Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  “Aye,” said the sergeant when she asked him about it, “those are the kind of maps we used to use before we got the new database with its equipment.”

  “But they weren’t scanned into the database?” Speir asked.

  “Don’t have a scanner big enough,” the sergeant said. “You’d have to code them in by hand. A tedious job that’d be, ma’am.”

  It was true; but it seemed to Speir it was also true that the granular data would extend the trendlines for better accuracy. Colmhaven was a fertile harbor mouth between rock ridges, and constantly subject to shifts between erosion and alluvial deposit. Data like this could help shore up supply lines from inland and cut down on nasty meteorological surprises.

  “Well, it’s something to do,” Speir said.

  ~*~

  With plenty of work to keep her occupied, Speir could have forgotten about Douglas’s rebuff, and what he had told her. But as she pored over the maps and drew new ones at the projection console, Speir found herself thinking about Commander Jarrow and his ominous mishap. Jarrow would have seen the value in these maps, would have known how to weight them in calculations for the best planning leverage. Yet he had thrown away his career—perhaps even his life—to strike at a man he hated.

  And as she compiled contours day by day and week by week, she thought about the contours of her own life during the time. Eight years ago, a peak year for icefall at Cardumel, Speir had been about to finish her secondary course as a cadet at the naval school in the capital and take up national service. Nine years ago, while Colmhaven had seen a shift in its upper river bed, she had won first prize in a benefit contest for her course-running club, hitting five locations in the ombrifuge network in record time. Ten years ago, she had come of age to bear children; one of the mothers in the co-op her father belonged to had helped her cope—Speir still remembered hearing through the closed door as the woman scolded her father for not seeing Speir better prepared.

  Contours upon contours; layers upon layers. Speir built her first projection model of Colmhaven coast, with the first year’s maps coded in, and sent it to Major Ghislain and Staff-Captain Amis, footnoting her observations on the possible supply lines with a diplomatic reservation that as she didn’t have the supply-line data, she thought this may already have been done.

  She was shocked to discover it hadn’t. Both the major and the staff-captain descended upon her and asked her to go through the model again, and demanded to see the maps she’d found. Speir found herself explaining, hiding her own discomfiture, about the defensive strategy she had posited. Major Ghislain grew fussy and dismissive; Staff-Captain Amis, Speir saw, fixed him with a thoughtful look before telling her that he would take her model and see what might best be done with it, and in the meantime to continue coding in the maps.

  When Darnel heard about it, he said, “Ghislain won’t be happy that you copied Amis in from the start. Though from the standpoint of getting the data to the right place, there was nothing else you could do. What’s the application of courtesy to a superior who’d have preferred to take your credit?”

  Speir sighed. “Not much. I suppose he’ll seek occasion to find fault with me.”

  “That he will.”

  “I’ve borne arbitrary faults before,” Speir said comfortably.

  “You wouldn’t be obliged to defend your honor?” Darnel cocked an ironic eyebrow at her. He obviously hadn’t forgotten her dust-up with Lieutenant Mulhall.

  “My honor’s not at stake,” Speir said. “But Ghislain’s is.”

  “That’s so.”

  Staff-Captain Amis must have given some thought to the matter too, for he came back some days later with a commendation for Ghislain for directing his new weather officer to be diligent in providing useful information to the Colmhaven supply works, glancing at Speir to see how she would take it. Seeing her understanding smile, he issued orders to Ghislain to have Speir continue her project and update them both regularly. For the most part, this settled Ghislain’s feathers, and Speir worked on, largely undisturbed.

  She stayed away from Douglas as he clearly wished, which wasn’t difficult: the island wasn’t large, but its universe of duties was, and barring his occasional visit to the weather tower to coordinate communications data, his work and hers rarely met.

  But there came a day in which the sky cleared almost entirely, and every soldier on the island looked for an excuse to be outdoors. Speir crossed the compound toward the main block for lunch, savoring the warm sun on her face, and found that the junior cadre’s sparring exercises had been moved from the training room to the parade pavement. A pad had been rolled out and stanchions put up, and soldiers both in training knits and full fatigues had crowded round the open-hand match going on inside the ring.

  Speir couldn’t resist insinuating herself among the others to take a spot at the rail. But the view proved to be disappointing. The men in headguards and pads going at one another had, she realized as the seconds passed, no strategy except to bash at one another as hard as possible. One of them did understand the principles of boxing fairly well, staying light and quick on his feet and keeping his hands poised; but he telegraphed everything he threw and his opponent was able to dodge and sail in with a messy, brutal punch. The boxer couldn’t keep his feet under him; as he dropped to the pad, the brawler let out a jeering yell and went for him again. If he hadn’t wasted time and breath yelling, Speir thought, he’d have got to the boxer before he could roll to his feet. The watching soldiers shouted advice and encouragement from the rails all around; they seemed more excited when the brawler had the better of it, and Speir realized that most of them viewed this training as a means of exercising killer instincts and letting off energy, rather than making specific preparations for combat.

  The boxer prevailed eventually, though he and the brawler were both bloody by the time the lieutenant with the tablet blew his whistle. Speir winced at the scream of triumph the boxer let out at the end; the fighters did give one another a perfunctory salute at the end, but it seemed an afterthought rather than a culmination of the match.

  As the next set of fighters ducked into the ring and prepared to square off, Speir caught sight of Douglas where he stood nearly across from her, arms resting on the rail, calm hands relaxed, eyes intent, squinting a little at the sun’s angle. She wondered if anyone else could tell he was bored. As the boxer ducked out nearby, Douglas called him over and spoke to him, evidently giving some brief instruction; then the boxer shouldered out of view, still wiping at his nose and mouth.

  The whistle shrilled for the next match, but Speir didn’t feel like watching any more. She glanced once more at Douglas, preparing to leave her ringside spot, and saw that he had noticed her; their eyes met.

  It was a brief touch, but the wordless commiseration that passed between them seemed to bring color into his expression. Comforted herself, Speir gave him a tiny nod and eased out of the crowd.

  The shouts and yells continued behind her as she passed on to the mess.

  ~*~

  A week later, Speir was walking down the ground-floor concourse of the main block when someone fell into step beside her. It was Douglas. Speir submerged her surprise and kept on; he matched her pace comfortably, as if they walked this stretch of corridor together every day. He didn’t speak, but then he didn’t need to. It wasn’t that he was particularly quiet, or particularly intense: it was that he was often at his most articulate when he wasn’t saying anything.

  “So then,” Speir said, as if they had been discussing it all along, “shall I ask General Inslee for permission for us to spar, or will you?”

  “I’ll ask him,” Douglas said. “I think I know the right tack to use.”

  “All right. When can we meet?”

  “I checked the duty schedule. We only have two regular off-duty gaps that coincide,” and he named them. “Have you got plans for either of those?”

  “The one in the evening I’d been planning to start using for training alone
, but time’s been getting away from me—I’ve taken on a project programming in some old maps, so the ground units at Colmhaven can update their tactical defense works. But I can move those sessions to the morning. You don’t mind training in tandem?”

  “Not at all,” Douglas said. “We could spot one another in the weight room.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. What kind of equipment do we have?”

  Douglas sighed. “I’ve put in a request for better pads—the ones we have are falling apart. We have a handful of decent bated batons; but none of the foils are worth bothering with.” Apparently the distaste for foils was not limited to Ryswyck. Barklay would have had some things to say about that, Speir thought, but she had learned better than to mention Barklay’s name to Douglas. “So for the time being,” he finished, “we’ll probably be doing a lot of open-hand. I know you must be disappointed.”

  Speir responded to this with the little hmph that Douglas angled for. “If we get in form, perhaps we could make a demonstration as an example.”

  Finally, Douglas cracked a smile. “Very diplomatic, Speir; I thank you for not disparaging the results of my work so far.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. You obviously have your work cut out.” Speir had reached her turn; Douglas saw their ways were about to part, and offered her a little bow.

  “If you think of any novel ways I can leverage morale,” he said, “by all means share them with me.”

  “I’ll start with yours,” Speir promised, walking a few steps backwards as her turn carried him from sight, “—by beating you soundly two nights hence.”

  She was gratified to hear him chuckling, around the corner.

  ~*~

  General Inslee did not get much benefit of the fine weather that week. He spent most of his days either closeted with Amis, going over inventories of supplies and ordnance, or recording messages for the installations with whom he was coordinating defense lines. Amis was doing much the same on a lower scale. He was in Inslee’s office now, working his way through a tablet’s worth of reports; Inslee, listening, had run his hand over his thin russet hair so much that it was probably sticking straight up from his head by now. Better than pulling it out, which is what he really wanted to do.

  “Maybe we’ll get a second shipment of ordnance,” Amis said, hopefully. “After all, we ordered the same stock as Colonel Marshall, minus the big shells.”

  “The inventory order had both our names on it, didn’t it?” Inslee said.

  “Well,” Amis sighed, “yes.”

  “Then I lay odds they’ll expect us to divide it up with Marshall and not expect any more.”

  Amis was silent a moment. “Do you think the other bases are getting the same short inventory as us?”

  “I don’t have a secure enough code to ask that question,” Inslee said wearily. “And I like my head on my shoulders where it is.”

  “Aye. Well, then, with your permission, sir, I’ll ask Marshall to send us a quarter of that shipment for our guns, and let him store the rest. If we’re low on ordnance generally, it won’t do to have unused shells frozen in place on this island.”

  “Right. Go ahead.”

  “Oh, and Marshall says he’s sent the model that Field-Commander Speir made of the coastline to his surveyors in the district, and hopes to hear back soon when they’ve compared the data to their own records. So far his data lines up, so he’s going to have them check the emplacement foundations and the supply lines at the spots she highlighted.”

  “Good,” Inslee grunted. “And Major Ghislain?”

  “Still very defensive about not having collated the data already. I assured him that this is precisely why we wanted a trained weather officer here, but I’m not sure it took.”

  “Well, if he doesn’t like it,” Inslee said, singing it as the familiar refrain it was, “he can apply for a transfer any time he likes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Amis said, keeping his face properly neutral.

  “And in the meantime have Speir keep doing what she’s doing, and send you regular reports. I want to hear about any new developments.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Inslee got up with Amis to go out into the outer office, where he found Captain Douglas patiently waiting for him. “Did you want something, Douglas?”

  “Yes, sir.” Douglas stood up and came to attention.

  “Walk with me,” Inslee said, continuing out the door, and “Well?” once they were out in the corridor.

  “Yes, sir,” Douglas said. “I came to ask your permission to change my personal training regimen.”

  Inslee was surprised, but waved him to continue without comment.

  “It’s occurred to me I’d be better able to plan my training course if I could test some of the curriculum out for myself. I’d like to get a sparring partner and work out the details in private sessions.”

  Inslee grunted. “And did you have a sparring partner in mind?” Of course Douglas had a sparring partner in mind; he wouldn’t have come to Inslee without working all this out in advance.

  Still, Douglas hesitated briefly before answering. “I asked Field-Commander Speir if she’d be willing to spar with me; she said she would.”

  Inslee glanced at him as he pushed open the door to the outer walkway. “I didn’t know you knew her well enough,” he remarked.

  Douglas’s expression was unreadable. “She served in my duty rota as a junior officer, before being promoted to captain of her own rota. I know her capabilities well.”

  It was the first time to Inslee’s knowledge that Douglas had ever volunteered anything about his training at Ryswyck Academy; in fact, the first time Douglas had shown any sign of wanting to bring his peculiar background to bear on his work here. Inslee hadn’t had many of Barklay’s students under his command, but the ones he’d had had been all too eager to infuse their duties with the courtesy and vigor they had learned. Speir was a more typical example of a new Ryswyckian officer: full of initiative and helpfulness, and disconcerted to find that not everyone else was the same. Douglas, by contrast, was reserved; he kept fully present to his duties, but at the same time he seemed to be always thinking in the background. Inslee had the idea that Douglas’s private thoughts were troubling to him, but he hadn’t had the time to draw Douglas out.

  “It’s a shame Field-Commander Speir can’t assist also with the tactical components of your curriculum,” he said. Douglas caught the dryness in his tone and flushed a little; his answer was equable, and equally dry.

  “I’m hoping to emphasize the tactical aspects of the sparring curriculum as we go on,” he said.

  Inslee curbed a smile. Reserved he might be, but Douglas was still a Ryswyckian. Very little could shake them from the conviction that military competence flowed from individual combat and personal conduct. The truth was, Douglas missed sparring with another Ryswyckian; probably Speir did too. And if he could make more of his teaching duties with such an outlet, all the better.

  Inslee stopped at the door to the comm tower. The sunlight on the pavement rose as a cloud bank passed; the shadow of the covered walkway they stood in grew sharp.

  “Very well,” he said; “you have my permission to make arrangements within your schedule and Speir’s for sparring appointments. Report to me if you see a change in results. And don’t get distracted or consumed.” He met Douglas eye to eye at this last; Douglas held his gaze, accepting the warning without surprise or cavil.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The sunlight fell, and the shadow-lines diffused, as Inslee passed on through the comm-tower door.

  ~*~

  Douglas made sure he was first to the training room for his first meeting with Speir, making inventory of the equipment in the closets. She arrived already changed into training knits, with her fatigue jacket thrown over her singlet. When she saw him her smile appeared; she came to where he stood ankle-deep in pads, pulling her training slippers out of her jacket pocket.

  “So,” she said, “what’
s the plan?”

  He picked up a bated baton and tossed it to her; she laughed as she caught it. “Pleasure first, then?”

  Douglas tried and failed to repress a smile. “Something like,” he said. He would have gone on, to explain that he wanted to get his sense of balance back, but it wasn’t really necessary. Speir knew well enough what he wanted.

  He found himself a baton and headguard, extricated himself from the pile of pads from the open closet doors, and went to the sparring circle where Speir waited, donning her slippers one by one. Her boots stood lined up neatly out of the way. “I’ll be rusty,” she warned him as he passed her a headguard.

  Douglas shrugged. “So will I,” and he set himself on guard.

  It was true; Speir came at him with a very badly placed drive, and he barely managed to parry it. For the next several passes they worked each other in a disjointed tempo, until Speir, half-unready for his attack, hastily put up her point. It took him in the shoulder, and he reeled back two steps and sat down hard.

  “All right?” she inquired, catching her breath.

  “Aye,” he said, getting slowly to his feet. His tailbone was going to be sore.

  “I thought you would block that.”

  “I should have.” Their eyes met as he leaned on his baton, and they both started to chuckle. “Rusty indeed,” Douglas said. “Two more passes of this, may be? And then we’ll move on to the weights.”

  Speir agreed, and set her feet, ready.

  The first pass was no better than the others, and ended inconclusively with Speir half losing her grip on the baton before making an inelegant parry that put them both off their balance. Douglas retired feeling heavy and slow. But on the last pass, the beginnings of a good rhythm emerged; Speir attacked, quick on her feet at last, and nearly landed a blow—“Ha!”—she uttered, and Douglas grinned under his headguard. Inspired, he won himself enough distance to set up an attack; Speir blocked it and he set up another with a sharp feint that disarmed but did not throw her. She stood, firm in her stance, trusting him to curb his momentum before he plowed into her. He did, but only just: he had to put out a hand against her shoulder, and she steadied him. They stood a moment panting to get their breath back.