Deserter

"Someone was injured?" Peturabo gloomily swept his gaze over the soldier reporting to him. Before the man's legs could start trembling, he looked away and directed his irritation at the machine that had jammed again, deciding he would vent his frustration later by repairing its shoddy construction with the sole of his boot.

"Bring me the report. You may go," he said sullenly. "Send the injured back to Lokos. I have no need for wounded men on the battlefield."

After the soldier left, he promptly kicked the machine to make it resume spitting out paper tape, then returned to his steel chair and read the incident report concerning several minor injuries caused by a new lasgun conversion device running out of control.

He hoped it was merely an accidental flaw on the production line rather than some grave oversight in the overall industrial process, so he could at least say later that it was not his fault—well, Peturabo could not lie to himself.

"Another mistake of mine," he muttered. He slapped the machine as it began to stutter again, then started working backward from the phenomena described in the report to identify possible errors in his design.

In any case, all laspistols of that model in the army had to be withdrawn and inspected to prevent further accidents. Since this had happened under his command, it was his responsibility.

He pulled several blank sheets toward himself. His pen hovered in the air, paused for a moment, then lowered. He covered his face with both hands and sank deep into a purer mode of thought.

Then, after exhaling, he gripped his pen and began recalculating from the beginning.

Not long afterward, a series of beeps sounded.

Peturabo was rather insistent on having the entire interior of a tank to himself, so at that moment he had to answer someone else's call personally instead of assigning a guard and telling him, "Go tell them I'm busy and unavailable."

"What?" He multitasked, preparing to replace the draft paper already carved clean through by lines of equations, while answering with little patience. "Which cannon exploded this time?"

"At least none have so far," Calipha's voice replied. "And probably none will in the future?"

The movement of Peturabo's pen across the page slowed.

He immediately replaced the still-unused sheet, slapped a fresh one into the center of the table, and reined in his emotions, regretting them.

Remembering Mors's cruel mockery last time—that he was even more liable than Lokos's hot-air balloons to soar into the sky from heat and expansion—Peturabo suddenly felt that nothing was worth getting angry over after all.

"What is it, Calipha?"

"I came to ask how you were doing, Bo," Calipha said softly. The sound of papers rustling came from her end as well; presumably, she was busy too. "I believe that accident was not your fault."

"Will your belief in me change reality?" Peturabo grumbled lightly, carrying the derivation into its next stage. If he still could not find the flaw, he felt it necessary to verify the theoretical formulas he had previously established all over again.

It was, in truth, an almost pleasant process for him. There was no need to think about any external twists or schemes. Numbers and axioms always displayed astonishing precision and honesty. They neither mocked him nor deceived him, nor did they worship him. Knowledge was simply knowledge.

Calipha quietly said, "No. Harkon is among those injured."

"What a coincidence... no, that deserter!" Peturabo instantly realized, anger rushing to his head.

His calculations accelerated twice over. His mind spun like layers of interlocking gears, countless numbers and letters landing on the draft paper with the precision and speed of print. Peturabo spent his fury this way.

Weapon energy going out of control? How could he even say such a thing! Clearly, he simply did not want to fight, so he had found a way to lie in the rear and sleep in advance.

Calipha continued, "I know my brother. He was likely worried that you would have him killed, so he found a way to escape early."

She sighed, her tone carrying even more guilt. "I sincerely apologize for him, Lord of the Legion."

"Are you worried that I would take the opportunity to kill him too? Am I truly that frightening, that narrow-minded?"

Peturabo's pen tip tore through the paper and snapped against the steel tabletop.

He rummaged through drawers for a new pen, though he knew perfectly well that he had sorted his spare writing implements into another drawer.

"No," Calipha said. "I merely acknowledge that my brother is a deserter."

Those words made Peturabo fall silent at once.

He spared his cabinet, then gave the perpetually jamming machine another hard slap before opening its top panel. The wind carried away his irritation.

The young man sat down in imitation of Mors's posture, crossing one leg over the other.

It was not that he liked sitting this way. On the contrary, he used the awkward discomfort to remind himself to reflect inwardly and outwardly.

A faint, soft rustling mixed into Calipha's voice. Perhaps it was a sleeve brushing the tabletop, perhaps merely interference in the current itself. Those trivial sounds were not irritating; rather, they became a kind of footnote to Calipha's own temperament.

"Are you wondering why, Bo?" she asked.

"I only asked him to fight alongside ordinary soldiers. I was not trying to harm him. Our technology is clearly that advanced," Peturabo said.

"But he envies you. From the first moment he saw you, he began comparing himself to you in secret," Calipha said steadily, as if she were not describing an elder brother, but merely an individual stripped of all private social ties.

"When you first met Father, he was actually at Father's side, yet you did not so much as glance at him." At this point, Calipha smiled. "Harkon himself told me that."

"The longer you remained in Lokos, the more dazzling your brilliance became. Before reaching adulthood, you had already accomplished feats that ten Harkons could never achieve. Father would sometimes say that if his eldest son had your gifts, he would have made him heir long ago instead of continuing to torment his old age with power and state affairs."

"As the years passed, you left more and more traces in Lokos. Your inexhaustible talent transformed the entire nation, and that gradually gave my eldest brother another fear—whether Father favored you more than him."

"Me?"

"He feared Father intended to make you heir. After all, in a practical rather than symbolic sense, Lokos is already your country."

Peturabo was silent for a moment. "He is right."

This time, Calipha was surprised. "Do you want to become a tyrant?"

"I do not want him to inherit. His behavior has squandered all goodwill toward him. Even if he returns to my army in a few days, I will drive him away."

He continued, "If possible, I hope you wear the iron crown."

Calipha immediately laughed. "Andos is still ahead of me in line beneath the throne."

"Andos will not do. He is too friendly, too kind."

"That is simply how pure his nature is. I am afraid that, to my brother, a sufficiently beautiful butterfly would be worth more than a thousand iron crowns."

Thinking of that overly honest, innocent craftsman, the two of them laughed together. Compared with Harkon, Andos was truly both lovable and reassuring.

Peturabo rose and took several sheets of paper from the top of the storage rack. "I wrote a declaration-of-war speech. Will you listen to it for me?"

Calipha readily agreed, then teased him, "How many drafts did you write for your speech at the naming ceremony?"

Unmoved, Peturabo looked into the distance. "You may guess."

Beyond the mountains and treacherous roads, though it remained beyond sight, Peturabo's calculations told him that the fortress of Kardis was drawing near.

I strongly recommend "False God and Bastard," a heartwarming, everyone-gets-a-happy-ending, Empire-wins-big original-style rationalized HE fic. Go read it. ()