Schism: Part One of Triad (50 page)

His voice cooled. “What makes you think it was my choice?”

That surprised her. Althor had given her the impression Chad left him. “I had the sense Althor missed you.”

“That may be.” Bitterness edged his voice. “But it changes nothing.”

Soz could tell there was a lot more here. “You guys had a fight?” Then she winced. That was clumsy. But how was she supposed to say it?

“Of sorts.” ?-‘-? ‘

“What sorts?”

He looked exasperated. “Are you always this blunt?”

Soz reddened. “Well—yes. Afraid so.”

He smiled slightly, but it rapidly faded. “I was doing something he disagreed with. He gave me an ultimatum. Stop or he would leave.” He exhaled. “I didn’t stop. So he left.”

Suddenly, with clarity, Soz knew. “It was you. The phorine. You were the one he was protecting.”

“He told you?”

“You chose drugs over my brother?” Soz wanted to hit him. “Gods, you’re stupid.”

His voice hardened. “You’ve obviously never taken phorine.”

She crossed her arms. “He should have goddamned turned you in.”

Chad spoke tightly. “He did.”

She saw it in his face then. The betrayal. The shock. The withdrawal. No wonder he hadn’t come to see Althor again. She lowered her arms and spoke more quietly. “Did it work?”

“It was a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry.” She meant it

It was a moment before he answered. “Yes, it worked. I’m grateful to be free of it. But that doesn’t excuse what he did.”

“Chad, if you had died or had your life destroyed because he had done nothing, would that have been all right?”

“It was my life to destroy.”

“You don’t know my brother very well, if you believe he could have walked away from someone he loved and lived with himself.”

Chad pushed his hand through his hair, tousling it around his collar. “It didn’t seem that way then.”

“He told the brass at DMA he didn’t know any cadets who used phorine.”

“He didn’t I was never at DMA. I’m a civilian.” He turned back to the window and pressed his palms against the glass, looking into the room. “He paid for me to stay at the most expensive private clinic on Diesha. Then he turned me in to the civilian authorities. My sentence was either the clinic or prison.”

He shrugged, trying to look as if he didn’t care. “I took the clinic.”

“You must be a psion, if phorine affected you.”

“Yes. Both empath and telepath.”

No wonder Althor liked him. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Your family would never have accepted us anyway.”

Soz didn’t know what to say. He was right. Nor was it only her family. The Assembly no doubt had an arranged match in mind for Althor, just as tiiey did for the rest of her siblings. Maybe Grell.

For a while they stood together watching Althor. Eventually Chad had to leave. Then Soz was alone with her memories and a life mat no longer made sense. In her childhood,

she had seen the world in bright, clear colors. Now everything had changed.

She could no longer fall back on unconditional ideas of right and wrong.

Every time she thought she knew what path to take, she ran into moral, ethical, and emotional roadblocks. Which way? Always the choices came with a price. DMA. Vibarr. Shannon and Vitarex. The Echo. Althor’s silence on Chad.

Right and wrong made no sense anymore. It had all turned gray.

She laid her palm on the window, wishing she could apologize to Althor for all those spiney-wogs. “Come back,” she whispered.

No one answered.

A single light burned in the outer office, gilding the antique moldings on the door frame and the polished wooden desk. Soz paused, uncertain. For some reason, she hadn’t expected this place to be empty. It made sense, of course; it was well into evening. The executive officer who usually sat here had surely gone home.

Soz steeled herself and walked to a large door behind the desk. Paneled in gold wood, with brass fittings, the door arched wim an elegant severity.

Antique severity; it had no pager or access panel she could see. Nothing to do but knock. Taking a breath, she rapped on the wooden portal. Then she waited.

“Come,” a deep voice called.

She had gone too far now to turn back. She turned the ornate brass knob and opened me door.

The large office beyond matched the door, traditional and imposing. It wasn’t the first time she had been here, but it was the most intimidating. Commandant Grant Blackmoor sat behind his desk across the huge office, his arms folded on its surface, a slew of holosheets in front of him. He looked tired, worn-out, ready to finish his day. From the pile of work, Soz suspected that regardless of whether or not he was ready to go home, he would be here for many more hours. The prospect of full-scale war was keeping more than a few people awake at night. Like about two trillion.

He set his light-stylus on the table. “Good evening, Cadet Valdoria.” He indicated a chair by his desk. “Come in.”

“Thank you, sir.” Soz made the long trek across his office. Her palms were wet with perspiration, but she restrained the urge to wipe mem on her jumpsuit.

She sat in the chair, on its edge.

Blackmoor watched her with a cool, measured gaze. “What can I do for you this evening?”

Soz knew she had to push ahead with this now or she would lose her nerve.

“Sir—I don’t know if you heard. Earlier today I broke the record for running the Echo.”

His gaze seemed to shutter. “Quite an accomplishment.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t.” She bit her lip, men realized what she was doing and stopped. “Sir.” She forced out words mat wanted to stick in her throat. “I cheated.”

“You cheated.” Blackmoor didn’t make it a question.

“Yes, sir.”

“How?”

“I hacked the field training mesh.”

“In other words, you violated the honor code.”

“Yes, sir.”

His expression hardened. ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t have you expelled immediately.”

What if they threw her out? Just because they hadn’t done it to other students for similar infractions didn’t mean they wouldn’t with her. She wanted to say, You didn’t expel Vibarr for harassing me. You didn’t even expel a damned phorine seller. But mose cadets had “left” anyway.

None of that mattered, though. Soz had realized it as she watched her brother’s living death. She had to live with herself. The fact that others may not have received as harsh a punishment made no difference. She had to learn to deal with the gray or she would lose her way forever.

She said only, “You have the right.”

“So I do.” He sat considering her. “Valdoria, you aren’t the first student to crack the field mesh. And we already had good reason to believe you had done so.”

She had no excuses, so she said nothing.

Blackmoor leaned back in his seat, his elbow on its upholstered arm. “What do you think I should do with you?”

Soz met his gaze, knowing her face was red. “Some sort of disciplinary action.”

“I’m glad we’re in agreement.” He rubbed the back of his neck and turned his head from side to side. “I’m taking you off the honor list. You will have a new set of demerits, starting this evening. Your altered status and assignments will be posted on the mesh tonight Also, you will be on probation for the rest of this year.”

Soz nodded, stiff and awkward, but also relieved. At least they weren’t going to kick her out. “Yes, sir.”

He spoke with a quieter aspect than usual. “How is your brother?”

“He’s … as well as can be expected.” She couldn’t say the truth, even if they both knew. As long as Althor breathed, regardless of how much help the machines gave him, she hoped.

“My sympathies,” he said. Ťiii*ťanwiMiMŤťťiKi Soz swallowed. “Thank you.”

He glanced at the holosheets scattered across his desk, then back at her.

“That will be all.”

“Yes, sir.” She stood and saluted.

As she turned to leave, she heard him shuffling the holosheets. She had only gone a few steps toward the door, though, when he spoke behind her. “Cadet.”

Soz turned around. “Yes, sir?”

“It can’t have been easy to come here tonight”

“It had to be done.”

“Yes. It did.” He exhaled. “Carry on, Valdoria.”

“Yes, sir.”

She left his office and went out into the night. As she walked to the dormitory, she passed cadets on their way to the library, to study or socialize, as so many students did on a balmy night like this. She wouldn’t be joining them any evening soon, balmy or otherwise. Mucking with spamoozala and mechbots would occupy her free time for the rest of the year.

A few people waved at her, and she waved back, but she felt like an interloper. A cheat. A fake JagernauL No, they weren’t perfect. Yes, they made decisions compromised by the conflicting demands of their lives. But the code of honor had to matter. She had lost sight of that Stupid, cocky cadet. She would have been tempted to throw herself out of the academy, too.

So she trudged on, headed to her dorm and a year of probation, knowing she could make no more mistakes if she wanted to graduate, to receive her commission, all for the purpose of going out there to live the reality of an oncoming war that had put those dark circles under Blackmoor’s eyes.

That had killed her brother.

27

Visitors

walkway circled to the Blue Tower of the castle in Dalvador under the overhang of its turreted roof. Shannon stood on the walk, shaded by the roof, his hands resting on the sculpted edges of the wall, which resembled stone petals, just as the roof resembled a bell-flower turned upside down. He had studied holos of flowers in school, but he had no desire to see real ones in their natural habitat. He couldn’t imagine going offworld. It would split him in two, leaving his spirit here while his body went elsewhere.

He had to leave.

He couldn’t leave.

His parents were going to Althor. He wanted to go with them. But he couldn’t.

The ISC doctors had concerns, something about his neural development, that it was going through a growth surge. They claimed that where he went in the next

few years would affect its proper maturation. He didn’t really understand, and he suspected they didn’t, either.

No one had expected it to take over a year for Father to leam the use of his new legs and eyes. They had yet to unravel the differences between die Rillian brain and human norms. Blue Dale Archers differed even more. Shannon’s doctors genuinely feared diat if he left Lyshriol now, his brain wouldn’t develop properly, especially after the shocks of his recent experiences. So he had to stay home.

He and Althor had never truly said good-bye. Maybe his Blue Dale brain was different, but it didn’t change his love for his family. The thought of leaving Lyshriol frightened him. But the Uiought of never seeing his brotiier again frightened him even more.

In the distance, out at the starport, an ISC shuttle waited on the tarmac, gleaming black and gold in the sunlight His parents were walking toward it with several other people, their pace slow and careful. Eldrinson took it step by step, leaning on a cane, refusing any aid that hinted at advanced technology. Roca walked beside him, but she didn’t offer her arm. Shannon knew why; pride would stop his father from accepting help.

Soon the shuttle would rise into orbit, taking his parents to a battle cruiser. He thought of running to the port, insisting they take him. But they had already said no. He would remain here while they bade Althor farewell.

It hurt more than he could say.

In the greater scheme of star travel, the trip wasn’t long, only a few days.

They traveled on a Firestorm battle cruiser. The kilometers-long cylinder rotated to create an apparent gravity close to human standard. The ship was a star-faring metropolis. Bronze corridors and gold paths led through a city of coppery buildings and balconies. A sky needle soared in the distance, one of the great spokes that radiated from the center of the cylinder to its rim.

Eldrinson doubted he would even have known he was on a ship, except that instead of a sky, it had a curving hull far overhead.

This wasn’t his first trip offworld. He went as lately as possible, but he did travel with Roca every year or so. As such trips went, this was routine.

It could have even been pleasant

It was die hardest journey he had ever taken.

He spoke to almost no one. He spent time with Roca, but no one else. Although he wished they could have brought the children, it relieved him to know they were safe. Except even Lyshriol wasn’t safe; his aching legs and blurred sight spoke brutally of that trum.

He rarely tried to walk. Either he had to go painfully slow or else he lurched and fell. But he couldn’t lean on people. Alone, with Roca, he could bear me shame of needing help, but every time he looked into her gold eyes, so different from the violet or silver of his people, he remembered his wife came from this fast, cold universe. He knew she loved him. How could he not know?

They were psions. But it never changed the truth. Her willingness to settle for less didn’t make his deficiencies any less bleak.

The power spiked.

Normally the tech wouldn’t have noticed such a slight power surge in the grid he monitored, one dedicated to the desert east of the Red Mountains on the world Diesha. Tonight he had forgotten to bring the entertainment disk he was enjoying with its in-depth exposes on the lives of nobles from the great Skolian Houses, especially Majda and Rajindia. It left him staring morosely and with great boredom at the graphs floating in the air above the console. He had nothing else to do, so he noticed the spike.

With so much free time, he spent half an hour checking various systems, first the defense installations he monitored and then the systems he used to do the monitoring. When he found no problems, he made a note in the record, adding his opinion that me surge was a bit too far out of the usual parameters. He forwarded a copy to the main office. It gave him something to do.