Once a Hero Read online

  The horse worked its way back out into the sunshine, in the meadow grass, where it set to grazing. Esmay settled herself on the convenient rock she had placed years before, and leaned back against the saddle. She unbuckled the left saddlebag and took out the meat-filled pastries Veronica had packed. She would have five hours of peace here, before she had to start back.

  She could hardly believe it was hers now. She belonged to it, to this chill rock with its multicolored lichens, to the trees and the grass, to the mountain itself . . . but by law and custom, as their saying went, it was now hers. By custom and law she could bar anyone from trespassing here . . . she could fence it, shield it, build a house here that no one ever entered but herself.

  It had been her dearest dream, once. A little cabin, one or two rooms, all to herself, with no memories in it, here in this golden place. She had been a child then; in her daydream, food had appeared on the table without any effort of hers. Breakfast had been . . . had been cereal with cream and honey. Someone else, some invisible magical person, had washed the sticky bowl. She had always been out for lunch, usually perched on a rock high above, watching the sky. Dinner, in those dreams, had been fish from the stream, sweet-fleshed mountain trout, lightly fried.

  Not this stream; it was too small, but downstream a few kilometers. She had fished there, the time she camped here for a week: reality, not dreams, by then, the summer she was eleven. The fish were as tasty as she'd imagined, but the hike back and forth had convinced her that she would have to find another food source.

  Papa Stefan had been furious; so had her father, when he came back from the situation in Kharfra (there was always a Situation in Kharfra). Her stepmother had panicked, convinced that Esmay had killed herself . . . remembering that unsavory row, Esmay felt herself knotting up, the cold of the stone striking deep. She pushed herself off the rock and walked out into the sun, stretching out her arms to it.

  Even at eleven she had known she would never kill herself, no matter what. Had Arris ever told her father? Probably not. She would have been afraid to introduce any more tension, any more difficulty, between father and daughter. Poor Arris, Esmay thought, closing her eyes against the sun as she lifted her face to it. She had been six years too late with her sympathy, six years too late with her shock and horror. Now she could understand how futile Arris must have felt, with a stepdaughter so awkward, so independent.

  Esmay walked down the slope to the open grass. She crouched, putting a hand to the ground. It was cool—only on the hottest midsummer day would the ground feel warm up here—but not as cold as the rock. She let herself down onto the grass, and leaned back with her hands clasped behind her head. Above, the morning sky burned blue, the exact blue that felt right, that made her happiest. She had never found that blue on another planet. Under her shoulders and back, the land upheld her with just enough pressure.

  "You're not making it easy," she said to the glade. Here and now, she could not imagine leaving Altiplano forever, giving this up forever. The horse, a few rods away, waggled an ear at her but went on munching.

  She stretched out on her side, and looked at the flowers, reminding herself of their names. Some were original terraforming rootstock, and others had been developed here, for this particular world, from Terran gene lines. Pink, yellow, white, a few of the tiny blue-violet starry ones she had privately named wish-stars. She had had private names for all of them really, taken from the plant names in the old stories, whether or not they were really related. Campion and rosemary and primrose sounded pretty, so she used them; harebell sounded silly to her, so she didn't. She touched them now with a fingertip, renaming them: pink rosemary, yellow campion, crisp white primroses. It was her valley, these were her flowers, and she could give them her names. Forever.

  She looked over at the horse. It was grazing steadily, not so much as an earflick to indicate any danger. She leaned her head back on her arm again. She could feel the warmth of the sun where it touched her, and the coolness of the shadows. She felt herself relaxing, as she had not relaxed since she arrived—or for how long before?— and let her eyelids sag shut. She rolled her face into the fragrant grass to get the annoying sun off her eyelids . . .

  And woke with a jerk and a cry as a shadow stooped over her. Even as she lunged up, she recognized the horse. It snorted and plunged away, fighting the hobbles, frightened because she was.

  It had only wanted a treat, she told herself. Her heart was racing; she felt sick to her stomach. The horse had settled uneasily a short distance away, watching her with pricked ears.

  "You scared me," Esmay said to the horse. It blew a long rattling sigh at her, meaning Me, too. "It was your shadow," Esmay said. "Sorry." She looked around. She had slept at least an hour, more likely two, and she could feel the heat of sunburn on her ear. She had worn a hat . . . but not when she lay down. Idiot.

  When her heart slowed, she felt better, rested. Lunch, her stomach reminded her. She walked back to the rock, shaking the kinks out of legs and arms, and then took her hat and the lunch sack back into the sun. Now she was ready for that meat pasty, and the horse would enjoy the apple.

  After lunch, she walked down by the stream, and let her mind loose again. She had come home, and found the truth, and it had not killed her. She didn't like it—it hurt, and she knew it would continue to hurt—but she had survived the first terrifying hours as she had survived the initial assault in childhood. She felt shaky, but not in danger of dissolution.

  Was she ready to give this up, this lovely valley that had helped her cling to sanity so often? The stream chuckled and splashed at her feet; she knelt and put her hand into its icy flow. She loved this sound, the smell of the pungent herbs on its bank, the feel of icy water on her hands and face when she knelt to drink. She loved the heavy tonk of stone on stone when she stood on the uneven one that rocked back and forth.

  She did not have to decide now. She had years . . . if she stayed in Fleet, if she qualified for rejuvenation, she had many, many years. Long after her father died, long after everyone who had betrayed her died, she could come home to this valley, still young enough to enjoy it. She could build her cabin and live here in peace. It would not have to hurt to return; she could avoid that pain just by persisting.

  Against this vision rose the vivid, eager face of her cousin Luci, Luci willing to risk struggle, conflict, pain . . . the opposite of prudence. But Luci had not suffered what she had suffered. Tears burned in her eyes again. If she gained her peaceful valley at the end by simply outlasting those who had betrayed her . . . Luci would be old, perhaps dead . . . because how many normal lifetimes would she live, before she had earned retirement and the peace of her valley?

  She would like to have Luci for a friend as well as a business partner, Luci who now looked up to her, as she could not recall anyone in the family looking up to her before.

  "It's not fair," she said to the trees and the slopes and the gurgling water. An icy breeze slid down the creek bed and chilled her. Stupid complaint; life was not about fairness. "He lied to me!" she screamed suddenly. The horse threw up its head, ears pointed at her; somewhere upstream jays squalled and battered their way through thickset twigs.

  Then it was quiet again. The horse still watched her with the suspicion of the edible for the eater, but the jays had flown away, their scolding voices diminishing. The water gurgled as before; the breeze failed and came again like the breath of some vast being larger than mountains. Esmay felt her rage draining away with it, not really gone but its immediate pressure eased.

  She spent another hour wandering around the glade, drifting in and out of moods like the clouds drifting in and out of sight above the slopes. Sweet memories of her childhood trips—of learning to climb on the boulders at the foot of the cliff, of the time she found a rare fire-tailed salamander under the ledge of the creek's largest pool—swept over and under the other memories, the bad ones. She thought about climbing the cliff again, but she had not brought any climbing gear, and her
legs were already stiff and sore from riding.

  Finally, as the afternoon shadows began to climb the boulders, she caught and saddled the horse again. She found herself wondering if her father had told Papa Stefan . . . or only Great-grandmother. She wanted to be furious with Great-grandmother for not overruling her father, but she had used up her store of anger on her father. And besides—when she'd come back from the hospital, her great-grandmother had not been in the house at all. Was that why she had moved away—or been sent away?

  "I am still an idiot child," she said to the horse, as she unlooped the hobbles and prepared to mount. The horse eyed her and flicked an ear. "Yes, and I scared you out of your wits, didn't I? You're not used to that kind of behavior from Suizas."

  She rode down the shadowy trail beside the stream deep in thought. How many of the family knew the truth, or had known it? Whom, besides Luci, could she trust?

  The upper pastures, when she came to them, were still in sunlight, out of the shadow of the mountains. Far away to the south, she saw a drift of cattle moving slowly. In the distance, the buildings of the estancia were nested in green trees like little toys, bright-painted. For some reason she felt a rush of joy; it passed through her to the horse, which broke into a trot. She didn't feel her stiffness; without realizing she was going to, she legged the horse into a canter, and then let it extend into a gallop. Wind burned in her face; her hair streamed back; she could feel each separate tug on her scalp and the power of the galloping animal beneath her lifted her beyond fear or anger.

  She walked the last mile in, as she had been trained to do, and grinned at Luci who was just coming in from polo practice when they met in the lane.

  "A good ride?" asked Luci. "Was that you we saw galloping in the upper fields?"

  "Yes," Esmay said. "I think I've remembered how to ride."

  Luci looked worried, and Esmay laughed.

  "The deal is good, Luci—I'm going back to Fleet. But I'd forgotten how much fun it can be."

  "You . . . haven't seemed very happy."

  "No. I haven't been, but I will be. My place is out there, as yours is here."

  They rode in together; Esmay did not have to say more, because Luci was ready to talk for hours about the brown mare's talents and her own ambitions.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The team from Special Materials Analysis came off the commercial line at Comus along with all the other passengers, some hundred and thirty. Here, in the interior of the Familias, the customs checks were perfunctory. A glance at the ID, a glance at the luggage . . . their matching briefcases, matching duffels, all with the company logo.

  "Consultants, eh?" said the customs inspector, clearly proud of his guess.

  "That's right." Gori smiled at the man, that friendly open smile which was just a bit too memorable sometimes. Arhos wondered if he should have let Gori come—but Gori was the best with such devices, faster by thirty seconds than anyone else. He would edge their profit up on the Fleet contract, too—thirty seconds a hundred times a day was fifty minutes off the top.

  "What a life," the customs man said. "Wish I could be a consultant—" He passed them through.

  "They always think it's glamorous," Losa grumbled, audibly enough. "If they had to be on the road all the time, hear the complaints at home—"

  "You didn't have to marry that loser," Pratt said. This was an old script, one they could improvise around for an hour.

  "He's not a loser, he's just . . . sensitive."

  "Artists," Gori said. "I don't know why intelligent women always fall for losers who claim they're creative—"

  Losa huffed, something she did well. "He's not a loser! He's sold three works—"

  "In how long?" asked Gori.

  "Stop it," Arhos said, as any manager would. "It's not important—Gori, let her alone. She's right; people think our job is glamorous, and if they knew what it's really like, on the road all the time, working long hours for people who are already angry they had to hire us, they'd know better. But no more personal problems on this trip, all right? We're going to be stuck out here long enough without making it seem longer."

  "All right," Gori said, with a sidelong look at Losa.

  "I need to stop in here," Losa said, ducking into a ladies' without looking at Gori at all. Arhos glared at Gori, who shrugged. Pratt shook his head. The two junior women, technicians newly hired from a large firm which hadn't offered them enough challenge, glanced at each other, and made a tentative move toward the ladies'.

  "Go on," Arhos said. "We've got enough time."

  "She's the sensitive one," Pratt said, continuing the argument even without Losa.

  "Stop it. It doesn't help, and we can't run her life." The rest of the team caught up with them, and formed a clot in the passage until Losa and the other women reappeared. Then, not speaking, they moved on to the gate that divided Fleet space from civilian space. Here, instead of a bored civilian customs inspector, they faced a cluster of alert, edgy, military guards.

  "Arhos Asperson, Special Materials Analysis Consulting," Arhos said, handing over his ID case. "And this is the contract—" A data cube, embossed with Fleet's own insignia on one side, and an elaborate marbled etching on the others. It had taken them two years to develop a duplicate of Fleet's equipment, so that they could fabricate their own cubes rather than having to steal and reprogram them. Then they'd gotten this perfectly legitimate contract, and hadn't needed to use their fake.

  "Yes, sir," the first guard said. "And how many in your group?"

  "Seven," Arhos said. He stood aside, while the second guard collected everyone's ID cases. He would have worried, on Sierra Station, even with a real Fleet cube. . . . though they had used the faked Fleet cubes before, and faked ID before, Fleet was unusually alert, thanks to the repercussions from Xavier. Here, he expected no trouble—and in fact the cube reader had already accepted, then spat out, the fake cube.

  "All clear, sir," the guard said. "We'll have to check all the luggage, of course."

  "Of course." He handed over his own duffel and briefcase. Standard civilian electronics: datapads, cube reader, cubes, portable computers in all sizes from pocket to briefing, communications access sets, data probe wands . . .

  "You can't use this shipboard, sir," the guard said, holding up the comm access set and the data wand.

  "No, I understand. Last time out, your people provided a shielded locker."

  "We can do that, sir," the guard said, with obvious relief. Inexperienced consultants sometimes insisted that they would not give up any of their equipment . . . they got no more contracts. The other guard, Arhos noticed, was calling someone in Fleet territory, and soon a lowly pivot appeared with a luggage truck and a lockable container for the restricted electronics.

  "You don't have to lock it up now," the guard said. "If you want to place calls from the Fleet areas, that's permissible from any blue-coded booth. But before boarding—"

  "We understand," Arhos said. He knew there would be another search before they boarded.

  The Fleet area of Comus Station had its own eating places, its own bars, its own entertainment and shopping outlets and even public-rental sleeping. They had plenty of time before their ship left.

  "What exactly is your area of expertise, Dr. Asperson?"

  Arhos allowed his mouth to quirk up at one corner, restrained amusement at the naivete of the question. "My degrees are in logical systems and substrate analysis."

  The young officer blinked. " . . . Substrate?"

  "Classified, I'm afraid," Arhos said, with a little dip of the head to take the edge off.

  "Lieutenant, I believe you have duties forward," said the lieutenant commander at the head of the table.

  "Oh . . . of course, sir." He scurried out.

  "I'm sorry," the lieutenant commander said. He wore no name tag; none of the officers aboard such a small ship wore them. "Please forgive us—we're not usually carrying civilians—"

  "Of course," Arhos said. "But you under
stand our situation—?"

  "Certainly. Only—I didn't recognize your firm's name."

  "Subcontractors," Gori said, grinning. "You know how it is—we used to work for the big firms, one and another of us, and then we struck out on our own. Got our first jobs as sub-subs, and now we're all the way up to subcontractors."

  "It must be hard, going out on your own after working for a big company," the officer said. Arhos thought he was buying the whole story.

  "It has been," Arhos said. "But we're past wondering how we're going to pay the rent."

  "I imagine you are," the officer said, with a knowing smile for the quality of the clothes they wore, the expensive cases they carried.

  "Not that it's easy profit," Arhos said, putting in the earnest emphasis that impressed the military so well. "We're working harder than we used to—but it's for ourselves. And you, of course."

  "Of course."

  At Sierra Station, they had no customs to pass, nothing but a long walk down one arm of the station and out another. An escort, ostensibly to ensure that they didn't get lost; civilians did not wander the Fleet sections of stations—especially stations this near the borders—without an escort. In the comfortable ease of someone who had not intended mischief anyway, the team ambled along, chatting aimlessly about the food they'd had, and the food they hoped to have.

  Koskiusko's docking bay was actually a shuttle bay. Here, Arhos handed the contract cube to the ranking guard, who fed it into a cube reader.

  "I'll call over, sir, but it'll be at least two hours before a shuttle comes in. The little pod's halfway over with an arriving officer, and the shuttle's already loaded with cargo—no room for you, and it's down at Orange 17 anyway."