Earth 2788 (18 page)

I broke off and
looked round for Drago. “What are you calling that dome this time?”

“It’s marked ‘The
Colonel doesn’t want to know,’” yelled Drago.

There was more
cheering.

“Right, that’s
it,” I said. “You now have twenty-four hours before the cleanup squad start
trying to sober people up and reunite them with their luggage. Have an
excellent party, and that’s an order!”

I stepped down
from the podium, feeling oddly shaky, and went back across to stand with Stone
and Leveque. As I reached them, the singing started. Drago’s magnified voice
alone for the first line, and then the whole mob joining in. Old Lang Zine. A
song so old that a lot of the words didn’t make sense any longer, but the mere
sound of it hit me like an emotional punch in the stomach. Everyone sang it at
Year End, as midnight interstellar standard Green Time marked the end of the
old year and the start of the new one. The Military sang it at every handover
party, as they said goodbye to a world and friends they’d worked with for years
and prepared to move on to new challenges.

This time I
wasn’t moving on. This time there was no new beginning, just old memories. The
people around me were hugging each other as they sang, even the enigmatic
Leveque had his arm round his wife and was smiling, but I stood alone. People
don’t randomly hug their commanding officer, but I felt the touch of ghostly
arms round my shoulders, and heard the laughter from decades ago.

The last line of
the song ended, and there was a moment of silence before a drum beat sounded.
Colourful banners started unfurling among the crowd.

“Here we go
again,” said Nia Stone. “I never know how the Betans can produce their clan
banners and drums out of thin air.”

I fought off the
memories of the past and smiled. It was a standard Military joke that you
didn’t have to encourage Betans to maintain their cultural heritage, your
problem was stopping them!

“Everyone says
that Betans have their clan banners surgically implanted at birth,” I said.

“I could almost
believe that,” said Nia Stone.

“The probability
of that rumour being true is significantly less than 1 per cent,” said Leveque
with a perfectly straight face. “Military doctors have consistently failed to
find any confirming evidence.”

Nia and I
laughed.

The array of
different clan banners were forming up in the centre of the dome now,
surrounded by a mob wearing either Military uniforms or togas. Everyone else moved
out of the way and stood watching them.

“I can see the
whole of Drago’s team out there,” said Nia, “though only five of them are Betan.”

Leveque shrugged.
“Betans have a way of dragging people into things, and Drago’s especially good
at it.”

The clan banners
were lined up now, with the banner of Beta sector at the front. Most of the
banners were the familiar ones of the Betan Military clans, but there were a
few Betans who’d been born into civilian clans, joined the Military as sector
recruits, and carried less well-known banners. I saw the flash of a sword among
the banners, frowned, and prepared to intervene. Drago should know better than
this. The Betans were allowed all the drums and banners they liked at parties,
but the use of ceremonial swords was strictly limited to …

The people
standing in front of me moved aside, giving me a clearer view of who was
holding the sword. I saw it was Captain Marlise Weldon and relaxed. Three years
ago, just after graduating the Military Academy, she’d represented the Military
in the Olympics at Tai Chi sword form. Her decision to accept Planet First
assignments had ended her competitive career, since it meant spending long
periods on worlds under strict quarantine, but she still did some training and
I knew all her swords had safely blunt blades.

More drums were
sounding now, and the beats were faster. I watched Marlise take up the first
position of the Tai Chi form, with her sword held vertically behind her. I’d
seen her display several times before, but it was always impressive to watch,
so I was annoyed when someone came to stand in front of me. I gave them an
irritated look and was startled to see it was Drago. He held out a toga towards
me.

“Today, you run
with us.”

I was still
emotionally overloaded from the singing, but I clung to sanity. I couldn’t go
back in time. I couldn’t bring the dead to life, and nothing could be the same
without them. I shook my head. “I left the clan nearly twenty years ago.”

“With respect,
you joined the clan on the day of your marriage, and you have never left it.
You’ve just been absent for a while.”

I pulled a face.
“Drago, I appreciate the gesture, but no.”

“Today, you run
with us,” he repeated.

Drago had
obviously planned this carefully, getting Captain Weldon to create a
distraction, but the people nearby had started noticing something was going on.
Nia Stone was looking puzzled, but Mason Leveque had an unreadable expression
on his face. I had a feeling he knew exactly what was happening here. Normal
people wouldn’t research their commanding officer’s personal history from two
decades ago, but Leveque was a Threat team leader. It was his job to spot
potential dangers, and calculate the best way to deal with them, and the
strengths and weaknesses of his commanding officer were an important factor in
those calculations. Leveque probably knew the exact date I had my first
haircut.

“I said no,
Major Tell Dramis.” My tone of voice was a sharp order, and now people were
openly staring at us.

“This is nothing
to do with the Military,” said Drago. “This is family. Today, you run with us,
Riak.” He added something incomprehensible in strong Betan dialect rather than
standard Language.

“You’re wasting
your time talking Betan at me, Drago. I never really got the hang of the
dialect.”

“What I said was
that you’re retiring, Riak, and that’s a time for returning home. Are you
really planning to spend your retirement on a random Military base, sitting
listening to other retired officers endlessly repeat the same anecdotes, when
you could come home to play a full and active part in the life of your family?”

I couldn’t help
picturing the clan hall on Zeus, with its constant chaos of serving officers
home on leave, civilians, and retired officers. The children too, of course.
There was always a crowd of children, left at the clan hall to attend the
Military school on Zeus while their parents were on hazardous Planet First
assignments. As a retired officer, I’d be expected to help run the clan hall,
keep an eye on the children, and offer advice to the teenagers nearing Military
recruitment age.

“It could never
be the same,” I said.

“It could never
be the same,” said Drago. “But it could be different.”

He smiled. It’s
strange the way a family resemblance can suddenly leap out at you. There was
something about Drago’s smile …

“Run with us,
Riak,” said Drago. “If I have to, I’ll stand here for hours.”

Part
IV

Drago thrust the toga at me again,
and I found myself taking it. “I’ll run with you, Drago, but don’t get ideas.”
I stripped off my jacket, and shrugged the toga on over the top of the rest of
my uniform. “I can’t just rejoin the clan and move into the clan hall. Not with
so many memories of …”

“I understand
that,” he said. “You could start with a very short visit, and then make some
longer ones. Give yourself plenty of time to gradually adjust before moving
home permanently.”

I tugged my toga
roughly into place. There was no point in my trying to adjust the folds
properly. However much care I took with it, I knew I’d still look a mess,
because I had nearly as much trouble wearing togas as I did wearing Military
dress uniforms.

The drum beats
had stopped now. I glanced round, saw Marlise Weldon had ended her display, and
that everyone in the dome was staring at me and Drago with shocked faces. All
except Mason Leveque, who had an odd smile on his face as if he’d expected this
to happen.

I turned back to
Drago. We hugged each other in the traditional embrace of clan kindred, before
taking a step back and solemnly facing each other.

“Fidelis, Riak.”
Drago saluted me, not with the Military salute, but the right hand on heart salute
of Beta sector.

I copied his
gesture. I hadn’t given a Betan salute for almost two decades, but it seemed
oddly natural.

The drums
started again, in a staccato rhythm that echoed through my bones and set my
pulse beating faster. Drago lifted both arms and turned to face the banners.

“Be-ta!” He
separated the two syllables, emphasizing them as if they were different words,
and pronouncing the second syllable with the distinctive Betan inflection.

“Be-ta!” The
crowd in the centre of the dome answered him.

“Be-ta!” I
joined in the chanting.

The Betans
started circling the dome at a slow run, parading their banners. Sometimes just
one person was with a clan banner, sometimes there were a cluster of people
from the same clan. I saw a whole lot of extra people who definitely weren’t
Betan, including Captain Weldon. She was carrying a heartbreakingly familiar
banner.

As the parade
reached us, the leader passed the Beta sector banner to Drago, and Captain
Weldon held out her banner to me.

I shook my head.
“Drago should …”

I looked for
Drago, saw he’d already run off leading the parade, and groaned. There wasn’t
anyone else from our clan here, so I accepted the banner and joined the parade.
I was a bit old to be running round a dome waving my clan banner, but Betans
have a way of dragging people into things.

By the time we’d
circled the dome twice, those of us in the lead had almost caught the ones at
the back. One final lap, then the sound of drums reached a climax. There was a
burst of wild cheering, the parade stopped, and broke up into groups of
laughing people.

The sound of
drums was replaced by music now. I gave myself a moment to catch my breath, and
then turned to look at the vid display on the far wall. It was blank for a
moment, then the names started scrolling up. Mostly in pairs, but occasionally
three together. Beside the names were abbreviations to show if it was a
standard Twoing or Threeing contract that had been registered, or a request
sent to Betan clans to arrange formal betrothal or marriage ceremonies.

Each set of
names was greeted by applause and a burst of cheering from somewhere in the
dome. This happened at every handover ceremony. Some relationships would have
been agreed months ago, but the people involved had deliberately waited for
this moment to register a contract with their friends around them. Others would
have made a spur of the moment decision, hit by emotion during the singing of
Old Lang Zine, and the knowledge that this was their last chance.

Tomorrow, all
the thousands of people here would head off on leave, scattering across
hundreds of different worlds. After that statutory leave, they’d move on to
random new assignments. Any sort of formal commitment, even the minimum three
month Twoing contract, guaranteed your next assignment would be together.
Without one, you’d probably spend the next few years apart.

So some of the
relationships scrolling up the wall were serious commitments. Others were just
to give a casual attraction a chance to turn into something more. They all got
their cheers though. The list finally reached the end, only to suddenly jerk on
again as a couple of extremely last minute decisions were made.

I retrieved my
jacket, turned on my microphone and called out. “Attention everyone. Marriage
time! Anyone wanting to get married should see the Medical team leader for
their blood tests, and then come down to join me in the Quiet Zone.”

I headed off
down the corridor that linked this dome to the next one, went past a large
notice that said “You are entering the Quiet Zone! Betans Put Your Clothes On!”,
and followed an arrow marked “Marriages” down a side corridor to a small
meeting room.

I dumped my
jacket on the back of a chair, sat down at the circular table, and buried my
face in my hands. What had come over me back there? Wearing a toga again! Embracing
Drago as my clan kindred! Carrying the clan banner! What the chaos did the
people watching think?

And a female
voice in my head spoke. “It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. We are Betan,
and we are proud of it!”

There was male
laughter. “You’re back with us at last, farm boy. What took you so long?”

“Don’t sound so
sickeningly smug about it!” I said aloud. “You’ve no idea how bad it was to be
the one left alive and struggling with survivor guilt. I still think I’m making
a huge mistake. I’ve more or less committed myself to visit the clan hall, and
going there could never be the same.”

The female voice
in my head spoke. “But it could be different.”

I sighed. “That’s
what Drago said. He’s got your smile, you know. That’s what made me …”

There was a
chime from the door. I hastily stopped talking to myself, and tapped the
control on the table. The door opened and a man and woman entered. Their faces were
familiar, but I’d forgotten their names. Thousands of officers had worked on
Maia, so it wasn’t surprising I couldn’t remember them all.

I checked the
messages on my lookup and found their marriage request. They were two of the
Military scientists, which meant I’d had less contact with them than the combat
Military officers. Both in their early twenties, both born in Delta sector, and
the medical check showed they were perfectly sober. I had absolutely nothing to
worry about here.

I smiled at them.
“I see you’ve got five prior Twoing contracts, which means you could register
your marriage conventionally as soon as you’re on leave back in Delta sector.”

“We felt it was
more appropriate now,” said the man. “This is an emotional day.”

I nodded, took
their handprints, registered the marriage, and gave them my congratulations. The
next couple were two women who I definitely recognized. I frowned at them.

“I married you
two last year! Is this some sort of anniversary re-enactment?”

They exchanged
embarrassed looks. “Our divorce was finalized an hour ago,” said one of them.

“We decided it
was a mistake,” said the other.

I remembered the
conversation between Stone and Leveque just before the handover ceremony.
Presumably they’d been talking about these two. “You’re quite sure you want to
get married again? I’ve got several more marriage requests, so you could go to
the back of the queue and take a few more minutes to think about it.”

“We’re sure,”
said one of them.

“It was my
fault,” said the other. “I should have told her about …”

I lifted a hand
to stop her. “I’m not asking for private details. I just want to know you’ve
thought carefully about this.”

“We have,” they
chorused.

I did the
registering and congratulations routine. The next ten marriages were
straightforward. All established couples from Military families. All duo
marriages. I’d very rarely had to officiate at a triad marriage in my career,
because most of them involved at least one Betan, and Betans always wanted
proper clan ceremonies.

The last but one
couple puzzled me. They were another two of the Military scientists, but I
remembered this pair perfectly. I’d had to give them disciplinary lectures at
least four times because their running feud with each other was disrupting
their work.

“I thought you
two hated each other.”

The man
shrugged. The woman nodded. “We do.”

“Why do you want
to get married if you hate each other?”

They both
started speaking at once, and broke off to glare at each other. “I don’t
believe that information is relevant,” said the man.

“I
think
it is.” I quoted Military Regulations. “When officiating at a marriage, a
commanding officer must ensure all parties have given due thought to the
commitment involved.”

“It’s a purely
temporary arrangement,” said the man. “We’ve been informed we’re a genetically
desirable match, and we want the child to be born within a marriage for legal
reasons.”

I gave him a
startled look, and hastily checked their records. Both born on Freya in Alpha
sector, and obviously believers in its old genetically-guided parenthood
system. Under the rules of the Military Charter, my official actions had to be
politically neutral and without prejudice. Whatever my personal opinions, I had
no right to refuse to marry these people.

I sighed, went
through the formalities, offered congratulations that didn’t seem very welcome,
and gloomily watched the pair of them leave.

The final couple
on the marriage list were a total contrast. Two lieutenants, both from Military
families, who’d arrived from the Military Academy just three months ago. They
looked incredibly young, but everyone under the age of 40 looked young to me
these days. The way they were holding on to each other told me they were
genuinely in love, so I was far happier marrying them than the couple from
Freya who hated each other.

When they’d
left, I frowned down at the table. I’d planned to rejoin the party at this
point, but only stay long enough to say a personal farewell to a few key people
before going back to my quarters to finish my packing. After that, my idea had
been to quietly leave for Tethys in Gamma sector. I hadn’t been back to my home
world since my parents died, and I had an odd hankering for a nostalgic visit
to the carrot fields.

Things were
different now though. The wall shielding me from the past was breaking down, so
I had to rethink everything. I ran my fingers through my hair. I’d stay for
most of the party, and then go to Tethys as planned, but a couple of days with
the carrots should be more than enough to rekindle my old hatred of them. After
that, I’d go to Zeus in Beta sector, and revisit a few places I hadn’t seen in
two decades, like Lake Galad. If I coped with that, then maybe I’d call in at
the clan hall for an hour.

I heard the
female voice in my head. “Why did you two decide on Galad as the male surname
for our triad marriage?”

“We’ve told you
that at least a dozen times,” said the male voice in my head. “Combining Torrek
with my surname came out sounding silly. Riak and I went on a boat trip at Lake
Galad just before our betrothal ceremony. That was when we talked through his
concerns about exactly how the relationships in our triad marriage would work.”

There was a
female sigh. “I still have the feeling you’re hiding something.”

She was right.
What actually happened was we were messing about and capsized our boat. He
scared me to death by vanishing underwater, and I dived down to save him from a
watery grave, only to discover the man could swim like a fish and was happily
trying to retrieve his jacket from the lake bed.

Once we reached
the beach, he made the mistake of teasing me about my panic-stricken reaction
to his assumed death by drowning. I was in an emotionally unstable state, so I
hit him over the head with a beach parasol, and the fight ended with us both
getting arrested. The conversation about relationships took place when we were
locked in neighbouring prison cells.

Betan dialect
has a lot of different words to describe the possible triad relationships.
There is one where two of the partners have a deep platonic love for each
other. There is another where two of the partners have a deep platonic hatred
for each other. We established that we had our own subtle mixture of these,
since he was happy to admit we were the first, but I felt more comfortable
pretending we were the second. However much he might enjoy teasing me about
that, and trying to push me into admitting the truth, he’d better not overdo it
or I’d hit him over the head with another beach parasol.

On any planet
outside Beta sector, the civilian authorities would have handed the pair of us
over to Military Security, and we’d have been put on report for public
brawling. We were on Zeus though, so an official eventually turned up, and got
us to state we were both willing participants in the fight. After that, we just
had to pay for the beach parasol I’d broken and we were free to leave.

A chime from my
lookup interrupted my thoughts. I glanced down at it, saw Marack was calling
me, accepted the call and projected his holo image in midair. I frowned when I
saw the state he was in. His uniform was crumpled, he looked exhausted, the age
lines on his face were deeper than usual, and there was a spectacular bruise on
his forehead. His grim expression changed to shock as he saw me.

“You’re wearing
a toga, Father!”

I’d totally
forgotten I was still wearing the toga. “You can blame Drago for that. He
practically forced me into it. Never mind that now. What’s been happening on
K19448? You look as if you haven’t slept in a week.”