DESTINY’S CALL

by Loren L. Coleman

Tharkad, 2721

Alek heard Michael Steiner arguing with the nurse, swung his legs over the side of the cot and steadied himself against the nearby wall. The room tilted back and forth, sickeningly. He fought his rising gorge and held himself upright. He didn’t want his friend to see him laid out like an invalid. Pity was one thing he had never seen in Michael’s eyes, and never wanted to.

The university infirmary smelled of disinfectant and blood. The disinfectant was normal. The blood was his. Nurse Dragon had cleaned it up pretty well except for some dried stains on the front of his chambray button-up and the blood-clotted gauze packed up inside each nostril. A wonder he could smell anything at all, really.

Footsteps in the outer hallway as they came toward the door of his room. Michael’s pensive voice drifted in. “If he won’t point a finger, there isn’t much any of us can do.”

“Scared?” the nurse asked.

A gentle laugh. “You don’t know Alek. I wish we could scare him. Next time those boys might do permanent damage.”

It was the work of a few seconds to pull back the white curtain that screened his cot from the rest of the room. Carefully he pushed up onto unsteady legs, drawing in a sharp breath as his bruised ribs protested. Rolling his right sleeve down over the bandage wrap, he fastened the button at his cuff. It took three tries. Alek brushed down some of his blond hair, covering the livid bruise swelling at his temple. There wasn’t much he could do about his limp, or his face.

“So, what have we got in here?” Michael asked, stepping through the doorway. One hand smoothed his well-trimmed fringe of beard. A few gray hairs peaked through, but not many for a man of forty-five. Steiners aged well when they weren’t sitting on the throne of the Lyran Commonwealth. With luck, Michael Steiner II would never bear that kind of weight. His older brother Jonathan was Archon, which allowed Michael to return to Tharkad University as a research assistant and, soon, the eccentric life of a celebrity professor.

An odd friend for twenty-year-old Alek to have made, but a friend nevertheless.

“Thank you for coming, Michael.” Alek limped forward, trying to cover for his swollen right knee. “Let us get out of here, yes?”

“Hold it, wunderkind.”

Alek hated it when Michael called him kid. Their age difference rarely mattered except when Michael wanted to make a point.

“I had to sign you out of here, since you won’t take yourself to the hospital and the university is worried about liability. Which means you go nowhere until I’m satisfied.” He leaned forward, inspecting the younger man’s face. “Ja. Those will darken up nicely I expect.”

Alek didn’t care what his eyes looked like. He’d received blackened eyes before. Would do so again, most likely.

He looked past Michael at Nurse Dragon. Cynthia Durgen, the wonderful, old battleaxe, had the same look of distaste she slapped on every time students carried him in from another hazing. Alek knew the look wasn’t for him, but for the “don’t ask” policy Tharkad University generally took toward such happenings. It didn’t help that he pretended not to know who had come after him.

“Michael signed me out?” he asked, cutting to the bottom line. Lyrans understood bottom lines. She nodded reluctantly. “Then I’m leaving. Thank you for your attentions.”

Michael fell into step with Alek as he limped down the hall and into a crisp Tharkad morning. Winter still had a stranglehold on late-arriving spring. The sky was a calm, anemic blue, but a rime of icy snow clung to the campus’s park-like grounds. Alek stumbled as sunshine stabbed golden daggers behind his eyes. His temple throbbed.

“You look awful,” Michael said, helping him down the non-skid steps. “Why do you let them do this to you?”

“‘Not all of me is dust,’” Alek quoted. He shivered, missing the parka they had taken from him. “‘Within my song, safe from the worm, my spirit will survive.’”

“Always back to Pushkin. Was he beat a lot as a young man too?”

Hero worship through masochism? Hardly. “That’s not what this is about, Michael.”

“I know what this is about,” Michael said, stopping Alek with a hand on his arm. “You’re young and brilliant, and they hate you for it.” He let go of Alek’s arm. “They hate you, Alek. And they’re spoiled mama’s boys who think they can get away with anything. Or that daddy will buy it off when they don’t.”

Staring out over the campus grounds, Alek refused to meet Michael’s eye. Other late arrivals slushed their way to class, hands thrust in pockets and breath frosting. One of them paused long enough to staple a plasticized handbill to a magnificent pine. “Aren’t they right?” he asked. “It’s your world, Michael. I’m just a guest here.”

Michael shook his head. “Well, some of our Lyran students have a strange way of showing their hospitality.”

“They’re Star League cadets. They belong to the entire Inner Sphere now.” Which was as close as he would come to naming them. Alek figured Michael knew who they were, of course, but Alek wouldn’t put his friend in the position of having that knowledge confirmed. His choice. His bruises.

“They’re supposed to be professionals. You would be doing the Star League, and the Commonwealth, a great service by forcing them to deal with the consequences of their choices. ‘Some sense of duty, something of a faith, some reverence to the laws ourselves have made.’ Lord Tennyson speaks as true as any dead Russian poet.”

Alek had classes this morning. He should get going. “‘Everyone thinks of changing the world,’” he drew upon Tolstoi. He offered Michael a short wave as he headed off. “‘No one thinks of changing himself.’”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Michael called after him.

Alek raised a victorious fist into the air without looking back.

But if he thought to escape on a position of strength, those desires went unanswered. Grabbing his ‘corder and spare coat from the dorms and shuffling to class, his nausea increased. The final flight of stairs leading to the lecture hall swam before his eyes, and he nearly collapsed.

He felt bone-weary, but if he missed the entire Poli-Science lecture, they would know they’d gotten to him. He hadn’t stood up under two years of their “special attention” to lay down now with graduation so close. Elias Luvon and his friends would respect Alek’s determination, someday. Maybe they would become better soldiers for it.

Elias was nearest the door when Alek slipped in at the back of the sloping hall, and his smirk faltered when he saw no hint of surrender in Alek’s stoic gaze. Elias Luvon had strong, handsome features and an over-inflated sense of his own position at Tharkad University. He might very well be the Nagelring’s top MechWarrior cadet this year, allowed to use Star League billets purchased at the university, but he barely held his own in academics. On merit alone he was likely failing Poli-Sci, but the class was considered a must for sons of noble families and his father’s latest endowment to the university guaranteed him a passing grade.

Alek moved by deliberately, barely avoiding the foot stuck out into his path. He rested against the side of a table two tiers down, vision narrowing into a long tunnel at the end of which he saw an open chair next to Gabriella Bailey. She was only two more tiers away but it seemed awfully far.

“Hey. Alek.” One of his classmates. Another senior. Brian? Alek rested against his table. Were they friends? “You okay?”

“Not all of me is dust,” he said. Shaking his head clear, he shoved himself away and managed to descend the next two tier steps with great difficulty. He stood next to Gabriella’s table, swaying, trying to blink his vision into focus. On the stage below, Professor Kleppinger droned on about the Davion succession problem being considered by First Lord Cameron. Would House Kurita be given claim to the Davion throne? No one knew.

But not all of Alek was dust. He knew that. Within his song, safe from…from the worm…

“Did you want to sit here?” Gabriella asked, motioning to the seat at her side. She glanced up at Alek and her eyes widened. They were hazel with green flecks, quite stunning—funny how he’d never noticed before. Brown hair, ironed straight. Voice like song.

“Within my song,” he whispered.

Gabriella looked worried. She started to get up, and that was the last Alek saw. He clenched his eyes shut as the room spun on its axis, and he clutched at one last coherent thought as if it were a lifeline.

“Michael…?” he whispered.

Then he collapsed into dust.

• • •

Three days in the hospital under observation, they ran a dozen “routine” tests on Alek, including a CAT scan and an advanced EEG. It also allowed time enough for two different doctors, Michael Steiner, and the Dean of Tharkad University to pay him a visit to let him know what was wrong with him.

“Subarachnoid hemorrhage,” the doctor told him before being called out of the room.

Alek had resigned himself to looking it up when Michael showed to explain he had a cranial bleed putting pressure on his brain, but that he’d be fine. Later, Dean Caravel Albrecht nervously promised much the same thing, seemingly trying to convince himself as well. He’d also asked after who had done this to one of his students. Alek shrugged.

“Does it matter?” He spooned up some crushed ice to wash the taste of medicine from his mouth.

“Of course,” Dean Albrecht told him. “This is illegal.”

“Only by a matter of degree,” Alek said, still wielding his spoon. “If the law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits, doesn’t it justify, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits?” Even paraphrased, the administrator of Tharkad University should recognize Tolstoi.

He didn’t. “Commonwealth law would never condone such an attack.”

“And a new medical library would never purchase a C- in Political-Science,” Alek agreed with false bonhomie.

The Dean made his excuses and left not long after, no doubt wondering to whom Alek had been talking. Just as well he wasn’t there when Michael came back, smuggling in a thick book of free verse and some spicy Skye-style pizza—although it did not require much smuggling. Who was going to refuse the Archon’s brother?

“Not to worry, Pushkin,” Michael told him. “They decided not to drill into your head. The bleed will reabsorb naturally, and you’ll be out of here. That’s all there is to it.”

If that was all, then why run more tests? Psych profile. Reflex response. What more were they looking for?

He found out the next day when Michael came back accompanied by a Star League colonel and First-Cadet Luvon. The colonel wore an olive drab dress uniform complete with Nagelring sash and a ceremonial sword. Elias Luvon wore cadet fatigues and a look of distaste. Alek’s guard came up at once.

Michael introduced Colonel Baumgarten as part of the Eleventh Royal BattleMech Division, currently serving as commanding officer of the Star League’s Nagelring Academy.

“You’re in fine physical shape,” Colonel Baumgarten said, glancing closely at a noteputer screen. The small device looked fragile in his large hands.

“That’s reassuring,” Alek said with a grim smile.

“It says here that you’ve had heart surgery. Fully recovered?”

He looked to Michael, but found no help. The pale scar across his chest might have alerted the doctors. More likely someone had dug into his records back on Terra. “When I was three,” he finally admitted. “It took some time, I am told. I’m fine now.”

“Good. Good. We have strict demands on potential cadets, after all. The Nagelring more so than many training academies. I have to say, your academic scores and Martial Aptitude Test results place you in high standing.”

Which was when it dawned on Alek that Colonel Baumgarten—and Elias Luvon—were here to extend an offer into the prestigious Nagelring military academy.

Him! A Star League Defense Force military cadet?

“This is a joke, yes?”

Michael shook his head, but it was the colonel who answered. “No, son. No joke. When the local staff checked you over for cerebral damage following your fall, their examination recorded extremely well-developed motor-reflexes. They reported your results to us, as they are required to do, and we ordered additional tests while you’ve been laid up. Your nervous system is highly responsive. Perfect for a MechWarrior candidate.”

MechWarrior! Alek sagged back in his bed. The offer rolled over him so hard it took a moment to realize that the Colonel had mentioned his “fall.” The latest university euphemism for being soundly beaten, courtesy of Dean Albrecht and maybe even another donation by Lord Luvon, Elias’s father.

“No,” Alek said sharply.

Elias was all smiles and bright eyes. The colonel might have been sucker-punched, a feeling Alek knew very well. “You…you don’t want to think this through, son? We don’t roll out the red carpet every day.”

The last red carpet Alek had seen was the one he’d bled on. Now they wanted him to become one of them? “I understand the offer, Colonel Baumgarten. I have nothing but admiration for the Star League Defense Force as an entity.” Elias glowered, no doubt feeling the verbal sting implied in Alek’s careful compliment. “I do not believe I would make a good addition to the roll.”

“According to our data, that wouldn’t appear to be the case. It says here that your parents are both SLDF veterans. A trooper, your dad. Fine record. Your mother rose to Sergeant Major in military administration. I’d think they’d be honored to see their son follow in their footsteps.”

“Ah, but Colonel,” Alek’s voice grew tight, “my parents would have accepted my original decision. I’m here to study history and poli-sci on a Star League scholarship, and glad for it. Education is also a weapon, sir. ‘Its effects depend on who holds it in their hands, and at whom it is aimed.’ Stalin.”

Baumgarten reddened. “I’ll have you know, ‘that a sound military practice—’” he began before Michael leaped in to cut him off.

“Look, look, look, Colonel, you don’t want to get into this. Once Alek pulls out dead Russians, you’re fighting his battle.” Even against a Star League officer, the Archon’s brother could throw some weight. He steered the flustered man toward the door of Alek’s room. “Let the boy think about it. He’s had a hard week, after all—” his voice was lost outside in the passage.

The boy. Alek silently thanked Michael for the nice diminutive. He relaxed back into his thin hospital pillow for all of three seconds before realizing that Cadet Luvon hadn’t followed the others out.

“Now you think you’re too good for us?” Elias sneered.

Alek sat back up, reached for his glass of melting ice chips. He sloshed around the icy water. “I hope you aren’t going to pretend you actually wanted me to accept,” Alek said, then sipped around the spoon. “I’d be very disappointed.”

“Why should I care what you think, Terran? Just because your “Royal” divisions think they run the Star League?”

The noble scion was picking a fight no matter what. Alek didn’t need to provide more ammunition. “It’s not what I want, all right, Elias? Let’s leave it at that.”

“You think we have nothing to offer a guy like you?”

Alek should have let it go. “Of course not.” And, before he thought better of it, “After all, look what the military is making of you.”

A pettiness buried deep within Alek took some pleasure at Elias Luvon’s expression of outrage. He’d scored deeply with that remark, but it could hardly be called a fair fight. Elias studied to fight with weapons. Alek with words.

With exact military bearing, Elias toed himself about-face and stiff-marched from the room to catch up with his commanding officer. Michael passed him just outside the door. “Do I want to know what passed between you two while I escorted our good friend Colonel Baumgarten back to the waiting room?” he asked Alek as he entered the room.

“Just a difference of opinion.” Michael winced, and Alek remembered describing his first set of bruises last year, shortly after his transfer, as a difference of opinion. “It’s nothing.”

“The last ‘nothing’ put you in the hospital,” Michael reminded him.

“You think I didn’t consider their offer.”

Michael Steiner rubbed one hand along his beard, as if checking for exact edges. “I know you considered it, Alek. I’m just wondering if you gave them their fair due.”

“If you can’t beat them, join them?”

“Pushkin,” Michael said, as if Alek had been quoting again. The two men grinned, and the somber mood evaporated. “Truly, Alek, there would be advantages, to the Star League as well as to you. Not the least of which is the more stringent rules inside a military organization that protect its own.”

Everything you needed to know could, sooner or later, be found in Tolstoi. “‘The two most powerful warriors are patience and time,’ Michael.” Alek rested back, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him. “I already have them on my side.”

But remembering Elias’s expression, and the cadet’s suddenly cold demeanor, Alek wondered if that was actually the case anymore.

• • •

Alek sat on the frozen ground, his winter gear safeguarding him from snowmelt, and leaned back against a massive cedar. A plasticized poster calling students to a pro-Skye rally protected his uncovered head from the tree’s scaly bark. It was one of his favorite spots. Camped on the university commons right out in front of the main administration building, few bothered him here. Right now that was what he needed.

His breath frosted in front of his face, and he blew out a long, misty cloud of exasperation. Tension knotted behind his shoulders. His left ear still burned from being slammed hard with a lacrosse stick and his knuckles bled where he’d skinned them against the door on his way out of the dorms.

Served him right for letting the torments get to him.

He expected the hostile behavior from Elias Luvon and his cadet cronies, but what shocked Alek was how fast other students joined in after learning that he’d turned down a post at the Nagelring.

“Too good for a non-Terran academy,” Elias spun it.

Patently absurd. Alek attended a non-Terran university after all. But still the feet thrust into his way and snowballs with rocks in them increased. Students took to kicking his dorm room door as they passed, making it hard to study for the preliminary exams being given this week. It finally drove him outside, hauling along his notes and data wafers, with a few hours in which to relax.

With his ‘corder tucked safely away inside his carry-all pack, Alek untangled the wires and stuck plugs into each ear. Musical strains filled his head with deep viola and soft, whimsical flute, then the melodies faded into the background and Professor Kleppinger’s monotone filtered in to explain the latest political fallout on Terra. A compilation of his own design: the soothing melodies helped him focus, allowing him to replay his Political Science lectures over and over.

This month’s political dialog centered around two JumpShips which had been interdicted and destroyed by the Terran Hegemony’s new Space Defense System. A problem with their IFF codes, by all reports. This was Alek’s third time listening to the recording, but he couldn’t help the way his heart pounded at the news. His parents had been outbound from Terra around the same dates, planning an early visit to Tharkad. The SDS wasn’t supposed to challenge outgoing vessels, but the new technology was obviously unreliable.

Several of the House Lords were already positioning themselves politically following the disaster. Liao and Davion complained—loudly—that the defense system was unsafe and that its early deployment violated common sense as well as long-standing restrictions. Takiro Kurita took a longer view, and simply wanted to know when the technology would be shared with militaries of the Great Houses. All three were stirring a strong public outcry.

“Of course,” Kleppinger droned on, “it is unlikely that even such a tragedy as this will do more than spur local debate inside the separate Houses. Such is the absolute power enjoyed by First Lord Cameron.”

“No power is absolute,” Alek whispered to himself, closing his eyes. “Only corruption.”

Though paraphrasing the nineteenth century Lord Acton, he decided it was original enough to lead a paper on the subject and began to order his thoughts into a rough mental outline. Michael would give him a spot of grief over the non-Russian source, but the simple truth followed that Alek also studied in English, en Français, and was quickly learning Deutsch.

The musical composition had run into its third variation and Alek into his second page of mental notes. He couldn’t say how he detected the presence: A shadow against the back of his eyelids or a heavy footfall crunching down through the icy snow crust. All he could say for certain was that he suddenly knew that someone stood over him, and he startled to full alertness.

Gabriella Bailey stood there in parka, draped pants and snow boots. Her hazel eyes reflected back a measure of uncertainty. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said.

Kleppinger warned the class against accepting the media’s analysis. Alek straightened up into a better posture, finger-combed blonde hair back from his forehead. “No,” he said. “I mean, it’s okay.”

Nodding, Gabriella sank down into the snow next to him, resting on her knees and the toes of her boots, settling back onto her calves. She wore her hair down around her ears today, and neoleather gloves protected her hands. “Quite the spot you’ve picked out. Needed a break from studying?”

“What makes you think I’m not studying?”

She grinned. “You had a relaxed smile on your face. I don’t know anyone who smiles like that when plugged into a lecture. Not even you, Alek.”

It was the most she’d ever said to him in one sitting. Alek certainly did not want to argue with her. But… “Here,” he offered, pulling out his right ear plug. He passed it over, stretching the wire out of his pack. “Take a listen.”

More for the sake of politeness than any real desire it seemed, Gabriella cupped the plug to her ear. Her eyes widened into doe-like pools. “Kepplinger…and Wolfgang?”

“Ulysses Rozz. Twenty-sixth century composer. He based his work off Mozart, yes. I mixed this myself.”

She laughed, handed him back the plug. “That is so wrong.”

Alek shrugged, pulled out his left ear plug with great care and a sharp intake of breath, and tucked both into the pack. “I can listen to it dozens of times, though. It makes it easier to…what?”

She cocked her head to one side, looking at him. “Your ear.”

“My…? Oh. Yeah. Is it purpling up yet?” She nodded, glanced around uneasily. He tried to keep his tone easy, though the memory of the lacrosse stick lashing out at him in the corridor, driving him into the wall, was kind of hard to make light of. “It’s not so bad.”

Gabriella mimicked his lighthearted approach. “Don’t you ever win a fight, Alek?”

“No one wins a fight.”

“Is that another of your dead Russians?” Even she knew of his penchant for quotations, though Alek would have bet she hardly knew anything about him.

“A live one. Me.”

That brought the smile back to her face. “You’re very…complicated. For being such a straight-forward person, I mean.”

He shrugged. “Blame my father,” he said, and she glanced askance at him. “I was very young, and…not always in good health. He would take me to the museums in Moscow. Russia had a very,” he reached for the right word, “fractious history. There were purges. Massive oppression. And there were rebellions. But the strongest traits came from when the people endured. Seven hundred years later, you can still see it. That is a heritage.”

Gabriella nodded. “He sounds like a man who would be interesting to meet.”

“He will be here,” Alek said. “He—and my mother—are traveling to Tharkad. They will vacation on some nearby worlds, and then return in time for my graduation. Perhaps you will meet him then.”

“Perhaps I will.”

Neither of them seemed to know what to say after that. The silence stretched between them, and then snapped like cold taffy. “Well,” Gabriella said, “I just wanted to say that I’m glad you’re all right. After your collapse in class last week.” Rising to her feet in graceful motion, she brushed away snow caked to the knees of her pants. Almost as an afterthought, she asked, “Are you going to the spring reception?”

A university tradition, hosting the Nagelring cadets in a large ballroom event. Archon Steiner would make an appearance. It was the largest social event of every year. “I don’t know.” Dark thoughts flitted through Alek’s mind, knowing that Elias Luvon and his friends would be there in force. “You?”

“I was thinking about it.”

Alek blinked his surprise. “You mean no one has asked you yet?”

She laughed. “Well of course he asked. But I said…it doesn’t matter what I said. I simply thought...” Gabriella laughed again, more quietly, at herself. “Oh, hell. Alek, I was hoping you’d like to go. Together. With me.”

A flush crawled over the back of his scalp, and Alek climbed up onto his feet. He didn’t notice how his left ear burned anymore. He worried more about his dry mouth and a suddenly thick tongue. “I would—very much—like to escort you to the reception,” he said formally. “That won’t create too much trouble for you?” she asked.

“No. Why should it?”

“Never mind.” She shook her head—but her hazel eyes, they still worried. “I forget you’re not part of the gossip underground. It should be fine.” She shrugged. “So, it’s a date. I’ll leave you to your studies, and we’ll talk later.”

Alek might have left it at that. His brain was already working the problem, after all. He could have checked it out quietly. But the thought was only half-formed when he caught Gabriella turning away to leave, and he blurted out the question: “Who else asked you?” But he knew, he knew.

Gabriella flashed a glance at the ground. “Elias Luvon.”

And then she shrugged it off, leaving him standing in the snow beneath the tall evergreen, reminding himself over and over again the value of enduring.

• • •

Michael Steiner was far less sanguine, especially after hearing about it through staff gossip and not from Alek directly. The summons came as an invite to join Michael for lunch—not an order, but with Alek it carried the same weight.

He did not have so many friends on Tharkad that he could afford to refuse them casually.

So he sat on a stool in Michael’s research library, feet tucked back, watching his friend pace the narrow aisle running between bookshelves and workstation. A forgotten manual lay open on Michael’s glass-topped desk, its pages weighed down by a unique assortment of data crystals developed by the university in cooperation with a Lyran Commonwealth corporation—going to replace disk wafers across the entire Inner Sphere, Michael claimed. The crystals were lined up on both pages by color and, presumably, content.

All forgotten now, as the Archon’s brother speared Alek with an un-blinking stare.

“Do you like drinking your food through a straw?” he asked, a flush showing through his meticulous beard.

Alek rubbed at his jaw, massaging the dark yellow bruise he’d picked up this morning. He had seen the cyclist coming, but not the elbow. “I was careless.”

“Ja. I would say you were.” Michael plucked at his starched cuffs, tugging them out of his suit jacket sleeves. “Careless even to talk with Gabriella Bailey.”

“I don’t think this is so bad.”

“Worse, Alek. Elias Luvon asked her to the reception, and she spurned him. If you think this will sit well with any Nagelring cadet once Luvon is through, you are sadly mistaken. For a history and PoliSci student, you can be remarkably short-sighted. Have you ever noticed that?”

“‘How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid?’” Alek asked back. He looked at the studying professor, grinned. “‘It must be education that does it.’”

Michael froze, his face tightening down until his gray eyes disappeared behind narrow slits. Then he could not contain it anymore. A smile split through his beard, and a tight chuckle rolled out into a real laugh. “English lords and now French authors. Alek, you will mar your reputation if you keep this up.”

“Do not worry. I’m not finished with dead Russians.”

Stepping over to Alek, Michael placed a hand on his shoulder. “Just see that you do not become one. All right?” Alek nodded, and Michael took that as a guarantee. “So, your parents make planetfall yet?”

He smiled. “Tomorrow. And I have three more prelims to get through before they arrive.” Alek checked his watch. “Including the third part of Kleppinger’s four-day miniseries. I should go.”

“It’s forty minutes until Gerald starts his…ah. All right. Liebeskrank, ja? You hope to find an empty seat next to your date for the reception.” He exhaled a short, sharp sigh. “Very well. Go on with you. Just remember to duck now and then, and if Gabriella is wearing anything nice today, don’t forget to say something about her shoes.”

“Her shoes?”

With a shove, Michael propelled him from the stool and toward the door. “I’m beginning to side with Colonel Baumgarten. Maybe we are teaching you the wrong things. Or at least, not enough of the right things.”

Alek shuffled toward the door, grabbing up his carry-all pack from a small end table. “There’s nothing for me to learn from Baumgarten.”

“If you really believe that, then you are most certainly right. ‘A closed mind never errs, nor learns.’ Tracial Steiner.”

“Family’s not fair,” Alek called back, then pushed out into the corridor. He let Michael have that one. The prerogative of being part of a ruling House, you did get to win once in awhile.

And the truth was always hard to refute.

The thought hung at the back of Alek’s mind for his brisk walk over to the social sciences wing, haunting him, dredging up the ghosts of Colonel Baumgarten’s offer and his father’s commentaries, which had been delivered while the two of them explored Terra’s violent past at museums and battlefield memorials. Was he being close-minded with regard to Baumgarten’s offer? Perhaps. But then he had never been one to put muscle (or metal) over mind.

Those most capable of wielding power were those least likely to desire it. To Alek, this was a self-evident truth. An article of faith. And faith was the force by which people lived.

At the same time, also according to Tolstoi, the sole meaning of life was to serve humanity. Did that mean Alek had to serve it in the most self-sacrificing method available? Or simply that he should always hold in mind his debt to the greater good? He sighed. The mills of philosophy could grind exceedingly fine.

“But safe from the worm, my spirit will survive.”

At least through Kepplinger’s Political Science class. Or so Alek thought at the time.

The lecture hall was only half-full, with most early arrivals doing some last minute cramming from books, noteputers, or ‘corders. The room smelled of flavored coffees, mulled cider, and nervous sweat. Styluses danced over paper, over screens, as timelines and tables were practiced again, and again, and again. This kind of frantic energy would not be seen again until final exams, though prelims were no easy slouch as here students set a baseline for their finals grade. One could not improve better than a full letter grade over prelims, and the weighted average made it hard—but not impossible—to fail if one pulled an average grade now.

Gabriella Bailey already had a seat halfway up the stair-step risers, right on the aisle as she normally preferred. Elias Luvon sat next to her, straddling the chair backward with large hands gripping the backrest posts as if they were control yokes. Elias wore full dress uniform for today’s occasion, including gloves and saber. A bit prissy, but he wasn’t the only cadet who thought a strong show of military devotion might win points from an instructor. Gabriella saw Alek’s approach and nodded to Elias, who stepped back up from the chair without so much as looking around. Alek stepped to one side, giving Elias room to pass.

Elias stopped in the aisle next to him, smiled when he saw the bruise darkening Alek’s jaw. “I’d wish you luck, but you won’t have any problems with a Commonwealth-level exam, will you?” Elias asked the question loudly, sharing it with the rest of the class.

His jaw ached for the first time since leaving Michael’s office. “Commonwealth or Star League, I’d expect to have no trouble taking an exam for which I studied.”

“Right. Studying. I forgot, thinking is beyond us dumb grunts, right?”

“I never said that.” Alek saw several faces turn their way. Some curious. Some hostile. All right. A debate he could handle. “I appreciate your sacrifices, made for State and for Star League. Why do you feel my choices lessen yours?”

“Nothing you say or do lessens our honor!” Elias dropped one hand to the hilt of his saber, as if he might draw it to avenge his honor. Alek’s carry-all was heavy on his shoulder. If he swung it hard enough… “The Inner Sphere does not revolve around Terra, you know.” He stormed off, stomping up the risers to his usual seat near the top of the hall.

All a pose, Alek realized, never a threat. And Elias had got in the last word. He dropped heavily into the seat next to Gabriella. “I never said that,” he complained softly.

“Why do you continue to fight with him?” Gabriella asked, never taking her eyes off the amber screen of her noteputer.

“It’s a dialog. Maybe some day he will actually hear it.”

“I’m not so certain. But while you’re waiting, you can quiz me.” She shoved over her noteputer. “Political ramifications of the Periphery Unilateral Freedoms Act, as jointly proposed by the Capellan Confederation and Free Worlds League.”

Which ate up the rest of their free time before Kleppinger closed the hall doors as his assistants paced the two main aisles handing out SAT-panels. The large green-screen display would be their only interface with the professor’s testing program. Answers were shot wireless into the mainframe, to be analyzed and graded later. Alek tore through page after page of questions, providing dates and names and, when called for, a political analysis of the situation.

So engrossed in the process was he, that at the first ringing tones he slapped his stylus down on the table thinking time was up. Then he realized it couldn’t be. He was only half done with the test.

Another series of tinny rings. Like a pager. A kind of warning tone. Alek looked at Gabriella who stared back at him. Students at nearby tables were also staring his direction.

“What is this interruption?” Kleppinger shuffled up from the stage, his droning monotone actually holding a touch of irritation. He smoothed back a thinning spray of white hair. “Alek. Turn off your wireless. No pagers, no comms. You know the rules.”

“Professor. I don’t have a wireless.”

Three electronic bleats argued, and Kleppinger frowned. “I’d like to think I hear the truth ringing in your words, Alek, but I doubt that very much. Stand up from your chair please.” The professor checked Alek’s seat, bending down on one knee. Another betraying chirrup. Kleppinger glanced beneath the table, reached under and pulled a slender noteputer free of its magnetic clamp.

Alek’s stomach hardened into a fist of cold lead when he recognized the small device. His. The low-power light flashed in time with the next ringing alarm.

“I see,” Kleppinger nodded. His pate flushed a dangerous scarlet beneath his thinning hair. “Can you explain this?” Alek opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He had no breath to form the words. “No matter. Let us save it for Dean Albrecht, shall we?” He caught Alek’s slender arm in a grip that was strong for an aging academic, turned him away from the table and marched him up the risers.

Elias Luvon glowered from his seat near the door. “Studying, huh?” His voice was a little too loud. A little too pleased. “‘Bout time someone found you out.”

Alek had never felt an urge to physically hurt another person until now. His hands clenched into fists so tight that his nails dug painfully into the soft bed of flesh in each palm. He considered launching himself across the table at Elias, sure that righteousness would prevail over academy training. Before he could decide, Professor Kleppinger was dragging him toward the door, through it.

The elder man paused in the threshold. “The rest of you still have fifty minutes. SAT-panels will be collected on the hour by my assistants.” Then he stepped into the corridor and gestured. “After you,” he said coldly.

The door to the lecture hall closed with a heavy weight while Alek was only a few meters away.

The sound of finality.

• • •

Six hours into his academic review, Alek knew what a firing squad victim felt like.

The room Dean Albrecht chose was Spartan and cold, painted an olive drab that someone, at some time, thought was a good idea. It smelled of floor wax and aftershave. Tharkad’s pale sun shone through the room’s single window, high on the left-hand wall so that no one could look out. Dust motes chased each other in the butterish sunbeams slanting across the floor.

Alek stood at the front of the room, behind a small metal podium on which rested a sweating pitcher of water and a single glass. His hands smoothed the edges along either side. He faced the seated board which was now down to Dean Albrecht and Professor Kleppinger. Michael Steiner sat in as Alek’s advocate, keeping the long process civil. Keeping his own counsel, Michael had also brought in Colonel Baumgarten who sat in stoic silence through the entire ordeal, his falcon-sharp gaze pinning Alek to the wall, missing nothing. Behind the board his parents sat in straight-backed chairs, having delayed their travels to support Alek through his review. Dad rarely blinked, his blue eyes fastened steadfastly on his son, offering silent encouragement. Mom spent more time studying the academic board, seemingly amused by the entire process. Neither showed any doubt as to the outcome, and Alek was grateful for the strength of their belief.

“Another question,” Kleppinger said, resting forward on his elbows. He looked down at Alek, a true accomplishment when seated. “Unless you need a moment to collect yourself.”

“I’m ready if you are,” Alek said. Kleppinger frowned.

Other instructors had arrived, asked their questions, and left satisfied. Kleppinger seemed to take this entire review personally. Alek remembered the professor’s surprise—and suspicion—when told that his student would be let back into class pending a full academic review. It hadn’t taken Kleppinger long to discover that Michael Steiner had gone to bat for Alek, vouchsafing his character and demanding the board prove Alek’s need to cheat.

“The boy’s own noteputer clipped under the table isn’t enough?” Michael had later told Alek of Kleppinger’s outrage. “His own fingerprints on it, and no one else’s I’m told.”

Convenient that three of Alek’s most serious on-campus enemies had worn gloves that day as part of their dress uniforms. He never once pointed a finger in their direction, though the broken lock discovered at his dorm room had argued part of his case for him.

“Is this question going to require another thirty minute answer?” Michael asked, glancing at the slender watch clipped to his wrist. “We do have a Spring Reception to ready ourselves for tonight.”

Kleppinger drew himself up haughtily. “Perhaps we should be more interested in the ethical fiber of our student body than a social event.”

“Quite right, quite right.” Michael nodded. “I’m sure the Archon will excuse our tardiness.” Michael did not go on at any length to remind the board members of his relation to the Archon. He didn’t have to. Dean Albrecht took a long look at his watch as well, a gesture certainly not missed by Kleppinger.

“Very well,” the Poli-Sci instructor conceded. “I’ll keep this one short.” He spread his hands over the table they all sat behind. “In the briefest answer possible, Alek, give me the founding political cause behind the last four decades of challenges from ronin Kurita samurai against Star League base champions.”

Identifying the political foundations for current troubles was never an easy task, and would open a debate more often than ever reaching a consensus. Alek, however, was not one to shirk a challenge. “The Reunification War,” he said at once. Then was quiet. He sipped from his water. Waited.

“I’ll ask you to elaborate somewhat,” Kleppinger said finally with great distaste.

Alek set the glass back on the podium. “When Michael Cameron assumed the First Lordship in 2649, one of his first challenges came from Tadeo Amaris and the Rim Worlds Republic. Amaris had begun expanding his armies at an alarming rate. This prompted First Lord Michael into signing, among other laws, Council Edict 2650, dictating the acceptable size of any non-Star League military force. House Kurita’s necessary downsizing of their army led to the ronin, or “masterless warriors” as they are called. Out of spite, under orders, or as a salve to their family honor, these ronin have been challenging Star League champions since 2681.”

“And this relates to The Reunification War, of the twenty-sixth century, how?” Dean Albrecht asked.

Alek sipped again from his water glass. “The specter of another Reunification War no doubt loomed over First Lord Michael’s decision to enact such military restriction in the first place.”

“You propose to know the mind of the First Lord?” Kleppinger waved a hand, dismissing such a claim. “Your psychological skills aside, this would still seem a tenuous tie between events.”

“‘The processes of cause and effect among political circumstance are often legion, and nebulous, until viewed from a historian’s perspective.’”

The professor scoffed. “Who said that?”

“Weldon Kleppinger, doctorate thesis, 2706.” Michael Steiner laughed out loud and Colonel Baumgarten dipped his head in a silent salute. Alek smiled. The academic gauntlet had been thrown down.

“And yet,” Kleppinger rebounded on the attack, “you assert contemporary rationale for the ronin’s activities. Spite. Honor.”

“And being under orders,” Alek reminded him, picking up his water glass. “But I never stated that these were contemporary issues. Even orders—if there were, passed through back channels—must have an historical context. These are the children and grandchildren of those who served under Leonard Kurita, who brought the Draconis Combine to the brink of war against the Star League in 2605.”

“Leonard’s Folly.” Kleppinger nodded. “He died of ‘mysterious illness’ though it seems likely that his replacement was engineered by…?”

“Siriwan McAllister-Kurita, after the seppuku of Leonard’s sister—”

“Elaine Kurita,” Kleppinger interrupted. Now the professor seemed to have something to prove. “She committed ritual suicide in shame for her brother’s actions. But Leonard was too far unbalanced by alcohol and drug dependence to care, and his paranoia following—”

“Following an incident that took place in the High Council, where Leonard attempted to assault the First Lord with a thrown bottle and instead struck a guard, who fired out of reflex, wounding the Coordinator.” Alek replaced his glass on the podium with a tired hand. “So we might as well say that the ronin challenges are all for the sake of a wayward bottle.”

“And that guard’s name was… was…” Kleppinger trailed off helplessly, unable to say. Alek saw in his eyes, though, that he knew. Knew, and wanted to deny it.

Levering himself out of his chair with hands splayed on the table’s top, Dean Albrecht rose. “I think we are at an end here, and this whole unfortunate misunderstanding can be chalked up to campus hijinks. Wouldn’t you agree, Weldon?” Kleppinger nodded dumbly. “Alek, please accept the university’s apology. Your scholarship stands and your record will not reflect this incident.”

He shrugged. The bitter taste at the back of his throat had little to do with victory, and everything to do with the crestfallen expression on Kleppinger’s face. Maybe it had been necessary to push back so hard, but Alek had taken some measure of joy in it as well, and that seemed—now—inappropriate. “And my prelims? I never did finish them.”

Kleppinger shook himself back to some semblance of decorum. He rose slowly. “Full marks,” he promised. He seemed a bit taken aback when Michael Steiner offered his hand and a sincere thanks on Alek’s behalf, but drew some extra strength from that and left the room with salvaged dignity.

His parents came forward, offering handshakes and warm hugs, while Dean Albrecht passed a few comments with Michael and Colonel Baumgarten. “Did just fine,” his father said. “What you had to do. Don’t worry about the rest.”

But Alek always worried about the rest. His parents knew that.

“You proved yourself a credit to the university,” his mother reminded him. “That is what matters.”

“Indeed.” Colonel Baumgarten joined them. “A true credit.” He introduced himself to Alek’s parents. “I wish I could claim so much on behalf of the Star League Defense Force, but Alek is steadfast in pursuit of academia. He’d make a fine officer.”

His father swelled with pride. “Told him much the same,” he said, putting a large hand on Alek’s shoulder. More than thirty years out of service, he still wore the same infantryman’s flattop and had a stiff military bearing. “Mother and I, both. But Alek, he is his own man. And has Tronchina’s stubbornness,” he quipped, glancing at Alek’s mother.

His parents shared a laugh over that, and Colonel Baumgarten joined in politely. Finally, his mother made excuses for her and her husband both. “We should get ready. Dean Albrecht extended an invitation to attend tonight’s reception, as chaperones, so we shall. If you do not mind, Alek.”

“Not at all,” Alek said. He gave both parents another strong hug and watched them go. “I should be off to get dressed as well.” But he held back just a moment, sensing a question in the Star League officer.

“You took Professor Kleppinger apart fairly quickly at the end,” Baumgarten said. “I saw his shoulders fall, and knew that he was finished. It made me wonder.”

“What’s that?” Alek asked.

“What the guard’s name was who shot Leonard Kurita.”

Alek paused near the door. Dean Albrecht waited off to one side to say his goodbye to the colonel. He saw no reason to drag out another history lesson just now. “Her name was Tanya,” he said, then slipped out the door. The colonel could look up her last name himself. And he would, Alek knew.

He would.

• • •

For the most part Alek had gotten used to the stares and whispers, the fingers pointed his direction as he passed tight knots of students in the halls or on campus grounds. He cataloged them in the back of his mind, parsing out those he felt might be a real threat from the students who simply enjoyed the petty torments of social segregation, and those who just didn’t care enough to go out of their way. It was, he’d discovered over time, a kind of status in and of itself. To whom was he important enough to be worth disliking.

Walking into the university’s Spring Reception with Gabriella Bailey on his arm earned him an entirely new level of attention.

A symphony breathed light melodies over the entire ballroom. Couples waltzed across a polished floor. Drifting slowly about the hall, roaming in between the refreshment tables and the receiving line already forming in anticipation of the Archon’s arrival, students and soldiers formed larger islands of conversation.

Alek had early hopes of slipping into obscurity among the crowds, but those dreams were quickly dashed. They were a match meant to attract notice, it seemed; silent, thoughtful Alek escorting the stunning debutante. Gabriella’s gown did not run toward any of the usual shades of blue, a color heavily associated with House Steiner and the Lyran Commonwealth. She had chosen a full-length emerald green with a slightly metallic sheen. A slit up the side flashed jewel-studded shoes and shapely calf. The back of the gown was strapless, entirely open down to the small of her back. Steering her toward the dance floor Alek’s hand slipped across that expanse of bare skin. It left him feeling warm inside his suit of basic black.

Gabriella laughed at his blush, but not in an unpleasant way.

“Nothing like being the center of attention,” Gabriella whispered halfway through a waltz, finally noticing the stares which followed them.

“It’s your gown,” he said. Though both of them knew it for a lie. Alek’s past week, and his success at today’s review board, was the hot topic of conversation in many circles.

“No.” Gabriella took her hand from his shoulder for a moment, tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. “It’s your dancing.” Alek wasn’t so certain she was talking about his waltz.

They finished their dance and one more, and then moved toward a refreshment table where crystal cups rested in a snowdrift of ice shavings. Alek found two non-alcoholic sparkling ciders. They traded stares with several other attendees over the rims of their glasses.

Women seemed to appraise them as a couple, reserving their approval or catty glances for them both, equally. Many of the young men looked in his direction with obvious envy, or elbowed a buddy and whispered an aside that caused jealous laughter. A few glowered darkly at the match. Most of these wore Star League cadet uniforms, complete with the Nagelring’s blue sash tied around their waists with ends hanging down over their left leg as was allowed by tradition. Hands rested aggressively on saber hilts, and a cautioning flush warmed the nape of Alek’s neck.

“You make it look so easy,” Gabriella said, sipping at her drink. “I count a dozen pair of eyes boring into your skull, none of them exactly wishing you well, and you still look relaxed.”

“You would like me to beat on my chest and make loud growling noises, yes?” The question made her laugh. It made a nearby Nagelring cadet frown, and Alek lowered his voice. “I can’t help what they think,” he told her.

“But doesn’t it wear on you?”

Alek sipped from the fruity beverage, let it play over his tongue and whisper down his throat. He smiled, almost sadly. “‘Not all of me is dust,’” he quoted. “‘Within my song, safe from the worm, my spirit will survive.’”

“I remember you saying that. Before. Or part of it, anyway.” She set her empty glass on the tray of a passing server. “You draw a great deal of strength from the words of others. How do you do that?”

“I believe.” Alek shrugged. “Because ‘the writer is the engineer of the human soul,’ I can decide how to influence the person I wish to become.”

Gabriella’s eyes softened, sparkled. Her lips parted in a light smile, showing a hint of white teeth. She leaned forward ever so slightly, then caught herself. “Take a walk with me?” she asked, nodding toward one end of the ballroom. Large doors opened through a glass wall onto a formal courtyard, and the university’s gardens beyond.

He swallowed hard. “Of course.”

Hand on arm they strolled along the tables, running into Michael Steiner and Alek’s mother returning from the dance floor. It was Michael’s first chance to speak with Alek since ducking out after the review. He buttonholed Alek while Tronchina exchanged pleasantries with Gabriella.

“Excellent work today, Alek. Old Weldon looked as if he’d swallowed a bug.”

Uncomfortable, Alek shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His father turned up and lead his mother away toward the refreshment tables. Gabriella looked over and smiled a promise to him, then withdrew to leave him a moment with Michael. “I really should thank you again,” Alek said, “for sticking by me, pushing through the academic board review.” He saw a shadow flit over Michael’s usually amiable face. “What?”

“Well, I didn’t push for that. My family connections notwithstanding, as a faculty member I’m responsible to support Dean Albrecht’s decision. It was Colonel Baumgarten who actually swung some weight behind a board review and got you the second chance.”

Baumgarten? “Why did he…”

“Mostly because of your parents, and the fact that you are here on a Star League scholarship.” He smiled. “The military looks after its own, Alek. Even when they don’t necessarily want to be claimed.”

And, Alek realized, Michael had realized well ahead of time that it might take Baumgarten to bring about a review, which answered Alek’s question as to why his friend had brought in the colonel. Alek wrestled with propriety and pride. It wasn’t much of a contest. “Thanks, Michael. I owe you.”

“Ja, you do, wunderkind.” He tipped a wink at Alek. “You can repay me by suffering through the formalities and allowing me to introduce you to my brother at some point.”

“Give me a moment to find my parents,” Alek offered. “I’m sure they would consider it a great honor to—”

“At some point,” Michael said again, interrupting. He placed hands on Alek’s shoulders. “Alek, never keep a lady waiting. Especially one in need of rescuing.” He turned Alek to one side, pointing out Gabriella and Elias Luvon near the edge of the dance floor.

“Right,” Alek agreed, trading clasps with Michael.

Elias had proffered an arm to Gabriella, holding it out for an awkward moment. She looked at him coolly. Alek walked up in time to hear him ask—not for the first time, likely—for a dance. “Alek can spare you for another two minutes, certainly.”

“Not by choice, Elias.” He slipped up to Gabriella’s side, and her hands encircled his upper arm. It felt as if low voltage electrical currents played out of her fingertips, teasing and trembling his skin even through his jacket sleeve.

“You can’t be gracious about this?” Elias glanced to one side, and Alek followed his gaze. Some of Elias’s cadet cronies watched the exchange from the dance floor, already partnered up and waiting for their friend. “Just to show there are no hard feelings?”

Which was almost humorous, considering who offered the olive branch. Alek still harbored a coal of resentment for Elias’s latest tactic, attacking him through his academic standing, but he banked it, smothering the angry burn in layers of calm reasoning.

“You know what? There aren’t any hard feelings. Whatever your problems have been with me, they’re your problems. Not mine.” Elias had obviously thought he heard capitulation in Alek’s words, and began to offer his arm again. But Alek shifted Gabriella back, putting himself slightly in front of her. “But those problems have nothing to do with Gabriella, either. And since I have never shown you hard feelings, I see no reason to demonstrate a lack of them now.” He nodded deeply. “Good eve, Elias.”

Escorting Gabriella away, he felt her reassuring squeeze on his arm. “Thank you,” she whispered after a long moment.

“My pleasure.”

And it had been. Where Alek had felt worse for Professor Kleppinger’s discomfort earlier this day, he could only believe that Elias Luvon had earned whatever loss of face this evening had brought him. A strong man—a future leader of men—would learn from such an experience. Alek hoped that Elias had such character in him.

Perhaps he should have known better and stayed more on his guard. But passing through the glass wall and onto the courtyard with Gabriella on his arm, it felt as if the day’s entire troubles simply drained away. The crisp evening air stole their breath and gave it back frosted. Tharkad’s legendary aurora borealis shimmered and wafted through the dark skies like a heavenly tide washing over a beach of black sand and brilliant diamonds. Couples stood transfixed by the stellar theater. Others strolled the brushed flagstone, and lost themselves among a spectacular collection of ice sculptures or headed out toward the university’s winter gardens.

Alek and Gabriella took a slow turn around the yard, enjoying the frozen tableaus. The passed by a pair of ballroom dancers; the man wearing a frosted uniform and saber, bowing low to his lady in a formal gown and a necklace of faceted diamonds. They walked among crystalline swans and a forest of ice-captured pines. Deer stood proudly on glacier cliffs, their delicate antlers glittering like starlight.

Gabriella wore Alek’s suit jacket over her shoulders for what thin warmth it offered against the night’s chill. As the couple drifted further away from the lights and sounds of the reception, they also drifted closer together. Passing through a small alpine village, each building carved at one-fourth scale, Alek’s arm stole around Gabriella and pulled her close.

They found themselves on a small patio, overlooking a short flight of steps leading down into the gardens. Alek wasn’t sure what made him stop there. A hesitation in Gabriella’s step? A squeeze of her hand on his arm? Whatever the reason, he paused and she swung around to face him. Her eyes were wide and frightened, and also warm and inviting.

“Gabriella, I—” She hushed him with a finger held up to his lips.

What had he been about to say? An apology? Her slow smile echoed his thoughts. Neither one was sure. Neither one was willing to back away. She stepped into him, chin tilting up, and Alek caught her hands in his, holding them at their waist.

Then a new pair of hands gripped him on the shoulders, yanked him back.

“Now they are your problems,” Elias Luvon whispered in his ear. And the cadet chopped Alek hard on the back of his neck, sending him to the ground with a violent shove.

• • •

His neck on fire with pain Alek stumbled forward, heading for a tumble down the short flight of snow-swept stairs. Behind him, Gabriella called out a short, sharp, “Alek!”

Elias Luvon laughed.

Dragging his right foot Alek pitched himself to one side. He lost one of his dress shoes, but managed to catch the stone obelisk that began the courtyard wall at the top of the steps. One edge sliced skin off his right temple, scraped down the side of his face with a dry, sandpaper rasp, and chipped against his collarbone. Alek exhaled sharply.

Rough hands grabbed at him again, a pair to each arm, and yanked him away from the obelisk. Two cadets, among Elias’s best friends and the ones who had been waiting on the ballroom floor as Elias asked Gabriella for a dance. They hauled him around to face Elias. A fourth cadet held Gabriella from behind, one hand clasped around either arm. Alek recognized him as well, from earlier at the refreshment table.

Gabriella’s soft brown eyes were wide and her arms puckered into gooseflesh from the evening cold. She had lost Alek’s coat, which lay at her feet in a dark rumple. A lock of hair had pulled loose from her coif and lay down across her face. “Alek?”

He’d be all right. Probably. He felt the soft trickle of blood oozing down his face, dripping from his jaw. Bright red teardrops splashed down the right breast of his tux shirt, spreading into a stain.

“You’re done, Alek.” Elias’s eyes were dark, and cold as any of the ice sculptures Alek and Gabriella had looked upon. “You couldn’t even be a gracious winner this evening. Well, we’re all tired of your Terran-elitist attitude. Your lack of respect.”

“I can’t understand it either.” Alek shrugged one shoulder up to his jaw to blot the blood from it. “I mean, given my warm reception and—”

Elias skipped forward, saber jangling at his side as he brought a knee up to plant squarely into Alek’s midsection. Breath rushed out in a violent exhale and Alek sagged toward the ground. Only strong hands kept him off his knees, holding him above the frozen courtyard. A second blow was not as well-aimed, and Alek felt a rib snap with a bright thunderbolt of pain. He gasped for air, barely able to breathe.

“Hobnobbing with the Archon’s brother.” Elias paced back to his original spot. “Insulting the Nagelring. Insulting the Commonwealth.” His list of Alek’s wrongs, real or imagined, had obviously condemned Alek already in his eyes. “Thinking that you were even worth her time,” he said, staring at Gabriella.

“Worth my time?” Gabriella’s tears were angry, not frightened. She struggled in the grip of Elias’s crony. The dark-haired cadet glanced about warily, but held her fast. “I’d take Alek over some puffed-shirt ‘Mech-head any day of the week, Elias Luvon.”

Glancing back over his shoulder, Elias nodded sharply to the two holding Alek. One of them put a foot out in front of Alek, who struggled to regain his feet, and they both gave him a brutal shove. Alek sprawled forward over the courtyard flagstone, barely catching himself, grinding frozen gravel and ice into his hands. His left side spasmed as ends of his broken rib grated together.

“But he’s so clumsy,” Elias whined in mock incredulity. To his friends, he said, “Help him up.”

They did so, one with a knee into his kidney and the other wrenching an arm behind his back until his shoulder screamed. Alek grunted, refusing to shout in pain. Through clenched teeth he managed, “Can’t imagine…what’s come over me.” Faith is the force by which we live, Alek reminded himself. And not all of him was dust.

“If he’s so clumsy,” Gabriella tossed back, all but shouting, “so undesirable, why did your commander offer him a position in the Nagelring?”

He felt a slight hesitation in the loose grips of Elias’s friends. The cadet holding onto Gabriella also looked taken aback, doubt clouding his green, malachite eyes. Alek gasped for more breath. The cold air burned harshly against his raw throat. “Didn’t mention that to your friends?” he wheezed.

Elias spun on him. “Shut up.”

“No snappy comeback?” Alek stood under his own strength. His right foot burned with cold as the ice underfoot melted and soaked into his sock, but he ignored the needle-stabbing sensation. Breathing shallow, trying not to aggravate his broken rib, he asked, “No grand debate?”

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say, Terran.”

Alek nodded. “Well, after all, ‘a closed mind never errs, nor learns,’” he quoted.

“Another one of your dead Russians?” Elias scoffed.

“Not this time,” Alek said, thanking Michael silently for the words. “Tracial Steiner. One of yours.”

With Gabreilla’s help he had gotten through to one of them. The dark-haired cadet holding onto Gabriella let her go. “Come on, Elias,” he said, glancing about nervously. “That’s enough.”

Elias speared the other cadet with a severe look. “I’ll say when it’s enough, Patrick.” Then he slowly drew his saber, letting the sword rasp free of its hilt in one long pull. “I decide.”

Gabriella drew in a sharp breath, fear finally showing in her eyes. The two cadets holding Alek let him go. They hadn’t signed on for murder, apparently. But then, neither had Elias Luvon. No one else saw it in Elias’s eyes. The desperation. The fear. Alek knew that Elias wasn’t about to use the saber. He was abusive and insecure, but he had not lost control of his senses. He was posturing, pure and simple. Elias Luvon had a need to be respected. To be in charge. Alek found that sad, and not a little pitiful.

He was also very tired of being Elias’s plaything, used as a means to the cadet’s end. Shrugging away from the two cadets standing right behind him, he limped up to Elias. “You aren’t going to use that, Elias.” His voice was steadfast and certain.

Elias had a dead look in his eyes. He had backed himself into a corner, and knew it. “You don’t know what I’d do.”

Alek nodded. “You’re going to be a soldier, Elias. A MechWarrior. You won’t risk that here and now just to save face. Not with witnesses,” he nodded to Gabriella.

“Who’d believe her?” Elias smiled cruelly. “Distraught and angry, found by four Nagelring cadets with her dress ‘slipping’ off and a Terran pawing her. Maybe her ‘no’s’ were real…maybe they weren’t. How were we to know, Alek? How were we to know?”

He meant to do it. Nothing with the sword—Elias seemed to have all but forgotten that as he crafted his latest piece of scandal and slander—but he could recover some poise by thrashing Alek further through university gossip. The feet thrust into his way, the thrown books and rude shoulders on the stairwells, they would never cease. Any “accidents” that befell him would be seen as deserving, to be covered up right away before any hint of the scandal made it into official records. If it ruined Gabriella Bailey’s reputation alongside his, that didn’t seem to bother Elias at all.

But it bothered Alek. More than anything else.

Bruises faded over time. Bones mended. But to hurt an innocent person for no other reason than the fact that she liked Alek seemed unconscionable.

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“Oh, yeah.” Elias flipped the end of his saber up, tapped Alek lightly on the shoulder with it as if knighting him. “And you know,” he whispered, “the more adamantly she denies it, the more people will believe it has to be true.”

“No!”

Alek flailed out with his left arm, knocking the saber away from his shoulder with such violence that it turned Elias halfway around from him. No one, especially Elias, had expected mild-mannered Alek to strike back. Not ever. Alek could have taken that moment to escape, so clean was the surprise. Grab Gabriella and run. Back across the courtyard patio, anywhere where others saw them, and could bear witness.

But instead Alek took a full step across the line he had toed for so many years. The line which had grown thicker, more severe, in the eighteen months spent on Tharkad.

He grabbed Elias Luvon, taking thick handfuls of fabric in each fist, and heaved. Elias staggered toward the steps which led into the university’s winter gardens. Alek stumbled, lost his footing. Pain lit up his left side as he slammed his knees against the cold patio flagstone. Through tear-filled eyes he watched as Elias wavered dangerously at the top edge, sword slashing the air in front of him as if trying to fend off gravity’s clutches.

Then Elias fell.

Alek’s breathing stammered, dredging in painful breaths and then exhaling small clouds of frost. He sensed someone drop down beside him, adding what warmth she could with an arm around his shoulders. “Oh, Alek.” The words echoed in his mind, but Alek drew no support from them. They were lost among a sea of chaotic thoughts and one dark, visceral image.

That of Elias Luvon. Sprawled over the lower patio.

A broken piece of his saber impaled through the right side of his chest.

• • •

The apartment, taken by Alek’s parents so that they could be on hand for the inquiry, smelled of coffee and his mother’s homemade black bread. The radiator rattled in the mornings and there was never enough hot water to satisfy anyone, but for now it was home.

It gave him a place to rest over the weekend, nursing his broken rib and a deeply-bruised kidney. Retreating into his books, he memorized three new poems by Pushkin and long passages by Dumas and Shakespeare as well. None of them could scrub the image from of his memory. No matter how hard he tried.

He limped from his room only twice that weekend. The second time he met Gabriella Bailey at the apartment’s door. She had tracked him down via Michael Steiner, Alek’s first visitor after the incident. Gabriella stood in the hall and bit on her lower lip, trying to decide what to say after declining an invitation into the apartment. “Are you all right?”

He nodded. “You?” A shrug. “Gabriella. I never meant for—”

“I know.” She cut him off with a quick shake of her head. Auburn hair whispered across her shoulders. The silence lengthened. She hugged herself around her middle. Awkward. Closed.

“Elias will be fine,” she finally said.

Michael had already told him as much. Elias was in the critical care facility of the local hospital, in stable condition after the staff took care of some internal bleeding and reinflated his right lung. He’d be there for several days, under observation. He wouldn’t be coming back for classes.

Gabriella had heard the same thing. “Looks like you won,” she said.

It didn’t feel that way to Alek. “No. I lost.”

She looked down at the carpeted hall. “I can’t get the picture out of my head. Everything changed so quickly.” She looked up, her soft doe eyes full of uncertainty. “I wanted it to be different.”

“Circumstance and accident often conspire against what we want.”

She forced the ghost of a smile. “Who said that?”

“Me.” Alek didn’t smile. He had nearly killed Elias Luvon. Accident or no, it weighed heavily. “Gabriella. I—”

“Alek, I just wanted to see you. Tell you I wish it were different. Everything had been going so well. I want…wanted…but now…”

“I know,” he offered, feeling very tired. “Me too.”

“Thank you.” She stepped into him, arms still between them as she leaned in close. Her breath was warm and sweet, and her eyes sad as she brushed dry lips over Alek’s cheek.

It was his first kiss from Gabriella Bailey.

To say good-bye.

• • •

Alek spent most of his days in a virtual bubble of isolation. Mostly of his own doing. The Nagelring cadets pretended he did not exist, except for one who made a point of staking out the PoliSci hall and offering a formal apology first to Gabriella, and then Alek. Other students also forwarded tentative apologies for their previous hassling, or else wanted to hear more details about the night of the Formal and thought that Alek would be into the gossip. He ignored both equally.

Lunches were still taken with Michael Steiner, and it was through Michael that Alek forwarded his request for a meeting with Colonel Baumgarten. Michael had the impeccable manners not to say a thing at the time, though he invited himself along the following evening, showing up at the apartment with the colonel and a bottle of good Lyran wine as a gift to Alek’s parents.

His mother played hostess, seating everyone in the small living room, passing out warm bread slathered with honey and pouring the wine. Alek’s father stood behind his son’s chair, hands on the backrest, encouraging but silent as Alek first asked after Elias Luvon.

“Recovering,” Baumgarten said. The officer still looked more of an accountant than a warrior, and ran through the report as if he were checking off a list. “Good prognosis for a full recovery. Very quiet about what happened that night. Refusing to meet with any other students or cadets. And expelled from the Nagelring.”

“Expelled?” Alek blinked twice. After all the cover-ups and dismissed investigations, he had not expected that. Had not even wished for it, in fact.

Baumgarten leaned forward. “We put a great deal of stock in personal conduct at the Nagelring, Alek. Accidents and a few minor transgressions we might overlook. But a pattern of abuse?” He shook his head. “I would hope you thought better of us than that.”

Alek took a small bite of the heavy bread, letting the honey sit on his tongue a moment before swallowing. “I think very highly of the Nagelring and the Star League Defense Force, Colonel. But who…” He glanced at Michael Steiner.

Michael smiled serenely, very much at peace with himself. “Not a word from me, Alek, until Colonel Baumgarten asked directly. He already knew at that point. Apparently one of the cadets present that night came clean.”

The dark haired one who had held Gabriella back. The one who had formally apologized to both of them. He asked, and Baumgarten nodded.

“Patrick Ward. Ja. On his testimony the Cadet Honor Board also expelled the other two, who attempted to bluff their way out of trouble. Patrick is on probation.” He set aside his untouched wine. “But you really didn’t ask me here to go over Nagelring protocols, did you?”

“In a way, sir. Yes.” Alek stood, glanced at his mother and father who both smiled thin encouragement. They excused themselves from the room, leaving Alek alone with the two men. “I wish to formally apply to the Nagelring, per your earlier invitation.”

Baumgarten did not appear surprised. “Lord Steiner suggested you might ask after that,” he admitted. “I have to say, I thought it unlikely. I thought you did your fighting with words? ‘Education is a weapon.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

That and more. Alek winced. “There is only a small difference between believing that, Colonel, and living by it. That difference nearly cost someone his life. When it truly mattered, I failed.”

Michael shook his head. “You defended yourself, Alek. Don’t beat yourself up over that.”

“If I’m going to defend myself physically at all, I should learn how.” That was the realization Alek had come to during his self-enforced isolation; that he had been fighting back against Elias Luvon for months without knowing it. Every verbal jab. His entire self-righteous attitude toward confrontation. And then, in a moment of frustration and anger, he had lashed out unconditionally. No thought or decision to it.

And that frightened Alek more than anything else.

Not all of him was dust, but he was not necessarily safe from the worm.

He tried to explain that to Colonel Baumgarten, who at least nodded as if he understood. “Still, you should think this over. Take some time, Alek.”

“I hurt Elias Luvon without taking time to think. Colonel, I’ve made my decision. If the Nagelring will still have me.”

Baumgarten stood, paced a tight box around the room while wrestling with the proposal. He came to a stop opposite Alek. “Technically, I cannot refuse you,” he admitted. Though he certainly looked as if he wanted to. “I looked up her name.”

“Who?” Alek asked, but he knew.

“The guard. Tanya. The one who wounded Leonard Kurita.”

He sighed. “Yes. I thought you might. And I obviously know the story, Colonel. Kurita pulled a dagger from his robes and stabbed her to death before fleeing. Her family was later awarded the title Defender of the First Lord and the right to attend any academy or university.”

Baumgarten spread his hands. “You see my dilemma.”

“Colonel. If you tell me here, in private, that I am not welcome at the Nagelring nor would I be of use to the Star League, I will accept that. I will not pursue it, even though it is important to me.”

“Why, Alek?” The colonel pressed forward, eyes intent. “Why is it so important that you do this? As a politician or historian you could effect such greater change.”

Michael laughed softly. “Ah, Colonel. ‘Everyone thinks of changing the world…’” he began.

And if Michael Steiner could learn Tolstoi, perhaps this effort by Alek wasn’t so futile after all. “‘No one thinks of changing himself,’” he finished the quote.

Baumgarten nodded slowly, digesting the words and never once breaking eye contact with Alek. He reached for the noteputer clipped to his belt, powered it up and pulled up a file. He showed it to Alek. The amber words glowed on the dark screen.

A formal contract, enlisting Alek into the Star League Defense Force, pursuant to his completion of training at the Nagelring military academy. It was all prepared, along with his identification number and full legal name, waiting for his thumbprint to seal the agreement. Alek reached out and thumbed the pad, letting the small device take a full scan and DNA sample, turning it into an unforgeable verigraph document.

Alek watched as Baumgarten confirmed it with his print, and Michael witnessed with his. As simple as that. He had not expected fanfare or ceremony. There wasn’t any. Just the mantle of the huge commitment he had just made settling over his shoulders with great significance.

“Not all of me is dust,” Alek whispered, bearing up beneath the weight.

Colonel Baumgarten was the first to offer his hand. “Welcome to the Nagelring,” he said, “Aleksandr Kerensky.”