Duty Bound (6 page)

Outside the office, the professor paused, a
man no longer young, shorter than the usual run of Terran, with
soft, scholar's hands and level shoulders beneath his holiday
jacket, staring across the field to where the starships huddled. A
teacher with a hobby, that was all.

An equation rose from his back brain, pure
as crystal, irrevocable as blood. Another rose, another--and yet
another.

He knew the names of stars and planets and
way stations light years away from this place. His hands knew key
combinations not to be found on university computers; his eyes knew
patterns that ground-huggers might only dream of.

"Pilot." He heard her whisper plainly; felt
her breath against his ear. He knew better than to turn his
head.

"Pilot," Aelliana said again, and
half-against his own will he smiled and murmured, "Pilot."

As a pilot must, he crossed the field to
tend his ship. He barely paused during the walk-around, carefully
detaching the fake pipe fittings and connections that had marred
the beauty of the lines and hidden features best not noticed by
prying eyes. The hardest thing was schooling himself to do a proper
pilot's walk-around after so many years of cursory play-acting.

L'il Orbit
was a Class A Jumpship, tidy and comfortable, with
room for the pilot and co-pilot, if any, plus cargo, or a paying
passenger. He dropped automatically into the co-pilot's chair, slid
the ship key into its slot in the dark board, and watched the
screen glow to life.

"Huh?" Blue letters formed Terran words
against the white ground. "Who's there?"

He reached to the keyboard. "Get to
work!"

"Nothing to do," the ship protested.

"You're just lazy," the man replied.

"Oh, am I?"
L'il Orbit
returned
hotly. "I suppose you know all about lazy!"

Despite having written and sealed this very
script long years ago, the man grinned at the ship's audacity.

"Tell me your name," he typed.

"First, tell me yours."

"Professor Jen Sar Kiladi."

"Oho, the schoolteacher! You don't happen to
know the name of a reliable pilot, do you, professor?"

For an instant, he sat frozen, hands poised
over the keyboard. Then, slowly, letter by letter, he typed, "Daav
yos'Phelium."

The ship seemed to sigh then; a fan or two
came on, a relay clicked loudly.

The screen cleared; the irreverent chatter
replaced by an image of Tree-and-Dragon, which faded to a black
screen, against which the Liaden letters stood stark.

"Ride the Luck, Solcintra, Liad. Aelliana
Caylon, pilot-owner. Daav yos'Phelium co-pilot, co-owner. There are
messages in queue."

There were? Daav frowned. Er Thom? his heart
whispered, and he caught his breath. Dozens of years since he had
heard his brother's voice! The hand he extended to the play button
was not entirely steady.

It wasn't Er Thom, after all.

It was Clonak tEr'Meulen, his oldest friend,
and most trusted, who'd been part of his team when he had been
Scout Captain and in command such things. The date of receipt was
recent, well within the Standard year, in fact within the Standard
Month...

"I'm sending this message to the quiet
places and the bounce points, on the silent band," Clonak said, his
voice unwontedly serious. I'm betting it's Aelliana's ship you're
with, but I never could predict you with certainty...

"Bad times, old friend. First, you must know
that Er Thom and Anne are both gone. Nova's Korval-pernard'i..."
Daav thumbed the pause button, staring at the board in blank
disbelief.

Er Thom and Anne were gone? His brother, his
second self, was dead? Anne--joyful, intelligent, gracious
Anne--dead? It wasn't possible. They were safe on Liad--where his
own lifemate had been shot, killed in Solcintra Main Port,
deliberately placing herself between the fragging pellet and
himself... Daav squeezed his eyes shut, banishing the horrific
vision of Aelliana dying, then reached out and cued the
recording.

"...Korval-pernard'i. The name of the
problem is the Department the Interior; their purpose is to eat the
Scouts. Among other things. One of those it swallowed is your heir,
and I don't hide from you that there was hope he'd give them
indigestion. Which he seems to have done, actually, though not--but
who can predict a Scout Commander? Short form is that he's gone
missing, and there's been the very hell of a hue and cry--and
another problem.

"Shadia Ne'Zame may have discovered his
location--but the Department's on the usual bands--monitoring us.
Listen to Scout Net, but for the gods' sweet love don't attempt to
use it!

"Shadia's due in any time and I'll send a
follow-up when she gets here. You'd scarcely know the place, with
all the changes since your training.

"If you've got ears for any of us, Captain,
now is when we need you to hear." There was a pause, as if Clonak
was for once at a loss for words, then:

"Be well, old friend. If you've heard me at
all..."

It ended.

Daav stared for a moment, then punched the
button for the next message.

There was no next message. Days had gone by
and Clonak had not followed up.

Daav shifted in his seat, thinking.

Desperate and under the shadow of a pursuing
enemy, Clonak had found him. And Clonak had not followed up.
Suddenly, it was imperative that Daav be somewhere else.

He flicked forward to the microphone.

"This is L'il Orbit, ground. I think I've
got the problem fixed now. I'm going to be checking out the whole
system in a few minutes. If I get a go, I'll need you to move me to
a hot pad."

"Hot damn, L'il Orbit, way to go!" The
counterman sounded startled, but genuinely pleased. "I'll get Bugle
over there with the tractor in just a couple!"

"Thank you, ground," Daav said gravely,
already reaching for the keyboard.

"Hello," he typed.

"Go," said maincomp.

"Complete run: Flight readiness."

"Working."

So many years. His brother and sister dead.
His son in trouble. The son he wasn't going to be concerned with
after all. And somehow the Juntavas was mixed around it.

Scout Commander. Daav sighed. Scouts were
legendary for the trouble they found. The trouble that might attend
a Scout Commander did not bear thinking upon.

The ship beeped; lights long dark came
green. He touched button after button, longingly. Lovingly.

He could do it. He could.

He had left all those battles behind.

"Ground," he said into the mike, the Terran
words feeling absurdly wide in his throat, "this bird's in a hurry
to try her wings. Everything's green!"

"Gotcha. We'll get you over to the hotpad in
a few minutes. Bugle's just got the tractor out of the shed."

Daav laughed then, and laughed again.

It felt good, just the idea of being in
space. Maybe he could talk to some of the pilots he'd been
listening to for so long--He grimaced; his back had grabbed.

Right. Easy does it.

And then, recalling the circumstances, he
reached to the keyboard once more.

"Hello," he typed. "Weapons check."

* * *

"I'M NOT A COMBAT pilot, either, Shadia. I
think we did as well as might expected!"

The gesture in emphasis was all but lost in
the dimness of the emergency lighting.

"I swear to you, Clonak--they've murdered my
ship and if they haven't killed me I'm going to take them apart
piece by piece, and if they have killed me I'll haunt every last
one of them to..."

The muffled voice went suddenly away and the
mustached man raised his hand to signal the separation. The woman
shrugged and braced her legs harder against the ship's interior,
bringing her Momson Cloak back in contact with his as they sat side
by side on the decking behind the control seats, using the leverage
of their legs to hold them in place in the zero-g.

"We bested them," the man insisted. "We did,
Shadia--since the fact that we're somewhere argues that their ship
isn't anywhere."

There was a snort of sorts from within the
transparent cloak. "I'm familiar with that equation--my instructor
learned it from the Caylon herself! But what could they have been
thinking to bring a destroyer against a ship likely to Jump? You
don't have to be a Caylon to know that's..."

Her gesture broke the contact again and the
near vacuum of the ship's interior refused to carry her words.

Shadia leaned back more firmly against
Clonak's shoulder, the slight crinkle sounding from the cloak not
quite hiding his sigh, nor the crinkling from his cloak.

She glanced at him and saw him shaking his
head, Terran-style.

"Next shift, Shadia, recall us both to put
on a headset. As delightful as these contraptions are, I'd like us
to be able to converse as if we weren't halflings in the first
throes of puppy-heart."

She laughed gently, then quite seriously
asked, "So you think we'll have a next shift, at least? No one on
our trail?"

He sighed, this time turning to look her
full in the face.

"Shadia, my love, I doubt not that all is
confusion at Nev'Lorn. The bat is out of the bag, as they say, and
I suspect the invaders have found themselves surprised and
disadvantaged."

He nodded into the dimness, eyes now seeing
the situation they'd left behind so suddenly when the Department of
Interior attacked them.

"The ship most likely to have followed was
closing stupidly when last we saw it--closing into your fire as
well as the sphere of the Jump effect of the hysteresis of our
maneuvers. They would have been with us within moments, I think, if
they had come through with us."

Clonak gestured as expansively as the Cloak
allowed.

"Now--what can I say? We've
come out of Jump alive. If we're gentle and lucky the ship may get
us somewhere useful. Perhaps we'll even be able to walk about
unCloaked ere long; with hard work and sweat much is possible.
You
will
remember
to tell people that you've seen me sweat and do hard work when this
is over, won't you, Shadia? When our present situation is
resolved--then we will consider the best Balance we might bring
against these murderers."

He sighed visibly, used the hand-sign for
"back to work," with a quick undernote of "sweat, sweat,
sweat."

She smiled and signaled "work, work, work"
back at him.

Clonak stretched then, unceremoniously
lifting himself off the floor and away from Shadia. Steadying his
feet against the ceiling of the vessel he brought his face near
hers and touched left arm to left arm through the cloaks.

"Shadia, I must give you one more rather
difficult set of orders, I'm afraid. I know my orders haven't done
much good for you lately, but I pray you indulge me once more."

With his other hand he used the Scout
hand-talk, signifying a life-or-death situation.

She nodded toward his hand and he closed his
eyes a moment.

"If you find that, against chance, we are
brought again into the orbit of the Department of the Interior, if
they verge on capturing us--you must shoot me in the head."

He flicked an ankle, floated accurately to
the floor again, belying the cultivated image of old fool, and he
looked into her startled, wide eyes.

"Just dead isn't good enough, Shadia;
they'll have medics and docs. Do you understand? There must be no
chance that they can question me. They cannot know what I know, and
they cannot know who else might know it."

Clonak tugged gently on her elbow, and she
uncurled to stand beside him, stretching herself and near matching
his height.

His hand-talk made the motion demanding
assent; she responded in query, his in denial... and he leaned
toward her until cloaks touched again.

"I know, Shadia, neither of us were raised
to be combat pilots. It is thrust upon us both as Scouts and as
pilots. My melant'i is exceedingly clear in this. I can tell you
only one thing right now--and little enough it is to Balance my
order, I know."

Her hand signaled query again and his
flicked the repeated ripple that normally would signify a humourous
"all right, all right, already..."

"What I know," he said into his cloak and
through the double crinkly life-skins to her ears, "is the name of
the pilot they are afraid of. And having made this one pilot their
enemy, they now must be the enemy of us all."

* * *

THE MATH WAS easy enough, if not quite
exact. There were a dozen Momson Cloaks per canister; each of the
two installed canisters had eleven left. There were two replacement
canisters, and a backup. The emergency kit built into each of the
conning seats held a pair of individual Cloaks, as well. Out of an
original eight eights to start there were now five dozen and two to
go.

Math is a relentless discipline: It took
Shadia down the rest of the path almost automatically. Each Cloak
was designed to last an average sized Terran just over 24
hours--Momson Cloaks were, after all, standard issue devices on
cruise ships plying the crowded space of the Terran home
system--but they were conservatively rated at 30 hours by the
Scouts.

Perhaps 40 standard days then, Shadia
thought, if usage was equal and none of the units bad, if...

She saw the flutter of a hand at the edge of
her vision as Clonak signaled for attention; he leaned forward and
they touched shoulders as he spoke:

"Not as bad as all that, Shadia--we've got
some ship stores too, and the spacesuits themselves, if need be,
and there might be a way to..." She glanced at him sharply and he
pointed toward her right hand.

"I'm not a wizard, child. You were counting
out loud."

Shadia rolled her eyes. It was true. She'd
been waiting for the battery powered gyroscope in the auxiliary
star-field scope to stabilize with half her mind and with the other
half she'd been doing math on her hand.