Текст книги "Way Of The Clans"
Автор книги: Роберт Торстон
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For once, Aidan cursed the Clan tendency to enforce every economy, any way of saving materiel. The Clans had a long history of scavenging, salvaging, reconstructions, improvisations, replacing metal parts with human bones, repairing apparently useless limbs carried in from battlefields and putting them back on any 'Mech that needed replacements, and all kinds of Tech miracles in deep, dark dungeons (warrior Tech shops were often called dungeons for the dirt, grease, disharmony, and mysteries that seemed to lurk there). It was second nature, too, for civilians to practice complicated economies, all for the good of the Clan. Aidan believed in the Kerensky traditions. The general had decreed that even though the Clan was a technically advanced society, the shortage of supplies and the harsh living conditions on their planets made it necessary for its people to conduct their lives in primitive ways, with primitive means. That way the future takeover of the Inner Sphere and the restoration of the Star League would be supported firmly and heavily. Nothing should be wasted to give any Clans-person a better life. None of the necessities of life in any caste should be used to excess or wasted. Battle materiel and supplies should be used wisely and, where possible, recycled—again, nothing wasted. Even lives displayed their own personal economies. No emotion should be wasted, with all feelings recycled into useful activity. Even play should contribute to the goals of the sibko and of the Clan. This time Aidan might have foregone the economy so that he could be tumbling around a better-budgeted training 'Mech.
He was glad for the obscurity the smoke caused. Nobody could see his foot slip and slide beneath him as he dejectedly held onto the gun mount. Finally regaining his balance, he used his natural agility to adjust to the side-to-side. As the smoke cleared and the 'Mech reached the end of its present motion, he quickly looked down and saw the boy, now so intent on toppling the 'Mech that he had not observed Aidan's current position. Stupid freebirth, he should have anticipated that.
Aidan nearly slid off the 'Mech's shoulder as the machine's rocking arc reached its limit and the boy pushed it back, the intensity of his effort forcing the sinews in his upper arms to bulge out. At the last second, Aidan grabbed the gun mount again. Holding on tightly, he rode on the shoulder to the end of its present rocking motion. At the point where the 'Mech again stopped, it seemed to teeter for a moment before halting, enough time to suggest it might crash before reaching its opposite point in the return arc, enough time for Aidan to see dew on a patch of grass just below him. Aidan realized that his presence on the 'Mech, clutching the mount, with his weight full against the weapon, might be just enough to precipitate the fall now. However, after leaning to its left for an astonishingly long time, the 'Mech began to rock back. Aidan let out the breath he had been holding for a long time. Had he even breathed at all since he had slipped out of the cockpit?
As the 'Mech slowly rocked back toward its right, Aidan was certain this would be the last arc. The machine would definitely crash to the ground. The freeborn had to realize this, too—or else be crushed in the fall. In spite of the boy's tainted birth, Aidan devoutly hoped his opponent would have the sense to get out of the way. Having him mangled under a training 'Mech would be a cheap, almost shameful way of winning. Aidan wanted a decisive win, one that Falconer Joanna could not question either publicly or in her bunk, where she often hurled insults these days while in the act of coupling.
Aidan planned his strategy quickly. During the brief moment when the 'Mech's shoulder was level, he released his grip on the mount and leaped over it. Now he exerted pressure, using the gun mount for leverage. He wanted to guarantee the 'Mech's fall. Over a loudspeaker mounted on a nearby tree, Falconer Joanna's voice screamed out. Fortunately, some static on the outdoor sound system, plus the loud sounds of the near-crashed 'Mech, drowned out her words. Aidan was sure he would hear them all later, anyway. He suspected that Joanna had never once in her life ever considered the possibility of verbal restraint.
He set his feet so that his body would be in balance at that moment the 'Mech wavered before it began its final descent. As the machine's right shoulder tilted once more and Aidan forced the motion further by leaning into the mounted gun, he scanned the terrain below, looking for the freeborn. There he was, backing away from the 'Mech, trying to get out of its way. As the other boy stared up at the 'Mech with wide fearful eyes, his feet suddenly slipped and slid across the wet grass. It was obvious that he had not yet seen Aidan.
Timing his move with the acceleration of the 'Mech's fall, Aidan leaped off the shoulder, sailing in what would have been a perfect dive during the excruciating swim-training that Joanna had supervised in her usual compassionate way. ("Drown, you repulsive slugs. You do the stroke my way or drown.") As Aidan zeroed in on the freeborn like an aerofighter in a suicide swoop, he had a sudden moment of doubt about the wisdom of his improvised strategy. The boy did not see him until the last moment, too late to put up any kind of defense. Aidan, just before impact, ducked his head and brought his arms down on the boy's shoulders. They collided with more impact than Aidan had expected, and even before they hit the ground, Aidan was momentarily dazed. Even with his head dazed, he managed to cushion his own fall with his enemy's body. The boy yelped in pain. Aidan was bounced off the boy's body as the 'Mech and the earth met with a tremendous thump. Light as the machine was, it still sent a minor earthquake of vibrations across the immediate landscape. The tremors sent Aidan sliding across damp ground like a child down an icy slope.
After he came to a stop, he maneuvered his body around to face the boy again. The freeborn, nearly as resilient, was struggling to his feet, too!. Standing, Aidan detected movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking in that direction, he saw a long tube sailing toward him. He caught it just before it hit the ground. Jagged at each end, it looked like it must have been a section of the laser weapon's barrel.
He did not hesitate to use it. Joanna had screamed at them often enough that a warrior must use any material available to him or her to win a combat. Even the droning Dermot had pointed out that no warrior ever won an engagement by brooding over whether or not to use a particular weapon. Emitting the kind of falcon yelp that the trainers had drilled into them as the beginning and end of any calisthenic or marching drill, Aidan ran at the freeborn, the metal tube held over his head like a primitive club.
The freeborn, staring with surprise at Aidan's newfound weapon, had his own weapon ready, a short stub of a knife obviously carved out of some piece of scrap from the pile kept at the edge of the training ground. (Cadets were encouraged to scavenge from the scrap-pile for any need. Many made cups and utensils, tools, small artworks to decorate the single table allowed beside each bunk, and, although specifically forbidden, small weapons like the one the freeborn now held in his hand.)
In one part of his mind, Aidan almost admired the craftiness of his enemy in concealing a lethal weapon, getting it by the officers in charge, waiting for the right opportunity to use it. And that moment was now, with a trueborn rushing at him and ready to crush his skull with his own somewhat-less-lethal weapon.
But that was the only part of Aidan's mind that considered the situation coolly. The rest became instantly filled with rage. What right had this stupid freebirth to attempt to kill a natural warrior, a trueborn, in an ordinary training exercise? The bastard must die himself!
Aidan tried to be quicker than the boy. Switching the metal tube from his right to left hand, he brought it down toward the freeborn's forearm, hoping to dislodge the knife and hear the satisfying crack of a bone in the process.
But the boy anticipated Aidan's defense. He dodged to his right, and the tube just grazed his sleeve. Adjusting to Aidan's attack, he then quickly brought the knife up and forward, slashing the sleeveless cadet's forearm. Aidan's defensive move had not been as quick as the boy's because the momentum of his own thrust had set him off balance, with his feet stumbling on the wet soil beneath. Nevertheless, the blow was not as telling as the freeborn had intended and the knife blade just grazed Aidan's skin, barely drawing blood.
Now they were both off balance, their footing so insecure they looked like bad dancers in a village celebration. But Aidan still had one advantage—his rage. The boy, with the lack of involvement so characteristic of freeborns, merely wanted to win. Aidan wanted to kill.
Ignoring the pain from the knife slash, he stepped in toward the boy, and raising the metal tube fiercely, he caught him on the side of his forehead, enough to daze him. The boy stumbled backward, trying to return his weapon to the action but unable, it seemed, to coordinate the action. His arm flopped around like that of a rag doll. He looked foolish.
Aidan grabbed the boy's knife arm, and raising it to his mouth, bit fiercely, drawing blood and tearing some skin away. The tactic worked. The boy dropped the knife. For a brief moment, Aidan considered picking it up and stabbing the freeborn, but he did not favor knives, especially ones fashioned by the enemy. He also threw the tube away. He wanted to tear this freeborn apart with his bare hands, without weaponry. In his mind were visions of skeletons and gore.
He only got to the point of bashing the freeborn's head against the ground, over and over until no consciousness remained in the boy's open eyes. Training officers suddenly appeared from odd hiding places, from inside fake fortified trees and out of manmade hillocks. The analysts for the exercise descended to a clear patch of ground in a small helicopter. It took four of the officers to lift Aidan off the freeborn and another three to talk him out of his rage. By that time the boy was fully conscious again and staring at him with hatred in his eyes. Before they yanked him away, he had enough time to mutter, "You did not impress me one bit, trashborn." The savage insult was enough to revive Aidan's anger, but the officers restrained him again, as others dragged the freeborn away.
The anger returned again when the decisions of the evaluators was announced. Aidan was awarded the win all right, but only because he had nearly killed his enemy. The win was damaged because he lost points for not disposing of the enemy when he had a bead on him and for allowing the satchel bomb to be planted on the 'Mech's surface. He regained a few points back for his heroic way of removing and disposing of the satchel. He received even more deductions for allowing the 'Mech shell to crash, however. Indeed, Aidan scored lower than anyone else in the sibko. The officer who read the report in a scathing tone noted that the 'Mech shell was no longer repairable, except for a few parts. It would be added to the scrap pile. Perhaps the little freebirth bastard would fashion another knife out of a part of it, Aidan thought bitterly.
* * *
Joanna was not any easier on him than the evaluators had been. She said: "You are strong, you are agile, you are clever, you are even intelligent, but you are slow. The only praise I can give you is for defying me. I was just about to declare your 'Mech 'blown up' when you started your final strategy. I admired your anger, but your only real ruthlessness was at the end. You should have lost. Sometime you willlose. Prepare for a life as other than a warrior. I see in your eyes that you are full of rage now. Come to the bed. Take out your rage on me. I will take out mine on you."
"What rage do you have?" Aidan asked. (He talked to her when they were alone together, and had been doing so for some months now.) "You were just an observer today. What rage can you feel?"
"Eyas, I am never without it."
In a strange way, what she requested happened. The rage left him as he and Joanna coupled in ways that were more like combat. After, though, she held him in a manner that was new. Aidan did not understand why it comforted him, but it did.
8
Falconer Commander Ter Roshak had kept a journal ever since his cadet days on Ironhold.
There are times, he wrote, weary times when my mind stops working and the boredom of this training camp seeps in to fill the empty spaces. That is when I begin to think that growing old is the worst thing that can happen to a warrior. Being a survivor is, on one hand, a mark of honor—proof that one has been a fine warrior, winning his battles and protecting his command. On the other hand, it is a badge of futility, a tinny piece of metal to wear on your chest as a sign that your time has passed. Back on Terra, a millennium or so ago, they used to say that old soldiers never die. The Clan, however, has no use for its old soldiers, except as cannon fodder for assaults against a determined enemy.
Perhaps that is what I should have done instead of joining this training command. But there is a certain stubbornness within me, a pride at having succeeded as a warrior, that does not allow me to cast my life away like that—at least not yet. I can still guide others in acquiring the abilities to fight, even blundering cadets like the current crop. I do not think I ever made the mistakes these sibkin make. Then again, maybe I did. It is hard to judge them. This is only my second group of trainees and, I suppose, the first seemed just as wide-eyed and inept at this point in their training.
Guiding the fates of half a dozen sibkos is an awesome responsibility. Sometimes I would wish to be a simple training officer, a falconer concerned only with training the surviving members of a sibko. Three years is a long time to oversee the development of warriors. Some say it is too long, that we should just put the youngsters in BattleMechs from the outset, give them minimal training, and thus balloon our forces instead of leaving them perpetually understaffed. With this, I cannot agree. As Kerensky has instructed us, we must not be wasteful in war. Not because we lack the materiel or personnel but because the violence causing the waste will spill over into the very infrastructure of our society. It was the devastation of just such uncontrolled warfare that destroyed the Star League dream three hundred years ago, and forced the formation of the Clans. Adopting such wasteful practices would destroy our own spirits and permanently end the dream.
At any rate, I remain here with younger warriors, like that darned malcontent, Falconer Joanna. Her defiance, her glares, her innuendoes all mark me as an overaged warrior whose lines and wrinkles betoken uselessness and outdated knowledge instead of wisdom and experience. This Joanna questions everything, even when she utters not a word. In her anger and scornfulness, she is like no other warrior I have ever encountered, except perhaps Ramon Mattlov.
She will be reassigned to a combat unit. That should please her. She is so desperate to earn a Bloodname that she will do anything to get it. And get it she will. She only has to finish her penance on Ironhold, exonerate herself for whatever infraction or failure sent her here in the first place. I have never consulted her codex to find out what wrong she did, but her fine service here must certainly pay for it in full. I have never written such glowing reports for an officer. Except for her killing of Ellis, a foolish eruption of anger, her service here has no mark against it. Besides, the upper echelons tend to admire victory in any kind of conflict, even when unjustified. They prefer her kind of toughness, which wins battles, to interservice ethics.
It is a pity, really, that she will leave my command. Despite her unpitying ferocity and the way she treats the cadets, she is the best training officer I have seen. And she really does hate these hopefuls. It is not just a pose for the benefit of training, a faked hatred to stir up the sibko and turn its members into good soldiers. She cannot abide any less than high skill and is not content with mere potential among the members of the sibko. Worse, she hates being here and takes her resentment out on anyone in her way. She would even take it out on me if she knew how.
I have never been one to obey the custom of not discussing the sexual part of our lives. I agree that it is of little import, and if a drug were developed to suppress such urges, I would eagerly feed it to our warriors. What need have we to couple? Procreation is not a concern, and merely amounts to the occasional birth of worthy freeborn bastards for other castes. Worthy, but abandoned and forgotten. The genetic program that supports the warrior caste has much better results than the awkward contortions and inconvenience of the physical act.
Yet when I was young enough and combative enough, I could never free myself of the urge. Even now, at an age when such moments of desire come only rarely, I am tempted to employ command privilege and order one of the women in the training cadre to my quarters for some silent intimacy. When I am in a particularly foul mood, I am even tempted to summon Joanna. May that I never succumb to the temptation, for I would not want to couple with her.
The irony, of course, is that—in spite of her hatred of the cadets, in spite of the fact that her sexual appetite exceeds the usual lusty hunger of a Clan warrior (perhaps the reason for her exile here)—she would nevertheless choose a cadet for a bed partner over me. She would come to my bed begrudgingly if I were to order her, but she would never choose me on her own. Cadets are young and to be preferred because she hates age even more than she despises incompetence.
I have read that once was a time when my age—forty-two years—was not considered excessively old. Indeed, among other castes, it still is not. But here, among warriors, I might as well be roaming a pasture, fit only to supply fertilizer for growing fields.
I am meandering again. The privilege of age—to allow one's thoughts to wander, to bid erratically for the chance to keep living. I am still alive. In that respect at least, I have won the bid.
Let me continue to write so that I can continue to put off sleep and the dream that is the ultimate nightmare, the dream where I am no longer useful. It does not matter what the scene of the dream or what I am doing in it, the terror comes from waking up still in the grip of the dream's desolate feelings.
Besides Joanna, I am concerned for the cadet named Aidan. Of all the youngsters in his sibko, he is the one who most resembles his genefather, he and the young woman Marthe. But Marthe is no problem. She is highly skilled, the one member of this sibko whose success I believe to be assured. She has none of that dark look that the genefather Mattlov used to send my way when he was my superior officer.
Ramon Mattlov. He made my life hell and I loved him for it. Who knows how many times his meanness saved my life? I think of him, his 'Mech gracefully matching the heavy strides of mine as we crushed a wide path through some jungle or across desert dunes. When there was no fighting to be done, he kept up a steady commentary on life, crowding the commlink channels with gruff complaints and irritating pessimism.
In battle, however, he was usually silent. How many times did he rescue me from my own foolishness, for which I barely had a chance to pay him back? In my one opportunity to save his life, I failed. I can still see him, tangled irretrievably in the blackened and twisted wreckage of his 'Mech, the pulsing green light of a still-working Beagle Probe visible over his left shoulder, with me arriving only in time to see his chest let out its last breath.
I scrambled out of my own 'Mech after disposing of both the pilot and 'Mech that battered Mattlov, hoping to pull him out of the wreckage and resuscitate him. How could I have saved him? I had no medical skills, nor did my fingers burn with the warmth of healing powers. All I could do was stand by the destroyed 'Mech and its pilot, feeling the heat still rising powerfully from the shards of metal, cursing gods I did not believe in for taking the life of a warrior who had seemed destined to rise high, perhaps to become a Khan, even an ilKhan. But nobody guides armies from the grave, no matter what the grotesque legends of the mountain people say. I was not certain it would even be possible—once the wreckage was cool enough—to disentangle my commander, my friend, from the metal that seemed to have fused with his body. Yet, underneath the burns and the blood, Mattlov's face was peaceful, accepting. In death he had no more complaints.
I have written so often of my admiration, even affection, for Ramon Mattlov, and no doubt I will again. Now my concern is with his generational duplicate, the strange boy Aidan. Why I should focus on this one more than the others in his sibko, I do not know, but it has been so almost from the start. The facial resemblance, I suppose, along with the pride of his stance, a pride that surpasses even that of the other members of the sibko, all of whose cells also contain their halves of Mattlov's genetic blueprint. Yet this Aidan isthe genetic reincarnation of Ramon Mattlov. Of this, I have no doubt. And he mustbe one of the cadets who prevails at the final Trial of Position. If he fails, then I fail, too.
Yesterday, I paid a surprise visit to the cadet quarters. They were engaged, as expected, in various studies. This Aidan was involved in assembling the various components of a Kit Foxin a holotank. That light 'Mech is extremely useful for recon duty yet laden with firepower. Having piloted a Kit Foxin my first days as a warrior, I have always been fond of its complex configuration of weaponry. Aidan was doing a good job of it, using his light pen to move the miniature pieces of a Streak short-range missile rack into place in the right arm.
In those eyes, so fiercely determined even in this small task, I caught a flash of his genefather. It recalled to me Ramon Mattlov analyzing the potential strategies of other officers in the hours before a bidding council. Better than any other Clan officer I have ever served or observed, better than me, Mattlov could foresee just how far an opponent would go, just what he might do to prod an opponent to do as hewanted, just when to deliver a carefully orchestrated finale to an apparently casual and even erratic series of bids. Even when he lost the bid, his loss would have so fired up the others, especially in their desire to win, that their use of deployed forces became sharpened. More often than not, they won the battle with the same combination of daring and skill that Mattlow always showed. It is sad that the members of this sibko have no awareness of their genetic progenitor, other than that gleaned from their codex. Having one's genes selected for the gene pool is a wonderful honor, an extension of one's existence into the lives of others. It is like having one's name enshrined somewhere or a holiday dedicated in one's honor. But such acts always presume that we remember the person. When I question these sibbers, however, few of them have any knowledge of their father, just his victories. There is no Mattlov legacy. We fought in no great wars, he and I. We won only small skirmishes. With efficiency and style, to be sure, but the exploits were not quite in the grand manner of heroism.
Aidan's intensity in building his model was something to see. There was a sense of artistry in the way his delicate, spatulate fingers (the kind that can rack across a cockpit keyboard rapidly, guided by instinct rather than thought) held the light pen as it selected a piece and moved it into place on the construct. Ramon Mattlov would not have had this kind of patience. His hands would have crushed the model before finishing it, not because he could not build it, but because the task had no importance to him.
Remembering Mattlov and how he handled others, I shoved Aidan out of the holotank, deliberately found some flaws in the assembly, then—staring into his eyes– I wiped the program from the machine's memory. I tried to see in his expression any anger that I had just destroyed several man-hours of his work, but he remained impassive. The careful, studied look of a warrior-cadet was what he managed, and I felt good about that. When he first arrived here, we would have seen the fury. Now he has trained as a warrior for some time, and knows that unwritten rules specify with whom one may become angry and with whom one may not. And one must show no reaction to the unit commanding officer. "Build a better one," I said to him and walked away. He did. I was tempted to wipe out that one, too, but I do have perspective. I do have perspective.
He is not aware that I am keeping such a watch on him, for I find ways to intrude on the achievements and attempts of the other cadets also.
It is strange, the life of the commanding officer. Whatever I feel—and, more importantly, what I believe—must be hidden from all. There is only theory, there is only drill, there is only the final victory, there is only the Clan. I love the Clan. The others, the cadets and qualified warriors, even officers, they must love the Clan, too. I am not writing about glory and honor here. Not at all. The lowest caste member doing the most menial, odorous, filthy task must love the Clan as much as I do.
That is where the two Kerenskys, General Alexandr and Nicholas, were so visionary. A society whose goal is the restoration of the Star League cannot be tainted with self-doubt or criticism. Any deviation from the goal is waste; deviations are useful only if they can be remolded and refitted to the Clan ideals. Just as we collect our debris from the battlefield and refashion it into other useful materials, so must ideas be refashioned into utility. That is the way of the Clan. I have read that pacifism was once considered a sensible ideal, but to hate war should not be called pacifism. A warrior is not the opposite of a pacifist. A pacifist destroys his weapons and welcomes the nonpacifist into his home—to demolish it. A warrior deploys his weapons around his home but may never need to use them. Which person really desires peace? The man who dies because he will not use a weapon? The man who lives quietly on the other side of his weapons? Perhaps neither, but the man with the weapons at least has a chance when somebody attacks him. I desire peace and will fight to the death for it. The Star League is peace, or at least may be. The Clans will restore the Star League.
I must be tired. I am starting to sound like some rote repetition of some old, Kerensky-inspired text. Old warriors never die, they just ramble on.
I hope Aidan benefits from our harshness toward him. He seems strong, but has an edge of singularity about him. He is not like the others. There is a secret Aidan being held back from us, I am certain of that. Whether it will come out, I do not know. Whether it will bring him success or failure at the final Trial, I do not know.
I must make him succeed, for Ramon Mattlov's sake.
I know how difficult it is to be at this stage of training, where one is just learning the weaponry. Soon, they will begin to know the feel of a real, fully armed BattleMech, and then will begin the real tests.
How many of them will even reach the final test? This sibko started with twelve. Six cadets remain. I remember only slightly the ones who are gone. There was the one named Dav, who will succeed very well in the artisan caste to which he has been assigned. Also, the surprisingly athletic, stocky fellow, Endo. I cannot easily forget him, for I had to supervise the disposal of his body after he was run over by a light tank during field maneuvers. No one knew how he got in the path of the tank. The driver said the boy suddenly stumbled in front of the vehicle, then looked at it bearing down on him as if it were an apparition.
Others in the sibko have failed at different points of the training. I do not recalls any other names. Left are Aidan and his near-twin Marthe, a feisty scrapper named Bret, a skilled battler named Rena, and two others whose staying power seems unlikely: Tymm does not seem smart enough to handle a difficult fighting machine, while Peri is intelligent but only barely successful when manual skills are required. I would like to see her succeed in a BattleMech cockpit, but I suspect she will be out of her element. Though she would do well in any other caste, I notice in her codex that she scores well enough to go to the scientists.
Even if Peri could hold her own in all phases of the training, she will probably flush out in the next phase, when we accelerate the BattleMech exercises and set the survivors among this sibko against each other. Peri is not competitive enough.
This phase could eliminate Aidan, too. He is, in a way, too competitive. He needs too much to succeed.
I cannot write any more now. The joint of my shoulder, where my real bodily muscle is fused with the myomer muscular structure of my artificial arm, aches so much that I am unable to put further thoughts together.
Now I will just sit here in the darkness, trying to read the future in the carved lines of the palm of my prosthetic hand.
