The Dragon Variation (59 page)

Ran Eld smiled. "I have the report on the progress of your investment, sister. Allow me to congratulate you on the timeliness of your delivery. Alas, I find I am not entirely convinced of the superiority of your Fund; it seemed to run neck-and-neck with my own."

"A twelve-day is not sufficient time to test out," Aelliana said, hating the quaver in her voice. "You know that."

"Do I? But perhaps I had forgotten. Stupid of me." He moved the papers closer, laying the sharp edges against her cheek. Aelliana shrank back, the papers followed, edges beginning to bite. She froze.

"I hear," Ran Eld said conversationally, "that you have taken to frequenting gaming places. That you tend—after receiving tuition on the subject from your elders—toward the company of Scouts. Is what I hear true, sister?"

The paper edges burned against her skin. One quick move of her brother's hand and her cheek would be sliced, eye-edge to jaw. Aelliana took a deep breath and forced herself to meet his eyes.

"How could I frequent gaming houses?" she asked, keeping her voice humble, welcoming now the despicable, cowardly quaver. It sometimes happened that Ran Eld gave over punishment, if her groveling proved sufficiently amusing. "My wages are given entirely to yourself, brother—and you even now hold the proof of what befell my quarter-share."

There was a long pause, long enough for Aelliana to feel the breath begin to thicken in her throat.

"So I do." He lifted the papers away, glanced at them—and glanced up.

"I note a copy forwarded to the delm. Why is that?"

"I—Merely I had thought it proper," she gasped. "It was Delm's Word began the venture and I—I meant no offense, only right action."

Another pause, excruciating to her quivering nerves.

"Better to err on the part of right action than to fail of giving full honor," Ran Eld allowed at last, though not as if this judgment pleased him. "I advise that there is no need to send future reports to the delm. Do you understand me?"

She bowed her head cravenly, blessing the forward-falling shroud of hair. "I understand you, brother."

"Good. Of this other matter—you will look at me, Aelliana."

Swallowing against terror, she raised her head. Gods, what if one of Ran Eld's cronies had seen her in Quenpalt's Casino? What if the tale of her win had come after all to his ears? Her ship—Ran Eld must not,
must
not, be allowed—

"I ask you again, sister, if you have not been gambling in casinos. If perhaps you had not acquired—a spaceship—through playing a game of chance with a High House lord out of Solcintra?"

"A spaceship?" She stared at him, striving for a look of rankest stupidity. "What should I do with a spaceship?"

Ran Eld's eyes bored into hers. Somehow, she endured it, feeling the weight of
Ride the Luck's
keys, hanging cold between sweat-slicked breasts.

"I thought it a wine-tale," he said at last, moving his eyes from hers. It took every erg of will not to sag against the desk and sob aloud with relief, though she did dare bow her head, and draw the curtain of her hair once again across her face.

Above her, Ran Eld sighed. "Do you recall, Aelliana, your instruction regarding Scouts?"

"I am—am only to teach those Scouts registered to my courses," she said hoarsely, "and shun their company at all other times."

"Precisely. I warn you now, sister, that it will go extremely ill with you, do I find you have disregarded this instruction. Scouts are not fit company for one of Mizel—even if that one is only yourself. Do you understand?"

"I understand," she whispered around a sudden surging desire to behold at this moment any of Binjali's crew, with a special thanks to the gods if that any should chance to be Daav or burly Jon dea'Cort.

"Very good," Ran Eld said, out of the real and dismal present. "I give you good-night, sister. Sleep well."

She raised her head sufficiently to watch him cross the room and pass through the door. The closing of that portal was like a knife against the wires of fright that held her upright.

With a dry sob, she crashed to her knees, hands flying up to cover her face as she huddled against the desk-legs and shivered.

We signed the final draft of the contract tonight. Thought they'd choke on Captain's Justice. Stupid groundlings. How do we know the length of voyage, assuming we even break out? How do we know there's any worlds left to run to? Situation like this, there has to be one voice that's law, not some damn committee. And that law has got to be in favor of the ship, and the greatest good. There can only be one captain. One voice. One law. For the best survival of the ship.

—Excerpted from Cantra yos'Phelium's Log Book
 

IT WAS RAINING
in Solcintra Port.

Aelliana ran through the downpour, less conscious of the wet than the joy that heated her blood, reducing Clan Mizel to a speck and Ran Eld Caylon to an infelicity born of a bad night's dreaming.

Here in the wakeful world, she would soon meet her co-pilot at the foot of her ship's ramp, and Liad itself would be left behind, reduced to a mathematical necessity, one of many factors supporting an equation of flight.

She reached
The Luck's
pad, raced 'round the curve to the end of the ramp—and all but cried aloud, her run shattered by dismay.

There was no tall graceful figure awaiting her at the base of the ramp, rain-jewels glittering along leathered shoulders. The gantry was empty, from tarmac to hatch. Aelliana swallowed, shivering in the dismal downpour, and walked the rest of the way forward on joy-dead feet.

To the left, a flicker of noiseless movement. Aelliana spun as Daav ducked out from beneath the ramp, leather collar turned up against the wet, long fingers dancing cheerfully.

Relief hit in a giddy wave, rocking her into laughter as she shook sodden hair away from her face.

"A very fine morning, to be sure!" She answered the silent greeting aloud. "I thought you had forgotten me!"

"No, but I have an excellent memory," he said earnestly. "Even Jon allows me that much." He sighed heavily, shoulders slumping in an attitude of exaggerated remorse. "My woeful decadence is to blame for your distress and I humbly ask pardon."

Giddy yet with the return of joy, Aelliana smiled and tipped her head, trying to read beyond the mischief in the black eyes and into the heart of the joke.

In a moment she had given it up, glancing away from a gaze that seemed to read her all too easily, while remaining a cipher to her closest study.

"Decadence?" she asked.

"Well, you see," he said, slipping past her and ghosting up the ramp, "I would much rather be dry than wet."

She choked on another laugh and followed him, pulling the keys up on their neck-chain and slipping it over her head. "I wonder that Master dea'Cort allows one so in love with comfort to work for him."

"How could you not, when Master dea'Cort wonders as much himself? Often. And loudly."

Almost she laughed again, but lost it in a tiny shiver of alarm. The landing was very thin and Daav, slim as he was, filled a significant percentage of the available space. She would need to practically lean against his chest to access the hatch panel.

As if he felt her hesitation in his own muscles, Daav pivoted sideways on the ramp, arms outstretched, one hand gripping the rail, the other resting against the hull. He grinned and inclined his head.

"Your shelter from the storm, pilot. Be quick, I beg you, else I will be wet!"

She slid by, feeling his nearness like sunlight on her back, raised the shield and fingered the first key into place. The ID board came alive. She fed in her code and seated the second key. There was a muted click and the hatch began to rise.

Aelliana pulled the keys free and turned carefully on the landing, inclining her head with a forced smile. "Quickly, before you are soaked."

"Pilot first." Daav stayed where he was, one eyebrow askance. "I've been well drilled in protocol."

Pilot first.
Aelliana blinked as the words found home, then drew a deep breath and stepped into her ship, deliberately squaring her shoulders as she did.

DAAV ENTERED THE ship;
the outer hatch cycled and locked behind him.

Before him, Aelliana hesitated on the edge of the inner hatch. He read in the set of her body an awareness that had nothing to do with wariness and saw, in one of the flashes of instinctive understanding characteristic of him, that Aelliana was poised on a precipice of change. Here and now, she was engaged in letting go of something past and potent and simultaneously reaching forth to grasp something other and infinitely precious.

He took a careful breath, and remanded himself to utter stillness, that he not distract her in the midst of this chanciest of undertakings.

That she reached toward claiming her own skills, her ship, her comrades, seemed likely. That his taking shelter beneath the ramp had precipitated this moment of change also seemed likely. Her dismay at discovering an empty ramp, and the giddy relief she showed at his appearance told the tale plainly. He wondered if she yet realized that she was speaking to him in Comrade.

Within the frame of the inner hatchway, Aelliana shifted—turned.

"Will you check the board while I go and dry myself?" she asked, as a comrade might well ask. She held out the ship keys on a link of short chain and long. Daav stepped forward and received them with a smile.

"Indeed I will."

"Thank you." She crossed the threshold into the pilot's chamber, moving left toward the companionway, wet garments clinging heavily, hinting at the shape they were meant to conceal. Daav went right, sorting the keys for the board—

"Daav?"

For the first time, his name: Intuition had not failed him. He turned, taking care to move gentle, and smiled.

"Aelliana?"

She came forward a few steps, hand outstretched, a silver gleam between the fingers.

"I had—taken your hair-ring—last evening . . ."

"Ah." He lifted a hand to touch his queue. "I have another, you see, and it seems you might put that one to good use. Keep it, of your kindness." He offered a grin. "Clonak may demand a rematch, you know."

Her eyes took fire and her mouth curved, fingers closing tight around the paltry gift.

"Thank you," she said again, and hesitated, head tipped to one side. "Clonak. Did Jon—"

"No mortal wounds," he said cheerfully. "Clonak has a gift for irritation against which even Jon is not immune."

Laughter sparkled across her face, gone in the next instant. She turned without another word and went down the companionway. After a moment, Daav went to the board and slid into the copilot's chair.

THE THICK OVERSHIRT
refused to give up its moisture.

Aelliana, who had been simultaneously warmed and dried by the 'fresher in the pilot's cabin, fingered the sodden beige item uncertainly.

The valet had done admirably by the rest of her clothing, depositing them in the out-bin pressed and smelling softly of
jazmin
.

Liked everything binjali, the chel'Mara,
she thought with a grudge of admiration as she pulled on black trousers, plain singlet and a white silk day-shirt trimmed with faded green ribbon. None of these garments was new, nor did they fit her well. Indeed, in the absence of the overshirt, the trousers required severe belt-pleating to keep them even indifferently moored by her waist. The shirt—a gift from Sinit on a name day long past—had wide sleeves pulled tight into green-trimmed cuffs, and a loose cut, though the silk would cling, here and there.

But the overshirt, that was the thing. It was her custom always to wear this article of clothing; it was her armor, her huddling place, her quilted coat of invisibility.

And it hung, like a dozen or so freshly caught fish, chilling her fingertips.

Aelliana bit her lip. Even her boots had dried under the valet's persuasion, and been returned to her gleaming with polish, worn heels evened. That the one most necessary item should—

"Tower gives us grace to lift, Pilot." Daav's voice flowed out of the wallspeaker. "Pending receipt of course."

Aelliana gasped and spun toward the speaker, her eye catching a flash of movement to her right.

"I shall be—another moment," she managed and barely waited to hear his "Right" before spinning back to the valet, snatching open the hatch and stuffing the soggy shirt within.

She chose "ultra-dry" from the option list, slammed the hatch, and turned again, confronting the mirror.

No lift-proof wonder, this, but a simple rectangle of polished metal, showing, at the moment, a painfully thin woman in baggy trousers and a shabby silk shirt, blast-dried hair snarled across her face.

Aelliana snatched at her pocket, finger-combed the static-charged mass back from her face and clipped it firmly with Daav's hair-ring.

The woman in the mirror hesitated a heartbeat longer, poised on the balls of her feet, thin body quivering, eyes wide and green in a gaunt, pale face.

She inclined her head. "Pilot," she said quietly, and was gone.

* * *

A MUG OF TEA STEAMED
gently on the arm of her chair, keeping company with a cheese muffin. Daav, reclining in the copilot's place with his long legs thrust out before him, glanced up from finishing his own muffin, earring swinging.

"I hope you don't mind cheese," he said apologetically. "I meant only to order my own, you know, and what must my fingers do but stutter on the key and the automat give out two!"

Aelliana considered him thoughtfully.

"I should like to see your fingers stutter," she decided after a moment.

Daav grinned. "Alas, it happens all too often. Dreadfully clumsy."

"No doubt even Jon will say so," she agreed gravely, slipping into her place. She picked up the cup and frowned into the reddish depths.

"What is it about Scouts," she wondered, "that makes them so eager to feed one?"

"Well, you see, we're trained to respect efficiency and to mend those things which hinder efficient work. Observation has shown that a person carrying significantly less than optimum body-weight functions at lowered efficiency. Such persons are subject to exhaustion, muddled thinking, and bouts of terror, which are not merely inefficient, but active threats to survival."