In Fury Born (ARC) Read online

Page 23


  Dr. Maxwell Hyde certainly recognized it, and he didn't need his diagnostics, either. He saw the absolutely smooth, almost mechanical, way her head turned. It swiveled, with the micrometrically metered precision of a computer-controlled gun turret, snapping to the exact angle she'd chosen in a movement which amalgamated viperish speed and something very like . . . serenity.

  Over the years, Hyde had tried repeatedly to find the right way to describe the tick to himself or to his colleagues. He'd never been truly satisfied with his efforts, but the best analogy he'd been able to come up with was actually the first one which had ever suggested itself to him. It was like watching a slow-motion holovid of a striking rattlesnake or cobra in real-time, contradictory though that sounded.

  Now he closed his eyes, concentrating on his diagnostics. DeVries was doing well, he thought. Mastering the complexities of the Cadre augmentation package was the real make-or-break point for any potential drop commando. All the motivation, determination, and basic abilities in the universe couldn't make anyone a drop commando if they couldn't handle the sensory augmentation, the multiple synth-links, and the tick. The rest of the training, the other aspects of the augmentation package itself, were all frosting on the cake, in Maxwell Hyde's opinion, and he was pleased by DeVries' tolerance for the tick. There was no sign of any of the toxicity reactions they very occasionally encountered. And, perhaps even more importantly, there were no indications of any tendency towards dependency on her part.

  "Let's take it through an alpha sequence," he said now, never opening his eyes as he "watched" her.

  "All right," Alicia agreed, deliberately slowing her enunciation to something approximating the doctor's slow, dragging speech, and stood.

  She was more cautious about it than she'd been the first time. Despite all the warnings, all the effort Dr. Hyde and his staff had put into explaining to her what was going to happen, she hadn't really been prepared for the actuality of the tick that first day. She'd been sitting down that day, too, and she'd stood up at their request, exactly the same way she'd done it all her life. Except that this time, what should have brought her smoothly and naturally to her feet had turned into an explosive leap. One which had carried her forward, actually over-balanced her. She'd almost fallen—had, in fact, started to topple forward—and she'd flailed her arms for balance.

  To her tick-enhanced time sense, her arms had seemed to move with almost grotesque, floating slowness. They'd trailed behind her mental commands, lagged on their way to their intended destinations. And despite that, they'd shot past were she'd meant to stop them, traveling with a speed and quickness she'd never before managed.

  She'd learned to adjust, eventually, and now, as Dr. Hyde had requested, she moved away from her chair and fell into a "rest" position in the center of his spacious office. She stood that way for a moment, hands at her sides, and then fell into a guard position.

  Alicia had grown to love espada del mano, the Corps' chosen hand-to-hand combat technique. Espada del mano had been developed about two hundred years before in the Granada System, and it was a primarily "hard" style which emphasized weaponless techniques and a go-for-broke aggressiveness. It did include some weaponed techniques, especially with edged steel (and its higher-tech equivalents), and it wasn't something a modern Marine actually required all that often. But the need still arose occasionally, and the Corps was right about the way in which it combined physical conditioning, mental discipline, and the "warrior mentality." Besides, the sheer exuberance of a one-on-one, full-contact training bout was hard to beat.

  The Cadre, unlike the Marines, preferred deillseag òrd, also known as "the slap hammer." Despite its name, deillseag òrd was actually a "softer" style than espada del mano. Or probably it would be more accurate to say that it was a more . . . balanced, comprehensive style. Deillseag òrd had been developed in the Dublin System, and it was a synthesis of at least two or three dozen other martial arts. It included a much broader spectrum of weaponed techniques than the espada did, and it also included quite a lot more "soft style" elements.

  Alicia had only begun to explore deilleag òrd, and the time she'd been stuck in the hospital hadn't left her much opportunity for training in it. She suspected that she was going to prefer it, once she'd had the opportunity to begin mastering it, but for now, it was better to stick to what she knew, and she began an espada training ejercicio, bringing herself totally to bear on the focus it required.

  Hyde opened his eyes again. He continued "watching" her through his synth-link, but this was something he never tired of seeing with his own eyes. Something he'd always deeply treasured about his own period of active duty with the Cadre.

  Alicia DeVries was the personification of the old cliché "poetry in motion," he thought. She moved with blinding speed, yet at the same time every motion seemed floating, almost slow. It was the perfection of each individual move, he told himself. The fact that there was literally no hesitation, no uncertainty. DeVries' total familiarity with the ejercicio was obvious, but there was more to what she was doing than practice. More even than the drilled-in muscle memory of the true martial artist. Every move she made, every shift of balance, was deliberate and conscious. Even as her hands flickered and flashed, she was thinking through each movement. Every single one of them was textbook perfect because, thanks to the tick, she had time to make them that way.

  He remembered doing that himself. He suspected, if he was going to be honest, that he'd never been as good, even with the tick, as she was. The tick enhanced its users' natural aptitudes and talents. It didn't magically bestow the same plateau of ability—of speed, reflexes, balance—on all of them, and her starting point was simply better than his had been. And she was adjusting to the tick's vagaries faster than he had, too, he decided.

  Well, fair's fair. She may be settling down to Old Speedy faster than I did, but I bounced back from the surgery a lot faster than she did.

  He let her continue for another two or three minutes, which he knew seemed far longer than that to her, then nodded.

  "All right, Alley. I think we've got all the data we need."

  "Sure," she said with the odd tone everyone who spent any time working with drop commandos came to recognize. It was obvious that she thought she was speaking very slowly, enunciating her words carefully. For those stuck in a non-tick time stream, though, those words still came out quick, clipped—completely clear and unslurred, yet so fast that it sounded as if they ought to be garbled.

  She floated back across the floor on those tick-inspired dancer's feet and settled gracefully, gracefully back into her chair with a smile.

  "Yes," he said after a moment, completing his study of the diagnostics' recordings. "I think we're done for today. The preliminary data looks good. Unless we turn something up after the complete analysis, I think we can consider this aspect of your augmentation successfully completed and send you off to ACTS."

  "I'm glad to hear it," she said in that tick-user's voice.

  "And now, I'm afraid," he said with a sympathetic smile, "it's time for you to come down."

  Alicia grimaced. This was the one part of the tick that she absolutely hated. Letting go of that sense of enhanced capability, that time-slowing near-godhood, was bad enough, but the tick's side effect made it even worse.

  She sent the command to her pharmacope, reached for the basin sitting in the chair beside her, and sat back, waiting resignedly. The carefully measured dosage of the counteragent trickled into her bloodstream, and her senses and perceptions seemed to decelerate. It didn't happen as quickly as they had initially accelerated, but it still took only seconds. Seconds in which the rest of the universe seemed to speed up enormously even as her own movements and thoughts slowed to a crawl. The transition back into a world in which things moved—and she thought—at their accustomed rate left her with the feeling of suddenly diminished horizons and capabilities.

  But she didn't have much time to reflect on that before the tearing spasms of nausea beg
an.

  It was just as violent this time as the first time. Dr. Hyde assured her, and she believed him, that there were no long-term deleterious effects to the use of tick. The only real danger that tick posed was dependency—addiction, really—and one of the mental qualities Major Androniko had been referring to in her interview with Alicia was a high resistance to addictive behaviors. But if there were no lasting side effects, the immediate short-term effect was enough to leave someone feeling as if her stomach had been turned inside out. Personally, Alicia wondered if the nausea had been deliberately enhanced as a means to make overindulgence in the tick even less attractive.

  If it had been, no one was admitting it, she thought as she finished vomiting into the basin. Of course, she thought, wiping her mouth with the tissue Dr. Hyde courteously extended to her, if they have deliberately juiced up the nausea, they wouldn't be about to admit it, now would they?

  "Done?" Hyde asked.

  "Yes, Sir." She closed the cover on the basin before the odor could encourage her stomach to spasm again, then set it back down on the chair beside her with a shudder.

  "That's . . . really unpleasant," she said after a moment.

  "I see you're a woman of commendable understatement," Dr. Hyde replied with a smile. "Although, and you may not believe this, you actually have a much less severe reaction to it than quite a few of our people do."

  "You're joking." She looked at him suspiciously, and he shook his head.

  "Nope. You appear to have an unusual tolerance. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that your father is an Ujvári." Alicia looked at him in surprise, and he shrugged. "We've been looking at tolerance factors where the tick is concerned for quite a long time," he said, "and there do seem to be certain specific genetic 'packages' which handle it better than others. For obvious reasons, we haven't had very many Ujváris in the Cadre—in fact, I don't think we've ever had a full Ujvári—so we don't have anything like reliable base data on response curves. I'm not really a geneticist, either, but from what I've been able to pick up about the Ujvári mutation, that extreme stability apparently results at least in part from changes in the brain and blood chemistry of people who have it. And while you're scarcely a 'typical' Ujvári—probably because of your mother's side of your genotype—you do express some of the chemical differentiation of the full-scale mutation. It's fascinating, really, if you don't mind my saying so."

  "I don't mind," Alicia said, wondering even as she did whether or not she was being completely honest with either of them.

  "Actually," Hyde continued, leaning back in his chair once more, "you're fairly fascinating in a lot of ways. By the nature of things, the Cadre attracts people who are way outside the norms, and every one of us is different. That's one reason we don't use the same sort of training techniques the Marine use—or, rather, why we go beyond those techniques. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that we specifically design and tailor each individual cadreman's training techniques to him. Because of our differences, that's the only way we can absolutely maximize the performance of every single member of the Cadre. I've seen other cadremen who could match or even exceed your physical dexterity, your stamina, your hand-eye coordination, your IQ. I don't know that I've seen very many of them who could match all of those qualities, but none of them are completely off the scale. Not for the Cadre, at least.

  "But I've never seen anyone who matches your . . . for want of a better term, your levelheadedness. There's a basic stability at the core of your personality—probably a combination of your genetic inheritance and the way you were raised—that's really quite remarkable. It doesn't appear to get in the way of any of your other qualities, but it underpins all of them."

  He paused, as if considering what he'd said, then shrugged.

  "It's going to be interesting to see exactly how you slot into the Cadre's matrix. None of us fit in in exactly the same way, and I'm inclined to think that that's going to be especially true in your case."

  Chapter Sixteen

  "So, what do you think of your new brother?" Fiona DeVries asked with a smile.

  "He's gorgeous." Alicia tried not to sound too dubious, and her mother laughed. "Uh, does he sleep all the time?" Alicia asked after a moment.

  "I wish," her sister Clarissa said, rolling her eyes.

  "Hey, it wasn't that long ago that you were doing all of the crying," Alicia said, pulling her sister's long braid teasingly. "I personally remember what a pain you were for the first couple of years, Shortstuff!"

  "Oh, yeah?" Clarissa's gray eyes, as much like their father's as Alicia's were like their mother's, glinted up at her. There was laughter in them, and also just a touch of the semi-awe the twelve-year-old had experienced when her tall, older sister—magnificent in the green-on-green uniform of the Imperial Cadre, with the Emperor's own starship and harp insignia—walked through the concourse arrivals gate.

  "Yeah," Alicia told her with a grin. "And, I'll bet you've at least got your own room. That was more than I ever had when you were the squirmy new kid on the block."

  "Sure, sure. Back in the days when you had to walk to school, through the snow, in the broiling heat, uphill both ways, barefoot, carrying your clay tablet and a sharp stylus, and —"

  "We get the point, Clarissa," Collum DeVries told his middle child, then put an arm around his wife and smiled down at the newest addition to the family. "And as for you, Alicia Dierdre DeVries, I'll have you know that he is gorgeous. I have it on the best of authority that that lobster-red coloration will fade quite soon. Before his fifteenth birthday, at the very latest."

  His wife's free elbow smacked soundly into his ribs, and he "oofed" obediently.

  "Seriously, Alley," Fiona said, her voice softer, "I'm really, really glad that you got leave in time for the christening. Knowing you were right here on Old Earth for the last four months has been wonderful, in a lot of ways, but it's been . . . frustrating, too."

  "I'm sorry, Mom," Alicia said. "I wish I could have gotten home sooner. It's just —"

  "I know exactly what it was, Alley." Fiona smiled. "I was raised on New Dublin, you know. And even if I hadn't been inclined to figure it out for myself, your grandfather would have made certain that I understood it wasn't your idea. And that the Cadre wasn't doing it to us on purpose. I'm not complaining, exactly. And the fact that you've got three whole glorious weeks before you have to report back is pretty fair compensation, I suppose. But," her smile wavered very slightly, "we've all missed you, you know."

  "I do know that," Alicia said quietly, and looked into her father's eyes. "Grandpa told me that one of your reservations about my decision to enlist in the first place was the time with all of you that it would cost me. And I think that's probably the thing I truly do regret about it."

  "Every decision has its price, Alley," he told her, returning her level gaze steadily. "If you'd chosen not to join the Marines, you would have regretted that, as well. It's not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we'll have. And, as your mother says, at least you're home for the christening and at least we'll have you for the next three weeks. Both of those are well worth celebrating, so I've made reservations at Giuseppe's for this evening. Let's get your baggage and get you squared away."

  "It's good to see you looking so fit," Collum DeVries said, his hands resting on his older daughter's shoulders as he held her at arms' length and looked deep into her eyes. They stood in the small, well-stocked library attached to his home office, and as she looked back at him, one eyebrow quirked, he smiled. "You'd be amazed at the stories making the rounds of office gossip at the Ministry where the Cadre is concerned, Alley. Mind you, I never believed any of the wilder ones, but where there's smoke —"

  He shrugged, and she chuckled.

  "I imagine the gossip dwells with loving attention to detail on all of the nonexistent superduper bits and pieces of hardware they tuck away inside us. Well, I'd like to give you all of
the classified details on what we really do get, Daddy. But if I did, I'd have to kill you, and that would really upset Mom. Especially if I did it before supper."

  "I see that the military has continued to sharpen your basic sense of good tactics," he said dryly.

  "They've tried," she said. "They've tried."

  "I know they have," he said, much more quietly. He looked into her eyes for another moment, then drew her close and hugged her tightly. Tall as she was, the top of her head came only to his chin, and she pressed her cheek into his chest as she'd done when she was much, much younger. And, as he had done when she'd been much, much younger, his hand very gently stroked her sunrise-colored hair.

  She knew why her mother and her sister had carted her baggage—and Stevie—away in a quiet conspiracy to give her this time alone with her father, and she hugged him back.

  Collum felt the strength of those arms, the supple muscularity of his daughter's hard physical training, and tried to parse his own emotions. It was an effort he'd made before, and deep inside, he felt he was no closer to success now than he'd been the very first time.

  He eased the pressure of his own embrace and stood back, then waved at the facing chairs flanking the study's genuine picture window. She looked out the window at the soaring mega-towers of downtown Charlotte and smiled again, a bit crookedly, then obeyed the silent invitation. He took the facing chair, leaned back while it adjusted, and inhaled deeply.

  "Your mother spoke for all three of us about how happy we are to finally see you home, however briefly," he told her finally. She cocked her head to one side, and he smiled. "That's not a complaint. Your grandfather and I really have discussed it quite a bit since you volunteered for the Cadre. He's been able to give me some idea about what you've been through in the past few months. And he tells me that the next three months are going to be even more interesting?"

 

    A Call to Vengeance Read onlineA Call to VengeanceMarch Upcountry Read onlineMarch UpcountryThe Service of the Sword Read onlineThe Service of the SwordWorlds of Honor Read onlineWorlds of HonorThe Sword of the South Read onlineThe Sword of the SouthMission of Honor Read onlineMission of HonorA Call to Arms Read onlineA Call to ArmsThe Captain From Kirkbean Read onlineThe Captain From KirkbeanMarch to the Sea Read onlineMarch to the SeaHouse of Steel: The Honorverse Companion Read onlineHouse of Steel: The Honorverse CompanionAt the Sign of Triumph Read onlineAt the Sign of TriumphLike a Mighty Army Read onlineLike a Mighty ArmyHeirs of Empire Read onlineHeirs of EmpireMarch to the Stars Read onlineMarch to the StarsOath of Swords Read onlineOath of SwordsOn Basilisk Station Read onlineOn Basilisk StationOath of Swords and Sword Brother Read onlineOath of Swords and Sword BrotherPath of the Fury Read onlinePath of the FuryA Mighty Fortress Read onlineA Mighty FortressWar of Honor Read onlineWar of Honor1633 Read online1633In Fury Born Read onlineIn Fury BornCrusade Read onlineCrusadeStorm From the Shadows Read onlineStorm From the ShadowsIn Fire Forged Read onlineIn Fire ForgedA Beautiful Friendship Read onlineA Beautiful FriendshipInto the Light Read onlineInto the LightShadow of Freedom Read onlineShadow of FreedomHow Firm a Foundation Read onlineHow Firm a FoundationThe Apocalypse Troll Read onlineThe Apocalypse TrollMore Than Honor Read onlineMore Than HonorCrown of Slaves Read onlineCrown of SlavesThe Gordian Protocol Read onlineThe Gordian ProtocolThe Armageddon Inheritance Read onlineThe Armageddon InheritanceOut of the Dark Read onlineOut of the DarkA Call to Duty Read onlineA Call to DutyThe Shadow of Saganami Read onlineThe Shadow of SaganamiWind Rider's Oath Read onlineWind Rider's OathThe Stars at War Read onlineThe Stars at WarUncompromising Honor - eARC Read onlineUncompromising Honor - eARCFire Season Read onlineFire SeasonA Rising Thunder Read onlineA Rising ThunderOff Armageddon Reef Read onlineOff Armageddon ReefMutineer's Moon Read onlineMutineer's MoonHell Hath No Fury Read onlineHell Hath No FuryWorlds of Weber Read onlineWorlds of WeberThrough Fiery Trials--A Novel in the Safehold Series Read onlineThrough Fiery Trials--A Novel in the Safehold SeriesInsurrection Read onlineInsurrectionBy Heresies Distressed Read onlineBy Heresies DistressedWar Maid's Choice Read onlineWar Maid's ChoiceAt All Costs Read onlineAt All CostsShadow of Victory Read onlineShadow of VictoryThrough Fiery Trials Read onlineThrough Fiery TrialsRanks of Bronze э-1 Read onlineRanks of Bronze э-1The Insurrection Read onlineThe InsurrectionSafehold 10 Through Fiery Trials Read onlineSafehold 10 Through Fiery TrialsOld Soldiers Read onlineOld SoldiersIn Death Ground s-2 Read onlineIn Death Ground s-2Storm from the Shadows-OOPSIE Read onlineStorm from the Shadows-OOPSIEIn Enemy Hands hh-7 Read onlineIn Enemy Hands hh-7Hell's Gate-ARC Read onlineHell's Gate-ARCThe Armageddon Inheritance fe-2 Read onlineThe Armageddon Inheritance fe-2War Maid's choice wg-4 Read onlineWar Maid's choice wg-4A Call to Vengeance (Manticore Ascendant Book 3) Read onlineA Call to Vengeance (Manticore Ascendant Book 3)Heirs of Empire fe-3 Read onlineHeirs of Empire fe-3Storm From the Shadows si-2 Read onlineStorm From the Shadows si-2Honor Among Enemies hh-6 Read onlineHonor Among Enemies hh-6Changer of Worlds woh-3 Read onlineChanger of Worlds woh-3Bolo! b-1 Read onlineBolo! b-1Flag In Exile hh-5 Read onlineFlag In Exile hh-5Empire from the Ashes Read onlineEmpire from the AshesCauldron of Ghosts Read onlineCauldron of GhostsTorch of Freedom Read onlineTorch of FreedomMarch To The Sea im-2 Read onlineMarch To The Sea im-2Shadow of Saganami Read onlineShadow of SaganamiIn Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC Read onlineIn Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARCCauldron of Ghosts (eARC) Read onlineCauldron of Ghosts (eARC)Insurrection s-4 Read onlineInsurrection s-4The Excalibur Alternative Read onlineThe Excalibur AlternativeShadow of Freedom-eARC Read onlineShadow of Freedom-eARCThe Short Victorious War Read onlineThe Short Victorious WarManticore Ascendant 1: A Call to Duty (eARC) Read onlineManticore Ascendant 1: A Call to Duty (eARC)Beginnings-eARC Read onlineBeginnings-eARCThe Service of the Sword woh-4 Read onlineThe Service of the Sword woh-4The Sword of the South - eARC Read onlineThe Sword of the South - eARCTreecat Wars sh-3 Read onlineTreecat Wars sh-3Worlds of Honor woh-2 Read onlineWorlds of Honor woh-2Fire Season sk-2 Read onlineFire Season sk-2March To The Stars im-3 Read onlineMarch To The Stars im-3Echoes Of Honor hh-8 Read onlineEchoes Of Honor hh-8A Beautiful Friendship mth-1 Read onlineA Beautiful Friendship mth-1The Universe of Honor Harrington mth-4 Read onlineThe Universe of Honor Harrington mth-4In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V Read onlineIn Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor VMission of Honor-ARC Read onlineMission of Honor-ARCMarch Upcountry im-1 Read onlineMarch Upcountry im-1Sword Brother wg-4 Read onlineSword Brother wg-4Manticore Ascendant 3- A Call to Vengeance Read onlineManticore Ascendant 3- A Call to VengeanceWe Few Read onlineWe FewHell's Gate m-1 Read onlineHell's Gate m-1Throne of Stars Read onlineThrone of StarsEmpire of Man Read onlineEmpire of ManThe War God's Own wg-2 Read onlineThe War God's Own wg-2Wind Rider's Oath wg-3 Read onlineWind Rider's Oath wg-3A Rising Thunder-ARC Read onlineA Rising Thunder-ARCTorch of Freedom wos-2 Read onlineTorch of Freedom wos-2War Of Honor hh-10 Read onlineWar Of Honor hh-10How Firm a Foundation (Safehold) Read onlineHow Firm a Foundation (Safehold)On Basilisk Station hh-1 Read onlineOn Basilisk Station hh-1The Honor of the Qween hh-2 Read onlineThe Honor of the Qween hh-2War Maid's Choice-ARC Read onlineWar Maid's Choice-ARCOath of Swords-ARC Read onlineOath of Swords-ARCOath of Swords wg-1 Read onlineOath of Swords wg-1A Beautiful Friendship-ARC Read onlineA Beautiful Friendship-ARCSword Brother Read onlineSword BrotherShiva Option s-3 Read onlineShiva Option s-3Sir George And The Dragon Read onlineSir George And The DragonAshes Of Victory hh-9 Read onlineAshes Of Victory hh-9A Rising Thunder hh-13 Read onlineA Rising Thunder hh-13The Road to Hell - eARC Read onlineThe Road to Hell - eARCHell Hath No Fury m-2 Read onlineHell Hath No Fury m-2The Road to Hell (Hell's Gate Book 3) Read onlineThe Road to Hell (Hell's Gate Book 3)Crusade s-1 Read onlineCrusade s-1Field Of Dishonor hh-4 Read onlineField Of Dishonor hh-4The Honor of the Queen Read onlineThe Honor of the QueenMore Than Honor woh-1 Read onlineMore Than Honor woh-1In Fury Born (ARC) Read onlineIn Fury Born (ARC)The Warmasters Read onlineThe WarmastersThe Short Victorious War hh-3 Read onlineThe Short Victorious War hh-3The Shadow of Saganami si-1 Read onlineThe Shadow of Saganami si-1Empire of Man 01 - March Upcountry Read onlineEmpire of Man 01 - March UpcountryHow firm a foundation s-5 Read onlineHow firm a foundation s-5Treecat Wars Read onlineTreecat Wars