Lycon and the Praetor stood together—he still hadn’t told him about the Chief Monitor. They peered down a walkway railing and 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 angry red welts, purple bruises and scars. Each seethed with Highborn vigor, clamped his mouth and breathed heavily through his nose. They moved fast, lunging, grunting, twisting, grinning at successful throws and growling if they left their 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 and 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 this 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 conclusion that they needed an army and space fleet second to none. However, the social synthesis policies and quietness of mass humanity—and that the troublemakers had all been killed in the slime pits—meant that soldierly qualities were lacking in the Inner Planets. At least so the rulers believed.
“Let us make super-soldiers,” they said to one another.
The Directorate thus gathered biologists and eugenicists and other needed technicians and began the secret program of bioengineered man. The results were cloned thousands of times over. And so the soldiers were born.
Well, not
Lab-grown, vat-clones, tankers, the fetuses grew by the hundreds in carefully controlled machines. “Birth” occurred six months after fertilization. The batch obtained its number and feeders and comforters took care of the crying little specimens. Den mother and fathers changed too often for growing pre-soldiers to get attached. In truth, the less said about the 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 should rule the Inner Planets. Most commentators believed that the decision to rebel had happened after they were given 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,
What about Highborn?
Yes!
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 him: A long-armed lad with a bloody nose. He clutched 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 disproved 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 rank 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 gasp in disbelief at what he’d done. He simply let go and watched the corpse drop onto the sand.
The instructors knocked the killer aside as they knelt beside the dead boy, with his head titled 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 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.”
