Nebula Awards Showcase 2013 by Catherine Asaro Page A

shoulder. “What do you mean?”
    â€œYou came here to settle an old score,” she said. “That’s what your life is about, isn’t it? Revenge for something everyone else has forgotten and you can’t let go.”
    He withdrew his hand. “You have made some strange mistake.”
    â€œYou and Hunter—I don’t understand either of you. Why can’t you just stop digging up the past and move on?”
    For several moments he stared at her, but his eyes were shifting as if tracking things she couldn’t see. When he finally spoke, his voice was very low. “I don’t choose to remember the past. I am compelled to—it is my punishment. Or perhaps it is a disease, or an addiction. I don’t know.”
    Taken aback at his earnestness, Thorn said, “Punishment? For what?”
    â€œHere, sit down,” he said. “I will tell you a story before we part.”
    They both sat at the table where he had given her so many lessons, but before he started to speak he stood up again and paced away, his hands clenching. She waited silently, and he came back to face her, and started to speak.
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    This is a story about a young man who lived long ago. I will call him Till. He wanted badly to live up to his family’s distinguished tradition. It was a prominent family, you see; for generations they had been involved in finance, banking, and insurance. The planet where they lived was relatively primitive and poor, but Till’s family felt they were helping it by attracting outside investment and extending credit. Of course, they did very well by doing good.
    The government of their country had been controlled by the Alloes for years. Even though the Alloes were an ethnic minority, they were a diligent people and had prospered by collaborating with Vind businessmen like Till’s family. The Alloes ruled over the majority, the Gmintas, who had less of everything—less education, less money, less power. It was an unjust situation, and when there was a mutiny in the military and the Gmintas took control, the Vinds accepted the change. Especially to younger people like Till, it seemed like a righting of many historical wrongs.
    Once the Gminta army officers were in power, they started borrowing heavily to build hospitals, roads, and schools for Gminta communities, and the Vind banks were happy to make the loans. It seemed like a good way to dispell many suspicions and prejudices that throve in the ignorance of the Gminta villages. Till was on the board of his family bank, and he argued for extending credit even after the other bankers became concerned about the government’s reckless fiscal policies.
    One day, Till was called into the offices of the government banking regulators. Alone in a small room, they accused him of money laundering and corruption. It was completely untrue, but they had forged documents that seemed to prove it. Till realized that he faced a life in prison. He would bring shame to his entire family, unless he could strike a deal. They offered him an alternative: he could come to work for the government, as their representative to the Vind community. He readily accepted the job, and resigned from the bank.
    They gave him an office and a small staff. He had an Alloe counterpart responsible for outreach to that community; and though they never spoke about it, he suspected his colleague had been recruited with similar methods. They started out distributing informational leaflets and giving tips on broadcast shows, all quite bland. But it changed when the government decided to institute a new draft policy for military service. Every young person was to give five years’ mandatory service starting at eighteen. The Vinds would not be exempt.
    Now, as you may know, the Vinds are pacifists and mystics, and have never served in the military of any planet. This demand by the Gminta government was unprecedented, and caused great alarm.