Michael Hudson - Thieves of Light

"Why are you dragging this out?" Bhodi asked impatiently. "Just tell me when I'm going home."

"Is that your choice?" Li-hon asked, surprised.

"How dense do you think I am? I flunked my audition," Bhodi said. "I don't need to wait for a report card to know that."

"Why do you think you failed, Bhodi Li?" asked the First Guardian.

"They had me on the run the whole time. The one shot I laid on target didn't so much as blister the paint on Baethan's armor. I never even scored a hit on the other two. Meanwhile they killed me about three times by my count. No, I flunked all right. Not that I ever had a chance. It wasn't a fair test."

"How was it not fair?" asked Lord Baethan. "It was you that had the screen and the full-force phaser. We were the ones at risk."

"Fair?" Bhodi said hotly. "Three against one, with you already hidden in the arena when I get there?" He turned to Li-hon. "I had no chance to scout the terrain, no chance to match one-on-one with any of them, no chance period. What's the point of a test nobody can pass?"

"What a fool and a child you are," Tivia said. "Do you think that the Arrians fight 'fair'? Do you expect them to give you a map of the battle zone and queue up to fight you one at a time-"

"Enough," the First Guardian said, and Tivia fell silent. "Bhodi Li. You are accustomed to victory. By the standards of the arena, you are an accomplished fighter. But by the standards of the Photon Force, you are a promising novice, nothing more. You were not expected to win."

"They why-"

"Be quiet and listen. As volunteers in a combat audition, your opponents had the option of fighting with screens. They chose not to, because to be defeated by you would have brought such great shame that death would be preferable. This is how vast the difference in your skills now is. I have little doubt that Tivia is annoyed that she failed to deliver a potentially killing blow against you."

Tivia scowled, confirming the First Guardian's supposition.

"All you're doing is telling me that it was even more unfair than I thought," Bhodi said. "What was the point? What could you learn?"

"It was not a test of skill," Li-hon said. "It was a test of heart. And you passed."

"I ran."

"You did not panic. You did not freeze. You fought as best you could with the skills and tools available to you."

Bhodi stared at Li-hon, then looked past him to the figure of the First Guardian. "I can stay?"

"If that is your choice," the First Guardian said. "Bhodi Li, you have earned on merit the right to challenge for a place among the Guardians of Light. Once you have been asked, and once you have refused. Now I ask you a second time: Will you give up your challenge?"

Bhodi looked slowly around him at the circle of warriors. Parcival's eyes were hopeful but his expression solemn. Behind her filter net, Tivia's mouth was twisted in disdain or lingering displeasure-Bhodi could not say which. Pike smiled a friendly smile. Lord Baethan and Li-hon were ciphers, their faces offering no clues to their emotions.

It doesn't get any better than this, Bhodi thought. If I go back, it's to biology class and cutting the lawn and poring through college catalogs. Chances like this don't come up back there -

Then he shifted slightly, and his foot brushed against the burned-out chest pack lying on the floor. One glance down at its blackened and melted face was enough to put a different shading on his thoughts. He remembered the pain and the hounded feeling and wondered how much worse the moment would have been if he had not known it was a test, an exercise, a game.

I died three times on Rejia. How long would it be before I died for real, and there's no one to send back to rescue my family and friends from the phantom timeline -

He looked around the circle again, and this time he saw five Photon Warriors, each quietly confident of his or her superiority, secure in the knowledge that they could defeat him. On Earth, Bhodi had climbed to the top of the ladder-only to catch the bottom rung of the next.

This isn't final, after all, he thought. I get one more chance to refuse. Let's play it out. I want to see how far up the ladder I can go.

"No," Bhodi said, loudly and clearly. "I won't give up my challenge."

"Very well, Bhodi Li," said the First Guardian as her image began to fade. "Let your training begin."

Tivia and Lord Baethan took the withdrawal of the First Guardian as their cue to leave the Sanctum. They did so without a word to Bhodi or any of the others, as though they disapproved of what had happened there.

In that same long moment, Parcival was breaking into an easy grin and throwing himself into a hug with Pike, though his arms barely reached halfway around the rotund alien.

Pike grinned and hugged back. "Just returned from a mission," he explained, noting Bhodi's curiosity. "Don't mind the others. Lord Baethan's never voted in favor of a candidate yet, and Tivia would never vote in favor of a male-especially one she failed to put in his place."

Pike released Parcival, who took a step back. As he did, a flashing movement of the alien's right hand knocked the youth's cap off his head, then caught it in midair and returned it to where it had been. Parcival laughed and reached under the cap to retrieve a small sharp-edged rock with blue and blue-green veining.

"Kyranilite?"

"From Maldea," Pike said. "That was one you were missing, wasn't it?"

"Thanks, Uncle Pike."

Bhodi's ears perked up with curiosity at Parcival's chosen form of address, but he said nothing about it. "It was a committee decision, then? Democracy in the ranks?"

"A platoon one," Li-hon said. "We will all have to fight alongside you, after all."

"And they don't much want to. Who did vote for me, then?"

"Look around you," Li-hon said.

"I did," Parcival added.

"So did I," Pike said cheerily. "But then, I've never voted against a candidate I had the pleasure of frying. I always like to give them another chance to return the favor."

"What Pike really enjoys is having a chance to make side bets with the station staff on who makes it through training and what breaks them if they don't," Li-hon interjected. "Did you have any action on the audition?"

"A little."

"How'd you come out?"

"The heavy money was on Lord Baethan to drop Bhodi," Pike said, beaming. "I did very nicely."

Li-hon shook his head. "Bhodi, tell me when you're ready to move into your quarters and I'll call a Guide. You'll be in the trainee barracks, called Section Yellow."

"No need for a Guide," Parcival said. "I'll take him down."

"Are you sure? I thought you'd want to get back to your lab as soon as you could."

"It's no problem."

A few minutes later they excused themselves and started down a long sloping corridor toward the central core of the station.

"What did you see?" Parcival asked eagerly when they were alone.

"What do you mean?"

"When you looked at the First Guardian. Describe her to me."

"Uh-a woman, middle-aged, I guess. Kind of plain and elegant looking at the same time. I thought she looked like somebody's mother."

"What color?"

"Huh?"

"Her skin," Parcival said impatiently. "What color was it?"

"Why, white-"

"Good-good! Did she look like your mother?"

"Um-a little bit. I guess. Same build-tall and slender. Maybe my mother plus ten years. She didn't sound like her, though."

"Oh," Parcival said, frowning disappointedly.

"I don't get it. Isn't that what you see?"

The boy shook his head. "No. I see a round-faced black woman, about thirty pounds overweight, twenty-eight or so. Li-hon sees a Qeth clutch keeper-six foot of mean mama lizard. Tivia sees a woman she describes as the Nivian High Priestess."

"Everybody see something different?"