Joanna took another sip of the fusionnaire. Tasting especially harsh, the drink was going to her head quicker than usual. The fight with Diana had undoubtedly weakened her resistance to the drink. She would have to settle for only one. But, she thought, staring down into the volatile liquid, she would make the most of the one.
"Truth to tell, Diana, you are quite right. There is not much need for beauty in the ranks of Clan warriors. Here your looks are no more than a painting in a museum or a statue in a square. We admire you, but ours is not the kind of culture that places emphasis on beauty, after all."
"I am glad of that."
"But I should tell you that beauty like yours does have its uses in some circles. In political ones particularly. Among Clansmen who have forgotten the meaning of their lives, and who encourage a certain decadence."
"That is detestable, and I do not believe it exists."
"I notice that you do not have the freeborn love of contractions."
"I have resolved to be a warrior and to speak like one as well. Star Commander, if I may speak frankly?"
"As a warrior would. Proceed, MechWarrior Diana."
"I have been told about my beauty before. There were some who, well, wanted things from me because of it. I am not as free with coupling as others. Even in my cadet days. The others in my training unit respected that. Out here in the war zone, there is not as much respect. Perhaps I would have more experience with coupling if the other did not always have to mention my looks beforehand. But once someone speaks to me of that, I wish only to hit that someone and certainly not do anything more."
"Your honor duel with Trader was about that, quiaff?"
"Neg. Trader is a fine warrior, too. He wanted the BattleMech assignment. He would always choose a 'Mech over a sexual partner. I like him. I was sorry to have to fight him."
Diana straightened her back, holding it stiffly away from the back of the chair. When the younger woman looked off to the side, Joanna recalled several moments when Aidan had glanced aside in the same way, with the same tilt of the head and a duplicate indifference in his eyes. Diana's words and her resemblance to Aidan made Joanna want to take a big swallow of her fusionnaire. So she did.
The drink was gone. She should not have a second one, not with her head spinning the way it was now. She poured the second one and took several guarded sips.
"Star Commander Joanna, did you call me to your quarters for this discussion?"
Joanna shook her head. The movement made it ache. She blinked a couple of times before responding. "I had no purpose in calling you here, except to praise your tenacity in battling me in the Circle of Equals."
"Your praise pleases me." Diana did not show a bit of pleasure in her face, although her voice was softer.
"And there is another reason, which I should keep secret, but this fusionnaire is doing its job. It often loosens tongues." She took another large swallow of the drink. "You look like someone I once knew. Another warrior."
Diana nodded. "And his name was Aidan."
The statement astonished Joanna, who was not an easy person to astonish. "You know?"
"I have known since I was a small child. My mother told me his name. She held back much of my father's history, and hers, but she was honest in every other way."
An idea occurred to Joanna. "And what was hername, your mother?"
"Peri. She is a—"
"I know all about her, too. I was their falconer. I trained both of them."
Diana stood up suddenly, anger in the way she held her body if not in her face. "Then you are the one who came to Tokasha and took my father away, quiaff?"
"Aff. I was ordered to. Now you look as if you would like to fight me again."
Diana's body relaxed. "No, you are right, it is not worth fighting about. But you were part of the story my mother told me. She never mentioned your name."
"There have been times, MechWarrior Diana, when I wished I had not caught up with your father and brought him back. In some way that event has affected the course of my life, too. But that is irrelevant. Your father went on to become a warrior and a Bloodnamed officer. Do you seek him?"
"Once I intended to. But now I wish only to fight in this war."
"I know, I know. You are consistent, at least. If I were able to communicate with your father, would you want me to inform him about you?"
Diana seemed to consider the question for a moment. "No," she said. "If anyone tells him, it should be me."
Joanna toasted her with the fusionnaire, then drained it. "I salute you, MechWarrior Diana. I have to tell you that I despised your father, but I have seen him fight bravely and well. From what you showed today in the Circle of Equals, you may be quite like him. Now you must leave."
Diana obeyed the order without further comment. Once she was gone, Joanna allowed the darkness to overcome her. She fell, drunk, onto her bed, and passed out. In her frenetic dreams, images of Aidan and Diana kept flying toward her face and back and forth in front of it, sometimes one changing into the other, sometimes the two blending together. Several times she screamed out at the disembodied faces, cursing and vowing that she would kill both father and daughter.
5
For the next few minutes Aidan would be under more intense scrutiny than at any time outside of a Clan test or trial, and yet he would be unaware of most of it. He was, after all, merely performing the routine duty of a garrison commander.
* * *
As the DropShip descended, Horse studied the face of his Colonel with an almost scientific detachment. He hoped to see some telltale twitch or eyeblink, some slight twisting of the mouth that would reveal a reaction in this normally distant man. To Horse, Aidan Pryde represented all that was admirable in a Clan warrior, whether trueborn or free. Aidan held himself above mundane Clan conflicts, administered his command with fairness, fought with more skill than any two warriors, and was so imbued with the desire to succeed that he had often been criticized for overreaching himself. To Horse, it was exactly these qualities that made Aidan a superb Clan warrior, albeit one whose abilities were underused because of the taint that had plagued his career.
And perhaps, Horse thought, what he liked most about Aidan was that he might be the only trueborn Clan warrior who understood what it was to be a freeborn warrior. That insight came, of course, from having lived so long disguised as a freeborn. It was in one of Aidan's secret library books that Horse had read about men on Terra who had gone to live among peoples whose cultures were strange or even alien, but who had often been liberated from narrow preconceptions as a result. Sometimes these visitors were scientists, but just as often they were ordinary people thrown into unusual circumstances. Aidan was like that, one who had learned through the force of circumstance. It had made him someone different, someone special, in Horse's eyes. The one time he had tried to articulate all this to Aidan, however, his friend had scoffed gently, saying that his experiences had confused his understanding of life rather than enhanced it.
The DropShip landed in the field recently cleared for that purpose, disgorging a contingent of warriors. Horse would have recognized Joanna from any distance, even if she had been a pinpoint on the horizon. She wore the Clan trueborn haughtiness like a cloak, an aura as far removed from Aidan's empathy as the globular cluster was from the five original Clan worlds. Horse and Joanna did not like each other. Never had. Anytime they had been forced to work or fight together, Joanna had, it seemed, found every way possible to remind Horse of his "inferior" origins.