The Forever Hero (15 page)

The captain took another sip of the tea, holding the old-fashioned mess mug in two hands and letting the steam drift up and around her face, so near her chin was the mug.

Gerswin took a sip and placed his own mug back on the dark gray plastic of the table.

“How did you end up an I.S.S. officer?”

“Why not? Good reflexes and enough brains to scrape through the Academy. Besides, didn't know enough Imperial culture to do it any other way. Devilkids don't know all the graces. The Academy assumes nothing.”

“Do you regret it?”

“The Academy? The Service? No.”

“You paid a high price, Greg.”

He stiffened fractionally at the use of his first name, but said nothing, and nodded for her to continue.

“You've been commissioned what, ten years, and you're a Senior Lieutenant? I was commissioned eight years ago, and not from the Academy.”

“And you're a captain. You're an auditor.”

“You're a pilot. Direct line. I'll bet most of your contemporaries are captains.”

“You may be right.”

He took another sip of the liftea before adding, “But it always takes longer in non-Fleet commands.”

“I hope you're right.” She pursed her lips, wet them with her tongue, and pursed them again. Then she looked at the sideboard, before glancing down at the table. Finally, she met his eyes. “How can you whistle like that, like you did outside?”

Gerswin wondered if he had made a mistake. Captain Altura was nice enough, outside of her role as Imperial nitpicker and auditor, and attractive in a stiffly friendly way. But she was no Caroljoy, nor even a Faith Hermer, who was always warm and friendly even when she disagreed violently on specific issues.

Gerswin looked at the tabletop.

“Can you whistle like that again?”

“Captain—”

“Dara, please.”

“I don't often. Personal. Escaped me outside. Was watching the clouds and wasn't thinking.”

She reached across the narrow table and laid her hand on his. Her fingers were cool.

“Would you whistle or sing, whatever you like, just one song?”

Gerswin wet his lips, half-closed his eyes, and began. The first notes were shaky, but he let them come, hoping that no one else would walk into the lounge while he did.

As he finished a shortened version of the lament, he realized that both her hands grasped his right hand.

“That was beautiful.”

He tried to withdraw his hand, but her fingers tightened fractionally, and he did not want to seem as though he were yanking his hand loose.

“I'd like to change. I'm still cold. Would you come with me?” Dara Altura stood slowly, her grayish-green eyes fixed on his, as her fingers lingered on his hand before slowly sliding off as she rose.

Gerswin stood also, but let his hand slide away from hers.

“You're too kind, Dara. But I appreciate it.”

Her eyes hardened slightly.

“Not you. Me. Long story, and I'd rather not go into it. Not for a while. I'll see you at the mess, if you like. And I enjoyed talking with you.”

“You sure?”

Gerswin smiled, trying to convey the mixture of sadness and confusion he felt.

“Unfortunately.”

“Friends, at least?”

“Friends.”

She laughed, with a gentleness he had not heard before.

“You're probably right.” Then she shivered. “I am cold, and I will see you later.”

Gerswin stood there watching the portal as she left, then shook his head after she had disappeared. The last thing he needed was getting entangled with someone who mistook his songs for him, or someone who thought they understood and didn't.

“Understand what?” he asked aloud, breaking off his conversation with himself as the portal opened again.

Faith Hermer marched in.

“See you're at it again, lover boy.” While the words were sarcastic, her voice was soft.

“Don't understand,” he said to her, not exactly caring if she understood, but knowing that she did.

“You understand. You just don't want to, Greg.”

“Suppose you're right.”

“Do you want someone to talk to?”

“No. Not now. Appreciate the thought, though.” He looked into her clear gray eyes, ignoring her twenty centimeter height advantage. “Really do.”

“I know.”

He turned to go, since he felt grubby and wanted to clean up before 1800. Captain J'rome carried on the punctuality established for the Junior Officers' Mess by her predecessor, Major Matsuko.

His steps were a shade slower than normal as he marched up the corridor.

Why the blatant invitation by Dara Altura? Why had he turned her away? She was attractive, bright, not unsympathetic. He had no attachments, certainly not now.

Or did he?

It wasn't as though he were celibate.

He shook his head again, and it seemed like he was always shaking his head. He wondered about Faith's arrival, Faith Hermer, who had never pushed, but never pushed him away, though he had kept her at arm's length and then some.

He kept walking toward his functional quarters and the console with the texts on circuit design and security. Circuit design and security.

He kept walking.

The blond-haired captain pulled the functional armless swivel up to the console. After bending over and touching the rear power stud, he sat down and squared his frame before the pale screen.

“Access code?” the machine scripted.

He looked around the dimly lit office. At the far right end of the Operations bay he could see the island of full light where the duty tech waited and watched.

“Access code?” The query blinked twice.

“BlindX, Beta-G.” The letters did not show on the screen, and the officer hoped his finger placement had been accurate.

“Login at 14:18:33 N.A.E.M.T. VM/TSTAT NOT AVAIL. Request subset/matrix.”

The captain frowned, then finally tapped in his request.

“Beta Jumpsched.”

“**invalid entry**”

He gnawed at his upper lip, tried again.

“Beta sched jumpship.”

“Please enter type of matrix and parameter dates.”

“Array.”

The single word blinked on the screen for a moment before the console scripted the system's reply.

 

MATRIX ARRAYS:

1. By inbound date

2. By j/s type

3. By dptg sys

4. By ult dest sys

5. By comb array; enter in pref ord.

 

The captain gnawed at his upper lip once more. Slowly, he touched the keyboard studs before him.

“Array 1/2// after 1/1/3025.”

“35 data elements found. Do you wish all included?”

“Yes.”

“Wait. Display follows.”

The captain shook his head. Thirty-five jumpships. Just thirty-five since the rediscovery. He sat and waited for the matrix display to print out on the pale screen.

He leaned around the console to check the main Ops area, but the duty tech had not moved, nor had anyone else entered the bay.

As the matrix printed across the screen, he quickly scanned some of the names. The
Torquina
was there, not the first, but the second, and that made sense. The scout would have had to have been first. He just hadn't thought about it.

The
Churchill
was there as well, near the middle of the matrix. He ran over the totals—three scouts, two research ships, four corvettes, three destroyers, two cruisers, and twenty-one transports. Roughly two transports annually for the past five years, less than that before.

He tapped the reset.

“Subset.”

“Gamma sched jumpship.”

“Authorization codes.”

The captain frowned again. There had been no request for the code for historical data. He shifted his weight in the armless swivel, worried his upper lip with his teeth, and finally tapped out a random-appearing mixture of numbers and letters. He lifted his fingers and waited.

“Request subset matrix.”

He let his breath out slowly and lowered his fingers back to the keyboard.

“Array 1/2.”

Only two ship names printed on the screen, the
Aacheron
and the
Khanne
, both transports, the first scheduled for Old Earth arrival in three months, the second in ten.

He tapped two more studs.

“Subset.”

“Pers/File/Ops.”

“**invalid entry**”

“File/Pers/Ops.”

“**invalid entry**”

“Personnel/Operations/File Alpha.”

“Authorization code.”

He tapped in another set of numbers and letters.

“Operator not authorized. Do not repeat.”

He frowned before hitting the reset.

“Subset.”

“Personnel/Operations/File Alpha.”

“Authorization code.”

The captain tried another code he had picked up.

“Operator not authorized. This station not authorized. Do not repeat.”

“Istvenn!” The exclamation was low and followed by a headshake, then by another keyboard entry.

“Subset.”

“Clear.”

“Sysoff.”

The screen blanked.

The captain leaned forward and reached around the console to cut its power. Then he eased the swivel back and stood, stretching and looking toward the still-quiet duty section of the Operations bay.

“Need to know more before you try again,” he said to himself, as he turned to leave the dimly lit row of consoles.

He shook his head once more, then squared his shoulders and was gone into the shadows of the off-duty hours.

Gerswin shifted his weight slowly, soundlessly, as his eyes continued to adjust to the darkening night. He lay stretched behind a hummock topped by a single scraggly yucca.

The evening breeze, light for a change, carried the faint and chilled bitterness of grubush, reclaimed soil from the fields ten kays to the east, and the even fainter scent of landpoison. Here, in the lower foothills and under the scattered table mesas, the already faint smell of landpoison was lessening with each passing year.

Gerswin stiffened as his ears picked up the faintest hint of a padding step, a scraping sound of leather against bush. He thought he felt the faintest of vibrations in the packed clay under his elbow, but dismissed it as imaginary.

The breeze picked up, and with the moving air came the unmistakable musk/spice scent of a devilkid—male, young. With that scent came the more rancid odor of shambletown leathers.

The sounds, faint as they had been, dropped away as the devilkid froze to listen.

Gerswin smiled, but did not move a muscle otherwise. The wind favored him this time.

A faint scrape rustled through the night.

Gerswin brought up the starlighter camera, checking to see that the light intensifiers were operating. He waited, breathing lightly as the spice scent grew stronger.

He hoped he was far enough from the coyote track to the hidden spring, and that his own route to his stalking spot had been circuitous enough that no trace of his own scent would be carried to the approaching devilkid.

Brown hair, shining somehow with nothing but the darkness of black clouds overhead—that was what Gerswin caught sight of first. Brown hair bound with a single twist of thong and hacked off ten to fifteen centimeters below the leather.

The I.S.S. officer waited, unmoving, starlight camera focused, for a clear shot. One would be all he would get.

The devilkid slipped out from the opening between two grubushes five meters in front of Gerswin. He pressed the stud.

Click
.

Swish! Thud!

Rolling to the left and cradling the camera, Gerswin came to his feet even as the sling stone buried itself in the clay where he had been lying.

The even, pad-pounding of quick feet indicated that the retreating devilkid had opted for speed rather than silence.

Gerswin grinned wryly. Noise was relative. He doubted that any Impies more than a few meters away would have heard any of the encounter except for the thud of the sling stone. He looked over at the gouge in the clay.

Had they been watching from where he had waited, they might have heard nothing. The gouged path showed the stone had passed through the spot where his head had been.

He scowled, then focused the starlighter lens on the gouge and the position where he had waited. He could use the lab equipment to add an outline once he was ready to present the pictures to Matsuko.

By themselves, the pictures might not be enough, but then again, they might be.

Hoping the first picture had turned out as clearly as he had seen the devilkid, Gerswin straightened and began to whistle as he trotted back toward the base. He had a ways to go, since Matsuko had forbidden him to take a flitter. Getting the Ops officer to allow the camera work had been hard enough, even with Mahmood's backing.

While Gerswin could have borrowed it without the Ops officer being the wiser, the problem was that he needed the pictures to make his case. Trying to explain how he had obtained them would have been sticky, to say the least.

He shrugged. The pictures were the first step, just the first of many.

Gerswin caught his breath, forcing himself to inhale and exhale slowly. He waited behind the crumbling, sheered-off pillars that no longer supported anything but air, each now a two meter high pedestal nearly a meter across.

He sniffed lightly, aware that he was still downwind of his quarry, hoping that the wind direction did not change before the devilkid arrived at the spring.

Pursing his lips, he studied the ground, the hill rising on the far side of the thin trickle of water that passed for a stream. What water there was soaked itself into the clay less than a kay down the valley—less than a kay from the clean spring to a poisoned sinkhole.

The deadness of the lower part of the hill valley was more evident than in the worst of the high plains locales, and the odor of the land-poisons stronger, and even more bitter. The flattened quagmires to the east, the flats running to the sea, contained little besides blackened and poisoned water seeping seaward.

The shambletown to the north was smaller than Denv, and poorer, and the lack of any healthy flora or fauna besides rats, a scraggly variety of ground oak, scattered coyotes, and an occasional grubush underscored the reasons why the Imperial ecologists, Mahmood and his predecessors, had chosen to begin with the high plains and work seaward.

So far the dozers and the techs and the farmers had managed to push the habitable line a hundred kays east of the main base and roughly fifty kays north and south.

At that rate, Gerswin estimated as he waited, it would take nearly ten centuries just to reclaim a sizable chunk of the eastern side of the Noram continent. The techs claimed the work was getting easier as they developed their techniques, but how much better could it get?

He shrugged and gave up the mental estimation process as he concentrated on listening for the sounds he knew had to come.

Shhhhhppppp
.

His devilkid quarry was easing along the far side of the small valley, dancing from one concealed position to another, still well beyond the range of the stunner Gerswin carried.

From his prone position Gerswin did not strain to see the other, but watched, relaxed, as the other moved closer.

The wind began to die. The I.S.S. captain checked the swirl of clouds overhead to see if the wind patterns were about to change, if they might leave him upwind with a sudden shift.

He frowned, easing his head back to focus on the devilkid, who had slowed unexpectedly as he sensed something was not quite right.

A pebble buried in the clay on which Gerswin rested chose that moment to begin digging through his camouflage suit and jabbing at his thigh muscles. Knowing the devilkid was studying the approach to the spring, the part where the water was nearly pure, Gerswin ignored the sharp ache, and waited unmoving.

Finally, the devilkid darted from behind a low heap of blackened
stone and across ten meters of open ground before ducking behind one of the truncated pillars that matched the one sheltering Gerswin.

Gerswin gauged the distance. It was still too far for a clear or a clean shot. He let his eyes ease toward the clouds overhead, which seemed motionless in the gray stillness, to recheck the possible wind patterns.

The eastern hills were warmer than the high plains. This showed in subtle ways—the more rounded terrain, the damper nature of the clay, and the lack of organic rubble of any sort.

The devilkid moved again, and Gerswin refocused on the quarry as the other slipped from pillar to pillar until he was directly opposite Gerswin, less than twenty meters away across the thin ribbon of water.

Once the devilkid moved, Gerswin would have a clear shot. He waited, putting aside the growing discomfort from the clay and the imbedded pebbles that dug into his legs and thighs.

The wind ruffled his hair from behind.

From behind?

Gerswin uncoiled like an attacking coyote, legs driving him straight across the soggy clay banks of the stream, lifting him over the thin trickle with one long bound.

The devilkid had begun to streak back toward cover nearly as quickly as Gerswin had moved, weaving between the pillar stumps, back toward a narrow crevice in the valley wall from which Gerswin suspected he had come.

Thrummm!

The running devilkid dodged to the right.

Thrumm!

Crack!

A nut-sized stone struck the pillar Gerswin was passing, but he plowed on.

Thrumm!

Crack!

Thrummm!

Crump
.

The devilkid collapsed as his last stone rebounded off a pillar into Gerswin's ribs. Gerswin ignored the bruised feeling and approached the limp body carefully. While he could tell the youth was unconscious, he had to wonder if there was another devilkid nearby.

The boy could have easily beaten Gerswin to the nearly hidden split in the rocks at the edge of the valley had he not changed directions.

Gerswin threw himself sideways.

Crack!

The second devilkid also had a sling, and knew how to use it. The stone had passed through the spot where Gerswin had been standing instants before, and only a faint whir had tipped him off, a sound so soft he doubted that anyone but a devilkid could have heard it.

Crack!

Gerswin dropped behind a pillar.

Nodding to himself, he calculated the newest devilkid's position, right behind a stone heap beside the split in the twenty meter high stone wall from which both had come.

He uncoiled himself across the distance to another and shorter pillar, skidding behind it as his boots nearly lost all purchase on the clay-covered pavement underfoot. The next pillar stood five meters uphill, a distance he would have to cover mostly in the open, but that position would give him the altitude to get a shot behind the stones.

Glancing back, he could see the first devilkid still lying unconscious and face down on the dark clay between the truncated pillars.

Gerswin knelt and pried loose a rock, or rather what looked to be a section of an antique brick of some sort. He hefted it in his right hand, still holding the stunner in his left. Lofting it toward the stone pile shielding the devilkid, he timed his departure for the next pillar as the stone clattered down.

Skidding behind the pillar, Gerswin watched as the devilkid ran downhill toward the stream, well out of range before Gerswin could bring the stunner to bear.

The I.S.S. officer bounded back downhill, sprinting full speed for a moment, then settling into a ground-covering lope.

Gerswin's smile was fixed on his face, grimly fixed. There was no cover below the pillared area where the spring rose for at least two kays, just scoured and smooth clay, which meant that the devilkid had every expectation of being able to outrun him.

Gerswin stepped up his pace slightly, and immediately saw he was beginning to close on the tattered tunic of the other. The devilkid had cleverly maneuvered him into a position where he couldn't use the stunner until the devilkid was well on the run.

By now the ground was flatter, and the edges of the valley were beginning to melt into the rolling terrain of the lower plains. Gerswin kept his legs moving evenly and his stride in rhythm, even as the devilkid tried to increase the pace.

Gerswin did not break stride as he watched the other gain ten meters. Slowly, his longer and more even stride began to narrow the distance between them once again.

Still, by the time he was within thirty meters, he could feel his own heart thudding, and he slowly brought the stunner into position.

Thrumm!

The devilkid's right leg spasmed. He tumbled into a heap, but still tried to crawl before fumbling with a set of leather straps.

Thrumm!

Thrumm!

It took Gerswin two shots to get the devilkid, in his haste to avoid taking another hit from the deadly sling.

As he closed on the stunned devilkid, he noted the red hair, the too-thin face, the concealed curves, and realized that his second quarry had been a girl.

He bent to scoop up the sling, suppressing the wince he would have liked to express as his ribs protested. While he doubted that the rebounding stone had cracked them, the muscles were certainly bruised.

He shook his head, gingerly. The computer analyses had given him more than enough locations to check out, and he still had another ten of the most likely to do, with less than two weeks remaining on his leave.

Matsuko had been firm. Firm, but fair. If Gerswin spent his own time corraling devilkids, and if they could be reindoctrinated with some basics, and if they could pass the intelligence and aptitude tests, then, and only then, would he recommend training.

Gerswin shouldered the girl's limp and all-too-light body and began the uphill march back to the first devilkid, trying to make his steps as quick as possible.

He disliked leaving anyone unconscious in such terrain, but neither the rats nor the coyotes liked daytime, and there had been no shambletowners near when he had taken off after the girl.

He broke into a trot, slipped another power cell into the stunner, awkwardly, since he was moving and balancing the girl. Then, as he holstered the stunner, he picked up the pace.

As he passed the blackened sinkhole where the stream disappeared into the clay, the hint of a familiar and rancid odor drifted to him on the wind.

He sighed, and tried to step up his trot, hoping he could get back to the pillar area before the shambletowners took out their frustrations and long-time hates on the unconscious devilkid.

Scrpppp
.

The sound had come from the rocks on the left side of the valley, and the scent of shambletowners strengthened.

Gerswin glanced over at the rocky area in time to see a figure diving for cover.

He was on the right side of the stream, exposed to view, but too far from any of the sheltered spots on the left for a slingstone to have too damaging an impact, if indeed any of the shambletowners had the nerve to try.

Except for a quick survey of the area, there had been little contact with the Birmha shambletown, and no reason to maintain such contact when the base resources were already spread so thinly and when the shambletowners themselves seemed to resent any intrusion.

Plick! Plick!

Large, isolated raindrops began to fall from the darkening clouds as Gerswin topped the last rise where the ground leveled out onto the narrow valley floor.

A slinking figure darted toward the clearing where the devilkid presumably still lay.

Thrumm!

Plick! Plick, plick
.

The stunner bolt passed over the pillar behind which the shambletowner had dived. The scene was silent, except for the rain and the pad-pound of Gerswin's feet.

He slid to a stop at the edge of the clearing, nearly losing his hold on the girl. The boy was still crumpled where Gerswin had dropped him. Gerswin lowered the girl next to a pillar and crossed to the boy, studying the surrounding area and listening.

Whrrr!

Crack!

Gerswin rolled forward, wincing as his bruised muscles protested the sudden movement.

The two shambletowners were neither as sure nor as quick as the devilkids had been. He located them instantly, still not in cover.

Thrummm!

One pitched forward. The other ran.

Thrumm!

The second shambletowner dropped in midstride.

The Imperial officer waited, studying the valley, breathing deeply, and listening.

After the silence had continued and when he had restored his own oxygen balance, he bent and checked the condition of the dark-haired boy.

The youngster had moved slightly, and his breathing was returning to a pattern more like a deep sleep. Gerswin shook his head. Ei
ther the Impies or the shambletowners would have been under full stun for at least another hour.

Slowly, he shouldered the boy's form, nearly as light as the girl's, then walked the several meters to recover her.

With the double load, and with the fine drops of rain pelting on his head, his face, and shoulders, he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as he headed down the valley to his pick-up spot. His feet left deep marks in the clay, marks that were being erased by the light rain within minutes of his passing.

He never looked back at the unmoving forms of the shambletowners. The coyotes might get them, and so might the rats. And they might not.

His even steps brought him back down toward the rolling plain that eventually, kilometers eastward, would turn into a black quagmire, back toward the pick-up spot where his equipment was sealed into a stun-protected pack, and from where he would signal for a flitter.

He sighed.

A grim smile then flitted across his damp face, as the rainwind swirled about him and plastered down the tight blond curls of his hair.

The two he had picked up would make it, Matsuko be damned. He suspected the others would as well, if he could keep them from destroying each other and the Impies who would have to guard them at first.

If…If…If…

He sighed again, but did not slow as he slogged downward through the wind and the rain.