Ричард Бейкер: Valiant Dust

Without a word, Darvesh went to work unpacking Sikander’s clothes and hanging them in the closet. Deckhand Parris stared; in all likelihood she’d never seen a valet. Most Aquilan enlisted men and women came from the middle class, after all, and the Commonwealth Navy had a deep-rooted egalitarian tradition. “Thank you, Parris,” Sikander told her. “I think we can manage from here.”

“Yes, sir!” the young woman replied. Curious or not, she recognized a dismissal when she heard one. She saluted and hurried back down toward her watch station at the ship’s hangar.

“Your whites, sir?” Darvesh asked, holding up Sikander’s dress uniform.

“Yes, please.” Hector ’s crew wore shipboard jumpsuits for their in-port routine, but to report to a new commanding officer Sikander preferred to err on the side of formality. He quickly changed out of his flight suit, pulling on the clean white tunic and red-striped trousers of an Aquilan officer, and took a moment to splash a little water on his face and check his appearance in the mirror. He always liked the way he looked in his dress whites; the uniform complemented his copper complexion and dark, wavy hair. Those features were common enough in Kashmir, but he also had the North eyes—a striking jade-green hue rare anywhere Sikander traveled. It must have been a good combination, since he rarely had much trouble attracting the interest of the relatively tall and slender Aquilan women he encountered. “Right, I’m off to call on the captain. Why don’t you go get settled in the chiefs’ quarters?”

“As soon as I finish here,” Darvesh replied. “Good luck, sir.”

“Thanks.” Sikander left the tall Kashmiri arranging his shoes in the closet, and set out to find his way to the captain’s cabin. As the petty officer on watch in the hangar promised, he already had access to the ship’s information network; a few quick taps on his dataslate produced a small map to show him the way. One deck up and halfway around the circular main passage, and he was at the captain’s door.

Sikander paused for a moment to collect himself. In theory Captain Markham was fully briefed on his unusual situation, but there was no doubt that it would be awkward for any commanding officer. In his brief naval career he’d already seen resentment, distrust, cold formality, and—the most commonplace reaction—complete bafflement. It all struck him as more than a little unfair, but he’d learned to put up with it because his service in the Aquilan star navy was important to Kashmir. His home was in dire jeopardy of becoming as obsolete as the polearms carried by the guards who paraded in front of the Revered Kathakar’s Palace. Like many of the second-wave colonies established in the early centuries of Terra’s expansion to the stars, the worlds of the Kashmir system had fallen out of contact with the rest of humanity. By the time the Aquilan Commonwealth had reestablished contact, Sikander’s people lagged generations behind less-isolated worlds in technology and industrial development. Kashmir desperately needed a thousand Sikanders—a million Sikanders—to help catch up by taking service with Aquilan corporations, universities, research facilities, and armed forces, learning everything they could. But that didn’t mean Aquilans always welcomed the junior partners in their alliance or regarded them as equals, especially in conservative organizations such as the Commonwealth Navy.

“Easy things are not worth doing,” Sikander murmured aloud—a favorite expression of his father’s. Nawab Dayan North expected that any son of his would work tirelessly to make himself the master of his circumstances. Small obstacles such as growing up in a world decades behind the current technology of the Coalition powers or a wall of institutional discrimination did not matter. Much was expected of a North and a son of the nawab.

I am not doing this for him, Sikander reminded himself. But despite that, he found himself remembering the night he was sent away from home. It was ten years ago now, the night of the Bandi Chor Divas celebration. The Day of Release, ironically enough. He closed his eyes, remembering—

—the terrace of the palace at Sangrur, sirens of emergency vehicles keening in the night. The doctors fight to save Mother and Gamand; he waits in the warm night just outside the palace’s medical center, unable to watch. After an hour, Father emerges from the medical center, his face harder than stone.

Sikander fears the worst until Nawab Dayan sighs and speaks: “Your mother will live, and Gamand as well. But I have just been informed that Devindar was attacked at the same time we were.”

“Devindar, too?” Sikander grips the balcony rail to steady himself. His older brother is studying at the university in Ganderbal, not even on the same continent. The KLP means to eliminate all of us, he realizes. “Is he—?”

Nawab Dayan shakes his head, sparing him the rest of the question. “He is not seriously injured. But you must leave for High Albion as soon as possible, Sikander.” It is always “Sikander” when his father addresses him, never “Sikay” or even “son.” “I can arrange for you to join this year’s midshipman class instead of next year’s. We can never all be on the same planet again.”

He stares at his father in horror. “People will call me a coward, Father!”

“This is not a matter for discussion,” Nawab Dayan snaps—a rare failing in a man who habitually keeps his own fierce temper firmly in check. “I will not be defied on this.”

Even though he is only eighteen standard years of age on this awful night, Sikander already knows that It’s not fair! has not the slightest chance to alter one of his father’s decisions. He fights down the urge to say it anyway. “I know nobody at the Academy. And I will be the only Kashmiri there!”

“Nothing has ever been difficult for you, Sikander. A little adversity might teach you something about yourself.” Sikander’s father turns then to set both hands on his shoulders. “This is an opportunity. Our enemies in the KLP are right about one thing: We will not always be tied to the Commonwealth of Aquila. Study hard, do what is right, and remember that you are a North of Jaipur. Make us all proud.”

Standing at Captain Markham’s door, Sikander opened his eyes and brushed away the past. In ten years he still hadn’t found a good answer to his father’s expectations. In his more honest moments, he could admit to himself that Nawab Dayan had been right about what the eighteen-year-old Sikander needed, no matter how much he’d hated it at the time. Now … now he could return to Kashmir any time he wanted to, but he’d come to define himself by his chosen profession, not his family name.

This is not about my father or his expectations, Sikander told himself. This is for me, and whether I can be proud of myself. Father was right about one thing—it isn’t supposed to be easy.

He rapped his knuckle on the door.

“Come in,” a woman replied in a firm voice.

Sikander entered. The captain’s cabin doubled as her office and private conference room, much like his own stateroom, but her quarters were large enough to seat half a dozen people at once. There were a few personal touches in sight: a couple of digital images displayed in a frame on the bulkhead, a pair of small viewports that offered a peek at New Perth’s darkening coastline far below, half a dozen small models of older starships (and one seagoing vessel), and, most uniquely, a large oil painting showing an equestrian in traditional riding dress jumping her horse over the water obstacle in a race of some kind. Physical artwork was quite uncommon, especially aboard starships; without meaning to, he allowed his gaze to linger on the painting for a long moment before he remembered himself.