The Crystal Variation (138 page)

Jethri cleared his throat; her eyes focused on his face.

“Yet, they are still arguing—your aunt and your cousin. About the two of you?”

“About
me
,” Miandra said, with a depth of bitterness that startled him. Meicha reached down and put her hand on her sister’s shoulder, but said nothing.

“It is well enough, to be a Healer,” Miandra continued after a moment, her voice less bitter, though her eyes sparked anger. “But to be of the dramliz, here on Irikwae—that . . .” Her voice faded.

“Is untenable,” Meicha finished quietly. “Irikwae was colonized by those clans who felt that the dramliz should be . . . should be . . .”

“Eradicated,” Miandra said, and the bitterness was back in her voice. “It was believed that a mutation which allowed one such . . . abilities—that such a mutation endangered the entire gene pool. A purge was called for. The matter went to the Council of Clans, in very Solcintra, and debate raged for days, for who is truly easy in the presence of one who might hear your thoughts, or travel from port to center city in the blink of an eye? Korval Herself led the opposition, so the history texts tell us, and at last prevailed. The existing dramliz were allowed to live, unsterilized. The clans of the dramliz retained their rights of contract marriage, mixing their genes with the larger pool as they saw fit. And a guild was formed, much like the pilots guild, or traders guild, which gave the dramliz protection as a valuable commercial enterprise.”

“The dissenting clans,” Meicha said after a moment, “left the homeworld, and colonized Irikwae. At first, there was a ban on Healers, too. That was eventually lifted, as it became apparent that Healers worked for . . . social stability . . .”

Mentally breathless, Jethri held up a hand.

“Give me a little time,” he said, and his voice sounded breathless, too. “Terrans do not commonly run to these mutations. You are the first Healer—and dramliza—I have encountered, and I am still not certain that I understand why one person who does things which are impossible is favored, while another, who does things which are just as impossible, is—feared.”

Miandra actually grinned. “Prejudice is not necessarily responsive to cold reason—as you surely know.”

He gaped at her, and Meicha laughed.

“Are all grounders stupid? Why else would they live among the mud and the smells and the weather?”

“Ouch,” he said, but mildly, because they were right—or had been right. “I am—growing accustomed—on that front, as well. Learning takes time.”

“So it—” Meicha began—and froze, head turning toward the door.

It came again, a scratching noise, as if a file were being applied, lightly, to the hall side face of the door.

Jethri rose and crossed the room. Hand on the latch, he sent a glance to the twins, sitting alert in their places. Miandra moved her hand, motioning him to open the door.

All right, then. He snapped the lock off and turned the latch, opening the door wide enough to look out into—

An empty hall.

Frowning, he looked down. Eyes the color of peridot gleamed up at him; and something else as well.

Jethri stepped back. Flinx pranced across the threshold, head high, silver chain held in his mouth, ruby dragging on the floor beneath his belly. As soon as he was inside, Jethri closed and locked the door. By the time he turned back to the room, Flinx had reached Miandra.

She sat perfectly still as the big cat put his front feet on her knee. Slowly, she extended a hand and Flinx bent his head, dropping the chain on her palm.

“My thanks,” she said, softly, and held it high. The melted ruby spun slowly in the light, glittering.

“Flinx is proud of himself,” Meicha said. “Aunt Stafeli had thrown it in the bin for the incinerator.”

Jethri came forward and knelt on the carpet next to Miandra and the cat. Flinx left the girl’s knee and danced over to butt him in the thigh. Miandra looked up at him, blue eyes curious.

“May I see it?” he asked, and she put the chain in his hand without hesitation.

He sat back on his haunches and gave the thing some study. The fine silver links were neither deformed nor blackened. The ruby was—distorted, asymmetrical, the bottom bloated, as if it were an overfull water bulb, the force of the liquid within it distending the bulb nearly to the bursting point.

“So,” he said, handing it back. “How did you do that?”

She moved her shoulders. “I—am not precisely certain. It—it may be that the gem, the facets, served as a focus for the power I expended but—I do not know!” she cried, sudden and shocking. “I need to be trained, before I—before . . . And all Aunt Stafeli will say is that I must be a Healer and a Healer only.” She bent her head. “She does not know what it is like,” she whispered. “I am—I am a danger.”

He considered her. “Even if you cannot be trained on Irikwae, there are other places, isn’t that so? Places where the guild of dramliz is recognized?”

“There are those a-plenty,” Meicha said after Miandra had said nothing for half-a-dozen heartbeats. “The challenge lies in persuading Aunt Stafeli—and there we have been unsuccessful.”

“What about Ren Lar?”

Meicha grimaced. “Worse and worse.”

“Ren Lar,” whispered Miandra, “sees the dramliz as no more nor less dangerous than the old technology.” She laughed suddenly, and looked Jethri in the eye.

“Well, he is not so far in the wrong as that.”

Despite himself, he grinned, then let it fade as he rocked off his knees and sat down on the carpet, crossing his legs in an awkward imitation of her pose.

“What about Master ven’Deelin?” he asked.

Two pair of sapphire blue eyes stared at him, blankly.

“What about her, I wonder?” asked Meicha.

“Well, she hails from Solcintra, on Liad, where the dramliz are allowed to go about their business unimpeded. She’s your aunt’s fosterling—who better to escort you?”

“Hear the lad,” Miandra murmured, on a note of awe. “Sister—”

“We are still impeded,” said Meicha. “Well to say that the ven’Deelin will escort you, yet it is empty hope unless Aunt Stafeli may be persuaded to let you go.”

“Norn ven’Deelin is a master trader,” Jethri commented, stroking Flinx’s head while the big cat stood on his knee and purred.

“And master traders are all that is persuadable,” Meicha concluded and inclined her head. “I take your point and raise another.”

He moved his free hand in the gesture that meant “go on.”

She took a deep breath. “It comes to me that Norn ven’Deelin—all honor to her!—may not love dramliz. Recall your first meal with us? And the ven’Deelin all a-wonder that there were dramliz in the house.”

He had a particularly sharp memory of that meal, and he thought back on it now, looking for nuance he had been ill-able to detect, then . . .

“I think, perhaps,” he said slowly, “that she was . . . joking. Earlier in the day—just before we met in the hall—I had understood that Lady Maarilex was about to read her a ringing scold for—for fostering a Terran and breaking with tradition. Seeing dramliz at the table, it might be that she merely remarked that she was not the only one who had broken with tradition.”

“Hah,” said Meicha, and bent her head to look at Miandra, who sat silent, running her chain through her fingers, eyes absent.

Jethri skritched Flinx under the chin.

“I judge that Jethri has the right of it,” Miandra said abruptly. “Norn ven’Deelin has Aunt Stafeli’s mark upon her. It is too much to hope that she would forgo her point, when the cards were delivered to her hand.”

“True.” Meicha slid back into her chair, looking relaxed for the first time since they had tumbled into his room. “The ven’Deelin is due back with us at the end of next relumma.”

Jethri sent a glance to Miandra. “Can you hold so long?”

She moved her shoulders. “I will do what I might, though I must point out the possibility that the Scout Lieutenant will seek Balance.”

“He would not dare!” Meicha declared stoutly. “Come against Aunt Stafeli in Balance? He is a fool if he attempts it.”

“Jethri had already established him as a fool,” Miandra pointed out. “And it was not Balance against the House that concerns me.”

Meicha stared at her.

“He may try me, if he likes,” Jethri said, the better part of his attention on Flinx.

“You are not concerned,” Miandra murmured, and it was not a question. He looked up and met her eyes.

“Not overly, no. Though—I regret. He threatened you, and I did not understand that at the time. You need not be concerned, either.”

Silence. Then Meicha spoke, teasing.

“You have a champion, sister.”

“It was kindly meant,” Miandra said placidly, and, deliberately, as if she had reached a firm decision, put the silver chain over her head. The deformed ruby swung once against her jersey, then stilled.

“I would like to hear more of this Scout captain you invoked over the head of the so-kind lieutenant,” she said.

“I met him when I jumped off the edge of Kailipso Station,” he began, and tipped his head, recalled of a sudden to his manners. “Would you like some tea?”

“Masterful!” Meicha crowed. “You have missed your trade, Jethri! You should ‘prentice to a teller of tales.”

He made his face serious, like he was considering it. “I don’t think I’d care for that, really,” he said, which earned him another crow of laughter.

“Wretch! Yes, tea, by all means—and hurry!”

Grinning, he put Flinx on the carpet and unwound, moving toward the galley. There, he filled the tea-maker, pulled the tray from its hanger and put cups on it. He added the tin of cookies Mrs. tor’Beli had given him a few days ago—it had been full, then; now it was about half-full. The tea-maker chimed at him; he put the pot on the tray and carried it out to the main room, being very careful of where he set his feet, in case Flinx should suddenly arrive to do his dance around Jethri’s ankles.

He needn’t have worried about that. The cat was sitting tall on the floor next to Miandra, tail wrapped tightly around his toes, intently observing the plates of goodies set out on the cloth from his table. The twins had set his neglected dinner out like party food. He grinned and went forward.

Meicha leapt to her feet and handed the cups, pot and tin down to Miandra, who placed them on the cloth. Jethri put the tray on the table and sat on the carpet between the two of them, accepting a cup of tea from Miandra with a grave inclination of his head.

“My thanks.”

Meicha passed him a goody plate and he pinched one of the cheese roll-ups he was partial to and passed the plate around to Miandra. When they were all provided with food and tea, and each of them had taken a sip and a bite, Miandra looked up with a definite gleam in her eye.

“And, now, sir, you
will
tell us about your Scout captain and how it was you came to jump off the edge of a spacestation!”

He hid the grin behind another sip of tea. “Certainly,” he murmured, as dignified as could be. “It happened this way . . .”

Day 166

DAY 166

Standard Year 1118

Elthoria

“MASTER TRADER,
the captain bids me deliver this message to you.” The first mate’s voice was somber, and it was that which drew Norn ven’Deelin’s attention away from the file she had under study. Gaenor tel’Dorbit was not a somber woman, and while she enjoyed a contract of pleasure with the librarian Norn had specifically instructed to deny her to all seekers, it could hardly be supposed that his
melant’i
was so lacking that he had let his paramour by on a mere whim.

Norn sighed. Somber first mates and disobedient, dutiful librarians. Surely, the universe grew too complex. She looked up.

Gaenor tel’Dorbit bowed and produced from her sleeve a folded piece of green priority paper.

The paper crackled as Norn received it and glanced at the routing line.

“Hah,” she said, extending it. “Pray have communications forward this to my son at Irikwae.”

The first mate bit her lip. “Master Trader,” she said, more somberly, if possible, than previously, “the captain bids me deliver this message to you.”

Oh, and indeed? Norn looked again at the routing: from Khatelane Gobelyn. The pilot cousin, was it not? And the same who had written before. That she sent now a priority message—that was notable. It was also notable that it had been some days in transit, for Khatelane had sent it to Avrix, where
Elthoria
would have been, had the schedule not been amended.

She glanced up at Gaenor tel’Dorbit, who was watching her with no small amount of anticipation. It came to her that Gaenor read Terran well and would certainly have been asked by the communications officer to vet a message written in Terran. She had also taken a liking to Jethri himself, saying that he reminded her pleasantly of the young brothers she left at home. Which handily explained, Norn thought, Kor Ith yo’Lanna’s involvement in the proper disposition of a letter meant for a mere apprentice of trade.

“I expect,” she said gently to Gaenor’s tense face, “to read that Jethri’s honored mother, Captain Iza Gobelyn, has passed from this to a more gentle plane, and that Jethri is called back to his kin, to mourn.”

“Master Trader,” the first mate inclined her head slightly. “To my knowledge, the health of Jethri’s honored mother remains robust.”

Well. Obviously, she was not going to be quit of Gaenor until she had read and made some disposition of Jethri’s letter.

Leaning back in her chair, she flicked the page open and began, laboriously, to read.

Dear Jethri,

Never thought I’d be sending you a Priority, but I think I made a bad situation worse for you, so I’m sending a heads-up quick.
I’m here on Banthport at the Trade Bar and run into Keeson Trager and Coraline.

Bunch of Liadens on the place, which don’t figure, because you know as well as me, Jeth, Banth doesn’t have nothing but the gold mines. But, anyhow, lots of Liadens, and one of them hears Kee name me. Pretty boy, in a skinny, sulky sort of way. Name of Barjohn Shelgaybin, near as I can make out. Said he knows you, that you lost him a brother, and you didn’t settle up like you should’ve. Said, that being so, and me standing right there, he could take exact balance, or I could pay him four hundred cantra in compensation, which, if I could’ve done I wouldn’t’ve been at Banth on Kinaveralport business, because I’d be captain-owner of a brand-new Cezna with nothing less than twelve pod-mounts.