to the cockpit. If that happened, the judges would surely award victory to the other boy and declare Aidan dead in his pilot seat. Even if Aidan were to eject before the charge's mock explosion, the boy would win. Ejection meant capitulation, as Joanna had said.
A sickening feeling formed at the pit of Aidan's stomach. To be defeated by a lousy freebirth—it was too shameful, a stigma for any trueborn cadet.
Realizing that his main chance now was to do something about the bomb, then defeat the boy (where had he gone?), Aidan set his feet firm against the side of the 'Mech's head and reached toward the satchel. He could hear a faint humming sound. It was unlikely that the boy had set a long fuse, so Aidan was sure he had only a matter of seconds to get at the explosive device. It looked so innocent sitting there, like some bulky kit bag that had accidentally become stuck to the 'Mech's form. His fingers brushed against the satchel's leather surface, but he could not get a good hold on it. Readjusting his body to lean out further, Aidan tried again. The 'Mech, swaying slightly on its foundation, nearly made one of his feet slip. That did not matter. His concentration was entirely focused on the dark bag. Another rocking sensation and he did lose his footing, but just as he managed to grip a good handful of the satchel. His body slid sideways, then toward the rear, right to the edge of the 'Mech shoulder, but Aidan did not lose his hold on the satchel. The rocking stopped. Wrapping his leg around a mount intended for a weapon he had rejected in his bid, he pulled at the bag. It did not budge. When he tried again, one of the far metal hooks came away. At the same moment, the rocking of the 'Mech switched directions and Aidan began sliding backward, toward the gun mount. The rocking worked to his advantage, however, as the weight of his body pulled more at the satchel. As he came to rest, still wrapped around the gun mount, but leaning out the rear of the 'Mech, Aidan gave one last tug and the satchel came away, the humming inside of it seeming louder than before. Using his left hand to prop himself up on the pitching 'Mech, he threw the satchel outward. It had barely left his hand when it exploded. Whatever kind of mild charge was in it, the explosion was loud. The bag split apart, sending out growing plumes of smoke that quickly enveloped Aidan and the 'Mech. It was like being in a dense fog, except that fog generally did not cause such pain to the lungs. Even as he started coughing, Aidan noted with pleasure that he had at least evened the contest. The satchel charge, if real, could have done scant damage to the Wasp.The boy might be a little ahead on points, but the battle was not over. Even as he continued to cough, Aidan gained in confidence as he heard the boy also coughing below him.
Using the gun mount for balance, Aidan struggled to his feet, then nearly fell again as the 'Mech reached the end of its rocking arc and started back again. Was he mistaken or had there been an extra acceleration at the start of the reverse movement? The initial swaying had been scarcely noticeable, but Aidan detected a wider arc now. Aidan suddenly realized that his enemy was attempting, through sheer physical force, to rock the 'Mech until he could, with a final thrust, knock it over. Given the usual tonnage of a real 'Mech, with all its machinery and materiel, such a maneuver would normally have been impossible. This 'Mech, however, was a mere shell with most of its equipment removed for the combat exercises. And the tactic might just work because the shell rested on an unsecured foundation so that it could be positioned easily in different sections of the training ground. It was a devious but legitimate tactic.
