Book 09 - Faded Steel Heat Read Online Free PDF

veteran, who’d done five five-year
hitches, three in the Cantard, was almost beaten to death right
outside. He’d won eight decorations, including the Imperial
Star with Swords and Oak Leaves. In one battle he lost half of his
left arm and most of that side of his face in a blast from a witch
ward. He’s in the Bledsoe now. He probably won’t get
out alive. Those butchers won’t pay any attention to him. He
doesn’t have any money. Go down there and mutually assist
him. His name is Brate Trueblood.”
    “But the Bledsoe is a charity hospital, isn’t
it?”
    “You didn’t grow up in TunFaire, did you? In this
town charity is available only to those who can pay for it.”
    “No. That’s ugly.” Trace seemed genuinely
touched. Carter obviously didn’t care but was cooling down.
“That’s exactly why we have to band
together.”
    “But there’s a problem, Trace. Brate was a real hero
and as good a soldier as ever soldiered. Unfortunately, he made one
really huge, stupid mistake.”
    My visitors looked at me expectantly.
    Garrett, please! Stop now.
The Dead Man seemed almost
to despair.
    “He was so stupid he picked an ogre for one of his
grandparents.”
    It took them a while to catch on. I watched their eyes narrow
and go shifty as they figured it out. Carter was slowest but he was
the first to stand up. He told me, “You have the wrong
idea.” And, “Trace, we’re wasting our time
here.”
    “You’re not wasting your time, Carter,” I
said. “I just want you to understand that nothing is
black-and-white.” I tried to hold Trace’s eye. He
seemed to be mulling my parable. “What did you guys do down
there? You were clerks, right? Your uncle got you some safe
assignment, right? Trace? Carter? You had an angel, too? So who do
you suppose did more to defend and preserve the Karentine Crown?
You guys or my ugly quadroon?”
    Carter said, “You really don’t know what’s
happening, do you?” And that actually seemed to please
him.
    I left my chair, moved to the office doorway. “You
aren’t wasting your time, guys. I’m right behind you. I
just need to know how to reconcile the Brate Truebloods.”
    Trace started to say something. Carter squeezed his arm.
    In moments those earnest young men were back in the street.
Carter, I was convinced, would ignore my story, which was true only
in a moral sense anyway. There really is a Brate Trueblood but he
was just a small hero and the thugs who jumped him didn’t put
him in the hospital. Ogre blood made him hard to hurt. But these
two creeps did want Brate in the Bledsoe. Or worse.
    I might have done the devil’s work with Trace, though. He
looked like a young man who might, on occasion, actually have a
thought.
    I whistled as I bolted the door, blissful in my ignorance.
     
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8
    That was not one of your more salubrious performances,
Garrett. That flake of moral hubris may come back to haunt
you.
    “Come on! They’re jerks. Especially the blond
one.”
    Their minds did not reflect the prejudice you expect. But
such jerks are quite common today. They are aggrieved. They need
targets for their frustration. Those two seemed to be fundamentally
good men . . . Yet
—
    “Yet? What?”
    They had no depth. Even a mind as dim as Saucerhead
Thorpe’s has its deeps.
    “No kidding? They’re a couple of pretty boys who
never worked a day—”
    Not shallow, Garrett. Not that way. Just all surface.
Inside. Humans are filled with turmoil. Continuous dark currents
collide and roil down deep where you do not see them and do not
know them. Always. Even in Mr. Thorpe or Miss Winger. But those two
had nothing beneath the fanatic surface. And that fanaticism was
not as narrow and blind as is common. They grasped your Trueblood
parable. They seemed unable to deal with it only because doing so
would not have been in character.
    Well, he’d lost me. Except for the part about being all
surface.
“That don’t surprise me. I know those guys. I’
ve seen a