Crystal Soldier (8 page)

He sipped the last bit of coffee in his cup, saw the glance between the instructors from beneath hooded eyes.

"The
sheriekas
," he murmured, almost as quietly as the younger instructor. "They use timonium as if it were the commonest of metals. If anyone can find it at a distance, they can. If anyone knows how to make it act, or how to act on it at a distance, they can."

A chime then, and the instructors looked to chronographs and hastily rose.

"Destroy your working files," said the elder tutor, "and whatever hard copies you may have made. Eventually, of course, others may see the same thing, assuming they can access the information."

The younger instructor sighed audibly.

"You have—given the information we brought together over our careers—duplicated our thinking. This information has been shared only at the highest levels. Your commanders understand and act upon it; all others ignore it and deny it."

The elder instructor picked up a travel bag and looked pointedly at Jela.

"Do not doubt yourself," he said sternly. "The particular crystal that we protect, that we live within, is in danger. You, Captain, are one of a few who know the depth of the danger, and one of the fewer still who might do something about it. "

Then, with a most unexpected flutter of pilot hand-talk, signaling,
most urgent, most urgent, most urgent
he continued. "My studies show that there are universes entirely inimical to life. And there are universes not inimical which yet have none . . . ."

From without came the sudden snarl of an air-breathing engine. The speaker lost his train of thought in the noise and looked to his fellow.

A second chime sounded, and amid a checking of pockets and carryabouts the instructors saluted Jela as if he were an admiral, and hurried off.

"Carry on, soldier," the quiet instructor said over his shoulder—and that was the last he heard or saw of them.

He carried on. He saluted the empty space, poured the last of the coffee into his cup, and sat with it cradled between his palms until it grew cold. Shaking himself, he rose, leaving a hint of a drop in the bottom of the hard-used cup, and returned to his interrupted sim.

JELA STOOD QUIETLY in the arid breeze, fascinated—or so it might have appeared to an observer—by the pair of contrails crossing the cloudless blue-green sky on exactly the same heading, one perhaps a hundred of Jela's calm breaths behind the other.

There was no way that a man without instruments could positively say which was higher, though Jela felt he knew. The leader, he thought, would land and be on its way to rotating its wheels for takeoff before the second touched down. After all, that's what had happened when he'd landed here, many days ago.

Yet the observer—and there was no small chance that there was such, likely watching from a camera or sensor stand for one last bit of measurement, one last bit of information about this particular candidate—the observer would have been wrong.

Far from being fascinated, M. Jela Granthor's Guard had pitched his mind as close to a dream state as he might while continuing to stand upright at the edge of the runway, and was himself observing: Listening to the keening echo of ancient, dead-and-gone flying things and concentrating on templates that fell almost visually across his concentration. The tree sat companionably by his side, its topmost leaves moving in a pattern not entirely wind-driven.

Leaning against the tree's lightweight traveling pot was the small kit he'd been given on his arrival at the training grounds. Anything else he owned was elsewhere, perhaps not to be seen again. He hoped, as he stood watching the contrails approach, that he'd soon be allowed his name back. The trainers had, without fail, called him Captain M, and while his name was nothing more than a quartermaster's joke, he was fond of it.

It could well be that they had been told no better name for him. After all, the fact that he was an M was there for all to see—and that he'd been training for duties and activity somewhat . . . above . . . those assigned a corporal, was also as clear as the air here.

There
.

With an almost audible snap the top branch fluttered and the template not quite before his eyes became an odd cross, the image half a small spacecraft and half a dragon gliding serenely on stiff wings.

Jela's back-brain applauded the attempt to match this relatively new experience with an unutterably ancient one, and to adjust that template on the fly, as it were.

The scary thing—and it was scary, on the face of it—was that the template continued to evolve, as if the tree were able to reach into Jela's own store of memories and capture details it could never have known of and for itself.

As he watched, the dragon's wings began to bulge at wing-root—but that was surely because Jela knew the craft on the way was an air-breather for much of the trip and would have engines buried there. Too, the keening of mighty dragons was giving way to not one, but two sets of incoming jet sounds, yet the approaching craft was still some moments beyond the range where any human ears might actually hear them.

He shivered then, did Jela, and let his attention return to the exact here and now that he breathed in, letting the template fade from his thought. The first craft was on final approach over the distant river and the second was making its turn—and
now
the engine sounds hit him, waking a touch of nostalgia for the first time he'd flown an air-breather.

There, the landing gear glinting, and
there
, the slight flare-out as a moment of ground-effect lift floated the graceful plane a heartbeat above the cermacrete runway.

A beautifully light landing then, with hardly a sound from the gear and barely a sniff of dust, and the underwhine ratcheting down quickly . . .

The fuselage hatch opened and two people stood inside, one to a side, as the craft rolled to a stop directly in front of him. The plane obligingly folded its gear to bring Jela within reach of the short step-ramp, and the two inside jumped the final knee height to his side to help him up, each flashing a salute, despite the fact he had no insignia on his near-colorless 'skins.

One of the assistants took his kit, the other considered the tree for a moment, decided on the proper way to hoist . . . .

And that quickly was Jela within the plane, and the tree beside him, the only occupants of a small if comfortable passenger cabin. The engines began revving, the plane started rising on its gear to take-off height, and the assistants helped Jela snap into his belts.

Two more salutes and the assistants stepped off the plane, leaving the tree, taking the kit, and closing the hatch against the sound and the breeze.

On the wall before him was the flashing "Lift in Progress" sign, but he'd already felt the plane's gear lock and the motion of the completed turn. He settled in, envisioning—for the tree—what had just occurred, and then relaxed as the craft hurtled down the runway and into the air. The small
thwap
of the gear-doors closing mirrored a jolt of acceleration, and the nose rose.

Through the cabin's small view port he caught a glance of the second craft, now landing. Like this one, it bore no markings.

"Well," he said conversationally to the tree, "guess I get a new wardrobe when we get where we're going!"

He closed his eyes as the comfortable push of the ship's lift continued, indicating a pilot in something of a hurry.

Being neither pilot nor co-pilot, the best thing he might do for the troop at the moment was sleep. Which he did, willingly.

AS USUAL HE WOKE quickly, finding the plane about him barely an instant after deciding to wake. The afterimage of his working dream was a reprise of his last meeting with the language team. Of all the work—ranging from new and surprisingly interesting methods of killing, to explosives, to studies of maths far beyond those that he'd aspired to—it was the language work which had been a non-stop challenge. And the dream left him with the impression that he still needed work, that his skills were not quite adequate for the task to hand.

It was then that the craft banked, and the door to the piloting chamber slid open. A voice, somewhat familiar, drifted back.

"Captain Jela, welcome. Please come forward and take the second seat."

Jela unstrapped, pleased. He hated to be bored.

The flight deck was exactly like the trainers they'd tested him on—no surprise. Nor was the pilot's face.

"Commander." He nodded as he strapped in. Her 'skins, like his, were without markings, he saw.

She nodded in return.

"Your board will be live in a few moments. We'll hit the boost shortly—but there—see your screen for details. Soon we'll rendezvous with a ship carrying your crew and you'll begin simming on your new command."

"Your board is live, Captain," she said quite unnecessarily. "And, as you'll find in your info pack when we arrive, I am Commander Ro Gayda. Welcome to the real war."

THE CARGO HAD BEEN waiting, for a wonder, and the loading expeditious, for another. She was scheduled to lift out in what passed for early tomorrow, hereabouts, which meant she had twenty-three hours, ship-time, in which to please her fancy.

The last few ports had been something short of civilized, by even her standards, so it happened she had a fancy.

She shut the board down as far as she ever did, having long ago learned not to turn off all the tell-tales and feeds, and never to put all systems in suspend, where she couldn't grab them out again in a hurry. With her outbound so soon, it really didn't make much sense to go through the extra half-shifts of shutdown and boot-up, anyway.

While
Dancer
settled in to doze, she idly watched the local port feed. Some familiar names scrolled by—a bar she knew pretty well, or at least had known pretty well, and a couple jumping-jacks.

She considered the 'jacks and shook her head. She was too old to think of paper sheets as anything but a last resort that'd leave her needing to do things right next port. The problem with running a solo ship—and having a reputation for liking it that way—was some folks figured you were
always
solo, or else somebody whose interests weren't much in the public way. Mostly, she guessed, she fit that.

Not that she'd always run solo. Back when she'd been Garen's co-pilot and they'd done most of their work in the Rim—there'd been some grand flings, back then. She sighed and shook her head again.

Wasn't any use thinking about Garen, or about past lusts, either. Nothing good ever came out of thinking about the past.

Now. Now what brain and body were united in wanting was a time to relax and sleep naked-to-naked, after a couple heavy duty squeezes, some teasing and some sharing . . . .
Now
was when it was hard on a body to be solo.

Truth told, there'd been more choices, back when. She wasn't ever going to be a beauty, but she
was
a pilot, and she damn well came out for fun with plenty of money in a public pocket so she didn't have to hold out for somebody else wanting to pay.

Back when, she didn't have the history of having killed a couple idiots who'd tried to take her ship; she didn't have a record of being fined and confined for taking on—in a fair fight!—the entire executive section of a battle cruiser and leaving them on hospital leave. Nor did she, then, know that this one beat her co-pilot, and that one stole virgins, and that other one robbed the people he slept with, every one.

And there she was, thinking about the past again. Brain melt, that's what it was. Happened when you ran solo too long. Likely, the port cops would find her in her tower, gibbering and wailing, crying over people long dead and vapor, like tears could ever right things.

She glanced back at the port feed, still scrolling leisurely through the various entertainment options, reached out to tap a key and zoom in on one section.

Beautiful. Beautiful girls, beautiful boys, beautiful couples. And, the ad said, they delivered. She could have one or a pair brought right here to her, health certificates and all.

The prospect of having a cute local pro—even a pair of cute local pros—on hand to talk to in the middle of her night warmed her not at all.

She needed to get
out
, off-ship, away from metal walls and the sound of her own thoughts. Away from the past.

A tap on the keyboard banished the port feed. Another put the lighting back to night-rest. She stood and stretched to her full lean height, then headed for the hatch, snagging her kit-bag out of the empty co-pilot's chair.

First, food from something other than ship's store, maybe with a mild stimulant, to keep the edge on. After that—not ale, not today. Today, she'd have wine. Good wine—or the best on offer. And that food—nothing out of some grab-a-bite. No. She'd have plates, and linens, and pilots. Top of the line, all the way. She could afford it today, which wasn't always the case.

By the time she reached the edge of the field, she'd almost convinced herself that she'd have a great time.

FINDING A ROOM HAD been easy enough. The clerk at the Starlight Hotel was pleased to reduce her credit chit by a significant sum in return for a room complete with a wide bed, smooth sheets overlain with a quilted coverlet dyed in graduated shades of blue. A deep-piled blue carpet covered the floor; and the personal facilities boasted a single shower and a hand-finished porcelain tub wide enough to hold two, this not being a world which was exactly short on water.

She stowed her bag, had a quick shower, hesitated over maybe putting on something a little fancier than 'skins, decided that safety came first on Faldaiza, and headed out. The sweet smell of the hotel soaps and cleansers clung to her, distracting until she forgot them in her search for the rest of the list, which had proved unexpectedly difficult to fulfill.

The first fancy eatery she approached advertised all kinds of exotic and expensive food-and-drinkables, but she caught the gleam of armor 'skins as she approached and decided against. The next place, the woman holding the door acted like maybe pilot 'skins smelled bad, and the third place was standing room only with a line out the door.