Tales from the Academy
Chapter 11
Alby Vorsworth started out the window of the aircar and tried not to feel nervous. He told himself that there was no reason to feel nervous: after all, he was going home. Home! The one place in the galaxy he'd been longing for all this past year at the Academy. He hadn't even been able to get home at Winterfaire because of all that nonsense with the duty company and the demerits. He'd been so envious of Anny when she'd managed to slip away even for a few hours. Her friends had come for her! But no one had come for him…
"Almost home, sir," said Kurt, the driver. "I guess you'll be pretty glad to get there after so long." Alby stared at the man. He was ex-military, like nearly all the male servants at Vorsworth House. He'd once heard his father joking that the Barrayaran armed forces didn't need a retirement program because all the old soldiers ended up working for all the old generals and admirals until they all dropped dead. Considering the collection of relics tottering around the mansion, Alby could almost believe it. Kurt was one of the younger ones and he must have been in his sixties.
"Yes," he replied. "It seems like a long time."
"The place hasn't been the same without you, sir. Everyone has missed you."
"Really? Like who?"
"Uh… well, everyone, sir. Carla and Danno and Julie and…"
"All the staff, you mean. What about my parents?"
"Well, of course they missed you, too, sir!" exclaimed Kurt. "I hardly thought it was necessary to say so!"
"I notice that they didn't miss me enough to come and pick me up today. Or even try to visit all year."
"Your father is a busy man, sir. And you know your mother hasn't been well."
"She 'hasn't been well' for as long as I can remember. And yet it never seemed to stop her from doing anything she really wanted."
Kurt made a small harumpf noise but didn't reply. Alby resumed staring out the window. The river snaked back and forth beneath them, glistening in the afternoon sun. They had followed it all the way from Vorbarr Sultana and now it was nearing its end. It was growing broader and meandering more and more. Soon it would break into a hundred channels that made up the delta emptying into the sea. The land around it was very flat and marshy. Except for a small ridge that was rising up to the left. The aircar banked and headed that way. The Vorsworth estate was in Count Vorgannon's district. The Vorsworths had been liegemen to the Vorgannons as far back as the records went into the Time of Isolation. There had once been a castle on the ridge, but the Cetagandans had flattened that during their occupation in an attempt to stamp out the resistance in the delta region. It hadn't worked here any better than it had anywhere else on Barrayar. At least they hadn't nuked the place.
The castle had been replaced with a stout mansion built from the local brick, whose distinctive yellow color made it one of the region's main exports. Alby spotted it now, gleaming like gold in the afternoon sun. It sat on the highest part of the ridge and the town of Worthington was scattered on the surrounding slopes, spilling all the way down to the canal which linked it to the river a few kilometers away. The river had been the chief means of transport before the monorail had arrived. Even now there was still considerable barge traffic. The brick works with its tall chimneys lined part of the canal. Most of the rest was taken up by the fish processing plant which was the area's other chief industry. Vorsworth House was located where it was as much to avoid the smell as for its aesthetic and defensive value.
The aircar slowed and spiraled toward the landing pad near the garage at the rear of the main house. A figure stood there waiting. Alby smiled when he saw that it was Cahill. The old man was the nearest thing he'd had to a friend while he was growing up. The aircar settled to a rest amid a spray of dust thrown up by its fans. Alby unfastened his safety harness and popped the canopy. "Hi, Cahill!" he called as he jumped out.
"Hello, Master Alby," replied Cahill with a smile. "Welcome home. Although I suppose I should address you as 'Cadet Worth' now, shouldn't I?"
"Oh, please don't! I've had enough of that nonsense to last a lifetime! I'd prefer 'hey you' to that any day!"
"As you wish, Master Alby. Let me get your luggage." Alby quickly moved to grab the heaviest of his bags before Cahill could get them. He was much stronger now than the old man thanks to all the physical training at the Academy, even though he was still half-a-head shorter. At sixteen he still had at least one more growth spurt left in him—he hoped.
The house was laid out like a huge 'H' with two long wings connected in the middle by a shorter section. Formal gardens filled the space between the wings and a path led from the landing pad to the rear doors in the central section. Those doors were standing open and a chubby, red-cheeked, gray-haired woman was waiting there with a broad smile. "Hi, Maria!" shouted Alby. He jogged forward, dumped his load on the floor and embraced the house cook. She folded him into her ample bosom and squeezed.
"Alby! Welcome home!' said Maria. She held him at arm's length and then frowned. "Look at you! Nothing but skin and bones! Don't they feed you at the Academy?"
"Oh, they feed us plenty, all we can eat. But they burn it all off us again just as fast."
"Well! We'll take care of that soon enough! Starting at dinner tonight! Or would you like a snack right now?"
"Oh no, I can wait until dinner, Maria. I wouldn't want to spoil my appetite. And your cooking will be a great change from the chow hall, that's for sure!" He glanced over his shoulder and saw to his annoyance that Cahill had scooped up the bags he had dropped and was heading for the lift with the whole ungainly load. "I'll talk to you later!" He sprinted after Cahill and relieved him of several bags.
"No need for that, sir, I can manage," protested Cahill.
"I know you can, but I need to stay in shape. I'll be back at work in only two weeks." They took the lift to the second floor and then went down the hall to where his suite of rooms was located. He had about a quarter of one of the wings for his use. Several guest rooms separated him from his parents' much larger suite. The other wing was occupied by his grandfather and his rather extensive retinue of medical people.
He helped Cahill unpack his bags. He frowned at the several sets of uniforms he had brought along. "I suppose the General will be expecting me to dress for dinner tonight? Will undress do or do I need the full get-up?"
"Ah, yes, I hadn't had the opportunity to inform you," said Cahill. "You father is in Vorbarr Sultana. Some important conference I understand. He won't be back for three days."
"Huh," said Alby. He'd flown right by the place on the way here. "What about Mother?"
"She accompanied him."
"More shopping," sighed Alby. "Doesn't she ever get tired of it?"
"I couldn't comment on that, sir."
"What about the Old Man?"
"The Admiral rarely takes his meals anywhere other than his bedroom these days. However, I'm to inform you that upon your parents' return a welcome home dinner has been scheduled with all the proper pomp and ceremony."
"Ah. Joy. Three days, you say? Well, that will let me catch up on my sleep if nothing else."
"Your parents did want to be here to meet you, Alby," said Cahill. "They're very proud of you, you know."
"Yeah, sure. Well, thanks for helping me with all this junk. I think I'll stroll around a bit before dinner."
"My pleasure, sir." Cahill nodded and withdrew and closed the door.
Alby sighed and looked around his bedroom. It was exactly the way he remembered leaving it a year ago: The big four-poster bed with the canopy, the rich wood paneling, the bookcases and storage cabinets with all his toys, the old swords hanging on the walls, it was like he had only left yesterday. He turned and stared at the portrait hanging over his dresser. It showed a smiling young man in a naval uniform.
It was his brother, Carl. This used to be his room. Alby had never met the man.
"So what do you think of all this?" he asked the picture. "If they succeed in making me into a soldier then you and brother Lawrence just become footnotes, dead-ends on the family tree. Of course, that would have happened anyway even if they hadn't decided to make me to replace you. Still, it would kind of stick in my craw if I was in your place. Being dead would sort of suck, too."
Carl didn't say anything. He was a lousy conversationalist.
Alby shrugged and left his room and headed downstairs, taking the grand staircase instead of the lift. Vorsworth house was a lavish place. The Vorgannon District was prosperous and the Vorsworths a favored family. They had all been on the right side during the various civil wars, coups, and 'incidents' over the centuries and the Vorsworths were quite wealthy by Barrayaran standards. There were counts living in places less grand than Vorsworth House. It had all seemed entirely natural to Alby growing up, but after a year in the barracks at the Academy, he looked on it with different eyes now.
The east wing of the first floor was taken up by a large salon, the dining room and Maria's kitchen. A quick inspection showed him that nothing had changed there. The west wing held the library and another room filled with all sorts of antiques and family heirlooms. At the south end was what Alby always thought of as the War Room. He went there now. In addition to swords and lances and a number of painted battle scenes, the walls were lined with shelves filled with exquisitely painted model soldiers. Thousands of them, from a dozen different periods in Barrayar's history and even some from Old Earth's. Other cabinets held model tanks and cannons and other war machines. The center of the room was taken up by a large table. When he'd been very little the table held carefully crafted model landscapes over which his father and grandfather and their friends played wargames with the model soldiers.
By the time he was old enough to be allowed to play, the game table had been replaced with a very expensive holo-display. There was a frozen battle tableaux on it right now, apparently a game in progress. Thousands of tiny soldiers, horses and cannons were lined up facing each other. Except for the smallest hint of transparency and a level of detail no craftsman could hope to match, they might have been toys like the ones lining the walls. He turned and went over to one of the cabinets and spotted one particular musketeer with a missing bayonet. He'd broken that off when he was four. Shortly after that, the toys went on to the shelves for good and the holo-display had arrived. Alby went to the control panel and hit the 'resume' button and immediately, the battle came to life. The soldiers began moving and the cannons firing. Clouds of smoke started to drift across the battlefield and small explosions could be heard. He pressed 'pause' and it all froze again.
He had been fascinated with the game at first and played with it a lot. But his father and grandfather were so much better at it that he soon became frustrated. Eventually, however, he put his skills with computers to work and managed to break into the software that ran the game. He could still remember the look on his grandfather's face when his carefully arrayed horse-and-musket army had suddenly been blown to bits by a flight of modern assault shuttles. Alby had rolled on the floor laughing, but the grown-ups had not been amused. They hadn't used the game much after that.
Alby left the room and then left the house to stroll around the grounds for a bit. The sun was nearing the horizon and shadows stretched across the lawn. The heat of the summer day was passing and a cool breeze was coming up. He stared back at the house. A strange feeling of dislocation had been growing in him for weeks and returning here had made it worse not better. Why doesn't this feel like home? Was this ever home? He was still wondering when Maria called him to dinner.
It was a fine meal but sitting alone at a table meant for twenty-four lent it a surreal air. He tried to get Maria and Cahill to sit down with him, but they politely refused. He was forced to follow them back to the kitchen and sit there while they cleaned up in order to have any sort of conversation. Even that wasn't satisfying since the only thing they wanted to talk about was his experiences at the Academy—the last thing he wanted to discuss. Except he couldn't figure out what he did want to discuss…
He finally ended up back in his room wondering what he had done with so much personal space. He browsed through the cabinets of toys and marveled that he'd ever wanted to play with them. It was like he was in someone else's room. He should have been exhausted after the long flight today and the weeks of effort before that, but instead he was filled with a restless energy that could not find a focus.
"Two weeks of this?" he snarled aloud. "I don't think so!" he went to the comconsole and started tapping in a code.