Scout's Progress (29 page)

"I would like to show you to Jelaza Kazone, if you will walk just a bit further," he murmured.

It was Korval's custom to present proposed spouses to the Tree—a courtesy, so Daav considered it, though his mother had taught such presentation was made to gain the Tree's approval.

"I shall be honored to see Korval's tree," Samiv tel'Izak said courteously.

"I warn you that it is rather large," he said, negotiating the path's penultimate and largely overgrown twist. "And somewhat—unexpected."

The path twisted once more, and ended in a smooth carpet of silvery grass.

The Tree gleamed in the clearing, casting the pale blue phosphorescence of moonvines into banks of fog. Daav paused at the edge of the glade and looked down into Samiv's face.

"Of your kindness—it is our custom to ask spouses-to-be to come forth and lay a hand against the Tree and speak their name. It would gladden my heart, if you consented to do this."

She hesitated a heartbeat, but what, after all, was the harm in touching a plant, no matter how large, and speaking one's name in the moonlit quiet of a garden?

"I am honored," she said once more and walked by his side across the grass to the Tree. A low wind rustled the moonvines and Samiv shivered in the sudden chill.

"A moment only," Daav said, slipping his arm free. "In this manner, you see, pilot." He placed his hand, palm flat against the massive trunk, feeling it warm immediately with the Tree's accustomed greeting. "Daav yos'Phelium."

Samiv stepped forward, placed her right hand against the trunk and said, very plain, "Samiv tel'Izak."

It happened in a heartbeat. Daav's hand went ice-cold. The wind, which had been playing among the moonvines, roared, rushed across the clearing and hurtled into to the branches above their heads, showering them with leaves, twiglets and bark.

Samiv tel'Izak cried out, wordless and high, and raised both arms to shield her head. Daav flung forward, caught her up amid a hail of twigs and urged her toward the entrance of the clearing.

The wind stopped the moment Samiv's feet touched the pathway.

"How can you abide it?" she demanded, whirling to face him in the dimness, left hand cradling right. "Cold, horrid,
looming
thing—how can you live here, knowing it might fall at any time and crush the house entire!"

He stared at her, his own hand just beginning to warm into flesh.

"The Tree is Korval's charge," he managed, keeping his voice level in the mode between pilots, while his mind replayed the wind, the chill, the rain of arboreal trash. "As best we know, it is in the prime of its life, pilot, and not likely to fall for many, many years."

Samiv tel'Izak drew herself up, face stiff.

"If that is all which is
required
, my Lord," she said, and it was all the way back to Addressing a Delm Not One's Own, "I wish to be returned indoors."

"Certainly," Daav said, and offered his arm, hardly noticing that the touch of her fingers on his sleeve was slight and shrinking. He guided her down the pathway absently, remembering the hail of Tree-bits shaken loose by that puppyish wind—leaves, wood bits, twists of ancient birds nests.

But not one seedpod.

They reached an overgrown portion of the path and he stood back to allow Samiv tel'Izak to precede him. That she did so without demur, though his rank gave him precedence, spoke eloquently of her distress. Daav shook himself, for it was no more than his duty to soothe her fear.

"Samiv," he began and felt her fingers twitch.

"Please," she said, her voice tight, "I do not wish to speak."

"Very well," he said and guided her silently back down the Inner Court, all the while wracking his memory to recall if the Diaries told of any previous time when a spouse was spurned by the Tree.

 
Pen vel'Kazik comes into the Pilot's Tower only when forced by her fellow Counselors, and stands as near the ladder as she may, sweating and wringing her foolish hands until the others declare their business done. The boy swears it's Jela's tree that frightens her. I say, if it is, may the gods soon afflict them all likewise.

—Excerpted from Cantra yos'Phelium's Log Book

"MORNING, MATH TEACHER." Jon was leaning against the counter, tea mug in one hand, attention centered on a bound book held precariously open in the other.

"Good morning, Jon. Is Trilla on-shift?"

"Haven't seen her yet," he answered, trying to turn a page with his thumb. The book wavered and slipped, leaves fluttering helplessly.

Aelliana swept forward, captured the slim volume in the instant before it hit cement and straightened, holding it out.

Amused amber eyes met hers. "Quick," Jon commented and turned to set his mug aside.

A test
, Aelliana thought, feeling the weight of the book in her hand. Of course it had been a test. Master Pilot Jon dea'Cort would never be so clumsy as to drop—She glanced down, frowning at the silver-gilt lettering.

In Support of the Commonality of Language,
the glittery title read.
The Lifework of Learned Scholar Jin Del yo'Kera, Clan Yedon, Compiled by Learned Scholar Anne Davis, Clan Korval.

"Book worthy of study," Jon said as Aelliana glanced up. "You can have the loan of it when I'm done, if you like."

"Thank you, I would like it, very much," she said, surrendering the book. "The last issue of
Scholarship Review
was given to discussion of this work."

"Ah? And what did the host of learned Liadens think of the proof of a common back-tongue linking Terra and Liad?"

"That I cannot tell you," she answered seriously. "Most wished only to say that such a notion was entirely ridiculous, without addressing the proofs at all. The single reviewer attempting to face the work on its own merit was Scout Linguist pel'Odyare. In her estimation the scholarship had been impeccable throughout and the conclusion logically drawn. She wrote that she would implement a search of certain Scout records, to find if independent corroboration of the conclusion could be established."

"Master pel'Odyare does binjali work," Jon said, smoothing the gilt letters with absent fingers. "If proof is there, she'll find it." He sighed, and slid the book away next to the tea-tin trophy box. "Bold heart, Scholar," he said softly.

He looked back to Aelliana with a wry smile.

"Your pirates came in last evening with a tale of someone hanging about your ship," he said. "Gave chase, but lost the quarry—which is a smile from the luck, though they won't see it. Seem to think they're quick enough to dodge a pellet, if the sneaker had held a gun. Anywise, I did a check and nothing seemed amiss. You might want to do the same, for certainty's sake."

"Yes, of course. . ." She blinked. Someone had been hanging about
The Luck
? Her heart stuttered, animal instinct shrieking that it had been Ran Eld, that she was discovered, hovering on the brink of lost . . . She took a hard breath and met Jon's eyes.

"I shall do an inspection immediately. Are the pirates—Sed Ric and Yolan—available to attend me?"

"Hah." Jon grinned. "They're here." He raised his voice to a bellow. "Pirates!"

There was a clatter and two rapid shadows flung into the lounge.

"Aye, Master Jon!"

They spied Aelliana then and made their bows, low and respectful.

"Pilot."

"I am told that you surprised a lurker about my ship last evening. Your assistance is required now on a cold-inspection, during which you will give me the round tale."

"Yes, pilot." More bows, and attentive waiting, Yolan at Sed Ric's right hand.

Aelliana inclined her head and looked to Jon. "If Trilla should arrive, sir, will you assure her that I am eager to learn the dance and shall engage to do so, directly I return?"

Jon grinned. "I'll do that, never fear."

Her lips twitched, but she otherwise preserved her countenance. "I thank you."

She gathered the pirates with a gesture, turned and marched them out. Jon watched until the crew door cycled, then reached up and pulled down his book.

"SHE IS AFRAID OF the Tree?" Er Thom sank to the stone wall enclosing Trealla Fantrol's patio and stared at Daav out of wide purple eyes.

"Worse," Daav said ruefully. "I apprehend that the Tree holds her in severe dislike."

Er Thom digested this in silence as Daav paced from the wall to the ornamental falls and stood looking down into the tiny, frothing torrent.

His search through Korval's Diaries had been fruitless. None of the delms before him had discovered the Tree in disliking anyone, much less an all-but-signed spouse. The single hint toward the possibility of such a thing came from Grandmother Cantra's log, and even there it was writ so vague. . .

"What will you do?" Er Thom asked quietly from the wall.

Daav sighed.

"I thought," he said, coming back to sit next his brother on the warm stones. "I thought perhaps—my wife—and I—might live at the ocean house. If the ocean pales before the matter is done, there is the chalet, or even—"

"Daav."

He stopped. It took an active application of will to raise his eyes to Er Thom's.

"Hear yourself," his brother said. "Will you actually get a child upon a woman whom the Tree dislikes? What then? Shall you live at the ocean house for the rest of your days? Or only until the child is of an age to be sent off-world? How can you—"

"How can you assume that the Tree will likewise disdain the child?" Daav demanded, voice rising above Er Thom's arguments—true, just and sane, gods—"The child will be yos'Phelium, and yos'Phelium guards the Tree! There is no proof—" His voice squeezed out and he remembered, all too vividly, his hand, held there against the Tree, and how cold, how inhumanly cold. . .

"You chart a chancy course, darling," he said, sounding sullen as a halfling in his own ears. "Whenever did you ask the Tree's aye of Anne?"

"And yet we both know," Er Thom said after a moment, "that the Tree approves Anne. Your point is moot."

Daav closed his eyes; opened them and held out a hand. "It is, and ill-natured, besides. I—"

"What's wrong?" Anne was halfway across the patio, and moving fast, her face etched in worry, her eyes on Er Thom.

Her lifemate came to his feet in a fluid rush, went forward and caught her hands in his. "Anne—"

She allowed herself to be stopped, though the look she threw Daav was anything but calm.

"What's
wrong
?" she demanded once more, staring down into Er Thom's face.

"It is—" But here Er Thom faltered and flung a helpless glance to Daav, who slid to his feet, showing empty palms.

"It is nothing," he said, pitching his voice for gentleness. "My brother and I have had one of our rare disagreements. There is no cause—"

"Don't lie to me." Standard Terran, her voice absolutely flat.

He drew a deep breath and bowed, very slightly. "And yet there is nothing you can do, should I tell you the truth."

"Then there's no harm in my hearing it," she returned, "and knowing what frightens Er Thom."

Frightens.
Daav looked to his brother. Purple eyes met his unflinchingly, showing all.

"Hah." He resumed his seat upon the wall and in a moment Er Thom did likewise, leaving Anne standing alone, hands on hips and her face filled with waiting.

"Well?"

"Well," Daav replied, looking up. He sighed. "Are you able to believe that the Tree can—make its wishes known—to those of the Line Direct?"

She stood quiet for a long moment, then went to sit beside her lifemate and placed her hand upon his knee.

"For the purposes of this discussion," she said, like the scholar she was, "it is stipulated that Jelaza Kazone the Tree is able to communicate with those of Korval's Line Direct."

"Then you may know that my brother's trouble springs from the knowledge that Jelaza Kazone the Tree has expressed a—distaste—for Samiv tel'Izak. A distaste of which she is—alas—very aware."

"Oh." She blinked, turned her head to gaze across the valley, where Jelaza Kazone could be plainly seen, stretching high into the morning sky. "That wouldn't be good, would it?"

"Not—very—good," murmured Er Thom. "No."

"Well," she said, turning back to Daav. "You have other houses. There's no need to make her uncom—"

"There must not be a child born unsanctioned by the Tree!" Er Thom cried.

"Yes, but, love, Shan wasn't sanctioned by the Tree," Anne pointed out with shocking calm. "I don't—" She stopped abruptly, staring from one pair of serious eyes to the other.

"I think," she said finally, and a bit breath-short, "that I have to draw the line at a galaxy-wide telepathy."

Daav inclined his head. "Say then that Er Thom, who as a child was used to climb all over the Tree, had been far too well-trained to choose other than one who would meet approval."

"Then," Anne asked reasonably, "what happened to you?"

Daav lifted a brow. "I beg your pardon?"

"What happened to you?" She repeated, and used a long forefinger to point, one to the other. "You were raised side-by-side, learned the same things, ate the same things,
memorized
the same things. Interchangeable parts, made by the delm's wisdom, so Korval could go on, if one of you happened to die!" Her voice was keying upward. Er Thom stirred, raising a hand toward her cheek.

"Interchangeable," Daav said. "Not exact."

She glared, though it seemed to him her eyes were not—precisely—focussed. "Call it off."

So simple. It struck at the core of him and he came upright before he knew what he did, shaking with—with—"I must have a child!" He heard raw anguish in his voice and swallowed, closing his eyes and seeking after the Rainbow.

"But not
this
child," Anne pursued relentlessly. "You and Er Thom are the sons of identical twins, so close there's no choosing between you. Er Thom and I are lifemates, hooked by the soul, so I can feel his touch halfway across the house—and more!" She paused and Daav opened his eyes, meeting her fey gaze with fascination.

"Where is your lifemate, Daav yos'Phelium?"