by Ilsa J. Bick
She smiled. “I didn’t expect you’d need saving today, Sir Reginald. Last I heard you’d chased all the bandits off Biham.”
“Hardly. Biham’s got nothing worth smuggling, though. I’ll never forget how you looked that day. Teeth bared, swords flying… I didn’t know hands moved that fast.”
Katana wrinkled her nose and shrugged, a peculiarly girlish gesture, and Eriksson’s mind flashed back to 3119, when she was seventeen, and he’d nearly lost his life. If Katana hadn’t happened out of that gym at precisely the right moment, I’d have been sliced and diced by those smugglers. Katana made hash of two men in little more than thirty seconds, probably less. Put the fear of God in him, too.
“What are you smiling at?”
Eriksson blinked back to attention. “Oh, nothing. Mind wanders a bit, years catching up, that’s all.” He saw her eyes skip to his cane, the hand clutching its brass head, and he looked through her eyes: at the age spots staining his hands, his swollen knuckles, the way his shoulders had rounded his upper torso into the beginnings of a question mark. “Not a pretty sight,” he remarked lightly.
“We’re both older.”
“True. You’ve changed, and I don’t mean just with the passage of years. What you are doing now, taking worlds, claiming them for the Combine… that’s not the loyal woman I knew.”
Her gaze never wavered. “We all change, Sir Reginald.”
“No, despite your shifting allegiances, you haven’t changed. You were a brash young thing at seventeen, and you’re just as pig-headed at thirty-two. You’ve got guts, talent, determination… but most of all? You’re still an angry, lost little girl.”
Her bemused smile wilted. “You’re being unfair, Sir Reginald.”
“If anyone is being unfair, it’s you. I’ve known you for a long time, Katana. The thing driving you hasn’t changed one whit. You’ve never fit in. I didn’t know you before your mother died, but you and your father had a parting of the ways about the time you met me, wasn’t it?”
Now Katana made no pretense of hiding her anger and hurt. Her cheeks flushed copper with blood and emotion. “I didn’t trade my father in for you, and I didn’t jilt you for the Combine.”
“No? Tell me, Katana, what does that”—he flicked a finger at her Dragon’s Fury patch—“that design, what does it stand for?”
Katana expelled a breath of surprise. “This is the Kurita dragon, only it’s not quite the same. The circle’s made by the Dragon itself, not the Dragon contained within or by the circle. The black diamonds signify the three districts of the Combine, Benjamin, Pesht, and New Samarkand; the white for what’s missing, the hole made when the Combine gave away the Dieron District. And then together the four diamonds make up the fifth element: the district lost to the Clans.”
“Really? Are you quite sure that what’s missing isn’t in you?” He saw that shock quickly replaced her hurt. “Katana, we fought side by side for our lives. I sponsored your admission to Northwind Academy. I was honored to be at your side when you were made a prefect. But you’re the one opening a gulf I can’t bridge. I am a knight, and though The Republic may be crumbling around me, there are some things that must not stand,” he said, and then, with a sudden ferocity added, “This path you’re on will lead you to destruction, Katana, or you will destroy everything I hold dear in your wake. You have disgraced the trust our Republic has given you, and this shall not stand! This shall not stand!” With an angry gesture of dismissal, he pivoted on his left foot, jerking away, facing again toward the relentless sea. His right hip shrieked with pain, but he hardly felt it. He hurled his words into the wind. “I am old and I am broken, but I am not beaten. You may find it easy to discard honor, but I still have mine, by God, I still have that!”
Overhead, seabirds wheeled and screamed, and his heart banged wildly against his chest. He thought, grimly, that if he had a heart attack here and now, well, at least he’d gotten what ailed him off his chest. And who to tell her if I don’t?
When she spoke, her voice was low and subdued. “The Combine must be made whole again.”
He turned to face her. Anger made him brutal. “Because you’ve decided? Who are you, Katana? Your family’s been disgraced; your nobility’s a matter of history, not fact. And you are not the coordinator. Vincent Kurita has not declared a war.”
“I fight in the Dragon’s name.”
“Really? Since when? Kurita is silent. And don’t blame the outage; we haven’t been blown back into the Stone Age. Kurita’s silence means he neither condemns nor endorses you. You’re on your own, Katana.”
“And you, Sir Reginald?”
“I will never support you. But”—he dragged in a breath—“I will not speak out against you either… unless you invade Biham or cross into Prefecture II. If you do, then I will fight you.”
“Then I would regret having to defeat you.”
All at once, his flame of anger guttered and died. He looked away, his shoulders sagging. He felt very old. He looked down at his hand and saw that the fingers trembled. “Katana.” His voice grew thick, and he had to clear his throat. “My dear, wh y are you here? For my blessing?”
“No.” And then, for the first time, she faltered. “I… I was on my way… to my base at Ancha and I… I guess I just wanted to see you…”
“One last time?” He reached out, touched her cheek. Her eyes were very bright, and her skin was wet—though not with salt spray. An image swam before his mind’s eye; of his little Rachel when she’d scraped her knee and how he’d cupped her cheek, told her that everything would be all right. But now, nothing would ever be right again.
It was almost too much for his old heart to bear. “Katana, if my daughter had lived, I would’ve been overjoyed for her to call you sister. But, my dear, I fear for you. I fear for us both. Please, Katana, please… don’t force me to become the agent of your death.”
He let his hand fall away and turned again toward the sea and setting sun. They stood awhile, side by side, as the sea stole land from beneath their feet by imperceptible degrees. Then he felt the brush of fingers on his right cheek and he heard the rasp of sand as she walked away.
He turned at the last possible second. She was atop the sloping dune once more, unmoving, her back to him. The setting sun painted the sand orange and bronzed her skin. His old heart hoped that she’d turn and come back to him—even as his reason knew she wouldn’t.
And, in this at least, she didn’t disappoint him.
8
Katana’s Journal
26 December 3134
Well, that hurt like hell. I don’t why I’m so surprised, though. What did I expect? That Sir Reginald would pat me on the head and tell me what a good, brave little girl I’ve turned out to be? Dumb.
And, of course, Sully noticed, damn it all. Let me have it as soon as I was aboard the DropShip. “Well, ain’t this a fine and pretty picture?”
I tried a smile that didn’t work. “That noticeable, huh?”
Sully blew out like a horse. He’s a bear of a man: thick-necked, barrel-chested, a little grizzled because he’s always got a five o’clock shadow, even at ten in the morning, and a rich Scottish burr that makes me think of crackling wood fires, smoky whiskey, green heaths. He still wore his cook’s apron, and he smelled like good steamed rice: rich and nutty. “Your face gets any longer you gonna need a wheelbarrow to cart around your chin. What’s on your mind, girl?”
So I told him. He listened. Sully’s good that way, always has been, and it probably explains why his bar on Northwind was always packed. The best bartenders are just a step away from being psychiatrists, I guess. Anyway, when I started up Dragon’s Fury and recruited my Brotherhood, there he was at the head of the line, asking where to sign. So now I take my best cook everywhere. My one failing—but he’s that good.
Sully gave his chin a thoughtful rasp with his nails and said, “All right. Now we could talk about why you even bothered going to see Sir Reginald…”
&nb
sp; “I’d rather not.” I’d been playing with my breakfast, pushing natto beans around with my bowl of rice, and now I balanced the tips of black lacquered chopsticks on their holder. “There’s really no point.”
“Oh, there’s a point, Kat, there’s always a point.” Sully gave me a shrewd going-over with those baby blues of his. “But that ain’t all that’s bothering you, is it?”
I shook my head, sighed, picked up my teacup and took a sip. “Dragon’s Fury’s in trouble,” I said flatly. “We’ve reached the limit of our available resources, and we simply don’t have any way to stretch ourselves further. It’s not just men; it’s materiel, supplies, everything. If one of those occupied worlds got it in its head to mount a rebellion, I’m not sure we’d quash it, or get there in time. Crawford said that unless we secure stockpiles, and I’m talking lots and lots of weapons, hardware, fighters, ’Mechs, we’re going nowhere in a hurry.”
Sully grunted. “Thought it might be something like that. People talk, you hear things if you’ve got your ear to the ground. And that Andre Crawford, I know he’s one of those agent-types, O5P, and I don’t usually take to that cloak-and-dagger stuff. But he’s got a head, and he’s loyal. If he says it’s so…”
“Then it’s so.”
“Couldn’t a said it better. But what about that McCain fella, and Miss Viki? You heard from them yet?” When I shook my head, he said, “Well, now, Kat, I’m not one to lord it over ya, tell you that I didn’t like it one bit what you did, ordering them Junction-way, dealing with them lowlifes, and you never no minding what I said, ’cause if there’s one thing a man knows what keeps a pub is that them criminal-types, they’s dicey. I told you from the very beginning, Kat, only you’re a stubborn one.”
“Gee, don’t hold back, Sully. Tell me what you really think.”
“Now, don’t you go mouthing your betters.” Sully wagged a thick finger. “You got to face up to the unpleasant facts, Kat, or else what you got’ll be gone. You’ve done things a sight faster’n better than even Theodore Kurita, Bob’s your uncle.”
Bob? Sully says the strangest things. “It’s not a contest, Sully.”
“Just you listen to what old Sully’s saying, because I’ll tell you something else. I don’t see the coordinator, all hot and fevered-like, roaring down in a DropShip and clapping you by the hand and saying what a good job you done. You keep saying you want the Dragon to wake up, am I right?”
I opened my mouth, but Sully breezed on. “’Course I’m right. Only maybe you ain’t figured that he is awake, and just don’t care. That’s part of why you ain’t letting well enough alone, is ’cause you want the coordinator to care.”
“Look, I won’t argue that it’d be nice for the coordinator to sanction what I’m doing. Maybe then I’d get some support. God knows, I need it. But, Sully, The Republic’s a grand experiment that’s failed, and that’s all there is to it.”
“With a little help from you.”
“And you think I’d have gotten so many people to follow me if they hadn’t wanted to? Look at me. I don’t have millions of troops. I’m not pulverizing worlds into subatomic particles. But people want to belong to something greater than themselves…”
“Like you?”
Heat crawled up my neck. Sully’s better than a sensor that way; he always knows how to push my buttons. “And you, I might add. Why else join up with the Brotherhood? Because you worry I won’t get a square meal?”
“Well, you wouldn’t’ve.” Sully held up a meaty paw. “Kat, you don’t have to convince me, girl. I’m only saying that you’ve snatched plenty. Now… rest easy for awhile. Count yerself lucky you’ve still got your head screwed on proper.”
We left it at that, but, damn it all, if Sully hasn’t hit the nail on the head—again. I’ve never felt at home anywhere except the Combine, ever. Oh, sure, my father was governor on Ancha. But he’d been Combine before; the Dragon ran in his veins, I know it did. It wasn’t just bad luck or routine timing that his first marriage went down faster than a DropShip with no engines, because what did he do? He married my mother, Rachel Jefferson: musicologist, specialist in all things Japanese and Combine.
But I got my first taste of what home, a real home in the Combine, could be when I was eleven. That’s when I met Uncle Kan’s brother, Oniji Otome. I had gone to return Uncle’s swords. I remember that Otome-san seemed very old, even then, with deeply lined features and his brother’s gray-blue eyes. He listened without comment as Mom told him how Uncle Kan had died. Then I presented the swords, which we’d placed upon a special, pure white silk pillow, because white is the color of death. I remember being very nervous, worried that I’d mess up the bow because I had to kneel, put the pillow down, then hunker down into a sitting rei and get both hands on the ground and do the bow just right.
Otome-san didn’t say anything for a long time. My face was down, my eyes on the pillow, and I inspected every inch of those swords: the tsubas of gold and silver enamel, with their exquisite detail of a mantis eating a cricket but unaware that a golden oriole eyed him for its dinner; the deep cobalt blue leather wrap of both swords mirrored in lacquered sheaths of the same color.
At last, Otome-san commanded me to rise. We were close enough that I caught a faint, sweet licorice smell of star anise on his breath. He said, “You mourn Kan Otome?”
“Yes, Otome-san. I loved Uncle Kan very much.”
“And your father? Do you love him, too?”
“No.”
“And why not? He is your father.”
“And you are the brother of the man my father killed. Don’t you want revenge?”
“Each man carries the seeds of his undoing. Your father does not require my help for them to take root. Besides, you are doing such a good job.”
Heat rose up my neck, and I’m sure I fidgeted. “I don’t understand, Otome-san.”
“I see only your mother here.”
“That’s because he’s too ashamed to face you.”
“You are mistaken. Your father discovered a fundamental truth. A brother is the most fearsome and mortal enemy of all. Your father did not wish to shame me further for my brother’s misdeeds.”
“Misdeeds?” I was thoroughly confused. “My father forced Uncle to…”
“He forced my brother to face his dishonor and then he helped reclaim his honor as his kaishakunin. I knew your father well, Musume, my Daughter. Trust that I speak the truth.” He pinned me with a look that seemed to hold me by the ankles and give me a good shake to see what fell out. “You have great kokoro, Daughter, a fine spirit. But there is also gaijin, a stranger, in you. In that you share much with your father, hai? Akira-san discovered a traitor, a man who was gaijin, and cut him from his life. Your father knows that the act alone does not bring healing. Only time does this. You are very young yet, but this is something you must do, Musume, else you will never find peace.”
In the end, Otome-san gave me Uncle Kan’s wakazashi. No accident: it’s the sword Uncle Kan used to cut out his guts. Gaijin, I guess, because the sword’s message is clearly pounded into that tabu, the one that shows the bird stalking the mantis that eats the cricket. Just another name for that universal law: Watch your back.
Because you never really know what’s going to happen next.
9
Two Forks, Junction
Benjamin Military District, Draconis Combine
27 December 3134
Four months, waiting for something to happen. Four months of crummy food, crappy pay and a lumpy mattress in a rat-infested tenement block. Four months of Saturday night shoot-’em-ups, when Dr. Matt McCain was throwing in central lines and opening them real wide for some idiot who’d scored some really bad shit the week before and still couldn’t get it through his thick skull that McCain didn’t need to see him again, like ever. But Two Forks was that kind of town. Yakuza territory: lots of drugs, lots of sex and, being south of the equator, hot enough that garbage soured in an hour and tempers spiked to the b
oiling point.
Saturday night had been bad. Really bad. McCain stared at his feet, watched water spiral a gurgling funnel down the drain. Four lousy months on this toilet of a planet, and no closer now than when I volunteered for this crazy mission. And he was so sure a month ago that he’d finally caught a break. McCain fumbled for soap and lathered. Viki had it all figured, she’d said: reliable cutout, an assassin with a reputation.
Except whoever this assassin guy was, he had lousy aim, because McCain’d really worked at putting the save on the kid. Oh, it was the right kid because of the tattoo: gold chain-link around the kid’s right wrist. Only none of the kid’s yakuza buddies had shown up, kind of putting the kibosh on that old saw about honor among thieves.
There was, of course, another possibility. The party he was so very interested in meeting might be checking out his cover story: down-and-out drunk booted off New Samarkand for malpractice, reduced to grunge work in the armpit of the galaxy. But, right kid or not, they’d screwed up somehow. A month was plenty long to check him out.
McCain toweled off, shaved, combed out his ratty mane of black hair and shrugged into civvies: worn jeans, black tee. On his way out, he backhanded a wave to the receptionist, an attractive, bespectacled redhead in her late twenties. She waved back but McCain could tell she’d be just as happy if their next view of Junction was the planet receding in their rearview, and fast. Outside, the heat smacked his face, and by the time he’d taken five steps, sweat beaded on his forehead. By the time he made it to his hoverbike, his shirt was soaked through.
His bike was at the far end of the lot in a blot of shade thrown by one forlorn-looking, droopy maple next to a picnic table where hospital personnel ate lunch and griped about how crummy their lives were. He’d gotten the secondhand bike as soon as he set foot on Junction, although calling the bike “used” was a joke. The thing rode like it was held together with chewing gum and baling wire. But it got him where he needed to go.
