“Nine years ago.”
Bob Star’s voice was hoarse with emotion.
“On Earth, at the academy.
He was in the graduating section, during my first term.
He was handsome, brilliant.
At first I was attracted to him.
But then—”
He broke off abruptly, his face pale and hard.
“What happened, Bob?”
Jay Kalam’s tone was warm with a puzzled sympathy.
“Did you quarrel?”
“It was our affair.”
Bob Star nodded bleakly.
“For years I meant to find him, as soon as I graduated, and—settle it.
But then he showed the Legion what sort he is, with the Jovian Revolt.
And I thought he got death for his treason.”
He peered at the tall commander.
“Wasn’t that the sentence?”
“It’s what the public records show,” the commander said quietly.
“But you must tell me about you and Stephen Oreo.”
“I can’t!”
A sort of panic shook Bob Star.
“I haven’t told anyone —not even my own parents.”
“I need to know,” Jay Kalam insisted softly.
“Because your singular duty now must be a consequence of that incident—whatever it was.”
Bob Star stood looking for a moment at Jay Kalam, his face hard with a long-remembered bitterness.
He nodded soberly.
“You know the tradition of hazing at the academy?”
“The officers have always tolerated it,” Jay Kalam said.
“It is believed to be good for discipline.”
“Maybe it is—usually.”
Bob Star shrugged impatiently, as if to shake off the burden of that old bitterness.
“Anyhow, you know the rule that each new cadet must accept and obey one command from each man in the graduating section?”
The commander nodded quietly.
“I suppose it isn’t bad, usually,” Bob Star went on.
“The graduates are learning to be officers, and the new boys learning discipline.
The commands are commonly harmless, and I suppose the custom usually makes for comradeship as well as discipline.”
A cruel emotion quivered in his voice.
“But Stephen Oreo was no usual student.
A giant of a man.
He was remarkably good-looking, and a great athlete.
His hair was red as flame.
His eyes were peculiar—a bright, cold blue, and always shining with a clever malice.
The instructors used to say he was the most brilliant cadet ever at the academy.”
Bob Star’s narrowed eyes were staring past Jay Kalam at the dark-hued patterns of a priceless Titanian hanging.
In the pain of that old injury, he had forgotten his first awe of the tall commander.
His words fell swiftly, hard as slivers of ice.
“Stephen Oreo had no real friends, I think.
All the boys must have been secretly afraid of him.
Yet he did have a kind of popularity.