Turning the question around, however, he had to admit there were Enforcers who seemed to like the work. Many of them enjoyed the pay and the respect; some of them relished the power.
“Zasper,” she begged, tears spilling. “Please!”
It actually hurt him to say he’d help her. It would have hurt only a little more to have refused her.
Later, she remembered she’d been going to tell Zasper about getting a new name, but somehow she’d forgotten. Though she didn’t get around to telling him the story for a long time, she didn’t forget the name. Owldark. It was hers. Secret, for the time being, but hers.
One qualified sponsor was all she needed to get into the Academy. Candidates paid nothing in advance of their study. Graduate Enforcers were expected to compensate the Academy for their training by paying high dues to the Enforcer Posts later on, during their more profitable years. So, without telling anyone else, she dropped out of the Wage-earner school, left her shabby room, and moved into one much like it, though rather cleaner, at the Enarae Academy. It was, said Zasper, the second-most prestigious Enforcer Academy on Elsewhere, surpassed in reputation only by the Academy at Tolerance itself.
Each day she rose before dawn to stand at parade with her fellows, to be told the ancient history of an indomitable people who would not be taken over by the Gods; to hear of the glories of Phansure of old and of Enarae the First, and of Enarae in Exile here, on Elsewhere; to feel her chilled blood warm and stir at the thudding drums and the flickering lash of the long-tailed banners. She recited the oath, every word burning itself into her heart. She heard the Masters cry: “Enforcers! A Situation!”
She rose with a hundred others to shout the response: “We Attend the Situation!”
She swallowed it whole. Enforcers were honored and honorable. History flowed through them, like power through a fiber, illuminating and warming all it touched. Without Enforcers, there would be no diversity, and therefore, no humanity. She and her fellows were the gallant few who kept the unthinking majority safe. Her passing doubts she put down hard, buried them, wouldn’t consider them. Any flicker of her old rebelliousness she dealt with the same way. She had chosen this! She would not allow anything to sully her choice.
She learned weapons, weapons she hadn’t known existed until now. She learned drill and signals, overt and covert, to be used among Enforcers. She learned command, how to make people obey her, even when they didn’t want to. She joined in case studies of provinces that had strayed from the status quo in the past and how Enforcers had put them back on track.
She became almost proud. Her rat-tailed hair turned glossy. Her chewed nails grew out. Her skin cleared up. She stood up straight with her head high! She was someone, someone special at last!
Even Zasper had to admit she bloomed.
Had she thought about it, she would have known she was too happy for it to last. Something had to come along and destroy her contentment. The blow came in the form of a message from her pa, demanding that she come see him. Full of trepidation, she went, not knowing what to expect.
He regarded her morosely when she came in.
“I’ve found out,” he said.
Her jaw dropped. Found out what? She’d hidden nothing.
“You’re to leave that place,” he said.
“Leave?” She gaped, then laughed almost hysterically. “Leave! You mean the Academy?”
“Do you have any idea what it will do to my reputation as a Professional to have a daughter at the Enforcer Academy!” It wasn’t a question. He didn’t expect an answer.
By this time, Fringe had quite an accurate reading on her pa’s reputation as a Professional. She shook her head stubbornly and said, “I have to do something, Pa.”
“There are a hundred professions!” he trumpeted, sounding so much like Gregoria that Fringe was astonished. “A hundred professions!”
Though in the past she had been inarticulate when confronted by Pa or Grandma or even the teachers at school, she was voiceless no longer. Not since that day at Grandma Gregoria’s had she been silent or tongue-tied. Now she was hot, fiery, and she matched Char’s vehemence with gritty resolution.
“There’s a hundred professions, that’s right, but they all take schooling or apprenticing or buying in. And all of that’s expensive and has to be paid up front! Where is the setup money, Pa? Professional-class girls all have setup money. You wanted Ma enough to risk everything for her. I understand that. Well, you got her, you got her people, now she’s dead, they’re gone, I’m gone, it’s done and over. You risked what you had, used it up on them, and there was nothing left over to keep me a Professional. I’m not mad at you. I’m done crying about it. But don’t try to stop me making my way, Pa!” Despite her words, she had been unable not to cry, feeling the wetness dripping from her jaw.
Pa turned red, then white, then he surprised and disarmed her by weeping in his turn. She had never confronted him before. Except for his own mother, no one had ever confronted him. He did not know how to deal with it. He had not been prepared for it. Tears flowed in streams as he promised her he
