Assumption of risk

by Michael A. Stackpole

  He felt no pain as his legs whirled out and up into the black hole. For an instant it felt disturbingly like he'd been turned inside out, but that abruptly ended when the universe slammed down around him like a mold being used to cast him anew. He felt intense pressure, then it let up and only the new constellations glowing outside the porthole in this cabin wall told him that anything had changed.

  "We should be at Thuban. We'll lose two DropShips, pick up one more, and be on our way." He frowned when he saw Omi looking at him curiously. "Did I say something wrong?"

  She shook her head. "It is a remnant of my thoughts before the jump. The war has changed you greatly."

  That surprised him. "It changed us all, Omi."

  'True, though it has affected you in a most interesting way."

  "How so?"

  She smiled. "I remember you on Outreach. You were your harshest critic. Victor commented on it often. Had the Kai from Outreach been engaged in that conversation with me, all the analysis would have been couched in conditional statements. You would have offered everything as the wildest and most improbable conclusions that could possibly be drawn from the fact."

  She is right. Kai looked down at his hands. "The war changed me." He hesitated because what had happened on Alyina was known only to him. He had not even told Victor, possibly because he could not have abided the validation his friend would have given him. But then, Victor would have validated Kai no matter what—Victor's loyalty was given unconditionally to those who had earned it.

  "On Alyina, I intervened when I thought the Clans were going to kill Victor. Because of that, I ended up being trapped there."

  Omi's blue eyes filled with compassion. "Because of what you did on Alyina, Victor escaped the Clans and was able to rescue my brother."

  "No one else could have done it." Kai saw her nod, and blushed. "Save Hohiro, that is."

  "You survived for six months alone on a Clan-held planet and helped the Clans take it back from ComStar. That is no mean achievement."

  "I wasn't alone. I had help. The Clans would have killed me. Star Colonel Taman Malthus would have done it if ComStar had not interfered with our fight." A twinge of pain in his chest reminded him of the injuries he'd suffered at the hands of Clan Elementals while on the run on Alyina. "You are correct, though, that I learned something about myself on Alyina. A friend told me that I had held myself to so high a standard that I did not realize what my special gifts really were. Malthus and the other Elementals agreed. Their efforts have helped me build greater confidence."

  "Your friend was very perceptive." Omi smiled gently.

  "He must have been special himself to make you realize what your family and superiors could not."

  Kai nodded. "She was." He saw Omi waiting for elaboration, but he declined the silent invitation to supply it. I trust you, Omi, but I'm not certain I would trust myself in discussing Deirdre Lear. "Because of her I came to Solaris, to find out just how special I am."

  Omi nodded politely. "Your championship should be an answer. Your friend must be proud."

  "I doubt it. She hates fighting, especially the ones on Solaris." He shrugged. "We lost touch with each other after I left Alyina. It's been almost three and a half years."

  The look on Omi's face told him she sensed his discomfort with the talk. "Your invitation to dine said you would be serving a traditional holiday meal. Am I permitted to ask what that might be?"

  Thank you, Omi, for understanding. "Ah, a great number of utterly wonderful things." Kai flipped the lock plate on his restraining belt and freed himself from the chair. "Most of them defy description, so I won't even try. I think it best if we just proceed to the galley and let you experience everything firsthand."

  He offered her his arm, and Omi deftly slipped her left hand through it. "Merry Christmas, Kai Allard-Liao. May the spirit of the season be in your heart always."

  "I wish the same for you, Omi Kurita," he said forcing a smile. And to you, too. Deirdre Lear. Especially to you.

  6

  Odell

  Cruris March, Federated Commonwealth

  15 January 3055

  Deirdre Lear could see by the tears brimming in her mother's eyes that this wasn't going to be easy. "Mom, I love you—you and Dad both—but I can't stay here. Living on Odell is killing me." She shrugged helplessly and looked up at her stepfather. "You understand, don't you, Dad?"

  Roy Lear stood behind his wife, his stocky body wide enough to show on either side of her. "I understand, Deirdre." He rested his hands on his wife's shoulders and pulled her back toward him. "Why don't we go into the living room to discuss this? Standing here in the kitchen ..."

  Deirdre took the hint gladly and left them alone for a moment as she walked through the arched doorway into the dining room, then beyond it and the foyer to the living room. The tall ceiling and arched window set high in the front wall made the room feel more like a cathedral than part of a home. Deirdre recognized that sensation as a remnant of her childhood, when the living room had been reserved for use with guests.

  The plush ivory carpeting felt good beneath her bare feet as she walked toward the center of the room. Skirting a low table, she selected a tall chair that faced the cream-colored couch where she knew her parents would sit. She sat down, hugging her arms around her knees, suddenly embarrassed by her blue work shirt and ragged jeans. The contrast with the subde elegance of the room only underscored her inability to return to the life she had known before the coming of the Clans.

  Roy Lear followed her into the room and perched on the arm of the couch. "Your mother will join us in a minute, Deirdre, but I want to say that if there's anything ... wait a second, let me finish ... anything I can do with the practice to make it easier for you, let me know. More money, different hours, more subspecialty work."

  Deirdre shook her head. "You've done more than you know, Dad. Taking me in, giving me part of the practice, permitting me extended leave, all that. You've been great and you mustn't think I'm doing this to hurt you in any way. You couldn't have been more generous, more understanding, really."

  A smile widened Dr. Lear's beefy face. "I know I'm not your real father ..."

  "But you are. That's one of the things I learned out there, on Alyina." One of the things Kai made me realize. "Everything I am today, now, I am because of you."

  Roy scratched at the tip of his nose. "Look, Deirdre, you've made me prouder than any biological daughter could. When you took up medicine, well, I thought my heart would burst with pride and happiness. And when you came back and joined me in the practice ... even your going away again can't rob me of the joy of that. And you know, of course, that you can come back any time. The door will always be open. You know that"

  Deirdre nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.

  Her stepfather's voice dropped to low tones. "When we were notified that you were missing in action on Alyina, well, your mother took it very hard. Your mother, she's a strong woman, but her emotions run deep and the thought that she had outlived her only child was devastating. When you came back, we both thought it was a miracle. Sure, you were down and had to work through the stress, but at least you were alive and well. Then David came along and you entered the practice and everything looked fairy-tale perfect."

  "But it wasn't, Dad." Deirdre leaned forward, clasping her hands together and resting her elbows on her knees. "Being out there on Alyina, dealing with people having a hard time satisfying their basic human needs, it did something to me inside ... I admire you more than you'll ever know because your skills have saved countless lives and helped so many people." She sat back, opening her arms to take in the opulence of the room. "And I also appreciate everything your skill and knowledge have provided us. Without it I could never have become the person I am now. And yet that person now feels uncomfortable living in splendor knowing there are so many people lacking even the most basic medical care on so many worlds out there. I can't live with that, and I need to do something ... any
thing."

  Roy Lear's face softened with a smile. "I understand, I really do. I don't know if you remember it very well, but I met your mother after I had come home from doing my stint with the forces that took half the Capellan Confederation. I've seen the conditions you're talking about, and I tried to do everything I could to help when I had the chance. I never got to the world of Zurich, but I can imagine the kind of difficult living conditions you're talking about. And I agree that it's unforgivable."

  He held up a hand to forestall her comment. "You and I, we have an understanding of what it's like in other parts of space. It's no slight to your mother that she's only known life on Bell and then here on Odell. She hasn't seen what we've seen. She's a good woman—the finest—and she's afraid of losing her daughter a second time."

  "I know, but it won't happen. Zurich isn't a war zone."

  Roy's face darkened. "It's close enough to both the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League borders to be a target at any time. There are even reports of pro-Liao guerrillas working against the government. Terrorists often attack civilians, and you would be a prime target."

  "But I'm a doctor. A noncombatant. I'm going to be working for the Tristar Foundation and we're neutral. I'll treat whomever I have to treat, which means that no one will want me dead." She smiled at her stepfather. "I'll be fine."

  "What about David?" Marylyn Lear came in and stood beside her husband, stiffly refusing to sit. "Have you thought about him."

  "Marylyn, that was uncalled for." Roy forced his hand into his wife's closed fist. "Of course she's thought about David."

  Marylyn Lear remained rigid, and Deirdre braced for a searing lecture. "What sort of life will he have on Zurich? You, you've known the best and you've endured the worst there on Alyina, but what of him? He was born here. This is the only life he's known. What will he do when you end up in some village with no running water, no sanitation, no ... ?"

  "He'll adapt, mother. We've talked about it. He understands where we're going."

  "Does he? He's only three years old, Deirdre. He lives in a world of fantasy centered around you. This is a big adventure for him, and will remain so for the first two or three months, then he'll tire of it." Marylyn sat, but remained tense and stabbed her finger across the table at her daughter. "What will you do when he says he wants to go home?"

  "He'll learn. He's coming with me." Deirdre blue eyes sparked hotly. "There's no choice."

  Her mother's expression sharpened. "He can stay here."

  "No! Absolutely not!"

  "Why not, dear?" Her mother's voice shifted from steelshod to compassionately curious. "This is your adventure, not his. Let him stay."

  "No!" Deirdre tried to keep anger from her voice, but it slipped through and shocked her mother. "Tearing us apart is the sort of thing the Clans would do. I won't have it."

  A shriek of delight sliced through the house as David Roy Lear came careening around the corner and into the living room at a dead run. In his right hand, swooping through the air, he held an airplane he had cobbled together out of the brightly colored plastic building blocks he'd gotten for Christmas. "Mom, lookit."

  Her anger burning away like fog in the presence of David's sunny disposition, Deirdre grasped the boy under the arms and set him in her lap. "Did you make that yourself?"

  The dark-haired child nodded emphatically. "Ah Chen only helped a little."

  Deirdre looked up as the elderly amah came to stand in the archway. "Forgive me. He is quick."

  "I understand, Ah Chen. He'll be fine, now." She smiled at the old woman who cared for her son, noting not for the first time that David's slightly sharpened eyes and skin coloring made Ah Chen look more like his grandmother than the woman seated on the couch across from her. "I'll call for you if I need help."

  David squirmed slightly in her lap. "Gram looks sad." The boy twisted and slid down from his mother's lap, then walked around the table and set his toy plane in front of Marylyn Lear. "Mom says you need to take a plane to go to where we're going. Now you can visit us."

  Marylyn's lower lip quivered, then she gathered her grandson up in a fierce hug. Tears streamed down her face and Deirdre had to look away to keep back her own tears.

  She appealed to her stepfather. "You understand why I can't leave David behind."

  Roy rubbed his wife's back with his right hand. "Intellectually? Sure. You saw the Clans up close. You understand what kind of people their program of genetic breeding and raising children without parents creates ..."

  Deirdre sensed his hesitation. "But?"

  "But if you hold that view so strongly, why haven't you communicated with the boy's father?" Roy held his hands up as Deirdre slackened back into the chair. "You might think that cruel of me, and God knows I've loved every minute as Davy's surrogate father, but I'm not enough."

  Kai! Deirdre felt a sudden chill at the question, a chill that nothing could warm. It was as if she knew two Kai Allard-Liaos. One was the man who'd helped her survive on Alyina. He was brave and compassionate, smart and relentless. He had fought for her and saved her, then worked with his enemies to win a planet back from the people who had betrayed them all. He was a hero, yet never arrogant or prepossessing.

  At the time they had parted on Alyina—when I drove him away from me—she had seen his true nature. Kai was everything a world, a nation, the universe needed in a leader. He had vision and heart. He could forge alliances with and command respect from men who had hunted him like an animal. He was big enough to learn from his enemies and his mistakes. His loyalty to friends and his willingness to accept responsibility for his actions marked him as a man destined for greatness.

  The challenge of remaining with someone like that frightened her. She had imagined Kai leaving Alyina and becoming for Victor Davion what his father had been to Hanse Davion. With Kai tempering Victor's impulsiveness and setting a standard for fealty, the Federated Commonwealth would become even stronger than before the Clans' coming. And that would lead to more wars against the Clans, more fighting and more killing. Sanctioning such actions by the man she loved—even knowing that the slaughter would be worse if led by someone lesser than Kai—was something Deirdre did not believe she could face.

  She had become a doctor to reverse the harm that warriors do. Her biological father, Peter Armstrong, had died senselessly while fighting in a BattleMech. She wanted to do anything possible to combat the insanity that made men think they could kill for ideals or material gains or, worst of all, for the sheer sport of it. She knew Kai understood that—he had helped her identify that piece of herself—but she feared compromising her goals if and when they came in conflict with Kai's duty.

  So she had driven him away. Deirdre hadn't been sure, when last she'd seen Kai, that she was carrying his child, but she'd had reason to suspect it. But she'd have made the same decision even if she'd known for sure. She didn't want to drag Kai down and force him to subordinate his greatness to her idea of dedicating her life in service to humanity. She had freed him so he could attain the greatness she'd seen in him.

  He had, in return, humiliated her. Instead of using his gifts to help Victor guide the Federated Commonwealth through a difficult period of transition, he had fled to Solaris, where he'd followed in his father's footsteps. It took him longer to become Champion of Solaris than it had Justin Allard a quarter century before, and Kai had done it without killing anyone in his fights, but it was all such a waste.

  And a vengeful waste at that. Kai knew that his own father had killed Deirdre's biological father in a duel on the Game World. Kai had told her that his father regretted it deeply, but all the regret in the world wouldn't bring Peter Armstrong back to life. Kai's decision to go to Solaris did validate his skills as a warrior—skills for which Taman Malthus and the other Jade Falcon Elementals had praised him—but it mocked her loss and magnified her pain.

  I cannot let my son know that Kai is his father. She looked over at David. And I cannot allow Kai to taint him
.

  Almost at once a shiver passed through her again. Once again the part of her hurt by Kai's going to Solaris warred with memories of him on Alyina. She could not imagine the two men being the same person unless something had changed him radically. She knew that upon leaving Alyina, Kai had learned of his father's death. Perhaps it was that which drew him to Solaris, but would he have become a different person?

  The only thing that could have changed him so is my rejection of him. Deirdre almost laughed at the arrogance of the thought, but deep down she knew it was the truth. She had told Kai that she couldn't weigh herself down with someone who was locked in a military mindset. That could only have undermined his budding self-confidence and made him want to prove himself in the giant martial playground of Solaris—and to spite her.

  She looked up at her stepfather. "What the Clans do is train children to become killers of other men. I will not have my son learn such lessons. War is a terrible, terrible thing. I don't want him placed where he has to accept it or glory in it."

  Roy nodded. "I understand your position, but how can you shield him from violence? You're arguing that lack of exposure to a disease is the same as immunity to a disease, and we both know that's a fallacy."

  "Your point is well taken, but you're missing one thing," Deirdre said firmly. "Where I'm going I can teach David how to fight violence with peace, how to heal instead of injure. Not only will that make him immune, it will also make him able to cure violence. That's a lesson I wish all men could learn."

  Roy Lear leaned back against the couch, and shook his head wonderingly. "You and your mother are so alike. You both hold your passions tightly and let them energize you to accomplish whatever you want. But those passions blind you to the times when you're going to lose your fights. Marylyn, this is one of those times for you. Deirdre and Davy are going to leave, and that's that."