Elizabeth Moon - Once a Hero

“My father is not a bad tactician,” Esmay said stiffly, aware that the reflexive annoyance was not entirely honest.

“I imagine not. But not all children inherit the talent—and those that do usually show it earlier. You didn’t even choose command track.”

“I took advice,” Esmay said. “It was pointed out to me how difficult outsiders found it to succeed in higher command in Fleet.”

“Argue all you want,” Barin said, hitching himself up in the bed. This time he didn’t wince. “I still say, as Grandmother said, that you were hiding something, something that kept you from showing what you could do.”

“Well, it’s not hidden now,” Esmay said. “I did command that ship . . . actually now, two of them.”

“Not that,” he said.

“I told you,” she said then. “It’s not hidden.”

“I’m not a psychnanny. D’you think my telling you about my experience would be sufficient?” Despite his attempt at persuasion, she heard the covert plea: he hoped she’d agree that he need not talk to anyone else about it.

“No.” She took a quick breath and hurried on. “They know already; you have to talk to them. And they’ll help you, I’m sure of it.”

“Ummhmm. So sure that you will talk to them too?”

“Me?”

“Don’t.” He lay back against the pillows. “Don’t play with me . . . you know you’re not healed. You know you still need help.”

“I . . . they’ll throw me out . . . a mutineer who hid craziness in her past . . . they’ll send me back . . .” She noticed after she’d said it that Altiplano had become “back” and not “home.”

“They won’t. Grandmother won’t let them.”

The sheer Serrano arrogance of this took her breath away; she laughed before she thought. “Your grandmother doesn’t run everything in Fleet!”

“No . . . I suppose not. But it doesn’t hurt to have her on your side, which you do. She’s not about to lose an officer she considers brilliant.” He sobered. “And . . . if you talked to them about your problem . . . you see, I don’t know anyone else who’s been . . . who ever . . .”

“You want a partner, is that what you’re saying?”

He nodded without speaking. Clear in his expression was the effort it cost him to pull himself out of his own pain long enough to reach out to her.

Her heart pounded; her breath came short. Could she?

“You already told me,” he said then. “It’s not like it’ll be the first time for you.”

When you hit the ground, Papa Stefan had always said, it was too late to be scared of being bucked off. You had already survived the worst . . . now all you had to do was catch the horse and get back on.

“I caught the horse,” Esmay said; she almost laughed at Barin’s confusion. “All right,” she said, knowing the panic would come again, but able at this moment to face the pawing, snorting shadow, to walk toward it. “I will talk to them—but you have to cooperate too. I want a Serrano ally closer to my own age than your estimable grandmother or your ferocious cousin. Is that a deal?”

“Deal. Although I’m not sure you’ve got the right adjective with the right relative.”

Major Pitak looked up when Esmay came back from sick bay. “How’s the boy?”

“Shaken up, but healing. He’s got to see the psychs, he says.”

“Standard,” Pitak said. “Is it bothering him?”

“As much as it would bother anyone,” Esmay said, and gathered her courage again. The shadow condensed from a cloud of smoke to a dire shape, snorting fire. “Major . . . back before all this happened, you said perhaps I should see the psychs . . . about what happened on Despite .”

“Is that still bothering you?”

“Not . . . just that. I know we’re shorthanded, but—I’d like to do that.”

Pitak gave her a long, steady look. “Good. Go find out how long it will take, and let me know. You’re in enough good graces right now that nobody’s going to grudge you some help. Would you like me to call over there and find out when they can take you?”

“I . . . thank you, Major, but I think I should do it myself.”

“You don’t have to do everything the hard way, Suiza,” Pitak said, but it had no sting.

Setting up an appointment was absurdly easy. The appointments clerk didn’t ask for details when she said she wanted a psych appointment, just asked if it was urgent. Was it urgent? She could put it off by saying it wasn’t . . . but putting it off hadn’t solved it before.

“Not an emergency,” she finally said. “But . . . it’s . . . interfering with things.”

“Just a moment.” Of course they were busy, Esmay told herself. Barin wasn’t the only one with urgent needs relating to the recent action. All those who’d been captives, she expected, and some who’d simply seen too much death, too much pain.

Another voice came over her headset. “Lieutenant Suiza . . . this is Annie Merinha. I need just a few bits of information, in order to place you with the individual most likely to help you.”

Esmay’s throat closed; she could say nothing, and waited for the questions as if they were blows.

“Is this related only to the recent events, or is it something else?”

“Something else,” Esmay said. She could barely speak.

“I see that you were in a difficult situation aboard Despite , and received no psych support services subsequently—is this related to that?”

She could say yes, and be telling the truth . . . but not the whole truth. She could tell them the rest later, surely . . . but lies had started this, and she wanted it over. “Partly,” she said. “There’s . . . it’s all mixed up with . . . with other things.”

“Predating your entrance to the Regular Space Service?”

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing on your record . . .”

“No, I . . . please, I can’t explain it . . . like this.”

“Certainly.” A pause, during which Esmay imagined damning check marks on a laundry list of mental illness that would bar her forever from anything she wanted to do. “I can see you at fourteen hundred today. T-5, Deck Seven, follow the signs to Psych, and ask the front-desk clerk. You’re on the schedule. All right?”

It was not all right; she needed more time to get herself ready for this . . . but she could hardly complain that they were helping her too quickly.

“That’s fine,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’ll need about two hours. We’ll arrange the rest of your sessions once we’ve met.”

“Thank you,” Esmay said again.

She glanced at the time. 1030. She had that long to live as she had lived, however that was. It felt like doom coming down on her. She went to tell Major Pitak she would be gone for several hours.

“That’s fine. In the meantime, I want you to have lunch with me.”

Her stomach roiled. “Major . . . I’m really not hungry.”

“True, but you’re also tied up in knots. I’m not asking what it’s about, now that you’re getting help, but I’m also not letting you mope around by yourself. Soup and salad—you need something before you go over there and spill your guts. It’s going to be exhausting.”

Through the meal, Pitak kept up a series of anecdotes that didn’t really require a response from her. Esmay ate little, but appreciated the thoughtfulness.

“Lieutenant Suiza.” The clerk smiled at her. “I know you don’t know me, but—we all want to thank you for what you did. I spent most of the time flat out, having dreams I can’t even remember, no good to anyone. If it hadn’t been for you—”

“And a lot of others,” Esmay said, accepting the file the clerk handed her.

“Oh, sure, but everyone knows you took that Bloodhorde ship and fought them off. They ought to make you a cruiser captain, that’s what I think.” The clerk looked at a screen at his desk and said, “There—the room’ll be ready in just a couple of minutes. We like to freshen it up between . . . d’you want something to drink?”