Lycon wore a smart blue uniform with crisscrossing white belts across his torso and another around his waist. A gold Magnetic Star, First Class decorated his chest, and a well-worn sidearm rode his hip. Finally finished speaking, he turned off the recorder in his hand. He loathed losing ideas, and thus he spoke into the recorder in order to capture the purest essence of them the moment they arrived.

  He was seven feet tall, powerful, with lightning-like reflexes, and pearl-white skin. Older than most Highborn, his white hair was cut so close to his scalp it seemed like fur. His dark eyes were intense beyond any normal man’s, not unusual among Highborn, while his features were severely angular, as if a woodsman had taken an axe to hew him cheeks and a forehead.

  “Training Master Lycon?”

  Surprised out of his reverie, Lycon glanced about to see who had addressed him. Aides hurried by, their eyes downcast. It was inconceivable that any of them had hailed him. These premen knew better. Then he noticed an older, heavier man in a black uniform and hat. The fool peered up at him, stared at him, in fact, and seemed on the verge of addressing him.

  “Sir,” said the man.

  Taken aback, Lycon could only raise his hand.

  The black-uniformed man paused.

  Lycon didn’t recognize him, and he prided himself on being able to distinguish premen. To most Highborn, premen looked alike: dull, gaping stupidity stamped on their features, slow of wit and speech and sluggish almost beyond conception. His work among the shock troopers had allowed Lycon to penetrate the subtle differences, the ones the sub-species found so fascinating among themselves. Still, he didn’t recognize this monitor.

  The man blinked anxiously—a much older man, fat instead of merely heavy. The man blinked as if he would gush out with a torrent of words.

  Many, actually, most Highborn would have slapped such an impertinent fellow hard enough across the face to knock him down, perhaps even hard enough to break his neck. But Lycon was more tolerant than most Highborn. Perhaps it was because he was beta. His eyes tightened. He loathed that word, beta. He hated any indication that he was less than a superior.

  “Yes?” asked Lycon, in a warning voice as deep as a bear’s.

  The old man dipped his head, although he continued to stare upward. “The Praetor asks you to join him in the Gymnasium.”

  “Who are you?” said Lycon.

  “Chief Monitor Bock, Training Master. I would also like a word with you, if I may.”

  “You dare to address me without proper protocol?”

  A minute widening of the man’s brown eyes indicated fear. Then he lowered his head and stared at the floor. “Forgive me, Highborn. I meant no offense.”

  Lycon grunted. Strict discipline was his guidepost in dealing with premen. He knew the Praetor thought likewise. This… it was more than impertinence. Chief Monitor was the highest rank premen secret policemen could achieve. So…

  Lycon’s angular features stiffened. He turned and strode toward the lift to the Gymnasium, leaving Bock far behind.

  Lot 6, beta, an original, they all were derogatory terms used to describe a so-called inferior Highborn—used by others to describe him! Used, at least, behind his back.

  He touched his Magnetic Star as his intense eyes narrowed. Beta, eh? Well, he knew that combat exploits were the fastest road to rank. He would ride his shock troopers roughshod over every obstacle. A hard smile played on his lips. He would use his supposed inferiority to surpass his superiors. His beta-ness had allowed him to see a truth that the others missed.

  No, they didn’t all miss it. Grand Admiral Cassius understood. But he was a rarity among the Top Ranked. This truth was perhaps his only trump card, his lone ace to play in his quest for greatness. It had gotten him the Magnetic Star in the Japan Campaign. It had earned him this berth in the Sun Works Factory, as the Training Master of the shock troops.

  “Training Master!”

  Lycon scowled and turned. All he saw were premen. Then he saw the Chief Monitor huffing to catch up again. The overweight, older man surely couldn’t have dared to shout at him, could he?

  “Training Master,” gasped Chief Monitor Bock. “Training Master, please, I would like a word with you.”

  “You shouted at me?”

  “Sir, I have information about your shock troopers that you need to know!”

  “So you did shout at me. You actually admit it?”

  The Chief Monitor bobbed his head.

  Rage washed over Lycon. That the Praetor should use a preman to relay a message was bad enough. That this preman dared speak first was double impertinence. No, it was an insult. The Praetor wanted to rub his nose in his Lot-6-ness. Why else did the Praetor want to meet in the Gymnasium? Why else had the Chief Monitor dared act as he had?

  Lycon turned from the Chief Monitor as he struggled to control his rage. Remember that the Praetor is Fourth, and very dangerous. You must watch yourself. He nodded. Although his sponsor was the Grand Admiral, the Admiral was a long way from the Sun Works Factory.

  “Wait, Training Master,” Chief Monitor Bock panted. “Your 101st has committed a terrible breach of discipline.”

  Lycon rubbed his forehead. The Praetor is Fourth, and the Chief Monitor is his preman.

  Then Chief Monitor Bock put his hand on Lycon’s arm. “Training Master, please, I would like a word with—”

  With an inarticulate roar, Lycon spun around and chopped with the flat of his hand. He caught the flabby Chief Monitor in the neck. Bones snapped. The preman flopped onto the deck, jerking, choking and trying to form words. His eyes goggled, and then his body relaxed in its final throes. Blood seeped past his lips.

  Lycon blinked at the heap of dead flesh. He frowned, looked up and saw the still sea of premen staring at him. His eyes narrowed. The crowd dropped their gaze. He strode to the nearest premen and grabbed him by the arm.

  The man mewled in fear.

  “What is your rank?” asked Lycon.

  “Shipping Master, Second Class, Highborn.”

  “Do you have security clearance?”

  “Yes, Highborn.”

  “Good.” Lycon took out his recorder, flicking it. “Tell me what you just witnessed.”

  “Highborn, I saw the Chief Monitor grab your arm.”

  “He touched me without my leave then, is that correct?”

  “Yes, Highborn.”

  The crowd began to slink away.

  “Halt!” ordered Lycon.

  Everyone froze.

  One preman after another spoke into his recorder. They stated that the Chief Monitor had dared grab a Highborn, a death offense. Lycon had simply acted as any Highborn would, defending his honor and person.

  Though I am beta, not even the Praetor’s Chief Monitor may dare lay hands on me.

  Finally satisfied with his recordings, Lycon let them leave. Then he marched to the lift, wondering how to broach this to the Praetor. He peered at the old-style Western saloon door. A beep indicated a successful retina scan. The door slid open, and he entered the computerized box. The pioneer motif ended here, thankfully. He was sick of it.

  “Gymnasium,” he said.

  The door closed and the lift purred as it headed up.

  Lycon wondered if the Praetor… No, no, better to keep such suspicions hidden deep inside. The walls had ears. How soon, he wondered, until some tech invented a device that monitored thoughts?

  The lift slowed, and Lycon’s premonitions grew. He must tread very softly. The Praetor would make a terrible enemy. Yet, he hoped the Praetor wasn’t going to make the common and mistaken assumption that a beta always rolled over for a superior.

  13.

  Lycon stood next to the Praetor. He still hadn’t told him about the Chief Monitor. They peered down a walkway railing at a sandpit, where twelve-year-old boys wrestled. Surrounding the boys stood the coaches, Highborn with silver whistles glittering on their tunics.

  The boys were huge and muscular, sweating as they grappled for a throw-hold. They wore loincloths and sported angry red welts, purple bruises and scars. Each, seething with Highborn vigor, clamped his mouth and breathed heavily through his nose. Each moved fast, lunging, grunting, twisting, grinning at successful throws and growling if he left his feet. None asked for quarter. None offered any.

  “They fight well,” said the Praetor.

  Lycon nodded.

  The Praetor towered over Lycon by an easy two feet. His shoulders were broader, his chest deeper and the angles of his face sharper. He wore a loose-fitting brown uniform with green bars on the sleeves. His hands were massive and strong. Like Lycon, his dark hair was cut to his scalp. But his eyes were strangely pink, eerie and unearthly, filled with unholy zeal.

  The harsh breathing, the meaty slaps as boys grappled and clutched for holds and the sound of feet kicking sand filled the area.

  The training of Highborn had changed since Lycon’s birth.

  He rankled at the thought of birth…

  It was a taboo subject among the Highborn. None of them had ever been in a fleshly womb. Eugenicists had carefully bioengineered them in labs. Many long years ago, the rulers of Social Unity, of the four Inner Planets, had decided that the good of humanity mandated that the Solar System be governed rationally. Capitalist exploitation and imperialist designs had no place in the scheme of social harmony. Equality of resources meant that the Outer Planets had to share their wealth and technology with the masses in the Inner Planets. But evil men would want to keep their inequities. Selfishness yet ruled in too many hearts. So, the rulers of Social Unity had come to the sad, reluctant conclusion that they needed an army and space fleet to subjugate the Outer Planets for the good of humanity. However, the social synthesis policies and submissiveness of their mass of humanity—and the fact that anyone with a backbone had been killed in the slime pits—meant that soldierly qualities were lacking in the Inner Planets. At least, so the rulers believed.

  “Let us create super-soldiers,” they said to one another.

  The Directorate thus gathered biologists, eugenicists, and other technicians and began the secret program of bioengineered man. The results were cloned thousands of times over. And so, the super-soldiers were born.

  In past centuries, they would have been referred to as test tube babies. Lab-grown, called vat-clones or “tankers,” the fetuses grew by the hundreds in carefully controlled machines. “Birth” occurred six months after fertilization. The batch obtained its identification number and feeders and comforters took care of the squalling little specimens. Den mothers and fathers rotated too often for the growing pre-soldiers to get attached. In truth, the less said about those first seven years the better. After the seventh year, they entered barracks and school and began their soldiering trade.

  Somewhere along the line—before an invasion fleet had been sent to the Jupiter Confederation, the closest target—the super-soldiers had decided that they themselves should rule the Inner Planets. Most commentators believed that the decision to rebel had happened after they were given command of Doom Stars and after they had shown their mettle at the Second Battle of Deep Mars Orbit. Soon thereafter, they bit the hand that fed them. They tried to kill those who had given them birth.

  Birth. It was a touchy word with the super-soldiers. And didn’t they need a better name than “super-soldiers” or “space marines?” They wanted to be called something that would distinguish them from, from…premen, normals, Homo sapiens (spoken with a lilting sneer).

  What about Highborn?

  Yes!

  High-BORN.

  Ironic.

  Perfect.

  “Look at the boy over there,” said the Praetor, who stood with his shoulders arrogantly thrust back and his head as erect and predatory as an eagle.

  Lycon nodded. He saw the one: a long-armed lad with a bloody nose. He locked an opponent in a full Nelson. The boy’s hands were pressed against the back of his opponent’s head, while his arms were wrapped under his opponent’s armpits.

  Whistles blew as instructors noticed the two.

  “Will he kill him?” asked the Praetor.

  Lycon was shocked to realize that he would.

  The winning boy’s teeth were visible as his lips curled in a savage snarl. His forearm muscles were stark and trembling, his neck was seemingly made of cords and cables as he strained with all his might. The other boy’s head bent lower and lower, but he refused to cry out or ask for quarter.

  Lycon resisted the urge to leap over the barrier and into the sandpit. He disapproved of killing one so young. Revival at this age strangely tainted them. He recalled a Lot 6 specimen by the name of Sigmir. He shook his head. If he jumped down and stopped the lad from killing the weaker boy, he knew he would lose face in the Praetor’s eyes. He couldn’t afford that, not today.

  “Well?” asked the Praetor. “Will he kill him or not?”

  The instructors shrilly blew their whistles as they rushed toward the two boys.

  The crack of a breaking neck was loud and sinister. The killer didn’t seem to react to what he’d done. He just coldly let go and watched the corpse drop onto the sand.

  The instructors knocked the killer aside as they knelt beside the dead boy, his head tilted at an impossible angle. Pneumospray hypos appeared in their hands and hissed as the instructors pumped Suspend into the corpse.

  “Will they be in time?” asked the Praetor.

  “It seems so,” said Lycon.

  “Yes,” said the Praetor. “The boy should make a clean revival.”

  In this year 2350, the dead didn’t always stay down. Resurrection techniques revived many if Suspend froze their brains and various organs in time.

  “What will happen to the other boy?” asked Lycon.

  “The killer?” said the Praetor.

  Lycon waited. Over-talkativeness was a bad trait.

  “He will be punished,” said the Praetor, “and marked as a ranker, a climber.”

  Lycon had known it would be so. Teach them to obey, but use a natural killer where he belonged: leading combat troops. The Praetor ran the Gymnasium strictly according to regulations.

  “Come with me,” said the Praetor.

  They strolled along the walkway, passing other sandpits: knife-training areas, boxing matches and battle-stick duels. Lycon kept debating with himself when he should tell the Praetor about today’s little incident.

  “You are an infantry specialist,” the Praetor said. “What is your analysis of our future?”

  “They are well-trained.”

  “And strong, yes?

  “Big and strong,” said Lycon.

  “True Highborn,” the Praetor said.

  Lycon nodded, not trusting himself to speak, wondering if the Praetor meant more by the remark.

  They came to the end of the walkway. To the left, stairs led down to a staging area. The Praetor ignored the stairs. He kept heading toward the wall.

  “Praetor,” said Lycon.

  The Praetor turned.

  “Did you instruct your Chief Monitor to relay a message to me today?”

  “You query me, Training Master?”

  “Your Chief Monitor spoke to me. I’m simply curious if he was ordered by you to do so.”

  “He had no orders from me,” the Praetor said.

  “It was from him that I learned to come to the Gymnasium.”

  The Praetor appeared surprised. “I left a note on my door. Perhaps he read it and took it upon himself to deliver the message.”

  “Ah,” said Lycon.

  “He spoke with you?”

  “The Chief Monitor hailed me.”

  “Without correct address?” the Praetor asked.

  Lycon nodded.

  “He will be punished.”

  Lycon rubbed his jaw. “He touched me. He grabbed my arm to stop me.”

  The Praetor blinked. “You can verify this?”

  Lycon hid his anger at being asked such a question. “I struck him for this outrage. Unfortunately, my blow killed.”

  “You killed my Chief Monitor?”

  Lycon pulled out his recorder. “If you would care to replay this…”

  The Praetor accepted the slender recorder and listened to the premen. “You acted correctly,” he said later, returning the recorder.

  “It was not my wish to kill him,” said Lycon.

  “Next time, I won’t select a fool for a Chief Monitor. I hold no ill will, Training Master.”

  Lycon dipped his head.

  “Now, come with me.” The Praetor strode toward the wall.

  Lycon was puzzled but said nothing. He was relieved the Praetor had taken the Chief Monitor’s death so well. Some Highborn became attached to their premen.

  The Praetor strode to the wall, glanced about—no one seemed to be watching—and spoke sharply. A section of wall slid open. The Praetor hurried through, and Lycon followed.

  Behind them, the wall section slid shut. Lights snapped on. They stood in a small changing room, complete with lockers and benches. The Praetor marched to the farthest bench and opened a locker, taking out leather garments.

  “Yours are in the next one,” said the Praetor.

  Lycon hesitated.

  The Praetor, perhaps alert for this, asked, “Is something wrong, Training Master?”

  “I don’t understand the meaning of this.”

  “Exercise.”

  “I have plenty of it while training the shock troops.”

  “I’m certain of that, Training Master. But I have so many chores and tasks that often I’m forced to skip physical activity. Also, you’re an infantry specialist. So, I wanted your opinion, and how better than to actually engage in it.”

  “It, Praetor?”

  “Oh, do leave me my surprises, Training Master. It’s finally ready, and you’re the first besides me to run through it.”

  Highborn prided themselves on decisiveness. Lycon was no different. “Yes, of course,” Lycon said.

  He disrobed, folding his blue uniform. Beside him, the Praetor did likewise. Both were highly muscled and perfectly toned. There was no flab on the Praetor, despite his protests of lack of exercise. Lycon was thinner and leaner, although compared to a preman he was massive and thick. Both donned skin-suits and went barefoot.