When the meeting occurred, neither Aidan nor Joanna displayed the least sign, not the slightest recognition. Of the three, Horse was probably the only one whose reaction would show. He was surprised at how much Joanna had aged. How humiliating for her, he thought. Though he never understood why the Clans were so harsh on their old warriors, Horse was himself a Clansman who could not help but be appalled by the signs of age on a face. His own was not so young anymore, but having always looked older than his years, the erosions of age were less noticeable to others.

But Joanna's visage was a horror. Her eyes seemed even meaner now that they bulged out a bit, making her look fierce even when not angry. Her lips had somehow tightened, and gray streaked her hair. Some warriors disguised their gray, but others seemed not to mind it. With Joanna it had to be her natural indifference to triviality that prevented her from being vain about her graying hair. Also on her face were some cuts and several fading bruises.

But mere physical details were not the only difference.

She walked differently, carried herself in a new way. She might be just as self-assured, just as proud, but her pace was slower and the way she swung her arms and moved her legs lacked energy. In all the time Horse had known Joanna, she had never moved with anything less than agile athleticism.

She came directly up to Aidan. More than a head shorter, she nevertheless faced him as though they were equals. The changes in her seemed even more pronounced when compared with the vigor in Aidan's stance.

* * *

Joanna's head still hurt from the fight with Diana. When she looked into the familiar face of Aidan Pryde, she experienced the same phenomenon of double exposure that had struck her with Diana. First she saw Star Colonel Aidan Pryde, a proud and assured military man whose face showed the traces of age, but almost as though they had been delicately sketched in by the hand of a skilled craftsman. Then she saw the young Aidan who had tormented her since the day she had first laid eyes on him. When she had challenged him to a fight on his first training day, he had fought well, better than most trainees. And then, in one way or another, they had been fighting ever since.

"Star Commander Joanna and replacement troops reporting for duty, sir," she said with flat military intonation. She studied his face for a reaction to her new, reduced rank. Perhaps she was grateful to see none.

Joanna was not prepared for this meeting. No one had told her who was senior commanding officer here, and she was seeing Aidan for the first time as a Star Colonel. Her throat constricted as she considered the terrible moment when she must address him as Star Colonel Aidan Pryde. Not only had she trained him, but she had been one of his advisors when he won his Bloodname. That still galled her. Not only did he have the Bloodname, the honor she had always craved but failed to attain, but now the stravageven outranked her!

Joanna was, however, still a Clan warrior, taught to accept whatever the Clan required of her. She had no choice but to accept Aidan as a Pryde and as a Star Colonel. She did not have to like it, but she must accept it.

Then again, perhaps she would never accept it, not deep down, and that thought was strangely comforting.

* * *

Joanna lined up her charges. She had instructed them to stand at stiff attention, not slacking off as warriors sometimes did in war zones. No one in her command would be permitted to display anything less than correct military posture, she warned them.

As Aidan proceeded slowly from one MechWarrior to the next, Joanna studied him carefully. Diana was next to last in the line. Behind them, a few meters away, the BattleMechs were being unloaded from the DropShip. They made an impressive backdrop to the militarily correct line of warriors.

Joanna saw that Aidan had not looked down the line as he moved, so that when he reached Diana, he was seeing her for the first time. But Joanna knew Aidan would never react publicly, even if he did see a resemblance. The chances were that, like his daughter, he was not enamored of his reflected image and would see none of it in Diana.

Now that, was that a flicker of recognition in Diana's eyes? Or did Joanna merely imagine it? Because father and daughter shared the same cool stare, Joanna could not conclude much about the encounter. Aidan moved on to inspect the next and final warrior.

* * *

Diana was, of course, the only one on the field that day who also saw her mother when she looked at her father. It might not have been obvious to a casual observer, but Diana knew that Aidan and Peri had originated in the same sibko. Aidan had become a warrior, while Peri had flushed out of warrior training and entered the scientist caste instead. The resemblance was only slight, but Diana saw it nonetheless. It was so unexpected that she almost revealed her surprise in a slight widening of her eyes. Then her native reserve came to the rescue. The fact that the features of both Peri and Aidan were mixed in Diana's face did not interest her, only that she had seen her mother in her father's face. The recognition might have shocked anyone.

She did not know what to think. She had not expected to find her father so soon after discussing him with Joanna. When much younger, Diana had wished so much to meet Aidan. When she had chosen the path of a warrior, it was because that had been his. Sometimes she had dreamed of their reunion. But now that the moment had come, Diana did not want her father to know her identity. Trueborn warriors scorned their freeborn children, so why should she expect him to behave any differently? No, he would never learn who she was. But she would study him and take pleasure in knowing who hewas. There was something Clanlike about that decision. Indeed, the young warrior did not even watch her father, her Star Colonel, when a few moments later, he began to address the entire unit.

6

Clan commanders, when briefing a new officer, especially one accompanying reinforcement units, did not generally make a social occasion out of the meeting. For most the mere idea of a social occasion was foreign, but Aidan Pryde had a skewered view of almost everything, much of it derived from his extensive secret reading. He had been impressed by the way Terrans of past eras often combined social ritual with more formal activities.

To Joanna, who read only operational and artillery manuals, Aidan's offer of a drink of Quarell wine was surprising but welcome. She had been dreading this encounter ever since arriving on Quarell with the reinforcements, only to find Aidan Pryde calmly waiting to greet them. If Clan policy had made possible a request for immediate reassignment, Joanna would have asked for one the moment the formal rituals of greeting were over.

She took a sip of the wine, a rather thick brew with a woody and slightly sour taste, all the while trying to look as if her current predicament did not matter to her. Aidan either read her mind, or his thoughts were on a similar track. He came right to the point with typical Clan-warrior bluntness.

"You do not wish to be here, Star Commander Joanna."

"Permission to speak frankly, Star Colonel?"

"You have it now and from now on, unless you give me occasion to revoke it."

"If our past history is any proof, I probably will."

Aidan smiled. "You seem to have picked up a sense of humor since last I saw you, Joanna."

"Have I? If so, I am not aware of it." She took another sip of wine. This time it tasted better, which she thought must be a quality common to wines everywhere. "You are right, Aidan Pryde, I do not wish to be here. I would prefer going solahma toward the front lines, weaponless and seated on the shoulders of a dying Elemental, to serving in any command underyou. Does that portray my attitude vividly enough? And, for the sake of Kerensky, must you grin? I do not remember you ever smiling when last we knew each other."