The Dragon Variation (72 page)

"The woman's unbelievable," Clonak murmured, keying up the replay. "On the run, in her head . . . I'm in love, Master-mine."

"For the fifth time since yesterday," Jon snorted, elbowing himself a spot at the board. He watched the replay in reverent silence, lost in the beauty of the maneuver. To shave seven minutes—
seven minutes
—off a lift measured and calibrated and understood to the nanosecond, while she was running board, close in traffic, with the possibility of someone breaking out—in her head, as Clonak said . . .

"I'd sign her first class this minute," Jon murmured, "and a blight on the regs. Anyone who can fly like that—"

"A goddess," Clonak sighed, sounding more than half-serious. "I claim the privilege of naming her first class, sir, and I am prepared to duel for the honor."

"Yes, but she'll never believe she earned it that way," Jon said, keying the replay to storage. "The book is the path and the math teacher aims to follow it through every twist and cranny."

"We've been avoiding the tidal effect ever since the first ship shed atmosphere," Clonak was almost singing. "Avoiding it!
Compensating
for it! Aelliana Caylon
uses
it and speeds her package on its way! Poor Daav."

"His trick lost in shadow, eh?" Jon grinned. "He won't mind."

"No, I suppose he won't. Anything that improves the lift is joy to Daav, no matter if your grandmother conned it."

Jon started, eyes widening, then going narrow. "There's a notion, though." He turned from the screens and strode down-bay, snagging his jacket from the hook as he went by.

"I'll be back!" he called and vanished through the door, as Trilla, Clonak and the pirates exchanged puzzled stares.

TECH AND PACKAGE
off-loaded,
Ride the Luck
rode a holding pattern, waiting for Port Control to sort the scrambled traffic and give them clearance to land.

The pilot had gone to fetch tea from the pantry, leaving the board in charge of her copilot, who had reclined his long self at his station, watching the go-lights through half-closed eyes.

Brief as it was, Daav thought, one ear cocked toward the radio, this lift had thus far been among the most remarkable of his career. Who but Aelliana Caylon could have conceived the notion of using the tidal influence every other pilot in the universe so busily avoided? Who but that same amazing mind could have framed, checked and executed so exciting a new maneuver in the time—

"Daav? You did want tea?"

He opened his eyes with a grin and extended a languid hand for the mug. "It's a lazy second you're burdened with, Pilot."

"Yes, certainly." She laughed softly and perched on the edge of her own chair, eyes flicking over screens, lights, readouts.

"It was fortunate you had known of that auxiliary route," she said. "I should have lost us three minutes at the last, lining up the primary approach."

"No more than one-point-five," Daav corrected. "And you had already gained us seven that were utterly unlooked-for."

She moved her shoulders and glanced down into her mug. "I had been working on a notion about the tidals about a year ago," she said. "It wouldn't come together, so I put it aside. Something—shifted—when you showed me Little Jump the other day. And then today, when I saw the numbers and the relationships—" She looked up, pride apparent, though she fought to keep her features composed. "It all just tumbled into place." Abruptly she gave up the struggle for dignity and allowed the grin its freedom. "Pretty, isn't it?"

"A thing of astonishing beauty," Daav agreed, smiling into sparkling green eyes. Those same eyes widened, then moved aside, flashing over the stat-lights.

"You did send Delm Reptor to find the pirates, didn't you?" The look she gave him was quizzical. Daav sighed.

"I suppose I will have to own the act, though I refuse to bear all the blame." He raised his mug to her in light salute. "Jon found who they were."

"Oh." She sipped tea, frowning slightly at the floor-plates.

"That was clever of him," she said eventually. "I had tried, you know, to find their surnames, but I don't expect I was very subtle." Her frown deepened and she raised doubtful eyes to his.

"Do you think we—do you think we did well?" she asked, leaning forward.

Daav raised an eyebrow, caught by her intensity. "Do you think we did not?"

"I—am not certain," she said hesitantly, frowning once more at the flooring. "It had seemed—they were hungry and—and compelled toward thievery—and so young." She glanced up, tawny brows drawn. "I do not—you spoke as if it—the Low Port—as if it were dreadfully dangerous . . ."

"It is," he assured her, with utter sincerity, "dreadfully dangerous."

"Yes! And so it seems that we must have done well, to have caught them away from danger and returned them to safety—and—to kin. Yet . . ."

"Yet?" he prompted softly, when a minute had passed and she said nothing more.

She came to her feet all at once, leaving her mug behind in the arm-slot, and paced to the center of the cabin. There, she spun to face him, fingers twisting and twining 'til he thought she might never unknot them.

"They left," she said. "They said that they had left because the time was coming when they might be eligible for—for marriage. Neither wished to be married to any other. They spoke to their delm of their desire to be always together, but he was not—not disposed to hear them as more than children. They spoke to him again on the matter, and he was abrupt, saying consanguinity was too near. They went a third time, bearing gene-charts which showed them unlikely of producing a defective . . ." She faltered.

Daav set his cup aside and straightened in his chair. "Their delm spoke of separating them so they might learn to deal with other folk."

"Yes." She bit her lip. "Yes, of course he did. How could he not? To lose the possibility of liaison marriage from two of the younger—he must look to his clan's whole good. I do not fault him—he spoke as he must. But—" She paused; plunged ahead.

"I—I don't pretend to know a great deal about—and of course marriage is—extremely—distasteful—"

"Is it?"

"Yes—and only think how much more distasteful when there is one you—prefer—above all others—I pity them from my heart and wish—I wish we had not stopped to play!"

"For that I shall bear the blame. They looked in desperate case and unlikely to ask for aid. My whole thought had been to force aid upon them—at least as little as a meal." He paused. "Does their delm still speak of separation?"

She sighed. "It is—under negotiation. A trial separation, to determine the—the depth of their devotion. Sed Ric—Sed Ric speaks of being apprenticed to a cousin on an Outworld, so that Yolan may finish her pilot's study at home."

"Ah. And Yolan?"

"She cries," Aelliana said, shoulders slumping. "Cries and looks at him—I cannot tell you how she looks at him." She frowned at the floor.

"What else may their delm do? They are assets of the clan, to be used, as all are used, for the good of all."

"So the Code teaches us," Daav said rather dryly. He tipped his head, considering her downturned face.

"Is marriage—of course—so very distasteful?" he wondered softly.

She glanced up, mouth hard. "I do not know that it must be," she said with precision. "My own—but that was many years ago."

"From the distance of your exalted age," he said lightly, misliking the tightness of her muscles and the way she stood there, tensed for a blow.

She drew herself up, eyes wide. "Next
relumma
, I shall have twenty-seven Standard Years," she said sharply. "I was married the day after my sixteenth name day."

Too young. Far too young, Daav thought, for one such as Aelliana. Quivering with something between pity and outrage, he began a seated bow of apology—was arrested by her raised hand.

"I had not meant to snap at you, Daav. It is true that I have—limited—knowledge. Voni—my eldest sister—marries often and seems quite content."

Marries often, he thought wryly, recalling the drab street and moldering clanhouse in which she lived. Contract marriage was an economic necessity for some clans, true enough. Though in a house with several children of marriageable age—

"You have only married once?"

She inclined her head with brittle care. "It was sufficient." She sighed then, and showed him a palm, as if she wished somehow to make amends for his rudeness. "The clan has the care of my daughter."

She spoke with neither warmth nor interest of her child, as if—

"
Ride the Luck
!" The radio blared and they both jumped. Aelliana flashed forward and slapped the toggle.

"Caylon here."

"Acknowledge filed plan and begin descent," Tower directed. "There is traffic waiting behind you."

"Yes," said Aelliana, glancing at the screen and verifying the equations in her head. "Flight plan acknowledged, descent begins on my mark." She turned her head. Daav was strapped in at his station, fingers dancing over the board. He glanced up, dark eyes bright, and gave her the Scout's go-sign.

"Mark."

IT WAS A SOLEMN CREW
congregated before the teapot. Jon sat astride his usual stool, Trilla on his right hand, Clonak on his left, Patch lying alert before all.

The door cycled and a tall shadow followed a shorter into the bay. They came forward a few steps, then Aelliana faltered—stopped, face showing pale and wary. Daav paused just behind her left shoulder, eyebrows well up.

"The pair of you," Jon said with a sigh. "Come here, math teacher."

She glanced over her shoulder, up into Daav's face, tension showing in all her muscles. He touched her arm, smiled; she took a deep, shaky breath and went forward.

Directly before Jon's stool, she stopped, hands folded before her, her tall copilot at her side.

"Master dea'Cort."

"Hah. I suppose you know what you did today, with that display around the tidal effect?"

She licked her lips, but kept her eyes steady on his. The pulse at the base of her throat trembled like a bird.

"Yes, sir."

"Yes sir, is it? Well, then, tell me."

"Yes, sir." She gulped air. "We framed and tried a piloting addendum under stringent field conditions. The maneuver has tested successfully and I suspect subsequent testings and refinements as the equation is understood and tuned."

"Invented a whole new sentence in the language of local lift," Clonak intoned.

Her chin came up. "If you like."

"Oh, I do like," he assured her, with a flash of his usual deviltry. "Very, very much."

"Pipe down," Jon directed, and lifted a hand, beckoning. "Closer, please, math teacher. I'm too old a dog to bite you."

Doubt showed at that, but she came forward, Daav still at her side, his hand near her elbow, should she have need of support.

Jon turned his palm up. "Right hand, please."

She lay her palm lightly against his. The ancient silver puzzle-ring flashed, as if with defiance. Jon touched it with a reverent fingertip. "Where did you get this?" he asked gently.

"My grandmother left it me," she answered in the same tone, "when she died."

"So. This is fitting, then, since I have it from my grandmother." He reached into his belt and brought it forth.

It sparkled like a nebula: Big, gaudy, garish bit of trumpery. Sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamond—every one first cut—set in a platinum band meant to cover a finger knuckle-to-knuckle. Jon held it up, let them all see the flash and the wonder of it. Three of them knew what it was. He heard Daav draw a breath.

"This," Jon said, bringing the ring before Aelliana's wide eyes, "is what pilots wore in the long-ago when they took their Jumpships out to the edge. It was used as a bond of word, as collateral for cargo, as earnest for repairs. A pilot always came back for her ring, that was the wisdom, and most often it was true." He smiled.

"I had this from my mother, who had it from hers, who had it from her father—back more generations than even you can count. It returned to me with my son's body. It's always been worn by a
binjali
pilot. Favor me, by wearing it now."

For a moment, he thought even so little was too much. Her face blanched to beige, but the eyes—the eyes were beyond brilliant.

She inclined her head, with full respect.

"You do me great honor," she said, voice husking and solemn. "I shall wear it—with joy."

"So." He felt a sweep of pride in her—in the person she allowed herself to become. Tears pricked at his eyes and he slid the old ring onto second finger of her right hand. It seated as if it had been made for her and Jon smiled. He had guessed well, he congratulated himself, in telling the jeweler the new size.

He took his hand from under hers, leaned back on his stool.

From his right, Trilla cheered, joined a moment later by Clonak. Daav lay a quiet hand on her shoulder and smiled when she turned her face up to his. Patch rose and stretched and stropped once against her legs before moving off on more urgent business.

"And now," Clonak announced, leaping to his feet and stretching his hands high over his head, "we celebrate!"

A Healer is one who may look into the heart and mind of one who is in pain, soothe the pain and restore the sufferer to joy.

—From the Preamble to the Healer's Guide
 

PILOTS LINED UP
to meet her; Daav murmured their names in her ear as they bowed: "Hela. Kad Vyr. Mordrid. Nasi."

Aelliana returned every bow, repeating each name in an effort to fix it in memory with the appropriate face.

"Illiopa, Pet Ram, Abi Tod—" The line was coming to an end at last, but Aelliana greatly feared that she had lost some names entirely, and muddled others.

"Frad," Daav murmured on a rather different note. Aelliana shook herself and applied special attention to Pilot Frad.

A bland-faced man nearly as tall as Daav, he bowed respect, coupled with a hand-spelt
binjali
. Straightening, he reached out to grip Daav's shoulder and grinned.