Mouse and Dragon (25 page)

"Here," Daav said, swinging the package off his shoulder and holding it out. "There's no need to stalk the pilot."

Color drained from the boy's face, it seemed to Aelliana that he swayed . . . then he steadied, fairly snatching the package from Daav's hands. He spun back to the table, shoving glasses and other clutter roughly aside. Hands shaking, he unsealed the outer protective layer, and scattered a second layer of frothy tissue-glitter to reveal a carven wooden case.

He paused then, as if he feared to continue. The boy who had tried to shoo them away drew closer to the table, shoulders hunched, as if he had caught the other's tension. The first girl lifted a mocking eyebrow and drew on her stick.

"Make haste, Rosie," the second girl chided. "Or leave it until after the set!"

"Peace," he murmured, but it seemed to Aelliana that he was advising himself more than her. Slowly, and with infinite care, he lifted the lid away.

Nestled in silk, the dulciharp took fire; pegs flared, light ran along the strings, ivory keys gleamed.

"Ah . . ." The second girl leaned close, extending a hand, as if to touch.

"She's a beauty," the first girl said grudgingly, blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth. "From Liad?"

"From Liad," Bre Din sig'Ranton asserted. Reverently, he reached into the box and had the instrument out, cradling it against his shoulder like an infant. His fingers moved, and the strings whispered, loud in the quiet dimness.

"But—why?" asked the first boy.

"Yes, why?" the second girl repeated. "Who is this—" She glanced aside, at
them
, Aelliana realized "—this Honorable jo'Bern? Why is she sending you gifts?"

"Not a gift," Bre Din murmured. "Not a gift, Veen. A promise." He stroked the strings again, and sighed.

"Dath jo'Bern is my grandmother's
cha'leket
. When my grandmother died, the dulciharp went to her, as a death-gift. I sent her—gods,
relumma
ago!—I sent her a recording, and I asked her—I asked her, if she would sponsor me to the Conservatory on Liad, and, if she thought I was worthy, to return me my grandmother's harp."

"What's this?" Veen plucked a slim folder from inside the case and flipped it open.

"Tickets," she said blankly, "and a bank draft."

Cheek against wood, Bre Din sig'Ranton smiled.

"If I'm to study at the Conservatory, I need to travel to Liad, Veen."

"But—" She stared at him, the folder forgotten in her hand. "What about the band?" She took a hard breath. "What about—"

"If you please," Daav spoke up, placing his hand on Aelliana's shoulder. "There is a confirmation of satisfactory delivery to be signed."

Obedient to her prompt, Aelliana reached inside her jacket and withdrew the card.

"Certainly, Pilots." Bre Din turned, the harp still cradled against him, and pressed his thumb onto the card's surface. "My thanks; you have—you have changed my life."

Aelliana bowed, and stepped back to Daav's side, slipping the card away into the safety of an inner pocket. As one, they turned toward the door, which opened smoothly under Daav's hand.

"Bre Din!" The second girl's voice was sharp. "Will you turn your back on—"

"Leave it until after the set!" the first girl interrupted. "We're on!"

The door fell shut, Daav turned to the right, opposite the direction they had entered, and Aelliana, wordless, followed.

Norbear—Size: 16–22 cm; Weight: 121–180 g. Furred quadrupedal mammal with a burrowing habit; soft dense coat, ranging in color from grey, brown, black, orange, white and mixed. Herbivore. Fearless and lively disposition, natural empath. Adapts well to domestication. Banned on certain worlds. Check port rules before importing.
—
Courier Wildlife Guide, Fourteenth Edition
 

The back door opened onto a service platform overlooking a thin alley harshly lit by vapor spots. Aelliana stood quietly at Daav's side, doubtless trying to figure out what it was that he saw which eluded her.

In fact, he saw only an empty alleyway, and some bits of trash fluttering in the corner made by the intersection of ramp and foundation.

"It's stopped snowing," she observed.

"So it has."

"I wonder,
van'chela
, why we exited this way, rather than by the main door?"

It was a fair question, and one that a new pilot might with honor ask of a port-wise comrade. The pity being that he had no answer nearly so fair to offer her in return. Scout instincts, pilot instincts—things learned through bone and blood, recalled by the deep mind, acted upon, and never questioned . . . How did one explain, without seeming to be perfectly demented? Worse, how did one
teach
, except as one had been taught—by trial and error, and the occasional laceration or broken bone?

Still, he told himself, rallyingly, there must have been a reason, mustn't there have, Daav? Only take a moment to reflect, and no doubt it will come to you.

He cast his mind back to the main room: the dance floor, the charmingly attired wait staff, the tables made private by the wafting smoke.
Had
there been a potential for danger, an . . . oddity, damn Clarence
and
his ghosts! The tension in a shoulder; the attitude of a head? Some small thing set slightly out of place? An object that
ought
to have been there, noticed only by its absence?

He sighed.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Forgive me, Aelliana."

She looked up into his face, her eyes deeply green in the sulfurous light.

"Forgive you? For heeding your training, which has kept you safe on dozens of ports, and in far stranger places? I can scarcely find that a fault,
van'chela
, nor any cause for forgiveness. Had your training been less thorough, or yourself less advertent, I might never have met you, nor known what it was I lived in lack of."

If, indeed, her brother had allowed her to live so long. Horror shivered through him; it had been so near a thing, their meeting so much a matter of chance . . . 

"Daav? Is there something amiss?"

"Nothing amiss," he said, forcibly shaking off the chill, and producing a smile to soothe her. "I was merely thinking that the luck moves along strange pathways."

"So it does," she agreed, and glanced about them once again. "If there is nothing here for us, do you think that we might leave?"

"In fact, I do!" He preceded her down the ramp, in case the fluttering litter should suddenly turn feral, and nodded to the left as she joined him on the alley's floor.

"I propose that we find us a convivial place for a glass and a bit of supper, now that we're at leisure."

Aelliana tipped her head, her stance wistful. "I had hoped to see more of the port."

Of course she would, he chided himself; this was her first new port—her first world that was not the homeworld! Who would not wish to walk such streets and marvel that she had come so far?

"There's no requirement that we find supper at the first shop displaying a glass," he pointed out, and was rewarded by her smile.

"There isn't, is there?" she said. "We are free to meet our own fancy. Let us, if you will humor me, walk." She held out her hand, inviting, and he stepped forward to take it in his own.

"By all means, let us walk and observe the port! It has been an age since I've been at leisure to tour."

* * *

They bought bowls of stew from a cart outside of a greens market, and fresh-squeezed juice from a stall inside. Leaning on the railing at the observation window, they ate while watching pallets of vegetables being offloaded from rail cars, to ride the conveyors into the vendor area below.

After, they went back out onto the port and walked, taking turns choosing their direction. At some point in their meanderings the snow began again, riding a freshening breeze. Aelliana shivered and turned up the collar of her jacket, curling her hands into warm pockets.

They found a bakery open at the edge of what might have been a day-side business district, ate lemon squares and drank hot tea at a tiny round table while in the back the baker prepared the next day's dough.

Warmed by tea and sugar, they went on the prowl again, pausing by a map board so that she could discover the locations of such landmarks as the Portmaster's Office, the Pilots Guild, Healer Hall, and Port Security. There were pointers to various ferries: the Ocean Line, the Mountain Line, the City Line—and the shuttle to the Pleasure Quarters.

"The Pleasure Quarters?" she murmured. "What do you suppose that is?"

"I am without information. Shall we find if the shuttle is running and explore?"

Her laugh was swallowed by a yawn.

"Perhaps tomorrow," she said. "For tonight,
van'chela
, I think it might be time to seek our ship, and our bed."

"Well enough," Daav answered. "It's always good to have a plan for the morrow." He considered the map briefly, and raised a hand to trace out a route.

"If we go north, past Avontai Port 'change, we'll cut the corner of the Entertainment District, and so come back to the public yard." He glanced down at her. "Or shall we find a cab?"

"I think I can walk so far—unless you're chilled?"

"My legs are long, and walking keeps the chill away."

"Then we are in accord. Lead on, sir."

He smiled and led them back across the square.

"I remember when you insisted on
sir
," he said.

Aelliana chuckled. "And I remember when
you
insisted on 'Daav'—or 'pilot,' if I must." She slipped her hand into his pocket and curled her fingers 'round his. "Each as stubborn as the other—even then. I wonder . . ." She paused.

"Wonder?"

"The boy to whom we delivered the dulciharp. I wonder how he will go on, in his changed life. If he will be happy, or become a master, or if his delm will bid him stay . . ."

"Ah, but it is the fate of couriers never to know the end of the tale. We fly in, deliver our package, take up our cargo—and fly out. We are agents of change only insofar as we have adhered to the terms of our contract. Those things that we set in motion go on to their fruition, without our knowledge and beyond our aid."

They crossed a boulevard that must, Aelliana thought, be very busy by day, and turned down a street sparsely illuminated by the spill of night lights from sleepy shop windows. The snow had stopped again, leaving glittering arabesques around darkened signs, icy scallops at the edges of windows.

"Asleep, Pilot?" Daav murmured, when they had traversed the block in companionable silence.

"Merely content. It's very quiet, isn't—"

"No!" The cry shattered the crystalline quiet, like a knife thrown through glass. "No, give it back!"

She felt a jolt of adrenaline, a shock of necessity, and she was running, hot on Daav's heels,
toward
the scream, which was, one small, rational part of her mind pointed out, surely unsafe. They ought to be running
away
, to find a call box, or a proctor—

"Don't let it get loose!" That was another voice, angry and perhaps a little afraid.

She rounded the corner, swinging out so that she not slam into Daav, who had frozen into near invisibility, watching.

Halfway down the thin alley, a pilot was on his knees in a drift of snow, arms raised, hands reaching, every line etched with desperation. Before him were ranged five port toughs, their ranks opening to receive a sixth, carrying a bag that had surely been reft from the downed pilot.

"Give it back!" If words could bleed, these did. "I have money . . ." He reached into his jacket, pulled out a pouch, his hand shaking so that the coins jangled clearly.

"Take it—the jacket, my boots—take what you like, but return—"

A rock smashed into the wall just beyond the pilot's shoulder. He cowered, throwing his hands up, a small, broken sound escaping from his throat.

"Please . . ."

"Please . . ." One of the six sobbed, mockingly. "We saw what you have in this bag and we know how to deal with it!"

"No! Give it back! I'll take it offworld!"

Another rock came out of the cluster of tormentors.

The pilot gasped when it struck his arm.

"Stop that!" someone shouted, her voice strong in the Command mode. Aelliana was standing at the downed pilot's side before she realized that the voice was hers, and that her position was unsafe in the extreme.

"Another one!" "Is she holding another?" "Search her!" "Take them both down!"

A rock flew toward them, its trajectory flat and purposeful. Aelliana saw its course unwind inside her head, saw that it would strike the pilot's unprotected head, and danced sideways. She snatched the missile out of the air as if it were a bowli ball, allowing the energy to spin her, releasing as she came back around, sending the rock back, low and fast, into the crowd, directly to the one who had thrown it—

Bone broke with an audible crunch, followed by a scream and a disturbance among the crowd.

"My ankle! She broke my ankle!"

"Enough!"

That
voice brooked no disobedience; the crowd froze, the screams subsiding to moans. Aelliana maintained her position between the wounded pilot and harm, as Daav strode toward the crowd.

"You!" he snapped. "Surrender the pilot's case!"

"Oh, no you don't!" came the returning snarl. "It's a norbear in here, and it's bound for the river with a rock in the bottom of the bag to keep it company."

Behind her, Aelliana heard the pilot whisper a scream.

"Give me the bag," Daav repeated. "I am a Scout captain. I hereby take possession of the contraband item and will dispose of it in the prescribed manner." He paused, his hand extended. "Which is
not
throwing it in the river."

"It'll take over your mind," someone else in the crowd shouted. "Scout captain or not!"

"If he
is
a Scout captain!"

"Am I not?" Daav demanded and flowed forward, swift and silent, his hand suddenly on the bag holder's shoulder.

"Surrender the norbear," he said softly. "You do not wish to incite my pilot to further violence against you."