Sa.s.s opened her mouth to deny it, only to realise 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, Sa.s.s, and that"s the truth of it. Learn what you need, and see that you get it."
Sa.s.s shivered. "Sounds very mechanical, that way."
"Not really." Abe smiled at her, wistful and tender. "Sa.s.s, 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 pa.s.sionate, 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 Sa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed their courses was a constant topic of low-voiced wonder. Suave Abrek, who a.s.sumed 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 s.e.xual 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 s.p.a.ce. She hadn"t realised 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 compet.i.tions.
Sa.s.s 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 food-stalls, 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. "Sa.s.s, 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 Sa.s.s. 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 rea.s.sembled suddenly as a very alien shape on the wall. Clinging to the wall.
Sa.s.s 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 recognisable 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," Sa.s.s 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?"
Sa.s.s considered, and he waited in silence. "Not scared, exactly. I was startled, yes: your human act is d.a.m.n 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, Sa.s.s, 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, Sa.s.s, but not wish to couple with you. We mate very differently, and in an act far more . . . mmm . . . biological . . . than human mating has become."
Sa.s.s 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." Sa.s.s 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, Sa.s.s. 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 d.a.m.ned Weft!" Sa.s.s 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 Sa.s.s 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 Sa.s.s 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 Sa.s.s"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 Sa.s.s grumpily. Gabril laughed, and pointed out the angled stalklike appendages, and had Marik demonstrate an immle.
"Do you ever take heavyworlder shapes?" asked Sa.s.s.
"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." Sa.s.s digested that. "So . . . you can take different shapes. How do you decide what kind of human to be? Are you even bis.e.xual, 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?"
Sa.s.s nodded.
"But they said no major performers, so I made my hair yellow and did the teeth different." She bared her perfect teeth, and Sa.s.s remembered that Carin Coldae had had a little gap in front. She also noticed that none of them had answered her questions about Weft s.e.xuality, and decided to look it up herself. When she did, she realised why they hadn"t tried to explain: four s.e.xes, and mating required a rocky seacoast at full tide with an entire colony of Wefts. It produced free-swimming 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 s.e.x - and had that combination of wistfulness and amused superiority toward eager young humans.
By this time, some of her other friends had realised which cadets were Wefts, and Sa.s.s 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 cla.s.s, wasn"t in the same league with a Paraden, and once tried to explain to Sa.s.s how important it was to stay on the right side of that most eminent young man.
"He"s a sn.o.b," Sa.s.s 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, Sa.s.s," 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, Sa.s.s 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.
Sa.s.s, 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 Sa.s.s 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!" Sa.s.s 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 Sa.s.s. "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, Sa.s.s, not if Randy Paraden has everyone suspecting them."
Worse was to come. Paraden himself called Sa.s.s 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 Sa.s.sinak . . . 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! Sa.s.s"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), Sa.s.s 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 Sa.s.s 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 realised 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 Sa.s.s 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 Sa.s.s strictly. Even if one of them had wanted to be friendly, they"d not have risked more trouble.
Sa.s.s 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 sc.r.a.pe, 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.
Chapter Four.
Graduation. Sa.s.sinak, scoring high on all the exam postings, came into graduation week in the kind of euphoria she had once dreamed of. Honor graduate, with the gold braid and ta.s.sels. Cadet commandant: and the two did not often go together. She felt on fire with it, crackling alive a centimeter beyond her finger-tips, and from the way the others treated her, that"s exactly how she looked. At the final fitting for graduation, she stared into the tailor"s mirror and wondered. Was she really that perfect, that vision of white and gold? Not a wrinkle, not a rumple, a shape that - she now admitted - was nothing short of terrific, what with all the gymnastics practice. The uniform clung to it, but invested it with dignity, all at once. Nowhere in the mirror could she see a trace of the careless colonial girl, or the ragged slave, or even the rumpled trainee. She looked the way she"d always wanted to look. The mischievous brown eyes in the mirror crinkled . . . except that she"d never intended to be smug. She hated smug. Laughter fought with youthful dignity, as she struggled to hold perfectly still for the tailor"s last st.i.tches. Dare she breathe, in that uniform? She had to.
Abe would be so proud, she thought, leading the formation into the Honor Square for the last time. He was there, but she didn"t even think of glancing around to find him. He would see what he had made, what he had saved ... for a mood went grim, thinking of the latest bad news, another colony plundered. Every time such news came in, she thought of girls like her, children like Lunzie and Janek, people, real people, murdered and enslaved. But the crisp commands brought her back to the moment. Her own voice rang out in answer, brisk and impersonal.
The ceremony itself, inherited from a dozen military academies in the human tradition, and borrowing bits from all of them and the nonhumans as well, lasted far too long. The planetary governor welcomed everyone, the senior FSP official responded. Amba.s.sadors from all the worlds and races that sent cadets to the Academy had each his or her or its speech to make. Each time the band had the appropriate anthem to play, and the Honor Guard had the appropriate flag to raise, with due care, on the pole beside the FSP banner. Sa.s.sinak did not fidget, but without moving a muscle could see that the civilians and guests did exactly that, and more than once. A child wailed, briefly, and was removed. Sunlight glinted suddenly from one of the Marine honor guard"s decorations: he"d taken a deep breath of disgust at something a politician said. Sa.s.s watched a cloud shadow cross the Yard and splay across Gunnery Hall. Awards: Distinguished teaching award, distinguished research into Fleet history, distinguished (she thought) balderdash. Academic departments had awards, athletic departments had theirs.
Then the diplomas, given one by one, and then - at last - the commissioning, when they all gave their oaths together. And then the cheers, and the hats flying high, and the roar from the watching crowd.
"So - you"re going to be on a cruiser, are you?" Abe held up a card, and a waiter came quickly to serve them.
"That"s what it said." Sa.s.s wished she could be three people: one here with Abe, one out celebrating with her friends, and one already sneaking aboard the cruiser, to find out all about it. Everyone wanted to start on a cruiser, not some tinpot little escort vessel or clumsy Fleet supply ship. Sure, you had to serve on almost everything at least once, but starting on a cruiser meant being, in however junior a way, real Fleet. Cruisers were where the action was, real action.
They were having dinner in an expensive place, and Abe had already insisted she order the best. Sa.s.s could not imagine what the colorful swirls on her plate had been originally, but the meal was as tasty as it was expensive. The thin slice of jelly to one side she did know: crel, the fruiting body of a fungus that grew only on Regg, the world"s single most important export . . . besides Fleet officers. She raised a gla.s.s of wine to Abe, and winked at him.
He had aged, in the four years she"d been a cadet. He was almost bald now, and she hadn"t missed the wince as when he folded himself into the chair across from her. His knuckles had swollen a little, his wrinkles deepened, but the wicked sparkle in his eye was the same.
"Ah, girl, you do make my heart proud. Not "girl," now: you"re a woman grown, and a lady at that. Elegant. I knew you were bright, and gutsy, but I didn"t know you"d shape into elegant."
"Elegant?" Sa.s.s raised an eyebrow, a trick she"d been practicing in front of her mirror, and he copied her.