The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  He stared into the screen a moment longer.

  “No, foolish Green,” he muttered, “you’ve overcommitted . . .”

  Suddenly, he laughed, and folded both arms atop the screen, partially obscuring the play.

  “My apologies, Pilot. If this is what the corps is teaching, the Arm is in danger for truth!”

  Another pair of uniformed soldiers passed their table just then—faces animated under the gaudy tats—and they, too, walked inside the odd rhythm of a conversation she couldn’t quite grasp.

  Cantra looked to Jela, nodding toward the group of them.

  “They from around here?” she asked.

  “I couldn’t read the insignia . . .”

  “Me neither. But I got good ears, and I couldn’t pick up a word they was saying.”

  “I was distracted,” he admitted ruefully. “But to answer the question you asked—they are not from ‘around here’ by the look of their tattoos. To answer the question you meant—yes. They feel that they are at home here, and so they speak the language the troop wishes them to speak, which is not one you will likely be familiar with.”

  She shifted in the too-big seat—big enough, she realized, for one of the tall soldiers to sit in comfortably—turned around, caught the bartender’s eye, and waved.

  “If they’re gonna have tattoos on their faces,” she said to Jela, “and their own language, too, it might be hard for an ordinary citizen to take to ‘em much. If I may be so bold.”

  He glanced away for a moment, scanning the room, she thought, then looked back to her with a slight lift of one shoulder.

  “See for yourself. There are groups of those wearing tattoos, and there are groups of those not wearing tattoos. There are some solitary examples of each. You, I expect, will be perceptive enough to follow on these observations and . . .”

  “Right. What I see is that there’s only one place where you can see both tats and no-tats together . . .”

  She completed her scan of the room; looked back at him, indicating condition is with her free hand as she watched a rowdy bunch striding down the ramp to the big board.

  “Condition is they ain’t what you’d want to call together down there, they’re competing . . .”

  Condition is, he agreed in hand talk as a tall and extremely straight-backed man in what was almost a proper uniform came to their table.

  “Comrades,” he began, speaking to Jela, then looked hard at Cantra.

  “Comrade and lady,” he corrected himself. “How may we serve you?”

  Jela’s face went to that place Cantra categorized as one step from dangerous, and he answered firmly.

  “Pilots will do, comrade.”

  There was a pause, then a sketch of a salute.

  “Pilots,” he agreed amiably enough, “your drink or meal?”

  Cantra flashed your choice, and without hesitation Jela told the server, “The local commander’s favorite brew, with a platter of mixed cheeses and breads.”

  After a slight pause—but before the question was asked—he added, “That will be a pitcher.”

  * * *

  IT WAS A BIG pitcher and it was good beer, but for all of that Cantra wasn’t best pleased with her co-pilot being willing to stake out quite so much time at One Day’s Battle at her expense. Her figurative expense, anyway, because he hadn’t had the sense to see that she’d want to be back to the ship as soon as could. How long, after all, did he think this possible-but-not-proven “runner” would look for her?

  She’d figured that they’d have a couple glasses . . . but now they’d be looking to about four or five each if she kept to her promise, and by damn she wasn’t gonna not keep to her promise.

  The cheese was decent and so was the bread. The beer was more than acceptable, and, unfortunately, so was the company.

  “Don’t much care for military art?” Jela asked, correctly reading her reaction to the over-done specimen of same hanging behind the bar.

  She moved a shoulder and had another taste of beer.

  “Not much in favor of this school, anyway,” she answered. “Could be there’s another?”

  He took a couple heartbeats to study the painting.

  “Could be. If there is, though, they all learned to paint the same things in the same way.” He reached to the platter and slid a piece of the spicy-hot cheese onto a slip of dark bread.

  “What do you find objectionable? If it can be told.”

  “Well, leaving aside the subject, the colors are too loud, there’re too few of them, the figures are out of scale and out of proportion . . .” She heard her voice taking on a certain note of passion and cooled it with a sip of beer, waving an apologetic hand at her companion.

  “No,” he said, “go on. I’m interested in such things. Call it a hobby.”

  “It depends,” Cantra said slowly, “what the art was meant to do. Me saying some certain piece is too garish or too . . . primitive—that has to stand against the question of the intent of the artist. If I was an honest critic—which you’ll see I ain’t—I’d be talking in terms of did yon offender make its point.”

  Jela had paused with his glass half-way to his lips, his eyes fixed on her face. As she watched, he turned his head and gave the painting under discussion a long hard stare.

  Cantra helped herself to some bread and cheese and wondered what was going through his head.

  “I see what you’re saying,” he said at last, and finally had his sip—and another one, too. “I’d never thought of art in terms of intent.” He smiled and his fingers flickered.

  Owe you.

  “My pleasure,” she said aloud, her eyes drawn down again by the damn sim.

  She moved her gaze by an effort of will, only to find Jela absently watching a couple their server would undoubtedly address as ladies wind their artless way down the ramp to the game level.

  Neither one was her style, so she found herself looking again at the battle sim and trying to work out the icons and the situation.

  Damn, if it was her that was general, she’d’ve realized that turning the battle line wouldn’t really work, on account of the fact that the defenders could use the planet as a shield, and likely they must have had some secret of their own because they were fighting like there wasn’t any particular point—or that the planet wasn’t any more important than any other, which didn’t make all that much sense, since she gathered it was a home world . . .

  There was a sound that she realized was Jela’s half-laugh. She glanced up to see a half-smile, too.

  “It does grab the attention,” he said, indicating the scene before her. “If you like we can buy into the observer mode . . .”

  It was her turn to laugh.

  “It’s like trying to ignore somebody messing up their piloting drills. It hurts to see it going so stupid.”

  “Oh, you think so, too? I’m assuming you think Blue is . . .”

  “I think I could whip Green pretty good if any of the ships I see over here are what they look like.”

  His smile grew, and with a flip of a credit chip he bought them the full observer feed. By the time the second pitcher had been delivered, she’d added a bit more to the sim’s takings and bought their table a commentary slot, so they could drop public and private notes to the combatants. Jela’d commented at the time that they might as well go to full combatant, but she’d thought not, and called for another round of bread and cheese.

  “You’re absolutely correct,” Jela was saying in all seriousness. “Blue has willingly got themselves set up just about backward now. See, that’s because you came to this fresh, and without benefit of assuming anything. Green did very nearly the same thing in the real war, you know, and—well,” he said, looking at the screen. “Well, I think they’re just about to be toast . . .”

  Green was very loud in the pits and apparently sure of a victory by now, and the other side was quiet. Much of the joyful noise was in the language Cantra didn’t know, so she felt sure which side was whic
h.

  “Eh,” came a loud voice from the depths, speaking to the whole establishment at once. “And what shall we do now, witnesses?”

  “I’d say Green should ask for terms,” Jela suggested to Cantra, as he looked over the rail at the action well below, “and beg that their officers will be allowed to keep their weapons . . .”

  As it happened, they agreed on the point, and, it being her turn at the keyboard, Cantra tapped that good advice into the system, which dutifully displayed it on the screens below.

  The sounds of joy and laughter from the pit plunged into silence, and in reaction all other conversation in the bar died almost instantly, a order for a double-grapeshot ringing incongruously from the upper bar.

  “Madness!” howled the soldier in the game pit. “Who dares? Who dares?”

  All stared up from the pit as eyes around the room settled on their spot.

  “We can make the door,” Cantra said, putting the keyboard aside, dread rising in her stomach. “You start . . .”

  Jela grinned at her and stood, but rather than jumping for the door he leaned over the rail and spoke down into the pit.

  “I dare.”

  There was a moment of what Cantra believed to be stunned silence, then a minor roar of laughter.

  “You dare, little soldier? You? Do you know who you speak to?”

  “Yes, I do,” Jela said calmly. “I speak to one whose mouth runs faster than his mind.”

  Cantra picked up her beer and had a sip, allowing herself to go back over the brief good time they’d spent. If they survived what was surely coming next, they ought to try it again sometime.

  Or maybe not.

  “Come down here and tell me that!” howled the soldier in the pit.

  Jela laughed.

  “No, I needn’t. You’ve heard the truth; it would be the same wherever it was spoke. Go back to your little lost game and . . .”

  There was some motion going on, Cantra saw. At the bar, a couple of the servers were pulling breakables back behind the counter, and some of the other soldiers were moving to get a glimpse of the one on the mezzanine who would be getting pulped soon.

  Down in the pit, half-a-dozen soldiers were pushing their way out of the crowd ‘round the game table and heading for the ramp.

  Jela looked at Cantra and spoke low and quick.

  “You’ll likely see blood. If you see too much of it is mine, it will be time for you to leave.”

  “Not a chance,” she said. “If you’re gonna break up the bar, I want my share of the fun, too.”

  He grinned at her, more than half-feral, and there was a gleam of anticipation in the black eyes.

  The soldier from the pit cleared the upper end of the ramp and strode over to their table, where he stood, breathing hard, his mates not far behind. His right cheek carried a colorful tattoo of a combat whip, throwing sparks—or maybe it was stars—and he looked to be at least twice Jela’s mass.

  “You, little soldier.” His snarl suffered somewhat from his ragged breathing. “What do you do here? You have no right to be where real soldiers drink!”

  Jela moved, slowly, from the rail toward his antagonist.

  “Child,” he said, softly, “I was drinking and fighting before you suckled your first electric tit. Return to your games, or have at me, but please do either before you fall over from breathlessness!”

  That looked to do it, thought Cantra dispassionately, if what Jela wanted was a fight. The first closing ought to be coming soon, if she was reading the big soldier right, and—

  It might have been a sound that warned her—she didn’t know herself.

  Whatever, her hand was in the air, snatching the incoming by its handle and swinging it down onto the table with a thump. Jela’s glass jumped and fell over, spilling beer onto what was left of the cheese and bread.

  She turned in her chair; spotted the offender three tables back.

  “Fair fight is fair,” she yelled to the room in general, “but this—” she hefted the would-be missile— “this is a waste of beer!”

  She held the pitcher up for all to see, and there were chuckles. The boy who’d come to pulp Jela was standing uncertain, his hands opening and closing at his sides.

  Cantra waved the pitcher in the direction of the man who’d attempted to blind-side Jela.

  “Bartender,” she sang out, “that soldier’s pitcher is empty and he’ll pay for a refill. He’ll pay for a refill for us, too!”

  There was a hush then, but came a voice from behind the bar.

  “Yes, Pilot. Immediately!”

  There was some outright laughter then, and the chief antagonist dismissed his would-be champion with a wave of a long, improbably delicate hand.

  “I need no help against this old midget.” And to Jela: “Fool. I will show you . . .”

  The bartender appeared, carrying two full pitchers. He placed one in front of Cantra and passed on to leave the second with the sneak.

  That done, he stepped back and stood tall, drawing all eyes to him.

  “I will personally shoot anyone who pulls a weapon,” he yelled, showing off a what looked like a hand-cannon. “Fatally!”

  Jela glanced at Cantra, grinned, and hand-signed seven, six, five . . .

  And indeed, on the count, the large soldier came round the table in a rush, seeking, it seemed, to merely fall on—

  Jela was gone, not with the expected small sidestep, but with a leap. The soldier whirled, and in doing so faced—no one, for Jela had kept moving, staying behind him. The soldier stopped.

  Jela was behind him again, but close.

  This time the big soldier expertly swept out a leg, bringing the kick to Jela’s throat—

  Which wasn’t there; and then the big man was down, leg jerked out from under him by a twisting form in black leather, in and out.

  The soldier was quicker than his size foretold—he rolled and came up, spinning.

  The recover put Jela uncomfortably close to the rail, or so Cantra thought, and the big soldier, seeing this same advantage to himself, pressed in. Jela moved—fake, fake, fake, fake, strike the shoulder, bam!

  The big soldier bounced off the rail to cheers and moans of the onlookers, coming on in a rush, nothing daunted—and abruptly stopped, stretching deliberately, showing off his size to the crowd. Cantra, at the table, yawned.

  The soldier glared at her. “Do I bore you so much? Wait your turn.”

  “Tsk.” Jela moved a hand, drawing his opponent’s attention back to himself. “A word of wisdom to the hero-child: Do not threaten my pilot.”

  The big soldier smiled. “You are correct. My first quarrel is with you.” He opened his arms, as if offering an embrace. “Now I know your tricks, little one. Just close with me once and it will be over . . .”

  Jela danced in slowly, his posture not one of attack, but of calm waiting.

  From her ring-side seat, Cantra could see the size of the problem—the big man’s arms were almost as long as Jela’s legs. If Jela couldn’t get a single quick strike in—

  She grimaced with half the crowd as the large solider threw a punch toward Jela’s face. There was the inevitable sound of breaking bone and a yowl of pain, and she was out of her chair and three steps toward the action before she realized there was no need.

  Jela stood fast, legs braced wide, the big soldier’s right fist in his slowly closing hand. There was no sign of blood on either of them and for a long moment, they were simply frozen in tableau, Jela calmly continuing to close his fingers, the soldier’s mouth open in amazement or agony—then, all of a sudden, he moved, putting every muscle in that long body into a lunge.

  Which Jela allowed, dropping the ruined hand and pivoting as the soldier went by him.

  The big soldier cuddled his broken hand against his chest, breathing hard. His shoulders dropped, the left hand twitched—

  Cantra moved—two steps, slipping the dart gun out of its hideaway inside her vest.

  “Pull that, and
I’ll shoot your kneecaps off!” she snapped.

  The big soldier froze amidst a sudden absolute silence in the bar, which was just as suddenly shattered by the bartender’s shout.

  “I cede my board to the pilot!”

  “Drop it,” Cantra told the big soldier. “Now.”

  Slowly, he opened his hand and a slim ceramic blade fell to the carpet. Jela swept forward and picked it up, then fell back into a crouch, knife ready.

  “Good boy,” Cantra said to the wounded soldier, and looked over the crowd, picking out a familiar insignia on two jackets.

  “You two—medics! Take care of him!”

  They exchanged glances, their faces stunned under the tattoos.

  “Are you two med techs or aren’t you?” yelled the bartender. “I told you, the pilot has the board!”

  One of the techs ducked her head. “Yes, Pilot,” she mumbled and jerked her head at her mate, both of them moving toward the injured man—pausing on the far side of Jela.

  The second medic threw Cantra a glance.

  “If the pilot will be certain that the—that the soldier is satisfied?”

  Right. Cantra considered the set of Jela’s shoulders and the gleam in his eye, and decided she didn’t blame them for being cautious.

  “Jela.” She gentled her voice into matter-of-fact. “Stand down. Fun’s over.”

  He didn’t turn his head. She saw his fingers caress the hilt of the captured knife meditatively.

  Cantra sighed.

  “Co-pilot, you’re wanted at your board,” she said sternly.

  Some of the starch went out of the wide shoulders, the knife vanished into sleeve or belt, and Jela took one step aside and turned to face her fully.

  “Yes, Pilot,” he said respectfully, with a half salute.

  In the pit there was the sound of groaning—and cheering.

  On the way out the door Cantra heard someone say, “Never argue with an M . . .”

  She’d have to remember that.

  THEY WERE IN A cab and on the way back to Dancer when the talkie in Cantra’s belt beeped.

  She yanked it free and pressed the button.

  “Dulsey? What’s wrong?”

  There was a short lag, then the Batcher’s bland voice.