Bloodname

The Loremaster interrupted. "Beck Qwabe, we do not need any further verification of the warrior's claim to the Bloodname. It is not his achievements as a warrior or the matrilineal genetic ancestry that are at issue in this council. We are concerned with the circumstances by which Star Commander Aidan earned the privilege of warrior status. The council must judge his right to that status before he can be allowed to battle for a Bloodname."

"I stand properly corrected, Loremaster," Beck Qwabe demurred. "I merely wish to establish that Star Commander Aidan's codex is untainted, even if his character may be."

"A worthy purpose, Beck Qwabe. Please go on."

In his final statements, Kael Pershaw indicated that Star Commander Aidan, in spite of his achievements, was difficult to control and discipline.

"Kael Pershaw," Lenore Shi-Lu said, in her second round of interrogation, "do you believe that Star Commander Aidan's first failed Trial is the one that should apply, that the second Trial should be canceled out and he reassume his caste role as tech? You hesitate. Why?"

"With all due respect, Lenore Shi-Lu, I must say that I roundly despise Star Commander Aidan. However, your questions trouble me. If he has effectively carried out his duties as a warrior, which I believe he has, then should his codex be summarily erased?"

"I believe it is my role to ask the questions here, Star Colonel."

"And my role is to be honest, quiaff?And, in all honesty, I believe that Star Commander Aidan performed his duties with ability and, as noted, valor. He has been a warrior. Fraudulently earned or not, his status may indeed be verified by his actions. I came here to condemn him, yet I must say that the only blemishes to his record under my command are related to personality traits and not actions. I begin to wonder if perhaps his second Trial was, after all, the correct one."

Again sensing her disadvantage, Lenore Shi-Lu quickly dismissed Kael Pershaw, who resumed his seat on the council. Aidan studied the man, at least as well as he could from a distance. He found no clue in the officer's expression as to why he had actually given Aidan's cause some support. There never would be, Aidan suspected.

A few character witnesses came forward to verify Ter Roshak's military records, then the trial went into the next phase: the interrogation of the accused parties. Joa

25

Lenore Shi-Lu led Joa

* * *

Ter Roshak had spent the last evening writing in a journal he had kept since his cadet days. In it he poured out his thoughts.

He wrote that, whatever happened, his career as a Clan warrior was now finished. Even in the unlikely event that the council cleared him of all charges, he could never return to his position as Falconer Commander of training. His authority would be undermined by the cloud of doubt and suspicion that would follow him everywhere. He could not have that.

And he was now too old to return to active duty as a warrior. Age was the one unpardonable sin among the Clans, and few had been able to surmount it.

He could have requested demotion to a lower caste, to live out his life performing some useful service, becoming proficient at some craft. But what real warrior could accept that? What glory could he find in adjusting a calibration or shaping clay into pots?

No, only death awaited him now. And he aimed to face it with the will and ferocity of a proper Clan warrior. This trial was merely a tedium he had to endure. He knew the outcome, almost to the exact numbers. Oh, it was possible that some council members might switch their vote at the last moment, but it was not likely to change things.

In the days before the trial, Roshak had spoken with all the Bloodnamed warriors he knew, especially those who owed him favors. Persuading several of them of the inevitability of the verdict, he told them he wished to reduce the level of dishonor so that he could take proper measures. If he could get the verdict down to three-to-one, or at least four-to-one, he could enact his plan, the one recourse that would allow him to finish off his life with some sense of honor, but the one secret he could not commit to his journal.

Whatever happened in the council, he wrote, the life of Ter Roshak is over. There is no more need for this journal.

When he had closed the covers of the last volume of his journal, he took the many he had filled over the years and fed them to a fire he built outside his quarters. Watching the flames consume the pages was like watching the destruction of his life. Each page was a period of time. As it went up in flames, that period disappeared, as if eliminated by the hand of an unseen god. There was no god, seen or unseen, Roshak thought. Or perhaps he, Ter Roshak, was the god. He took some satisfaction in enacting his supreme judgment on the life of one of his imperfect minions. The pages, as they gave themselves to the fire, did not curl submissively. Rather, like the man who had written them, they danced among the flames as if defying them.

Ter Roshak had not expected that Star Captain Joa

Unless, of course, his new plan worked. There wasan outside chance of that happening, but victory was not his goal. He merely wanted to die, and to die in the same ma

* * *

"Star Captain Joa

"As well you know."

The Loremaster interrupted. "There is to be no sarcasm, insult, or anger in your responses, Star Captain Joa

She glanced at the Loremaster. She did not know his name. He was a bit old for a warrior, with many touches of gray in his hair and weariness in his eyes.

"I am sorry, Loremaster. I intended no disrespect, but I will be more careful in my words."

"Thank you, Star Captain Joa

"What did you know at that time?" Lenore Shi-Lu asked.

"I knew that he was being given a second chance. I trained him in how to act his role of freebir—of freeborn. In the last days of training, I was the training officer for his unit. I was also in the BattleMech that ended his Trial after he had made the required kill."

"Then it is safe to say that you were implicated in the fraud, quiaff?"

"Aff. Quite safe to say, Inquisitor."