Scout's Progress (24 page)

As urgently as she had cried her need to go home, it seemed that now, with home near to hand, her urgency had deserted her. She led him sedately down thin streets lined with yard-enclosed houses. The further they walked, the smaller the yards became, the more closely the houses crouched, shoulders all but rubbing their neighbors.

Raingleam Street was meager, the public walk crumbling and weed-pocked, the houses brooding over scanty squares of grass held captive by rusting, lance-tipped fences.

"Here." Aelliana stopped before a fence near the top of the way. The grass beyond the lances looked unkempt in the light from the street lamp, a flowering vine softened the brooding facade of the house.

In the puddle of lamplight, Aelliana spun to face him, catching up his other hand in hers.

"Daav—thank you, my friend. For the escort, for the lessons, for—for your care. I cannot—I don't believe I recall when last I spent a pleasanter day."

"Well, as to that," he said gently, feeling her hands trembling in his, "the pleasure has been mutual." He hesitated, glanced over her head to the forbidding house, looked down into a face from which all joy had retreated.

"Aelliana?"

"Yes?"

"I—may I give you my comm number, Aelliana? Call me, if there is need."

She did not laugh, nor ask what need she could possibly have of him, now she was delivered safe back to her kin.

She sighed, seemed to sag—and caught herself, looking up.

"Thank you. You're very kind."

"Not at all." He recited the code for his private line, saw her memorize the digits as she heard them. "There is an answering machine," he told her softly, "if I am not—immediately—to hand."

"Thank you," she said again and stepped back, her hands slipping away with a reluctance he could taste.

"Good lift, pilot," she said from the shadow aside the lamplight. "Have a care, going home."

"Safe docking, Aelliana."

He tarried in the light-splash, watched her cross the walk and open the sagging gate. Her footsteps were light on the flagstones, her figure no more than a thin shadow. The footsteps changed, climbed three wooden stairs; he lost her shape in the larger shadow of the vine.

The porch creaked, a door opened on faintly whining hinges, hesitated, soundless—and shut with a clatter of tumblers falling home.

Abruptly, Daav shivered, though the night was barely cool and his jacket very warm. Almost, he went forward, through the gate and down the path—
Some pretext—some bit of piloting lore you forgot 'til now to tell her . . . 

"Do be sensible, Daav," he chided himself, voice loud in the still street. He turned his back on his inner urgings, on the gate to Mizel's Clanhouse, and retraced the route to the station, walking with determined speed.

"GOOD MORNING, AELLIANA, how pleasant to have you thus returned to us."

Two steps into the foyer, Aelliana froze, staring into her brother's eyes, recalling all at once the overshirt left behind on
The Luck
, and her hair, drawn back and caught with the ring Daav had given her. Voni erupted from the parlor to her right—where the large window enjoyed an unimpaired view of the street.

"I saw him!" she squealed. "Great, lank-limbed creature flaunting his leather in a respectable street! A Scout or a grease-ape, brother, and Aelliana with no more shame than to be clutching his filthy hands!"

"Gently, sister." Ran Eld was gliding closer, savoring his moment. "I feel certain Aelliana will tell us everything we wish to know about the fellow." He raised a hand heavy with rings and smiled lazily at her. "Won't you Aelliana?"

She swallowed, mind gone to putty. He meant to strike her, she read that plain in his eyes: He meant to hurt her. . .

"Whatever is the reason for so early a racket?" Birin Caylon peered over the rail, blinking sleepily down at the three in the foyer.

"Ran Eld? Voni? Aelliana, then!
Some
one explain this untimely commotion!"

It was Voni who recovered her wits first. She bowed and flirted her eyes as their mother came stubbornly down the stairs.

"Aelliana was so late coming home, ma'am, we had quite despaired of her!"

"I see," the delm said in a dry tone that indicated she found this explanation wanting. She reached the foyer floor and paused, subjecting first her son and then her eldest daughter to an uncharacteristically penetrating stare. This done, she continued forward and took Aelliana's arm.

"Just come home, have you?" she said pleasantly, turning back toward the stairs, middle daughter in tow. "How delightful it is to be young and able to roister with friends until dawn! I recall my own youth—why, there were twelve-days together when I was scarcely home at all! I was a sad scamp in those days, though I daresay you would hardly credit it—" Talking thus, she mounted the stairs, and Aelliana with her, barely able to believe in her rescue.

At the top of the stairs, Mizel changed her subject, lowering her voice to a level not meant to reach the two left below.

"So, had you a fine, bold day, daughter?"

"In—Indeed I did, ma'am," Aelliana took a hard breath. "I had meant to be home for Prime, but the time—the time quite got away from us."

"And your friend, I apprehend, was good enough to escort you to our gate. Could you not have offered the house's hospitality, child?"

"Ran Eld—" she swallowed. "Ran Eld has no liking for Scouts, ma'am. And, indeed, my—friend said himself he would seem a rag-mannered fellow, rousing the house at such an hour."

"Very nice of him," Birin Caylon said approvingly. "You must, however, invite him to tea soon so that I may thank him for his care of you." She frowned at Aelliana's start. "It need not trouble you—or your friend—what private opinion Ran Eld chooses to hold of Scouts."

Oh, gods, and if Mizel rebukes Ran Eld for this evening's work—
She swallowed and inclined her head. "Thank you, ma'am."

They had reached Aelliana's door. Birin Caylon smiled and patted her daughter's arm before relinquishing it. "Never mind, child. What is your friend's name, I wonder?"

"Daav," Aelliana whispered, voice catching. She cleared her throat and looked straight into her mother's eyes. "His name is Daav."

If Mizel found anything odd in the lack of surname or clan, she chose not to mention it.

"I see. A well-enough name. Gentle dreams, daughter." She turned and went back up the hall, toward her own apartments.

Trembling in every muscle, Aelliana escaped into her room.

 
Feed a cat, gain a cat.

—Proverb

"WELL, AND WHERE HAVE you been?" Jon's voice carried an edge of amused irritation.

Daav continued to the counter and poured himself a cup of pitiless black tea.

"Chonselta," he said and threw the murderous brew down his throat with a shudder.

"Chonselta, is it? I suppose that answers for the whereabouts of Pilot Caylon." Jon came forward to perch on the green stool. "I reviewed that tape."

Daav manfully swallowed the rest of his tea and set the mug in the sink. "Did you? And your recommendation?"

"She pilots solid second class—which we'd all known. On the basis of yesterday's adventure—setting aside that I believe the Master in charge to be moving matters along rather swiftly—I'd be tempted to write a provisional first."

"If it were board-skill alone, I would agree with you," Daav said, sitting down and bracing a heel on a stool-rung. "However, there are those things of which she knows very little."

"And of which she ought to know much, bound as she is for the wide universe." Jon sighed. "All too true. Second class it is, then. Will you sign it?"

"Yourself, if you will."

"Hah. She know who you are yet?"

Daav lifted an eyebrow. "She does not know my surname, or my clan."

"Quibbled like a Liaden! I'll play that game to the extent it does her no harm."

"And how shall I harm her, I wonder?" Dangerously soft, that question.

"Gently." Jon raised both hands in the age-old gesture of surrender. "Gently, child—I meant no disrespect. Forgive an old man his meddlesome ways."

Abruptly, Daav became aware of tense muscles, of a hand curled closed along his thigh. He shut his eyes, ran the Scout's Rainbow, and felt the tension flow away. Opening his eyes, he offered Jon a smile.

"It is you, rather, who must forgive a young man his equally meddlesome ways—and his weariness." He showed an empty palm. "I mean her only well. If she learns the workings of comradeship through Daav, who flies out of Binjali's, where's harm in that?"

"Well enough," Jon said, lowering his hands. "Seek your bed and we'll say no more about it."

"In a moment." Daav shifted on the stool, sent a quick glance into Jon's face. "Dawn-time brings you rare joy, Master."

Jon sighed. "Now what?"

"A brace of halflings, boy and girl. They claim to be clanless."

"Sending me your lame kittens, Captain?"

"Not at all," Daav said austerely. "They belong to Pilot Caylon."

"Oh, do they? And what does Pilot Caylon want me to do with them?"

"Put them to work, if you think they might be useful."

Jon considered him blandly. "Are they likely to be useful?"

"Possibly. I believe them to be pilot-grade; the girl at least has had some training. They're able-bodied and quick, though not as quick as they think themselves. Cocky, but well-spoken enough when forced to the point."

"A pair of delightful children, I see. All right. I'll hold them, pending Pilot Caylon's pleasure."

"Thank you," said Daav and came to his feet. He tipped his head, looking down into Jon's seamed face. "Find out who they are, if you can manage it."

Grizzled brows rose over amused amber eyes. "I thought they belonged to Pilot Caylon."

"My lamentable curiosity," Daav murmured, moving a languid hand.

Jon laughed. "Sleep well, lad."

"Good evening, Master. I have no shift this three-day."

"All right," Jon said and watched him walk, graceful and tall, across the bay and out the door.

SHE WOKE FROM A DREAM of rich, easy safety, her mouth still curved with pleasure.

Sunlight bleached the thin blue curtains to gray; the clock on her desk told of an hour approaching mid-day.

The first thought that occurred was tinged with wonder: Ran Eld had allowed her to sleep through breakfast.

Her second thought was that it was late, and she would be wanted in Solcintra.

She flung the blanket back with energy, came to her feet and slipped on her ragged robe. The house beyond her door was quiet, the hall empty; there was no Voni barricaded in the bathroom they shared. More and more curious. Aelliana locked the door behind her and took a rapid shower.

Back in her own room, she stared into her tiny closet with dismay, seeing the meager rack of shabby shirts and shapeless trousers as if for the first time. Exploration did uncover an orange day shirt laced with black cord, of a slightly more recent vintage than the rest, and a pair of tough indigo trousers that required only minimal pleating with a wide black belt. In the very back of the closet, she found the blue jacket her grandmother had given her on the occasion of her fifteenth name day.

The bold blue had faded somewhat, but the lining was whole, the outer shell water-resistant. She shrugged it on.

That she not outgrow so expensive an item before she had used it fully, the jacket had been bought too large. It settled over her shoulders now as if it had been made for her. Aelliana smiled.

Then it was time to leave.

Cautiously, she stepped out into the empty hall. From below, she heard the sound of a door opening, and the waspish echo of Ran Eld's voice.

There was no time to be lost. Heart in mouth, she ghosted down the hall to the back stairs, thence out into the world.

"MORNING, MATH TEACHER."

"Good morning, Jon," Aelliana said, stopping to stroke Patch. She straightened and looked around her. The garage was unusually quiet; neither Trilla nor any other of Binjali's changeable crew in sight. She turned back to Jon.

"I wonder—did—did the pirates come to you?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Pirates? I wouldn't rate 'em much higher than Port rats, myself." He used his chin to point at the crew door. "They're here. Trilla's got them doing clean-up on Number Six Pad."

"Oh." Tension eased out of her, though a wrinkle of worry remained around the bright green eyes.

She was in looks today, Jon thought with approval, and dressed like she'd paid some attention to the matter instead just draping herself in whatever outsized bits of clothing came to hand. The tawny hair was combed neatly back over her ears and caught into a tail, showing the world a face at once ethereal and intelligent.

Some fitting clothes and a sprinkle of jewels and no one in the room would deny her a beauty, Jon thought, and said aloud, "Well?"

The worry intensified. "I was afraid you would care, though Daav—" She cleared her throat. "I meant no assault upon your melant'i, Jon."

"Take more than a gaggle of halflings to do that," he said gruffly. "You sent them to work off a debt, according to their tale. I've enough unskilled labor to keep them a day or two, and welcome they are to all of it. But what will you do with them after that? Turn them back onto the Port?"

She stared at him, eyes wide. "They're clanless."

"So they said."

"To turn them back onto the Port, after having taught them to hope—" She caught herself, teeth indenting her lower lip.

"I do not consider," she began anew, after a moment. "I do not consider that they are stupid, or even without honor. They were frightened and in despair, which condition might make a thief of anyone. They are very quick, and—and pilot-like. Surely, they can be trained—"

"Might be," Jon agreed, "if they had clan. Them claiming no one, that gets tricky. Though," he amended, seeing she was disposed to take it hard, "if they're real good, or found a patron, they might gain the Academy. The Scouts don't care who's clanless."