A Talent for War Read Online Free PDF Page A

my captain's generous offer; I can do no other, God help me. ..."
    But Inaissa, determined to accompany her husband, conceals herself in a cloak and succeeds in procuring a place among the Seven. Thus, Talino loses both his honor and his wife.
    The notion that Inaissa was one of the volunteers was a part of the myth I'd not heard before.
    There are two beam sculptures by period artists showing her onboard the Corsarius. One places her at a console with Sim visible at her left; and the other depicts the moment of recognition between her and the captain.
    There were a hundred variations of the story, and countless shadings of Talino's character and motivation. Sometimes he is perceived as a man loaded down with gambling debts, who accepted money from mute agents; sometimes he is disgruntled at not having received his own command; sometimes he is Sim's rival for an illicit love, deliberately arranging his commander's death.
    Where in all the enormous body of myth and literature was the truth? What had Gabe meant?
    Other aspects of the event also received considerable attention. Arven Kimonides' novel Marvill recounts the experience of a young man who is present at the gathering of the Seven, but who stands aside and lives guilt-ridden thereafter. Tradition holds that Mikal Killian, the great constitutional arbiter, who would have been about 18 at the time of the Rigel Action, tried to volunteer, and was refused. Wightbury placed his famous cynic Ed Barbar on the scene. (Ed not only did not volunteer, but held aside a willing young woman who was, he felt, destined for better things.) At least a dozen other novels and dramas which enjoyed some reputation in their times have featured characters who either witnessed Sim's appeal, or who found themselves among the Seven.
    There are also numerous lightcuts, photo constructs, and at least one major symphony. Three of the unknown heroes stand at the great captain's side in Sanrigal's masterpiece, Sim at the Hellgate. Talino's wife is portrayed among the drug addicts and derelicts in Tchigorin's Inaissa.
    Page 12

    And in Mommsen's Finale, a ragged man helps Sim battle the controls of the stricken Corsarius, while a wounded crewman lies prostrate on the deck, and a woman who must have earned her living in the streets of Abonai squeezes the triggers in the weapons cradle.
    I suspected that Sim would have cleaned up his new crew, and that the end, when it came, would have been sudden and total. But what the hell: it was good art, if unlikely history.
    The deserters dropped out of sight, to become objects of scorn. Talino lived almost a half century after his captain's death. It was said of him that his conscience gave him no rest, and that he was driven from world to world by an outraged public. He died on Rimway, apparently very close to madness.
    I could find no record of Inaissa in the histories. Barcroft insists that she existed, but cites no source. (He claims to have spoken with Talino, but that assertion also stands unsupported.) Talino himself is not known to have mentioned her.
    Historians entertained themselves for two centuries trying to put names to the volunteers, and even arguing over whether there were not really six, or eight, who took time final ride. Over the years, however, the Seven transcended their status as military heroes. They came eventually to symbolize the noblest sentiments of the Confederacy: the mutual commitment between government and its most desperate citizens.
    I made arrangements to go home.
    Fortunately, my connections with the world on which I'd been living for the preceding three years were tenuous. I had little trouble dissolving my business interests, after which I made arrangements to sell off most of my property, and packed the rest. I said good-bye to the couple of people who mattered to me (promising, as we always do, to exchange visits). That was a joke, considering how far Rambuckle was from Rimway, and how much I hated starships.
    On the day