Peri laughed. "Like your father. He wanted to be a great warrior, your father, but he tried a trick during what is called a Trial, a test by which warriors are chosen, and he lost his chance. Not long after, other warriors came here, to Tokasha, and took him away. I do not know what has happened to him since."

"And my father's name?"

Peri hesitated for a moment, but the child Diana could not have guessed that it was because her mother was uncertain about whether the child should know his name. In that brief instant, she must have decided it would do no harm, given the size of the Clan sector and all the possible planets where Aidan might eventually have gone.

"Aidan. His name is Aidan."

"I wish he would return to us."

"No, that would not be Clanlike. Whatever task he is fulfilling right now, he is a warrior at heart. He is from a sibko, which means that he did not have a mother and father, but was formed from what are called genes—and do not ask me to explain them. Warriors, even those reassigned to another caste, do not oversee their children, especially freeborn children."

Peri had never told Diana that she had once belonged to the same sibko as Aidan, a fact that should have prevented her from ever giving birth to a child in the conventional manner. Being a scientist, however, Peri had been able to alter her own body chemistry so that she might know the freeborn privilege (she thought of it as a privilege, even if most trueborns would not) of childbirth. She had never fully understood why this had become so necessary. Having failed as a warrior, she had known almost immediately that if she would not be seeing life through the viewscreen of a BattleMech cockpit, then she would never be able to go it alone. Diana had been the solution to her loneliness.

Later, after Peri had more or less abandoned Diana, similar thinking had guided her. Seeing Diana's potential, Peri had reasoned that it was best to cut the cord of parentage and leave Diana to find her own way. Otherwise Peri's own need might someday make her do something that would hold the child back. It was not an easy decision, but she had made it with the coolness of one bred and trained to become a trueborn warrior.

"Mother?" Diana asked after a long pause during which her brow was furrowed in what Peri knew was complicated thought. Diana was a specialist at complicated thought, very complicated for her age.

"Yes?"

"I do not think I want to be a scientist when I grow up." For the past year Diana had told Peri every day that she intended to be a scientist.

"Oh? And you would like to choose your caste? That is not like a freeborn, you know."

"No, it is not. But I know what I want to be. I want to be a warrior."

Peri's heart seemed to stop beating. These were not words she wanted to hear. It had nothing to do with wanting less than the best for her daughter, and more to do with the kind of treatment suffered by the few freeborns who qualified for warrior training. Sometimes they had to become cannon fodder for sibko cadets, while the few who made it to the Trial of Decision would face even worse odds than trueborn cadets. Peri did not like the idea of Diana going into that kind of life. Warriors were the most honored members of the Clan, and even menials from the lowest castes dreamed of becoming warriors, but some maternal instinct made Peri want an easy life for her daughter. In the warrior caste, life was never easy, whether you were free- or trueborn.

"You have plenty of time to plan your life, Diana. Be four years old for now."

"I amfour years old, mother."

"I know that. I mean—well, it does not matter what I mean. I see your father in your eyes. You will seek whatever you decide to seek. I cannot stop you."

Diana liked the last thing Peri said, and she would not let go of it for days. "You cannot stop me, mother. You cannot stop me."

Peri knew then how true that was, and she knew it later, when she had stopped communicating with Diana so that the girl could go on to warrior training without any complications. Yet Peri could not sever the bond completely. Though Diana would never know it, Peri maintained close observation of her daughter's career as she persevered through cadet training and became the warrior she had vowed to become at the age of four.

1

He was the picture of frustration, and his name was Kael Pershaw. For two years, for too long, he had been base commander of Glory Station, the Clan Jade Falcon encampment on the planet Glory. To his mind, the assignment might just as well have been to an asteroid in the farthest reaches of the universe. Though Glory was within each of the five original Clan worlds, it was still at the outer edge of the globular cluster, all those worlds that had become part of the Clan Empire. The Jade Falcons had only recently won half of Glory, the other half still awaiting challenge.

Even the planet's name seemed absurd to Pershaw. In this dreary place, the only glorious thing about Glory was its air. It was breathable, without need for adaptive mechanisms or uncomfortable implants to filter dangerous gases into air fit for humans. Pershaw had already done enough unpleasant time on the less atmospherically pleasant places during the peripatetic phases of his military career.

How Glory had earned its name was a mystery. Its mountains did not rise high, its lakes rarely shimmered, and its vegetation was often runty and sparse. The one distinctive geographical feature was a major jungle area near Glory Station, but even it was repellent and dangerous. Pershaw rarely left the main encampment, preferring to send others, preferably members of the freeborn Trinaries, out to such dangerous areas. It was not cowardice, but rather the certainty that his talents did not require him to risk his life except in major arenas. Was that not what it meant to be commander of a base?

Perhaps even more absurd were the forces Kael Pershaw could muster if another Clan demanded a Trial of Possession. Though his Cluster consisted of the usual four Trinaries, with three Stars each, only Striker Trinary was of any worth. Its complement of 15 true-born warriors and 75 of the genetically bred infantry known as Elementals was too small a force to undertake any Trial of Possession. The other three Trinaries had BattleMechs only, and were barely fit for garrison duty. Piloting those 'Mechs were older trueborn warriors (who had settled for demotion rather than volunteering to get themselves killed in honorable fashion) and freebirths. Pershaw did not know which was worse. To top it off, the 'Mechs were so outdated that these Trinaries would be more hindrance than help in battle.

"Could you stop working for at least a few minutes?" came a voice behind him. It was Lanja, the warrior who served as his coregn, or aide. He had chosen her from the ranks, where Lanja was, in fact, a skilled warrior in line to be a Trinary commander. Besides being Pershaw's personal aide, Star Commander Lanja commanded Striker Trinary's Elementals. In selecting her as aide, Pershaw had chosen well. In the field, she commanded her armor-suited infantry in perfect consort with Pershaw's BattleMechs. In garrison, her administrative skills were equally complementary. Lanja was shrewd, efficient, and—as he had discovered—sexually skillful. A sexual liaison was not so unusual between two people in such a close working relationship, but it was not always so delightful. He would regret her forced departure at the end of the current contract. Pershaw could not form a new contract with her until another coregn had served a minimum period of time.

Though Lanja towered at least two heads over her commander, she was shorter than most of the Elementals she commanded. Pershaw sometimes teased her about having freeborn genes.