Duty Bound (5 page)

"I am Er Thom yos'Galan Clan Korval. This
man is a member of the crew of Dutiful Passage. The ship will pay
whatever fine is considered just and then we will leave. It is not
yours to punish this man, though it is ...acknowledged... that
Balance is owed."

Beside him and one step behind, he thought
he heard Mechanic pin'Ethil groan.

The man behind the desk blinked, once. He
looked to the woman who had carried the wand.

"Dutiful Passage? And Clan Korval?"

"Yes, Mr. Straudman."

Mr. Straudman was seen to smile again, a
habit Er Thom wished he would give over, and leaned forward, almost
companionably.

"And your name is yos'Galan, is it? Well,
well." He looked around at the others, some of whom looked less
pleased than he--or so Er Thom thought.

"It seems to me we have a profit on the
evening," Mr. Straudman said, and pointed his cold eyes at Bor Gen
pin'Ethil. "Maybe we ought to pay you a commission,
grease-ape."

Mechanic pin'Ethil sighed. "Come, sir. Would
you dice with the Dragon?"

"Not in a month of bank days," the Terran
replied immediately. But this isn't dice. This is a simple
sale."

He looked at Er Thom. "How much do you think
Captain yos'Galan will pay to get you back?"

Er Thom stared, thinking that it was just
like his mother's humor, and his foster mother's, too--to declare
herself well-pleased to be shut of an irritable, irritating boy,
and wish the cold-eyed man joy of him.

And perhaps that was the key.

He moved his shoulders, and showed empty,
apologetic hands to man behind the desk.

"One has a brother, sir. I fear you would
find the price not to your liking."

The cold-eyed man frowned, and leaned back
suddenly in his chair, as if Er Thom had made a particularly clever
move in counterchance. Er Thom held his breath, wondering what the
man saw.

"So you're worthless, are you?" Straudman
said eventually. "Why don't we just call Captain yos'Galan and make
sure that's the case before I do anything rash?"

"Because," said a bland voice behind Er
Thom, "you will but irritate the good Captain, friend Straudrnan,
and bring her eye upon the Juntavas. A poor business all
around."

The man behind the desk frowned, his cold
gaze leaping beyond Er Thom's shoulder. "The kid says they won't
buy him back."

"He tells you nothing but the truth." Scout
Pilot Rod Ern Arot strolled into Er Thom's view, then went past him
to lean against wall by Straudman's desk. "His brother is the one
you want, if you intend to profit by selling dragon-cubs to the
Dragon. This one's the extra."

"So, now what?" said the man behind the
desk, for all the worlds as if the Scout were a trusted
advisor.

The Scout moved his shoulders against the
wall. "While it is true you are unlikely to profit by selling this
boy back to yos'Galan, it is also likely that the presumption of
offering him will gain you her attention." He snapped upright. "Let
them go."

Straudman frowned. "Both of them?"

"A first class mechanic is
something the yos'Galan
will
miss," the Scout said simply.

For a moment, there was silence, then
Straudman nodded and waved a hand at the room in general.

"Get them out of here."

"I'll take them," said Scout pel'Arot.

"It's time I was back at station." He moved
forward, beckoning to Er Thom with his two-fingered hand. "After
me, cub. And try not to trip over your own feet." Which, Er Thom
thought, was really uncalled for. Though it was nothing compared to
what Daav had to say to him, some few minutes later, at the head of
the Avenue of Dreams.

* * *

PETRELLA YOS'GALAN sighed gently, and folded
her hands atop her desk. In the chair facing her across the desk,
Er Thom recruited himself to await her judgment, the echoes of
Daav's thundering scold still ringing in his ears.

In the right hands, silence and stillness
were potent tools, as he well knew, his foster mother being past
master of both. whether his true-mother shared that mastery he did
not know--though he expected that he was about to learn.

His mother closed her eyes, sighed once
more, and opened them.

"Since your cha'leket has exercised duty of
kin and spoken to you frankly on the subject of endangering
yos'Galan's heir by choosing to confront the Juntavas planetary
administrator in his very office, we needn't discuss that further."
She paused before inclining her head courteously.

"I will say, first, that your instincts do
you honor. Your reported assessment of Mechanic pin'Ethil's
state--that he was unwell--has been verified by the ship's healer.
I am assured that the compulsion to continue play once one has
begun, to the cost even of one's melant'i, may easily be lifted by
the Master healers at Solcintra Guildhall. Accordingly, Mechanic
pin'Ethil will be sent home for Healing." She glanced down at her
folded hands, then back to his face.

"I will, of course, write to his Delm. It
would honor me, if the crewmate who offered him care in his
disability would assist me in composing this letter."

Er Thom blinked. He? Almost, he thought he
heard Daav, laughing inside his head: Yes you, idiot. Who else

Hastily, he inclined his head. "I would be
honored to assist, ma'am."

"Good." Another pause, another long moment's
study of her folded hands.

"All honor to you, also, that you chose to
lend Mechanic pin'Ethil your support." She raised one hand, though
Er Thom had said nothing. "I know that you have said that there was
no choice open to you in this; that your duty was plain, as the
mechanic's crewmate and as the sole representative of Korval
present. However, it must be recalled that you are but a halfling,
and it was perhaps not ...quite... wise of you to go unarmed into
an unknown and possibly dangerous situation." She smiled, faintly.
"I had said we would not repeat the course flown by your cha'leket.
Forgive me, that there must be some overlap in approach."

Er Thom inclined his head. "Daav was plain
with me, ma'am; I'm an idiot child, unfit to be left alone."

Improbably, her smile deepened. "Ah. Well,
perhaps our approaches do not overlap so very much, then. I would
say to you that those of the Juntavas are at best chancy and at
worst deadly. Korval has an ...arrangement... with the Juntavas,
dating back many years--the appropriate citations from the Diaries
will be on your screen at the beginning of your next on-shift.
Please read them and be prepared to discuss them with me over Prime
meal." She did not wait for his seated bow of obedience, but swept
on.

"For the purpose of this conversation, let
us say that the agreement between Korval and the Juntavas is one of
mutual avoidance. The Juntavas does not touch Korval ships. Korval
does not interfere with Juntavas business. Matters have stood this
way, as I have said, for many years." She frowned over his head, as
if she saw something on the opposite wall of her office that
displeased her, sighed, and continued.

"The meat of the matter is that, despite
this long-standing agreement, despite the fact that the Scouts keep
watch--the Juntavas is not a safe host. That the gentleman you
...spoke to... would have killed you out of hand is, perhaps,
unlikely. For Mechanic pin'Ethil..." She moved her shoulders.
"Mechanic pin'Ethil is not of Korval, though he serves on a Korval
ship. The Juntavas is clever enough to use that distinction to
advantage."

His horror must have shown on his face, for
his mother gave him another of her faint smiles before asking,
"Tell me, my son, what would you have done if any of the armed
persons in that office had decided to kill Mechanic pin'Ethil?"

Er Thom stared. Visions fluttered through
his head, too rapid to scan, and finally he lifted his hands in
exasperation. "I--something. I am a pilot of Korval. I would have
done--something."

A small pause.

"Ah, yes," his mother said softly. "There is
a long history of doing...something...among the pilots of Korval."
She smiled at him and in that instant looked the very image of her
twin."I believe we had best accelerate your defense instruction,
pilot."

"Yes, ma'am." He inclined his head.

"Hah." She considered him
out of abruptly serious blue eyes, once again unmistakably his
true-mother. "I would offer--as elder kin, you know--that we have
all of us bid farewell to the comforts and the companions of
childhood in order to learn our life-trades and begin to shape
adult melant'i. I would say that--here is one who recalls the day
she watched her sister walk into Scout Academy without her, and who
later that same day was shown her quarters onboard the old
Adamant Passage
. I assure
you that the ache in one's heart does ease, with time, and with the
necessities of daily duty." She raised her hand stilling his start
of denial.

"I do not say that you will cease to love,
my child. I merely say--you will become an adult." She smiled once
more, sweet as Daav. "With luck."

Er Thom grinned, then inclined his head. "I
thank you, for the instruction of elder kin."

"So." She glanced aside at the clock on her
desk. "It is time and past time for you to be abed. Come to me at
Prime, and mind you have those entries read."

"Yes, mother." He stood, made his bow and
moved toward the door.

He was nearly to the door when he heard her
speak his name.

"Ma'am?" He turned to find her standing
behind her desk. Slowly, she bowed the bow of honored esteem--

"Sleep you well, pilot of Korval."

Breath's Duty

Delgado

Leafydale Place

Standard Year 1393

IN HIS YOUTH, fishing had bored the
professor even more thoroughly than lessons in manners, though he
had more than once made the excuse of fishing a means to escape the
overly-watchful eyes of his elders. Over time, he had come to enjoy
the sport, most especially on Delgado, where the local game fish
ate spiny nettles and hence could be hooked and released with no
damage to themselves.

It was an eccentricity his neighbors, his
mistress, and his colleagues had come to accept--and to expect.
Periodically, the professor would set off for the lake region and
return, rejuvenated, laden with tales of the ones that had gotten
away and on-scale holograms of the ones that had not.

So it was this morning that he parted
comfortably from his mistress, tarrying to share a near-perfect cup
of locally-grown coffee with her--the search for the perfect cup
and the perfect moment being among her chiefest joys--and with his
pack of lures, dangles, weights and rods set off for the up-country
lakes.

The car was his other eccentricity--allowed
however grudgingly by the collegiate board of trustees, who were,
after all, realists. The work of Professor Jen Sar Kiladi was known
throughout the cluster and students flocked to him, thus increasing
the school's treasury and its status.

The car was roundly considered a young
person's car. While fast, it was neither shiny nor new; an import
that required expensive replacements and a regimen of constant
repairs. Its passenger section had room enough for him,
occasionally for his mistress, or for his fishing equipment and
light camping gear. Not even the board of trustees doubted his
ability to drive it, for he ran in the top class of the local
moto-cross club and indulged now and then in time-and-place road
rallies, where he held an enviable record, indeed.

The local gendarmes liked him: He was both
polite and sharp, and had several times assisted in collecting
drunk drivers before they could harm someone.

His mistress was smiling from her window. He
looked up and waved merrily, precisely as always, then sighed as he
opened the car door.

For a moment he sat, absorbing the
commonplaces of the day. He adjusted the mirrors, which needed no
adjustment, and by habit pushed the trimester. The sun's first rays
slanted through the windshield, endowing his single ring with an
instant of silvery fire. He rubbed the worn silver knot
absently.

Then, he ran through the Rainbow pattern,
for alertness.

The car rumbled to life at a touch of the
switch, startling the birds napping in the tree across the street.
He pulled out slowly, nodded to the beat cop he passed on the side
street, then chose the back road, unmonitored at this hour on an
off-week.

He accelerated, exceeding the speed limit in
the first few seconds, and checked his mental map. Not long. Not
long at all.

* * *

HE GRIMACED AS he got out of the car--he'd
forgotten to break the drive and now his back ached, just a bit.
He'd driven past his favorite fishing ground, perhaps faster there
than elsewhere, for there was a lure to doing nothing at all, to
huddling inside the carefully constructed persona, to forgetting,
well, truly, and for all time, exactly who he was.

The airfield was filled to capacity; mostly
local craft--fan-powered--along with a few of the flashy commuter
jets the high-born brought in for their fishing trips.

On the far side of the tarmac was a handful
of space faring ships, including seven or eight that seemed under
constant repair. Among them, painted a motley green-brown,
half-hidden with sham repair-plates and external piping, was a ship
displaying the garish nameplate L'il Orbit. The professor went to
the control room to check in, carrying his cane, which he very
nearly needed after the run in the cramped car.

"Might actually lift today!" he told the
bleary-eyed counterman with entirely false good cheer.

As always, the man smiled and wished him
luck. L'il Orbit hadn't flown in the ten years he'd been on the
morning shift, though the little man came by pretty regular to work
and rework the ship's insides. But, who knew? The ship might
actually lift one day. stranger things had happened. And given
that, today was as good a day as any other.