Scout's Progress (38 page)

". . . shall continue until such time as the Houses of Solcintra or that ruling body which may succeed it revoke, cancel or otherwise make null and void this . . ."

The thunder began to fizz; she felt her bruised attention slip and thankfully crossed over to that other place which was neither sleep nor waking.

". . .IT NEVER OCCURRED to me that she
didn't
know who you were," Frad said. "We tried to get her to rouse you, but she'd have none of it, and—forgive me—it began to seem like bed-sport gone awry. In any wise, darling, here's Jon telling us she came to him the first time fresh from rough usage, and if you're looking for the villain, I'd advise you to lay money on the nadelm." He made a wry face.

"As it happens, you have money to lay. The pilot left a cantra for you here."

Daav remembered to breathe. "A cantra?"

"Your share, so she tells it, of yesterday's work-fee."

He closed his eyes. "Gods."

"Just so. Now you see what comes of mumming innocents. Do you go?"

"At once." He shook himself and looked into Frad's bland, efficient face. "A car, at the main gate of Korval's Chonselta Yard, in an hour."

Frad inclined his head. "Done."

. . .DIRECT STIMULATION. The Learning Module utilizes direct-brain stimulation . . . 

Conceive the brain as a series of relay stations, engaged or not engaged by thought. The Learning Module targets those stations currently disengaged, fills them sequentially and moves on, in theory allowing each station sufficient opportunity to recover from this assault upon its sensibilities. The Learning Module does not approach those stations engaged in cognition, or those concerned with life support.

Within the darkness of the void, Aelliana reached forth her thought and created a star.

And around this star, she placed a world which ran in elliptical orbit, its rotation rate once in eighteen hours, time of orbit transit, four hundred and eighty-five Standard Days.

To the world, she gave a moon, and to the moon a spin three hundred and four days in duration, while it circled its principal once every twenty-two hours.

She held the little system in her mind, painstakingly calculating each orbit, weighing each relationship, adjusting mass and pull and finally, the spin-rate of the little moon.

When all was stable, balanced and beautiful, she added a second world.

Somewhere, there was thunder. Her concentration wavered, the worlds faltered in their carefully-calculated courses. She caught them, replaced them, checked—rechecked—the relational equations; reconsidered certain mathematical alliances and necessities.

The thunder receded.

In time, she added a third world.

Then a fourth.

She populated the second world, strung space stations like Festival lights, ringed the system with beacons and waystations, created satellites and traffic patterns.

In her head, the numbers danced, the equations pure as poetry.

She spun an asteroid pod, skated it 'round the sun, calculating trajectories, stress breakage, possible strikes upon populated areas.

There was no thunder. There was no Code. There was her creation and the vital necessity to keep all in balance—to calculate and continue to calculate, each nuance and effect.

Aelliana—was.

TEN MINUTES TO CHANGE from house clothes to the formal costume appropriate for one delm's official call upon another. Daav knotted the silver ribbon in his hair, caught up his cloak and was gone, the door to his apartment snapping closed behind him.

Dragon's Cub
was free-berthed beyond the formal gardens. It was barely more than a Jump-buggy, but it would do very well for this particular mission. He would worry about assuaging his gardener's injured feelings once he knew Aelliana was well.

He was moving down the main hallway at just under a run, when Mr. pel'Kana stepped out of the smaller receiving parlor.

"If Your Lordship pleases."

Daav shook his head. "I am in great haste. Pray make my excuses to whomever has called."

But Mr. pel'Kana did not bow obedience. Rather, he extended a hand, fingers curled in supplication.

"Please, Master Daav," he said, softly. "I think you will want to speak to the lady."

He blinked, catching himself in mid-stride. "Lady?"

Aelliana?
Had she discovered him after all and come to ask his aid, while Jon and Frad and Clonak fretted for her safety? He changed course and swept into the parlor.

Samiv tel'Izak spun away from her contemplation of the mantle - or possibly of Korval's shield, hung above it—and came three steps toward him, one hand outflung.

"Please," she said, voice none too steady in the mode of Comrades. "Please, I—you must help me."

 
The cops called young Tor An to bail me out, which he did, right enough, and all according to co-pilot's duty. When we were free of the place, he read me such a scold as I haven't heard since nursery. Puppy.
He was right, too.

—Excerpted from Cantra yos'Phelium's Log Book

HE CHECKED, AND in that moment took note of her face, which was strained, pale, with black circles under her eyes, her muscles etched in exhaustion.

"Samiv, what has happened?" He hardly thought, answering Comrade with Comrade.

"I. . ." Her eyes filled and she glanced aside, blinking. "Forgive me."

"Freely—and you must return the grace at once. I am in desperate haste. Word has come that—one to whom I sit co-pilot may be in peril. I must be gone in moments."

She was a pilot: Guild rule was as natural to her as breath. Her eyes leapt to his.

"Of course, you must go at once! I will—" She gasped, eyes widening.

"Hold, you say
the Caylon
is in peril?"

Daav lifted an eyebrow. "And who told you, I wonder, that I am the Caylon's co-pilot?"

She moved a hand. "The tape was on in the Guildroom when I came through. In what way is she imperilled?"

Daav felt his face tighten. "An illegal attempt was made to seal her ship. Last report was that she had gone to treat with the party involved. Who is known to have beaten her in the past."

He had not thought it possible for Samiv to pale further.

"I see," she said, flatly. "Who flies with you?"

"There is only myself here, and to tarry even for my cha'leket seemed wasteful of minutes."

"Which I have now wasted for you." She moved forward, resolute. "By your leave, I will sit your second. If the peril is extreme, I may be of use."

And so she might be
, he allowed,
if Aelliana . . . 

"Quickly, then," he said, and spun toward the door.

RAN ELD DID NOT come down to Prime, but was served in his apartment, as was his custom when the delm was from home. Voni sat at the head of the table, as was
her
custom when the delm was from home, though she displayed appetite for neither her dinner nor the game of correcting her junior's manners. But, thought Sinit, it might be that she pined for her favorite target of ridicule.

Sinit considered asking after news of Aelliana's return. Indeed, she spent some minutes as she drank her soup, examining phrasing appropriate to the task. In the end, however, nothing seemed quite safe enough to venture. She did not think either Voni or Ran Eld knew of the amazing and adventurous life Aelliana lived, over on the other side of the world, as neither was an aficionado of the news wires, and they would not, Sinit vowed, hear of it from her.

It was of course, terribly exciting to learn that Aelliana
regularly
flew with Daav yos'Phelium, as reported on the pilot's wire. Sinit had taken advantage of her trip the library that afternoon to look Daav yos'Phelium up in the newest edition of the Book of Clans.

Korval Himself
sat co-pilot to Aelliana, which was honor to Mizel, but Voni would only see that Korval's attention belonged to her and Aelliana had stolen her rights. Ran Eld would say something vile and perhaps slap Aelliana for rising above her place. Ran Eld
did
strike Aelliana, Sinit had seen him do so, twice, no matter if the delm chose to hear of it.

"This dinner is vile!" Voni snapped from the head of the table. "Really, the cook takes liberties with my good nature when the delm is from home!" She rose, flinging her napkin into her soup bowl.

"
You
may continue, if you can stomach such swill!" she told Sinit. "I shall retire to my room. I have a headache. Pray, disturb me for no one!"

Sinit looked up at her. "All right. May I have your popover, then? Mine was excellent."

"Repellant brat," Voni uttered, and swept tragically from the room.

STRAIGHT FROM THE lawn they lifted, the little craft hurtling upward with no such niceties as gradual acceleration. Korval flew a brutal course, at a trajectory only a Scout would think sane. Samiv kept her board, exhaustion dissolved by adrenaline.

"Can you tell me now," he said softly, hands quick and certain on his controls, "what it is I must help you resolve?"

She swallowed, eyes on the readouts, and it helped, someway, not to have to meet his gaze as she said it.

"I . . . dream. Frightening dreams. The Healers—send me to face my terror."

There was a small pause. "Which is myself?"

"No." She licked her lips. "I—believe—it is your Tree." She took a breath, fighting tears that came all too easily, these last days. "I resigned my contract on
Luda Soldare
—I could not sleep, my reactions are—in question. I could not endanger the ship. . ."

"Of course not," he agreed and it was uncannily comforting, hearing that said in his deep, rough voice. Samiv closed her eyes briefly, opened them again to the necessity of her board.

"One's delm desires the alliance, of course. I—I would ask your leave to—before the lines are signed—to approach the Tree and—and assure myself that it is—only—a tree."

"Ah. But it is not, you know,
only
a tree." He was silent for a moment, then, "Is your delm aware that you have brought this to me?"

She looked over to him; saw only the side of his face, and the quick, sure hands on the board.

"My delm is—certain—the dreams will abate, once the contract is signed."

"I see." He sighed, and flicked her another of his bold, uninforming looks. "Your board to me, if you will. Thank you. In regard to our present mission—there is a firearm in the pocket beside you. It would be best to check it now, so there are no surprises, if you must use it."

She stared at him, at the eyes that told her nothing. "You think—"

He moved his head from side to side. "We may find that all is well, in which case we will merely be called upon to drink tea and display our manners."

Samiv pulled the gun from its nest. "But you do not expect that."

"I don't," he said gently. "All my life, I've been plagued by hunches. From time to time, one does prove to be merely indigestion." He cast her a glance that seemed rather too full of amusement. "Korval
is
mad, you know."

Samiv looked down and cracked the gun.

SOMEWHERE IN THE beatitude of equations, a chime sounded. Sometime later, there was light.

Aelliana detached a portion of her attention from the problem of the retrograde planet and raised heavy arms, stiff fingers groping against—nothing.

The dome of the Learning Module was open. It took a moment to understand the significance of that.

She was free.

Free belonged to the subset of things which are precious beyond rubies.

Aelliana flung herself up, crying out as her body simultaneously reported every bruise she had gained from her encounter with her brother, and the additional information that she was hideously thirsty.

The room reeled. She clawed the staggered data into sense, lurched toward a low table, hefted a heavy vase full of wilting flowers and lurched back to the Learning Module.

Flowers and solution went into the program box, which fizzed, smoked and popped. She raised the vase in both hands, swung it at the control dials. Her first attempt failed to connect; the force of the missed blow kicked her legs out from under her and she went face-first into the carpet.

Gagging, she clawed her way to her knees, got her hands around the vase once more and smashed at the controls.

The blow connected, hard enough to dent the faceplate. Aelliana whimpered, the controls twisting in and out of perspective. She raised the vase, staring at the main dial, forcing herself to see it through the images that flickered and flashed before her mind's eye. The dial steadied and she swung with all her might.

Glass broke, instrumentation screamed, shrilly, and went silent.

Aelliana dropped the vase, hung onto the edge of the Learning Module and lurched to her feet, staring round at a room that spun out of sense, objects pulsating, edges attenuating into nothingness, the image of a star system she had never seen superimposed over everything and she struggled—struggled to recall. Something. Something—important.

It was dim in the room . . . dark outside the gaping window. Something. Numbers, strung together in the shape of a personal comm code, and a deep, beloved voice, whispering from memory, "Call me, Aelliana, should you have need. . ."

There was a comm in the study. She knew that. Over—over by the window. Yes. She could see the window, through the pulsating stars. First one foot. . .

She fell over a table, lost her balance and hit the floor amid an avalanche of bric-a-brac. Panting, she got to her knees, oriented herself and crawled the rest of the way to the window. Once there, she pulled herself upright with the aid of a built in bookcase, put her hand flat on its top surface and inched forward, feeling for the comm.

Her fingers touched cool plastic. She bit her lip. Numbers. Daav's comm code. All she need do was code the number into the comm, here beneath her hand. Daav would help her.

Thought formed. There was danger. Danger in using the house comm. Scouts. Ran Eld. Ran Eld would harm Daav.