Hero (12 page)

It all looked strange to Ari as they walked down the Via Giovale, eyeing the flashing lights, listening to the blare of music spewing from the narrow alleyways, from the bars' open doors. All of the clothes were different, but the men didn't seem to feel themselves awkwardly dressed. How did they know what to wear? He shook his head.

Among the young women, the uniform of the day seemed to be a tube dress in pastel, leaving them indecently uncovered from the tops of their heads almost to their nipples, from mid-thigh to their ankles.

Some of them were almost incredibly beautiful, although how they could walk on the ten-centimeter stilt heels—or why they wanted to—escaped him. But it did make their legs look longer, and somehow better. He liked the exotically short hair—hair cut short, not the pinned-up hair of a married woman—framing a variety of faces, none of which looked like they were related to others.

Very strange.

They pushed their way through the crowd into a dark bar, where two bartenders, one skinny, almost emaciated, the other beefy and red-faced, kept pitchers of red wine and golden beer coming. The tables were crammed with enlisted Casas and women with too much makeup keeping pace with them, all of them drinking and pounding in time to the heady beat of the six-piece combo at the far end of the bar.

"Check out the trumpeter," Benyamin said. Ari looked; it was Pinhas Shalvi, until today an S2 instructor, now an S2 sergeant for Second Bat. His eyes closed in concentration as he spurted out an improvised phrase, then opened when the fila player picked up the theme. He spotted the three of them and waved idly before putting the trumpet back to his lips.

A pair of paras and their women vacated a table; Benyamin grabbed the three chairs, beckoning at Tetsuo and Ari to get the drinks.

"Tends to be noisier in the enlisted places," he said when they returned, Ari carrying three glasses, Tetsuo with a pitcher of red. Benyamin poured each of them a glass and sipped. "Not too bad."

"Eh?" Benyamin had missed that last.

"I said, 'Not too bad, and it tends to be noisier.' " He turned back to Ari. "On the other hand, it tends to be a lot cheaper. Fair trade."

The broad-faced, balding sergeant at the table next to them had turned to eye them, then dismissed them with a shrug, but now he turned back and glared.

Ari looked away and sipped at his glass. He wasn't an expert on wine or anything, but it tasted good—fruity, without being sweet.

"You're wearing your bars, Tet," Benyamin said.

Tetsuo looked down at the triple bars of a Metzadan captain that decorated his collar points. He slipped them into a pocket with a friendly smile and a shrug at the Casa.

"Got any enlisted stripes on you?" Benyamin asked.

"Nah. Just—well, you know."

"Try these," Benyamin said, handing his old stripes to Tetsuo. Tetsuo put them on.

"Now," he said with a smile, "we're just three enlisted men out drinking. Drink up."

They listened to the music for a few minutes, a hot, syncopated theme that the fila player hammered out, then passed around to the guitarist, the keyboard man, then back to the trumpet.

"Tet, you think he's ever going to retire?" Benyamin asked.

Tetsuo shook his head. "Hell, no. Two things Pinhas likes: shooting people—up close and personal—and playing trumpet with real good musicians. You think he'll get a chance to do either in the rock?"

"Not that he's done a lot of shooting lately."

Tetsuo shrugged. "Cadre work sometimes gives you a chance." He smiled. "Case in point."

"Nah," Benyamin elbowed Ari. "Hey, you dead or something? What this is, see, is a conversation. What that means is that I talk some and Tetsuo talks some and you talk some, too."

"Nice of you to explain things to me."

Benyamin pursed his lips. "Shit, kid, don't make too much of it. Things didn't happen the way they were supposed to, but then nothing went right—I mean
nothing.
They don't tell you this in school, but usually, the first time out, we give you something easy to do and help you through. Gets easier after that." He looked at the bottom of his glass. "Usually."

Tetsuo drained his wine and poured himself another glass. "You, little brother, were fucked by the flying fickle finger of fate."

"Yup. You got dorked by the dangling dong of destiny," Benyamin echoed. "Pounded by the pulsating piston of perversity."

"Raped by the reaming rod of randomness," Tetsuo said. "So, you be a good little private, and keep your privates ready to haul out of here, and Benyamin will fix you up with something. Get yourself blooded on something easier than being ambushed. Shit, there's nothing—and I'm including amphibious assault—that's harder to get right than being on the wrong side of an ambush."

Ari didn't answer.

"Seems there were two generals, standing on a hilltop, overlooking a battle," Benyamin said. "An occasional stray shot whizzes by, but nothing much happens. All of a sudden, one of the generals takes a ding—just a flesh wound in the shoulder.

"Says to his aide, 'Lieutenant, bring me my red jacket.' His aide trots off.

"The other general says, 'Hey, why'd you do that?'

"First general says, 'I don't want the men to see that their general is injured; it'll ruin their morale.'

"Second general says, 'Fair enough.'

"Few minutes later, a shell comes close, right between them, so close they can feel the wind as it whips by.

"Second general turns to
his
aide, and says, 'Lieutenant, bring me my brown pants.' "

Tetsuo laughed. Ari didn't. His knuckles grew white around the glass, and he could feel his cheeks burning.

"Okay, little brother, maybe you're not cut out to be an infantryman. So what? You think there's not other things that need doing?"

What could he say?

The Sergeant, his uncle, had once said something about how when you didn't know what to tell an officer it was best to make something up, but when you didn't know what to tell family, the truth was best.

"I have to be an infantryman," Ari said. "I
have
to."

"Why?"

"Because I'm one of the Hanavi brothers." Ari drained his wine and poured another glass, splashing only a little. "You're all fucking heroes, even Shlomo the Asshole. You think I don't notice? You think everybody doesn't measure me against the rest of you? 'Well, Tetsuo may be a staff officer now,' they say, 'but you should have seen him on Endu, back when he was first out.' " He didn't mention what he knew about Tetsuo's other activities, about his suspicions that were just this side of certainty that Tetsuo was one of the nonexistent Metzadan assassins of myth. There were things you didn't ever think about, much less talk about. "Or—"

"Ari—" Benyamin started.

Ari waved him to silence. "—or, 'Benyamin? Benyamin Hanavi? Best damn trooper that ever there was. The bastard's an artist with an autogun, you should see him lay down a covering fire. Solid as Metzada.' Or, 'Ki Hanavi? He was always first in. Always.' " He didn't remember much about Kiyoshi. Ari had only been six years old when Kiyoshi Hanavi died in a muddy rice field on some Randian noble's estate, his legs blown off by a rebel mine.

Tetsuo had drawn his packet of tabsticks and extracted one. Ari took it from his fingers and puffed it to life. Metzada doesn't import luxury items: he'd never tried tobacco before. He coughed hard, and then washed the taste out of his mouth with more wine.

"Then there's Shlomo. For Shlomo, it's always something like, 'I wouldn't share a tent with the pig, and I sure as hell won't leave any prisoners under his care, but did you see what he did on Rand?' Shit, you've heard it, just like I have, that the reason babies on Rand are born screaming—"

"—is because of Shlomo, and that they don't stop until the doctor pulls down the mask and proves that he's not Shlomo." Benyamin nodded grimly. "Who knows, there may even be some truth in it."

"And then there's me." Ari tried another puff of the tabstick. It wasn't so bad this time. " 'Looks good on paper,' they say, 'but paper don't mean shit, now does it? Pissed his pants and froze his first time out,' they say, and they're going to be saying it forever."

"They still call you 'the General,' " Tetsuo said.

"Yeah, sure they do. And they're laughing. Fat chance Ari's going to be a general, they say. Big fucking joke."

Tetsuo shook his head. "If you can't find it in you," he said, his voice low and serious, "fake it."

"
Scusa.
"
The maresciallo—warrant officer, second class—at the next table was glaring at them. He was a compact, stocky man, his movements careful and precise, his open collar darkly stained with sweat. "My friend asks, since you cannot manage to keep . . . quiet enough so that we can listen to the music, to please be noisy in Italiano so we that can comprehend it."

The lathe-thin, red-faced man across the table from him was half on his feet. "Cesare, that's not what I said."

The maresciallo made a be-still gesture with his right hand. "Close enough."

"But—"

"Be still, Caporal." He turned to Benyamin and gave an expansive shrug as though to say,
What can you expect?

A quick look passed between Benyamin and Tetsuo; Tetsuo nodded fractionally, his eyes growing vague and dreamy. They had just picked out their targets, and neither of them had even thought of relying on Ari.

Ari felt like an orphan.

Benyamin nodded, once. "We're leaving, Maresciallo Capo," he said carefully. "My apologies for the disturbance."

The warrant held up both palms. "It's nothing. Sho-lom, ah?"

Tetsuo cracked a smile. "Indeed," he said, rising slowly.

The warrant shrugged; he gave them something between a deep nod and a slight bow, his hands still open, palms forward. "Buona sera, Sergente."

"Buona sera."

"Che violino," the shorter man hissed.

"Enzo, l'abito non fa il monaco, eh?" said the warrant. "Not only do I want to drink in peace, I just saved your life, and we're not even in combat. Sit down, and I'll tell you about the last war."

As they pushed out into the street, Benyamin frowned. "I didn't catch that last. Either part of it."

Ari forced a smile. "Enzo called you a violin—a toady."

Tetsuo chuckled. "And the warrant quoted an old proverb at him. 'L'abito non fa il monaco'—'the habit doesn't make the monk.' "

The street beckoned to them.

"Tet, what do you bet the warrant's heard a few shots fired in anger in his time?" Benyamin asked.

"And the skinny asshole hasn't? Probably, but not necessarily." Tetsuo shrugged. "I know damn few combat soldiers who like to look for fights in their off-hours, but there are a few."

"Besides Shlomo."

"Yeah, besides Shlomo. And I know a few clerks who don't like the feel of broken teeth—under their knuckles, or in their mouths."

"I like the looks of that bar," Ari said, pointing to a tall building. A red-jacketed doorman kept watch in front of a shiny metal door.

"
Okay.
"
Benyamin chortled. "Well, then."

"Well, so much for the enlisted bars," Tetsuo said, leading the other two into an alley and leaning up against the weather-beaten wooden building. He switched the sergeant's insignia for his captain's bars and passed a set of first lieutenant's double bars to Ari. "Put these on."

"Eh?"

Tetsuo beckoned him around the corner and pointed at the sign that said:
"
ufficiale solo—officers only."
"I like the looks of that one, too. Put them on. Take big bites, little brother. Take big bites."

Ari didn't like this. Granted, the regiment played a lot of games with brevets—Ari had heard that Yossi Bernstein was now wearing colonel's leaves—but that was under Shimon's orders, and was surely being done for some purpose. Ari didn't think Shimon Bar-El would approve of them giving themselves French brevets so they could get into a bar.

Still, Benyamin had replaced his sergeant's stripes with a set of major's leaves, and he and Tetsuo were heading through the crowd toward the shining steel door.

Ari hitched at his belt, and tried to glare like an officer as he quickly caught up with them.

The doorman had been briefed on offworld insignia. "Good evening, Maggiore, Capitano, Tenente," he said without a trace of irony, even as he greeted Ari.

Ari Hanavi came awake slowly, regretfully in the dawn light, the back of his mind telling him that he was going to have one hell of a hangover, and maybe it was better to try to sleep it off.

But his bladder was tight as a drum; best to wake up, take a quick piss, and then try to go back to sleep.

There was a bad taste in his mouth, and something soft and cool pressing against his face. His left arm was painfully numb. He reached out and felt a warm softness.

All of a sudden he was very much awake. Gently he spat out the hair, and tried to pull away.

An old story of Shlomo the Asshole's came back to him, about one of the virgins in Shlomo's company. Ari bit his lip.

Whoever you are, please be a girl. Please.

His reaching hand cupped a full, soft breast.

Thank you, God.

She—and who the hell was she? for the life of him he couldn't remember—snuggled a bit closer, mumbling something.

Although he wasn't quite sure what he was being thankful for. Except for his all-too-quick goodbye from Miriam the night they had left Metzada, Ari was close to being a virgin. It seemed that he'd lost that status in the night, but he couldn't remember it.

God, what was Miriam going to say about this?

That was easy: nothing, because he wasn't going to tell her.

No longer a virgin in either sense, and I probably handled this as badly as the other.

He carefully pulled his arm from beneath her head and slipped out of bed, padding barefoot across the cold tile to the bathroom, closing the door softly behind him with his right hand.

His left arm hung by his side, limp and useless.

As was becoming habit, his education had deserted him in the crunch. His Health instructors had been specific about what to do after you were with a prostitute: remove the condom, urinate, wash yourself. Blood, urine, and semen sample to the chief medician in twenty-four hours, and again in seventy-two.