It especially bothered him to have been assigned to remain at Crash Camp, when most failed cadets were sent away to more geographically distant positions. Was someone trying to punish him? Perhaps so. Perhaps he deserved further punishment for overstepping his boundaries in the Trial, for defying the rules. If so, it was all the more reason to want to escape the camp.
Though Aidan felt trapped, his urge to get away might have agitated him for some time, left him smoldering in his bunk with plans unacted on, had a particular incident not prodded him. That day he had been on a real garbage job, hauling new coolant containers to a freight skimmer that was to take them to a 'Mech repair facility on the other side of Crash Camp. Nomad had said that they were scheduled for permanent assignment to that very facility fairly soon. They were only on the Trial site until after a new crop of cadets arrived.
Aidan was thinking of the new crop as he drove a fork-lift loaded with coolant tanks to the skimmer. In his mind, he saw the cadets arriving nervously, then going through all the tests that Aidan and his sibkin had endured, finally facing the Trial itself. Nomad told him that all this would become just so much routine. All the new cadet sibkos would start to look alike, their experiences so repetitious that eventually Aidan would forget he had ever been one of them. Aidan doubted that, but he would have to wait and see, see if he would, after all, adjust.
As cargo Techs unloaded the forklift at the skimmer, he strolled around the general area, noting that there were three freight skimmers being dealt with in various ways. One was obviously being repaired, another was unloading food supplies.
Suddenly he saw Marthe walking toward him, a clipboard in her hand. She was dressed in her crisp new warrior fatigues, a slate gray jumpsuit with dark blue piping. On her chest was the medal given to cadets who had succeeded in their trials. She wore her cloth cap, also gray with blue piping, at a jaunty angle. Whatever was on the clipboard, she was studying it. As she passed near him, he called: "Marthe!" She stopped for a moment without looking at him. The way she held her body, the indifference in it, reminded him of the snubs hed already endured from Falconer Joanna. Then she resumed her walk, her eyes ever intent on her clipboard.
Rage hit him like a cluster round, expanding within him just as quickly. He whirled around and chased after her.
"Marthe!"
She picked up her pace, but that was her only reaction.
"Marthe! Talk to me!"
He started running toward her. She hesitated, then resumed walking at normal pace and did not even look back.
The indifferent set of her shoulders and the fact that she would not look at him enraged Aidan even more. For the last few steps between him and Marthe, he ran even faster. When he reached her, she turned around suddenly and brought up her clipboard. With a backhanded blow, she struck him just in front of his temple. The blow diverted his attack just enough so that he missed grabbing her and fell to the ground next to her, landing on his back.
For a brief moment, he saw her looking down at him, a benign and inscrutable look on her face. The pain in the side of his head made him blink several times. She nodded once, then turned to walk away. Turning over and crawling forward, he seized her ankles and pulled at them. She fell forward, onto her knees. The clipboard dropped out of her hand, its papers curling up beneath it as it skidded along a patch of ground.
He waited for a counterblow of some kind, but she merely stayed on her knees, with his hands around her ankles. She stared forward. Scrambling to his own kneeling position, he released her ankles and quickly grabbed her around the shoulders. He pulled her slightly toward him, realizing that the movement placed her in an extremely uncomfortable position, her legs bent backward, her back curved painfully. For the first few seconds, she made no move to resist his hold. Aidan meanwhile tried to get to his feet without freeing her, but the attempt loosened his grip. She responded almost automatically, thrusting her arms outward and breaking the hold. Putting her hands on the ground, Marthe pushed herself to her feet in one smooth and graceful movement. When he came toward her, she elbowed him in the chest without turning around, then spun about and gave him a high kick to the jaw. Aidan reeled backward, as Marthe merely leaned down to brush dirt from the legs of her jumpsuit, then calmly retrieved her clipboard. With quick but unhurried steps, she walked away. The set of her shoulders was tense now, anticipating another attack, but Aidan merely watched her go.
A resolution to their skirmish no longer mattered. Somewhere between her first and last blows, Aidan had suddenly known he had no other choice but to get away from Crash Camp and even from Ironhold. Marthe had decided that for him.
As he walked back to the skimmer to reclaim his fork-lift, it was not the result of her blows that hurt him. What pained him was that she had not uttered a word, nor even a sound of any kind, neither before, during, nor after the fight.
25
I could not believe my ears, wrote Falconer Commander Ter Roshak, and so I asked Falconer Joanna to say it again. "Astech Aidan is gone," she repeated. "He did not report to duty yesterday morning, but Tech Nomad, who supervises him, said that Aidan had been sick the day before. Having assumed that Aidan had reported to sick bay, he was not worried until Aidan did not show up for duty again today, Nomad checked and found his sleeping cubicle empty. Most of his possessions were missing, too."
I did not look at her, but I sensed Joanna staring at me, incredulous that I could react at all to the desertion of a minor individual, an astech, as I paced, rather nervously I am afraid, around my office.
"There is not trace of him anywhere?"
"My preliminary investigation indicates that he probably took one of the three freight skimmers away from here, though none of them reports a passenger or a discovered stowaway. I suspect that he took the one to Winson Station. A DropShip left there this morning. He could have concealed himself or been engaged as crew, though he would have had to act fast to come up with credentials, forged or real. Then he—"
"Yes, yes, Falconer," I said, agitated by her meticulous report. I expect my officers to confine themselves to the facts, leaving speculations to me. "What do you expect we should do about Astech Aidan?"
"Do, sir? Why do anything? We never usually—"
"I want him back here."
Falconer Joanna looked puzzled, but she had enough acuity not to question a superior officer's decision.
"Do you wish, sir, to go through channels to locate him?"
From the question, I saw that she apprehended more than I would have given her credit for. She knew that, whatever my reason for wanting the return of this particular Clansman, it was a devious one.
"You may use channels cautiously, but, no, Falconer Joanna, I want this Aidan actively pursued and then returned here."
"I will assign some—"
"You will assign no one. You will do the job yourself. I will detach you from your duties and get you interworld travel credentials, with freedom to go anywhere."
"You want me to undertake this mission alone, quiaff?"
"Neg. You may choose an aide."
"I choose Aidan's superior, this Tech Nomad."
I am sure my eyebrows rose. All the way to my hairline, it felt like. "You wish a Tech as your companion?"
"Yes. He seems competent. And he knows this Aidan as well, and perhaps better, than I do. They were more closely associated, if only for a short time."
"Why not take someone from his sibko then?"
"Marthe? No, he would run at the sight of her. And the other survivor from that sibko, this Bret, has left camp on assignment."
"Very well then. Tech Nomad it is."
She started toward the door.
"Falconer Joanna?"
She turned. "Yes?"
"Do not come back without him. If you do not find him, I will cut orders isolating you to a border planet, chasing bandit scum."
She smiled. "I am not sure I would dislike that as much as you think, Commander Ter Roshak."
"I want A
stech Aidan back, Joanna!"
That I did not use her title registered immediately. Her eyes narrowed. I drop titles only for emphasis, and she got the message. She gave a rapid, old-fashioned salute, the kind that mocked the Inner Sphere military, and left my office.
Of all the persons I might have sent in pursuit of this young man, Falconer Joanna is the only one who might actually find him. She is the kind of determined warrior who would not slack or give up on any assignment.
I am certain she would like to know why I am sending her to chase him down, and I almost wanted to tell her. But my pleasure at watching her astonishment would have been only temporary. She would not approve my intention. She is one of those who believes a cadet has the right to only one chance at the Trial. She would balk at the second chance I plan for Aidan. Unprecedented as it is, as it must be.
Of course I cannot just decree a second chance. I will have to plan another identity for him, one he can use in the Trial. We cannot just manufacture one. We will have to take it from someone already here. A few people will have to die. I will have to arrange an incident. The concept appeals to me. An accident, a few secret little murders, a new identity, a second chance. If he succeeds the next time, there is no waste. If he does not, I will have no choice but to kill him, too.
26
More than a year passed before Joanna and Nomad found Aidan. The search had been long and laborious, consisting mostly of interviews with people who had either seen Aidan or who sent the investigators off on false trails. Along the way, the two worked together efficiently, while making life hell for one another.
Their reports, transmitted back to Ter Roshak at regular intervals, showed that Aidan set a fast pace, world-hopping almost frantically, as if no individual place could hold him. (At least, that was Joanna's repeatedly stated conclusion.) Roshak, on reading such comments, was reminded of the peripatetic Ramon Mattlov, who—never satisfied with anything in his life—was happiest when traveling.
Aidan had left Ironhold on a freighter, posing as a member of the laborer caste. Being in desperate need of a cargo-hauler, the bosun—like most merchant mariners on all planets—took the easy way out when Aidan claimed to have misplaced his papers. Aidan's Tech experience at Crash Camp served him well in the hold, and the bosun came to trust him.
When the bosun offered to sign him on for a tour of duty, Aidan pretended that he might accept the job, then he disappeared into the teeming city of Katyusha on the planet Strana Mechty. It had always been said of Katyusha that it was a city where anything and everything was for sale.
"I knew there was something odd about that kid," the bosun told Joanna and Nomad. "He did his job too well. But he did not steal anything. I can vouch for that. It is the rare cargo stiff who is not tempted by one of those capsules that break open, you know, accidentally? But Aidan, he was honest."
Joanna was not sure of the value of this information, but she was happy to get away from this DropShip officer, whose breath stank of offworld dream herbs.
Aidan evidently spent little time in Katyusha. From there, he took a short hop to Marshall, where he got into some trouble. They heard of this from a restaurant laborer they met in an eating establishment in the tough outskirts of an otherwise quiet city called Custer. From her, they learned that Aidan had picked a fight with a trio of Elementals who were in the restaurant imbibing a bucket of some local concoction. "The one you seek was taking his meal at a corner table," she said. "The Elementals were across the room. I was engaged in duties away from the main room when the Elementals finished their drinks and wanted another round. Not seeing me, they simply ordered the one you seek to get up and serve them.
"Well, this—you say his name is Aidan—this Aidan stood up and confronted the Elementals, looking ready to explode. By now I had finished with my chores out back and had entered the room in time to see what was coming, but not in time to stop it.
"One of the Elementals—a man called Stong—rose from his seat to chastise Aidan." The woman broke off her tale suddenly and, unable to continue, looked at the floor.
"Go on, Leonor."
"I do not know how to continue except to tell the simple, honest truth. I could not hear what words they spoke, but suddenly this Aidan marched over to the table of Elementals and stood toe-to-toe with Stong.
"Everyone of those fellows was a good head and a half taller than your young man, but he did not.even wait for the dare that surely would have been the next thing out of Stong's mouth. Those Elementals were, of course, even more enraged that he had insulted their ritual."
"Of course," Joanna said.
"It was a surprising fight. He tried to take on all three Elementals at once."
Nomad raised his eyebrows appreciatively, but Joanna gave him a baleful glare.
"For a while, I almost thought this Aidan was going to be able to floor all those giants lined up against him. But they were, after all, Elementals, and nobody could take on all three. They dealt him quite a beating, but still he would not satisfy their ritual."
"Now, what ritual was that?"Joanna asked.
"That he kneel before them and beg forgiveness, as befitting a member of the laborer caste."
"No," Joanna said reflectively. "He would not likely have done that."
"A wonder they did not kill him," Nomad commented matter-of-factly. "Elementals are not known for leaving survivors in close engagements."
"They might have," Leonor said. "I have seen warriors do so after such an insult even when the laborer performed the necessary ritual of forgiveness. It may be that the Elementals let him live in admiration of his defiance."
Continuing their search on Marshall, Joanna and Nomad turned up no further clues for awhile. Then Nomad, whose specialty was wandering into places where even warriors might fear to tread, learned from some dock-workers that someone fitting Aidan's description, but calling himself Damon, had left on a shuttle to Grant's Station only a few days before. When Joanna questioned Nomad about why he thought this particular person might be Aidan, Nomad pointed out that Damon was Nomad spelled backward.
Grant's Station was a Wolf Clan planet. There were times, those periods when relations between the Jade Falcon and Wolf Clans were strained, that a Jade Falcon warrior might have had difficulty gaining entrance to the planet. But this was a calm period, politically and socially, and Joanna, as a Jade Falcon officer, was actually welcomed. Perhaps too welcome, for Joanna's acquaintanceship with a 'Mech pilot named Alexey temporarily diverted her from duty. Nomad kept his own counsel, but her actions set him to wondering if this might have been the flaw that had exiled her to Ironhold in the first place. Left on his own, Nomad conducted his own investigations. Though he located several people who remembered Aidan, he uncovered nothing that would further their search.
* * *
One night, when Alexey was off somewhere on duty, Nomad reported to Joanna what he had found. "Not much," she said.
"My apologies, Falconer, but can you say that your association with Alexey has turned up more?"
"You really despise him, do you not? Quiaff? Answer."
"No, I wouldn't say I despise Alexey. For a fellow whose mustache threatens to make his upper lip sag to his jawline and whose brow cannot be found, he is a wonderful specimen of a warrior."
Joanna bristled, but dropped the subject. Yet, Alexey proved a revelation even to Nomad. The Wolf Clan warrior nearly found Aidan for them. One day, he led them to the edge of a forest, where they awaited a rendezvous.
"What is this place?" Nomad asked.
"You do not care, so do not ask," said Alexey, who tended toward brusque speech and behavior. "This is just the place where they will hand over to us the young man you seek."
"Will it offend you, Alexey, if I ask just who it is that is supposed to give us Aidan?"
"I am not offended. This is bandit territory. The young man you seek has been with a tribe of them for the last month. He went through their punishing rites and, I am told, performed impress
ively."
"You mean he was accepted into a bandit tribe?"
"Yes."
"And the tribe will turn him over to us?"
"Yes."
"Do they have no loyalty, these bandits?"
"Not when you can pay them generously for what you want."
Nomad turned to Joanna, who was uncharacteristically silent. She had been staring at Alexey, a strange look in her eyes. Nomad thought the look might be her version of regret. Having located Aidan, they would leave Grant's Station. If ever there was an ideal mate for Joanna, Nomad thought, he would look, sound, and behave much like this Alexey.
Alexey straightened into alertness, hearing some forest sound that Nomad must have missed. When Nomad did catch the sound, he identified it immediately as horses racing toward them. Alexey's hand rested lightly on a laser pistol holstered at his side. Joanna, too, crouched in readiness. Nomad, never a fighter, looked for a place to dive to if danger arose.
Five people on horseback emerged abruptly from the edge of the forest. One of them, just before he might have trampled Alexey, reined in and spoke to him. It seemed to Nomad that sweat from the horses and their riders splashed the air all around him, while aromas he could not identify clogged his nasal passages.
Alexey suddenly grabbed the reins of the bandit speaking to him, his expression indicating he would have liked to topple both horse and rider.
"What do you mean, escaped?" he shouted. The bandit, thick in body but unusually short for a Clansman, replied: "It was not even an escape, warrior. When we went to fetch him, he was gone. As soon as you and I had concluded our deal, I had a sensor device planted in his clothing, and we thought we had tracked him to a spot not far from here. But all we found were the clothes. He had no other garments. He is running naked somewhere, but we do not know where."
Way Of The Clans Page 19
