Counterweight

by A. G. Claymore

  Eighty or so people were standing around the middle of the open space, some conversing in tight knots, some alone and staring at the newcomers with open interest. As Freya’s party approached, a path opened to the center, revealing a well-dressed woman in what appeared to be her early thirties standing by a long rectangular charcoal brazier that occupied the center of the hall.

  “So, Freya, you’ve brought your passenger safely through enemy territory?” Her voice was carefully neutral but not entirely unwelcoming.

  “I did,” Freya replied, extending her left hand to the side to indicate the Human. “Rick Heywood of the Guadalcanal, this is my ancestress, Erin Shelby.”

  A surprised murmur ran through the crowd, growing to shouts of anger. At a nod from Shelby, the master at arms brought his mace down on the stone flags, the crashing sound battering the assembly into silence.

  “We have already learned,” Shelby explained in a casual tone, “that this Human took no part in the mutiny.” Most of the people in the room would have remembered the desertion of the Guadalcanal, having been in orbit next to her at the time. Some had even had friends or family among the Midaard who’d been dragged along with the mutineers.

  “Moreover, he is the descendant of the ship’s engineer, who opposed the taking of the ship. Captain Ulrich’s testimony leaves no doubt on that account.” The mood toward Rick changed immediately.

  “I speak of him as a Human,” she continued, “a word we rarely use anymore, but I have good reason.” She smiled at Rick. “This man is an original – an unvaccinated Human.”

  The uproar returned and she let the buzz feed on itself as she motioned the newcomers forward.

  “Is it true,” Shelby asked, placing a hand on Rick’s shoulder and leaning closer to be heard above the crowd, “what our agent has told me? Your world produces spicewood?”

  Rick nodded.

  “There’s more,” Freya added, reluctantly. “He possesses seidr abilities.”

  Shelby looked back to Rick. “What sort of powers?”

  “I would have seen that question,” Rick replied, mindful of Freya’s advice to be direct, “if I had wished to.”

  “Wished to?” Shelby prompted him sharply.

  “It’s an old habit of mine,” he explained carefully. “I can see fourteen seconds into my own future but I can choose to ignore it, when among friends with a shorter timeframe. If I wished, I could see and hear this entire conversation fourteen seconds ahead of the rest of you.”

  “You have a continuous vision fourteen seconds ahead of the present?” Shelby’s eyes were wide in amazement. The sound of the crowd was fading as those near them spread word of the topic.

  “We do,” Rick nodded, “but we learn to filter it out, much as you might learn to ignore a snoring neighbor.” He was rewarded with a few uneasy chuckles. “As I said, I choose not to use it among friends.” He turned to nod at the crew. “At least, not on them – for them is another matter.”

  “It’s true,” Thorstein said. “We were seconds away from blundering into a troopship’s drop wash and he suddenly ran into the bridge, yelling like a madman, but he saved us all.”

  “Well, you just represent all kinds of potential, don’t you, young man?” Shelby mused quietly. “You said we…”

  “Ma’am?”

  She tilted her head to the right, eyeing him keenly. “When I asked if you had a continuous vision, you said we do, not I do.”

  Rick nodded. “Except for children already conceived in space, the first generation born on 3428 had the ability. We don’t know what causes it but everyone has it to a varying degree.”

  “And how many of you are there?” a well-dressed hauld to Shelby’s left asked.

  “A hundred thousand,” Rick answered him, “give or take a few thousand. We don’t take a census or anything.”

  “Bugger the wood, Milady,” the hauld exclaimed, aiming a finger at Rick. “There’s the real value of that world! Imagine someone like him stationed on every bridge in the fleet.” He shook his head in amazement. “Fourteen seconds? That could be a lifetime in combat. Norns save me, that’d be eight thousand three hundred twenty-nine lifetimes on my flagship alone!”

  “I see no reason why we shouldn’t welcome both the wood and the people into our realm, Gunnar,” Shelby replied with an easy grin, “though, if you were serious about the wood, I’d watch out for splinters.”

  She used the resulting laughter to change gears, turning back to Freya. “You know how to find the place?”

  A nod. “When he explained how it had been hidden, it was a simple enough matter to find the coordinates in the old Imperial records.”

  “Excellent!” She looked to Rick. “Would you like to cast the bones?”

  Rick frowned. “Bones, Ma’am?”

  She waved a man forward. “Eirar, here, has an injector loaded with the same vaccine I brought from Earth.” She gave him an appraising look. “Would you like to truly become one of us?”

  Rick’s skin felt as though a cool breeze had suddenly blown across it. Every nerve tingled. This was the cure, and it was the plague that had driven his ancestors away from the fleet. There was a chance his corpse would be carried from this room in a few minutes, unless he said no, and yet…

  Something was telling him to say…

  “Yes,” he replied firmly. What was the sense in saying no? He’d never truly belonged among the inhabitants of the Canal. He was an inconvenient reminder of their shame. Simply by existing, his family had forced them to twist the truth, making the Heywoods and others like them into symbols of broken faith.

  If he was going back, he wasn’t going back as the person he used to be. He’d go as a Midgaard.

  Eirar held a device to Rick’s forearm and pressed down on a control pad. Seconds later, a chime sounded. With a nod, Eirar held a second device to the same spot and pressed another control.

  “Done,” he declared happily. “Never thought I’d be called on to do something like this again.”

  “When will I know?” Rick asked, rather proud he’d managed to keep any hint of fear out of his voice.

  “Know what?” Eirar frowned at him.

  “If I’ll turn,” Rick retorted, not without a little exasperation.

  “Oh.” The man laughed. “You misunderstand the process,” he explained. “The first device took a tissue sample. It runs a simulation to see if you’ll mutate the bacteria. If I give you the shot, it means you aren’t part of the unlucky two percent.”

  Rick suddenly felt as though his legs were ready to call it a day. He’d been braced for the worst, only to find he was never in any danger. “So how long will I live?” His head was starting to spin.

  “Well…” Eirar squinted at him, “You’re pretty young, so…” He gave his upper lip a meditative chew, “Three – maybe three and a half thousand?”

  Thorstein slapped him on the back, kindly sneaking a supporting arm around his torso in the process. “Welcome to the fold, brother!” he boomed.

  An endless stream of happy faces passed in front of him. Some, like Erik, he recognized but most were complete strangers. No matter, he’d have centuries to learn who they were.

  Centuries!

  Somewhere around the twentieth smiling face, he realized his legs were back on the job and he gave Thorstein a grateful nod. As the crowd settled, Shelby addressed her descendant.

  “You told me once that you’d seen this coming,” she said to Freya, her tone gentle, “and that you wouldn’t submit to blind fate like some sacrificial animal.” She placed a hand on the young woman’s shoulder.

  “Is that still your decision?”

  Freya cast a quick look at Rick before answering. “Our recent voyage has been something of a lesson on fate,” she said. “The Norns show us the warp and weft of our lives from time to time and that old saying bubbles up from the dark recesses of our minds – fate is inexorable.”

  She looked again at Rick and held his gaze. “I’ve learned t
hat there is nothing woven that cannot be pulled apart and re-woven, if we don’t care for the pattern.” She nodded at him. “Our new brother has used his knowledge to do just that but I have no desire to change the weave I’ve discussed with you, Ancestress.”

  “And an onerous weave it must seem,” Shelby replied with amused sarcasm, “to a shieldmaiden of such tender years.”

  Something in Shelby’s tone brought the heat to Rick’s ears and he was somewhat off guard at her next question.

  “All things being equal,” Shelby asked him, “would you have this woman?”

  “Have, Ma’am?”

  She laughed. “As your mate, of course!”

  “Umm…” He started to wish Thorstein was still there to hold him up. Was she serious? If she was…

  “I congratulate you, my dear,” Shelby turned to Freya. “You seem to have found the one man in the universe who’d actually waste time thinking about the offer!”

  “It’s not that, really…” Rick blurted. “It’s just that I don’t know how Freya feels about it.”

  “It’s all right, Rick,” Freya told him calmly. “This is how our society works. She wouldn’t have made the offer if I didn’t want her to.”

  Want her to? Rick wished he had more time to think this through but the Midgaard were an alarmingly direct people. Marriage, especially among the leading families, was often a matter of statecraft and sensible offers were rarely refused. If he was going to be a Midgaard, then it was time to start thinking like one.

  What was behind the offer? What advantages did he bring to such a union? That hauld had made it clear that his seidr abilites were incredibly valuable and he did lend a certain legitimacy to any claim they planned to make on 3428.

  And what did Rick get from this? He gained marriage into a prominent family, which would mean a drastic change in his role, should they return to claim 3428. He wouldn’t simply be the traitorous advisor to the Humans’ new masters – he’d be much more.

  And, above all, there was Freya. He had come to know her as one of the crew. She wasn’t an unattractive woman by any means but it wasn’t the first thing he’d noticed about her.

  Barry’s sister Nell possessed undeniable physical beauty but it wasn’t matched on the inside. She viewed everything with an eye toward her own advantage and her illicit trysts with Rick had been nothing more than a pleasant diversion for her.

  Freya, on the other hand, seemed more attractive every time Rick snuck a glance and he felt it had much to do with the kind of person she was. She wore her command easily and the defferential affection of her crew was unfeigned.

  He reminded himself that this was their way – his way – of arranging marriages and they expected a prompt response.

  “Yes,” he said firmly. “Absolutely.”

  “He has no family on this world,” Shelby announced loudly. “Who will foster him?”

  “I will,” Thorstein replied quickly. “When will the ceremony take place?”

  Shelby glanced at Freya and seemed to find consensus there. “Tonight.”

  “Then I’d better get our groom down to the crypt.” The engineer dragged Rick out of the room without another word.

  Once in the hallway, Rick struggled to figure out which question he should be asking first. Finally, one just asked itself without bothering to consult his brain. “Am I really going to…?”

  “Marry Freya Augustdottir?” Thorstein grinned at him. “There’s no getting out of it now, not that any sane man would want to,” he amended hurriedly.

  “Wasn’t that all a little abrupt?”

  “Well, we frown on long courtships.” He led him to a curving stairwell set back into the thick stone wall. “It’s the most dangerous time in a young man’s entire life, so we like to pull the trigger right away, as your kind is so fond of saying.”

  “But still,” Rick insisted, “for an outsider to be betrothed so quickly…”

  “Get this through your head, Rick,” Thorstein stopped on the stairs and turned to look up at him. “When we say something, we mean it. When the Ancestress said you were one of us, you were one of us. Not a provisional member or a second-class warrior – you’re a Midgaard, regardless of political motives. ”

  He took a step up to match his eye level. “And when I offered to foster you, it means I’ve accepted you into my family. When time permits, you have family to meet but, for now, you need to come with me to the crypt and retrieve an ancestral blade.” He resumed his descent.

  “Political motives…” Rick mused. “I figured there might be some element of that. I suppose it strengthens any claim we want to make on 3428?”

  “Now you’re head’s in the game!” Thorstein’s chuckle bounced off the cold stone. “Always understand what advantage the other party gets from any bargain. If you can’t figure it out, you’re getting cheated somehow. There’s also the matter of your abilities. Shelby probably likes the idea of being first to link her family line to a continuous seidr ability like yours. Freya already has the sight but imagine the children you two will have.”

  That concept was still burning its way through Rick’s brain as they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered a large, Romanesque-style vaulted space. Circular columns, three meters in diameter, climbed for roughly five meters to where they supported a network of intersecting arches.

  Each column was hung with weapons. Above each was a name, carved in runes, with a dark smear beneath. Thorstein led him past the first fifteen sets of columns, stopping reverently at one near the middle.

  “Our ancestors,” he said softly. “A century and a half ago, when we tunneled space to raid the fringe of the old Empire, we brought some of their ashes and a grave-weapon from each. That way, if we never see our home world again, our traditions can remain intact.”

  He nodded at a name above an empty set of iron pins on the column. “Ivar Quickfury, my great grandfather,” he told Rick, reaching up to touch the dark smear. “And this is his ash. I took his blade for my own wedding.”

  He looked at Rick, face solemn. “Choose a blade. Tonight, you’ll give it to Freya and she’ll keep it until your firstborn is ready to have it.”

  “But your ancestors…”

  “Accepted you when I did.” Thorstein motioned him forward. “And one day, unless you wish to start your own shrine, your blade will rest here, beneath your ashes, until some young groom chooses it.”

  Rick walked around the column, inspecting the weapons, until he came to an axe. It had a single blade, drooping at the bottom, and it was imprinted with charm phrases. He reached out to feel the incised runes.

  “That goes back at least as far as Gunnar Wallsbane,” Thorstein told him. “He carried that blade two hundred thousand years ago, back when blades were the height of military technology.” He reached out to put a finger on the edge, nodding his approval at the thin line of blood that appeared on his skin.

  “Titanium,” Thorstein explained, “and the gold coloring is from the titanium nitride outer shell.” He stepped back to get out of Rick’s light. “Gunnar was a great one for breaking enemy shieldwalls. He’d hook the beard on the blade’s lower edge over an enemy shield and heave it out of the line. Worked as a pair with his sister. When his axe pulled back, her spear went forward.”

  Rick picked it up, surprised at its lightness.

  “If I didn’t know you were already spoken for,” Thorstein teased, “I’d swear you’d just fallen in love!”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Well, we’ll send that to one of my household staff for a good cleaning and they’ll make a sheath for it while we get over to the bath house.”

  “I had a shower this morning.”

  “Perhaps, but you didn’t wash away your old life, did you?” Thorstein started for the stairway. “It’s tradition and I’ll bet the rest of the Brisbanes are there already, waiting for you to show up.”

  They went up to the main entrance where Thorstein gave the axe to one of the
pages, giving him clear instructions on whom to take it to. “I don’t have the luxury of a room in the main hall,” he needled Rick as they walked out into a busy street. “So I’d rather not head all the way home, just to have to come right back here for the bath.” He indicated the structure next to the Ancestress’ hall.

  It was almost as large as the hall but with lighter pillars, allowing more glazing. They walked into a long room with hooks along the walls where they hung their clothing. A buzz of shouts and laughter came from the curving hallway at the far end of the room.

  “Sounds like the others are here already,” Thorstein wrapped a drying cloth around his waist and led Rick into the main chamber. It was roughly twenty meters square, bisected by a row of meter-wide columns.

  Thorstein led him down the middle to a table where two young women were picking up bundles of small branches. They were similarly clad in kilts made from drying cloths and, when they turned, Rick was surprised to realize the one on the left was Freya.

  He wasn’t sure what to do at this unexpected meeting. The wedding itself was some terrifying creature that he’d face when the time came but how was he supposed to act, here in the bath house, when running into his semi-clad fiancé?

  “Hello, Freya.” He nodded, fearing he was being too formal and also fearing she’d think the nod was an attempt to look lower than her face. Was that why she wasn’t looking him in the eye?

  “Ohhh, he’s a fiery one, cousin!” the other woman said in a deliberately loud whisper. She giggled. “And so gallant, as if he hasn’t already seen far more of you on your ship.”

  “You know that doesn’t count, Inge,” Thorstein retorted cheerfully. “Nobody cares about sex when they’re bending space in a scout ship. You frigate-monkeys just wouldn’t understand.”

  “Well, true or not,” she shot back, “it’s bad luck for the groom to make a fool of himself on the eve of his wedding.” She ushered her cousin away through the pillars. “You’re welcome,” she called over her shoulder, “Rick of 3428.”