She was not faking. She was dead. Looking down on the slightly worried expression that remained on her narrow, birdlike face, he wondered why Ter Roshak, always so concerned with conserving and recycling materials, would put personnel at risk in the Trial. Perhaps it served to sharpen the warriors he turned out in successful trials, justifying the life lost. Still, was it worth this young woman's death?

Aidan had to work at it, but he knew he had to make his mind a blank. This tendency to reflect on events was useless to him, especially at such an important time, at the time of the Trial. The dead sniper was a freebirth, after all. Why should he care about what happened to a freebirth?

Searching her body, he found nothing he could use. He was tempted to take her rifle, but it might be cumbersome, so he decided against it. He would stick with the pistol. It had served him well, so far at least.

Having lost his sense of direction by now, Aidan had to use his compass to start back through the woods again. He moved slowly, prepared for another attack. Seeing some light ahead, he thought perhaps it was the end of the woods.

Off to his right he heard a barely discernible sound of laser firing. Going toward the sound, he came suddenly upon three freebirths, all turned away from him, shooting wildly. Looking beyond them, he saw that they had Marthe pinned down. She crouched behind a tree next to the clearing that would lead to the 'Mechs, not firing, obviously waiting for her attackers to expend their fire.

He could have left her there, getting a head start in his 'Mech and increasing his chances of winning. But this was Marthe, and they had grown up together, and there were still residual (if dormant) loyalties. Besides, Ter Roshak had emphasized that they should function as a unit.

So, with three quick shots, he killed the three free-births. They fell almost simultaneously. He came out from cover and stood over them, then looked toward Marthe. She had walked out a couple of steps into the clearing. They stared at one another wordlessly for a moment, and all Aidan saw on her face was bitter resentment.

19

Most Trial participants are not as efficient as Cadet Aidan in disposing of freebirth opponents during first-stage maneuvers, wrote Ter Roshak. He totaled five kills, the most freebirths ever lost to a single cadet in this ordeal. His shooting was, in fact, better than any of his target-range scores. But that can happen. Many a 'Mech-Warrior's abilities are best tested in actual combat, and no amount of organized measures will predict them.

I am sometimes accused of waste, perhaps the worst blemish on a Clan training commander's records, because I approve risking freebirths in Trial maneuvers. Why not just put in realistic targets, my accusers say, as we do? A target popping abruptly out of the ground has just as much effect against a cadet's alertness as a living freeborn leaping out from underbrush. I believe, however, that I have always been able to successfully defend my position. Once a cadet knows he is being attacked by metal-and-cardboard constructions, it is no longer a true challenge, but a game, a joke, every time he encounters another ridiculous manmade obstacle. It is these constructions that are the real waste—a waste of useful materials for a useless purpose. Yet if cadets defeat, even kill, freeborn trainees in the course of their runs to their Trial 'Mechs, they are honing their own skills and, as a bonus, raising their own adrenaline levels for the important battle to come. Facing a bit of danger helps one to face even more dangers. The cadets do not realize, of course that the game is slanted in their favor. Freeborn weapons have been doctored to make them unable to kill. At worst, stunning the cadet for a few seconds. Even with those odds, I rarely lose a freeborn with real promise in this part of the Trial and I have never lost a cadet. I say that the results support my methods.

As far as waste is concerned, the opposite is true. The Trial is better, its participants perform more skillfully, the training command turns out better and more aggressive MechWarriors. I am satisfied. And so are others, for I am grateful to note that more and more of my colleagues are adopting my methods.

It is also significant that my command has the highest rate of success in training freeborns, which makes the occasional loss of a few in a valuable test situation logistically acceptable. Whether in war or peace, the strategy and tactics that result in either victory or the kind of loss that exhausts the enemy are all that count. Results justify, complaints obstruct. And I am successful enough to turn my head away from obstructions. I have heard that, historically, massacres and slaughters were condemned by people who thought of themselves as "right-thinking." I agree, but I believe that the Clan has countered the blame that such people imposed on events with a control of life as well as death. The number of warriors who fall is calculated precisely. No one should be killed unnecessarily,and that is the key word. There are necessary deaths, necessary massacres, necessary slaughters. That is what the right-thinkers did not realize. If the deaths of a thousand people further the scope and goals of the mission, those deaths are glorious. But one man's unnecessary death is the atrocity. We Clansmen have redefined such words as atrocity and glory.

Even the freeborns perform better knowing that they are part of the Trials of trueborns. Most of them are eager to attack a trueborn, even though they know that Clan society views freeborns as the more expendable of the two genetic categories. No, I see no waste. None at all. Nevertheless, Cadet Aidan's killing of five of the freeborns shocked even me. Then, when he was down temporarily, with a vengeful freeborn standing over him, representing the sixth potential slaying, I was tempted to abort the whole exercise. ...

20

Afterward, long afterward when he had time to reflect upon the entire experience, Aidan decided that it must have been a minor explosion that knocked him off his feet, perhaps from the kind of training grenade used on an obstacle course. Though its charge was light, it could have done some actual physical damage if it had landed closer to him, and it was strong enough to make him unconscious for perhaps one or two minutes. He came to with the sun, newly arrived in the sky, shining behind the towering figure of one of the freeborn ambushers. Even though the figure was in shadow, Aidan could tell that he held a pistol in his hand and was pointing it at Aidan's head. Whether or not the freebirth squeezed the trigger, Aidan was never certain. There was a possibly false memory of a whooshing sound by his ear as he rolled sideways and sprang rapidly to his feet. For once, all those sibko acrobatics, practiced endlessly in calisthenics and team tussles, stood him in good stead. He had not been the most adept at such exercises, but his talents were enough to catch this freeborn off guard before he could shoot again.

Not even trying to steady his own balance, Aidan thrust himself on his attacker, pushing him backward a few stumbling steps, then onto his back with Aidan on top of him. Aidan spotted a hand-sized rock next to his enemy's head and grabbed it. Just before he slammed it against the freeborn's forehead and knocked him cold, he was chilled by the look of icy hatred in the young man's eyes. He read it as the same kind of hatred that trueborns felt for this inferior class. It had not occurred to him that the hatred's intensity could be returned just as strongly, if not more so.

The look enraged Aidan. By what right did free-borns feel scornful of their obvious superiors, even if this one had been chosen to train as a warrior and was thus a cut above his own kind? As if bouncing the hatred back onto the freeborn, Aidan gave the unconscious man an extra blow against the side of his head. His body jerked abruptly and went still. Aidan thought he might be dead, but did not have time to verify the kill.