And judging by Aerin’s eventual response, her thoughts traveled inward as well. She slumped down against a clean window and whispered, “I don’t know why I do this to myself.”
He waited, not sure what to say. Little of this conversation had made any sense, not that he had helped clarify things when given the chance.
The lull lasted another ten seconds before she lashed out at him. “I convinced myself you were the devil, you know!”
“No,” he teased, “I’d never have guessed.”
“And all the time . . .” She brought her hand to her forehead, then smoothed it back through her windblown hair. “You weren’t thinking anything about me.”
A grin clung to the corners of his mouth. That was more of an understatement than he cared to admit. “Actually, my backside has thought about you quite a bit.”
She blinked.
“After physical combat,” he explained, remembering the first time she had knocked the wind out of him. It had left him stunned. He had never met anyone who moved the way she did. But then she wasn’t from here.
He took a deep breath, then dropped his voice. “I’m sorry I frightened you earlier. You really shouldn’t worry, Aerin. You’re one of the strongest first-years in the school. Everyone knows you deserve your place.”
Doubt lay naked in her face. “Not everyone.”
He squinted at her, trying to figure out who she meant. The principal maybe, because of the trouble he had brought down on her.
Then Aerin stammered, “How . . . how did you know I wasn’t from the Alliance?”
He picked up a nail, turning it in his fingers and trying hard to keep a straight face, even though the memory brought back the same desire to laugh as before. “You were swearing at me in off-boundary slang.”
Her hands clenched into fists.
“That was just a part of it, though,” he added, feeling a sudden urge to explain. “I knew you must have learned those particular phrases outside the Alliance, but then I realized how much that might explain about you—about how you know so much about some things and nothing about others, like how to turn on a computer.”
Her face burned a brilliant red. “How did you know it was off-boundary slang?”
He opened his hand, dropping the nail and staring at the red creases on his palm. “My father’s on the Council, remember? He speaks a lot of languages.”
She closed her eyes. “Stupid.” Her voice was a whisper.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Dane, pretending to take offense even though he knew she was deriding herself. “You told me a few minutes ago I wasn’t stupid. You can’t take it back now.”
“Can’t take it back.” The words sank like water dripping down the pipes.
“Aerin, I have no intention of telling anyone you’re not an Allied citizen.” He held her dark eyes in his gaze, hoping to convince her he meant what he said, that he was telling the truth and there were no strings attached.
Well, perhaps one string. He held out the hammer. “Of course, if you felt like coming back to work, I wouldn’t mind. This job might not ever end without you.”
The hammer waited.
She looked right past it, then stood up, dusting off her perfectly clean uniform and letting her gaze sweep the perimeter. The humming of the wind filled the pause, and her hair blew out in long strands behind her neck. Then her hands rose to her hips. “Well, we wouldn’t want to anger Dr. Livinski any more, would we?”
He cocked his head, noting the angle of her chin, the set of her shoulders, the distinct curve of her profile. At that moment, in that pose, she looked almost . . . regal. In a wild, untamed sort of way. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m starting to think this punishment isn’t all that bad.”
The brown eyes shot down to his. “It’s bad enough, thank you.” And she plucked the hammer from his hand.
Chapter Eleven
BARGAIN
DANE SPENT THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS FORMULATING a plan of action. He and Aerin now had a working relationship. She asked him to hand her the occasional rag or paintbrush. He refrained from griping. They even discussed the quality of an assigned job now and then. None of this, however, had improved his status in physical combat.
Fortunately there was no first-quarter exam in that particular subject. Dane made it through the tests he did have with scarcely a speck of stardust on him. And judging by the posted scores, Aerin made it through even more cleanly. Not that anyone would know that by the way she continued to bury her head in a book every spare minute of the day, not lighthearted novels or required reading either, but thick, heavy texts on historical, political, and social aspects of the Alliance. Dry and dull. The books, though, finally gave Dane the idea he needed for leverage.
He tracked her down in the library.
Personally, Dane had avoided the open room on the south end of the second floor as much as possible. He disliked the way the third-year students who manned the checkout counter could monitor everyone, whether the occupants were browsing the long shelves, downloading data from the information center, or studying at the rectangular tables in the study area.
Aerin, of course, was as far from the counter as possible. Despite the fact that a large table with comfortable chairs remained empty at a window to her left, she had ensconced herself in a small cubicle, her feet and knees propped up against the wooden desk, her chair tilted toward the wall. He wondered if she had chosen the position to thwart any person from sitting next to her.
Not that it would stop him.
Snagging a chair from a nearby table, Dane spun it around beside her and swung one leg over the seat. He leaned forward, resting his chin lightly on the chair back.
She ignored him, keeping her nose immersed in a thick tome, The Evolution of the Alliance. Perfect.
He snatched the book from her hands. “I have a proposition for you.”
Her palms came down to the edge of the desk with a snap. “There are better ways of asking.”
Maybe, but he had her attention now, didn’t he? He pulled the book close, safely trapping its maroon cover between his chest and the chair’s woven back. “I’m not asking. I’m making an offer.”
She glared at him. “Now?”
Well, yes. “Doing a little light reading?” he asked, lifting the heavy book and drumming his fingers on the cover. She reached for the text, and he buried it once again behind the chair. “You don’t need to work this hard, you know.”
“What would you know about work?” she snarled.
“Oooh!” He held up a hand in mock surrender. “You think defeating you every day in debate is easy?”
The barb hit its target. Her chest deflated.
“I could help you.” He inched the book just high enough for the title to peek over the edge at her. “Then you wouldn’t have to read every incredibly dull, poorly written treatise in this library.”
“Maybe you don’t.” She eyed him as if he had tainted DNA.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” she said, “you’re Xioxang’s favorite.”
“Right.” Casually he slid the chair closer and laid on the sarcasm. “Xioxang obviously has favorites.”
“He always prefers your arguments in class.”
“Because they’re the best.”
She did not deny it. In fact, judging by the way her thumb inched up to trace the rim of his chair, she was ready to listen.
“I could help you prepare an argument,” he said.
“Maybe.” Her voice dropped low. “But which one? The topics are random, and they can go anywhere. Don’t you understand, Dane? When it comes to current events, I have no background, none at all. The stuff the rest of the class knows about the Alliance—I didn’t grow up with that. It’s one thing to do the reading for a class. It’s another to defend myself against the unknown. No matter how much I read and study, there are some things I’ll never learn that way.”
“Exactly my point.” He rocked back,
inching the book higher still. “Why waste your time on the wrong stuff? I guarantee you half the students in that class don’t know Karsky’s ten evolutionary stages of the Alliance.”
Her gaze shot to the author’s name printed under the title of the book.
Yeah, I read it. How else would I know it was dull? “Look, Aerin, preparation is only half the challenge of winning a debate.”
“And the other half?”
He had her now. “You have to choose the right side.”
“Your side, you mean.” She bristled.
“No, the losing side.”
“What?”
“Always choose the weaker side.”
“Why would I do that?” Doubt edged her voice, but now she was sitting erect, her feet flat on the floor.
“Because then you have further to go to prove your case.” He eased the feet of his chair down. “In a debate, there are two sides. If both make a good argument, then the less popular side wins because that side had further to go to prove its point. Simple logistics.”
“If you don’t care which side wins.” She frowned.
“It’s a debate. It doesn’t matter which side wins.”
“You mean it doesn’t matter to you.” The tone in her voice unsettled him. Or maybe it was the fact that that her criticism disturbed him at all.
“It’s a class,” he said. “The point is to flesh out the different sides of an argument.”
“And you don’t care if the truth gets lost in the shuffle. Don’t you believe in anything?!”
The students at a nearby table turned toward them, and one of the third-years at the checkout desk sent a glare in Aerin and Dane’s direction.
“Of course I do,” said Dane. Why was she harping on this?
She crossed her arms, lowering her voice. “What?”
His brow furrowed. This was not part of the plan. “What . . . do I believe about what?” He fumbled for his tongue.
“About anything.” She rolled her eyes. “Start with the Alliance, since that’s what you’re offering to help me study.”
For a minute, he scrambled with his thoughts, trying to decide where to begin. Then his words came out slowly. “I . . . agree with the Manifest.” And now he had begun, the explanation spilled out. “That we need a unifying force among the planets.”
“And you believe the Alliance should be that force?”
“No—That is, the Alliance could be a model, but I don’t believe a single government would be feasible for the entire universe.”
“Then what do you mean by a unifying force?” She was really asking, not testing him. He could tell by the way the lines shifted on her face, questioning.
“I’m not sure,” he answered. “Some type of venue for communication—a place we can talk about issues: trade, education, civil rights.”
“Then you don’t trust the Council to deal with those issues?” There was no judgment in the question.
Choosing his words carefully, he answered with as much honesty as he could. “I think the Council has done its best to deal with tough issues, Aerin, but they don’t have the resources to fight every problem in the universe.” Or the perspective.
“They seem to think they can take on the entire Trade Union.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe the Council wants war with the Trade Union.”
“Why? Because your father is traveling to the border next month for talks with their leaders?”
Dane shrugged. Let her interpret that as she liked.
She sat without speaking, then said something so softly he almost failed to hear it. “What do you want, Dane?”
He was starting to wonder that himself. No one had ever pried such an unguarded answer from him about his genuine views on the Alliance’s future. Was bargaining with her really worth it?
She must have caught the confusion on his face. “In exchange for your help in debate,” she clarified. “What do you want from me?”
Doubt faded, his grip on the heavy tome loosening. “I’m tired of getting trampled every day.” He grinned. “Teach me to fight.”
She snatched the book and headed toward the checkout counter. Her agile legs moved at a rapid clip. For a second, he thought he had lost. Then her head turned, long brown hair flying out to the left, and she hurled one last comment over her shoulder. “I accept. But you may regret it.”
Regret was not the word Dane would have chosen to describe the next evening’s tutoring session. Humbling. That was the word. His back hurt—and his shoulders, his neck, his collarbone, his spine, his ankles, his heels, his elbows, for goodness’ sake.
With a sharp kick, Aerin sent him to the ground for the fourth time. The grassy practice field had long since failed to look soft. What was he doing wrong? He was balanced, prepared, patient: everything his instructors on base had taught him. But every time he stood up, she just wiped him out again.
“Stand,” she ordered.
He struggled into opening position.
Aerin sliced out with her left leg. He spotted it, moved, and crashed into the backside of her right elbow. Thwap! The blow to his head sent him reeling.
“I told you, Dane, the key to a real fight is offense. If you react to my movement, I’ve got you on the ground. You want to finish a conflict within two, maybe three moves. It’s not a sport. It’s survival.”
He eased his palm away from his throbbing ear. The planet’s sinking sun, the side of the Great Hall, and Aerin all danced before him in a jumbled blur. He waited for them to stop before daring to speak. “Maybe we could limit this first lesson to below the neck. I’d like to survive.”
The look Aerin gave him sent a clear response.
“Listen, you are the one who said you wanted this,” she replied. “If you would rather not . . .”
“I want to learn,” Dane confirmed.
She arched an eyebrow, moved toward him, and cracked a smile as he flinched away. “I won’t hurt you.”
His throbbing ear said otherwise.
Her hands dropped to her hips. “You have to train your body to listen to your brain. It’s not like preparing for a wrestling match or a sword fight. With those you can practice patterns so that your body will take over for you.”
“My instructors used to say I needed to let my instincts guide me.”
“I’m not saying you should ignore your instincts; they’re giving you feedback. But the reason patterns work in sport training is because there are limits. Rules.”
“Like not connecting above the neck?” Dane rubbed his ear.
“Like not connecting with the neck.” She shifted closer to the nearby wall, rubbed a hand over its rough surface, and removed a small piece of crumbling stone. It had been her idea to practice in the Great Hall’s evening shadow. She had thought they would draw less attention here. “The first thing a real attacker is going to do is aim for a part of the body that will inflict the most damage.”
A chill crept through him. “I don’t want to learn to kill someone,” he said.
Her next words heightened the chill. “We don’t often choose whether someone will try to kill us.” Aerin hurled the stone against the wall and watched the gray rock shatter.
“I doubt Miss Maya would agree with your point of view.”
“Then you underestimate her. Academy 7 is the school of choice for recruiting military officers, isn’t it? She wants her students to stay alive.”
He supposed Aerin was right. He had not been thinking of this as a military school. It was nothing like the Air Force Academy back on Chivalry, or the combat school his brother attended on Maravel 9. Here, students were taught to think for themselves, not follow orders. But just because Academy 7 had a broad focus did not mean the purpose behind its physical training was any less serious.
“Is that why you chose to come here?” Dane asked. “Because you wanted to learn survival skills?”
Aerin stared at the remnants of the shattered stone. “I came to learn how to do more
than survive.” She gave him a quick glance, then shifted into fighting stance.
“Enough for now,” he said, backing away.
“You wanted this.” The implied challenge ran thick in her voice.
He dropped to the ground and rolled back onto the deep soft grass. It was cool against his sweating skin. She stood uneasily, shifting her weight from foot to foot as if unsure what to do without a defined task. She was like a feral cat, he thought, ready to attack or flee at a hint of danger, but unable to relax. “Sit down.” He pounded the flat of his hand on the ground beside him.
She sat.
He leaned his head back and let his chest rise and fall with the intake of oxygen. Academia’s sun slipped over the horizon’s edge, and the sea green sky shifted to a deep turquoise.
She did not say anything. No surprise there. She was wrapped so tight an untoward word might send her sprinting in the opposite direction, but he had an intense desire to learn more about her. After all, he was still here. She was the one who had been harping on him about throwing away his chances, so he might as well take her advice and begin by unraveling the mystery that was Aerin Renning.
“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” he asked.
Silence.
He gave up on her answering that question and tried another. “Where’d you grow up?”
Her head snapped in his direction. Too late, he remembered she had a reason to keep her origin a secret.
Well, he already knew she was not an Allied citizen. “Come on, Aerin, you practically had me give a speech yesterday on what I believe. The least you can do is tell me something about yourself.”
She rocked forward to her knees. For an instant he thought she was leaving, but instead her fingers dug into the ground, tearing a patch of grass up by the roots. “I . . .” Her head dropped low, shoulder muscles twitching, and she inhaled a ragged breath. When she finally spoke, her voice wavered slightly above a whisper. “My father was an independent trader.” Past tense. “He flew cargo between planets and space stations in the Dyan sector.”