So they weren't down yet. He glanced at his wristcom silently counting out the minutes and seconds that remained, and began laying out his tools. It wouldn't be long now.
* * * *
Grayson Death Carlyle had long ago given up being sensitive about his grim middle name. He'd inherited it, so to speak, from an ancestor, Lord Grayson Death Thomas. Lord Grayson, it was said, had changed the pronunciation of his middle name's vowel from a long to short "e" after he became the Victor of Lysander and a landholder so powerful no one dared care how he pronounced his name. In a warriors' society that revelled in the deeds and exploits of heroes, the younger Grayson's name drew little more than occasional wry heckling from the other members of his father's Lance.
As soon as he stepped from the electric runabout that had brought him back to the Castle, Grayson knew he was in trouble. Shedding his cold-weather gear, he dropped it into the arms of a waiting Trell orderly who said nervously, "The Weapons Master's been looking for you, sir."
Grayson glanced at his wristcomp and winced at the time. "Yes, I expect he has."
"He seemed a bit upset," the orderly went on, sounding like someone who feared being caught any minute near ground zero of a long-expected blast.
Grayson shrugged, then turned to the electric heater the Vehicle Bay watchstanders had rigged to take the edge off the bitter air that came in whenever the Bay's outer doors were opened. Amid the grime-smeared walls of the arena-sized hall, about 20 other House troopers were about, either standing in the heater's glow, lounging with books, or playing card games. Grayson
rubbed his numbed hands briskly to restore circulation. It was a typical Secondnight, 20° below, with a low-keening wind that plunged the windchill to -40° Centigrade or worse. Sergeant Griffith's reprimand was going to be worse than the cold, he decided, but the memory of Mara's caresses, the lingering warmth of her kisses, made up for it all.
A voice broke into his thoughts. "So!" Master Death has deigned to join us."
"Hello, Griff," he said amicably. "Sorry I'm late."
The shadow resolved itself into the unit's Warrant Weapons Master, Sergeant Kai Griffith. The harsh overhead lights gleamed from his hairless scalp and seemed to highlight the savage blue scar that twisted down his jaw close to his right ear.
"'Sorry,' the boy says! 'Sorry!'" Griffith's face, with its drooping mustache, wore a studied sneer. "What I want to know is where'n the bloody blue hell have you been?"
To mask his anger at being called "boy," Grayson continued to smile, but his voice was chill. "With friends," he said, thinking that someday Griffith would go too far.
'"Friends!' Off-base again, then. Seeing that Trell girl, I suppose?"
"Aw, Griff..."
"Don't give me that! You were scheduled for weapons practice four hours ago, and you're supposed to be in the Command Center observing right this minute. What the hell are you playing at, boy?"
Grayson touched fingertips to his shock of pale blond hair in mock salute. "Reprimand received, Sergeant Griffith."
"Your fatherll receive it too, son." The bald head moved slowly from side to side, the scar rippling as jaw muscles clenched. "I can't perform my duty if you persist in ignoring yours."
Grayson turned from the heater and started up the ramp toward the Castle's main central passageway. "Look, Griff, I figured this might be my last chance to see her. We're pulling out in three days..."
The bald sergeant fell into step beside him. "Well pull out if these negotiations come off. Until then, you'll attend your duty, Mister, or I'll know the reason why!"
Grayson scowled. He was now 20 standard years old, and the Weapons Master had been his personal instructor in the military arts since he'd formally joined the Lance as a warrior apprentice at ten. The older he got, the less he appreciated Kai Griffith's sharp tongue or his interference in his private life. After all, Grayson wasn't a child any longer, and was both son and heir to a MechWarrior. The Weapons Master would not order his life forever.
"I'll attend to my duty," Grayson retorted, "but my private life is my own!"
"Still playing the loner, Master Carlyle? That attitude is going to buy you a world of trouble before you end your apprenticeship. Look, can't you get it through your skull that the damned Trells aren't our friends?"
"This one is. C'mon! I just wanted to say goodbye!"
Griffith shook his head disapprovingly. "The daughter of old Stannic himself, no less!"
"What has that got to do with anything?" Grayson broke in. It was true Mara was the daughter of Trellwan's chief minister, but so what?
"You keep sneaking off to play with your girl in town, and you're going to end up dead!"
Remembering a fragment of the evening's fun, Grayson only smiled and shrugged. Kai Griffith shared the prejudice of most old-time garrison soldiers against the local civilians they were supposed to protect. He would never understand.