Trial by Chaos Page 19

  Not that I value my honor any less, or that I would surrender it willingly, or that I would defend it with less than my life.

  I am Clan.

  But I seek to find purpose, for myself, for the Ghost Bears and for all the Clans. It is only through the blunt honesty that is our tradition that I can identify that purpose. Our own honor, our rigid traditions: these are potential weaknesses that can be used against us—and were, in the Great Refusal. Our enemies were not dishonorable in the choice to exploit them, but wise.

  How does this relate to the lessons of the gardener?

  Like Clansmen, many plants are the result of controlled breeding, not just for a few centuries but, for some plants, well over a hundred centuries. Many of these plants are outstanding in many useful ways when compared to their wild cousins. They bear more and larger fruit. They grow faster. They time their cycles to the needs of man. and not to the rhythms of nature.

  Yet these plants have had ample opportunity to escape our fields, to spread their strength across the hundreds of worlds colonized by man. So why is the universe not full of planets jammed with beefsteak tomatoes, russet potatoes, sweet corn and winter wheat? Why do crops fail to insects, disease, drought or frost while their "inferior" wild cousins soldier through?

  The answer should be obvious.

  These plants were bred for certain useful traits to the exclusion of others. Their strengths are also their weaknesses.

  In the artificially controlled conditions the farmer provides, they thrive; released into the wild, they fail. Even with all the farmer can do, conditions can still make them fail. And when these plants fail, the solution to regaining their hardiness almost always lies in crossbreeding with wild plants to select those survival traits, those strengths, that the domesticated plants have lost.

  Is that, then, the answer to the riddle of the Clans?

  It explains so much, and for a time I sadly considered that it might be true. If the principle of selective breeding were true, then at best the Clans are only living weapons, tailored for war but ill-suited for the greater role of humanity. As we learned at Boerderijschool, it is easier to kill a man with a shovel than to dig a ditch with a sword.

  But upon further reflection I could not accept this dire conclusion, and I turned to another lesson from the fields: the lesson of the seed.

  What is a seed? Some seeds can be eaten, and therefore used directly as food. That is a useful function, but it is not their purpose. A seed is a legacy, a way of passing the strength of one generation of plants along to the next. A seed contains that which was best of the generation that came before. A seed is patient, for it must wait through the long winter for the growing days that will come. A seed is strong, for at the first touch of water and warmth it must be able to send down roots and pull nutrients from below, and to push its way up through unyielding earth to seek the sun. A seed is a great and wonderful thing.

  But a seed is not a plant. It is not a crop. It must sprout. It must draw in strength and sustenance from around it so that it can grow. Only then is its purpose fulfilled.

  Every farmer knows that some seeds do not sprout. No matter how warm and fertile the soil, how generous the sun and rain, for some reason these seeds fail. Are those the seeds that say to themselves, "I am a great and wonderful seed. I am proud, and a seed is what I will always be!" Perhaps. And if so, these are the seeds that wither, die and rot in the ground, their promise lost, their legacy unfulfilled.

  So a wise farmer plants many seeds. Some will fail, but others will grow. If enough grow, he can cull the weak so that only the strongest may go on. Did our Founder know this lesson when he made not one Clan, but many? Was he storing his seeds for the long winter, in hopes that one might find fertile soil and bring forth a new Star League, not just in name, or in form, but in spirit?

  And what are we to make of the Ghost Bear Clan? It has returned to the Inner Sphere, basked in its rich fields, stood so close to Terra and to Sol. the sun that warms all the worlds of man. Yet its hull remains closed. It does not combine itself with the richness around it. It does not share its rich legacy of the past with a needful present.

  That is my answer to the riddle of the Clans. We are great. We are strong. We are proud. But we are not the end of all things. Our destiny awaits us.

  We are but seeds.

  And it is time to grow.

  Mobile Military Hospital, Southwest Industrial District

  Nasew, North Nanturo continent, Vega

  30 November 3136

  Conner Hall stood in the ward of the Clan hospital looking down at Karen Tupolov through the plastic isolation curtain.

  Incredibly, even after what had happened, all the pieces were there. But very few of those pieces were undamaged. She had burns, a dozen broken bones, whole-body concussion damage, multiple organ failures, and she'd been resuscitated four times before they could stabilize her. She looked more like a nightmare than a human being— a mass of tubes, metal braces and wires, all surrounded by machines that beeped and pumped and throbbed with a cold, parasitic life of their own.

  He was aware that someone had stopped next to him, and he glanced over to see a doctor looking at him expectantly. "You wished to speak with me. Star Colonel?"

  The doctor was a tall woman, dark, wide-shouldered and muscular. Doctors were scientist caste, but he figured her for a warrior test-down.

  "What is the condition of patient Tupolov?"

  She glanced towards the bed and almost imperceptibly wrinkled her nose. "Since you were here last, we removed the spleen, located and stopped several areas of internal bleeding and strapped together six ribs. Physically, she is stable and about as well as can be expected considering the extent of her injuries." Again, that subtle look of disgust. "Though I do not understand why this freeborn is in our hospital getting this level of care."

  Conner glared at her. "She is here because I ordered her sent here. Your triage people downstairs tried to deflect her to the civilian hospital. If she were there, she'd be dead by now!"

  Even if the local hospitals had been fully staffed, equipped and functional, which they were not. Clan medicine was far in advance of Inner Sphere technology, at least in matters of trauma and battlefield injury repair.

  The doctor gave him a puzzled look, but did not respond to his outburst. She examined the chart hanging next to the isolation tent. "That would account for the delayed treatment noted here. The delay could be the cause of the potential brain damage, but that might have happened anyway."

  "Brain damage?"

  "Did they not tell you? She flatlined four times—twice before she even got here. That creates oxygen deprivation, which can result in brain damage."

  "But you can fix that?"

  The doctor cocked an eyebrow at him. "You said she would be dead by now in a local hospital. Well frankly, if she were one of our warriors, she would be dead as well. We can repair almost any bodily injury if we can get the patient here alive, but the brain is somewhat lesser-known territory."

  "So there is nothing you can do?"

  The doctor seemed to consider. "I did not say that. There is an experimental treatment, a drug designed to regenerate damaged nerve tissue. In animal trials, regular infusions of the drug into the cerebrospinal fluid resulted in massive brain regeneration. But we would not administer such a treatment to a Clan warrior. There is very little point for any upper-caste Clansman, and the treatment is too inefficient to be worthwhile for the laborers. Human trials have never been done."

  "Why not?"

  The doctor shrugged. "I would think that was obvious. Even with a healthy, regenerated brain, most of what the warrior was would be lost. Memories, skills, reflexes, personality. It is unlikely much would survive the process. A warrior simply would not be a warrior anymore. Or a scientist a scientist for that matter. Or— I suppose even a freeborn would not be a freeborn."

  "You say 'most' of what the warrior was would be lost. But not everything?"

  Th
e doctor studied her patient. "It would depend, I suppose, on the extent of the damaged tissue that is replaced by new growth. But even if I were more sure about the effects of the drug on human tissue, there is no way that I could guess the results in this particular case. The damage she has suffered is extensive, but the brain is a varied and plastic organ, and still something of a mystery. Frankly, if we knew everything about how the brain works, you would be piloting your 'Mechs completely through your neurohelmets, with no manual controls at all. And that clearly is not the case."

  He looked at Karen lying there, his heart tight in his chest, grieving her already. "But you could try this?"

  The doctor gave him a small smile. "Normally, no. This is not an approved or authorized treatment. But the fact that she is not Clan bypasses some of the standard protocols, and with authorization from a senior officer . , ."

  He stared at Karen's face, bruised and barely visible under all the bandages and the translucent breathing tube. He felt selfish for his own thoughts. His concerns were not "would she be an effective warrior?" or "could she be retrained to pilot a 'Mech?"

  He was wondering only if she would remember him. If she would feel anything for him. Would she be the person he had grown to—love.

  He took a deep breath. "Do you need a decision now?"

  She thought for a moment. "It is too early to administer the drug—she needs to be stronger. But I suspect the ideal time will arrive within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Don't delay too long." She turned and walked away. "Let me know," she called back casually, as though discussing a lunch appointment.

  Conner stood watching Karen, listening to the beeping and hissing and gurgling of the machines, and wondered what Karen would want him to do. A strange thought occurred to him. Should I contact her next of kin? He was not even sure how to go about such a thing, or what he should say to them if he did. It was just a phrase he had heard in tri-vid programs.

  Next of kin? What would that be? Like old friends? Like the fellow warriors from one's sibko? No. These people would share your genes. It might be like sharing a Bloodname, only mixed with the other things, and perhaps something more.

  It would be intimate, in a way he found curiously appealing. He would like to think that if it ended here, some part of Karen would carry on, not as regulated by Keepers and scientists, but as lived by people who were connected to her.

  He'd had a sick, twisted fantasy once of living with her. having children with her. That might never happen now. It probably never would have happened anyway.

  It was difficult to see how it ever could have. But now, even the possibility was fading, and he found, strangely, that he mourned it.

  He was suddenly aware of someone else standing nearby, watching him. He looked around and saw a short, balding male nurse, possibly an aerospace pilot test-down, looking at him with far more sympathetic eyes than had the doctor. Nurses were technician caste, often treated with scorn by doctors. But Conner had spent enough time in hospitals and MASH units to understand their value. He nodded in greeting.

  The nurse stepped closer. "She is a friend of yours, I take it?"

  "Yes," he said, "she is."

  "She is a fighter."

  "A warrior? Yes. She is not one of us, but—"

  The nurse smiled sadly. "No. She is a fighter. It is not just the machines that have kept her alive."

  Conner shook his head. "The doctor said she has serious brain damage. I do not know if there is anything left in her to fight."

  The nurse laughed quietly. "I am sorry. It is just that doctors and nurses, we look at things differently. They look at two things, the body and the mind. Those are the things they can treat, of course, so that is where their primary concern should lie. But I do not know if those are the only two elements in a person. It has been my experience that, somewhere between the body and the mind, there is something else, a strength, a spirit, a force of will, that seems quite independent of the mind. When it is weak, when it gives up, people defeat all our efforts to save them. And in others, that force will not let them die, even if they should. In some this force is far stronger than in others. She"—he pointed at Karen—"is a fighter."

  Conner nodded. "Thank you."

  He turned and walked towards the stairs, considering. Karen, or some part of her, was still fighting to live, but right now it was a fight without hope. He had the power to change that. If it was her final fight, he could not deny her any chance for victory.

  He descended the stairs, and as he headed for the exit he passed the doctor in the hallway. He caught her eye as he passed. "Do it," he said. "My authority."

  Then he kept walking. He was returning to the barracks. It was well past time to have a talk with Duncan Huntsig.

  * * *

  As Trenton leaned over her desk. Isis Bekker examined the series of photos he had loaded onto her computer. The wider shots showed a large burned area in a hardwood forest. The pictures were striking, but there was nothing alarming about them.

  Then he showed her closer shots, taken by a recon team sent in to examine the area more carefully.

  He cleared his throat. "When we heard that a 'Mech had been spotted in this area, we naturally assumed that it was one of those unaccounted for after our defeat of the warlords. There is indeed an Anubis on our inventory of missing 'Mechs. But when he arrived with his force. Star Colonel Hall encountered not one, but three 'Mechs."

  "I have read the debriefing report, Trenton."

  "Then you know there were two Anubis units and a Catapult. The second Anubis is also a mystery, but our records are very clear that there were no Catapults on Vega prior to the Warlord Massacres, nor did we encounter any during the fighting."

  She looked up at him. "You think this arrived since that time?"

  "Exactly. That's why, when I saw mention of this burn in the debriefing report, I requested a detailed recon report." He tapped the screen. "In this picture, what appears to be a small pond is in fact the water-filled impression of a DropShip landing, possibly Union class." He advanced the pictures. "This round depression is older, though definitely from a different DropShip, type unknown. Probably similar in size to the Union. Even if we assume that these represent the only two landings, between them they could have brought nearly two dozen 'Mechs, or a combination of other forces, to Vega."

  She scowled at the screen. "I smell the Draconis Combine."

  "It's highly unlikely that the insurgents possess the resources to accomplish something like this on their own. In addition, we've seen no evidence of this kind of organization until now." He switched back to a map of the area. "Based on the debriefing, my guess is that they were moving 'Mechs by night, using these lakes, here, as hiding places along the way. Recon patrols are already looking for the three missing 'Mechs, but they know we're on to them and may take a completely different route, or simply stay in hiding until the time when, and if, we can flush them out."

  "So how did they get in? I know we have holes in our radar. Sneaking around the system is one thing. Landing only a few hundred kilometers from one of our bases is another. And they managed to land two DropShips, at two different times, in the same spot. How is that possible?"

  Trenton stood and frowned. "1 found it difficult to believe myself. Those hills are remote and unpopulated, but there are three overlapping air-control radars that all have at least some coverage of that area. I investigated those radars. They did it with packing tape."

  She shook her head in confusion. "Packing tape? Did what?"

  "A tiny piece of tape was carefully placed on a counter disk that tracks each radar antenna's rotation. This caused a small hole, only about a degree, in each radar's coverage. This burn is located exactly where those three holes in coverage overlap. Moreover, these three radars are located hundreds of kilometers apart. It is unlikely that the sabotage was done by one person."

  This was unthinkable. "Could this be our own people? Freeminders?"

  "Galaxy Commander, a
s I've explained, I think it unlikely that the Freeminders would overtly undermine our combat efforts. However, these are all Vega radars that we repaired and integrated into our tracking network after we arrived. A number of Vegan technicians work at the facilities, or have regular access to them. It's unlikely that Draconis Combine agents could arrange such an inside job. It's more likely that we have insurgent moles inside the Vegan staff for these facilities."

  "Blast. We need security measures."

  "I've already reported this to Security Chief Ricco. Henceforth, no Vegans will be allowed into critical areas without a Ghost Bear escort. There have been numerous other security enhancements, as well. I won't bore you with the details."

  She shook her head. "I wish it were just the radars. But we are dependent on Vegan labor or technical help in dozens of critical areas. We had been hoping that the insurgency had not infiltrated the higher—" She had been about to say "higher castes," but of course that did not apply. "That they had not infiltrated to this level."

  Trenton frowned. "If we've learned anything about the insurgents, it's that they're a diverse group. The joke among the scientists is, if you lined up all the insurgents on Vega end to end, they'd point in different directions. Generalizations about who or what they are would be dangerous at this point."

  She sighed. "Quite right. And we are ill equipped to identify them. Our best hope in locating insurgent infiltrators is the Vegans themselves. Has Governor Florala been given this information?"

  Trenton shook his head. "He apparently left the capital on some business."

  "Well, brief him as soon as he returns. I will call an emergency meeting of the party heads and try to drum up some assistance in uncovering these agents."

  "I don't envy you there."

  She shrugged and closed the images. "It is a better hope than none at all. Meanwhile, let us find these 'Mechs!"

  Trenton snatched up his data pad and hurried out of her office. She wondered where Vincent had gone off to.