The Octagonal Raven

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Long day?” I asked gently.

  “Very.”

  I nodded. She was merely being polite. “I’m Daryn. Best of luck.”

  Surprisingly, she smiled. “I’m Wyendra Shann. Good luck to you.”

  “Thank you.” I returned the smile. “I’ve read all the briefing materials they sent. Do you have any insights beyond that?”

  “I’ve heard that the first physical training isn’t quite impossible, and that the integrative abilities the FS requires make advanced study oral exams seem extraordinarily simple-minded.” A shrug accompanied her open smile.

  “What was … is your field?” I asked.

  “Astrophysics, specialties in applied string dynamics and tensorial undertime flux determination.”

  “That’s how you determine Gate placement, right?”

  “One of the factors.” She grinned, showing a wide mouth with white even teeth. “Transit and energy economics are the most important, though, I discovered. What about you?”

  “Me? Spendthrift younger son … I did manage a blue in methodizing, and I’m passable on the tennis court and in swimming long distances at moderate speed.”

  “Then … you must be the Daryn Alwyn. I read your study on cross-optimization of multimedia inputs. The analysis was elegant, and very well written. Too well written for a methodizer.”

  “I thought you were an astrophysicist.”

  “I am, but it was fun to search the nets and come up with the most likely candidates for pilot training.”

  “Fun?”

  “The data’s all there, and it only took me an hour or so to come up with the search routines. They did the work.”

  I shook my head. Had my father been right — that I would be better off as a rear echelon supply officer putting in time and applying my methodizing training to the workmanlike business of logistics?

  “You’ll do fine — if you want to,” observed Wyendra as we turned down the walkway toward the low dome.

  I grinned. “Are you sure you didn’t study some aspect of mental dynamics as well?”

  “Practical applications. My mother.”

  The presence of a pair of uniformed FS rankers beside the open doors damped the conversation as we entered the small theater-like auditorium or large seminar room with slightly cushioned chairs in rows that sloped down to an open floor area. There were perhaps fifty seats, and only a handful of would-be pilots had arrived before we did.

  Being contrary, I sat in the front row. Without speaking, Wyendra sat on my left.

  “Do you think classes were larger?” I ventured.

  “They use it for meetings of the staff,” she replied.

  “Have you been here before?”

  “For my field work … but I was never in this building.”

  I nodded, as if I knew what her field efforts really were.

  By just before eight o’clock came — zero eight hundred, I reminded myself — there were twenty-five of us in the room. Most were dark-haired, like Wyendra and me, with complexions ranging from pale white to very dark latte, although there were a few blonds. Fourteen were women, eleven were men. Most of the men were within five centimeters of my height, and all but one of the women were around one hundred eighty-five centimeters. The exception was a small blonde. She couldn’t have been more than one hundred sixty-five centimeters.

  “That’s Cyerla Arisel,” Wyendra said from where she sat beside me.

  The name meant nothing to me, and I didn’t bother trying to link into the net to find out why she was important. From what I’d heard, once we officially started training, the FS severed all personal netlinks anyway.

  “Diplomate in three physical sciences, and that’s just the beginning” Wyendra let her words trail off as, exactly at zero eight hundred, an officer stepped into the flat and circular open floor before the seats.

  “Greetings.” The woman in the black and silversheen Federal Service uniform smiled politely and surveyed the twenty-five of us before continuing. “You have all volunteered for training as FS interstellar pilots. As I’m sure you all know, this is an extremely difficult program. You could have screened what I am telling you, but, as you all also know, a direct verbal presentation carries more emotional validity for human beings.

  “So … let me be absolutely clear. For each one of you here, approximately one hundred fifty others applied and were found less qualified. Based on past experience, somewhere between three and seven of you will successfully complete the course and be certified as pilots. Another two to four of you will be offered FS commissions in related work because of your particular skills and determination. In short, more than half of you will fail, and for all of you, this training will be the first significant experience in your life where you will face such a large chance of failure.” She paused. “Your direct access to the netlinks will be blocked, and you will turn in all repeaters and other such devices. Once you’re aboard a deep space vessel, you are limited to the ship’s system, and if there’s trouble, you may not even have that.”

  I tried not to frown. From what I had read, the chance of a ship’s net failing was almost nil, unless the ship itself failed. Then, survival in any form was an extremely short-term proposition.

  No one else raised that question, either.

  “A few other notes. If you wish to be a pilot, you will complete a military indoctrination course. Several of you will fail, not because you lack ability, but because you will find yourselves unable to accept discipline and the orders of others. You are all used to automatic superiority over others. Just remember that every line officer above you comes from the same superior background. And they all have the benefit of training and experience that you do not have, and will not have for years to come.…

  “You signed a privacy waiver release as part of your agreement … every move you make is observed — anywhere. We don’t care who sleeps with whom. We don’t even care if you don’t want to sleep. But everything you do is weighed into the determination of whether you’ll be a good pilot and FS officer.…”

  In a transparent world, and the world was transparent, that should have been obvious, and I wondered why the officer emphasized that particular point.

  “You may be good pilot material, and not good officer material. We’ll send you home. If you’re good officer material, and not good pilot material, FS might offer you a commission elsewhere, but that depends on what we need.…”

  I kept concentrating, even if what the FS officer said seemed to be obvious.

  “Also, I understand it has become the fashion, once more, to refer to men as ‘sir’ and women as ‘ma’am’ or ‘lady’ or whatever your local linguistic equivalent may have been. I will remind you that in the FS, all superior officers are ‘ser.’ Period. No discussion.” The professional smile reappeared, but only for a moment.

  I waited for the twist, because that’s the way all organizations operate. First, the ground rules, and then something to make you think, reconsider, or just feel doubtful or inadequate. I imagined that ancient samurai apprentices had faced the equivalent.

  “You all are waiting for the trick or the gimmick. Every group does. There isn’t one,” the FS officer concluded. “We don’t need one. Just meet in the adjoining building to draw your gear.”

  Wyendra nodded, to herself, not to me.

  We stood with all the others. My hands were sticky with sweat and salt air, and I rubbed them on the legs of my singlesuit. I felt very much like a raven among eagles.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  Raven: Yunvil, 458 N.E.

  * * *

  Another two days passed before I attempted to go to Mertyn’s again, because after the laseflash incident, I’d pretty much taken the glider apart, or where I hadn’t, at least inspected it piece by piece to make sure that there weren’t any more surprises waiting for me. I didn’t need anything else like the nanospray, but I didn’t find a thing that shouldn’t have been there.

  The lat
e afternoon trip was thankfully uneventful, late afternoon because Mertyn was still teaching, at least part time, uneventful because I’d left the belt repeater in standby, so that all incomings would be taken by my sim at the house.

  The glider park next to the path to Mertyn’s, if one could call the overgrown space that, was barely big enough for two gliders side by side, and marked by a weathered wooden sign, into which was carved the single name: ROSENN.

  To get to what Mertyn called his cottage, I had to walk nearly a half kick from the sign along a winding path through half forest, half garden. Wild raspberries — their leaves tattered and brown-edged in late November — grew on the bottom part of the low hills whose higher levels were filled with ancient blue oaks. The wild nasturtiums filled the shaded spots below the oaks, and the air was somehow both musty, yet damper than in the lower sections of Vallura.

  The path straightened and passed between two trimmed junipers. Beyond the junipers was a short stretch of grass. A two-story gray stone dwelling rose in the middle of the clearing, a dwelling with white wooden pillars that certainly had no roots in Westam. On the wide stone porch under the pillars, to the right of the white framed oak doors, were two chairs. A figure sat in one and raised his hand, motioning for me to join him.

  Mertyn sat on the open front veranda that appeared unchanged from when I had visited him a year earlier — and it had remained unchanged for more than twenty years before that. The structure looked nearly two millennia old … with wood-framed windows, aged armaglass — rather than true antique and brittle glass — and the two wicker rocking chairs that flanked the white wicker table. All had to be reproductions, just as Mertyn was, in a way, a reproduction of an ancient pseudolib.

  “You’re not quite so well as the last time we met,” Mertyn observed as I stepped onto the veranda.

  “A little older, a little laser-burned … that’s all.”

  He gestured to the other rocking chair. “A rocking chair does wonders. The pitcher is verdyn. I would have poured it, except I wasn’t sure how long you’d take to walk from your glider. You used to dawdle when you were a student.”

  “I probably did.” I settled into the rocking chair, my fingers touching the age-smoothed wood as I readjusted my weight.

  “Laser-burns? Those aren’t good for your health, Daryn.” Mertyn looked the same, with the long narrow face, the fine dark brown hair, neatly trimmed, except for the forelock that always eased down across his forehead toward his left eyebrow, and the pointed almost-elfin jaw. “Then, you were always a little careless about that.”

  “It’s hard to maintain one’s health when people seem interested in ensuring the opposite.” I poured some of the green-tinted amber verdyn into the beaker, then took a sip before setting the beaker back on the table and leaning back in the rocking chair, looking out at the late afternoon shadows that almost totally covered the short expanse of grass between the veranda and the junipers and blue oaks to the south.

  “You’re sure that someone is after you, and that it wasn’t a mistake?”

  “Once might be a coincidence. Twice is not.”

  “The casts just mentioned —”

  “That was the second time.” I took another sip of the verdyn before continuing. “I can’t find any traces of who might be after me. Neither can Father or Gerrat. Nor can the CAs, but then, nobody has much to work on. It still seems rather odd in a world where almost every square millimeter is monitored one way or another.”

  “The only thing that might be odd is that someone exists who is motivated enough, and bright enough to carry out something like that. Oh … and patient enough. True motivation and patience are rare these days.”

  With the patience, Mertyn definitely had a point.

  “I must confess I did see one of the casts. You couldn’t see much but a flare of energy shrouding your glider, and the skytors’ resolution left something to be desired.”

  “Well … Gerrat’s people do monitor the CA net,” I pointed out.

  “Your brother’s operation has access to everything that can be monitored.”

  “And he says he can’t find anything.”

  “That’s not surprising. A gardener arrives near your house a month ago and works on something. A repairman delivers something else. Or a power assessor checks a malfunctioning system. The systems monitor what people appear to do, not what they really do.”

  “That implies both organization and conspiracy.”

  “Most unsolved crimes fall into that niche. Spontaneous violent crimes show up on some monitor, and most people can’t hide erratic behavior for long when they know they could always be watched. It takes organization and supreme confidence, but these days, if someone isn’t discovered immediately, they seldom are.” Mertyn smiled ironically before he took a sip of the pale ale he had always brewed — to me it tasted like soapy water. “And, as I said, it takes a certain motivation.”

  “So who’s after me? The Dynae? The naturists? They have motivation.”

  The fine dark eyebrows lifted. “I doubt that your parentage alone, or your mildly skeptical observations on society, would raise the wrath of either the Dynae or their followers or of the naturists. You’re more likely to be a target of the norm students who think all pre-selects are evil.”

  “That’s absurd”

  “Or of some radical norm organization,” he continued.

  I shook my head at the idea.

  “What people believe, Daryn, is what they wish to believe, and that includes you.”

  I tried not to wince.

  “As for the Dynae and the naturists, in fact, there have been favorable references to you.” He laughed. “Yet you’re such a creature of the establishment that you think of them first.”

  “So whom should I suspect? My few business acquaintances? My family? Or some students or norms who don’t even know I exist?”

  “Not your immediate family. Their honor — particularly your father’s — would not let him even consider that. And if he had something like that in mind … well, he is very effective.”

  “You’re saying that I’d already be dead.”

  Mertyn nodded. “Also, there’s no point for Gerrat to remove you, and, unlike your father, I doubt he has the expertise or the contacts.”

  “I seem to have raised someone’s wrath, and neither of the attempts was inexpensive.” I took a sip of the verdyn.

  “Perhaps you’re being groomed to be a martyr. That’s a good destiny for a younger son who hasn’t established himself in the power structure.”

  “Me? I’m not a good martyr candidate, Mertyn. I’m too cynical, and I’m certainly not associated with any great causes.”

  “That could always come after you’re safely dead.” A twisted smile appeared on his thin lips. “I’m not suggesting your family is martyring you. If … if that is the motivation, it would be someone else in UniComm or the communications field who would use your death to show your father’s inability to protect his own family. Or his organization.”

  “A power grab …” I mused. “Someone high within UniComm …”

  “Or a competitor.”

  “Someone who knows power,” I added.

  “That’s only one possibility,” he pointed out. “There are always revolutionaries, and you make a less protected target, and you can be depicted as a playboy, dilettante edartist living off your name and the fat of the land.”

  “But … I’m working hard as a methodizer.…”

  “Daryn … what you do is immaterial to how you can be depicted.”

  Mertyn was right about that, and it was so obvious I wondered why I hadn’t considered it.

  “You hadn’t considered it,” he added, as he often had, as though he had read my thoughts, rather than my face, “because you want to reject the image of your family. You think you’re different.”

  Mertyn’s voice said that I wasn’t that different, and maybe he was right. “Who are the revolutionaries, and why would we have any
?” I gestured toward the south. “People have never lived so well — even the poorest. They have a good life.”

  “Life is never perfect. Even a good society is not perfect, and perfection is the enemy of all that is good. Those who seek perfection will destroy an imperfect good.”

  “I seem to recall a lecture along those lines — and a test,” I said, reaching for the beaker once more.

  “Kyciro used to lecture on that. That’s one of the few statements I’ve chosen to remember. When one can recall anything, one must be careful what one chooses to recall.”

  “You’ve said that for years.” I laughed.

  “It becomes more important each year,” he countered. “People forget. The old pre-Collapse Noram culture had the best and most fair society in the history of the world to that point. That didn’t stop it from collapsing into anarchy and civil war. The diversists insisted that the system was destroying their individual heritages. And it was. It was showing their pettiness, the lack of accomplishment, and their failures to meet the material needs of most of the members of those precursor societies. The diversists couldn’t counter that argument. So … they focused on two things that couldn’t be countered. One was that spiritual values were more important than material ones, and the second was that the dominant culture still oppressed women. Since you can’t measure a spiritual value, the materialists were lost there. And since women were in an inferior social and power position, the materialists’ argument that women were better off there than in any place and in any time in history before came off as mere apologism.” Mertyn shrugged. “You should know the rest. Human technology may have changed, but not human nature, or not that much. Now … we have people protesting once more that the system isn’t fair.” He snorted. “Of course it’s not. No system is fair. It’s only a question of being as fair as possible, given the physical limits of the world and the various limits of the population. But people don’t think that way.”

  That was history, and Mertyn had certainly beaten it into me those years before. “You’re telling me that the Dynae aren’t the revolutionaries. Maybe you should offer some insights into the Dynae.”