The Serrano Connection (30 page)

"You're going to have that checked, aren't you, Ensign?" she said. They had discovered a mutual distaste for medical interventions, and now teased each other about it.

"It's not broken, Lieutenant," he said. "I believe surgery won't be necessary."

"Good—then perhaps you'll join me for a snack?"

"I think I could just about manage to get my hand to my mouth," he said, grinning. "It was Lieutenant Forrester's fault, anyway. He went for my shot, and got his knee in the way of my elbow."

Esmay tried to work that out—in a variable-G game, a lunge could turn into an unplanned dive and end in a floating rebound—and gave up.

As they ate, she brought up her past experience with his family for the first time. "I served on the same ship as Heris Serrano, back when I was an ensign. She was a good officer—I was in awe of her. When she got in that trouble, I was so angry . . . and I didn't know what I could do to help, if anything. Nothing, as it turned out."

"I met her just one time," he said. "My grandmother had told me about her—not everything, of course, only what was legal. She sent me with a message; she wanted to use only family as couriers. We weren't sure which of us would find her, and I was the lucky one." From the tone, Esmay wasn't sure he thought it was lucky.

"Didn't you like her?"

"Like her!" That, too, had a tone she couldn't read. Then, less explosively, "It's not a matter of
liking
. It's—I'm used to Serranos; I'm one myself. We tend to have this effect on people. We're always being accused of being arrogant, even when we aren't. But she was . . . more like Grandmother than any of the others." He smiled, then. "She bought me dinner. She was in a white rage when I first showed up, and then she bought me dinner, a really expensive one, and—well, everyone knows what she did at Xavier."

"But you ended up friends with her?"

"I doubt it." Now he looked down at his plate. "I doubt she's friends with any Serrano now, though I hear she's speaking to her parents again."

"She wasn't?"

"No. It's all kind of tangled . . . according to Grandmother she thought they would help her when Lepescu threatened her—and they didn't—and then she resigned. That's when Grandmother told everyone to leave her alone."

"But I thought she was just on covert ops then."

"That too, but I don't know when—or what was going on. Grandmother says it's none of my business and to keep my nose out of it and my mouth shut."

Esmay could imagine that, and wondered that he broke the prohibition even this much. She had prohibitions of her own that she had no intention of breaking, just because she'd found a new friend.

"I met her, of course, after Xavier, but only briefly," Esmay said. In the dark times before the trial, when she had been sure she'd be thrown out of Fleet, the memory of the respect in those dark eyes had steadied her. She would like to have deserved that look more often. "There were legal reasons for keeping us apart, they said." Then she turned the topic to something less dangerous.

A few days later, Barin asked her about Altiplano, and she found herself describing the rolling grassy plains, the mountain scarps, her family's estancia, the old stone-built city, even the stained glass she had liked so much as a child.

"Who's your Seat in Council?" Barin asked.

"Nobody. We have no direct representation."

"Why?"

"The Founder died. The Family we served. Supposedly, half the militia died along with the Family. There are those who say otherwise, that the reason no one from Altiplano has a Seat in Council is that it was a mutiny."

"What does your grandmother say?"

"My
grandmother
?" Why should he think her grandmother's words had any weight . . . oh, of course, because
his
grandmother was Admiral Serrano. "Papa Stefan says it's a ridiculous lie, and Altiplano should have a Seat or maybe four." At his look, she found herself explaining. "On Altiplano, we're not like Fleet . . . even if we're military. Men and women don't usually do the same things . . . not as life work, that is. Most of the military, and all the senior commanders, are men. Women run the estancias, and most of the government agencies that aren't directly concerned with the military."

"That's odd," Barin said. "Why?"

She hated to think about it, let alone talk about it. "It's all old stuff," she said dismissively. "And anyway, that's just Altiplano."

"Is that why you left? Your father was a—a sector commander, you said?—and you couldn't be in the military?"

Now she was sweating; she could feel the prickle on the back of her neck. "Not exactly. Look—I don't want to talk about it."

He spread his hands. "Fine—I never asked, you never got upset, we can just talk about my relatives again if that's all right."

She nodded, stabbing her fork into food she barely saw, and he began a story about his cousin Esser, who had been consistently nasty during long vacations. She didn't know if it was true; she knew it didn't matter. He was being polite; she was the occasion for more politeness, and that in itself was humiliating.

That night the nightmares recurred, as bad as the worst she'd had. She woke gasping from the battle for
Despite
only to find herself in the body of that terrified child, helpless to beat off her assailant . . . and from that relived the worst of the time in hospital. Dream after dream, all fire and smoke and pain, and voices telling her nothing was wrong even as she burned and writhed in pain. Finally she quit trying to sleep, and turned the light on in her compartment. This had to stop. She had to stop it. She had to get sane, somehow.

The obvious move presented itself, and she batted it away. She had enough bad marks on her record, with the Board of Inquiry and the court-martial and then that ridiculous award from Altiplano . . . let her get a psych note in her record and she'd never get what she wanted.

And what was that? The question had never presented itself so clearly before, and in that bleak night she looked at it straight on. She wanted . . . she would have said safety, awhile ago. The safety Fleet could give her from her past. But the man was dead, the lie exposed . . . she was safe, in that way. What did she really want?

Fragments popped into her mind, as brief and bright as the fragments of traumatic memory. The moment on the bridge of
Despite
when she had given the order to go back to Xavier system . . . the moment when she'd given the order to fire, and the great enemy cruiser had gone up. The respect she'd seen on the faces of those at her briefing, when even the admirals—even the captain, in spite of himself—had admired the way she presented the material. Even the admiration of the juniors, which she half-hated herself for enjoying. The friendships she was beginning to have, fragile as young plants in spring.

She wanted that: those moments, and more of them. Herself in charge, doing the right things. Using the talents she had shown herself were hers. Recognition of her peers; friendships. Life itself.

The critical side of her mind pointed out tartly that she was unlikely to have many such moments as a technical specialist, unless she made a habit of serving on ships with traitorous or incompetent captains. She wasn't as good at the technical bits as others; she studied hard, she achieved competence . . . but not brilliance.

You're too hard on yourself.
She was not hard enough on herself. Life could always be harder; it was necessary to be hard first.
You're locking down what you could be
. What did he think she could be, that Serrano ensign? He was only a boy—
a Serrano boy
, her critical self reminded her. So . . . he thought she wasn't using all her talents. If he knew anything. If, if, if . . .

She could hardly apply for command track now, this many years into technical. She didn't even want command track. Did she? She had hated combat, from the first moment of the mutiny through to that last lucky shot that burst the enemy cruiser like a ripe seedpod. She pushed down the memory of the feeling that had accompanied the fear, the sick disgust with the waste of it . . . that feeling entirely too seductive to be reliable.

Who knew what they felt at such times anyway? Perhaps she could go into teaching—she knew she was good at presenting complex material. That history instructor had even suggested it. Why had she fled from that offer into the most unsuitable specialty? Her mind thrashed around like a fish on a hook, unable to escape the painful reality that she had trapped herself stupidly, blindly. Like a fish indeed . . . she, who was meant to swim free. But where?

The next morning, she was tired enough that Major Pitak noticed.

"Late night, Suiza?"

"Just some bad dreams, Major." She made it as dismissive as she could without rudeness. Pitak held her gaze a long moment.

"Lots of people have post-combat dreams, you know. No one will think less of you if you talk them over with someone in Medical."

"I'll be all right," she said quickly. "Sir." Pitak kept looking, and Esmay felt herself flushing. "If it gets worse, sir, I'll keep your advice in mind."

"Good," Pitak said. Then, just as Esmay relaxed, she spoke again. "If you don't mind telling me, what made you choose technical instead of command track?"

Esmay's breath shortened. She hadn't expected to face that question here. "I—didn't think I would be good at command."

"In what way?"

She scrambled to think of something. "Well, I—I'm not from a Fleet family. There's a natural feel."

"You honestly never wanted to take command of a unit until you ended up with
Despite
?"

"No, I . . . when I was a child, of course I daydreamed. My family's military; we have hero tales enough. But what I really wanted was space itself. When I got to the prep school, there were others so much better suited . . ."

"Your initial leadership scores were quite high."

"I think they gave me some slack for being planet-born," Esmay said. She had explained it to herself that way for years, as the leadership scores dropped bit by bit. Until Xavier System, until the mutiny.

"You're not really a technical-track mind, Suiza. You work hard, you're smart enough, but that's not where your real talent is. Those briefings you gave the tactical discussion groups, that paper you wrote for me . . . that's not the way a tech specialist thinks."

"I'm trying to learn . . ."

"I never said you weren't trying." From the tone, Pitak could have intended the other meaning; she sounded almost annoyed. "But think of it this way: would your family try to make a draft horse out of a polo pony?"

For some reason the attempt to put the problem in her culture's terms made her stubborn; she could almost sense her body changing, long dark legs and hard hooves sinking into mud, leaning backwards, resisting. "If they needed a load hauled, and the pony was there . . ." Then, before Pitak exploded, she went on. "I see your point, sir, but I never thought of myself as . . . as a pony mismatched to a load."

"I wonder what you
did
expect," Pitak said, half to herself. "A place to work," Esmay said. "Away from Altiplano." It was the most honest thing she could say, at that point, without getting into things she never intended to discuss with anyone, ever.

Pitak almost glared. "Young woman, this Fleet is not 'a place to work away from home.' "

"I didn't mean just a job—"

"I should hope not. Dammit, Suiza, you come so close . . . and then you say something like that."

"Sorry, sir."

"And then you apologize. Suiza, I don't know how you did what you did at Xavier, but you had better figure it out, because
that
is where your talent lies. And either you use your abilities or they rot. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir." Clear as mud in a cattle-trampled stock tank. She had the uneasy feeling that Barin wouldn't be able to explain this one, in part because she would be too embarrassed to ask.

"I put the bug in her ear," Pitak said to Commander Seveche.

"And?"

"And then I nearly lost my temper and pounded her. I do not understand that young woman. She's like two different people, or maybe three. Gives you the impression of immense capacity, real character, and then suddenly flows away like water down a drain. It's not like anything I've seen before, and I thought I'd seen every variety of strangeness that got past the psychnannies. She's all there . . . and then she isn't. I tried to get her to go talk to Med about her combat experience, and she shied off as if I'd threatened her with hard vacuum."

"We aren't the first commanders she's puzzled," Seveche reminded her. "That's why it was such a surprise . . ."

"One good thing is she's coming out of her shell with some of the other juniors," Pitak said. "She and that Serrano ensign and some others."

"The young Serrano? I'm not sure that's a good idea. There were two Serranos at Xavier."