“Training Master,” said Chief Monitor Bock. “I would like a word with you.”
“You shouted at me?”
“I have information about your shock troopers that I’m sure would interest you.”
“So you did shout at me. You actually admit it.”
The Chief Monitor bobbed his head.
Rage washed over Lycon. That the Praetor should use a preman to relay a message was bad enough. That this preman dared speak first was double impertinence. No, it was an insult. The Praetor wanted to rub his nose in his Lot 6-ness. Why else did the Praetor want to meet in the Gymnasium? Why else had the Chief Monitor dared act as he had?
Lycon turned from the Chief Monitor as he struggled to control his rage. Remember that the Praetor is Fourth, and very dangerous. You must watch yourself. He nodded. Although his sponsor was the Grand Admiral, the Admiral was a long way from the Sun Works Factory.
“Wait, Training Master,” Chief Monitor Bock panted. “Your 101st has committed a terrible breach of discipline.”
Lycon rubbed his forehead. The Praetor is Fourth and the Chief Monitor is his preman.
Then Chief Monitor Bock put his hand on Lycon’s arm. “Training Master, please, I would like a word with—”
With an inarticulate roar, Lycon spun around and chopped with the flat of his hand. He caught the flabby Chief Monitor in the neck. Bones snapped. The preman flopped onto the deck, jerking, choking and trying to form words. His eyes boggled and then he relaxed. Blood seeped past his lips.
Lycon blinked at the dead heap. He frowned, looked up and saw the still sea of premen staring at him. His eyes narrowed. The crowd dropped their gaze. He strode to the nearest premen and grabbed him by the arm.
The man mewled in fear.
“What is your rank?” asked Lycon.
“Shipping Master, Second Class, Highborn.”
“Do you have security clearance?”
“Yes, Highborn.”
“Good.” Lycon took out his recorder, flicking it. “Tell me what you just witnessed.”
“Highborn, I saw the Chief Monitor grab your arm.”
“He touched me without my leave then, is that correct?”
“Yes, Highborn.”
The crowd began to slink away.
“Halt!” ordered Lycon.
Everyone froze.
One preman after another spoke into his recorder. They stated that the Chief Monitor had dared grab a Highborn, a death offense. Lycon had simply acted as any Highborn would, defending his honor and person.
Though I am beta, not even the Praetor’s Chief Monitor may dare lay hands on me.
Finally satisfied with his recordings, Lycon let them leave. Then he marched to the lift, wondering how to breach this to the Praetor. He peered at the old-style Western saloon door. A beep told of a successful retina scan. The door slid open and he entered the computerized box. The pioneer motif ended here, thankfully. He was sick of it.
“Gymnasium,” he said.
The door closed and the lift purred as it headed up.
Lycon wondered if the Praetor… No, no, better to keep such suspicions hidden deep inside. The walls had ears. How soon, he wondered, until some tech invented a device that monitored thoughts?
The lift slowed, and Lycon’s premonitions grew. He must tread extra softly. The Praetor would make a terrible enemy. Yet he hoped the Praetor wasn’t going to make the common and mistaken assumption that a beta always rolled over for a superior.
13.
Lycon and the Praetor stood together—he still hadn’t told him about the Chief Monitor. They peered down a walkway railing and at a sandpit, where twelve-year-old boys wrestled. Surrounding the boys stood the coaches, Highborn with silver whistles glittering on their tunics.
The boys were huge and muscular, sweating as they grappled for a throw-hold. They wore loincloths and angry red welts, purple bruises and scars. Each seethed with Highborn vigor, clamped his mouth and breathed heavily through his nose. They moved fast, lunging, grunting, twisting, grinning at successful throws and growling if they left their feet. None asked for quarter. None offered any.
“They fight well,” said the Praetor.
Lycon nodded.
The Praetor towered over Lycon by an easy two feet. His shoulders were broader, his chest deeper and the angles of his face sharper. He wore a loose-fitting brown uniform with green bars on the sleeves. His hands were massive and strong. Like Lycon, his dark hair was cut to his scalp. But his eyes were strangely pink, eerie and unearthly and filled with unholy zeal.
The harsh breathing, the meaty slaps as boys grappled and clutched for holds and the sound of feet kicking sand filled this area.
The training of Highborn had changed since Lycon’s birth.
He rankled at the thought of birth…
It was a taboo subject among the Highborn. None of them had ever been in a fleshly womb. Eugenicists had carefully bioengineered them in labs. Many long years ago, the rulers of Social Unity, of the four Inner Planets, had decided that the good of humanity mandated that the Solar System be governed rationally. Capitalist exploitation and imperialist designs had no place in the scheme of social harmony. Equality of resources meant that the Outer Planets had to share their wealth and technology with the masses in the Inner Planets. But evil men would want to keep their inequities. Selfishness yet ruled in too many hearts. So the rulers of Social Unity had come to the sad conclusion that they needed an army and space fleet second to none. However, the social synthesis policies and quietness of mass humanity—and that the troublemakers had all been killed in the slime pits—meant that soldierly qualities were lacking in the Inner Planets. At least so the rulers believed.
“Let us make super-soldiers,” they said to one another.
The Directorate thus gathered biologists and eugenicists and other needed technicians and began the secret program of bioengineered man. The results were cloned thousands of times over. And so the soldiers were born.
Well, not born exactly, not like regular humans. Test tube babies they would have said in past centuries.
Lab-grown, vat-clones, tankers, the fetuses grew by the hundreds in carefully controlled machines. “Birth” occurred six months after fertilization. The batch obtained its number and feeders and comforters took care of the crying little specimens. Den mother and fathers changed too often for growing pre-soldiers to get attached. In truth, the less said about the first seven years the better. After the seventh year, they entered barracks and school and began their soldiering trade.
Somewhere along the line—before an Invasion Fleet had been sent to the Jupiter Confederation, the closest target—the super-soldiers had decided that they should rule the Inner Planets. Most commentators believed that the decision to rebel had happened after they were given Doom Stars and after they had shown their mettle at the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit. Soon thereafter, they bit the hand that fed them. They tried to kill those who had given them birth.
Birth. It was a touchy word with the super-soldiers. And didn’t they need a better name than super-soldiers or space marines? They wanted to be called something that would distinguish them from, from… premen, normals, Homo sapiens (said with a lilting sneer).
What about Highborn?
Yes!
High-BORN.
Perfect.
“Look at the boy over there,” said the Praetor, who stood with his shoulders arrogantly thrust back and his head as erect and predatory as an eagle.
Lycon nodded. He saw him: A long-armed lad with a bloody nose. He clutched an opponent in a full nelson. The boy’s hands were pressed against the back of his opponent’s head, while his arms were wrapped under his opponent’s armpits.