The High Ground (7 page)

The shifting and coughing, the mumble of conversation and the scrape of booted feet on the flagstones slowly subsided. There were a few final coughs and then Vice Admiral Conde Sergei Arrington Vasquez y Markov emerged through the door in the wall at the back of the dais. He was an imposing figure, tall and very broad, though some of it was due to a thrusting belly. Light gleamed on his nearly hairless skull. From her position in the front Mercedes could easily see the scars that twisted across his left cheek and fat-blurred chin, white against his dark skin. He stepped up to the microphone.

“Welcome to The High Ground.” He paused and swept them all with a ferocious blue-eyed gaze. “This institution has stood for three hundred and forty-one years. First on the surface of old Earth, then on Ouranos, and for the past seventy-three years aboard this orbital station. Ours is a proud tradition. We honor the past. We also train officers and heroes for the challenges of the future. We have always been willing to embrace change in an effort to defend the Solar League and the billions of humans who live under its protection. This year we welcome a new change. This year The High Ground and the
Orden de la Estrella
welcomes the first class of women to these hallowed halls. Highness.” He saluted Mercedes.

Her hand rose in the accustomed royal gesture of acknowledgment. Then she tried to turn it into a salute, misjudged and knocked her hat off. Danica leaped to pick it up and returned it to Mercedes’ head. There was the briefest ripple of laughter. Mercedes choked back a blazing flare of anger.

“God save the Emperor.”

“God save the Emperor,” several hundred male voices roared out, and went on to conclude with the
Orden de la Estrella
motto, “May we touch the stars with glory.” Markov saluted, whirled and left.

Another man took his place, as spare as the admiral had been broad. He had an elongated head and a pointed chin that made him seem like a living embodiment of an ancient painting called
The Scream
. “I am Captain Lord Manfred Zeng. I am in charge of operations at the academy. If you have issues come to my office. First a few rules. Reveille at five thirty a.m., breakfast followed by physical training. Classes begin promptly at nine hundred. Lunch at thirteen hundred. In the afternoon there will be more classes and drills. Dinner is at nineteen hundred. The evenings are yours. I suggest you use them to do homework. No one is permitted down the gravity-well until three months have passed. You are permitted in the civilian areas of the station on Saturdays. Services on Sunday are mandatory. No male cadets will be permitted within five hundred feet of the ladies’ quarters. Their corridor has been blocked off with new pressure doors. You will display courtesy and behavior becoming an officer at all times toward the ladies.”

Or what?
Mercedes wondered. They had been set apart, caged like exotic animals in need of protection, but there was no mention of the penalty to any male who might try to break those rules. Or would the penalty be exacted against the woman? Mercedes had had a tutor (safely gay) who had talked about the Madonna/Whore dichotomy throughout human history. He had been replaced shortly after with an even safer governess who had been dull and very respectable and never said anything controversial.

Zeng was continuing, “Please leave through the planetside doors. Your personal servants will be there to escort you to your rooms where you will find your undress blues. Those will be worn during regular classes. You are permitted civilian attire only on Saturdays. Tonight there is a welcoming banquet at twenty hundred in the mess hall, dress uniform required as the Emperor will be attending. I suggest you all see to your toilettes. Dismissed!” He saluted, whirled and was gone through the same door that had swallowed the vice admiral.

Mercedes and her ladies found themselves in a bubble, separated from their classmates by ten or fifteen feet. At least for now the men were reacting as if the women were toxic.

“Well damn. It’s going to be hard to find a husband now,” Cipriana said. Danica once again seemed on the verge of tears.

“We’re trained to impress them while dancing,” Sumiko said. “Surely we can manage to make an impression during hours of class or hand-to-hand combat training.”

Mercedes stayed silent. In addition to
don’t fail
there had been another instruction her father had given her in the days before she left for the academy.
Find a consort. Pick the man who will share the throne with you. To protect yourself against the conservatives he will have to be a military leader. I can give you the throne. He will help you keep it.

Her eyes slid across the hundreds of young men streaming toward the exits.
Which one of you will I marry?

* * *

Tracy was at the back of the crowd heading out.
Courtesy and servility at all times
. His father’s mantra. It seemed to have been deeply ingrained in him because when the older student had muscled him into line Tracy had only briefly considered shoving the man back. The rebellion had quickly died, and Tracy hated himself for falling back into the old pattern. He comforted himself with the thought that perhaps a fight on his first day wouldn’t have been prudent. The other scholarship student was also at the back of the pack. He looked scared. Tracy wondered if his face mirrored that fear. He hoped not.

As he reached the double doors he heard his name. “Tracy!” He looked to his right and saw Hugo Devris. “Hey, it is you. This is such a flare. I was afraid I wouldn’t know a soul up here.”

Frozen with shock Tracy stared into the face of the boy who had taken his place as the class valedictorian. “What are you doing here?” he blurted.

Hugo had tightly curled dark gold hair that set an odd contrast to his dark skin, and wide set, rather round eyes that gave him the look of a surprised lemur. He shrugged a gesture that seemed to encompass both regret and resignation. “We didn’t realize when the old man got knighted it meant I had to come here. Every FFH son has to do at least a year here. It kind of sucks—” He broke off then added mournfully, “I had a
fútbol
scholarship to New Caladonia.” Hugo had led the soccer team at their high school, and he had been a strong defense player. “Hope I get to play up here.”

“I’m sure you will,” Tracy heard himself answering automatically. Why was Hugo greeting him like a long-lost brother? They’d scarcely interacted at school. Tracy pushed ahead, eager to escape this unwelcome and forced comradeship.

Just outside the parade ground Hajin and Isanjo servants waited. Tracy noticed that the aliens waiting for the ladies were all female which was going to make the term “batman” a tad difficult to adapt, Tracy thought. A Hajin female whose greying mane and the deep lines around her muzzle indicated her advanced age approached Mercedes and dropped into a low curtsey, an awkward movement given the way a Hajin’s legs were jointed. The alien servants quickly paired off with various freshmen cadets. An Isanjo approached Hugo and bowed.

“If I may guide you to your quarters, young lord.”

“Hey, looks like I need to go. We’ll catch up later, okay?”

Tracy nodded, not trusting his voice. All the cadets and their servants flowed away down branching corridors, vanishing as quickly as rain on the desert uplands. Tracy found himself alone with no idea where he was supposed to go.

There was the sound of heavy breaths approaching from around a curve, and moments later the strangest creature Tracy had ever seen came racing along the wall of the corridor. It had three segmented legs and four appendages that appeared to be arms that ended in long hands with six fingers. Its head was too round and seemed to sit directly on its shoulders. It also had four eyes, two set in the center of the face and two others on the sides of its head. There was something about its feet that allowed it to cling to the Durabond material that formed the station. It tucked its legs, bounded off the wall and landed in front of Tracy with the air of a gymnast making a perfect dismount.

The face was basically humanoid, but the mouth was a small O, and the eyes in the center of the face were small, the beady stare of a spider adding to the overall impression of an insect. The voice that emerged was a rich baritone, completely at odds with the physical attributes.

“Cadet Belmanor, I am Donnel, your batBEM.”

“What?”

“I am a Cara’ot,” the creature said.

“I figured that out! No, I mean… BatBEM? Bug Eyed Monster? Seriously?”

“A little funny on the part of one of the early commanders of the academy,” Donnel said.

“And is it? Funny?”

Donnel bowed. “That wouldn’t be for me to say, young sir. You humans seem to think so.”

“Are you the only Cara’ot among the… batBEMs?”

“I am.”

“But what are you doing here? I thought you people never lived off your ships except to trade.”

“An unfortunate confluence of debt and a disagreement with my captain trader.” Donnel turned and began walking down the corridor. Tracy assumed he was supposed to follow and did so. “I was designed for space work so seeking employment on the station seemed the optimal choice. I have been eager to move out of the freighter bays, and when the opportunity arose to serve you I took it. Mela told me of your graciousness. I thought we might be a good match.”

“Mela?”

“An Isanjo batBEM assigned to Ensign Craddock. You were on the shuttle with him.”

“Was he the one who helped me?”

“I could not say. He was struck by your courtesy.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes it’s not the best approach,” Tracy muttered, thinking of his father’s servile manner toward the FFH.

“If you say so, sir.” Donnel stopped in front of a door, touched the panel and the door slid open.

The room was larger than his bedroom above the shop, and had that neat and well-designed feel of a ship’s cabin. There was a desk and chair. Tracy’s tap-pad had already been set out on the desk. On his left was a closet where his civilian clothes hung. To the right was a bathroom, where his toiletries were carefully arranged on a towel. There was a chest of drawers forming the pedestal of the narrow bed.

It was what was laid out on the bed that caught Tracy’s breath in his throat. A uniform. A dress uniform sewn of spider silk. A uniform that was the deep midnight blue of the other cadets. The silver piping was of the finest quality.

Tracy stepped to the bed and lifted the garment. The material slid across his hands like a whisper. Now that he was close he could see how smaller pieces of silver braid had been expertly sewn together. How the coat and slacks had been done piecemeal from smaller remnants, but in the hands of a master tailor it didn’t show. The only reason Tracy could see what had been done was because he had been trained by that master tailor.

He sank slowly down onto the bed, clutching the uniform to his suddenly aching chest. Donnel cleared his throat, turned away, and fussed with the tap-pad, straightening it though it didn’t need it. Tracy flashed on a memory of his father placing a hand on a bolt of spider silk, leaning in close to Bajit. He now knew the conversation that ensued. A request that Bajit cut as close as possible and save every excess scrap of material.

Understanding finally dawned. His father had been planning and hoping for Tracy to attend. The blow that had broken Tracy’s heart had been part of that plan, an act of terrible calculation and ultimate sacrifice. His father had risked losing the love of his only child in an effort to win a better life for that child. Tracy’s pain must be nothing to what his father had felt.

“How did this… Did you see…” Tracy fumbled.

“An older gentleman stopped by and delivered the uniform. He was on his way to make a small repair to Cadet Lord Arturo Espadero del Campo’s uniform.”

“Did he… did he have any message?” Tracy forced the words past a constricted throat.

“No, he seemed a bit taken aback to have found me here. He merely said he was making a delivery for Cadet Belmanor.”

I hope I never see you again!
His hot, hateful words returned to tear at Tracy.

Tracy shot to his feet. “Do you think he’s still on the station, Donnel?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

“Could you find out?”

“Don’t you require assistance dressing, sir?”

A corner of his mouth quirked up in a wry smile. “I’m not one of your helpless aristos. I’ve been dressing myself for at least fifteen years,” Tracy said. “Please, just look, okay?” he pleaded. “It’s terribly important.”

“Very well.” The alien went scuttling out of the room. The door closed with a sigh.

“Thank you, Dad,” Tracy said softly to the walls.

* * *

The cadets were entering by class—upperclassmen first, the plebes last. She might be the Infanta, but she would come behind all the others despite outranking them all.

She glanced around hoping to spot Tracy. At first she failed to see him. She had been looking for that pale blue uniform, but instead he was wearing a midnight blue dress uniform just like all the rest of them. It was beautifully tailored and seemed molded to his body. As she watched, Boho walked past Tracy and cuffed him hard on the back of the head, knocking off his hat, and then treading on it.

“So, which one of us did you rob to get your hands on that uniform,
intitulado
?” he asked while several of his comrades laughed.

Mercedes was baffled. She knew Boho was arrogant but she had never thought him a bully, and all of the FFH were trained to show courtesy to the lower classes. Something must have happened between the two men, but how they could possibly have crossed paths was a puzzle she couldn’t solve.

Tracy bent to recover his hat but Boho kept his boot firmly planted on it. Glancing up from beneath his long lashes Tracy said, “Since you seem to wish for my hat, sir, I’ll most humbly and happily make the trade.” And lightning quick he straightened and swept Boho’s hat off his head, and placed it on his own.

Mercedes gave a gasp of laughter and several other cadets of lower nobility, after glancing from Boho to her, followed her lead. Tracy glanced at her and the barest of smiles touched his lips. She realized she was smiling back, and quickly schooled her features. Blood rushed into Boho’s face, but the grizzled old spacer was calling for them to enter now that the other classes had made their way into the hall. Boho had no choice but to pick up the crushed hat and try to punch it back into shape. Fortunately it was hats off as they entered so he was able to tuck the abused chapeau beneath his arm.