Starfist: Wings of Hell (13 page)

Claypoole hoped the trip to Haulover would be quick; he knew he wouldn’t hear the last of the incident until third platoon was so heavily engaged in combat that nobody had any energy left to razz him about the scene his girlfriend made at Boynton Field.

CHAPTER TEN

“You are a bastard.” The statement was delivered not as an insult or a challenge, but just a plain statement of fact. “Your father never married your mother, so that makes you a bastard. You can look it up in the dictionary.”

Dean Kuetgens regarded Heine Kurtz closely and considered whether he should punch him for using that word. None of the other boys would’ve dared to use it on him; Dean was just too ferocious even for the older boys enrolled at the Brosigville Preparatory Academy, but Heine was a boy without fear.

Dean decided it wouldn’t do any good to bash Heine. He knew perfectly well what the word meant. Every swearword, every obscenity in Spanish, German, and Standard English, the common languages spoken by the people of Wanderjahr, were known and used with great relish by the boys Dean played with; even the girls joined in. But every time Dean heard another boy use
that
word, he cringed. “They were too married,” Dean replied at last. That had been his standard response before every fight.

“My dad says they weren’t, that your dad screwed your mom in a tomato patch on your great-uncle’s farm and then your dad went away with the Marines somewhere else and never came back, and then your great-grandma went to jail, where she died.” Heine’s father was one of the leading thule exporters on Wanderjahr, enormously rich and powerful although he supported Dean’s mother, Hway Kuetgens, in her position as Chairman of the Wanderjahr Ruling Council.

Dean’s mother had kept little of her past from her son, except for one very important detail. He did know that his great-grandmother, Lorelei Kuetgens, Oligarch of Morgenluft, had gone to prison for many crimes and died there. His mother, Hway, Lorelei’s granddaughter, had become Oligarch of Morgenluft in her grandmother’s stead and eventually been elected to the supreme political office on Wanderjahr, Chairman of the Ruling Council that sat in Brosigville, formerly the capital city of Arschland Staat, now the capital city of Wanderjahr. The tomato patch story he’d heard before but he didn’t believe it.

“You’d better take that back about the tomato patch, Heine,” Dean threatened. He knew with absolute certainty that with those words he’d crossed another Rubicon.

“I won’t. My dad said it happened. You callin’ my dad a liar?”

“I’m calling you a sonofabitch, Heine. Your dad fucked a dog and you popped out.”

“You eat shit, Deany-beanie, and your mom got fucked in a tomato patch.”

They went at it then. Heine was bigger than Dean but Dean was lean and quick with his fists. His first blow bloodied Heine’s nose, then Heine grabbed Dean around the waist and threw him to the ground and they rolled in the dust. Neither boy said a word as they struggled.

Later, both boys stood before the headmaster’s desk, heads bowed. Mr. Pablo Nguyen regarded the pair ominously. “Ever since you’ve been here, Mr. Kuetgens, you’ve had fights like this with other boys,” he began. “Who started this one?”

“I-I struck the first blow, sir,” Dean answered.

“Mr. Kurtz? Why’d he hit you, then?”

“Because—because I insulted his mother,” Heine answered in a small voice.

Mr. Nguyen sighed. “Okay, boys, shake hands, make up. No more of this. The school nurse has pronounced you both physically fit to resume your short, brutal, academically undistinguished lives. I will be informing your parents of this incident, of course, and you’ll both have to deal with that when you get home. That’ll be nothing new for either of you, I’m very disappointed to say. Mr. Kurtz, you are dismissed.” After Heine had departed, Mr. Nguyen silently regarded Dean for what seemed a very long time. “You’ve had a hard time of it, haven’t you?” he said at last.

Dean began to cry.

Mr. Nguyen came around the desk, steered Dean into a chair, and then sat down beside him. “We say that a boy without a father is like a house without a roof,” he said in a quiet voice. “But you
do
have a father, except he’s very far away. Your mother’s made no bones about it, Dean, but she’s got a big job to do and she hasn’t had the time to spend with you that most of our boys get from their parents, even those who have both of them living under the same roof. Are you mad at Heine?”

“No, sir,” Dean sniffled. “He’s really a good guy. He’s honest.”

“Well, so are you. That’s something. And you’re a good student. You know that since you’ve been with us you have received no privileges, no special treatment because of who your mother is. The students here are from the most important and influential families in our world, but we treat you all like what you are: boys and girls who every now and then need small adjustments applied to their backsides. Your father might call that an ‘ass kicking.’” He smiled, remembering his own time in an army barracks when he was young. “Nevertheless, because of your special, um, status, I’ve recommended numerous times that your mother consider getting you a tutor, but she’s refused. Do you know why?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Because she doesn’t want you to grow up alone, without boys—and girls—of your own age around. She’s probably right, but it has been hard on you.” He put an arm around Dean’s shoulders. “Well, you whacked Heine a good one.” He leaned around and looked closely at Dean. “And he bloused your eye, didn’t he? You’ll have some explaining to do when you get home.”

“It won’t be the first time, sir.” Dean smiled.

Mr. Nguyen nodded. “I remember the Marines, how they came here to help us and how they changed things here. You know the form of government we have today would never have existed if it hadn’t been for the intervention by the Confederation. I didn’t know your father, Dean, but I bet there’s quite a bit of him in you. All right.” He got up. “Dry up, lad, and sally forth into the halls of learning, and sin no more—but remember, every time you get into a fight with someone the way you did today, it hurts your mother more than it does you.” He laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Life is a struggle, Mr. Kuetgens, and fighting is inevitable. What we try to teach you here is, pick the right fight with the right enemy at the right time. And, of course, win.”

Hway Kuetgens shook her head. “I talked to Heine Kurtz’s father. Heine wouldn’t say why you were fighting. I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good to ask you why?”

Dean hung his head in silence. He would
never
repeat what Heine had said.

“I would like some kind of response, young man.”

Dean mumbled something. Hway put a hand to her ear. “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

“It was nothing, Mother.”

“
Nothing?
You bloodied his nose and he blackened your eye just for
fun
? Son, I know why you were fighting. It was about your father and me. It always is. I may have been elected chief executive of Wanderjahr, son, but I’m not stupid. Well.” She shook her head and smiled. “Thanks for defending my honor.” She extended her hand and when he took it, she embraced him warmly. “I have news for you, Dean,” she whispered into his hair. “Aunt Sonia’s coming back.”

“Aunt” Sonia, Sonia Motlaw, Hway Kuetgens’s confidential assistant, was far more to her than just another staff member. Dean in fact had an eight-year-old’s crush on Sonia, who, in addition to her official duties, was also his music teacher. He hated his piano lessons, but they were bearable because they brought him close to Ms. Motlaw, who was one of the very few persons he could really talk to, and who took him seriously when he did. “And do you know what?” Hway continued.
“She has seen your father.”

At first Dean thought he had not heard his mother clearly. “Seen father?” he repeated. And then the words struck him like a thunderbolt. “Seen my father?
She has seen my father?
” he shouted.

“Yes. I have something to tell you.”

“Mother, did he send me another letter?”
Ever since Dean had been old enough to ask about his father, Hway had read him the letters he had written telling of his adventures and the exotic worlds he’d traveled to, the people he had met there, his fellow Marines, how much he loved his family and longed to be with them but couldn’t because his mission as a Marine always had to come first, and ending always with the promise that one day soon he would return to Wanderjahr and be with them again. The letters had been written on flimsiplast with a composing machine, his mother explained, so Dean could read them better. The boy treasured them above all things and kept them neatly arranged in little stacks in chronological order. He read them over and over again with the greatest pleasure and as soon as he was old enough to write, he spent hours composing answers, which his mother dutifully posted for him. His greatest joy was receiving his father’s responses, which always started off, “Dearest son, what a pleasure to receive your letter of—”

That night, after he had cried himself out and spent his rage breaking his things, Dean Kuetgens burned his father’s letters, every last one of them. His mother had at last told him the truth, that until Ms. Motlaw visited him on Thorsfinni’s World, his father did not even know his son existed.
She had written all those letters.

Hway sat with Sonia Motlaw in her private office in the council chambers. “How’s Ed?” Hway asked, meaning Eduardo Morelles, her ambassador to Thorsfinni’s World.

“Healing up and as fierce as ever,” Sonia laughed. “Christian sends his regards.”

“Ah, Christian Mirelles, a gentleman of the old school.” Hway smiled. “They don’t make them like him anymore.” She leaned forward across her desk. “Sonia, I told Dean about his father last night.” She shrugged.

The news sent a small alarm, a breath of apprehension through Sonia Motlaw. “Oh. How’d he take it?”

“Not well. But you know how he feels about you, Sonia. You’re more than just ‘Auntie’ to him. I think he’ll be pleased to see you and he’ll listen to you.”

That meant he hadn’t listened to his mother. Sonia knew how difficult Dean could be. “He’s very mature for his age,” she offered, hoping the words meant something.

“Let’s go in and see him. He’s waiting in the next room.”

Hway and Sonia, smiling warmly, walked into the private sitting room just off Hway’s office. Sonia, delighted to see the child, smiled broadly and held out her arms to him. “This is from your father,” she said happily, offering him Joe Dean’s letter.

“Goddamned fucking lying bitches!”
Dean screamed. He snatched the letter from an astonished Sonia and tore at it ferociously, but it was of duraplast and so could neither be ripped nor burned. He threw it to the floor and rushed at Sonia Motlaw. He was screaming inarticulately and began beating and kicking her with his little fists and feet. Aghast, Sonia staggered backward. Hway had warned her, but this—
this
was totally unexpected. She had never seen the boy,
any
child, in such a rage. It was so unexpected because it was so unlike the boy she had come to love as much as if he’d been her own.

“Dean!”
Hway screamed, but he was beyond listening, beyond control. The two women restrained him as best they could. A male aide rushed into the room and his face turned white when he saw the child on the floor. “Get Doctor Montez!” Hway ordered. “Quickly! Tell him my son has suffered a seizure!” The man rushed off while Hway and Sonia struggled to keep Dean from hurting himself. After a few moments he lay on the floor exhausted, panting, his rage spent, his eyes tightly closed.