A Warrior's Sacrifice (2 page)

Now, focused outward, Corwin could dyzu the eyes that watched him; felt the furtive looks and glares as a physical pressure. It was oppressive, like a humid summer day, clinging and inescapable. He had to get out. There was nothing for him here anymore. He'd walked through the arch, he'd gotten his badge. That was all he needed.

No,
he thought to himself as he left the Academy steps and made his way through the halls to the tram,
that's not all I need.

A man stood alone, like Corwin, three tram car-lengths down. Corwin recognized him from the Academy. His name was Kai, and he was alone for the same reason as Corwin — though Kai never had any parents to lose.

At just over two meters tall and barrel-chested, Kai was a giant of a man, though "man" wasn't a fair descriptor. Physically he appeared a healthy eighteen years old, but he was younger than that; he and his siblings had been decanted only a handful of years ago. He was the first of a new set of soldiers, designed from the best Human gametes available, grown for the highest echelons of combat. He and his sibs represented a shift in Republic mindset; they needed soldiers for the escalating war, and if those soldiers came from test tubes and plasteel chambers, so be it.

They weren't clones like the Choxen; the Scientist caste had made sure of that. They were fully Human, just tweaked for greater strength and stamina and intelligence. Not that it mattered to the True-Born Humans.

Corwin snorted and turned away. The True-Borns hated Kai's kind almost as much as Corwin's own — almost.

Sighing and shaking his head, Corwin waited. He had dyzued Kai's decision to join Corwin the moment the giant man had made it. Soft footsteps on plasteel. Corwin kept his eyes on the tracks ahead.

"Hi," said a bass voice so deep, Corwin's chest vibrated.

"Hey," Corwin said with a thrust of his chin.

Kai turned to stare at the tracks along with Corwin. "Where are you going?"

"Out. Away. Somewhere else."

"Yeah. Me too," Kai said, nodding. He had his peoples' crèche accent, the tendency to clip the ending sounds from one-syllable words. It grated on Corwin's ears.

"Why are you talking to me?" Corwin asked as the tram rolled to a stop. With a hiss, the doors opened and a few latecomers stumbled over themselves as they gawked at Corwin and Kai and forgot to look where they were walking.

Kai frowned as he ducked through the tram door. "I figure, you and me, both different…"

The tram-car was a barren plasteel box, no windows or seats, just a series of handrails along the walls and ceiling. Corwin grabbed one at chin height; Kai leaned against the same.

"We've been training together for eighteen months, and you just
now
try to talk to me?"

"I didn't think I'd make it," Kai said, voice louder in the enclosed car.

Corwin looked up at Kai in surprise and then forced his gaze back to the floor.

Kai snorted. "You shouldn't be surprised: I'm a
Variant.
" Kai didn't hold back any venom in the word. "I was not born, so I cannot ever truly be part of the Republic. Yet there I was, training with the elite soldiers in the highest caste in the Republic. Rubbing elbows with people whose families date back to the time of the First Exiles."

"But they didn't see you as a traitor, so they left you alone," Corwin said. He'd had to prove that he belonged with them time and again; proved it with their blood and broken bones and a few of his own.

Kai frowned. "I'm a walking, talking piece of alien tech; a constant reminder of the tithe we pay the Intergalactic Alliance. I'm the proof that the Variants are just a few steps away from changing what it means to be Human. To say 'they left me alone' makes me think you're an idiot — and I know you aren't."

That was true. They had gone after Kai nearly as often and as hard as they went after Corwin — nearly. Kai had survived and graduated at rank two, second only to the Quisling.

Corwin nodded. Kai relaxed. "So what?" Corwin asked. "You want to be best friends?"

"I don't need anything from you. As far as I know, the first chance you get, you'll shoot us in the back and run off to join your relatives in the wilds again."

Corwin's eyes bore into Kai's. "Everyone in my family is dead."

Kai rolled his shoulders and wobbled his head side-to-side, the Variant equivalent of embarrassment.

They rode in silence for a while, Corwin comfortable in his solitude, Kai not so, swaying in time to the tram.

"They'll put us together," Kai said after his dislike of silence overcame his dislike of Corwin.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Outsiders."

Corwin grunted. "Fair enough. Who else then?"

"That religious girl, the Exilist and … I'm not sure who else," Kai said, bracing as the tram slowed to a stop.

"I guess we'll see once the time comes," Corwin said over his shoulder as he stepped from the tram and weaved his way through the gathered crowd on the platform.

"Where are you going?" Kai's bass voice followed him. Kai tried to stay alongside, but his mass and his fear of the True-Borns gave Corwin enough distance and cover to escape.

From the underground station Corwin stepped into a city as alien to him as the Prehson home world. The buildings stood tall, identical, the skyline as unvarying as the gray plasteel sidewalks and roadway. Atop each of the rectangular buildings rested a dome, a half-circle that housed anti air and ground weaponry. The buildings' windows were slits designed for defense rather than illumination, with each entrance guarded by a windowless door that opened inward for easy barricading.

Efficiency in all things — that was what it meant to act with dreng in the Republic: artistry was a waste, jendr. But that dreng made everything so … the same, so plain and sad. It was bleak, desolate, and sucked the soul out of the Humans that lived within its confines like trapped rodents.

Those raised here didn't seem to mind; they knew nothing else. Corwin hated it all: the buildings, the people, the gray plasteel. Everywhere gray.

He joined the flow of civilians walking eastward, matching their gait and pace, trying to absorb the anonymity that a crowd provides. Except it didn't work today, nor would it ever work again.

Corwin bore the markings of the Maharatha, the symbol etched into every article of clothing he could now requisition. His formal wear, the purest black with red piping and seams, from which he'd neglected to change, made him stand out.

The lowest castes skirted aside, almost reverent as they bumped and jostled one another in their haste to bow. The highest subcastes of the Warrior caste too — the Teyma and Tercio — stepped from his path, nodding or saluting, depending on their own rank in relation to Corwin's. For a man, a boy, really, who wanted to remain hidden, this was the worst of all possible situations.

Not everyone moved from his path. All the Maharatha knew who and what he was, and members of the centuries-old caste to which Corwin now belonged did nothing to deflect their hate. Corwin took the side streets instead and before long arrived at his favorite park, his bastion of solitude and safety and beauty, plopped down amid the harsh people and buildings of New Detroit.

When he'd first began his stint within the Republic, he'd found his escape in similar parks, exploring each of them to their fullest, finding all the hidden places that no one wanted to tread. The parks never fit with the Republic's notion of dreng — they were such a waste of useful space — and it wasn't until much later, when Corwin spent his own free time searching through the Intergalactic Alliance's rules and regulations, that he found their purpose. Humanity was
required
, by law, to maintain a certain number of parks, trees, and green, growing things within their cities. It was tied to the Galactics' ideas of planet preservation, for if a sentient species couldn't take care of a park, it couldn't be entrusted to be the caretaker of a planet.

All of which made the parks, like the Variants, a constant reminder of the yoke placed upon Humanity by the Alliance. One more strike against Corwin, but on that long list, it was near the bottom.

At the gate, Corwin entered his passcode and stepped in. The park had two tiers, the upper-most home to a thin, shallow pool of water surrounded by lush green grass. From the pool, a narrow river fell over a cliff's edge, the resulting waterfall feeding a deep pond on the lower tier. The lower housed hundreds of tall hardwood trees, each groomed with immaculate care.

Corwin followed a series of switchback paths down the cliff-side. The canopy reached up to greet him as he passed through to the shaded forest floor below. This was one of the few places under the protection of the ion shields that he could escape the orange-yellow light. City noise filtered down through the trees, and the place smelled too clean — none of the decaying organic material that made forests smell so good — but it was as close to home as Corwin could get.

He allowed his feet to carry him to his destination. At the edge of the pond, where the water from the first tier battered the rocks along the cliff, Corwin paused. He stood still and cast out his senses, sight, sound, and dyzu, trying to identify anyone who might be nearby, who might watch him access his private place.

Satisfied, Corwin stripped down, hiding his shoes and clothing far enough from the waterfall that they wouldn't get wet. He stepped out onto the rocks. Half walking, half hopping, he edged his way out to the center, turned, and climbed up four meters into a small alcove.

The air was damp and cool, and in the few moments it took for Corwin to settle into the moss that grew on the cavern floor, a sheen of water covered his body. He listened to the falling water, his breath, his heartbeat.

He slipped into meditative oblivion.

CHAPTER THREE

Corwin was tired. When the needs of his body pulled him from his meditation, he'd returned to his bunk and gone to bed. It was the nature of Republic housing that was to blame. His was the bottom bunk in a room with the one hundred other Maharatha who'd just graduated, and while he was in the very back, their loud, drunken voices carried.

And they were drunk, all of them, drunk. The Maharatha caste meant access to higher quality goods and food, along with a higher quota of alcohol. The graduates had decided to use their entire week's allotment in one night.

At 0300 hours, he'd given up and gone into the common room to sit at a free computer terminal. He'd surfed the nets for a couple hours, his eyes passing over words, but his mind didn't register their meaning.

The alarm on his com woke him with a start. He hadn't planned on sleeping in a chair, but he was grateful for the small amount of rest; greater still was his relief that he hadn't dreamed. Corwin stood, smoothed the few wrinkles of his uniform, and made his way towards the armory.

Today was when they formed their Voids.

Corwin took his place at the rear of the mob of graduates milling in a narrow hallway, one end blocked by two mechanical doors as tall and wide as the hall. The din of excitement was enough to make several of the recovering revelers cringe and press palms to temples.

The room before them, Corwin knew, was the armory, and this occasion was when he would find the equipment that would accompany him wherever he went. This was also when each Void was formed — the combat squad comprised of four individuals each chosen to provide a check and balance to the others.

He glanced at Kai, who leaned against the opposite wall. They would see if Kai's analysis proved correct — or not. Kai ignored Corwin, instead spending his energy and attention watching the others; the Variant looked wary.

A gong sounded from somewhere, deep, resonant. The graduates fell silent.

The doors opened, retracting into the walls without a sound. There, standing on the Maharatha symbol painted onto the floor, the Oniban herself straddled the two halves.

No one moved.

"You may enter," she said.

The graduates shuffled forward, though Corwin, Kai, and one other, Chahal, hesitated just a few heartbeats before following.

The room was massive, an underground bunker with thirty rows of racks, each row twenty racks deep, the weapons arranged on the left, the armor on the right. The weapons racks were split again into two separate categories. One held ranged weapons, the other contained swords.

The swords were created from an amalgamation of Human-made materials and alien-made Droth metals, and they were able to pierce the near impenetrable exoskeletons of the Siloths' genetically engineered foot soldiers, the Grunts, which turned aside bullets, lasers, and rockets. The weapons, sword and gun alike, were masterpieces, crafted by the most dreng of the Republic's Engineer and Technician subcastes.

"I stand here in the middle of the symbol of your order. The four colors around me represent the four Kazoku. The color red, representing Ka. Across from it is the color blue, for Sui. The color brown, representing Chi, and opposite is the color green, representing Fu. Together these embody the fifth and greatest of the Godai Kazoku: Ku.

"It is within Ku — the Void — that Humanity finds its greatest strength; within unity that we survive and flourish. The Void is impossible to accomplish with a single individual. There must be others to provide the necessary balance.