The Crystal Variation (127 page)

Jethri took a breath—another one, centering himself. Pen Rel had sworn three solemn swears that centering and right breathing would all come natural to him, with practice.
If I keep the current course
, Jethri thought irritably,
I’ll be in practice and back out again before the shift changes.

“Much better,” Miandra approved, as if he’d said something fortunate.

“Anger is a powerful tool,” Meicha added, like that made everything clear and wonderful. She reached out and grabbed his hand, her fingers surprisingly strong.

“Come along, Jethri, do. I promise, only a short walk, then you may rest and refresh yourself and frown at us all you like—”

“While we entertain you with tales of Ren Lar and his beloved vines, and give you the benefit of our—”

“Vast—”

“Sorrowful—”

“Experience.”

He looked from one to the other, and thought he saw the glimmer of a joke around the edges of their eyes.

“Ren Lar pushes the crew hard, does he?” he asked lightly, thinking of the soft-spoken, dreamy-eyed man he’d met last night at prime meal.

“Ren Lar lives for the vines,” Meicha said solemnly. “Pan Dir swore to us that he was given in contract to the mother vine, with the child—that being Pet Ric—coming to the house, naturally enough, so that the vines should never want for aught.”

She sounded so much like Khat on the approach to a story that he almost laughed out loud. He did smile and move one shoulder. “Pan Dir was having fun with you, I think.”

“I think so, too,” Miandra said briskly. “I also think that
I
am hungry, and that nuncheon awaits us.”

“And that time marches,” her sister agreed. She pulled on Jethri’s hand. “Come, son of ven’Deelin. It is a churlish guest who starves the children of the house.”

There really wasn’t anything else to do. Vowing to keep his head down and his eyes on his plate, Jethri let himself be pulled along, freighter to Meicha’s tug.

The trees made the thing tolerable, when all was counted and tallied. They were tall trees—old, said Miandra; older even than Aunt Stafeli—and their wide-reaching branches broke the sky into manageable pieces, if a spacer should happen to look up too quick, or too high.

The “lovely, cold nuncheon” was set out on a table at the garden’s center. There was a wall, as he had been promised, well grown with flowering vines and other creepers.

“Summer is before us still,” Miandra said, as they mounted the dias and pulled out their chairs. “Not all the flowers are in bloom, now. At the height of the season, you can see nothing but flowers, and the air is sweet with their scent.”

The twins ate with a delicate intensity that made him feel clumsy and over-large until he forgot about it in the amazements of the meal.

There was nothing that he ate that he would not have willingly eaten more of, though he found particular favor with a few tasties. He asked the twins the name of each, to their clear approval.

“Learn the names of the things you favor, first,” Meicha said. “There is all the time you like, to learn the names of those things you care for less.”

Finally, they each come to enough, and Miandra poured them all refills of grape juice, and settled back in her chair.

“So,” Jethri said, trying to keep an eye pinned on each. “Ren Lar is unkind?”

“Never think so!” That was Meicha. “Ren Lar is capable of great kindness.”

“The most of which,” Miandra continued, “is reserved for his vines and his vintages, and then a bit for his heir.”

“Aunt Stafeli figures there, too, I think. But, yes, Ren Lar principally cares for the vines, which is to the good of the house, for wine is our wealth. Whereupon hangs our tragic tale.”

“It was,” Miandra said, sipping her juice, “our own fault.”

“We didn’t know our own strength,” Meicha returned, which might have been excuse or explanation.

“Still, we knew that
some
thing might happen, and our choice of target was . . .”

“Infelicitous.”

“Extremely.”

Jethri considered them over the rim of his glass. “Are you going to tell me what happened,” he asked, like he was their senior, which he had an uneasy feeling he wasn’t, no matter how the Standards fell. “Or talk to yourselves all shift?”

They laughed.

“He wants a round tale, and no foolishness!” Meicha crowed. “You tell it for us, sister.”

“Well.” Miandra moved her shoulders and sat up, putting her glass on the table.

“Understand, this happened at the start of last year—planetary year, that would be, not Standard.”

Jethri inclined his head to show that he did indeed understand.

“So. It was a few weeks later in the season than it is now, and we—with the entire rest of the household who could wield shears—were in the vineyard, pruning the vines.”

“Which is tedious, at best,” Meicha put in, “and horrid, at worst.”

Her sister turned to look at her, eyebrows well up.

“I thought this was mine to tell?’

The other girl blinked, then inclined her head. “Forgive me. Indeed, it is yours to tell.”

Miandra inclined her head in turn, and took up her tale.

“As Meicha says, pruning is no task to love—unless one is Ren Lar, who loves everything to do with the vines. Alas, neither of us is Ren Lar, and while we may respect the vines, I believe it is fair to say that Flinx holds a higher place in our personal affections.”

“
Far
higher,” Meicha declared, irrepressible.

Miandra sipped juice, pointedly ignoring her, and put the cup down.

“We had been some days at the pruning, and some hours on this particular day, having risen early to the work, and it came to me—I cannot quite say how it should have done—that I loathed pruning the vines and that it would be much more convenient, and far less tedious, if I could simply will the work done.” She sat up straight and looked Jethri right in the eye.

“I felt a certain, let us say, heat rise in my blood, my fingers, my toes, and my head fair tingled. My shears dropped to the ground, and I stood, quivering. Meicha asked me what I was about, but I was unable to do anything, but reach out and grasp her hand, and direct my thought at the rows of vines that Ren Lar had said we should prune that day.”

It was a good place to pause for dramatic affect—and pause she did, much to Jethri’s admiration. It was an interesting story, if different than Khat’s usual, and he was enjoying himself. Two more heartbeats, and he realized that he was behind hand in his duty.

“What happened?” he asked.

Miandra inclined her head. “Nothing. Or so we thought then. Wearily, and now both afflicted with the headache, we picked up our shears and set back in to work.” She paused, briefly.

“Three days later, we found that we had been wrong—we
had
wrought something, after all. Every one of the vines we had tended that day had died, and Ren Lar was as angry as I have ever seen him. Aunt Stafeli banned us from the vines until a Healer could be summoned to test us. Ren Lar . . .” She faltered.

After a moment, Meicha said, softly. “It is true that in the old days, when such things were possible, that Ren Lar might well have mated with the mother vine. He mourned the fallen as if they were his own children.” She shivered slightly. “Indeed, he mourns them still.”

“And we,” Miandra said, calm again, “are now in training to be Healers.” She lifted the chain up from around her neck, so the ruby spun in the sunlight. “As you may see.”

Not too bad
, thought Jethri appreciatively, and inclined his head.

“I am instructed by your tale,” he said, seriously. “But, as I have no such unusual talent, I think that the vines will be safe with me.”

Meicha grinned. “The vines will be safe with you, friend Jethri. For be sure that Ren Lar will not allow you to leave his sight while you are in his vineyard.”

“HE KNEW YOUR NAME?”
Grig sounded worried, and Seeli sighed, mentally giving herself a quick kick for having mentioned the headcase at all.

“Not exactly a secret, is it?” she asked. “My name’s on the clearances and the licenses, all on public file—’s’what Admin does, ain’t it?”

“Still, him stopping you in the street and wanting to talk fractins . . .”

“Headcase,” she said firmly. “Took the idea the
Market
was shipping fractins, and set out to do something about it. Said he was going to call on our trader. Luck to him, is what I hope, ‘specially if he’s hopin’ to buy fractins from Paitor.”

“No problem Paitor selling him fractins, if fractins is what he’ll have,” Grig said, taking a sip of his brew. “Simple broker deal. Must be three, four warehouses of ‘em on port here.”

“That’s why he’s a headcase,” Seeli pointed out, glad that his thought was tending that way. Grig was a good man—none better—but he did like his theories and conspiracies. “He wants game pieces, port’s prolly full of them, and no need to suppose that
Market’s
carryin’ the motherload.”

Grig looked at her, not saying anything.

“
What
?” she snapped, exasperated.

He moved his eyes. “Nothing. Likely nothing. Just—take a cab, Seeli, willya? Man being a headcase don’t excuse him from being quick to grab.”

Seeli smiled, and had a slow sip of brew. “Think I can’t hold my own against some spacer, Grig Tomas?”

He smiled back, eyes warming in that way she especially liked. “Want to prove otherwise?”

Day 145

DAY 145

Standard Year 1118

Kinaveral

THEY WERE HAVING
themselves a quiet meal—Grig and Khat and Seeli—talking over the events of the day, of which there hadn’t been that many, and figuring out the share-work for the next while.

“Port’s got me scheduled for a long-fly, week after next,” Khat said, putting her finger down on the grid they had on the table between them. “Liaden edge, near enough. Top rate. Bonus, too. Be good for the bank and I’d like to go, just for the jig of it. Getting tired of station shuttles and ferry-jobs.”

Seeli craned her head to read the grid upside down. “Five days out?”

“If you need me down here, I’ll tell ‘em to find somebody else. No problem, Seeli.”

“I don’t see any reason to do that. Got the monthly comin’ up, but Grig was wantin’ to do the walk-through. Got that all straight with the yard-boss, so he can’t squawk crew-change and lock us out.”

“Man’s a couple decimals short of an orbit,” Khat muttered.

“Yard’s top-rated, though,” Grig said. “Which is enough to keep a body awake at night.”

Seeli slanted him a look. “Is that what’s keepin’ you awake at night?”

He gave her the Full Dignified, nose tipped up, and slightly wrinkled, mouth rumpled like he’d tasted something slightly bad. “That, and certain importunate young persons.”

She slapped her hand flat on the table. “
Importunate
, is it? I’ll importunate you, Grig Tom—”

“Ho, the ship!” came the hail from the outer room.

“Paitor!” Khat yelled. “In the galley! Grab a brew and tell us the news!”

In he came, looking dusty and tired, gave a general nod of hi-there, threw his jacket over the back of an unclaimed chair and made a line for the cold-box.

“Handwich makin’s there, too, Paitor, if you’re peckish,” Grig said, quiet and serious of a sudden.

“Brew’s fine,” the other man said, coming back to the table with one in his hand. He dropped into the chair, broke the seal on the bottle and had a long drink.

“That’s good,” he sighed, leaning back, eyes slitted, though if it was in pleasure or plain exhaustion Khat couldn’t have said.

“What’s the news, Uncle?” Seeli asked, quiet, like Grig had been. Feeling out trouble, Khat thought, considering the slump of Paitor’s shoulders.

He sighed, and straightened, and got his eyes opened.

“Funny thing,” he said, and it was Grig he was looking at. “You might find it so. Fella come by Terratrade today, asking for me by name. They sent him on up. Turns out he was in the market for fractins.”

“The headcase,” Seeli said, understanding, and reached for her brew. “I hope you sold him a warehouse full, and at a favorable price, too. Ship’s General could use the cash.”

He flicked a glance at her, then back to Grig. “I’d’ve done that, but it was special fractins he was after.”

Grig shrugged, expressionless, and Khat felt something with lots of cold feet run down her spine.

“Seems what this fella was after, was Arin’s fractins. Said he was willing to offer a handsome sum—he named it, and it was. Told him I couldn’t oblige, that Arin’s son had everything Arin had cared to leave behind, and the boy was ‘prenticed to another ship.”

There was a small pause, growing longer, as Paitor waited for Grig to say something.

Eventually, the lanky crewman shrugged again. “Should’ve been an end to it, then.”

“Should’ve,” Paitor agreed. “Wasn’t. ‘stead what he wants to know is if we got any other Befores on trade. Especially, he’s interested in light-wands and duplicating units.”

Grig laughed, sharp and ugly. “Man’s a fool.”

“Headcase,” Seeli said again. “Told you.”

“Close enough,” Grig agreed, and reached for his brew.

“I’m asking,” Paitor said, his hands folded ‘round his own bottle and the knuckles showing, Khat saw, a shade or two pale.

Grig looked up and put the brew down. “Ask it, then.”

“Was Arin dealing old tech?” The words came out kinda gritty and tight.

Grig lifted an eyebrow. “Dirt makin’ you squeamish? Never took cash for a fractin, I guess.”

Paitor took a hard breath, lifted his brew and had another long drink, thumping the bottle back to the table, empty. Khat got up and went to the cold-box, pulled four new bottles and brought them back to the table. She broke the seal on one and put it in front of Paitor, took another for herself and sat down. Across the table, Seeli was sitting tall, looking a frown between Paitor and Grig.

“Sure, I sold ‘em—a piece of this, a part of that,” Paitor said at last, his eyes pegged to Grig’s. “Maybe a frame an’ some fractins. Who knows what they were, or what they did?”

“I thought you wasn’t a believer.”