23

Damn, wrote Falconer Commander Ter Roshak. Damn it to some appalling Inner Sphere hell! Warriors are warriors and the Clan is the Clan, but sometimes the rules do not fit the game; the standards do not apply to the particular social action or even the individual experience. As I watched the risk-taking cadet fall to a barrage that was more luck than skill, thoughts raced through my brain and I felt an uncharacteristic frustration, even a sadness for a fate I did not believe in. It was all I could do to keep a tight rein on my emotions before Falconer Joanna and the other training officers in the control room.

We all know the necessity for luck in warfare, yet I do not like to see a cadet defeated by shots fired from virtual ambush, especially when it is another cadet rather than one of our Trial cadre doing the shooting.

Yet, Cadet Marthe is to be praised. Her improvisation was brilliant. She will become a fine MechWarrior, a fine officer. Aside from the personal interest I have taken in Cadet Aidan, I have other reasons for regretting that the incident occurred. Aidan's strategy was clever, too. Indeed, he accomplished something that had never been done before. He threw the whole Trial into disarray, and then would have won it with actions that would have been heroic in a real battle, but for Cadet Marthe's tactical quickness. As a good tactician myself, I appreciate her skill, but it is not pleasing to see it used against another candidate who was equally deserving of success.

At one time, I used to believe that exceptional cadets should have a second chance at the Trial, but I was voted down by chiefs of staff. Eventually, they won me to their point of view, which faithfully adheres to Clan military beliefs.

But any rule has its exception, and I believe Aidan should be one of these. If I had it in my power to reinstate him, I would.

But there is no way.

Or is there?

I know I am not through with this Aidan, this generational twin of my old comrade, Ramon Mattlov. The first thing I will arrange is to keep him within my command. That strategical maneuver is, at least, within my power.

And then—

And then—

Who can say what will happen then?

24

After his first week as a Tech, Aidan knew he could not stand the life, especially not here, in the same place where he had failed, where hopeful cadets, confident in their abilities, were still in training and reminding him of what he had been. When he chanced to pass by Falconer Joanna on several occasions, she had looked right through him. That, more than the hard work and the certainty that being a Tech was a demotion in caste, discouraged him. He could not abide being continually reminded of his failure in the Trial, but neither could he avoid the constant reminders.

Nomad, for whom he now worked as an apprentice, perceived Aidan's problem from the first day. "Take the work as it comes," he advised. "Work is the best cure for anything. It numbs the feelings."

"What makes you think I am feeling anything, Nomad?"

"If you say you're not, you're not. I don't argue what's in somebody else's head and body. That's a problem for them and any doctors whose scrutiny they have the misfortune to come under."

"Do you have to use so many contractions when you speak? It sounds coarse."

"Away from your old friends, the cadets and warriors, we are by their standards—coarse. We use contractions, we use ancient cursing styles. The lesser castes do; the freeborns have made a ritual of it. We chat about forbidden subjects. You'll have to learn all this. You're a Tech now, Friend Aidan."

"Do not call me friend either. I will work with you but . . ."

"With us, Friend is just another title. Like Cadet or Falconer or Commander. You'll get used to it."

"Never."

"Techs are not petulant either, Friend Aidan."

Now that they were Tech to Tech, Nomad was more talkative than when he had been Aidan's virtual servant. The outcome of the Trial had dissolved the class barrier, Aidan realized, and Nomad had dissolved the emotional distance between them almost immediately. Cheerful when away from warriors, he had done much to ease Aidan's immediate transition into a new caste. Aidan's chiding of Nomad's speech flaws was done with a similar affability. Indeed, he experienced an almost sibko-like friendship with the other man now. Perhaps, after all, Aidan wouldsomeday fit in as a Tech.

But he could not accept Nomad's counsel, could not lose himself in work. The work was not a cure. If anything, it depressed him more. So much of it was meaningless. Awaiting their assignment to a 'Mech, they were doing futile mechanical tests on transport vehicles, repainting surfaces, adding plates of new armor, adjusting weapon calibrations, learning to reconfigure 'Mechs in the field, all dull work from which Aidan could not find the sense of accomplishment that it seemed to provide Nomad continually.

From the first day, Aidan realized that he would have to find some way to numb his mind in order to perform the monotonous tasks that were now his lot. Not that Nomad's mind was at all diminished by it. He seemed to relish the least task, taking a high degree of satisfaction from transforming something that was not working right into an efficient component.

One day, after finding that a chest-mounted medium laser was jamming because of a structural flaw in the surrounding casing, Nomad sang while tearing one section out and welding in a new one. Except for the chanted, almost monotonous tunes of the warrior rituals, Aidan had never heard much music. Nomad's song was lively and melodic. Some of the words, too, were unfamiliar.

"They're farmer's words," the Tech said. "Rural language. All the castes have some music. But we don't all have to warble that dry stuff that cadets are stuck with in their stiff and stuffy rituals."

"You find our—theirrituals unappealing."

Nomad looked all around him before speaking, then he kept his voice low: "I never said that. I meant that their songs or chants or whatever are not as lively as the music in the lower and freer castes."

"Free? What does that mean? You work all day, lead a subservient existence, are dominated by routines and restricted by laws, follow caste customs—how is that free?"

"We don't have to jump into magnificent dustbins and risk our lives at the command of others."

"But that is honor, glory, hero ..."

"That is just so much of what the bull leaves behind him on the road."

"Sometimes I do not grasp your slang, but it is as repellent as your overuse of contractions."

"You make too much out of contractions and slang. You're headstrong but a bit dim, Friend Aidan. Contractions, slang, they're just words, words like your honor and glory and such. Just words."

"That sounds like treason to me."

"In a cockpit, maybe, but down here, among the Techs, it's just chatter. Do you seriously think a warrior is going to hang a Tech for treason? They need us. There are not enough Techs to go around. Nobody ever gets hanged who's indispensable."

"You pretend to a wisdom beyond your station, Nomad."

"Who's pretendin'? And it's your station now, too, Friend Aidan. If you want to keep from steppin' into the pile of wisdom that's available to you, that's your business. In the meantime, hand me that wrench."

Every morning, Aidan found it more difficult to roll out of his bunk. He dreaded facing another day of tinkering with some piece of machinery while cadets and training officers passed him by, oblivious to him. Their snobbery enraged him. What right had they to ignore the people who maintained the essential vehicles, the buildings they lived in, the 'Mechs they might fight in? Now they cut him dead, but a few weeks ago, he had been one of them. (And, Aidan realized suddenly, he had ignored Techs just as blithely.)