Chapter Three
By the time Sassinak arrived at Regg with Abe, she was as ready as he to praise the Fleet, and glad to think of herself as almost a Fleet dependent. The only thing better than that was to be Fleet herself. Which, she soon found, was exactly what Abe planned for her.
"You've got the brains," he said soberly, "to make the Academy list and be a Fleet officer. And more than the brains, the guts. You weren't the first I tried to help, Sass, but you were one of only three who didn't fall apart when the time came to leave. And both of those were killed."
"But how?" Sass wanted nothing more than to enter the gleaming white arches of the Academy gates . . . but that required recommendations from FSP representatives. How would an orphan from a plundered colony convince someone to recommend her?
"First there's the Fleet prep school. If I formally adopt you, then you're eligible, as the daughter of a Fleet veteran—and no, it doesn't matter that I'm not an officer. Fleet's Fleet."
"But you're—" Sass reddened. Abe had been retired, over his protests; his gimpy arm was past treatment, and wouldn't pass the Medical Board. He had argued, pled, and finally come back to their assigned quarters glum as she'd never seen him before.
"Retired, but still Fleet. Oh, Cousins take it, I knew they'd do it. I knew when the arm didn't heal straight—after six months or so, it's too late. But I thought maybe I could Kipling them into it."
"Kipling?"
"Kipling. Wrote half the songs the Fleet sings, and probably most of the rest. Service slang is, if you're sweet-talking someone into something, 'specially if it's sort of sentimental, that's Kipling. Where you came from, they probably said 'Irish them into it,' and I'll bet you don't know where that came from. But don't worry—I can't be active duty, but disabled vets—" His expression made it clear that he refused to think of himself as disabled. "—we old crips can usually get work in one of the bureaus." Sass asked again about the prep school.
"Three or four years there, 'til you pass the exams—and I don't doubt you will. Don't worry about the letters you need. You impressed the captain more than a little, and he's related to half the FSP reps in this sector."
From there, things went smoothly: the adoption, the entry into the prep school. Although the other students were her age, none had her experience, and they were still young enough to show their awe. Sass found herself ahead of schedule in her math classes, thanks to the slave tech training, while Abe's lessons in physical discipline and concentration helped her regain lost ground in the social sciences. She felt out of place at first in the social life of school—she could not regain the carefree camaraderie of younger years—but she looked forward to the Academy with such singleminded ambition that everyone soon considered her another Academy-bound grind.
Abe's apartment, in a large block of such buildings, was unlike any place Sass had ever lived. Her parents' apartment on Myriad had been a standard prefab, the same floor plan as every other apartment in the colony. Large families had had two or three, as needed, with doors knocked through adjoining walls. None of the living quarters were more than one story high, and few of the other buildings. At the slaver depot, all the buildings were even cheaper prefabs, big ugly buildings designed to hold the maximum cubage. There she had slept in a windowless barracks, in a rack of bunks.
Abe had a second-floor corner apartment, with a bedroom for each of them, a living room, study, and small kitchen. From her room, Sass looked into a central courtyard planted with flowers and one small tree with drooping leaves. From the living room she could see across a wide street to a similar building across from them. It felt amazingly spacious and light; she spent hours, at first, watching people in the street below, or looking out across the city. For their apartment, like most, stood on one of the low hills that faced the harbor.
Regg itself was a terraformed planet, settled first by the usual colonists, in their case agricultural specialists, and then chosen as Fleet Headquarters because of its position in human-dominated space. Here in its central city, Fleet was the dominant force. Abe took Sassinak touring: to the big blocky buildings of Headquarters itself, all sheathed in white marble, to the riverside parks that ended in the great natural harbor, a wide almost circular bay of deep blue water edged in gray cliffs on the east and west, opening past a small, rocky island to the greater sea beyond. By careful design, the river mouth itself had been left clear, but Sass saw both the Fleet and civilian ports set back on either side. Although FSP regulations forbade the eating of meat, fishing was still done on many human-settled worlds, whose adherence to the code was less than perfect. Ostensibly the excuse was that the code should apply only to warmbloods and intelligent (not just sentient) aquatic coldbloods such as the Wefts or Ssli. Sass knew that many of the civilian locals ate fish, though it was never served openly in even the worst dockside joints. The fish, originally of Old Earth origin, had been stocked in Regg's ocean centuries before.
Besides the formal Headquarters complex, there were the associated office buildings, computer centers, technology and research centers . . . each in a landscaped setting, for Regg was still, after all these years, uncrowded.
"Fleet people do retire here," Abe said, "but they mostly homestead inland, upriver. Maybe someday we can do a river cruise during your holidays, see some of the estates. I've got friends up in the mountains, too."
But the city was exciting enough for a girl reared in a small mining colony town. She realized how silly it had been for the Myriadians to call their one-story collection of prefabs The City. Here government buildings soared ten or twelve stories, offering stunning views of the surrounding country from their windswept observation platforms atop. Busy shops crowded with merchandise from all over the known worlds, streets bustling from dawn until long after dark. Festivals to celebrate seasons and historical figures, theater and music and art . . . Sass felt drunk on it, for weeks. This was the real world she had dreamed of, on Myriad: this colorful, crowded city connected by Fleet to everywhere else, ships coming and going every day. Although the spaceport was behind the nearest range of hills, protecting the city from the noise, Sass loved to watch the shuttles lifting above forested slopes into an open sky.
In the meantime, she'd had a chance to meet some of the other survivors of Myriads raid. Caris, now grim and wary, all the playfulness Sass remembered worn away by her captivity. She had found no one like Abe to give her help and hope, and in those few years aged into a bitter older woman.
"I just want a chance to work," she said. "They say I can go to school." Her voice was flat, barely above a whisper, the voice of a slave afraid of discovery.
"You could come here," said Sass, half-hoping Caris would agree. Much as she loved Abe, she missed having a close girlfriend, and her room was big enough for two. And Caris had known her all her life. They could talk about anything; they always had. Her own warmth could bring Caris back to girlhood, rekindle her hopes. But Caris pulled back, refusing Sass's touch.
"No. I don't—Sass, we were friends, and we were happy, and someday maybe I can stand to remember that. Right now I look at you and see—" Her voice broke and she turned away.
"Caris, please!" Sass grabbed her shoulders, but Caris flinched and pulled back.
"It's all over, Sass! I can't—I can't be anyone's friend now. There's nothing left . . . if I can just have a place to work in peace, alone . . ."
Sass was crying then, too. "Caris, you're all I have—"
"You don't have me. I'm not here." And with that she ran out of the room. Sass learned later that she'd gone back into the hospital, for more treatment. Later, she went offplanet without even telling Sass, letting her find out from the hospital records that her friend had left forever. For this grief, Abe insisted that work was the only cure—and revenge, someday, against whatever interests lay behind the slave trade. Sass threw herself into her classwork . . . and by the time the Academy Open Examinations came around, she'd worked off the visible remnants of her grief. She passed those in the top five percent, to Abe's delight. His scarred face creased into a grin as he took her to buy the required gear.
"I knew you could do it, Sass. I knew all along. You just remember what I told you, and in a few years I'll be cheering when you graduate."
But he would not walk her to the great arch that guarded the Academy entrance. He went off to work that morning, as he did every day (she never knew which of the semi-military bureaucracies had found a place for him; he never volunteered the information), leaving her to stare nervously into the mirror, twitching one errant strand of hair into place, until she had to walk fast or risk being late. She made her entrance appointment with time to spare, only to run into a marauding senior on her first trip through the Front Quad. She had carefully memorized the little booklet she'd been sent, and started to answer his challenge in the way it had instructed.
"Sir, Cadet Sassinak, reporting—" Her voice faltered. The cadet officer she had saluted had crossed his eyes and put his tongue out; he had his hands fanned out by his ears. As quickly, his face returned to normal, and his hands to his sides, but the smile on that face was grim.
"Rockhead, didn't anyone ever teach you how to report to a senior?" His voice attempted the cold arrogance of the pirate raiders, and came remarkably close. Sass realized she'd been tricked, fought down the responsive anger, and managed an equable tone in return. Abe hadn't told her they called the entering cadets "rockhead."
"Sir, yes, sir."
"Well, then . . . get on with it."
"Sir, Cadet Sassinak, reporting . . ." This time both eyes slewed outward, his mouth puckered as if he'd bitten a gari fruit, and he scratched vigorously at both armpits. But she wasn't fooled twice, and managed to get through the formal procedure without changing tone or expression, ending with a crisp ". . . sir!"
"Sloppy, slow, and entirely too smug," was the senior cadet's comment. "You're that petty officer's orphan tagalong, aren't you?"
Sass felt her ears burning, started to nod with clenched teeth, and then remembered that she had to answer aloud. "Sir, yes, sir."
"Hmph. Sorry sort of recommendation, letting himself get captured and slaved all those years. Not much like Fleet—" He stopped as Sass opened her mouth, and cocked his head. "Something to say, rockhead? Someone give you permission to speak?"
She didn't wait. "Sir, Abe is worth four of you, sir!"
"That's not the point, rockhead. The point is that you—" He tapped her shoulder. "You have to learn how to behave, and I don't think anything in your background's taught you how." Sass stared at him, back in control, furious with herself for taking the bait. "On the other hand, you're loyal. That's something. Not much, but something." He dismissed her, and she set off to find her assigned quarters, careful not to gawk around.
For reasons known only to the architects, the main buildings at the Academy had been constructed in a mix of antique styles, great gray blocks of stone that looked like pictures of ancient buildings on Old Earth. Towers, arches, covered walkways, intricate carvings of ships and battles and sea monsters around windows and doorways, enclosed courtyards paved in smooth slabs of stone. Six of these patriarchal buildings surrounded the Main Quad Parade: Themistocles, Drake, Nelson, Farragut, Velasquez, and the Chapel. Here, where the boldest street urchins could peer through the entrance gates to watch, cadets formed up many times a day to march to class, to mess, to almost every activity. Sass soon learned that the darker gray paving stones, which marked out open squares against a pale background, were slippery in the rain. She learned just where a flash of reflected sunlight from an open window might blind a cadet long enough to blunder into someone else. That meant a mark off, and she wanted no marks off.
Through the great arching salleyport of Velasquez, wide enough for a cadet platoon, were the cadet barracks, these named for the famous dead of Fleet battles. Varrin Hall, Benis, Tarrant, Suige. By the time they had been there a half-year, cadets knew those stories, and many others. Sass, on the third deck of Suige Hall, could recite from memory the entire passage in the history.
Other cadets complained (quietly) about their quarters, but Sass had spent years as Abe's ward. She had never been encouraged to spread her personality around her quarters, "to acquire bad habits" as Abe put it, although he admitted that Fleet officers, once they were up in rank, could and did decorate and personalize their space. But the regulation bunk with its prescribed covers folded just so, the narrow locker for the required uniforms (and nothing else), the single flat box for personal items, the single desk with its computer terminal and straight-backed chair—that was enough for her. She didn't mind sharing, or taking the top bunk, which made her popular with a series of roomies. She felt the neat, clean little cubicles were perfect for someone whose main interest lay elsewhere, and willingly did her share of the floor-polishing and dusting that daily inspections required.
She had actually expected neutral or monotone interiors, but the passages were tinted to copy the color-code used on all Fleet vessels. By the time the cadets graduated, this system would be natural, and they would never have to wonder which deck, or which end of a deck, they were on. Main or Command Deck, anywhere, had white above gray, for instance, and Troop Deck was always green.
Most classes went on in the "front quad" or in the double row of simpler stone-faced buildings that lay uphill from it. History—from Fleet's perspective, which included knowing the history of "important" old Earth navies, all the way back to ships rowed or sailed. Sass could not figure out why they needed to know what different ranks had been called a thousand years ago, but she tucked the information away dutifully, in case it was needed for anything but the quarterly exams. She did wonder why "captain" had ever been both a rank and a position, given the confusion that caused, and was glad someone had finally straightened it out logically. Anyone commanding a ship was a captain, and the rank structure didn't use the term at all. "You think it's logical," the instructor pointed out, "but there was almost a mutiny when the first Fleet officer had to use the rank 'major' and lieutenant commanders and commanders got pushed up a notch." Sass enjoyed far more the analysis of the various navies' tactics, including a tart examination of the effect of politics on warfare, using an ancient text by someone called Tuchman.
Cadets ate together, in a vaulted mess hall that would have been lovely if it hadn't been for the rows and rows of tables, each seating eight stiff cadets. Looking around—up at the carving on the ceiling, for instance—was another way to get marks taken off. Sassinak, with the others, learned to eat quickly and neatly while sitting on the edge of her chair. Students in their last two years supervised each table, insisting on perfect etiquette from the rockheads. At least, thought Sass, the food was adequate.
The Academy was not quite what she'd expected, even with the supposedly inside information she'd had before. From Abe's attitude towards Fleet officers, she'd gotten the idea that the Academy was some sort of semi-mystical place which magically imbued the cadets with honor, justice, and tactical brilliance. He had told her about his own Basic Training, which he described succinctly as four months of unmitigated hell, but that was not the same, he'd often said, as officer training. Sass had found, more or less by accident, a worn copy of an etiquette manual, which had prepared her for elaborate formalities and the fine points of military courtesy—but not for the Academy's approach to freshman cadets.
"We don't have hazing," the cadet commander had announced that first day. "But we do have discipline." The distinction, Sass decided quickly, was a matter of words only. And she quickly realized that she was a likely target for it, whatever it was called: the orphan ward of a retired petty officer, an ex-slave, and far too smart for her own good.
She wished she could consult Abe, but for the first half-year the new cadets were allowed no visitors and no visits home. She had to figure it out for herself. His precepts stood like markers in her mind: never complain, never argue, never start a fight, never boast. Could that be enough?
With the physical and mental discipline he'd taught her, she found, it could. She drew that around her like a tough cloak. Cadet officers who could reduce half the newcomers to red rage or impotent tears found her smooth but unthreatening equanimity boring after a few weeks. There was nothing defiant in that calmness, no challenge to be met, just a quiet, earnest determination to do whatever it was better than anyone else. Pile punishment details on her, and she simply did them, doggedly and well. Scream insults at her, and she stood there listening, able to repeat them on command in a calm voice that made them sound almost as silly as they were.
Abe had been right; they pushed her as hard as the slavers had, and the cadet officers had—she sensed—some of the same capacity for cruelty, but she never lost sight of the goal. This struggle would make her stronger, and once she was a Fleet officer, she could pursue the pirates who had destroyed her family and the colony.
That calm reticence might have made her an outcast among her classmates, except that she found herself warming to them. She would be working with them the rest of her life—and she wanted friends—and before the first half-year was over, she found herself once more the center of a circle.
"You know, Sass, we really ought to do something about Dungar's lectures." Pardis, an elegant sprout of the sector aristocracy sprawled inelegantly on the floor of the freshman wardroom, dodged a feinted kick from Genris, another of her friends.
"We have to memorize them; that's enough." Sass made a face, and drained her mug of tea. Dungar managed to make the required study of alien legal systems incredibly dull, and his delivery—in a monotone barely above a whisper—made the class even worse. He would not permit recorders, either; they had to strain to hear every boring word.
"They're so . . . so predictable. My brother told me about them, you know, and I'll swear he hasn't changed a word in the past twenty years." Pardis finished that sentence in a copy of Dungar's whisper, and the others chuckled.
"Just what did you have in mind?" Sass grinned down at Pardis. "And you'd better get up, before one of the senior monitors shows up and tags you for unofficerlike posture."
"It's too early for them to be snooping around. I was thinking of something like . . . oh . . . slipping a little something lively into his notes."
"Dungar's notes? The ones he's read so many times he doesn't really need them?"
"We must show respect for our instructors," said Tadmur. As bulky as most heavyworlders, he took up more than his share of the wardroom, and sat stiffly erect. The others groaned, as they usually did, Sass wondered if he could really be that serious all the time.
"I show respect," said Pardis, rolling his green eyes wickedly. "Just the same as you, every day—"
"You make fun of him for his consistency." Tadmur's Vrelan accent gave his voice even more bite. "Consistency is good."
"Consistency is dull. Consistently wrong is stupid—" Pardis broke off suddenly and sprang to his feet as the door swung open without warning, and the senior monitor's grim face appeared around it. This weekend, the duty monitor was another heavyworlder, from Tadmur's home planet.
"You were lounging on the deck again, Mr. Pardis, weren't you?" The monitor didn't wait for the reply and went on: "The usual for you, and one for each of these for not reminding you of your duty." He scowled at Tadmur. "I'm surprised at you most of all."
Tadmur flushed, but said nothing more than the muttered "Sir, yes, sir" that regulations required.
* * *
Sassinak even made some progress with Tadmur and Seglawin, the two heavyworlders in her unit. When they finally opened up to her, she began to realize that the heavyworlders felt deep grievances against the other human groups in FSP.
"They want us for our strength," Tadmur said. "They want us to fetch and carry. You look at the records—the transcripts of the Seress expedition, for instance. How often do you think the med staff is assigned heavy duty, eh? But Parrih, not only a physician but a specialist, a surgeon, was expected to do the heavy unloading and loading in addition to her regular medical work."
"They like to think we're stupid and slow." Seglawin took up the complaint. Although not quite as large as Tadmur, she was far from the current standard of beauty, and with her broad forehead drawn down into a scowl looked menacing enough. Sass realized suddenly that she had beautiful hair, a rich wavy brown mass that no one noticed because of the heavy features below it. "Pinheads, they call us, and muscle-bound. I know our heads look little, compared to our bodies, but that's illusion. Look how surprised the Commandant was when I won the freshmen history prize: 'Amazingly sensitive interpretation for someone of your background.' I know what that means. They think we're just big dumb brutes, and we're not."
Sass looked at them, and wondered. Certainly the heavyworlders in the slave center had been sold as cheap heavy labor, and none had been in any of her tech classes. She'd assumed they weren't suited for it, just as everyone said. But in the Academy, perhaps five percent of the cadets were heavyworlders, and they did well enough in classwork. The two heavyworlders looked at each other, and then back at Sass. Seglawin shrugged.
"At least she's listening and not laughing."
"I don't—" Sass began, but Tad interrupted her.
"You do, because you've been taught that. Sass, you're fair-minded, and you've tried to be friendly. But you're a lightweight, and reasonably pretty enough, to your race's standard. You can't know what it's like to be treated as a—a thing, an animal, good for nothing but the work you can do."
It was reasonable, but Sass heard the whine of self-pity under the words and was suddenly enraged. "Oh, yes, I do," she heard herself say. Their faces went blank, the smug blankness that so many associated with heavyworlder arrogance, but she didn't stop to think about it. "I was a slave," she said crisply, biting off the words like so many chunks of steel. "I know exactly how it feels to be treated as a thing: I was sold, more than once, and valued on the block for the work I could do."
Seglawin reacted first, blankness then a surging blush. "Sass! I didn't—"
"You didn't know, because I don't want to talk about it." Rage still sang in her veins, lifting her above herself.
"I'm sorry," said Tad, his voice less hard than she'd ever heard it. "But maybe you do understand."
"You weren't slaves," Sass said. "You don't understand. They killed my family: my parents, my baby sister. My friends and their parents. And I will get them—" Her voice broke, and she swallowed, fighting tears. They waited, silent and immobile but no longer seeming inert. "I will get them," Sass continued finally. "I will end that piracy, that slavery, every chance I get. Whether it's lights or heavies or whoever else. Nothing's worse than that. Nothing." She met their eyes, one and then the other. "And I won't talk about it again. I'm sorry."
To her surprise, they both rose, and gave a little bow and odd gesture with their hands.
"No, it's our fault." Seglawin's voice had a burr in it now, her accent stronger. "We did not know, and we agree: nothing's worse than that. Our people have suffered, but not that. We fear that they might, and that is the source of our anger. You understand; you will be fair, whatever happens." She smiled, as she offered to shake hands, the smile transforming her features into someone Sass hoped very much to have as a friend.
Other times, more relaxed times, followed. Sass learned much about the heavyworlders' beliefs. Some reacted to the initial genetic transformations that made heavy-world adaptation possible with pride, and considered that all heavyworlders should spend as much time as possible on high-gravity planets. Others felt it a degradation, and sought normal-G worlds where they hoped to breed back to normal human standards. All felt estranged from their lighter-boned distant relations, blamed the lightweights—at least in part—for that estrangement, and resented any suggestion that their larger size and heavier build implied less sensitivity or intelligence.
* * *
Cadet leave, at the end of that first session, brought her home to Abe's apartment in uniform, shy of his reaction and stiff with pride. He gave her a crisp salute and then a bear hug.
"You're making it fine," he said, not waiting for her to speak. Already, she recognized in herself and in his reactions the relationship they would have later.
"I hope so." She loosened the collar of the uniform and stretched out on the low divan. He took her cap and set it carefully on a shelf.
"Making friends, too?"
"Some." His nod encouraged her, and she told him about the heavyworlders. Abe frowned.
"You want to watch them; they can be devious."
"I know. But—"
"But they're also right. Most normals do think of them as big stupid musclemen, and treat them that way. Poor sods. The smart ones resent it, and if they're smart enough they can be real trouble. What you want to do, Sass, is convince 'em you're fair, without giving them a weak point to push on. Their training makes 'em value strength and endurance over anything else."
"But they're not all alike." Sass told him all she'd learned, about the heavyworld cultures. "—and I wonder myself if the heavyworlders are being used by the same bunch who are behind the pirates and slavers," she finished.
Abe had been setting out a cold meal as she talked. Now he stopped, and leaned on the table. "I dunno. Could be. But at least some of the heavyworlders are probably pirates themselves. You be careful." Sass didn't argue; she didn't like the thought that Abe might have his limitations; she needed him to be all-knowing, for a long time yet. On the other hand, she sensed, in her heavyworlder friends, the capacity for honesty and loyalty, and in herself an unusual ability to make friends with people of all backgrounds.
* * *
By her third year, she was recognized as a promising young cadet officer, and resistance to her background had nearly disappeared. Colonial stock, yes: but colonial stock included plenty of "good" families, younger sons and daughters who had sought adventure rather than a safe seat in the family corporation. That she never claimed such a connection spoke well of her; others claimed it in her name.
Her own researches into her family were discreet. The psychs had passed her as safely adjusted to the loss of her family. She wasn't sure how they'd react if they found her rummaging through the colonial databases, so she masked her queries carefully. She didn't want anyone to question her fitness for Fleet. When she'd entered everything she could remember, she waited for the computer to spit out the rest.
The first surprise was a living relative (or "supposed alive" the computer had it) some three generations back. Sass blinked at the screen. A great-great-great grandmother (or aunt: she wasn't quite sure of the code symbols) now on Exploration Service. Lunzie . . . so that was the famous ancestor her little sister had been named for. Her mother had said no more than that—may not have known more than that, Sass realized. Even as a cadet, she herself had access to more information than most colonists, already. She thought of contacting her distant family members someday . . . someday when she was a successful Fleet officer. Not any time soon, though. Fleet would be her family, and Abe was her father now.
He took his responsibility seriously in more ways than one, she discovered at their next meeting.
"Take the five-year implant, and don't worry about it. You're not going to be a mother anytime soon. Should have had it before now, probably."
"I don't want to be a sopping romantic, either," said Sass, scowling.
Abe grinned at her. "Sass, I'm not telling you to fall in love. I'm telling you that you're grown, and your body knows it. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, but you're about to want to."
"I am not." Sass glared at him.
"You haven't noticed anything?"
Sass opened her mouth to deny it, only to realize that she couldn't. He'd seen her with the others, and he, more than anyone, knew every nuance of her body.
"Take the implant. Do what you want afterwards."
"You're not telling me to be careful," she said, almost petulantly.
"Stars, girl, I only adopted you. I'm not really your father, and even if I were I wouldn't tell you to be careful. Not you, of all people."
"My . . . my real father . . ."
"Was a dirtball colonist. I'm Fleet. You're Fleet now. You don't believe all that stuff you were taught. You're the last woman to stay virginal all your life, Sass, and that's the truth of it. Learn what you need, and see that you get it."
Sass shivered. "Sounds very mechanical, that way."
"Not really." Abe smiled at her, wistful and tender. "Sass, it's a great pleasure, and a great relaxation. For some people, long-term pairing is part of it. Your parents may have been that way. But you aren't that sort. I've watched you now for what? Eight years, is it, or ten? You're an adventurer by nature; you always were, and what happened to you brought it out even stronger. You're passionate, but you don't want to be bothered with long-term relationships."
The five-year implant she requested at Medical raised no eyebrows. When the doctor discovered it was her first, she insisted that Sass read a folder about it " . . . So you'll know nothing's wrong when that patch on your arm changes color. Just come in for another one. It'll be in your records, of course, but sometimes your records aren't with you."
Once she had the implant, she couldn't seem to stop thinking about it. Who would it be? Who would be first, she scolded herself, accepting with no more argument Abe's estimate of her character. She watched the other cadets covertly. Bronze-haired Liami, who bounced in and out of beds with the same verve as she gobbled dessert treats on holidays. Cal and Deri, who could have starred in any of the romantic serial tragedies, always in one crisis of emotion or another. How they passed their courses was a constant topic of low-voiced wonder. Suave Abrek, who assumed that any woman he fancied would promptly swoon into his arms—despite frequent rebuffs and snide remarks from all the women cadets.
She wasn't even sure what she wanted. She and Caris, in the old days, watching Carin Coldae re-runs, had planned extravagant sexual adventures: all the handsome men in the galaxy, in all the exotic places, in the midst of saving planets or colonies or catching slavers. Was handsome really better? Liami seemed to have just as much fun with the plain as the handsome. And Abrek, undeniably handsome, but all too aware of it, was no fun at all. What kind of attraction was that kind, and not just the ordinary sort that made some people a natural choice for an evening of study or workouts in the gym? Or was the ordinary sort enough?
In the midst of this confusion of mind, she noticed that she was choosing to spend quite a bit of time with Marik Delgaesson, a senior cadet from somewhere on the far side of known space. She hadn't realized that human colonies spread that far, but he looked a lot more human than the heavyworlders. Brown eyes, wavy dark hair, a slightly crooked face that gave his grin a certain off-center appeal. Not really handsome, but good enough. And a superior gymnast, in both freeform and team competitions.
Sass thought about it. He might do. When their festival rotations came up at the same shift, and he asked her to partner him to the open theater production, she decided to ask him. It was hard to get started on the question, so they were halfway back to the Academy, threading their way between brightly-decorated foodstalls, when she brought it up. He gave her a startled look and led her into a dark alley behind one of the government buildings.
"Now. What did you say?" In the near dark, she could hardly see his expression.
Her mouth was dry. "I . . . I wondered if you'd . . . you'd like to spend the night with me."
He shook his head. "Sass, you don't want that with me."
"I don't?" Reading and conversation had not prepared her for this reaction to a proposal. She wasn't sure whether she felt insulted or hurt.
"I'm not. . . what I seem." He drew his heavy brows down, then lifted them in a gesture that puzzled Sass. People did both, but rarely like that.
"Can you explain that?"
"Well . . . I hate to disillusion you, but—" And suddenly he wasn't there: the tall, almost-handsome, definitely charming cadet senior she'd known for the past two years. Nothing was there—or rather, a peculiar arrangement of visual oddities that had her wondering what he'd spiked her mug with. Stringy bits of this and that, nothing making any sense, until he reassembled suddenly as a very alien shape on the wall. Clinging to the wall.
Sass fought her diaphragm and got her voice back. "You're—you're a Weft!" She felt cold all over: she had wanted to embrace that?
Another visual tangle, this time with some parts recognizable as they shifted toward human, and he stood before her, his face already wistful. "Yes. We . . . we usually stay in human form around humans. They prefer it. Though most don't prefer the forms we choose quite as distinctly as you did."
Her training brought her breathing back under full control. "It wasn't your form, exactly."
"No?" He smiled, the crooked smile she'd dreamed about the past nights. "You don't like my other one."
"I liked you," Sass said, almost angrily. "Your—your personality—"
"You liked what you thought I was—my human act." Now he sounded angry, too, and for some reason that amused her.
"Well, your human act is better than some who were born that way. Don't blame me because you did a good job."
"You aren't scared of me?"
Sass considered, and he waited in silence. "Not scared, exactly. I was startled, yes: your human act is damn good. I don't think you could do that if you didn't have some of the same characteristics in your own form. I'm not—I don't—"
"You don't want to be kinky and sleep with an alien?"
"No. But I don't want to insult an alien either, not without cause. Which I don't have."
"Mmm. Perceptive and courteous, as usual. If I were a human, Sass, I'd want you."
"If you were human, you'd probably get what you wanted."
"Luckily, my human shape has no human emotions attached; I can enjoy you as a person, Sass, but not wish to couple with you. We mate very differently, and in an act far more . . . mmm . . . biological . . . than human mating has become."
Sass shivered; this was entirely too clinical.
"But we do—though rarely—make friends, in the human sense, with humans. I'd like that."
All those books gave her the next line. "I thought I was supposed to say that—no thanks, but can't we just be friends?"
He laughed, seemingly a real laugh. "You only get to say that if you don't make the proposal in the first place."
"Fine." Sass put out her hands. "I have to touch you, Marik; I'm sorry if that upsets you, but I have to. Otherwise I'll never get over being afraid."
"Thank you." They clasped hands for a long moment: his warm, dry hands felt entirely human. She felt the pulse throbbing in his wrist. She saw it in his throat. He shook his head at her. "Don't try to figure it out, Sass. Our own investigators—they're not really much like human scientists—don't understand it either."
"A Weft. I had to fall in love with a damned Weft!" Sass gave him a wicked grin. "And I can't even brag about it!"
"You're not in love with me. You're a young human female with a nearly new five-year implant and a large dose of curiosity."
"Dammit, Marik! How old are you, anyway? You talk like an older brother!"
"Our years are different." And with that she had to be content, for the moment. Later he was willing to say more, a little more, and introduce her to the other Wefts at the Academy. By then she'd spotted two of them, sensitive to some signal she couldn't define. Like Marik, they were all superb gymnasts and very good at unarmed combat. This last, she found, they accomplished by minute shifts of form.
"Say you grab my shoulder," said Marik, and Sass obligingly grabbed his shoulder. Suddenly it wasn't there, in her grasp, and yet he'd not shifted to his natural form. He was still right in front of her, only his hand gripped her forearm.
"What did you do?"
"The beginning of the shift changes the surface location and density—and that's what the enemy has hold of, right? We're not where we're supposed to be, and we're not all there, so to speak. In combat, serious combat, we'd have no reason to hold too tightly to the human form anyway."
"Does it . . . uh . . . hurt, to stay in human form? Are you more comfortable in your own?"
Marik shrugged. "It's like a tight uniform: not painful, but we like to get out of it now and then." He shifted then and there, and Sass stared, fascinated as always.
"It doesn't bother you?" asked Silui, one of the other Wefts.
"Not any more. I wish I knew how you do it!"
"So do we." Silui shifted, and placed herself beside Marik. <<Can you tell us apart?>> The question echoed in Sass's head. Of course. In their own form they hadn't the apparatus for human speech. But telepathy? She pushed that thought aside and watched as Silui and Marik crawled over and around each other. No more brown eyes and green, although something glittered that might be eyes of another sort. Shapes hard to define, because they were so outlandish . . . fivefold symmetry? She finally shook her head.
"Not by looking, I can't. Can you?"
"Oh yes." That was Gabril, the Weft who had not shifted. "Silui's got more graceful sarfin, and Marik immles better."
"That might help if I knew what sarfin and immles were," said Sass grumpily. Gabril laughed, and pointed out the angled stalklike appendages, and had Marik demonstrate an immle.
"Do you ever take heavyworlder shapes?" asked Sass.
"Not often. It's hard enough with you; the whole way of moving is so different. They're too strong; we can make holes in the walls accidentally."
"Can you take any shape?"
Silui and Marik reshifted to human, and joined the discussion aloud. "That's an argument we have all the time. Humans, yes, even heavyworlders, though we don't enjoy that. Ryxi is easier than humans, although the biochemistry causes problems. Our natural attention span is even longer than yours, but their brain chemistry interferes. Thek—" Marik looked at the others, as if asking a question.
"Might as well," said Silui. "One of us that we know of shifted to Thek form. A child. He'd meant to shift to a rock, which any of us can do briefly, but a Thek was there and he took that pattern. He never came back. The Thek wouldn't comment."
"Typical." Sass digested that. "So . . . you can take different shapes. How do you decide what kind of human to be? Are you even bisexual, as we are?"
"Video media, for the most part," said Gabril. "All those tapes and disks and cubes of books, plays, holodramas, whatever. We're taught never to choose a star, or anyone well-known, and preferably someone dead a century or so. And then we can make minor changes, of course, within the limits of human variation. I chose a minor character in a primitive adventure film, something about wild tribesmen on Old Earth. At first I wanted blue hair, but my teachers convinced me it wouldn't do. Not for an Academy prospect."
Silui grinned. "I wanted to be Carin Coldae—did you ever see her shows?"
Sass nodded.
"But they said no major performers, so I made my hair yellow and did the teeth different." She bared her perfect teeth, and Sass remembered that Carin Coldae had had a little gap in front. She also noticed that none of them had answered her questions about Weft sexuality, and decided to look it up herself. When she did, she realized why they hadn't tried to explain: four sexes, and mating required a rocky seacoast at full tide with an entire colony of Wefts. It produced freeswimming larvae, who returned (the lucky few) to moult into a smaller size of the adult form. Wefts were exquisitely sensitive to certain kinds of radiation, and Wefts who left their homeworlds would never join the mating colony. No wonder Marik wouldn't discuss sex—and had that combination of wistfulness and amused superiority toward eager young humans.
By this time, some of her other friends had realized which cadets were Wefts, and Sass found herself getting sidelong looks from those who disapproved of "messing around with aliens." It was this which led to her worst row in the Academy.
She had never been part of the society crowd, not with her background, but she knew exactly which cadets were. Randolph Neil Paraden, a senior that year, lorded it over all with any social pretensions at all. Teeli Pardis, of her own class, wasn't in the same league with a Paraden, and once tried to explain to Sass how important it was to stay on the right side of that most eminent young man.
"He's a snob," Sass had said, in her first year, when Paraden, then a second-year, had held forth at some length on the ridiculousness of letting the children of non-officers into the Academy. "It's not just me—take Issi. So her father's not commissioned: so what? She's got more Fleet in her little finger than a rich fop like Paraden has in his whole—"
"That's not the point, Sass," Pardis had said. "The point is that you don't cross Paraden Family. No one does, for long. Please . . . I like you, and I want to be friends, but if you get sour with Neil, I'm—I just can't, that's all."
By maintaining a cool courtesy towards everyone that turned his barbs aside, Sass had managed not to involve herself in a row with the Paraden Family's representative—until her friendship with Wefts made it necessary. It began with a series of petty thefts. The first victim was a girl who'd refused to sleep with Paraden, although that didn't come out until later. She thought she'd lost her dress insignia herself, and accepted the rating she got philosophically. Then her best friend's heirloom silver earrings disappeared, and two more thefts on the same corridor (a liu-silk scarf and two entertainment cubes) began to heighten tension unbearably in the last weeks before midterm exams.
Sass, in the next corridor, heard first about the missing cubes. Two days later, Paraden began to spread rumors that the Wefts were responsible. "They can change shape," he said. "Take any shape they want—so of course they could look just like the room's proper occupant. You'd never notice."
Issi told Sass about this, mimicking Paraden's accent perfectly. Then she dropped back into her own. "That stinker—he'll do anything to advance himself. Claims he can prove it's Wefts—"
"It's not!" Sass straightened up from the dress boots she'd been polishing. "They won't take the shape of someone alive: it's against their rules."
Issi wrinkled her brow at Sass. "I suppose you'd know—and no, I don't hate you for having them as friends. But it's not going to help you now, Sass, not if Randy Paraden has everyone suspecting them."
Worse was to come. Paraden himself called Sass in, claiming that he had been given permission to investigate the thefts. From the way his eyes roamed over her, she decided that theft wasn't all he wanted to investigate. He had the kind of handsome face that is used to being admired, and not only for its money. But he began with compliments for her performance, and patently false praise for her "amazing" ability to fit in despite a deprived childhood.
"I just wish you'd tell me what you know about the Wefts," he said, bringing his gaze back to hers. "Come on—sit down here, and fill me in. You're supposed to be our resident expert, and I hear you're convinced they're not guilty. Explain it to me—maybe I just don't know enough about them . . ."
Her instinct told her he had no interest whatever in Wefts, but she had to be fair. Didn't she? Reluctantly, she sat and began explaining what she understood of Weft philosophy. He nodded, his lids drooping over brilliant hazel eyes, his perfectly groomed hands relaxed on his knees.
"So you see," she finished, "no Weft would consider taking the form of someone with whom it might be confused: they don't take the forms of famous or living persons."
A smile quirked his mouth, and his eyes opened fully. His voice was still smooth as honey. "They really convinced you, didn't they? I wouldn't have thought you'd be so gullible. Of course, you haven't had a normal upbringing—there are so many things beyond your experience . . ."
Rage swamped her, interfering with coherent speech, and his smile widened to a predatory grin. "You're gorgeous when you're mad, Cadet Sassinak . . . but I suppose you know that. You're tempting me, you really are . . . d'you know what happens to girls who tempt me? I'll bet you're good in bed—" Suddenly his hands were no longer relaxed on his knees; he had moved even as he spoke, and the expensive scent he wore (surely that's not regulation! Sass's mind said, focussing on the trivial) was right there in her nose. "Don't fight me, little slave," he said in her ear. "You'll never win, and you'll wish you hadn't . . . OUCH!"
Despite the ensuing trouble, which went all the way to the Academy Commandant (and probably further than that, considering the Paraden Family), Sass had no happier memory for years than the moment in which she disabled Randolph Neil Paraden with three quick blows and left him grunting in pain on the deck. There was something so satisfying about the crunch transmitted up her arm, that it almost frightened her, and she never considered telling Abe, lest he find a reason she should repent. Nor did she confess that part to the Academy staff, though she left Paraden's office and went straight to the Commandant's office to turn herself in.
Paraden's attempt to explain himself, and put the blame for theft on the Wefts, did not work . . . although Sass wondered if it would have, given more time, or if she had not testified so strongly against him. When the first theft victim found that Paraden was involved, she realized that her "missing" dress insignia might have been stolen instead, and her testimony put the final seal on the case. Paraden had no chance to threaten Sass in person after that, but she was sure she'd earned an important enemy for the future. At least he wouldn't be in the Fleet. Paraden's clique, subject to intense scrutiny by the authorities after his dismissal, avoided Sass strictly. Even if one of them had wanted to be friendly, they'd not have risked more trouble.
Sass came out of it with a muted commendation. "You'll not say anything of this to your fellow cadets," the Commandant said severely. "But you showed good judgment. It's too bad you had to resort to physical force—you were justified, I'm not arguing that, but it's always better to think ahead and avoid the need to hit someone, if you can. Other than that, though, you did exactly the right things at the right time, and I'm pleased. The others will be wary of you awhile, and I would be most unhappy to find you using that to your advantage . . . you understand?"
"Yes, sir." She did, indeed, understand. It had been a narrow scrape, and could have gone badly. What she really wanted was a chance to get back to work and succeed the way Abe would want her to: honestly, on her own merits, without favoritism.
"We may seem to be leaning on you a bit, in the next week or so: don't worry too much."
"Yes, sir."
No one had to lean; she seemed sufficiently subdued, and eager to return to normal, as much as Academy life was ever normal. Her instructors were not surprised, and she would not know for years of the glowing comments in her record.