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Lytaxin
Mercenary Encampment

THEY WERE GRANTED quarters by Commander Carmody; good quarters, with a shower in one corner and a corporal before the door.

Nelirikk, who knew the order of the Gyrfalks and how the soldiers were distributed in camp, understood that they were well-contained, surrounded by watchers, in case there should be trouble.

He did not anticipate trouble, himself. Less so, after watching the gusto with which the recruits wolfed the sandwiches sent from the mess tent—explorer no less ravenous than Rifle.

It was, largely, a silent meal. After, the recruits made use of the shower, brushed out and put on their battle leathers.

Clean and fed, Diglon Rifle sat unconcernedly on the floor, his back against a cot, and rolled out his kit, preparatory to stripping and cleaning his weapon. Nelirikk approved—it was a common soldier's duty to care for his weapons, as much among Terrans as among the Troop. More, the familiar task would soothe the Rifle, who must know as well as Nelirikk did that he was a single soldier, surrounded on all sides by those not of his troop, who had no reason to trust him.

No, thought Nelirikk, sitting on his own bunk, a piece of fancy-work in his hands, the Rifle was not his most pressing problem. His problem was Hazenthull Explorer.

She had argued against Daav yos'Phelium's order that she bunk with her troop, leaving her senior alone and vulnerable, in the care of those who had been their enemies. It spoke much for the abilities of the scout's father, that he had been able to enforce his will and see his order carried out, however reluctantly, while raising neither his hand nor his voice.

Now, denying herself the simple solace of caring for her weapons—or even of sleep, though he could read exhaustion in the muscles of her face—Hazenthull Explorer, dressed and ready for combat, prowled the quarters from end to end and corner to corner.

On her third circuit Diglon Rifle looked up from his task, tension growing. "Explorer?" he said, respectful and soldierly. "Duty?"

Hazenthull checked.

Head bent above his work, watching from the side of his eye, Nelirikk saw her understand the danger. Surrounded by those who had defeated them in battle, oathbound to a Liaden, soon to offer oath to another—it was unthinkable that these things be so. And yet, incredibly, they were so. It was the duty of command to accept these impossibilities as commonplace, with no breath of unease. For the good of the troop—large or small.

So. "At ease, Rifle," she said, firmly, but not too firmly.

Comforted, he saluted, and returned to his weapon.

From the corner of his eye, Nelirikk saw the explorer take a breath, turn cleanly on her heel and walk down the room, to where he sat, setting careful stitches in the gift he was making for Alys Tiazan.

For seven or eight heartbeats, she stood over him. Nelirikk continued his work without looking up. At last, she moved soundlessly back, folded her legs and sat on the floor before him. He raised his head and met her eyes.

Surrounded by the tattoos describing her honors and accomplishments, her eyes were dark brown; the shade, Nelirikk thought, of his captain's favorite beverage. She jerked her chin at his hands.

"What work?" she demanded, in the tongue of the Troop.

Nelirikk smoothed it on his knee before holding it up for her to see. Her eyes widened as she recognized the device he was working into the patch—the device of the troop that had broken the back of the Fourteenth Conquest Corps.

"There is a young soldier in the House of the captain," he said, also in the Troop tongue, "who is worthy of this."

Hazenthull's mouth thinned. "Soldier."

Nelirikk returned to his work, plying the needle with care. "As much as I am. Or you are." He glanced up, switching to the dialect of explorers, in consideration of Diglon Rifle's comfort. "Why do explorers march with common troop?"

Her eyes shifted. "Command had left planet. We fell in—"

Nelirikk tied off the green thread. "I meant," he said, interrupting her ruthlessly, "why were explorers fighting alongside common troop?"

She glared at him. "That is for the senior to tell."

As chain of command went, she was correct, Nelirikk allowed, threading his needle with crimson. It was . . . useful . . . that soldierly behavior made it impossible for Hazenthull to answer a question she would rather not; explorers not being always at one with soldierly behavior. Still, Nelirikk did not begrudge her the stratagem.

Needle at the ready, he glanced up.

"The captain will require things. Things that run counter to the order you know." He moved his head, a short jerk toward the busy Rifle. "Far out of the order that one knows."

Hazenthull sighed. "She will take us out of context," she said, sounding as weary as she looked. "She is fortunate. Half her work has been done for her."

For what context was there, Nelirikk thought, for being abandoned to the enemy—the victorious enemy—while Command ran to save itself? He bent a moment to his work, concentrating on keeping his stitches small and even.

"The captain will require that the vingtai be erased." He raised his head again, giving her a plain sight of his naked face. "As you see. The healing units have an erasure program." He stopped short of telling her that the procedure was painless, though that was the truth as he knew it. Acquiring vingtai was excruciating; it seemed somehow wrong that they could be effortlessly and painlessly wiped away during the course of one brief sleep inside the healing unit.

"The captain requires this because her troop is the enemy of Yxtrang," Hazenthull said slowly, working out the process of Command's thought, as explorers were taught to do. "Soldiers who think they are Yxtrang, who wear the rank marks and hold the traditions of the Troop, will not fight strongly against Yxtrang." She frowned.

"Explorers can backtrack the captain's thought and understand the requirement. But, he—" she cocked her head toward her Troop—"he is only a Rifle. He will not understand."

"You are second in command," Nelirikk told her ruthlessly. "It is your duty—or the duty of your senior, if he is able—to make him understand. I suggest that the best strategy is to lead by example." He saw her draw a sharp breath, but did not allow her to speak.

"Captain Miri Robertson does not accept mediocrity. She expects superior performance. Occasionally, she demands more. You will adapt—"

"Or die," Hazenthull snarled, as if it were a challenge, and not a truth they both knew in their bones.

"Or die," Nelirikk repeated, calmly.

Hazenthull looked down, possibly at her hands, folded tightly together on her knee.

"The senior . . . " she began, and paused, throat working. "Protocol linked us, junior and senior—you know how it is done. Before it did, he had been twice across the sea of stars, marking many worlds for the future conquest of the Troop."

"He brought much glory to the Troop," Nelirikk said, when he had set an entire row of stitches and she had not spoken again.

"Much glory . . . " she repeated. "I am junior to him in all ways—in glory, in knowledge, in understanding. When the order came down that we should accompany the Fourteenth as . . . when we had the order, he first sharpened his grace blade, and had me sharpen mine, and while we sat together over this task that we hold in common with all soldiers, from creche to command, he talked to me of battle. He said that a soldier must always be prepared to die, that—that duty demanded that the death not be wasted, but served the living good of the Troop." Another silence, not as long as the first, then a rapid burst of words.

"The senior—that he has not received the Starburst—regardless, he is a Hero. To allow him to . . . just die, when Command had betrayed us, would be to go against everything he had taught me. It is not to the good of the Troop that such a soldier die, uselessly and in defeat, when there is so much more . . . "

From outside the door came the sound of the corporal's voice, issuing challenge.

"Scout Captain Daav yos'Phelium," came the reply.

Hazenthull came to her feet, face toward the door, muscles betraying eagerness. Nelirikk put his work aside and had also risen by the time the scout's father entered.

His face was bland; his muscles betraying nothing more than a reasonable alertness, yet Nelirikk felt compelled of a sudden to move within restraining distance of Hazenthull Explorer.

The scout paused, and looked up into Hazenthull's face, his hands folded together at belt level.

"I'm sorry, child," he said, in Terran. "He's dead."

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