A Matter of Oaths (16 page)

…You may apply at any time for a berth in one of the Guild’s
specialist Directorates (Personnel, Central Support, Systems, Webs, Survey,
Commerce, Peace, and External Liaison). These berths are located at Guild Zone
Stations, including Central, and at planet based establishments, including both
Imperial Worlds. Appointments to a Directorate are the responsibility of that
Directorate, subject to approval by the Personnel Directorate; command rank is
a prerequisite for the higher positions… The head of each Directorate is
appointed by the Guild Council (see later)…

…Anybody who has reached command rank is eligible for
election to the Guild Council. Members of the Council are responsible for
formulating Guild policy, and for making and enforcing Guild legislation; they
are the Guild’s supreme authority. The Central Support Directorate is the
Council’s executive arm… All Guild members who have reached command rank are
eligible to vote for Council members…

…You will continue as a Guild member until your web
performance drops below the acceptable level for ship and station control. This
is the inevitable consequence of aging, and normally occurs at about sixty
years old. At this time, your web will be deactivated, to avoid the slight
risks associated with an active but unused web. You may then chose to apply for
a specialist berth, or to retire with a Guild pension…

…You may be worried about the relationship between the Guild
and the Twin Empires, particularly in view of the current conflict between the
Emperors. Time spent in a web-room is the best way to dispel this concern, but
a few words on the situation are appropriate here. As you know, the Guild is
pledged equally to the people of both Empires and the majority of the Guild’s
work is unaffected by the division between Old and New… The Guild has an
agreement with the Emperors over resource allocation in the Disputed Zone. Each
Emperor may purchase as much Guild support as they wish for their combat
forces, at prices determined by the Guild Council. Services that are provided
by the Guild are limited to: interstellar transport of Empire forces (excluding
intra-system transport in combat areas); strategic and tactical advice during
operations involving Guild ships; and nonlethal combat between Guild ships
assigned to opposing Empires… All Guild ships and personnel captured while
supporting an Emperor’s combat forces are reassigned in the opposing Empire.
The cost of replacing such ships and personnel in the Empire from which they
have been lost is recovered from the Emperor responsible; an equivalent sum is
credited to the combat account of the opposing Emperor… This agreement can only
be changed by unanimous consent of the Guild Council and both Emperors. The
Guild may terminate the agreement unilaterally if Guild casualties are incurred
in the Disputed Zone, or if Empire combat forces take any action that might
result in Guild casualties; sanctions would also be applied against the Emperor
responsible for any Guild casualties…

Rafe paused by the Arura in the niche by Joshim’s desk
and touched it experimentally. It was smoother and a little warmer than he
expected it to be, the curves fitting comfortably into his palm, but it gave
him none of the comfort that Joshim drew from it. He smiled slightly,
acknowledging that he had not expected that either, and sat cross-legged on the
seat that Joshim’s visitors used. It was better to sit quietly in the dark than
to lie sleepless.

Had there been more than three hours before he was due on
duty again, he would have taken a sleeper from the supply that Joshim kept by
the bed for him. He did not want to be awake with nothing to do except listen
to Joshim’s even breathing and wonder how many more nights he would have in
this cabin. It was frightening how easily he had come to need somebody else,
frightening how much the idea of losing Joshim hurt. If he had known how
tangled in each other they would get, would he have responded to Joshim’s kiss,
the first time? Probably yes. There was the pull of Joshim’s eyes and smile,
the sensation of déjà vu that had touched him then and every time since when he
woke to see Joshim’s face, the feeling of homecoming. A curious analogy for
love for somebody to choose who had no home, he thought fleetingly, or no home
that he could remember except the web-room of
Avannya
, long since broken up for scrap.

“Are you all right?”

Rafe had not heard Joshim leave the bed and come to stand
behind him. He reached a hand back over his shoulder to squeeze Joshim’s hand.

“Fine. It’s too late to take a sleeper, that’s all.”

“Do you want company, or do you want to be alone?”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Rafe leaned his head against the back of the seat. “I don’t
want to be alone with the night-devils,” he admitted.

Joshim rested his hands on Rafe’s shoulders. “What sort of
night-devils?” His fingers found the knot of muscles at the base of Rafe’s neck
and moved to ease them. Rafe sighed with the pleasure of it. “Sit forward a
little and I can do this properly,” Joshim suggested.

Rafe obeyed wordlessly, centring the weight of his head down
the line of his back and curling his hands in his lap, losing himself in Joshim’s
massage. A shaman once told me that, if I sat like this long enough, I would
rise up and float. It was a pity that he never told me how long was long enough
and I could never spare the time to learn… As the voice in his head laughed,
Rafe shuddered violently.

“A memory?” Joshim guessed.

“Yes.”

“Want me to stop?”

Rafe shook his head. Joshim sensed the movement and resumed
his gentle probing for the tension.

“They’re coming more often while I’m awake,” Rafe said
softly. “Just a snatch of a voice, or a flash of a scene. No names. No links. Just
broken pieces that will never fit together to make a whole.”

“It frightens you.”

“No, not frightens. That’s too strong. Disturbs. Unsettles.
I can’t have what I want from my future, and I can’t have what I had in my
past, and I’m left juggling fragments of them both.” Rafe sighed again. “Don’t
listen to me, Joshim. It’s the night-devils talking.”

Joshim’s fingers moved along the line of Rafe’s jaw and back
again. “What do you want from your future?”

Rafe shrugged. “I’ll have to settle for what I can get.”

“Why not what you want?”

Rafe shook his head, refusing to answer aloud. What I want
is what I have now, only without the nightmares and the memories and the
sickness and the doubts. Joshim’s fingers traced circles on his temples, drew
lines out from the centre of his forehead. Rafe wanted to freeze the moment in
time, live secure in it forever, but he could not have that either.

“I was thinking about
Avannya
earlier,” he told Joshim. “I spent my whole life in her web-room, or the ten
years of which I’m allowed to make sense, but she never felt so much like home
as
Bhattya
does.”

Joshim traced a symmetrical pattern on Rafe’s cheekbones.
Rafe turned his head to kiss one set of fingertips. I want to stay with you. It
would be too painful to say it.

“You’re worrying about yesterday, after the conference, aren’t
you?” Joshim suggested.

“After that bout of sickness, don’t you think I should be?”
Rafe asked tightly.

“No.” Joshim set his hands on the back of the seat and
turned it so that they faced each other in the darkness. “Are you worried about
the cause of the nausea or its consequences?”

“Both.” Rafe could not see Joshim’s face, but it made
talking about the problem no easier. “Not to mention the sheer misery of
throwing up endlessly for an hour.”

“If I’d thought to leave a supply of anti-nauseant with the
sleepers, you wouldn’t have had to wait for me to come out of the web,” Joshim
said guiltily.

“I hadn’t planned to need any,” Rafe joked. “If I’d kept
quiet at the conference, I wouldn’t have needed any. Next time I’ll know
better.”

“Next time, I’ll make sure it’s available for you.”

“If you want.”

“No, Rafe,” Joshim said sternly. “You’re not going to avoid
talking about it by caving in to everything I say.”

“Then we’ll talk about it,” Rafe said angrily. “We’ll talk
about when you’re going to ban me from
Bhattya
’s
web altogether, and whether your recommendation — if you give me one — is going
to be enough to get me a berth on another ship. One that isn’t a patrolship, so
I don’t get ripped apart by the impossible things I can do and the impossible
things I remember. One where I don’t have to watch you being torn between what
you want to do and what you have to do, because of me.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No, damn you! It isn’t what I want! It’s all I can have!”

Joshim said nothing. Rafe shut his eyes and concentrated on
regaining enough control to speak calmly again. “Sorry, Joshim. I shouldn’t
have shouted at you. It isn’t your fault, and it’s making you as miserable as
it’s making me.”

“Not quite. Not since I realized what a fool I was being.”
Joshim laid the back of his hand briefly along Rafe’s cheek. “I panicked, you
know. I didn’t need to bar you from the key-position. If I’d just taken time to
think, I’d have seen then what I saw yesterday. You’re fine as long as you have
something important to focus on, like webbing, or showing Noromi how things
should be done. The backlash only hits you when you relax, when you stop
holding it off. You can control it. You’re controlling it already.”

Rafe chewed his lip, troubled. “It can’t be that simple,” he
objected. “Why would they set it up at all if it’s so easily beaten?”

“I don’t think anybody set it up,” Joshim said after a
pause. “It is too easily beaten and too unspecific. As Vidar said, if they’d
wanted to keep you out of combat, they’d have conditioned you against taking a
berth on a patrolship.”

“You’ve been talking about me to Vidar?” Rafe demanded.

“Vidar is a friend, and he could see I was worried about
you. I would have talked to you if you’d let me.”

Rafe had no answer to that. “If nobody set it up, why is it
happening?” he asked instead.

“I think it’s your normal physiological reaction to stress,”
Joshim said carefully. “Do you feel sick when you’re nervous?”

“Sometimes, slightly, but this is different,” Rafe argued.

“More extreme,” Joshim conceded, “because the stress you’re
under in the web during combat, or facing a web-room full of sceptical
Commanders, is compounded by your identity-wipe.”

Rafe shook his head doubtfully. “It would be nice to believe
it,” he said slowly. “I’d rather be sick with nerves than as a direct result of
somebody tampering with my mind, but… it’s only wishful thinking, Joshim. We
both know that.”

“Gods, Rafe! What do I have to do to convince you?” Joshim
grabbed the Arura over Rafe’s head, knelt at his feet and pressed it into his
hands, retaining his own hold on it. “On my honour, on my life and on any lives
I have to come, by all that is sacred to me, I swear that I believe it is safe
for you to work in
Bhattya
’s web. In
the key-position. In any damned position you choose. May I be cursed for all
time if I have sworn falsely.” He released the Arura and took Rafe’s hands. “Is
that enough?”

Rafe nodded mutely, then remembered that Joshim could not
see him. “You’re that certain?” he asked, shocked by the gravity of the oath
that Joshim had given him, with its echo of the Webber’s Oath and the binding
of the Arura held between them.

“I’m that certain.” Joshim brought Rafe’s hands up to his
lips and kissed the palms in turn. “Is it enough?”

Rafe leaned forward, put his arms around Joshim and rested
his cheek on his shoulder, his face to his throat. Joshim could not have sworn
that oath if there had been any conflict within him, or any doubt. Was it so
wrong to accept as truth the thing that you wanted to be true? Sometimes, the
two had to coincide. If Rafe could prove it, by controlling the sickness, as
Joshim suggested he could…

“How are you at teaching stress control?” he asked shakily.

Joshim laughed and hugged him hard. “A back-rub is the best
way to start,” he claimed. “Come to bed and I’ll show you.”

…If the members of a web-room unanimously petition for the
expulsion of one of their number, that request is binding upon their Three and
upon the Personnel Directorate of the Guild…

“You could have more weight on that,” Vidar suggested,
examining the setting of Rafe’s exercise bench.

“Only if I want to do myself permanent damage,” Rafe
objected. “Some of us are built for speed, not strength.”

“All it takes is application.” Vidar adjusted the empty
bench to his liking and stretched out on it. “Did you find the fault in Khisa’s
monitor circuit?”

“No.” Rafe secured his bench-weights and lay back for a
brief rest. “I ran the full set of first level diagnostics on it, and on the
adjacent circuits. Joshim’s got them all in the workshop for further
investigation.”

Vidar grunted approval and started a warm-up sequence that
made Rafe ache just watching.
Bhattya
’s
Captain was as conscientious about keeping himself in top condition as he was
about keeping the ship there. “Don’t let me stop you,” he urged Rafe.

Rafe anchored his feet under the bar at the end of his bench
and did a slow sit-up with his hands behind his head, turning so that his left
elbow touched his right knee and then stretching down towards his ankles before
straightening out unhurriedly.

“Isn’t this your sleep period?” Vidar asked curiously,
finishing his warm-up and embarking on a series of leg-raises.