The Parafaith War (38 page)

Like the tube-shuttle, the electrotrain fare had also more than doubled. He shook his head.

When he stepped away from the surtrans, he could hear one of the boys hiss, “… still a dirty rev …”

“Shut up, Goren,” snapped the gangly youth. “Did you see the row of decorations?”

Trystin wanted to shake his head-decorations weren’t the point, either. Instead, he shifted his grip on his bags.

“Ser?” A Domestic Service officer stepped through the increasing rain toward Trystin, then stopped. His eyes ran across the holo symbols on the greens below Trystin’s name. “Those for real. Major? Six troid battles? As a pilot?” Trystin nodded.

“I never saw anyone who survived six. I was a tech on the lzanagi. “

“You were rotated off? I was there when-” “Where?” “The Willis.”

“After my time. Major. That was five stans ago.” “I was running a perimeter station then.” Trystin shook his head, then wiped the dampness off his face. The beret didn’t help much, and he hadn’t thought about a waterproof. There wasn’t rain on ships and orbit stations. “The captain made it through nine troids.” “He must have been something.” “He still is. He’s a subcommander now.” “Good to know … where you headed?” Trystin shrugged and offered a smile. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked “

“That’s all right.”

The Domestic Service officer paused. “Be careful, ser. Some of the young bloods are a little wild these days.” He laughed. “I’m sure you’d have no trouble.” “I’d rather have none,” Trystin admitted. “You going home?”

Trystin nodded. “My folks live up at Cedar Gardens’ “You one of those Desolls?” “I’m on home leave.”

“Well … take care. Major.” The Domestic Service officer nodded again as Trystin hiked up the gentle hill.

Trystin had never seen a Domestic Service officer near the house, especially one with a shocker, holstered or not. He continued to walk, shifting the bags around. After a time, they got heavy. The rain intensified, warm drops beginning to fall in sheets, battering their way through the summer leaves of the overhanging trees and through the symmetrical branches of the Norfolk pines.

The front gates to the house and gardens were locked, and a small speaker box had been installed in a matching extension to the stone posts. Beneath the speaker was a button. Trystin pushed it. “Hello … this is Trystin.” He waited. After several minutes, a reply came. “Yes.” “This is Trystin.” “Trystin?”

“The same. You know, your son? The major. I got promoted. The one who built the stone wall holding the sage?”

“I’m sorry. I was away from the office.” There was a buzz. “Make sure the gates are locked after you come in.”

“I will.” Trystin frowned, but after he stepped through he closed the gates and checked them. The gates had never been locked in his lifetime, not that he knew.

The marigolds in the lower garden looked newer, and part of the stone bedding wall had been replaced. Other sections seemed to have been replanted, but with the heavy rain, Trystin wasn’t quite sure.

Elsin had the door open, and Trystin scurried inside, dripping.

He looked at the puddles forming around his gear. “I’m sorry about the mess.”

“It’s good to see you.” Elsin stepped forward, and Trystin hugged him, suddenly conscious that his father, always so muscular, was thinner, almost frail. “Are you all right?” he blurted out. Elsin offered a faint smile. “As well as can be expected in these times.”

“I noticed. I got more than a few dirty looks on the way home-even ran into a Domestic Service officer at the bottom of the hill.” “Jusaki, I’d bet. He’s a good man.” “He was friendly, but …” Trystin looked around. “Mother?” “She’s… not here.” “Isn’t it a bit early for her to have left?” “Let’s have some tea. I’d just made a pot. I don’t sleep late these days, Trystin.” Elsin glanced at the bags on the floor. “Leave them there. They can’t hurt the tiles.” He padded toward the kitchen.

Trystin followed, a sinking feeling coming over him. Elsin gestured to one of the chairs at the table in the nook, then extracted a mug from the cupboard. After lifting the tea cozy, he filled the mug and picked up another. Handing one to Trystin, he pulled out the other chair and sank into it.

Trystin took the chair across from his father and waited. “I suppose … I suppose I should have sent you some messages, but I didn’t know that they would have gotten there these days, and what could you have done? Except worry, and you didn’t need that, not then.” Elsin looked at the table. “When I got your message the day before yesterday … then there was no way to let you know-” “What happened? When?”

“Almost four months ago … Quiella came to visit - . .” Trystin vaguely remembered his cousin Quiella as a quiet little blond girl, always into books-she loved the old-fashioned paper books in his father’s study.

“… they went out to go shopping… that was the first of the riots-” “Riots… ?”

“Oh, yes … we’ve had several … antirev riots… it’s been a month since the last one.”

“Couple of them saw Quiella-that blond hair-she’s very beautiful, shy as ever, though.” Elsin shook his head. “They overturned the car, tried to drag Quiella away. Your mother keyed in the old combat reflexes and unarmed combat module-she maimed or killed a bunch of them, held them off until the Domestic Service patrols got there.” Elsin paused and took another sip of tea. “Her system couldn’t take it. She died that night.”

“They’re supposed to deactivate implants.” Trystin could feel his own eyes burning. “They’re supposed to-“

“We reactivated about two years ago. It’s not that hard if you know systems. We worried about something like this.”

The younger man shook his head and stared at the tea. After a long silence he asked, “How’s Quiella?”

“All right. She comes to see me every week. She’s a sweet child.” Elsin took another deep breath. “Courageous in her own way. Don’t know as I could come to visit me. She’s sweet. It helps, and I tell her that. Selfish old man, I guess.”

Trystin got up and walked around the table, putting his hands on his father’s shoulders. “No you’re not. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “How could you?”

Trystin squeezed his father’s shoulders again before walking over to the window and looking out at the rain falling on the garden. He was afraid to ask the next question, half knowing the answer. Instead, he watched the rain pour down on the pines and the flowers and herbs, the heavy drops beating down the leaves.

Then he looked at the empty place beside his father, and his eyes burned. His mother-she never said that much, just did what had to be done. He swallowed and looked back at the rain. He wanted to hit someone … something … but that wouldn’t do much. After all, a mental voice told him sardonically, isn’t that what everyone’s doing?

“What else can people do?” he muttered. “What did you say?” asked his father. “Nothing. Just arguing with myself.” He swallowed and pulled himself together before turning from the window. He might as well get hit all at once.

Elsin took a small sip from the mug, as if waiting fatalistically.

“Salya? Was she … at Helconya?” Trystin walked toward his father. “You knew about Helconya?”

“Only that there was an attack. I never could find out much in the way of details. Even the main admin office on Mara orbit station couldn’t tell me … about Salya.”

“Neither could we. Not until Shinji’s cousin returned. All we got-later-was a formal letter-and some medals. And some credits.” Trystin waited.

Elsin looked bleakly toward the window, his eyes focused somewhere else, not on the window, the wall, the rain outside, but some other place in time. “Salya always wanted to build, to create. When she came home, we talked a lot about her work, the technical details, how she engineered the spores.” He looked down at the half-empty mug. “I miss her. I miss Nynca.”

“Do you know what happened?” Trystin kept his voice soft.

“Not really. Some of them took surface skimmers, atmospheric tugs, and rammed the revvie scouts. That was what saved the station-that and some heroics by a junior major. She died, too. All the … most anyway … I don’t know if Salya took a skimmer. I don’t think I’ll ever know, and it doesn’t matter. I know Shinji did. Some of them… they never found. They never found him. They never found her.”

Trystin paced back to the window. The heavy rain continued to tear at the garden, and the clouds seemed darker. Elsin took a last swallow from his mug, then pushed out his chair, and trundled toward the teapot. “It’s cold here. Haven’t felt this cold in a long time.”

Trystin turned, watching the slight shuffle in his father’s steps, seeing the even-thinner silver hair. “Everything’s changed.”

“That happens…” Elsin put the kettle back on to heat. “Riots … I can’t believe it. Here? What’s happening?” Elsin sighed. “What always happens. People are looking for someone to blame. Our heritage comes from two groups who always denied that they were part of the problem. The early ecologists blamed industrialization for environmental degradation even while they continued to purchase all the goods and services produced by industry. And the forerunners of the parashintos always looked down on and isolated strangers. Under pressure, people often revert to their roots, and the Coalition is under a lot of pressure.”

Trystin moistened his lips. He’d seen that pressure. “Prices keep going up, and it’s hard to get new equipment, especially electroneural or sophisticated electronics or microtronics. They’re talking about conscription to fill support positions in the Service …” The older man’s words trailed off. “Do you want some more tea?”

“A little, I guess.” Trystin turned from the window and the heavy rain. He picked his mug off the table.

“You have to watch out now,” Elsin went on. “Always wear your uniform … Cambria may not be all that safe for you-especially around the young ones. The older people still believe in restraint, but not the young ones. They just see the losses and cannot understand why the government does nothing.”

Trystin nodded. “The uniform means nothing to them. Saw that already.” He lifted his mug and held it as his father poured the steaming tea into it.

“It’s getting worse. All the politicians are looking for someone to blame, and it’s always the revs. If it weren’t for the greedy Revenants …’ ” Elsin snorted. “The revs are what they’ve always been-an expansionistic and opportunistic culture with a high birth rate. That’s never been the question. We just didn’t want to pay the price by stopping them earlier, and we’ve been an easier target, because we’ve always tried to stop them, rather than take the fight to them. The Argentis would have started by destroying Wystuh, but we have this horror of total destruction.”

Trystin took a cautious sip of his tea, nearly burning his tongue.

“No politician wants to admit either that horror or our unwillingness to take the fight to them. So it’s who hates the revs worse now. The Democratic Capitalists almost took the assembly in last month’s elections, and Fuseli is pushing for a total conversion to armament production. The Greens have held him off, but they’re losing ground. I doubt the new government will last another three months.” Elsin shook his head before refilling his mug. “Politics. It doesn’t solve anything, arid it doesn’t bring them back.” He looked out at the rain that continued to fall. “Sure as hell doesn’t.”

“No.” Trystin stood shoulder to shoulder with his father, and they watched the clouds and the rain. “No, it doesn’t.”

After a quick swipe of the card through the reader, Trystin slipped off the surtrans. He tried not to

wince at the fifteen-cred fare, more than triple the fare the last time. The three other officers in front of him didn’t even seem to notice.

He followed them up the wide stone steps to the main Service medical center on Perdya. The rysya and trefil plants in the stone flower boxes beside the steps appeared beaten down from the heavy rain of the past few days, and flower petals were plastered on the edges of the steps. While the day was gray, the clouds were higher and thinner, and no rain had fallen since the night before.

Once inside the med center, he walked straight to the information console.

“Major Desoll, reporting for a follow-up physical.” The civilian technician at the front console stared at him for a moment. “A physical?” “The Farhkan study.” “What was your name?” “Desoll. D-E-S-O-L-L.”

After a few keystrokes and a quick study of the screen, the technician looked up. “Second floor, all the way to the rear on the south wing. Dr. Kynkara’s in charge.” “Thank you.”

The civilian did not answer, looking away. Instead of glaring at her, Trystin walked across the polished stone floor to the wide ramp, passing a commander and a major engaged in a conversation. Neither looked up.

Trystin found his way to the far end of the south wing and another technician at another console.

“Yes, ser?” The dark-haired woman looked up at him, waiting, her slightly slanted eyes skeptical. “Major Desoll. The Farhkan follow-up study.” “Follow me.” She stood and led him down the same side corridor and around the same two corners as he had walked the last time. The same four cubicles and diagnostic consoles waited. Two had open doors. She looked at Trystin. “Run your ID through, ser.”

Trystin ran it through the reader, and she tapped several keys on the console keyboard. The console ready light winked green.

“I’m sure you know how this works. After you’re done, go to gamma four at the end of the corridor. Wait there for the doctor.”

Trystin nodded, not feeling particularly thankful for the cool reception, but the technician was gone. He closed the door, disrobed, and submitted himself to the chilly ministrations of the cold console. After dressing, he walked to the end of the corridor and took a seat next to a dark-haired lieutenant.

The lieutenant glanced at Trystin, then saw the name, rank, and decorations, and looked away, coldly. “Lieutenant Rifori?”

The lieutenant followed the doctor into the office. Shortly, the doctor left, and the door shut.

“It shouldn’t be long. Major.” Dr. Kynkara, her short hair graying, paused.

“Thank you.” Trystin gave her a brief smile, grateful for the momentary glimpse of humanity. Somehow, he expected coldness in battle and on the perimeter line, but not in a medical center. And not in Cambria.