Theirs Not to Reason Why 5: Damnation (5 page)

“An armed society is a polite society . . . but only once they have established their rules of conduct.”

Stopping in front of one particular stream, Ia stepped down into the waters. When Kardos hesitated, she tugged him down even as she shifted the bank out from under him, landing him in the life-waters of a certain male 137 years into the future. Immersing him in a solution to that problem.

They were a youngish man with two names. A private name which only his immediate family knew, Nicolo Kardos—one of several great-plus descendants of the first Duello Prime, Alexus Kardos—and a world-name, Bladespire, by which he plied his trade. Today, that trade involved listening to the frustrated tears of an older man. Fingers gnarled by old age and limbs weakened by a touch of gravity sickness, he was unable to lift a blade long enough to fight. Yet he wanted to, needed to, in order to answer the insults flung at him by a much younger business rival. Insults that were disparaging his goods as well as his honor, and which were beginning to drive away trade from his shop.

The elderly man’s only daughter was pregnant, or she’d have done something about it herself. She had no siblings, and her husband had died during an attack, so there were no siblings or son-in-law to fight for him, either. So he had come to Bladespire, one of the Duelle, to hire the man to fight for him. The younger man insulted the elder because he thought he could get away with it; old age had rendered his target personally unable to fight, and the younger was becoming a bully because of it.

Impassive though he seemed on the outside, Duello Bladespire had heard of this feud and was pleased the merchant had come to him to knock out some of the younger shop owner’s arrogance.

Ia skipped them forward in the man’s life-stream, once Alexus had learned the reasons for what came next. She made sure they immersed only lightly in this life-stream; they didn’t need to live every second of it personally. Just viewing it and knowing the passing of surface thoughts would be enough.

The fight, arranged the following day, proved the elder merchant had chosen well. It took place in a challenge ring, as all such duels were required, and it took place with what the Societatis people would call “live steel,” real swords with real edges and real points. While the elder shop owner watched off to one side, muttering encouragements and clenching his muscles in sympathy for each slash and parry, Bladespire slowly and thoroughly humiliated the younger shopkeeper.

The Duello did so verbally as well as physically. Bladespire delivered admonishments about respecting one’s elders, speaking the truth instead of false claims about his rival’s goods, and eventually bringing it to an end with a single, simple cut, drawing blood from the younger merchant’s hand. At the periphery of the life-stream’s awareness, others watched as well, members of the local community. Some catcalled on the side of the younger man, but only a few. Most chided on the side of the elder, lending social pressure to the younger man’s shaming.

When it ended with that cut and the few drops of blood that welled up, at that moment, all conversations around the challenge ring ceased. Bladespire stepped back, disengaging from the schlager duel. “By the terms of the Codex Duelle, I have won. You will cease your harassment, or face my blade again on his behalf, where I will by law have the right to beat you senseless. You will be a good neighbor and support his endeavors rather than seek to destroy them. Is that clear?”

His expression more subdued than sullen, the young merchant reluctantly agreed. Bladespire had worked him into a sweat, and had done so without himself growing more than mildly warm. But then he was trained to fight all day long if need be.

. . . A brief glimpse of the future through Bladespire’s watchful eyes showed the younger merchant ignoring his neighbor. It was close enough for the elder man’s tastes and needs, who cordially ignored him in return. Honor was satisfied, and the quarrel had more or less ended. The old man’s honor seemed to be satisfied with that . . . and their neighbors were happy with the lack of hostilities.

Ia drew them out of Bladespire’s waters. Regaining the bank, she looked at the stout, muscled soldier.
“The Codex Duelle is a system of ritualized combat. If a Free World Colonist has a grievance with a neighbor, and they cannot settle it with a peaceful discussion, they take it to the challenge rings. Most such things are fought to the yield. Some are fought to the first drop of blood, or to unconsciousness. A rare few will be fought to the death, but very, very few. It will have been designed and implemented by
you
,”
she informed him.
“This, and protecting the head of the FWC government, are your greatest tasks. Because everyone in the FWC
must
learn to fight, and must carry a weapon in case of a Church invasion, combat must therefore be ritualized. Formalized. As the Scadians themselves say, ‘An armed society is . . .’?”

“
‘
A polite society,’
” Kardos finished for her when she let the old saying trail out expectantly.
“But . . . only when the rules are codified and implemented. Right.”

“
Everyone
must learn to fight, because the Church will label everyone as a heretic and an enemy of the state, from the eldest of the elderly down through to the newest of the newborn infants,”
Ia asserted, looking at the life-waters around them.
“And as they learn to fight,
while
they learn to fight, they must learn
when
to fight. When it is appropriate, when it is inappropriate, how far they may take it, how far they may not . . .

“It is one thing to fight an enemy for your life,”
Ia stated, strolling farther downstream. Kardos moved with her since she still held his hand in hers, tugging him along.
“It is another thing to fight a friend in jest. The people of Sanctuary need to know where the various lines are drawn, and it must become so deeply ingrained in their culture that it will enforce the ideals of personal honor and personal responsibility.

“Such a task requires the very best of meioas to design it, implement it, and instruct others in it.”
She paused, wrinkled her nose, then added,
“Simultaneously, the same position must be filled by someone who understands the need for deception, secrecy, and counter-assassination measures, because the Church will
not
always fight openly. They certainly won’t fight honorably.

“In fact, through much of the ongoing war, they will fight with great dishonor. You must be prepared to catch and counter every one of their tricks and teach others to know how to turn those tricks back on the Church’s spies and infiltrators,
without
descending fully into such practices yourselves. Occasionally, yes, you will use such practices when the need is great, but not each and every instance. Such restraint requires a code of honor that is deeply ingrained and enmeshed in a culture, even as its adherents acknowledge the
practical
need to know and utilize the enemy’s tricks.

“It is not,”
Ia acknowledged dryly,
“an easy balance to maintain.”
She looked at Kardos.
“What I ask of you will never be easy. But it is worthwhile. When the Fire Girl Prophecies come true on my homeworld and the Zenobian Empire is born, they must be strong yet compassionate, self-sufficient yet generous, fierce yet honorable. They must be all of these things and more, because if they are not, then the Savior will not have a
home
. She will not have a refuge where idealism is pattern-welded to pragmatism and tempered with honor.

“She will not have a refuge in which to nurture her
own
sense of honor, not without the people of Sanctuary having a sense of honor themselves. Without that tempering, she will not be forged into the strong weapon we all need her to be. When the moment comes for her to bend and spring back into place, surviving under great pressure . . . she will instead break. And when she breaks,
this
is all that will be left of our galaxy’s future.”

She stopped at the edge of the desert that had plagued her since her precognition had blossomed back when she was fifteen. He squinted, stared into the desolate distance ahead of them, with barely a desiccated weed here and there breaking the cracked, dusty, dried-up streambeds, and glanced behind him to double-check the healthy green of the grass and the darker leaves of the occasional bush still existed. That the waters of all those lives still flowed, in the past. They certainly didn’t in the future.

“I can instruct my fellow colonists right and left via the written word, even leave them a few recorded images . . . but I cannot
live
among them as the example they need. I will
never
be able to live among them. There are still too many tasks awaiting me elsewhere, things which only I can do,”
Ia told him, facing Kardos.
“This, however, is something that
you
can do. As a Scadian at heart, if not by birth, you are the best man for this task, and the
only
Scadian who can survive living in the high gravity of my homeworld, the world where you were born and raised before emigrating. This is what I
must
ask of you because my own sense of honor, my sense of duty, and my conscience, demand that I ask it of you.”

“And how long will this precious task take?”
Alexus asked her, giving her a shuttered look.

Ia didn’t blink.
“The rest of your life.”

He drew in a breath to protest. She shook her head.

“I ask you nothing which I would not do myself if I could, Alexus. But while I
could
lead my people into a way of life that includes such deep-rooted honor and watchful pragmatism as they will need,
they
cannot fight the Salik with the skill and the knowledge that will end this war, never mind the Greys.
You
cannot fight the Salik or the Greys with that level of precision. I am too badly needed away from my homeworld to stay behind.

“But this,
you
can do. You are uniquely suited for it. Will you give what I have shown you careful consideration?”
she asked.
“We still have several months to go before we reach Sanctuary and the point of no return. I cannot wait forever for an answer, but I can give you a few of those months in which to think, before you either agree to take up this task, or I must take the time and effort to find someone less qualified to fill your shoes.”

Kardos frowned at the grass behind them, the half-dried streams by their feet, and the ceaseless, bleak desert ahead.
“You said these people of Sanctuary, your people, would have to learn dishonorable ways of fighting as well as honorable. I only know what is honorable. I am not the right person to teach them such things.”

Ia smiled slightly, watching him as he studied the timeplains instead of looking at her. He didn’t notice, but she could see his life’s waters thickening and deepening a short distance downstream.

“That has already been considered. Commander Helstead is a former member of the Knifeman Corps,”
she stated, pronouncing the word as
corpse
instead of
core
. Even here, on the timeplains, that distinction was still important.
“So is Private Sunrise. Both are also trained in Troubleshooter protocols and methods. Helstead has already given similar lessons to a number of my crew and is willing to give you the appropriate training, too.

“Since it will take months for you to learn everything, I have arranged for your lessons to begin in two days. You needn’t make up your mind for a few months yet, as I have said—but even if you decline, it will be good for you to learn these things so that you know the proper counters to them, so learning them is an
order
, not an option.

“Do make up your mind by no later than the start of December,”
she warned him, drawing them back toward their starting point on the sunlit prairie.
“If you choose to refuse, I must hurry to train a less suitable heavyworlder as your successor and write out a rather large list of precognitive guides and directives for the other man to study and implement over the next sixty or so years. For you . . . it would be part of your nature to do such things. For him, it would only come with great care and practice. I’d prefer to take the easier way.”

“Why would my training start in two days?”
Kardos asked her.
“Why not start it as soon as we leave this . . . place?”
he asked, gesturing with his free hand at the timeplains while they walked.

“Because Lieutenant Spyder has finally found your mechsuit and is busy getting it unpacked, charged up, and ready for you to practice in, once you’re done working out,”
Ia told him. She stopped beside their entry point, the moment of Now in both of their lives.
“You’ll be very busy learning how to move safely in it for the next two days. You’ll need to know how to fight in it when we reach Sanctuary next May. Whether or not you choose to stay and help my people by spending the rest of your life on Sanctuary, you
will
help fight for their survival while we are all scheduled to be there. You and I are the only two people who can manage the rigors of combat in Sanctuarian gravity without needing a weave or using telekinesis to combat the planet’s pull, and that means you’ll be stuck as my teammate while I’m down there.”

A tug flipped them back into their own bodies. Kardos swayed on his feet, blinking owlishly. Reaching up with her other hand, Ia steadied him.

“. . . Easy,” she murmured out loud. “Your brain’s been racing at half the speed of light while the rest of your body was still plodding along at an orbital rate.”

“Half Cee?” he repeated, trying to grasp that fact.

“Well, bare seconds out here, minutes in there,” Ia told him. “Just sit down for a bit and catch your mental balance,” she added, guiding him to rest on the locker-room bench. “You’ll feel better in a minute or so. It’s a great way to share a great deal of information in a fraction of the time it would normally take, but it does exact a toll on both body and mind if you’re not used to it.