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"I do not care about that."
"I know you do not. But at this moment I wonder what you must be feeling
toward me."
"I do not understand the question. You are my mother."
"And what does such a concept mean to you, as one who comes from a union that
has muddled both the true-born and freeborn concepts of parenthood? I am
asking you as a scientist whose lifework has been the study of genetic
heritages in and out of the sibko."
Diana shuddered involuntarily. "You are like him, you know, like Aidan Pryde,
distant."
"Do not forget that I, too, was once a warrior cadet," Peri said. "I am
trueborn. If I seem distant, it may be only because of that. But tell
me how you interpret parenthood."
"Well ... I do not know what to say. During this ceremony I felt confused. I
am too trueborn to be a free-born, too freeborn to be a trueborn. I am some
kind of misfit and maybe that is what he meant!"
"What who meant?"
"Aidan Pryde. I asked him why I was a Falcon Guard, and he merely said because
he wanted me there. Maybe he sensed that I belonged with the Guards because,
I was as much a misfit as the rest, caught between two worlds."
Peri nodded and began to walk away. "Is that all?" Diana called after her.
Peri turned and smiled in a way that was neither true-born or freeborn. "You
have given me my answer."
"May I come to see you in a few days, and you can explain it to me?"
"No."
Peri turned around and strode away, leaving Diana still saying, "Mother?"
The ceremony over, Marthe Pryde was alone in the large hall. She stared at the
wall behind which Aidan's genetic legacy had taken its place as part of the
gene pool.
She remembered that she and Aidan were to meet after the battle in the
quarters of one or the other. It was too bad, she thought, that the meeting
had never taken place. In some way, it would have rounded out both their
lives, from the sibko to their brief reunion.
Well, she thought, it did not happen. Tears had sprung to her eyes during the
giftake ritual, but she would forget
Aidan Pryde now. There was too much to do.
A shuffling sound in the darkness made her rise quickly, ready to fend off any
attack.
Looking more spectral than ever, Kael Pershaw came into the dim light.
"You did well, Marthe Pryde," he said. "The ceremony was stirring; die
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nominations for Bloodright were positively inspiring."
"What will happen now? What of the Clans? Must we be content to merely
administer the conquered worlds while this fifteen-year truce drags on?"
"Oh, I am sure we will find reasons to fight someone. If not the Inner
Sphere, some other enemy. We are of the
Clans, after all. We are warriors. We fight. That is the way "
"I know. The way of the Clan. But is that all, Kael Pershaw? Honor and combat
and Bloodnames and Bloodrights?"
"Is that not enough for you, Marthe Pryde?"
"For me, Kael Pershaw? Yes, enough for me."
"Then it is enough."
"Seyla," Marthe whispered, then swept by Kael Pershaw out of the hall.
"I had not expected the ceremony to be quite so impressive," Joanna told
Diana. "I stopped Kael Pershaw when it was over and asked him if he had
influenced the decision to transfer the genetic legacy so soon."
"And?"
"He acted like Kael Pershaw. He refused to speak with me. He just reached up
his hand, made some tiny adjustment to that foul mask of his, and walked away.
I hated that man when I served under him at Glory Station, and I hate him even
more now.'1
"But you say you hate everyone, even me."
"Well, perhaps not you, Diana. You are no prize, but I do not feel a trace of
hatred for you. As for everyone else, well, yes, I suppose I hate most of
them."
"What about my father? What about Aidan Pryde?"
Joanna seemed to ponder the question. "He was a different sort of warrior,
that is certain. When he first arrived on
Ironhold with his sibko I predicted that he would test out all the way. And so
he did."
"Did you like him then?"
"No, I did not like him. Sometimes I hated him more than anyone else."
Seeing the disappointment Diana could not hide, Joanna was amazed at the
contradictions in this superb warrior.
Why did she care about a father whom she had merely observed from afar?
"But I think I hated him less than most," Joanna went on. "Definitely. I hated
him less than most."
Diana smiled, then frowned.
"He tested out all the way," Joanna said.
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