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"You do a good imitation of a piece of animated garden statuary, filth. Will you fight or are you the classic coward portrayed by those monuments?"
Aidan shrugged. The shrug was a calculated insult, a wordless response to Joa
Though Joa
Aidan found himself consciously trying to force his tongue backward as though, in some mysterious way, it could intrude itself into his slowly closing throat and somehow reverse the impending strangulation.
As Joa
Aidan was surprised by how coolly he was perceiving his situation, even as the bright sun above him seemed to be slowly going out. He tried to find some air someplace, but there was none.
"Stop this, Joa
At that moment, the world seemed about to blink out as Aidan began to lose his sight.
Then the pressure stopped and he felt the thong recoil off his shoulder as it fell away. Eyes closed now, he felt his knees buckle and an overwhelming need to fall came over him. He resisted it. He could not fall at Falconer Joa
As he gradually opened his eyes, he heard the speaker again and recognized the voice as Falconer Ellis': "You kill too easily, Joa
Ellis now stood beside Joa
The two training officers seemed to go out of focus for Aidan. He could barely concentrate on them. But he had to. If he looked away, he might lose consciousness and wind up on the ground, his body coiled as ignominiously as the fallen whip.
Suddenly someone grabbed his arm. His head turned sideways laboriously, as if his neck muscles had gone rusty. He looked into the badly sculptured face of Falconer Commander Ter Roshak. Glancing down, Aidan saw that his arm was being clutched by Ter Roshak's false hand. That might explain the pain that was now surging through his arm, unless of course it was simple weakness that would have suffered from the least grip. In a way, Aidan was glad it was Ter Roshak's prosthetic hand that held him. He would have had to try to wriggle out of anyone else's grip; with Ter Roshak, it was a clear impossibility so Aidan could relax in his bondage and merely wait to see what would happen next.
What happened next was that Joa
"An honor duel then, Falconer Ellis?" Joa
Ellis' response was mere ritual, the offer of an opportunity to settle a dispute without conflict. This allowed a warrior who was either under the influence of an overwhelming emotion, a bad substance, or a mistaken notion to withdraw honorably from the issue of the duel. Warriors, however, rarely took a step back, and Joa
"An honor duel then?" she said.
"Honor duel," Ellis responded, nodding.
"Mechs fully armed."
"No. The woods, a single weapon, your choice."
"No. No weapons. Just you and me. Here. Now. To the death."
There was a slight hesitation on Ellis' part before he said, in a voice louder and firmer than hers, "To the death."
"Well bargained and done."
"Well bargained and done."
Aidan had never heard the bidding process spoken so rapidly, concluded so easily. There had been no sense of strategy, just offers from instinct.
"See what you have done, cadet?" Ter Roshak whispered. "Fate allows fools like you to precipitate events that end in futile catastrophe."
Aidan wanted to protest that he had not precipitated anything, that Joa
"Fool!" Ter Roshak cried. He tightened his grasp of Aidan's arm, then lifted him off the ground and hurled him away, over the line of the Circle of Equals, into the midst of his fellow sibkin, who now backed away from him as if he were suddenly diseased. Even Marthe kept her distance, her feet shuffling nervously as though she could not decide whether to direct them toward Aidan or away from him. He hated that. Before, she would never have considered away.