Aidan nodded and lay back against his pillow. The dark blur disappeared, then returned.
"Aidan?"
"Yes?"
"You could have killed me that day. I was in your sights and nearly disabled. I could sense the moment when it should have happened. Why did you hesitate?"
"I am not certain. It did not seem right to kill you, so I did not."
"You were wrong. You should not have hesitated."
Then she disappeared again and did not return.
In the morning, with Peri's bunk in readiness for orderlies to transport it away, none of the other remaining members of the sibko mentioned her absence. Marthe did stare at the bunk for a brief time, but what she felt or thought was not evident on her face.
That same day Falconer Joanna flung open the barracks door, stood outlined in bright light, then announced with something distantly resembling cheerfulness that it was time to scrub down the entire building. Inside and out. At one time the sibkin might have exchanged wondering glances, the kind that clearly showed there was something strange about the order. Joanna had always left maintenance of the barracks to the sibko and had seemed satisfied with its performance. It seemed significant that she wanted a thoroughgoing cleaning now. Without the least non-verbal communication between them, the sibkin merely awaited their specific orders.
Holding the bucket and mop in front of her as if it were disease-ridden, Joanna handed them to Aidan and told him he was assigned the bathroom area, the "Cave" as it was called in Clan lore. And for good reason, Aidan thought as he entered it: it was like a cave, dark and damp. Turning on a lamp, Aidan worked hard at making the room not only clean but shiny. Every piece of offending matter, no matter what might have been its origin, was rubbed or scraped away until the room looked as it had the first day they had arrived at the barracks. Then it struck him. The first day. Which meant that some previous training unit had painstakingly scrubbed and cleaned it before his sibko had arrived. Which suggested that they were now leaving the barracks for the last time, preparing it for its next occupants. Which got Aidan so excited he could feel his heart beat fast and hard.
It was all he could do to remove the debris he had gathered up, so anxious was he to see if the others sensed what he had. Outside the Cave, he glanced at Marthe, who was shining the metal rim of a window.
"We are leaving here, quiaff?" he said.
She did not look up from her task. "Aff. Or, at least, that seems possible."
He tried not to notice the detachment in her voice, the indifference to what should have been an exciting moment. She just went on with her polishing. The surface already looked shiny enough.
"Where are we going, do you think?" Aidan asked her.
"There seems little doubt. The other side of Ironhold, where the heavy 'Mechs are."
"It is the final test, then?"
"The preliminary to it, I suspect. If you recall Falconer Joanna's instructions from last week, before we reach the Trial, we must complete our training using fully operational neurohelmets mated with actual 'Mechs, not just the usual simulators. Also, we will become familiar with the 'Mechs we will use in the Trial of Position."
"I can hardly believe the time has come."
She turned to him, frowning. "Why is it so hard to believe? It must come sooner or later, quiaff?"
"Well, aff. But are you not excited by its coming?"
"No more than I should be. It is, after all, just the next stage of the training."
"But it will decide our lives. Are you not worried about that?"
"Worried? Why should I be worried? Whoever succeeds will become a warrior. Whoever does not will be assigned another role to play, another caste to serve. I am satisfied with whatever comes."
"Are you? Truly, Marthe?"
"Of course. We do what we must to promote the goals of our society. That is the way of the Clan."
Aidan stared at her for a while, watching how calmly she finished up the job of polishing the metal.
"I do believe, Marthe, that you speak the truth. You will accept what comes."
"Of course I will. And so will you."
"I do not know you anymore."
"You never did. Nobody ever really knows anybody."
"I did know you. I did."
"You may think so."
"You will allow that, will you?"
"Yes."
Aidan nodded and walked away from her. He was afraid of what he might have said next. When the Trial was over and they were both warriors, they would have to have a good, long talk. He needed that almost as much as he needed to succeed in the Trial of Position.
* * *
Ter Roshak sat beside the pilot in the skimmer that took the sibko to its new training area. Aidan noticed that the commander never looked back at them, just as he had barely seemed to notice them when he boarded, just as he had always moved among them with supreme indifference except when he had a reason to inflict inexplicable punishment. It was said that he sometimes took out one of the 'Mechs in a Trial, just to mow down a specific cadet who had incurred his displeasure. In some stories he was a ghostlike or even godlike presence swooping down on an unsuspecting cadet and slicing his 'Mech into small pieces. Joanna said they were all lies, these stories, these myths, but—in the tradition of superstitions throughout the known universe—no sensible, forthright, unimaginative training officer could convince cadets of the foolishness of the stories surrounding Falconer Commander Ter Roshak.
On one side of the skimmer's interior, Bret and Rena pressed their faces against the skimmer's viewports, competing to spot bits of terrain or activity in the landscape. Their enthusiasm reminded Aidan that, after all, the four of them were still young, still barely out of childhood.
Occasionally Aidan looked out his window, noted that most of the landscape resembled the area they left a couple of hours ago. For a while they passed over a large lake, where hundreds of fishermen were casting out nets or dangling complex networks of lines in the water.
Next to him, Marthe scarcely ever looked out. She stared forward or at the screen of a pocket computer, apparently considering something in her studies that she probably had already mastered. Perhaps her academic scores were consistently the best because she was continually verifying what she already knew better than anyone else in the sibko. What drove her to such perfectionism? Aidan wondered. He had a drive to succeed, as did Bret and Rena, but Marthe's was different. With Marthe the drive was obsession.
Marthe had changed physically over the last year or so, as had Aidan. He had grown thicker, putting on weight and girth along with the muscles that came to all cadets in their intense physical training. The training officers insisted that because they would spend so much time sitting in cockpits, they should continue calisthenics, running, marches all of their lives. A fat 'Mech pilot was a 'Mech pilot about to die, was one of Dermot's pithy sayings.
Marthe, while just as strong as Aidan, had become leaner, the physical training providing her a thin and wiry body. Her waist had become so small that he thought he could have encircled it with his hands only, had she ever allowed him near enough to try. (It was a long time since she had agreed to sex with Aidan, even longer since she had initiated the act. In fact, she seemed to have given up that part of her life altogether.) Her face had thinned out, too. Its cheekbones were more angular, looking knife-edged from certain angles. Her eyes had sunken a bit, and like the rest of her personality, seemed more guarded. There was a tightness to her lips and a new jut to her chin. Her skin, stimulated by the outdoor segments of their lives, had reddened. Her high forehead seemed higher, further emphasizing the triangular aspect of her face. All these changes had diminished the once-strong resemblance to Aidan. His face was less triangular, cheekbones more blunt, lips fuller. His skin did not reflect daytime exposure as much as hers did and, in fact, had a pale cast to it.
For him, the worst part of how she looked now came when he glanced toward the front of the skimmer and examined Falconer Joanna. Marthe now
held her body in the same straightbacked way as Joanna did, tilted her head in the same just off-center manner, wore the same detached look. The look of disdain in Joanna's expression was only hinted at in Marthe's, but had become stronger as the days went by. He wondered if she would eventually attain Joanna's look and sound of mockery.
As he stared at Marthe in profile, wondering if he could use telepathy to make her turn and look at him, he realized that his feelings for her had undergone as much of a change as hers for him. He thought back to their childhood days, when she had helped him tend Warhawk or when they had shared sibko experiences. At that time, he had known a separate and special affection for her. He remembered the day when he had believed it might be the kind of love that sibparent Glynn had used to embellish her romances. He tried to shake off such thoughts, cursing himself now, as he had a thousand times in his life, for his tendency to dwell in reflection. None of the others in the sibko ever seemed to analyze events as lengthily or deeply as he did.
As he studied Marthe's stiffness, her detachment, her new resemblances to Joanna, he knew he did not love her now and probably never had. Like so many sibko experiences, what he had felt was merely enthusiasm derived from and enhanced by what, after all, was a closed environment. What he had thought was special was no doubt also experienced by the others. Perhaps they, too, had formed imaginary alliances of their own. Endo may have thought he loved Orilna, or Bret felt his attraction to Rena was unique. It was just another kind of childhood play. As Joanna and Dermot had both told the sibko, warriors did not love. Love was for other castes (and very little of it there, Joanna had mysteriously and sarcastically commented). Aidan no longer believed in such a thing as love. He vowed never to think of the subject again. Especially in regard to Marthe.
And yet, Aidan felt saddened by the knowledge that a part of their sibko childhood was gone. Looking away from Marthe, he turned back to the viewport. They were over an ocean now. There were no fishermen or boats or anything but distant agitated birds to draw his attention away from the water.
* * *
"I am Nomad," the short, bearded man said to Aidan. "I am to be your Tech."
"Nomad? A strange name."
"I have drifted from place to place. Techs usually stay put. Thus, they call me Nomad."
"And your real name?"
"I have forgotten it."
"That could not be."
"If you say so. Nevertheless, I am unable to bring it into mind."
"Or you will not, quineg?"
"As you say."
"I think I like you, Nomad."
"That is not a requirement, sir."
The meeting with Nomad was unexpected and disconcerting. A month had passed since the sibko, or the shreds of it, had arrived at Crash Camp, as it was affectionately known. Aidan was not sure it had any real name. It was probably, like most Clan sites, just a complicated identification number or symbol specified for mapping and filing purposes. In that time, they had not been near a single BattleMech, nor had they even seen one, except for one dark and cloudy day, when a final test was going on far away, beyond a thick woods. All they heard then was the distant sound of weaponry and a couple of heavy thuds that were probably 'Mechs falling; all they saw was smoke rising over the tops of the trees and one blown-off Gauss rifle that slowly spun and somersaulted as it flew up in the air until it reached its zenith and plunged abruptly back.
Instead of training in actual 'Mechs, they had been bombarded with more classroom lessons, more time in simulators that had become so unsatisfactory because they were not the real thing. At night the sibko's only topics of conversation were speculations about when the preliminaries to the tests would start and when would they get their first checkouts on neurohelmets.
Their days went from sunrise to sunset and sometimes into the night. Joanna led them on midnight marches through swampy territory, making them perform calisthenics whenever a temporary break threatened to become too long. Sleep became something they did when there was just enough exhaustion, and little beyond, to overcome them. Joanna now employed a Medusa whip to reinforce her orders and even more frequent sarcasms. It was another of the electronically doctored whips, like the one she had used on Aidan in the Circle of Equals so long ago. She cracked it incessantly. She also nicked it at the sibko constantly but was careful never to actually touch anyone with it. Now that they were at Crash Camp, she was forbidden to punish her charges. If she should lose her temper and forget that, she would be brought before a Warrior Council and disciplined severely. But that did not make the whip any less frightening. The sibko's tension grew every time she raised the Medusa.
The sibko had now grown almost completely apart. They did not speak to one another except when necessary during a classroom or field exercise. This lack of communication made Nomad's arrival welcome to Aidan. Not that the man proved easy to talk to. More often than not, he responded in grunts or with the least amount of words possible.
"Nomad?"
Grunt.
"Are we getting our 'Mechs soon? I mean is that why you are here?"
"Could be."
"Well, what good is a Tech if he has nothing to . . . to do his Tech job on?" Shrug. Grunt.
"Do you know when we will get our 'Mechs?"
"Mmmm."
Aidan was right. The arrival of the Techs, one to each cadet, did signal the assignment of BattleMechs. Without telling the sibko the purpose of the trip, Falconer Joanna took them to a tall building on the other side of the forest. After entering it through what seemed like a normal door, they emerged onto a walkway that stretched across a massive pit. Or at least it looked like a pit. They stood at a railing, and at Joanna's behest, gazed around them. The railing was hot from all the activity occurring in the mammoth chamber.
Way down below, jutting out through an opening in a tangled network of other walkways, machinery, complex repair devices, and hundreds of people, were a whole Trinary of BattleMechs, most of them standing tall with their heads a meter or so below the level of the walkway where the sibko stood. Techs swarmed all over the 'Mechs. Aidan recognized most of the machines as belonging to the Summoner Class, though a few medium and light 'Mechs were scattered among the huge heavies. His best view was to his left where he could see a Summoner-A turned toward him. It had the typical hunchback look common to all the models in the class. Its LRM-15 rested on its high shoulder like some cylindrical, many-eyed animal. Both arms seemed held at the ready, the right one threatening with its extended-range PPC, the left one functioning as a persuader with its deadly accurate LB 10-X autocannon. Both weapons had been praised often by their instructors for being controllable and energy-efficient. "In a Summoner, the heat sinks seem more like an afterthought," Dermot once said. "That is, if you have employed them properly all along."
"It is an impressive fighting machine," Aidan said to Nomad, who stood indolently at his side. "What do you think, Nomad?"
"It's a fine machine."
"Careful. You used a contraction there."
Nomad looked in no way concerned. "Always did have lowdown habits," he said.
Nomad used both contractions and slang mercilessly, as if to annoy Aidan. But Aidan was not easily annoyed, especially by Nomad. He liked the man. It struck him now that Nomad was the first person outside the sibko for whom he had ever felt that sentiment.
Joanna took them down to ground level on a large platform that served the installation at many levels. "We call this a howdah," she said, "based on an old Terran word for a basketlike device mat allowed riders to be lifted onto elephants. Sometimes a smaller platform is used in battle situations and is called the field howdah."
Joanna conducted them on a tour of the installation, but Aidan later recalled little of what she told them, so rapt was he at the spectacle of the vast chamber. From this angle, looking up, he could see the 'Mechs swaying slightly as they were worked on. Techs stood, sat, crawled, hung, threw tools among each other, backed off from sudden sparks, rattled recalcitran
t parts to make them work, climbed in and out of cockpits, cleaned the skin and innards of mighty weapons, ate food indifferently while continuing to stare at the various nuts and bolts that constituted their current challenge. The smell of the place was all oil and heat; its taste was bitter. The noise varied from spot to spot. In areas where Techs worked with power-driven tools, it could be deafening; in other areas, where Techs treated their jobs as a painter did his current masterpiece, Joanna's narrations seemed rude and intrusive.
Aidan could tell by the intense look in Marthe's eyes that she was as fascinated with the 'Mech installation as he was. Seeing how she clenched and unclenched her hands, he knew that she, too, was eager to get inside one of the Summoners, so much heavier and more battle-ready than the light machines in which they had been training, and show what she could do with it.
At the end of the tour, Joanna answered the question on all their minds: when would they operate one of these 'Mechs? "After you have been fitted with a fully operational neurohelmet, we will begin the final phase of your training. You will be operating fully functional BattleMechs and put through a course designed to prepare you to join an operational combat Star. After that, you will have one week to become familiar with the 'Mechs you will take onto the Trial terrain. At the end of the week, you and all the other eligible cadets will undergo the Trial of Position. If you are blessed, you will become a warrior of the Clan. If not, the honor of contributing to the Clan travels with you to some other caste."
Aidan could see in the faces of his fellow sibkin that they, like him, had no intention of being relegated to any other caste. At the same time, the tension of anticipation threatened to envelop him completely.
14
At first the neurohelmet seemed heavier than it was. His neck muscles strained at its weight, and he felt an odd discomfort in the various places where the neurohelmet touched him. And so heavily did it make his scalp perspire that he wondered if it would soon cause a short circuit that would damage the functions of both his brain and the neurohelmet.
Way Of The Clans Page 13
