The weather projection was unsettling. Strong winds were projected and it had rained overnight. That meant the ground might be muddy, creating the risk of an accidental fall. Aidan had had some difficulty piloting the lighter 'Mechs in heavy winds, but the heavier Summonershould, in that respect at least, be easier to maneuver.

Would the skimmer ever reach the Trial site, he wondered as the itch to get to battle seemed to travel all through his body.

* * *

Reaching the general area of the Trial site, the cadets were given a choice of personal weapons for the first phase of the Trial. While Marthe chose a pulse laser-rifle and Bret a submachine gun, Aidan decided on a laser pistol. Bret questioned his decision and Aidan replied that he wanted to travel light, so he was willing to sacrifice range for the one-gram comfort of the pistol. He did not say it, but he also intended to use survival techniques instead of artillery power should any freebirth opponent get in his way.

Then they boarded a personnel carrier, which would take them to the actual starting point. Joanna and Roshak rode with them inside the dark, expansive carrier, whose window slits had been filled in so that the cadets could obtain no advance views of their destination.

When the carrier doors opened and the cadets climbed out, Aidan saw that clouds had gathered but there was no rain. Ahead of them was the Trial site. Although it no doubt conformed to the coordinates of the map they had been issued, it still seemed a long way from their starting point to the hills where their 'Mechs were. As they started on their way, the flatland ahead of them was not as flat as it had seemed on the map. There were numerous trees and rocks, large stretches of tall grass, all good ambush points.

As the trio stood at the line from which, in half a minute, they would be ordered forward, they visually scanned the terrain just ahead of them, searching for any sign of a freebirth out to improve his lot by hitting a trueborn with a lucky shot. Aidan wondered if he should have chosen a weapon with heavier firepower and range. But he did not have time to decide, for the half-minute was up and Joanna ordered that the Trial now begin.

18

Within the first minute of the Trial, the muddiness of the ground hidden by tall grass tripped up Aidan. When he scrambled to to his feet, the front of his jumpsuit was spotted with mud. Glancing back, he saw Joanna glaring at him. He would rather have seen her laughing, for that would have marked him as clumsy rather than inept. Marthe and Bret had gotten ahead of him, and he rushed to catch up.

"We should not stay so close together," Marthe said. "Spread out."

Bret and Aidan each moved away from Marthe, in separate directions. There were no paths in the high grass, no indications that any other cadets had ever passed this way before. Aidan guessed that Techs went over the site after each Trial, scouring and smoothing away any signs of the combat just past. Greenery was probably transplanted to hide scars not so easily removed.

Why was his mind occupied with irrelevant detail? he scolded himself. Must concentrate. Must be alert.

Grass and leaves were stirred up by a slight breeze, which was much less strong than the weather details of the recon survey had indicated. Perhaps that was why Aidan thought he detected suspicious movement in a high tree on his right, a slight twitching of some branches. Whirling, he brought his pistol up and fired where a branch still vibrated. A crashing sound and more activity of the branches followed his shot, but no one fell out of the tree. Then, when the branches stopped moving, they became utterly still. Although Aidan was sure he had disposed of one ambusher, he had no time to verify the kill. Continuing on, it occurred to him that he might have just wasted some of his laser pistol's charge on a large bird. He shoved the weapon back into his belt.

Suddenly he realized that both Bret and Marthe were far away across the field, leaving him alone and vulnerable. Suppressing an urge to run toward them, he decided instead to go on as he was, depending on himself. He rejected Ter Roshak's warning that cadets should cooperate at this stage of the trial. After all, the action of any one of them could get the others killed.

Better to rely on his own instincts and abilities. Aidan felt comforted by his aloneness and wanted no help from Marthe or Bret. His training seemed to have proceeded on a direct line from his sibko dependence to this sense of isolation at the Trial grounds. Having decided to reach for a significant triumph, what would be the point of letting Marthe and Bret get in his way?

As he ran forward toward the thick woods, he thought he saw figures lying in the grass, weapons held at ready, pointed at him. But he soon realized he was dodging shadows, flinching at animals. Taking deep breaths, a difficult process when running at a fairly high speed, he struggled to clear his mind, to force his eyes to see only what was there. Fantasies were of no use to a warrior— a thought he should offer to Dermot for use in one of his sententious lectures.

Aidan had almost reached the rim of the woods. Looking to his left, he saw that Bret was just entering the woods, while Marthe was nowhere to be seen, having no doubt already crossed the line. Aidan did not like being last, and he pushed forward all the harder, passing into the woods quickly enough to just miss being hit by a rifle shot. The shot took away some bark from a tree next to Aidan's shoulder.

Hitting the ground, then drawing the pistol from his belt, he crawled forward in the direction from which the shot had come. The forest floor was damper than the field had been, and it was suffused with peculiar odors. These puzzled Aidan at first, then he guessed that they were oil and burn smells, the residue of old Trials, the kind of battle traces that no sanitation and clearance squad could scrub away.

The sniper—obviously a freebirth for no trueborn would be so stupid as to fire so soon—shot again. He or she could not have known Aidan's location, so the shot was more nerves than sense. And it gave away the sniper's position. Again, the shooter was in a tree. Aidan wondered if that confirmed his suspicion about the first possible sniper.

Angling to his right, Aidan crept toward the sniper. Using techniques he had learned in hand-to-hand combat training, he stirred little greenery, rattled few fallen branches. The darkness of the woods would hide any small disturbances that were unavoidable. The sniper, apparently getting edgy, rocked the branch where he or she sat.

As Aidan came near the sniper's tree, he saw that it was a young woman dressed in camouflage fatigues. Seeing the back of her hand was against her mouth, he realized she was gnawing on her knuckles. And for good reason: she was looking for him and pointing her automatic weapon in the wrong direction.

Aidan took a bead on her, surprised that his hand was shaking enough that he had to steady the laser pistol with his other hand. He had not felt any agitation, but the shaking did not worry him. Joanna had once said that, in a warrior, nerves that were too cool often meant too much numbing of the brain. What he did ponder briefly as he observed the unsteady movement of the pistol's barrel was the wisdom of choosing such a light personal weapon. The range he was sacrificing would be canceled out if his hand shook too much when he was close enough for a good shot. Getting the pistol under control, he gently squeezed the trigger, feeling in his hand the slight vibration of the weapon firing.

The sniper pitched forward. As far as Aidan could tell, he had hit her just behind the ear. She dropped onto the branch, setting it bobbing up and down, then fell to the ground with a quiet thud. Aidan stayed still for a minute, waiting to be sure that no members of the freebirth squad came to investigate the fall of a compatriot. When he was sure that all was clear, he crawled toward the fallen sniper, his pistol held steady now in case she was faking.