(A/N: This story was not originally written with any idea of international distribution, so I should probably make it clear that it is based on the traditions of the English public-school system (like Hogwarts), and not the American 'high school story'.)
Dedicated to Marcel de St Pol de Bardelys, in affectionate remembrance; and Draco Malfoy, in faint hope :-)
February 2004
PALDIT; OR, LITTLE BY LITTLE
A Blake's 7 school story
Some men are not born idealists...
The boys were all Alphas, of course. All tested and true, sons of men and women who'd made the grade and passed on their talents to their certified offspring. School ZL6-202 only received born-Alphas. There were other institutions for those who tested higher than their nominal grade, those with the potential but families of no account.
Born-Alphas were different, Paldit and the others told each other, swapping sniggering stories of jumped-up Beta grades they'd known, forever currying acceptance from families of the right sort. Born-Alphas — well, they just had style.
All equal in grade, hundreds of scions of good birth trained up to take their first steps on that cutthroat ladder that led to greater things. Millions of good little Alphas, across the worlds. Only the most ruthless would win through to the prized positions of those topmost rungs. For the rest, well... there were the countless offices in need of a junior boss, projects that rated a higher-grade tech, button-pushers, time-servers and the like. It was all a matter of who you knew, whose family could trade you a favour.
You didn't get to ZL6-202 in the first place unless you had the brains and the background. As in adult life, it was the use you made of them that counted.
Of course, some were more equal than others. Off-world connections helped. Governor Paldit's son, jetting home to the Pharos system three times a year, had more favours to pull at the tip of his finger than any of the pallid Earther brats. Fisher was Earth-born, but his father's wife was deputy in command of this section of the Dome. They'd tested their strength against each other five years ago when Brannam Paldit had first transferred, circling in stiff-legged menace as distant levers pulled. Obstructions and favours balanced out within the Dome and beyond, buying support from their age-mates, bidding for influence from the older boys who ran the school.
Fisher had stepped down, in the end. Traded his leadership among their year for a place as second-in-command. Between them, they ran the year-group with an iron grasp, fixing the best for their followers and keeping the others well in hand. The instructors, as ever, turned a blind eye. The school ran itself, their boyhood a precursor of adult life. From time to time, when a younger boy needed handling, an instructor would drop Paldit or those above him a quiet word.
Some of the brats had been getting cocky, of late. They'd had to work the Flake over two or three times last year before the kid had got the message. The first time, little Flaky had gone to an instructor. Mr Molden had let him blub, then called Paldit and his boys back in for another session. It took a while, but Flaky cottoned on.
Every year there was some new sprog with ideas above his station. Some of them would follow Paldit and Fisher up the ladder. The Flake would never be one of them. He didn't have what it took.
This year, he'd been keeping his head down, hanging around with a group of younger boys from the new intake. Paldit had kept an eye on him for a while — anyone thick enough to take three beatings to see sense bore watching, in his book — but Flaky had paid over his dues and kept his eyes down when the big boys passed, and Paldit had concluded he'd finally learned his lesson. They all did, in the end. It didn't matter who you thought you were. It was who you knew.
Paldit and Fisher, together, cocks of the walk. Feared and admired by the whole school. He'd told big Beefy Rangin once to hold his thumb in the tool-laser down in the workshop, just to see what would happen. And Beefy — who outweighed him by fifty pounds, who'd had hair on his chest since they were twelve years old, who could strip a micro-grenade faster than anyone in the school — had stuck his whole hand in the laser beam and held it there for fear of what Paldit might do, and it had cost a week's worth of favours to get the bigger boy's assignments covered until the burns healed enough for him to hold a stylus.
Five years on, and the last of the older boys were gone. Paldit and his followers reigned supreme, the ultimate court of appeal. The school stretched away beneath them, rank upon rank of juniors obedient to their every call. Life was sweet, for those with the strength to grasp it.
He'd thought it was his right, his by merit. He'd never known how fast the knife-edge of power could twist.
