The Lost King (33 page)

"Sure enough, the
pilots had a few and then started in on 'land-bound lubbers.' The
soldiers told the fly-boys where they could fly their planes and it
wasn't deepspace. I don't know who threw the first punch. It didn't
matter, 'cause within seconds it was every man for himself. I stood
at the end of a bar, drinking brandy. This brandy." Dixter held
the glass to the light. "Occasionally I'd duck a bottle or
convince some private that he didn't really want to hit a colonel and
shove him back into the fracas. The pilots were getting the worst of
it.

There wasn't a stick of
furniture left intact unless you count my barstool. The owner was on
the phone, screaming for the cops. It would be just a matter of time
before the M.P.'s arrived to bring down the curtain. I was thinking
about heading for the door in back when one of the Air Corps officers
walked through the door in front."

Dixter took a mouthful
of liquor down the wrong way, coughed, and covered his mouth with his
handkerchief. Tusk started to reach out unsteadily to pound the
general on the back, thought better of it, and latched onto the
bottle instead. Dion sat on the edge of his chair, his hands clasped
tightly in his lap, his penetrating gaze fixed on Dixter.

"The officer was a
female. I'd known women officers before and I could take them or
leave them. Some were good. Some were bad. Just like men. Just like
aliens. But this one-—" Dixter drew in a soft breath, "she
was young. Too young. And fragile. Hair the color of sea foam. Eyes
that changed color like the sea, too. Sometimes they'd be green,
sometimes sparkling blue, sometimes dark and gray. Not that I noticed
the color of her eyes then. I just remember thinking that it must
have been that hair and those eyes that got her those major's bars
she was sporting and she'd probably take one look and beat it. Hell,
there were fists punching, feet kicking, fingers gouging. There
wasn't room for the bodies on the floor; they were starting to stack
up in the corners.

"But she didn't
leave. I saw her lips tighten and suddenly, from the expression on
her face, I knew how she'd won those bars. She waded into the melee,
grabbed hold of the first pilot that came flying her direction, and
smacked him hard to bring him to his senses.

"'Get out,
Fisher,' she ordered. 'The M.P.'s are coming.'

"The fly-boy was
thinking about arguing until he saw who had him.

"'Yes, sir,
Major,' he mumbled and staggered toward the door.

"She was back in
the midst of the fight, as cool as you please. Someone—like me,
I thought—should get her out of here before she gets hurt. But
I just sat there. Somehow I knew, by the look of her, that she
wouldn't thank me for coming to her rescue. Besides, she didn't need
rescuing. One guy took a swing at her. In less time than it takes to
tell, he was on the floor wondering what had run him over. But she
wasn't there to fight. She was there to get her men out before they
landed in the lockup and she did. When they saw her, they forgot
about their brawl.

"'Out!' was all
she said, and they slunk out, those who could walk carrying those who
couldn't.

"She turned back,
going through the debris, lifting up the overturned tables to make
sure no one got left behind. Satisfied that she had all her boys, she
headed for the door.

"I'm not a praying
man. But I said a prayer then—the kind a kid prays. You know,
'Grant me this, God, and I'll do anything you want in return.' And my
prayer was answered. Sirens and whistles. The M.P.s were right
outside. That broke up the fight in a hurry. Guys began leaping
through the windows. Too late, of course. They were being nabbed on
the sidewalk. She was trapped. If she walked out, she'd walk right
into their arms and, what with the blood spattered on her and her
hair down in her face and her uniform torn, it wasn't likely she
could pass herself off as an innocent bystander. The room spun around
me and it wasn't the brandy. Somehow, I managed to cross the floor
and I caught hold of her hand.

"'This way,' I
said.

She never hesitated. We
were out the back door just as the M.P.'s came in the front.

"'Quick!' she
said. 'They'll be back here, too.'

"We ran down the
alley, knocking over boxes, scattering stray cats and bottles and
bums. When we reached the street, we let the crowd on the sidewalk
catch us up and take us with them. Behind us, I could hear more
sirens. We ducked into the shadows of a doorway. I was still holding
her hand.

"'Thank you,
Colonel.' She caught her breath. Her eyes were brighter than the
street lamps. I would've been in real trouble if my commander'd had
to come get me out of jail.' She laughed, though, when she said it. I
wondered why, at the time. 'I owe you one, Colonel—'

"'Dixter. John
Dixter.'

"'Where's home
base?'

" 'Here, but I'm
shipping out tomorrow. Reassignment.'

"'Good. You'll be
traveling with us.' She slipped her hand out of mine. 'Thank you
again, Colonel Dixter. I won't forget.'

"She was gone.
Vanished into the crowd.

"I didn't even
know her name."

Dixter's glass was
empty. He didn't refill it. Tusk lolled in his chair, his face lit by
a warm glow. Dion never moved, never took his eyes from the general's
face. Outside he heard Bennett pounding on the locked door to the
trailer, but the sound wasn't real, not nearly as real as a decadent
city beneath a green sun.

"I hate
spaceflight," Dixter growled suddenly. He glanced at Tusk, who
blinked and made some attempt to sit up straight. "You wouldn't
understand. No pilot ever does. I guess that's the real reason I
stayed in that bar to watch the fly-boys get the flak knocked out of
"em. Oh, I know all about the beauty, the mystery, the romance
of space. To me, it's just a cold and lonely place to die. Where's
the romance in sudden decompression—your brains gushing out of
your nose? Or in being blown to pulp or drifting endlessly, marooned,
to die of the cold or starvation or by your own crazed mind?

"Plus I always get
space sick. The first three days out for me are hell and I'd been
dreading the flight to my new assignment. But not now. When it came
time to board, I was the first one in the shuttle. Of course, I was
still sick as a dog. For three days I couldn't move off the bed,
except to crawl to the head. Finally, when I decided I might live
after all and I could keep water down, at least, I made my way out
into the ship and began to search for her.

"I found out where
the pilots bunked, where their officers' quarters were. I hung
around, hoping to see her. I came to know every major by sight, but I
never found the one I was looking for. Maybe she hadn't meant this
ship, but there weren't any others. Besides, I saw a couple of her
boys, their faces cut and swollen from the beating they'd taken. A
week went by and then one day a pilot I'd met—I got to know a
lot of them, as you can imagine—and I were walking down a
corridor to the rec room ..."

Dixter filled his
glass, but he didn't drink it. He rubbed his eyes and ran his hand
through his graying hair.

"I saw her and
knew in that moment the answer to everything: why she wasn't
quartered with the other pilots, why those boys of hers turned white
at the sight of her, why she had those major's bars and she couldn't
have been more than twenty, why nothing would ever be the same for me
again.

"She was coming
down a corridor, walking toward me, and she was dressed in the
shining silvery armor of the Guardians. Around her shoulders was the
blue cloak with the silver edging that marked her rank, around her
neck was the starjewel, at her waist was the bloodsword. At her side
walked a man—tall and strong and proud. He was dressed in
silver armor and wore the blue cape, only his was edged in gold.

"'Derek Sagan,'
said my friend, seeing me staring and thinking I was looking at him.

"When he said the
name, I did look. 'Sagan?' Even on Laskar, we'd heard of him. 'What's
he doing on board a cruiser?' It was the first time I'd ever heard of
the Guardians being directly involved in combat.

" 'He's been given
command of a special squadron—an idea he proposed'. It's made
up entirely of members of the Blood Royal, because of those touted
mystical powers of theirs. I'm thankful I'm not part of it. He's a
brilliant commander but a real bastard to serve under. A
perfectionist. Can't tolerate mistakes. They say he's as hard on
himself as anyone else, but that doesn't make it any easier to be
around him."

"'Who's the
woman?' I asked. All I could see were her dark eyes and that
glittering jewel.

"'The Lady Maigrey
Morianna.'

"This guy I was
with had spent some time at court, I found out. His father was a
minor potentate of some sort and he considered himself an expert on
the Royal Family.

"'Major Morianna,
I should say,' my friend said. 'She's a pilot, too. My guess is
she'll be in the new squadron. A member of the Blood Royal, of
course. The king's a first cousin on her father's side, I believe,
and Sagan's a cousin once removed or something like that—despite
the fact that he's a bastard. I mean a real one."

"He spoke in a
whisper. I didn't blame him. Looking at Sagan's face, I wouldn't have
said those words aloud within a light-year of him.

"'What about her?'
I asked casually, trying to be cool.

"I guess I failed,
'cause he grinned at me and shook his head.

"Forget it,
friend. You might just as well have fallen in love with a comet. Fire
on the outside and cold in the center. She's a warrior from a family
of warriors. On her planet her people ride horses and fight with
arrows and spears. She was thrown out of the Royal Academy for Women
when she was six for nearly knifing one of the Sisters. King ordered
her sent to the men's academy with her brother. That's where she met
Sagan.' He leaned closer to me, lowering his voice even further.
'They're mind-linked.'

"'What the hell's
that?'

"I was only
half-listening. Her hair was so soft and fine it floated when she
walked. It was long, almost to her waist. She must have had it
braided under her cap the day I saw her.

"'Watch the two of
them,' my friend said. 'It's really uncanny. They can share thoughts.
Their eyes meet and you can almost see the energy flash between
them.' He rambled on, but I wasn't listening.

"Fall in love with
a comet. That was true. I saw it now. She'd flash through my life and
leave only an aching blackness when she was gone, i saw it all as she
walked down the passage, coming toward me. I had been going to say
something to her, but I put that thought out of my mind, just as I
put her out of my life at that moment.

"They strolled
through the ship as if they owned it. Hell, maybe they did, for all I
knew. People made way for them without even thinking about it. I
flattened myself back up against the bulkheads, hoping to fade into
the ductwork. Sagan was saying something to her. Her eyes brushed
over me without a glimmer of recognition and then she was past me.
That was that, I supposed. I was almost relieved when Sagan stopped,
his attention drawn to someone else. Maigrey turned her head. She
looked at me—directly at me—through that mist of hair and
she grinned. It wasn't a smile. It was a grin—one conspirator
to another. She raised one finger in a warning kind of gesture. Like
this—'keep quiet.' I remembered what she'd said about her
'commanding officer.' Then she turned and walked away.

"And that was
that." Dixter toyed with the half-empty glass. "We became
good friends on that trip. We were friends for years. Her friendship
wasn't what I wanted, of course, but I took that over losing her. She
was Blood Royal, after all. Her ambition burned in her. It had been
born in her, she'd been raised for it. Politics bored her, she didn't
want that. She wanted to fly. She and Sagan and the others in the
squadron were the first members of the Blood Royal the king allowed
to become pilots. Usually, you know, they were married off to others
in the royalty to keep the bloodline pure. But this was when things
were starting to fall apart for the monarchy. I guess the king
figured he needed all the help he could get.

"And the help
tyrned around and stabbed him in the back."

Dixter fell silent. The
banging and yelling had increased in volume and ferocity. He glanced
vaguely in the direction of the outer door.

"Confound it,
Tusk, make 'em stop that racket!"

Rising to his feet,
Tusk lurched forward, fumbled with the lock, flung open the door, and
staggered into the outer office. Dion heard the mercenary conferring
with Bennett. Whatever he said obviously didn't have much effect, for
Bennett himself appeared in the doorway.

"General Dixter,
sir—"

"It's all right,"
Dixter said. "Just"—he waved his hand— "leave
us alone."

"Yes, sir,"
Bennett said. "Would you like some coffee, sir?"

"No, Bennett. I'd
like to stay drunk."

"Yes, sir. Very
good, sir."

"Find Captain Link
and tell him to report to HQ on the double. And send Tusk back in."

"That will be
difficult, I'm afraid, sir. He's passed out."

"Good. That'll
make it easier. Take him back to his plane. And tell XJ that Tusk's
grounded until further notice."

"Yes, sir."

Dion started to stand
up, but Dixter waved him down. "Bennett'll take care of Tusk.
You stay here. You should . . . know the rest. While I'm still sober
enough to tell it."

"Yes, sir."
Dion subsided back onto the couch.

They heard a sound as
if someone had thrown a glass of water into someone else's face. A
groan and then a scuffling sound and a crash, swearing. The door
slammed and everything but the rustling maps were quiet. Even
Dixter's voice, when he spoke, seemed to Dion not so much to disturb
the silence but to flow into it and become a part of it.