by L D Inman
Her father had taken out his best notepaper to write this letter; then he’d sealed it and put it away in a file to be opened after his death. The creamy envelope had fallen out of the packet, formally addressed to Cdt. Stephanie Leam Speir, so she knew even before she’d opened it that he’d written it before her third year at Ryswyck Academy. In fact, she discovered when she read it, he had written it the morning she left to take up her studies there.
Nina, my dearling. You have just gone, and I have decided to take up my pen to tell you what I will not be able to say later.
He hadn’t failed to say it, though; she was already familiar with his endearments and his regrets over the difficulty his illness would bring her. She knew already by heart the expressions of delight over her winning a place at such an elite officer training school; he had said them to her in recordings and over open line connections and when she visited home, over and over as if making sure he hadn’t forgotten. But something about this conscious valediction, written on paper, lodged in her heart and would not let her go.
I will always be yours, long after I have given myself over in death. And while I have my wits and voice, I will say that I have never been prouder of you.
They were the sort of words that ought to make their recipient weep: but all Speir felt was a little stab under her breastbone. She was in a drought of tears, had been since the day the courier-captain came and she had shrugged away from Barklay’s hand on her shoulder. She had stood with dry eyes at the ash garden while the dirge was sung; she had received kisses and condolences, from her father’s cousins and fellow veterans, in the same distressing dryness. She had gone home to the flat she had shared with her father, and had found it numbly easy to clear away the last of Jamis Leam’s possessions, hire someone to repaint and pack things away in storage, and lease the flat to a veteran who needed housing for the short term.
The morning she had left for Ryswyck, she had wept in the doorway of the flat, and Jamis Leam had held her and stroked her hair. I shouldn’t be going, she had said, and he had answered firmly, It’s your time, Nini, and she hadn’t even protested at his using her little-name to address her.
He’d kissed her wet face, and then pressed his lips gently and formally to her brow, and sent her out the door with an insistent push. With her bags in hand she had glanced back at him in the corridor, promises glutting in her throat; blinded by tears in the lift, through the ombrifuge exit, on the tram platform, she had recovered finally on the shuttle to Ryswyck, and then been swept up in her arrival by the busy hospitality of courtesy. In her joy she had put her guilt aside: her father, after all, had been right.
The man who had written this letter would not approve her lingering in grief.
Speir folded the letter along its creases and slid it back into its envelope. She stood up from the little bunk and went over to the tiny shelf-niche that served as a shrine, lifted the bowl with its burning light and slid the letter underneath it. She hadn’t been able to pray much, either; but she could still burn a light: the tiny star glowed in the dim coolness of the room.
She had bought the bowl yesterday in Colmhaven harbor, at the commissary shop there while waiting for the shuttle to take her to Colm’s Island. “Starting at Cardumel, then, Field-Commander?” the commissary attendant had said kindly, noting her bright-new shoulder tabs and the Weather Corps pin next to her name tape, still as yet needing no polish. The bowl had to be unbreakable, he’d told her, and a certain size per regulation, to cut down on fire risk on the island.
It had been a long while since Speir had moved within the constraints of regulations: the tiny table in her quarters that served as a desk also held her reference books and a slim volume containing the local policy code for Cardumel Base. Prudently, Speir had set herself to memorize it section by section, as she had learned the General Military Code at school years ago.
So she had bought her regulation light-bowl, and a pack of lights, enough to last until the next quartermaster’s call, and packed them into her rucksack; and then she’d boarded the shuttle from Colmhaven airfield along with several other Cardumel soldiers, some new like herself, some returning from their annual leave—one fellow officer was boasting about getting thoroughly laid in the town below. He noticed Speir’s half-smile and said: “You’re the new weather officer, aye? I’m told you come from Ryswyck Academy.” Speir nodded acknowledgment, and with a familiar mix of friendliness and hostility, he went on: “I’ve heard Ryswyckians are all frighteningly clever and sexually voracious.” Several of the soldiers snickered.
“I’ve heard that, too,” Speir said, tranquilly. She had heard it before she ever set foot on Ryswyck campus, and she’d heard variations on the theme ever since.
“Well, and is it so, then?” he teased. He was a lieutenant in the naval ground crew, but his pins indicated he was attached to the weather office—so she’d see him again. Speir saved the direct slapdown for another time.
“Some Ryswyckians are very clever,” she agreed, “and some are sexually voracious; and some are both. But not out of proportion that I ever noticed. Should I expect a difference, here?”
The sweetness of her inquiry drew a snort from an older army lieutenant across from her. “I think you’ll find,” he said before the other could retort, “the differences come in places you won’t expect.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Speir said. “I am much obliged.”
“Not at all, Field-Commander,” he said politely. Then the shuttle’s engines rose to drown out conversation, and they lifted off. Against her usual policy Speir tilted her head to look out the porthole window: they gained height, so that they brushed the floating gray base of the cloud-bank, which gave way in silent rags in their wake. Speir knew they would be meeting a strong headwind; sure enough, ahead the clouds broke into floes, and as they cleared the promontory, the sun sparkled briefly on the sea far below. It was almost beautiful enough to make her love the depth of empty air beneath her.
With the winds it was a quarter-hour’s flight out to the island base; mist closed in as they descended, obscuring her first sight of Cardumel’s two towers. Not until they made approach to the perilously small airstrip did Speir see the weather tower with its buttressed base fronting the island’s head, built of planed local stone. She looked away with her teeth set for the time it took to swing through the crosswinds down to solid ground; the engines’ screaming pitch powered down, and the porthole now framed the other tower’s base—the comm tower, bristling with antennae and blackout louvres, painted a neat gray. It matched the island exactly, a stubborn rock in a restless sea.
Her new home.
She had stepped off the shuttle to a brief swirl of activity as the returning soldiers swung up their packs and deboarded, or began unclipping boxes of supplies and sliding them down the ramps; she was not met by anyone, but a harried officer with staff-captain’s ribbons noticed her glancing about. “Field-Commander Speir?” he called. She presented herself with a quick salute, and he said, “I just had word the weather corps commander won’t be down. Let me get these others to their places, and I’ll—ah, there. Lieutenant Darnel!”
Her wry-faced defender changed his course and came toward them. “Captain Amis, sir.”
“Can you see that Field-Commander Speir gets her billet? Take her to the req bay first and show her where the mess is; I’ll call ahead and make sure her codes and duty schedule are in her postbox where they’re supposed to be.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Amis carried off his soldiers, leaving Speir and Lieutenant Darnel and the fast-emptying shuttle alone on the airstrip.
Fortunately for Speir, Darnel’s hospitality was pleasant without being overcurious. He took her into the main block, a square hulk of stone and polarized glass, pointing out places of interest on their way to the requisitions bay, where Speir was loaded with a bundle of kit. From there, they crossed the parade pavement to the weather tower block so that Speir could drop off her rucksack and kit
in her new quarters; she fumbled a bit with the unfamiliar door-lock codes, and Darnel politely pretended not to notice. He did not follow her inside, but said from the doorway: “The tower entrance is at the end of the next corridor. When you’ve settled in, come up top and I’ll show you where your postbox is, and the duty schedule. I’m on duty in ten minutes; you’re probably on my meal rotation till the schedule can be fixed, so supper will be four hours hence and you’ll be on watch after. There’s an all-staff meeting first thing tomorrow. After that’ll be time enough to show you how to run the database.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Speir said calmly.
He saluted her crisply: there was an ironic quirk of his eyebrow as he did so, but no actual hostility; Speir knew from this that he would not begrudge her his help, but she would have to ask him for it. And that suited her very well. She saluted him back.
When Darnel was gone she set to putting away her clothing and possessions; it didn’t take long, and she had brought nothing with her to brighten the dark little room. It had one narrow little porthole window, half-obscured by the tower base outside, and one wall lamp shared by the table and the bed. She hadn’t adorned her quarters at Ryswyck either, but had simply let the workaday adornment of books and notices accumulate; she wondered if Douglas had put up in his new quarters the banner of the Bay of Arisail that had hung over his bunk.
Speir did not have a banner from her birthplace; but she had her father’s letter, and a packet of prayer-lights.
She went up to the tower, received her first brief from the weather corps commander, sheafed together her new codes and schedules and the base policy handbook, and then went down to the mess with Lieutenant Darnel. Speir did not see Douglas anywhere, and by this point did not expect to; an installation big enough to have three meal rotations was not going to mix its training corps and its weather corps so thoroughly. In a way, it was a relief: at first Speir had put off sending any message to Douglas telling him she’d accepted a commission here, feeling obscurely that she didn’t want to make him feel chased; and then the inexorable process of mourning had taken over her attention. Now she was here, and the monochrome, institutional breadth of duty seemed enough to give Douglas the buffer he wanted. If he wanted one.
Nor was Darnel’s impersonal manner unique to him: everyone here seemed to mind his own business, and Speir had a vague sense, increasing with each new comrade she met, that friendship itself carried a risk of trespass, as if the work of clinging to this rock was too consuming for close human contact. Speir decided to wait to confirm this impression, but it wasn’t far from what she had known at Naval HQ. She’d done well enough in that atmosphere growing up; she could do this too.
It was with that thought that she had closed her eyes in her new bunk, acclimating to the pitch of high winds outside the tower block. Now, she stood up from where she had stooped over her prayer niche and glanced once from end to end of her quarters. Outside, the signal blew for the change of watch, two discordant tones designed to warp against each other so as to be heard over the wind.
This is your time. Speir took in a long breath. Fingering the slip of paper with the lock-code for her quarters where it was safely stowed in the breast pocket of her fatigue jacket, she stepped out into the corridor, heading for the main block.
~*~
Douglas woke ten minutes before his com alarm with tears sliding swift down his temples. He lay gulping in the darkness, swallowing down the cry still stuck in his throat. He’d been dreaming: a bright day in Barklay’s office, the white drapes nearly swallowing Barklay in their nimbus; Douglas on his feet, unable to flinch away from his tender touch; not wanting to flinch away from it. Barklay kissed him like an equal: then, like a superior, a truth that would never be true. Douglas could not stop himself from weeping, openly, heartbrokenly, as Barklay’s caresses and kisses slid downward. Barklay was looking upward, beseeching from his knees. Oh, my dear, don’t. Don’t do that. What can I do?
Nothing, Douglas thought now, savagely awake. Though that too now seemed overwrought; the emotion and image, twining together like hard vines, now grasped him like dissolving smoke. He was left alone in his bunk at Cardumel, with the wind roaring dimly beyond the walls and the corridor quietly humming as officers rose for the day’s work. Douglas lifted sleep-slow fingers to wipe at his eyes; drew in a deep breath and rolled to get up.
To his irritation, he discovered he was still aroused. He turned up the cold tap in his shower; he wasn’t going to give even dream-Barklay any satisfaction. I just want to be left in peace. Irrational as it was, Douglas resented Barklay for invading his dreams, as if reeling him back in from too successful an escape.
Chilled, annoyed, and logy, Douglas did up the last fastenings of his fatigue jacket and left his quarters for the general staff offices. He checked his postbox and the duty schedule, took a briefing from Amis and gave one to his lieutenants on duty, then settled down at one of the com desks to load up a tablet for the all-staff meeting, quaffing a cup of scalding tea in lieu of breakfast. He was not expecting to be called on to report, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.
Indoors the chime sounded, echoed outside by the double-tone blare; officers began filing past the door toward the large meeting room. Douglas gathered together his tablet and stylus at leisure, picked up his cooling tea, and went next door himself.
The all-staff meeting at Cardumel Base happened once a month and involved every officer who could be spared from duty, leaving only a crew of watchstanders and maintenance officers to pick up their briefing later. The senior cadre took seats around the long battered table in order of their departments; the junior cadre, mostly lieutenants with a few sergeants and naval air crew representatives, took places standing against the walls. Douglas chose his seat close enough to the projection base to get a good view, but far enough not to presume on any higher officer’s priority. Staff-Captain Amis came in, his arms full of books and files, saw him there, and gave a small grunt which passed for a greeting; Douglas inclined his head respectfully. Officers were talking in knots that unraveled gradually as they found seats or standing spaces one by one; when most were assembled, General Inslee entered the room from his office and everyone shuffled to their feet and to attention. Inslee waved to Amis, who cleared his throat and led them rustily in a versicle of the soldiers’ chant; then everyone settled down again.
It was the crest of the year, when the light was longest and the most work could get done; they had summer storms to contend with, which had made shuttle landings “tricky,” as the flight lieutenant reported. The head engineer reported on the maintenance of the GT network below ground; a captain representing the Boundary fleet made his report on their current position. The major at the head of the weather corps, sitting across from him and a few seats ahead, reported briefly on the expected conditions and promised quicker updates, “now that we’re fully staffed,” he said. General Inslee nodded and the report moved to the communications department.
Douglas glanced down the line of officers seated across from him; a few seats down the table was the new weather-corps officer, a compact woman with a field-commander’s insignia, who was attending to the communications report with an intent gaze. He had seen her come in but had been distracted by the greeting of a fellow captain in the communications department. Douglas was in the act of facing ahead again, when the realization broke.
It was Speir.
Quietly, eyes forward, Douglas puzzled himself as to why he hadn’t recognized her right away. But there was much that was different. For one thing, she had cut her hair soberly short: the fair taffy of several summers’ bleaching was gone, leaving only the dark-red sorghum beneath. And there was little enough sun on Colm’s Island to warm it, he reflected. Her expression and posture, too, had changed; Douglas sneaked a look back at her to confirm it. Yes, her lips were set, the corners tucked back; her shoulders held straight as if against a constant wind; even her eyes seemed a darker gray, and they held no r
esidual smile. Douglas looked away before his attention could tug at hers.
What was she doing here? Well, it was obvious what she was doing here; she had taken a commission as a weather officer, which Cardumel sorely needed. A part of Douglas seemed to relax and breathe free air again; the thought of Speir’s steadiness, her wit and careful regard, was like relief in a siege. Only Douglas hadn’t been under siege; or so he’d thought. No, there was only Barklay reeling him back to Ryswyck with pangs and reminders and dreams. Now Barklay wouldn’t have to put out any effort to keep touch on him, Douglas thought; he could just have Speir do it.
And just that quickly Douglas was angry all over again.
It wouldn’t have been with Speir’s connivance, he reminded himself. Barklay was more subtle than that, but this actually wasn’t very subtle. If he’d wanted to protect them both he’d have done better to shuffle Speir off to the faceless ranks of cartographers in the corps units at the capital, or even Killness Pass, not pigeonhole them both at Cardumel where everyone knew they were commissioned officers from Ryswyck Academy. But he’d pricked out this post for her instead. As usual, Barklay was strategizing for competing goals and was like to accomplish neither of them. Unless one of his goals was irritating Douglas past bearing; that one he’d be able to cross off, no fear.
Douglas was used to Barklay playing such games with his political safety; now he was obviously doing the same with Speir, and that was poor service to her. How he’d convinced her to take this post, Douglas couldn’t be sure, but in her state of mourning Speir might have been amenable to all sorts of arguments. She hadn’t sent him any post-messages, or made effort to contact him when she arrived—when had she arrived?—so she must still be operating on the basis of their last conversation. Douglas hoped so: it would not do for them to be seen to be close, here.
