The City Who Fought

Questar-Benn threw up her hands. "Simeon, you're going to be around a very long time. The offer still stands. I'll leave it on record."

"Hey, Pops," Joat said, her voice a little unsteady despite the cocky tone. "I mean you, Simeon."

"Great Ghu! Can you, of all people, not think a more suitable title than 'Pops' to call me?" Simeon demanded in a semi-indignant tone, but he would have settled for anything of a familial nature from Joat.

"Sure, but I don't think you'd like to know 'em!" She smiled her urchin grin in his image. "Any rate, I'm gonna be sixteen standard in a few years. Enlistment age. And I don't want you blaming me for screwing up your career plans. I… I'd sort of like to keep this from happening to somebody else, you know?" She turned to the admiral. "Think these brass-a… um, general-type people might have a use for me?"

Questar-Benn shuddered. "I'm probably perpetrating horrors on some unsuspecting commander left to deal with you in the future, young lady, but yes. I'd be very surprised if we couldn't find a use for all of you." She swept the present company with her piercing gaze.

"Then we may take you up on that offer," Simeon said. Although he was too enervated to enjoy thoughts of revenge, no amount of emotional exhaustion could remove the need to do something about the Kolnari: next week, maybe. "But right now, I'd rather call in the gratitude as a favor, if you don't mind, Admiral," Simeon said.

"Favor? For who?"

"A friend," he said. A holo grew, of a boy about Joat's age.

Joat started violently. "Seld! They wouldn't let me see ya, said you were sick!"

The figure nodded. "You knew that. You know I've been sick a long while, Joat," he said with the incredible patience of the chronic invalid. "Only it went off the screen. I can see this," and he looked down at his frail, limp body, strapped in an upright position on the bed, "but I can't feel anything or move it, or do anything, really."

"Oh, damn!" Joat moved a hand through the holo as if she could reverse the damage somehow.

"The navy medicos have got me hooked up to a nervesplice monitor, to keep my heart going and stuff. Simeon himself," and now he managed a proud grin, "is hacking into it."

Joat blinked. "I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "I shouldn't've called you a wuss. I heaved my cookies afterwards, too. I guess it's my fault, hey? Expecting you to do more'n you could, should!"

"Nah," Seld on the holo said. "I was stupid, you know. You could do all those things I couldn't, and I was… hell, Joat, I was gonna end up like this anyway, sooner'r later. Grudly, but I knew it. Dad knew it, but he sort of didn't at the same time. I've had a lot of time to think about it."

Joat nodded, then narrowed her eyes. "Those caps were the final push, weren't they? Why'd you use one?"

"'Cause I was so scared of seeing you get killed, Joat. You're my best friend. Besides," he went on, "that Kolnari Lord'd just belted me real hard. Then… I tell you, the ultimo grudly," and Seld rolled his eyes in disgust, "when he kissed me, so I wanted some of my own back."

"Yeah," and Joat nodded in approval, "you would at that!"

"That's when I had a fit. Would have happened eventually, really it would, Jo. Dad says another ten years, max."

Joat looked around at the Navy officers. "I don't think that's good enough. Can't you guys better the odds for 'm? Doesn't he deserve more than ten years?" Her hard voice cracked a little.

Questar-Benn winced and the commodore focused his eyes on something else.

"I never get used to this," the commodore under his breath. "What's the favor, Simeon?

Channa's head came up sharply. "Simeon? You've a suggestion?"

"I do," Simeon said in such a positive, you-should-have-known-I-would tone of voice that he commanded everyone's attention. "I've been checking around and the AlexHypatia-1033 told me about new tricks that Dr. Kennet Uhua-Sorg's been working on. No one-yet-is able to regenerate the spinal nerve sheaths. Kenny Sorg developed a prosthesis-for himself, incidentally, but it'll suit Seld's particular requirements, too. Kid, you're too old to be a shellperson: you'd never psychologically adjust. Kenny Sorg's condition is about the same as yours and he gets around just fine," and Simeon projected a holo of a man, moving down a corridor but too smoothly to be "walking." He "walked" upright, true, but his body was framed by an slender exo-skeleton which held him erect, with his feet on a platform, similar but much thicker than the station float disks. The base ingeniously held the power supply and monitoring equipment. "I'm told, Seld, that you'll have use of your arms and the base is sophisticated enough to do as much for your body as my shell does for me. Long as you don't try slipping through ventilation ducts or falling headfirst out of services hatches, you should last as long as most softshells, skeleton man!"