The Dragon Variation (68 page)

Jela spent his whole off-shift rigging guy-wires and safety nets to hold his tree in what it thinks is proper position. He was going to run an orientation plate off the main engine, but I canceled that project.

If that tree's got to be in the pilot's tower, it can damn' well take the same risks the pilots take.

—Excerpted from Cantra yos'Phelium's Log Book
 

DAAV KNOTTED THE silver ribbon
and let the beaded ends fall. Glancing into the mirror, he straightened his lace and pulled his collar into more perfect order. The beaded ribbon trailed an elegant tendril across a shoulder, counterpoint to the rough twist swinging in his ear.

He paused in his toilette, hand rising to touch the earring, seeing again the morning Rockflower had led him out of the tent; dew soaking his boots, on the edge of the plain, on the edge of the dawn.

She faced him to the rising sun and shouted his name—Estrelin—Starchild—which was not the most fortunate the Mun might bestow, who considered the stars brought madness—and bade him stand fearless. He saw the knife flash in the corner of his eye, felt it bite his earlobe, heard Rockflower grunt with approval.

"Blood and blade, Estrelin, child of the grandmother's tent."

It was back to the autumn camp then, and the silver worker's tent. Rockflower herself twisted the heated metal into the proper design, the hot wire went through the gash in his ear, cauterizing the minor wound, and the ends sealed into a continuous loop. As nothing could break the silver loop, she told him, so nothing would break his bond to her tent.

At
Jelaza Kazone
, in the hour before a formal meal, Daav smiled wryly at his own reflection. The silver loop could, of course, be broken all too easily: A snip of wire cutters, a careful withdrawal, a minute or two in the autodoc to erase the tiny scar . . . He had not done it. He would not do it. Captive among Liadens, there yet remained a fragment of Estrelin, child of the grandmother's tent.

He broke his own reflected gaze, looked down and opened his ornament case. Among the guests tonight would be his betrothed, home between test-Jumps, and who would expect to see him jeweled as befit his station. He chose a sapphire-headed pin and seated it carefully in the lace at his throat, wondering idly if Estrelin of the grandmother's tent would follow custom and cut his hair when he was wed.

Actually, he thought, slipping a sapphire ring onto the first finger of his right hand, Mun custom dictated that one's wife perform this service on the morning following the consummation of their vow. He tried to imagine dainty Samiv tel'Izak bowing to such a custom, but very soon abandoned the effort. A Mun marriage was a lifemating, within its peculiar laws; and, come to consideration, it was much easier to picture Anne cutting Er Thom's hair. Not, he assured himself, with an amused glance at his reflection, that one's
cha'leket
was ever less than impeccably barbered.

"Very fine, your lordship," he told himself, gesturing fluidly with a hand that glittered silver-and-blue. He moved his head, sending the earring swinging and felt the weight of his hair slide across his shoulder.

"I don't think I shall cut it," he said, giving his reflection serious attention. He shook the lace cuffs out, brushed a possibly imaginary speck of dust from the soft black trousers and stepped back, making his bow with a bite of irony.

"Have a pleasant evening, sir. And do try to value Pilot tel'Izak as you ought."

MASTER DEA'CORT
had said they might sleep in the pilot's dorm off the aux supply room. Accordingly, they had pushed two cots together, arranged blankets and pillows—and discovered that they were neither sleepy nor in the mood for sport.

"Walk?" Yolan asked, running her hands through her hair and standing it all on end, so she looked like a Yolan-sized dandyweed. "I'm all over twitches."

"Me, too," Sed Ric admitted. He dug around in his pouch and brought out their carefully hoarded wages. Master dea'Cort paid generous for grunt-work, though not quite enough to make a four-dex loss into a nothing. Sed Ric counted the ready and looked up with a sidewise grin.

"Buy us an ice?"

Yolan laughed. "Why not?"

They went out through the main garage, cutting past Master dea'Cort's office.

The old Scout was sitting at his desk, head bent over a bound book, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. Sed Ric looked at Yolan. Yolan cleared her throat.

"Out Port-running, is it?" Jon asked, without bothering to lift his head. "Give Pilot Caylon joy, to find the two of you turned up dead."

Yolan bit her lip. "We're only gone for an ice, Master. If you think the pilot won't like it—"

He did lift his head, then, and considered them out of bland amber eyes. "Young things," he said after a moment, and waved a broad hand. "Go on and have your sweet. Watch yourselves, that's all. I don't want to be the one to explain a tragedy to the pilot."

"No, Master," Sed Ric said, jerking his head at Yolan. "We just thought to step around to the East Selling."

"We'll be careful," Yolan put in. "Of course we will."

"All right," said Jon, and went back to his book.

Yolan and Sed Ric faded back out of the office and made their way across the garage, through the crew door. Outside, they went left, aiming to cut a diagonal course across Binjali's Yard and use the utility gate at the eastern corner. From the gate to the East Selling was a matter of two short blocks, and an ice vendor was among the first of the kiosks encountered.

"Think the pilot will be needing crew, when she takes herself off-world?" Yolan voice was too casual, as it was when she wanted to pretend that a burning question was of no moment.

Sed Ric sighed. "Not much crew room on a Class A Jump," he commented. "Her and the captain'll run things snug between 'em."

"Likely," Yolan allowed and they walked silent awhile, down the long corridor of ships asleep on their cold-pads in the Port's early evening.

"Maybe they'll take us," Yolan said and it was desperation in her voice.

Sed Ric stopped and looked at her. "Take us where?"

"Offworld," she said and reached for his hand. "Someplace where they don't mind what's our family—or how close we stand cousins. They might take us—the pilot would, I'll wager."

"Yes, and her partner's cut from whip-leather."

"Maybe not," she said, clutching his hand feverishly. "Maybe not—so much. Who fed us, after all? And the counter help never blinked, did they, Sed Ric? Runs a chit there, does Captain Daav—for all we know, he feeds the port."

"All of which argues him stupid enough to lift dead weight when cargo is what keeps his ship able. Air dreams, Yolan. You know it."

Her shoulders sagged. "What will we do, then? Master dea'Cort won't keep us forever—he paid us for make-work today! Who else will have us? Walking the dim side, that's not—you heard him: Who will we sell first, you or me? If it comes to that—"

"It won't," Sed Ric said firmly. He chewed his lip, looking into her face. "I've been thinking," he said, slow and careful, because he had been thinking—and because she wasn't going to like hearing what his thoughts had taught him.

"I've been thinking," he said again, "that we might go and—talk—to Uncle Zan Der."

"Talk to Father? We talked to Father—and more use talking to hullplate! We showed him the chart and how the genes scanned—did he even look? Did he even
care
that it's only been us for each other since we were in nursery together? Did he even—"

She was working herself into a state, which he might have known she would. He gathered her close, pushing her head down to his shoulder and rubbing his cheek against her hair. "Easy. Easy. I was just thinking, that's all."

And thought still showed that port-running was increasingly risky. Yolan was in peril, whether she would face it or no. Uncle Zan Der would see she got the rest of her training—went for Jump-pilot. He thought—he thought he could make a case for himself being 'prenticed to Cousin Peri, who kept warehouse on Mordra. They would be separated and the reason they had left clan was that they
would not
be separated.

But he couldn't keep her safe.

"Let's get that ice," he said, husky into her hair.

She stirred, lifted her head and stepped back. "Sure."

Hand-in-hand they walked on, down the row and across, nearing
Ride the Luck
, snug on her ready-pad.

Yolan froze, her hand tensing in his. "What's that?"

"What's—" He saw it, a shadow, moving stealthy near the bottom of
The Luck's
ramp.

"Maybe Captain Fox?" Yolan sounded uncertain.

"Why would he sneak around in the dark?" The figure moved and he frowned. "Not tall enough."

The figure set foot on the ramp, boot heel hitting metal with a sharp clang.

"Let's go!" Yolan urged and was gone, running full tilt toward the ramp.

Heart in mouth, Sed Ric ran after.

DAAV HAD EXERTED SOME care
in the matter of the guest list. It would not, on one hand, be considerate of Bindan's rank among the mid-level clans to invite exclusively from the Fifty, however much it might gratify Delm Bindan's ambition. And to have only Er Thom, Anne and cousin Luken bel'Tarda in addition to his affianced wife and her delm—the scheme he favored most—would surely be seen as an insult by Bindan, and justly so. Such intimate gatherings belonged to the days preceding a formal offer of contract.

The number of guests for a gathering such as this, falling between offer and final signing, might with perfect propriety be kept to a dozen, but very few of those dozen had best be Korval's kin or Bindan's.

Korval's allies, that was something else.

In the end, he had Er Thom and Anne, for his own comfort; Guayar and Lady yo'Lanna, for the comfort of Bindan's ambition. To leaven the loaf, he called upon Thodelms Hae Den pen'Evrit Clan Yron and Dema Wespail Clan Chad, pilots both, and keepers of secondary lines in mid-level Houses long tied to Korval with the threads of trade and ships.

Dutiful Passage
being at the moment in port, he invited sensible Kayzin ne'Zame—Er Thom's first mate, and another with long ties to Korval—finishing the list with two representatives of port merchant families—Gus Tav bel'Urik and Len Sar Anaba, clans Shelart and Gabrian, respectively.

The gather had begun well. The guests had arrived and been made known to each other. Wine had been served, conversations had begun and then Guayar had prettily—not to say, audibly—complimented Anne on the process of her thought and begged that she do him the favor of endorsing his copy of her book.

"I should certainly be delighted to do so, sir," Anne said properly, and Guayar bowed, hand over heart.

"I am in your debt." He turned to Bindan. "Have you yet had the opportunity to read Lady yos'Galan's work?" he inquired, which was, Daav thought, really too bad of him. He had put his coin on Lady yo'Lanna, Guayar's sister, that she would be equal to stemming just such a start, but she was across the room, speaking with Kayzin ne'Zame and Merchant bel'Urik.

Bindan bowed with only a trace of stiffness. "Alas, sir, circumstance has not yet permitted me this pleasure."

"It is an excellent work," Guayar said. "I cannot praise it too highly. You must assuredly obtain a copy and read it."

"Indeed, ma'am, you must not encourage him to prate on about books!" Lady yo'Lanna reproved with mock severity, swooping into the conversation amid an aggression of scented draperies. "He will have you here all night and well past tomorrow morning's meal if you give him the least excuse! Do you admire flowers at all? I confess to a passion. Walk with me to the window, do. There is the most exquisite bank of gloan-roses! I was only just now saying to Master pel'Urik . . ."

Chattering, she bore Bindan off. Er Thom moved over to engage Guayar's attention and Daav allowed himself an internal sigh of relief before returning his attention to the discussion nearer at hand.

The topic was the most efficient coil-to-mass configuration in Class C Jump ships and his conversational partners—pilots tel'Izak and pen'Evrit—were so absorbed by it that neither had noted his momentary lapse of attention, or, he fervently hoped, Guayar's bit of mischief.

"And I tell you, sirs," Samiv tel'Izak was saying, with rather more spirit than Daav had heretofore observed in her, "had we not that autonomous tertiary system, we might yet be in Jump this evening. The matter ran that near the edge of irrecoverable."

"Yes, but, ma'am, you speak only to one case," pen'Evrit objected. "How often, in truth, is the third—never say the fourth!—system called into use? Certainly, in the case of a liner, where the mass to be translated is already vast, dropping a redundant and statistically underused system can only—"

"Endanger the passengers," Daav said, reentering the lists with a vengeance.

"Precisely!" Samiv tel'Izak flashed him a look of approval. pen'Evrit raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, but it is Korval, ma'am, and he is bound to say so. Are you not, Pilot?"

"Not at all," Daav said courteously. "I would merely point out that a line which is forever losing passengers and ships will likely be ruined in a very short time. How much better to err on the side of a tertiary safeguard—the translation mass of which is already figured into the cost of the voyage—and continue to reap profit?"

pen'Evrit inclined his head. "Indeed, who among us can argue against profit?"

"And cantra is so much more compelling than lives," Daav returned, smoothly deflecting what was surely a thrust devised to test the strength of Samiv tel'Izak's armor.

pen'Evrit's mouth quirked and he inclined his head just slightly, conceding the point, and was prevented from making another foray by the chime of the hour bell.

Er Thom offered his arm to his lifemate and flicked a quick violet glance over one shoulder. Daav lifted an eyebrow and his
cha'leket
, thus instructed, led the company from the formal parlor, down the hall to the dining room. From the edge of his eye, Daav saw Guayar accept Kayzin ne'Zame's arm, a meal-pairing that would, he thought, serve very well indeed.