Local Custom (8 page)

Shan was an accomplished trencherman, wielding his spoon with precision. There were a few, of course unavoidable, spills and splashes, and Er Thom stepped forward at one juncture to help the young gentleman roll up the sleeves of his pajamas, but for the most part breakfast was neatly under way by the time Anne strode into the kitchen.

"Oh, no!" She paused on the edge of the tiny space, laughter filling her face so that it was all he could do not to rush over and kiss her.

"Hi, Ma," her son said, insouciant, barely glancing up from his meal.

Anne grinned. "Hi, Shannie." She looked at Er Thom and shook her head, grin fading into something softer.

"My poor friend. We impose on you shamefully."

He cleared his throat, glancing away on the excuse of finishing his juice.

"Not at all," he murmured, putting the glass into the washer. "The child was hungry—and I was able to solve the matter for him." He met her eyes suddenly. "What should a father do?"

Her gaze slid away. "Yes, well. What a mother should do is grab a quick cup of coffee and then get this young con artist ready to go see his friend Marilla."

"Rilly!" Shan crowed, losing a spoonful of cereal to the table top. "Oops."

"Oops is right," Anne told him, pulling a paper napkin from the wall dispenser and mopping up the mess. "Finish up, OK? And try to get most of it in your mouth."

"Clumsy Scooter," the child commented matter-of-factly.

"Single-minded Scooter," Anne returned, maneuvering her large self through the small space with deft grace. "Leave eating and talking at the same time to the experts—like Jerzy."

Shan laughed and adjusted his grip on the spoon. "Yes, Ma."

Anne shook her head and pulled her mug out of the wall unit. The acrid smell of chicory-laden synthetic coffee substitute—'coffeetoot,' according to most Terrans—was nearly overpowering. Er Thom stifled a sigh. Anne loved real coffee. He could easily have brought her a tin—or a case of tins—had he any notion she was reduced to drinking synthetic.

"Done," Shan announced, laying his spoon down with a clatter.

"How about the rest of your milk?" His mother asked, sipping gingerly at her mug.

"There is no need," Er Thom said, quietly, "for you to—cheat yourself of a meal. I can easily tend our child today."

She looked down at him, brown eyes sharp, face tense with reawakened caution. Er Thom kept his own face turned up to hers and fought down the desire to stroke her cheek and smoothe the tension away.

"That's very kind of you, Er Thom," she said carefully, "but Rilly—Marilla—is expecting Shan today."

"Then I will take him to her," he replied, all gentleness and reason, "and you may eat before you go to teach your class."

"Er Thom—" She stopped, and, heart-struck, he read dread in her eyes.

"Anne." He did touch her—he
must
—a laying of his hand on her wrist, only that—and nearly gasped at the electrical jolt of desire. "Am I a thief, to steal our son away from you? I am able to care for him today, if you wish it, or to take him to your friend. In either case, we will both be here when you come home." He looked up into her face, saw trust warring with fear.

"Trust me," he whispered, feeling tears prick the back of his eyes. "Anne?"

She drew a deep, shaking breath and sighed it out sharply, laying her hand briefly on his shoulder.

"All right," she said, and gave him a wobbling smile. "Thank you, Er Thom."

"There is no thanks due," he told her, and shifted away to allow her access to the meager cupboards and crowded counter. "Eat your breakfast and I will wash our son's face."

"NOT COMING TODAY?" Marilla looked grave. "He isn't sick, is he, sweetie? Pel said there's a
horrific
flu-thing going through the creche—half the kids down with it and a third of the staff." She sighed, theatrically. "Pel's working a double-shift. Naturally."

"Naturally." Anne grinned, Pel was always finding an excuse to work double-shifts. Marilla theorized—hopefully—a late-shift love-interest. Anne privately thought that Marilla's fits of drama probably grated on her quieter, less demonstrative daughter.

"Shan's in the pink of health," Anne said. "His father's visiting and the two of them are spending some time together."

There,
she thought,
it sounds perfectly reasonable.

Marilla fairly gawked. "His
father
," she repeated, voice swooping toward the heights. "Shan's father is
visiting
you?"

Anne frowned slightly. "Is that against the law?"

"Don't be silly, darling. It's only that—of course he's fabulously wealthy."

As a matter of fact, Er Thom never seemed at a loss for cash, and his clothes were clearly handmade—tailored to fit his slim frame to perfection. But the jacket he wore most often was well-used, even battered, the leather like silk to the touch.

"Why should he be?" she asked, hearing the sharpness in her voice. "Fabulously wealthy?"

Marilla eyed her and gave an elaborate shrug. "Well, you know—everyone
assumes
Liadens must be rich. All those cantra. And the trade routes. And the clans, too, of course. Terribly old money—lots of investments. Not," she finished, glancing off screen, "that it's any of
my
business."

That much was true, Anne thought tartly, and was immediately sorry.
It's only Marilla,
she told herself,
doing her yenta routine.

"Rilly, I've got to go. Class."

"All right, sweetheart. Call and let me know your plans." The screen went dark.

My plans?
Anne thought, gathering together the pieces of Comp Ling One's final.
What plans?

DURING HER FREE period, she banged back into her office for an hour's respite, juggling a handful of mail, the remains of Liaden Lit's exam and a disposable plastic mug full of vending-machine soup.

Dumping the class work into the 'Out' basket near the door, she sat down at her desk, pried the top off the plastic mug and began to go through her mail.

Notice of departmental meeting—
another
one? she thought, sighing. Registrar's announcement of deadline for grades. Research Center shutdown for first week of semester break. Request for syllabi for next semester. A card from the makers of
Mix-n-Match
, offering to upgrade Shan's model to something called an
Edu-Board
. A—

Her fingers tingled at the touch—a gritty beige envelope, with 'Communications Center' stamped across it in red block letters that dwarfed her name, printed neatly in one corner.

A beam-letter. She smiled and snatched it up, eagerly breaking the seal. A beam-letter meant either a note from her brother Richard or a letter from Learned Doctor Jin Del yo'Kera, of the University of Liad, Solcintra.

The letter slid out of the envelope—one thin, crackling sheet. From Richard then, she decided, unfolding the page. Doctor yo'Kera's letters were long—page upon page of scholarly exploration, answers to questions Anne had posed, questions re-asked, re-examined, paths of thought illuminated . . . 

It took her a moment to understand that the letter was not from Richard, after all.

It took rather longer to assimilate the message that was put down, line after line, in precise, orderly Terran, by—by Linguistic Specialist Drusil tel'Bana, who signed herself 'colleague'.

Scholar tel'Bana begged grace from Professor Davis for the intrusion into her affairs and the ill news which necessity demanded accompany this unseemly breaking of her peace.

Learned Doctor yo'Kera, Scholar tel'Bana's own mentor and friend, was dead, the notes for his latest work in disarray. Scholar tel'Bana understood that work to be based largely, if not entirely, on Professor Davis' elegant line of research, augmented by certain correspondence.

"It is for this reason, knowing the wealth of your thought, the depth of your scholarship, that I beg you most earnestly to come to Liad and aid me in reconstructing these notes. The work was to have been Jin Del's life-piece, so he had told me, and he likened your own work to an unflickering flame, lighting him a path without shadows."

Then the signature , and the date, painstakingly rendered in the common calendar: Day 23, Standard year 1360.

Anne sat back, the words misting out of sense.

Doctor yo'Kera, dead? It seemed impossible that the death of someone she had never physically met, who had existed only as machine-transcribed words on grainy yellow paper should leave her with this feeling of staggering loss.

In the hallway, a bell jangled, signaling class-change in ten minutes. She had an exam to give.

Awkwardly, she folded Drusil tel'Bana's letter and put in her pocket. She gathered up Comp Ling Two's exam booklets, automatically consulting the checklist. Right.

The five-minute bell sounded and she left the office, taking care to lock the door behind her, leaving the vending-machine soup to congeal in its flimsy plastic mug.

 
The delm of any given clan, when acting for the Clan, is commonly referred to by the clan's name: "Guayar has commanded thus and so . . . "
To make matters even more confusing, it is assumed all persons of melant'i will have a firm grounding in Liaden heraldry, thus opening up vast possibilities for double-entendre and other pleasantries. "A hutch of bunnies," will indicate, en masse, the members of Clan Ixin, whose clan-sign is a stylized rabbit against a rising moon. Korval, whose distinctive Tree-and-Dragon is perhaps the most well-known clan-sign among non-Liadens, is given the dubious distinction of dragonhood and a murmured, "The Dragon has lifted a wing," should be taken as a word to the wise.

—From "A Terran's Guide to Liad"

SHAN ACCEPTED THE surrey ride with the cheerful matter-of-factness that seemed his chiefest characteristic. He settled into the oversized seat next to Er Thom, pulled off his cap and announced, "Jerzy Quad C. C. Three. Seven. Five. Two. A. Four. Nine. C."

Fingers over the simple code-board, Er Thom flung a startled glance at the child, who continued, "Rilly Quad T. T. One. Eight. Seven. Eight. P. Three. Six. T."

"And home?" Er Thom murmured.

"Home Quad S," Shan said without hesitation. "S. Two. Four. Five. Seven. Z. One. Eight. S."

Correct to a digit. Er Thom inclined his head gravely. "Very good. But today we are going elsewhere. A moment, please." He tapped the appropriate code into the board and leaned back, pulling the single shock-strap across his lap and Shan's together and locking it into place.

The child snuggled against his side with a soft sigh and put a small brown hand on Er Thom's knee.

"Who?" he asked and Er Thom stiffened momentarily, wondering how best—

The child stirred under his arm, twisting about to look into his face with stern silver eyes. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Name."

Er Thom let out the breath he had been holding. "Mirada," he said, the Low Liaden word for "father". "My name is Er Thom yos'Galan, Clan Korval."

The white brows pulled together. "
Mirada
?" he said, hesitantly.

"Mirada," Er Thom replied firmly, settling his arm closer around the small body and leaning back into the awkward seat.

The boy curled once more against his side. "Where we go?"

Er Thom closed his eyes, feeling his son's warm body burning into his side, thinking of Anne, and of love, and the demands of melant'i.

"To the spaceport."

DRAGON'S WAY
admitted them, hatch lifting silently. Beyond, the lights came up, the life-systems cycled to full, and the piloting board initiated primary self-check.

Shan hesitated on the edge of the piloting chamber, small hand tensing in Er Thom's larger one.

"Mirada?"

"Yes, my child?"

"Go home."

"Presently," Er Thom replied, taking half a step into the room.

"Go home
now
," the boy insisted, voice keying toward panic.

"Shan." Er Thom spun and went to his knees, one hand cupping a thin brown cheek. "Listen to me, denubia. We shall go home very soon, I promise. But you must first help me to do a thing, all right?"

"Do?" Doubtful silver eyes met his for an unnervingly long moment.

"All right," Shan said at last, adding, "sparkles."

He lifted a hand to touch Er Thom's cheek. "Soft." He grinned. "Jerzy prickles."

Er Thom bit his lip. Jerzy Entaglia would be bearded, Terran male that he was. But why should Er Thom yos'Galan's son be familiar with the feel of an outsider's face?

He sighed, and forced himself to think beyond the initial outrage. Jerzy Entaglia stood in some way the child's foster-father. The success of his efforts in that role was before Er Thom now: Alert, intelligent, good-natured and bold-hearted. What should Er Thom yos'Galan accord Jerzy Entaglia, save all honor, and thanks for a gift precious beyond price?

"Come," he said to his son, very gently. He rose and took the small hand again in his, leading the boy into the ship. This time, there was no resistance.

SHAN SAT ON A stool by the autodoc, watching curiously as Er Thom rolled up his sleeve and sprayed antiseptic on his hand and arm.

"Cold!"

"Only for a moment," Er Thom murmured, tapping the command sequence into the autodoc's panel. He looked down at his son and slipped a hand under the chin to tip the small face up. "This may hurt you, a little. Can you be very brave?"

Shan gave it consideration. "I'll try."

"Good." Er Thom went down on one knee by the stool and put his arm around Shan's waist. The other hand he used to guide the child's fingers into the 'doc's sampling unit. "Your hand in here—yes. Hold still now, denubia . . . "

He leaned his cheek against the soft hair, raising his free hand to toy with a delicate earlobe, eyes on the readout. When the needle hit the red line, he used his nails, quickly, deftly, to pinch Shan's ear, eliciting a surprised yelp.

"Mirada!"

The unit chimed completion of the routine; the readout estimated three minutes for analysis and match. Er Thom came up off the floor in a surge, sweeping Shan from the stool and whirling him around.