A Talent for War (25 page)

Ashiyyur wanted equal time. But I knew it was a mistake. The contrast between Tarien, who is a father figure with a bright red beard and a voice that inspires revolution; and the silent, ominous, stick figure, could hardly have been greater.

There were more than four hundred graduates, counting those receiving advanced degrees.

They sat in rows across Morien Field, where students have been listening to commencement oratory for almost four centuries. Behind them, a crowd of spectators—far larger than any I've seen during all the years I've been attending these things—overflowed the seating areas, and spilled into the athletic fields beyond. The press was out in force. And there was an army of security people, the University's own reinforced by city police and several dozen unmistakable narrow-eyed agents of one kind and another.

It was a restless afternoon. Everyone was looking for something to happen, anxious to see it when it did, but maybe a little scared to get caught in it.

The student speakers said the things that students always say at such times, and their remarks gathered polite applause. Then President Hendrik rose to introduce Sim. I understand there was something of a pushing match between the University and the government over the order of speakers. Hendrik wanted to give the final word to Sim, which would be his way of demonstrating publicly that he no more approved of the presence of the Ambassador than did the rest of the mob. But the government had insisted that the alien dignitary receive that honor.

The crowd stirred expectantly while Hendrik praised Sim's courage and abilities in these perilous times, and so on. Then they roared their applause when he rose and took his place at the podium. He shook hands with a couple of VIPs, pointedly not looking at the Ambassador. He stilled the clamor with a casual wave of his right hand, and surveyed his audience.

"Graduations," he said, foregoing the customary preliminary greetings, "are about the future.

"It would be tempting to speak of the accomplishments of the recent past. About the first serious efforts to abolish war, to unite the human family, to ensure security and a measure of prosperity for everyone. After all, these have been our goals for a long time, and they have proved more elusive than those who first proclaimed them would have believed." Leisha sat motionless beside the Ambassador. Her features were strained, her limbs rigid. Her hands were closed in tight fists.

I wasn't alone in noticing. Others seemed fascinated by her presence at the Ambassador's side, as though there were something vaguely obscene in it. And I found it difficult myself to put to rest a similar notion. Please don't quote me or I'll deny it.

"Unfortunately," Tarien continued, "there's still much to do. More than my generation can hope to accomplish.

"Rather, it will be for you to succeed finally, to recognize that there can be no safety for any, until all are safe; no peace until those who would make war understand that there is no profit to be had—" Well I could quote or paraphrase all of it, Connie. He was that good. If anybody can unite these bickering worlds into a Confederacy, he can. He spoke of remote places and courage and duty and the ships that carry ideals between the stars.

"In the end," he said, "it will not be arms that decide our destiny. It will be the same weapon that has destroyed oppressive governments and ambitious invaders time and again, since we built the first printing press. Or maybe carved a few symbols into the first tablet. Free ideas. Free ideals.

Common decency.

"Time is on our side. The enemy with whom we contend, who would threaten, if it could, our survival, cannot with its warships overcome the power of a mind that thinks for itself."

The applause started slowly, and rippled swiftly across the cool grass, gathering momentum.

One of the graduates stood, a tall proud young woman, whose dark eyes burned fiercely. I wasn't close enough to see tears, but I knew they were there. One by one others joined her, until they were all on their feet.

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Tarien again signaled for silence, and got it. "It is better," he said, "that we recall those we have lost, for they have given us our future. They have bought time for us. But there will surely come an hour when we can celebrate together, when we have completed our task, and rolled back our oppressor."

They stood for several moments. The assemblage had become a large animal, and you could hear it breathe. Tarien bowed. "For my brother, and for all who fight in your name, I thank you."

Connie, I wish you had been there. It was magnificent! I doubt there was a single person in the square who would not gladly have traded his present station for some fighting skills, and a good deck underfoot. What more could one ask of this life than to join the Dellacondans?

Well, I can see you snickering: how Candles goes on. Must be getting old. But God help me, we're approaching the species9 most critical test. And when years from now we look back on all this, I'd like to know that I made a contribution—

I felt sorry for the Ambassador, lone awkward mannequin, withering in the face of such a storm.

Hendrik, uncertain, frightened, came to center stage. We were all restless, wondering what was coming next.

"Honored Guests," he said, speaking flatly. "Faculty Members, Graduates, Friends of the University: our next speaker is the Ashiyyurean Ambassador, M'Kan Keoltipess."

Far away, almost on the horizon, a skimmer was rising above the tree line. I imagined I could hear the whisper of its magnetics.

The Ambassador rose awkwardly. It was clearly uncomfortable, whether from the local gravity (which was somewhat heavier than on Toxicon, where it had served until recently) or from its perception of the situation, I do not know. Leisha rose and stood beside it. She looked simultaneously defiant and unruffled. She had apparently used the time to get hold of herself.

And this you'll like: she unnerved the crowd by offering the Ambassador her arm, and guiding it toward the podium.

It took its place, towering over Leisha. From within the robes came a sound like dried bones cracking. Leisha took a lightpad from her tunic. Obviously it contained the speech she was to read. But the Ambassador signaled her to put it away. I realized we were seeing the old human game of throwing away the prepared address. It fumbled with the folds of its hood, as a woman might with a skirt imagined to expose a bit too much. It raised both hands, shook the hood down to its shoulders, and stood uncovered, blinking in the bright sunlight.

It was very old. And its parchment features looked pained. The animal that Tarien Sim had created remained together, and it took a few psychological steps backward.

The Ambassador extended long desiccated fingers. They had too many joints, and the flesh was tight and gray. They danced in the sunlight, and there was much in their frenetic, graceful movements that left me chilled.

Leisha watched the fingers, and nodded. My impression was that she hesitated at translating its first "remarks," but obviously the Ashiyyurean insisted.

"The Ambassador thanks me," she said, "and wishes to say that he understands this is not easy for me. He also says: I understand your anger at this hour." The hands weaved their intricate patterns. "I wish to extend greetings to President Hendrik, to the honored Guests, to the Faculty, to the Graduates, and to their families. And especially—" it turned toward Tarien Sim, seated far to its right, "especially to the gallant representative of the Rebels, an opponent whom I would prefer to call 'friend.'"

It paused, and I thought I could read genuine regret in its face. "We wish you all good fortune.

On an occasion such as this, when young ones go forward to test their knowledge, and to embrace their lives, we are particularly prone to realize that for them wisdom lies yet in the future. I can't help observing that, when one considers the conditions under which we meet
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today, much the same may be true of our two species."

Leisha's voice, which had begun with too high a timbre, and some trace of nervousness, had settled into its customary richness. She was, of course, no match for Tarien Sim, but she was damned good.

"To the graduates," the Ambassador continued, "I would point out that wisdom consists in recognizing what is truly important. And in treating with suspicion any cherished belief whose truth is so clear that one need not put it to the test. Among our people, we maintain that wisdom consists in recognizing the extent to which one is prone to error."

It paused, allowing Leisha a moment to catch her breath.

"I would have preferred not to speak about politics today. But I owe it to you and to my own people to respond to Ambassador Sim. He has said there is a major conflict, and he is sadly correct. But the struggle is not between Ashiyyur and human. It is between those who would find a way to settle our difficulties peacefully, and those who believe only in resorting to a military solution. It is essential during the dark days that surely lie before us that you be aware that you have friends among us, and enemies among your own.

"Our psychological reactions to each other are intense, but not so much so that they cannot be overcome. If we wish. If we insist! In any case, I implore you not to use them as a basis to form a moral judgment. If we commit that crime against each other, we shall bear a heavy burden before history.

"I can not agree more strongly with Ambassador Sim's remarks. For all our differences, of culture and physiognomy and perception, we share the one gift that really matters: we are thinking creatures. And on this day, under this sun, I pray that we will find ourselves capable of using that gift. I pray that we will pause in our headlong rush, and think!"

The entry, I noted belatedly, was earmarked for another book which was to have developed the influences on Walford Candles's early years. I was still thinking about it, wondering how events could have gone so wrong when everyone seemed to want to do the right thing. Weren't perceptions worth anything at all?

I have no answers, other than a suspicion that there is something relentlessly seductive about conflict. And that, after all these millennia, we still don't understand the nature of the beast.

Chase found more: a holo communication from Leisha, routed from Ilyanda, and dated thirty-two days after the earlier Millennium message. It was short: Watty, I'm forwarding separately a written statement by Kindrel Lee which has things to say about Matt. It's a wild story, and I don't know what to believe. We need to talk about it when I get home.

"I don't understand this," I said. I stared at the date, and consulted a text. "This thing was sent from Ilyanda after the evacuation. And probably after the destruction of Point Edward. What the hell's going on? Why would she have gone there?"

"I don't know," said Chase, who was searching through the piles of documents that we'd assembled.

"Where's the statement?"

"Forwarded separately," she said. "It doesn't seem to be included with this material."

XIV.

The destruction of Point Edward (after it had been evacuated) was an act of puzzling barbarity.

Nothing could have more readily demonstrated the gap between human reason and alien spasm.

In the wake of that destruction, men were sufficiently horrified that, for a moment, they drew together and came very close to recognizing their own common humanity and the peril it faced.

Unfortunately, the moment passed quickly

.

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—Arena Cash, War in the Void

THE CURIOUS THING about Matt Olander's grave is that it was waiting for the refugees when they returned to Ilyanda after the war. They found it in a weed-choked field that had once been a lawn, not twenty meters from the main terminal at the William E. Richardson Spaceport.

It was marked by a single oblate white slab which had been cut out of the front of the building with a laser. The slab was engraved, presumably with the same tool: Matt Olander died Avrigil 3, 677

No Stranger to Valor

The characters were crudely cut, the name and the last word written large. They tended a trifle toward the ornate, in the style of two centuries ago. The date, in Ilyanda's calendar, corresponded with the Evacuation.

The site lies within a grove. There are low hedges and flowering trees and seashell walkways.

Overhead, a Dellacondan pennant, with its harridan sigil encased within the silver ring of the Confederacy, snaps fiercely in a cold stiff wind off the ocean. At the foot of the flagpole, the Point Edward Historical Society has erected a stone marker: a bronze plate, dated 716, carries Olander's name, and a remark attributed to him, reportedly spoken to a comrade during the final moments of the evacuation: It is not proper that Point Edward should face the mutes without a defender.

The base of the monument is engraved with a resolution of the Joint Chambers, that Matthew Olander never be forgotten by the City he would not desert.

The site is the sort of place people go to on holidays, to sit on benches and watch seabirds and floaters. On the midwinter day we were there (I'd brought Chase along), a troop of kids were flying brightly colored gliders, and a large tourist group had debarked from an airbus and were milling about. Ilyanda's white sun Kaspadei was breaking through a gray sky; and most of the older visitors were hurrying about, glancing at the inscriptions, and climbing back into the airbus, where it was warm.

It's a lonely place, despite its proximity to the Richardson terminal. Maybe the sense of isolation is spiritual rather than geographical. Standing beneath the canopy of shrub trees within an enclosure dedicated solely to one individual's courage. I kept thinking about the slippery quality of truth. How would Olander's comrades—the ones who had sneered at his memory and suggested to Leisha Tanner that he was a traitor—How would they have responded to all this?

No Stranger to Valor.

Where was the truth? What had happened on Point Edward?

"Who put it here?" asked Chase. She looked solemn, thoughtful, almost oppressed. The wind pulled at her hair, and she brushed it back, out of her eyes.