Without a Front (21 page)

CHAPTER 37
Tell me a story

 

Life at Hol-Opah settled into
a pattern. Tal began each day with her run, using the exercise as a means of exploring every corner of the Opah holding. After mornmeal, she worked in the fields with the Opah family and their workers. She listened to the spare conversation of people who had known each other for a lifetime, and found herself wondering about the richness of detail that was absent from their words but plainly present in their memories.

At one time or another, each member of the Opah family contrived to work next to her. She enjoyed her conversations with all of them except Herot, who reminded her of a first-cycle warrior who hadn't yet had his ego deflated to the proper size. Salomen's arrogance at least had a reasonable source: she was intelligent, determined, and accomplished. Herot just thought he was.

Upon ending her daily field work, Tal became the Lancer again, reading dispatches and reports, consulting with her advisors, and making the thousand decisions that rested in her hands. Sometimes it truly felt as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders as she took responsibility for allocation of resources, health issues, social issues, environmental concerns, and—new since the crash of the
Caphenon
—planetary defense, interplanetary diplomacy, and breathtaking technological advances.

With decisions in hand, she would send instructions to Aldirk, who never missed an opportunity to inform her of how difficult this arrangement made his life. When he arrived at the holding for their first meeting, she left the field at midmeal to spend the afternoon sorting out the kind of minutiae that made her question her own sanity for giving so much of her life and soul to this position. Making the big decisions was one thing; dealing with the innumerable political calculations that made actual progress possible was something entirely different.

At the end of the day, when she had completed both her fieldwork and her Lancer's duties, she became an instructor. Every night after evenmeal, Salomen came to her room for a lesson. Tal found herself looking forward to these sessions, which were a unique mixture of study, practice, and subtle battle, demanding a mental flexibility very different from what was normally required of her.

Salomen was a worthy opponent. She would walk in, stiff and reserved, and Tal would smile from the window seat and disarm her with questions she knew Salomen did not expect: what kind of toys she played with as a child, how her parents met, why she chose the various crops she planted. When she asked why the Opah fanten tasted so much better than anyone else's, she had the rare enjoyment of watching Salomen's reserve melt away in her earnest response on the advantages of the feed she used for the animals, as well as the unique quality of the grass they grazed on in the south pasture. When Salomen discussed her holding, she seemed to forget her distrust and speak almost as to a friend. Perhaps, Tal mused, it was because she was speaking
of
a friend, for that seemed to be how she viewed her holding—as an old, dear, and well-loved friend, worth every bit of the love and labor she poured into it.

One night, she asked why the holding used so many field workers instead of investing in labor-saving equipment. Her query inspired a startled look and then a lecture on the economics of the Opah holding, as she learned that most of the profits of each cycle's harvest went to pay off last cycle's debts and the laborer's wages.

“But if you took out a second loan to buy the equipment, you would be using the profits to pay that instead of worker's wages,” Tal said. “And within a few cycles you'll have paid off the equipment and can begin investing the profit in other improvements.”

“And just how ‘improved' do you think my workers' lives would be?” Salomen asked. “I don't employ them simply to work my fields. I employ them because they've always worked this holding, as their parents did before them and their grandparents before them. I have a responsibility to them, handed down to me through the same generations. We depend on each other, and I will not be the first to end that.”

Suddenly, Tal understood a great deal more about the woman facing her and found her respect rising. She and Salomen had more in common than she had first thought.

“That's why I'm so afraid of your policies,” Salomen continued. “By destroying our profitability, your matter printers will end the livelihoods of these people more surely, and more quickly, than any equipment I could buy.”

“I can understand why you would think that,” Tal said carefully. “But think about this as well: It's not just the need for workers that will be reduced. The workers' need for income will also be reduced. If they can acquire the same goods and services without spending six or eight hanticks in the field every day, is that not an improvement for them? Is it not an improvement for you to work less hard, produce the same output, sell it for less so that more can benefit from it, and have more time to enjoy your life? Because the same lower prices for goods and services will apply to you, too. Or, if you wish, you could reinvest that income into growing more varieties and improving the holding. You have so many options! That's what I've been trying to tell you in our meetings. Yes, the matter printer technology will reduce your profitability. But it will also reduce your expenses, and that's the key.”

“Do you really believe that will happen?”

“Yes! I would never release that technology otherwise.”

She held her breath as Salomen considered it. This was what they had fought over so furiously during their last few delegate meetings, and the fact that they were now speaking in normal tones of voice was already a big step forward.

“I want to believe your vision,” Salomen said at last. “It sounds wonderful. But I'm afraid it's just fanciful economics, and we'll pay the price for it.”

“Do you honestly think I would risk the very fabric of our culture on fanciful economics? Remember what I told Jaros: Alsea is my holding. I'm responsible for the lives of
all
Alseans. I'm not making choices based on what's best for certain castes; I'm making them based on what's best for all of us.”

She was close to a breakthrough. It was right at the surface of Salomen's emotions.

“Don't take my word for it,” she said. “Feel for yourself.”

That earned her a wide-eyed stare, and the rest of the evening was spent on a lesson in controlling emotional skimming. Once again, Salomen was an excellent student. Not only that, but by the end of the evening Tal thought she might even have converted Salomen to her policies.

Of course, the infuriating woman wouldn't give her the satisfaction of saying so.

As the days passed, Tal became comfortable at Hol-Opah. She was working her legs off, but her body had adapted and she enjoyed the physicality of it. More than that, she relished the peace. Sometimes she stopped what she was doing and simply looked around, soaking up the beauty of her surroundings, the delicious scents of sun-heated soil and growing things, and the absence of city noise. It felt like sanctuary—a refuge not just from Blacksun, but from what Alsea had become. Nowhere in her field of view could she see any sign of the Voloth invasion or the changes it had wrought. Conversation here centered on the holding, its products, the harvest, and the people, just as it had for generations. This was the Alsea of old, and she loved it.

Strangely enough, she had even become comfortable with Salomen. Though their lessons continued to be a form of genteel combat, something had shifted between them. It was less edgy. Of course, that didn't prevent her from occasionally baiting her student. She couldn't help herself; it was too much fun.

One night, half a moon into their challenge, she asked Salomen to tell her an amusing story.

“A story about what?” Salomen asked in dismay.

“Anything you find amusing.”

“But…I can't think up something on demand. It has to be more spontaneous.”

“All right, I'll make it simpler. Tell me about a time when you were so embarrassed you wanted to crawl under a rock. I'm sure that will be amusing.”

The sizzling glare made her laugh.

After a pause, Salomen began to speak, but her story was not what Tal had expected. She told of an evening when she was a young woman of nineteen cycles, just before her Rite of Ascension. A local boy had invited her to join him at a dance, and since it was the first time anyone had asked her, she had been full of excitement—until she arrived at the tavern where the party was to take place and learned that there was no dance after all. It was just another night at the tavern, and she stood out like a Council member at a fanten farm in her fine clothes. A shout of laughter drew her attention to a table near the fire, where the boy who had invited her held out his hand. “Pay up!” he called, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I told you I could do it!”

To her complete mortification, half the people in the room shuffled over to slap coins on the table. Amid a general roar of laughter, she turned and left, her cheeks burning with rage and humiliation.

Tal's cheeks were warm as well. Had she been there, that little fantenshekken wouldn't have laughed at Salomen for long.

“That was not amusing at all,” she said stiffly. “Does he still live around here?”

“You've met him. It was Norsen.”

Norsen. The producer who had said nothing of value in their delegate meetings and asked Salomen to not only take his place, but also to lie for him.

“Norsen was a waste of space,” she growled. “You're worth ten of him.”

After a startled pause, Salomen said, “It was a long time ago. But thank you.”

It wasn't long ago to Tal, who wanted to find Norsen right now and teach him a lesson. But Salomen was puzzled by her anger, and with some effort she reined it in. “Why did he do it? What made you the target?”

“I think it was because I didn't take part in the school social life. I had too many responsibilities on the holding. By then I was doing our accounting and worrying about whether this cycle's harvest would pay last cycle's debt and still leave us enough to repair the west fence line and the oldest outbuilding. But the others in my class were worrying about wearing last cycle's fashions or buying the fastest skimmer. Their concerns seemed so trivial, and I don't think I hid my impressions very well.”

“So you snubbed them and they made you pay?”

“They must have thought I was snubbing them. But I wasn't. I liked most of them; I just couldn't understand why they attached so much importance to such minor issues.”

“Ah. You grew up before they did.”

Salomen shrugged. “I suppose that's what happened. And they could not forgive me for it.”

A half-moon of practice had vastly improved her ability to front, but her expressive face often reflected the emotions she was working so hard to conceal. Watching her, Tal couldn't help feeling sympathetic for that young pre-Rite girl who had taken on so many responsibilities and paid such a high price.

And was still doing it, she realized. Salomen had antagonized her from day one, but it had always been in defense of her caste—and by extension, her field workers, her family, and her holding, which Tal now knew was the driving force behind everything Salomen did. She would risk anything for them, including the personal enmity of the Lancer.

She looked at Salomen with new eyes, understanding then that she had chosen her story to make a point. For two ninedays, their lessons had been more than just instruction. They had also been a subtle war of words and power. Salomen would not fully accept the subordinate role of student, and Tal could not prevent herself from repeatedly asserting her authority. In truth, it had never been a healthy student-teacher relationship.

“You've changed the rules of our engagement, haven't you?” she asked.

“I don't understand.”

“Yes, you do. We've sparred since the day we met. But you just dropped your sword, and I think you did it intentionally.”

“You asked for an embarrassing story. To amuse you.”

Now it was Tal who was embarrassed. Hearing her own request repeated back to her made it seem so…callous.

“I'm not like you,” Salomen added. “I don't always have the stomach for sparring. But sometimes it seems as if it's all we ever do, and I don't know how to make it stop.”

Tal's shoulders hit the window as she slumped back. Salomen was so good at their verbal battles that it had never occurred to her they weren't equally enjoying it. She had been battling an unwilling opponent? But that was impossible; she would have sensed it if—oh, no.

She hadn't sensed it because Salomen had
fronted
it, with the same selectively impervious front she used against the testers all those cycles ago. Her skills may have been patchy, but the one thing she had always known how to do was protect herself. And Tal had forced her into the position of protecting herself here, where she should have been safe.

A wave of hot shame washed over her as she thought of all the instances where she had used her position to needle, poke, and bait her student—and been pleased with herself, as if she was winning some sort of shekking competition. And she called Salomen the arrogant one?

“You just made it stop,” she said. “Salomen, I—Goddess above, I swear I didn't realize— Why didn't you…?” She shook her head. No. No excuses. Clearing her throat, she spoke more formally. “I apologize. I've abused my position and shamed myself.”

Salomen stared in open astonishment.

“You're right, there's no reason you should be forced to spar with me in this room.” Tal waved her hand toward the window. “Out there, or in the State House, we've been in a civilized form of battle from the moment I walked into that delegate meeting and heard you questioning my competence. You made no secret of your disdain for my policies or for me personally, and I enjoyed having someone of your caliber to spar with. But we shouldn't be sparring here. Not while I'm teaching you. I carried that in from outside and didn't even recognize it until now, and for that I am truly sorry. It was—inappropriate.”