All-Patron Reward: Demons of the Past Early Draft: Born of Ice Chapter 2

Last month's chapter introduced us to a much older (circa 1988-1990) version of Sasham Varan, and set much earlier than the beginning of the final draft. The general outline of events in this section did in fact happen in the final version, and are alluded to a few times in the trilogy. 

Still, there were already a lot of differences visible. Not only was Varan younger, he was also much less confident and touchier, though his basic personality was roughly the same. Dior (not Diorre) Jearsen is male in this draft, and a member of the Marines -- as in this draft I'd eliminated the world-centric names for a lot of things. (I waffled back and forth on that quite a lot until I found a compromise I liked). 

Well, Varan had been embarrassed and then set up to be the class brain. Let's see what happened next...

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ii.

The sliding doors I left by were not the same ones I had entered by. The corridor was empty. Torline's Swords! They hadn't waited for me.

I looked both ways. The steel walls were blankly uninformative. Helkoth had said that the assignments were posted "in the hall", but in a base composed mostly of hallways that wasn't much help. I considered going back in and asking the sergeant which way to go, but thought better of it; if I couldn't handle this on my own, I'd never pass survival training.

The flip of a half-credit coin gave me a direction to stride in with a false purposefulness. I walked for several minutes in silent isolation. Atlantis' Towers, how could any part of an Imperial Base be this deserted? A door ahead slid open, and the black and silver figure of a Monitor stepped out.

Caught between a blizzard and a windwailer. No wonder this area was deserted. Even most officers avoid Monitors. I stopped dead and saluted. His eyes swept up and down like a scanning camera, reminding me of the rumor that Monitors were all voluntarily hypno-indoctrinated so that they were incorruptible and utterly emotionless while on duty.

"What are you doing here, ensign?" he asked in flat, disinterested tones.

My heart was pounding like a outphased generator. "I'm lost, sir."

Monitors are accomplished muscle readers; it's almost impossible to lie to them. The ice-blue orbs merely glanced into mine and dismissed me. "On your way, Ensign Varan."

I saluted, turned, and marched at doubletime until I was well out of sight. Then I stopped and allowed myself the luxury of an attack of shakes.

After a few minutes I felt steady enough to continue down the hall. I passed the briefing-romm doors, and a few hundred meters further down I found the room assignments. Mine was easy to find: "Ensign Sasham Varan 8901252112". I followed the line across to my cabinmate: "Private Dior Jearsen, 4952037409". Wonderful. There was a small map of the base next to the listings. I located my cabin and started in that direction.

The cabin door was open, the Empire not bothering with automatic doors for trainees. I peered in. There was Jearsen, all two recruiting-poster meters of him. I'm 1.86 tall and not skinny, but he made me look like a broomstick. His back was to me; he was struggling with the fastenings on a large case. I walked quietly in, taking stock of the quarters. There wasn't any ornamentation, not that I'd expected much. Two beds, two holoviewers, two desks, two closets, two chairs, and one bathroom. Lots better quarters than I'd had in Basic, but I doubted the company would be as pleasant.

I couldn't be completely silent, however. My travelpack clicked on the steel floor as I set it down. Out of the corner of one eye I saw Jearsen turn.

"Hey, Navy man."

I ignored him, starting to unpack.

"I'm talking to you, Navy."

Oh, sink it. I might as well have my fights now instead of later. "You can call me Ensign or Varan, mudfoot, and I'll call you Jearsen."

He shrugged. That was something of a relief; at least he wasn't picking a fight. "Okay, don't get touchy, Varan. Just figured we'd better be on speking terms if we're supposed to be teammates."

I didn't believe this. The Marine who'd started my unfunny orbit around the table was talking really reasonable stuff. Knowing Marines, It had to be some kind of trick. "Well, we're speaking."

He scowled at that. "Hey, Varan, you've got a serious attitude problem."

Maybe he was right. I run on a real short fuse without something familiar around to make me feel anchored, and running into a Monitor hadn't helped. "I'm just wondering why the sudden switch."

He looked puzzled, then laughed suddenly. I liked the laugh, it was a big, booming, cheerful sound. "You mean that little dance we did in the briefing room? Atlantis' Towers, Varan, that's just a little game! You're Navy; you've gotta put up with some razzing for a while. And yeah, some of the kids don't like you being resident expert, especially Canta and Nievas. Me, I got over that hangup on my first tour on the Lightstrike."

First tour? I looked at him more closely. He was older than I was, five or six years older at least. "What are you doing here, then?"

"I was trained as a weapons specialist." he answered. "I did so well in the placement exams that they sent me straight to tech school from Basic, never got the Survival courses. That keeps me off certain missions, and I don't like that, so here I am." He grinned, held out a hand. "Shake?"

Sink it. He seemed honest, and I sure needed that emotional anchor. "Sure." I clasped his hand. He had a grip like cargo lifters.

"Great! My first name's Doir, by the way. Can you give me a hand with this?"

"This" was the large case he'd been working on. The one clasp he'd been struggling with took both of us to open. "Doir, that's Old Atlantean, isn't it?" I said as we pulled.

The clasp popped open and we turned to the other fastenings. He looked up at the question, surprised. "That's right! How'd you know?"

"Atlantis was my ruling passion when I was a kid." I answered, yanking the top off finally. I stared at the device inside. It wasn't like anything I'd seen before, or rather it was like too many things all mashed together. "What in the world is that?"

"My humidifier. I'm from Xaltine."

"I've heard of it." I said. Come to think of it, his voice had a tinge of hoarseness now that hadn't been there in the briefing room. "90-plus percent humidity and temperatures of thirty-eight centiscale all the time. You actually like it that soggy?"

Doir grimaced, his hands busy unpacking the cushioning from around the device. "Damn, I tilted it! No wonder it was so tough to close... and open." He tossed the cushioning onto his bed. "It's not a matter of liking it. Xaltine was settled right after the Fall, and in eighteen thousand years we've gotten to the point where we need all that water in the air."

I helped him set it upright, the large grille facing his bed. "I'm just wondering how I'm going to deal with it. I don't think I've ever been in air that humid."

"Don't worry. The unit's force-field confines the humidity to around my bed and desk." He switched the device on; I could just make out the sparkle of the force-field it projected. Doir twirled several knobs in rapid succession, and the conical sheet of force expanded, twisted, and stopped, now encasing his side of the room. He stepped through the thin field, and relaxed almost instantly. "Whoo, that feels better. I don't know how you stand it that dry."

Watching this, I realized that Jearsen really was handicapped here. Never mind the cold, he might like it warmer than the rest of us but what'd freeze him would freeze me just as fast. But he'd come down in the same transport I had, I knew, so he couldn't have been out of his own environment more than a few hours. And those few hours had been enough to start ruining his voice and Torline alone knew what else. "You're really going to have to watch it on training, Doir." I said. "This is dripping wet air compared to what's out there." Suddenly I remembered something. "You know, my dad had a visitor from Xaltine once, and he had this little mask that humidified the air for him when he went out. Maybe we can find you one."

The blue eyes glinted humorously. "I thought it'd be a good idea to stick with you."

"What?" I said, getting angry again. "You mean you just started socializing so you could pick my brains?"

"No."

His simple denial worked; I would have been more suspicious of a violent denial. "It doesn't work that way, Varan." he continued. "Room assignments are done by the Sergeant. And since I didn't have access to your records I couldn't have known that you were an iceworlder anyway." He sat down; the bed creaked. "Let me say a few things about you; then you tell me if I'm right, okay?"

I already felt embarrassed. What he said made perfect sense, and the only excuse I had for that blowup was running into a Monitor.. but that excuse was getting old fast. Grow up, Varan. "Sure, go ahead."

"First, you come from a military family, right?"

"Right." I wasn't impressed; most military recruits have military roots.

"Second, you were pretty isolated as a kid -- no neighbors, just your family around."

That was a longer shot. If he knew Borealis he'd know just how long a shot that was, too. We had one of only five separate housings in the city limits, my father saying that he didn't like to depend on a dome big enough to make a fat target in case of a Doradan attack. So he spent the cash and built a house ten kilometers from the city.

He kept on, his voice already stronger, losing that rough edge. "Your main companions were books and your mom's or dad's Navy buddies."

Torline's Swords, he was hitting it right! I nodded.

He grinned triumphantly. "So your parents and their buddies told you their adventures, and you joined the Navy soon's you turned 17; heck, you never thought of any other career. But in Basic you suddenly felt.. well, lost, kinda afraid, once away from your home." I guess he could see my surprise, because he nodded and finished, "Yeah. So you feel the same now, no one to hold to."

"How in the Seven Towers do you know all this?" An awful suspicion flashed across my mind. "You... you aren't a PSI, are you?"

He looked at me, startled, then burst out into that great booming laugh. "Me, a psionic? Hell, my Section Monitor told me that my psi potential rating was as close to zero as he'd ever seen." The grin spread wider. "Substitute 'Marine' for 'Navy' and all I did was talk about myself. I know how it feels to be odd man out. My heavy weapons course was at the Naval Academy." His voice was now completely recovered. "I was also a DI for a couple years, so I recognized the signs. So how about we keep the weapons holstered and work together?"

It sounded like a good deal to me. "Great." I said. that sounded pretty weak. I didn't want to insult him. "Look, I'm sorry I was so snappy just now. I get nasty when I feel alone."

"Tell me about it. I got sent back three weeks in Basic because of that." He sat down on the bed, which creaked. "I blew up at one guy in my platoon just because he bumped me, and I was so tense I was sure he'd done it on purpose."

I laughed. Atlantis' Towers, that felt good. "You too? Same here, except I got sent back after I blew up at the DI!"

His eyes twinkled again. He wasn't nearly as intimidating as I thought. "You had more guts than I did, then! I remember wanting to snap back at my sergeant, but I never did get the nerve." He scratched at his short hair. "Of course, the fact he was also the combat instructor might have had something to do with it."

I glanced at the wall clock. "Whoops! Almost mess time! Wanna come along and help your buddies dump my tray?"

He laughed again. "That's the spirit! Put up with it for a few days and most of 'em will come around."

We walked out the door still talking.