The Starwolves (29 page)

At Valthyrra's silent command the nine packs broke their running formation
to thunder past the two lead fighters, engines flaring as they broke away to
either side, the ancient final salute of the wolf ships. Then Velmeran's own
pack broke away in pairs, one to either side, leaving the two lead ships alone
in their hurtling approach toward the waiting bay.

Mayelna rose and shifted her suit into place. "Valthyrra, prepare a new
heading into system. We will be going to low starflight speeds."

Valthyrra stared at her in disbelief. "Commander..."

"This has all been too fast for Velmeran from start to end. It is best,
for his sake, to be done with it now." She stepped to the edge of the
upper bridge to address the crew. "All officers to the bow deck.
Consherra, do you think that you can come with me?"

The second in command nodded quickly, wiping her eyes, and paused only to
collect her gloves and helmet from their rack behind her seat. Valthyrra called
a lift to the bridge and held it for them, ready to rush them to the landing
bay. If Velmeran was comforted by their presence, and if he drew from them the
courage to do what he must, then they must be there. Later, she knew, he would
want to be alone.

The two black wolf ships hurtled through the rear portal of the bay, still
wing to wing. The front landing gear of the damaged fighter would not respond.
Valthyrra brought it in gear-up, blowing the bolts so that the down-swept wings
folded up flat.

Velmeran was out of his ship almost the moment it touched the deck, leaping
from under a half-open canopy. A single bound took him completely over the
second fighter, so that he was the first to arrive. He pulled open a small
panel in the hull and keyed the canopy release. The lock mechanism released and
the canopy clicked open a fraction, but the damaged struts would not lift it.
Impatient with the delay, he took hold of the edges of the canopy and pulled
back until it ripped loose, then threw it well to one side. Benthoran and an assistant,
hurrying to his aid, hesitated at that unaccustomed display of violent
strength.

But Dyenlerra was undaunted. She had her head beneath the canopy even as he
was pulling it loose, removing the helmet from Dveyella's suit and opening the
chestplate for the leads of her own diagnostic equipment. She waved Velmeran
aside, then took the leads offered to her by the silent automaton. But she did
not need the judgment of the medical scanner, not after all the battered ships
that she had attended in the Methryn's bays. She could save almost any life,
but she could not give one back.

Velmeran waited so patiently, she wondered if he really understood that
death was irrevocable. Dveyella's eyes were shut and her face was pale, but she
seemed only to be asleep, leaning back in her seat. The rod had penetrated the
suit by only two small holes, and the armor hid the terrible damage that it had
done. Dyenlerra turned to the medical scanner for its verdict, only to wonder
that Dveyella had stayed alive and alert for as long as she had. She looked up
at Velmeran and shook her head slowly. This was not the time for excuses or
regrets.

His reaction to that was the same calm acceptance, as if he had already
surrendered any hope he might have had to the inevitability of fate. Then the
Methryn thrust herself into starflight and he glanced about, confused. Mayelna
stood silently behind him, unnoticed until then, Valthyrra hovering at her side
in the form of a supple-necked probe. Consherra, standing farther away, would
not turn to face him. No one spoke a word, but he understood that a final task
remained.

Turning back to Dyenlerra, he nodded gravely. She bent to remove the leads
of the medical scanner, and together they unstrapped the suit from its
restraints. Velmeran carefully lifted Dveyella's body from the ruined cockpit,
holding the lifeless form in his four arms for the medic to extract the deadly
rod that had transfixed it. Then he started toward the lift, not looking back
to see if the others followed.

That ride up to the Methryn's bow was the longest that he had ever known.
The others could only guess what thoughts filled his mind as he held the body
of his mate in his arms for the last time. Grief, certainly. Rage, or as much
of that emotion as his Kelvessan nature would allow, and frustration at a fate
he could not control. He was alone, left with only a handful of memories of the
short time that he had shared with Dveyella, and vague, fearful visions of a
future without her. But beneath all the hurt was something he could not yet
recognize, something that was strong and reassuring. He thrust it from his
mind, offended by something good in the depth of his misery. And yet it
remained, the force underlying his will, giving him the strength to do what
must be done and to face the future that would follow. Later, perhaps, he would
try to discover what it was.

The lift slowed to a stop and its doors snapped back, opening upon the
forward observation deck. The wall across from the lift was lined with windows,
now opaque from the glare of some external radiance. Directly ahead were the
wide doors of the airlock, leading out onto the observation platform, the very
tip of the Methryn's bow. Velmeran paused, bending slightly so that Mayelna
could secure his helmet, while Dyenlerra quickly replaced Dveyella's. Then the
others secured their own suits as they approached the airlock.

When the outer doors of the airlock opened, it was upon a blinding glare.
The Methryn had shot inward to the heart of the system during her short jump into
starflight, so that its sun loomed just off her bow. The observation platform
was crowded with scores of silent, motionless suits, the white of officers and
the black-trimmed white of other crewmembers, all except for the armored forms
in solid black. All about the bow of the Methryn hovered nine packs of fighters
and the remains of a tenth, so steady and still that they appeared suspended
motionless.

Velmeran glanced down again, toward the slender tongue of the platform that
extended out over the black bulk of the shock bumper which housed the Methryn's
main battery. He walked slowly to the very end of that platform, down the
narrow aisle formed by the ship's most senior officers. Mayelna and Consherra,
as Commander and first officer, remained close behind him and to either side.
Valthyrra's probe had remained behind, her presence felt in the ship itself.

Velmeran stood for a long moment in silence. Perhaps there should have been
words, but he felt that anything of real importance had already been said. Even
as he wondered where he would ever find the strength for this final act, he
released his hold upon the lifeless form he carried. At the same moment the
Methryn began to brake gently, so that it seemed that Dveyella's body was
drifting away with increasing speed, welcomed into the fiery radiance of the
star ahead and quickly lost in its blinding glare. The fighters broke away to
either side, engines flaring, in their own salute. Then the Methryn herself
began to turn slowly, the crewmembers on the platform turning in small groups
to retreat back inside. Velmeran did not notice. As far as he was aware, he was
alone.

As he would always be alone.

A short time later, Velmeran stood at the window of the rear observation
platform, watching as the last of the fighters returned to the ship. Dveyella's
star was now a point of tight far behind, but he meant to stay and watch it
recede into the distance until it was gone. Just as her body was long since
gone, consumed by its fiery touch.

He had returned to the bay and had waited long enough to see that his pilots
were safe. But he did not approach them or allow them to know that he watched.
They were frightened and confused, for this was the first time that they had
seen death. And he knew as well that they grieved with him, and for him. They
would not have known what to say if they had had to face him, and so he spared
them that pain.

Something had occurred to him, almost as a shock, as he had stood there in
that dim corner of the bay. The crewmembers hurried about their duties. The
fighters had come in, and the pilots had departed to their own cabins. Life did
go on, just as time had not hesitated for an instant. The life that had been
Velmeran and Dveyella was dead and past. But the life that was Velmeran alone remained,
with duties and tasks to be done. Even if he had met death with her, or in her
place, little else would have changed. That simple, self-evident realization
had the ability to surprise, and he had taken it with him to the observation
platform to gnaw upon in his thoughts as he waited out the Methryn's departure.

Dveyella had said that he should recall her in happiness and joy, not
in bitterness and sorrow. And as much as he was consumed in grief, as much as
he would have liked to indulge in the self-pity of the belief that he would
grieve forever, he knew that it would not always remain so. He had been
surprised that life continued after her death because he had never envisioned a
future without her, and he had tried to deny that he could live without her
even as that dreaded future became present reality. As long as he continued to
live, he would continue to be challenged by the future just as he was stalked
by the past.

Below he could hear the closing of those big doors as the bays were sealed,
the distant vibration as fighters in their racks were being transported up to
their storage bays. He looked back at the distant star a final time, striving
to impress that vision forever upon his memory, aware that this glimpse would
be his last. A moment later the Methryn leaped into starflight.

In the time that followed, as his grief became numbed by acceptance,
Velmeran came to realize that he regretted most the lack of something real and
solid that stood for the short time that he and Dveyella had spent together. At
least, if he had nothing material to stir his memories, he still had the
memories themselves. Cherished memories.

And a dream.

Gradually he became aware of that dim, curious feeling that had underlain
his pain and confusion from the start, like the drone note of a song on the
balladeer's instrument. Surprisingly, he found it to be courage. Not the thing
that he had always assumed to be courage, the bravery required to get inside a
wolf ship and face danger and death. This courage was an inner strength, a
confidence that was new to him. Dveyella had made him content to be Kelvessan
and a Starwolf. Curiously, that contentment remained. Together with courage, he
wondered if it gave him the strength to face what he had always feared. To face
himself, what he was, what he did not like in himself and what he wanted to be.
Indeed, he was certain of that strength, and it delighted him.

Courage of this sort was the seed of resolution. And resolution combined
with a dream was the foundation of the future.

At last he slept, exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally. Kelvessan
never slept unless they were very tired. Ordinarily he did not much like it,
this unfamiliar and disquieting retreat into oblivion, but this time he
welcomed it as a temporary escape from his torment.

As few as his hours of escape were, he awoke to a greater sense of peace
than he had known, or at least a greater sense of acceptance. He was by no
means free of the pain, nor would he ever be completely free of it. But this
awakening was in some ways a rebirth, for this was the beginning of a new life.
His short life with Dveyella had come to a sudden end. Nor was this a return to
the life he had known before she had come, for he was by no means the same
person. That Velmeran had been a child, unsure of himself, of what he was or
what he wanted, afraid to try because of the greater fear of failure.

The Velmeran he had become was still a child in many ways, he knew that,
still afraid of others, perhaps even more afraid of being hurt. But he no
longer needed others, certainly not someone braver and surer than himself to
lend him strength. He knew for the first time what he was, as a Kelvessan and
as a person, and he accepted it even if it did not completely satisfy him. He
knew as well what he wanted. No longer would his existence be defined by what
was expected of him, only what he expected of himself.

The Methryn remained in starflight. Velmeran had no idea where she could be
going, and he did not particularly care. Both Mayelna and Valthyrra stayed well
away, and he was glad for that. For a time his only contact with the ship
outside his cabin door was a simple remote that brought him food from time to
time. As long as it appeared that he was to be left alone, at least he could
take some advantage of it. Valthyrra, impatient to know what he thought and
felt, was at first mystified and then delighted to discover that he was making
extensive use of his access terminal to the ship's computers. She was even more
surprised when she figured out what he was planning to do with the data he
sought. Problems did have a way of working themselves out, she realized with
satisfaction.

The Methryn's destination was Alliolandh, a planet of a small system just on
the fringe of the Rane Sector. Alliolandh was a rugged, barren world, cold and
wet, empty of all but the most rugged life because nothing else could survive
there. It was the type of place the Starwolves could appreciate, one of a few
places in Union space they could visit without being concerned that Unioners
were watching them.

Velmeran was on the com as soon as he felt the Methryn leave starflight,
asking to know where they were. Korleran, the communications officer, hardly
knew what to make of that question, and she did hesitate when he asked her to
relay his request that his fighter be brought to the deck as soon as possible.
Apparently her delay was to consult with a higher authority, for Valthyrra
herself came on a moment later to assure him that it would be done. The
incident left him to wonder if the crew was beginning to think that he had
fallen out of his orbit. Soon, he reflected, their suspicions would either be
confirmed or denied.