The Dragon Variation (85 page)

Reflected back at her was a creamy oval face surmounted by a tangled cloud of ebony curls, black eyes very wide under slim brows, and nostrils distended with anger. The fragile ridge of the right cheek was already purpling. There was a small hole in each perfect earlobe; the left one showed a thin line of blood, as if it was torn just a little.

How dare she? she thought furiously. My earrings, given to me on my Womanday, that were my grandmother's! How dare—Rage, sudden and shocking, drove out pain and fears. Priscilla was abruptly trembling, wishing fiercely to have Dagmar's neck between her hands.

Arsdred, she told herself, trying to still the fury. I'll have them both. Just let me get to Arsdred.

Slowly the rage became manageable; she enclosed it, as she had been taught, banked and ready for the proper moment.

Woodenly she went to the sink, turned on the cold water, bent, and began to splash her face.

"
Asleep, Mendoza?"
Dyson inquired from the pilot's chair.

Priscilla opened her eyes and sat up straighter. "Just resting."

"Okay by me. End of the line in about five minutes. Word is you'll be met and escorted to the captain's office. Got it?"

"Yes. Thank you."

Dyson snorted. "Don't thank me, Mendoza; I'm just passing on the facts." She thumbed the comm, reeled off her numbers, and grunted at the acknowledgment before turning her full attention to the board.

Orbit and velocity were matched with an offhanded exactitude that earned Priscilla's silent praise even as she regretted her own uncompleted certificate.

There came assorted mechanical clankings and ringings before a final authoritative
thump.
Dyson locked the board with a sweep of her hand. "Okay, Mendoza. Roll on out."

"Okay." She unstrapped and stood. "Thanks."

"What they pay me for, Mendoza. Beat it, all right?"

Priscilla grinned. "See you around."

She went out the hatch and through the door—then stopped, blinking.

Carpet was beneath her feet; she was struck by the vaulting, the well-lit spaciousness . . . She was in a state reception room.

The identification was hard to refute. To her left and some twelve feet downroom was a grouping of chairs and loungers—Terran and Liaden-sized in equal proportion. Farther on, a podium was shoved against the wall, directly beneath the mural of an enormous tree in full, green leaf. Hovering behind and a little above, nearly dwarfed by the tree it guarded, was a winged dragon, bronze and fierce, emerald eyes looking directly at her. There were words in Liaden characters beneath the roots of the tree.

Priscilla sighed slightly, recalling little Fin Ton, who had taught her Liaden in an even exchange for games of go. But his lessons had not extended to reading. Priscilla turned her head carefully to the right wall, which held what appeared to be a collage of photographs and drawings.

Obviously she was in the wrong place. She had better return to the docking pod and see if there was another door that led onto a more reasonable area—one containing her escort to the captain.

Half a second later she had abandoned that plan. Over the door by which she had entered, the atmosphere lamp glowed clear ruby, indicating vacuum in the pod beyond.

Priscilla turned. The door directly across from her, then? Or a ship's intercom? Surely, in a room as spacious as this one she could find an intercom.

That thought brought to mind all kinds of interesting questions about the room itself. Tradeships did not, in her experience, devote space to ballrooms or auditoriums. Three of
Daxflan's
holds would have fit comfortably into this area.

Priscilla put speculation from her mind. First, she had to find an intercom.

The door across from her opened, and a rather breathless small person erupted into the room. He skidded to a stop about two feet away and executed an awkward bow.

Not Liaden, she noted with relief. But—a child?

"Are you Ms. Mendoza?" he asked, then swept on without waiting for an answer. "Crelm! I'm
awful
sorry. I was supposed to be here when you came in. Cap'n's gonna
skin
me!"

She grinned at him. He was a stocky Terran boy of perhaps eleven Standards, dressed in plain slacks and shirt. There was a smear of grease on his right sleeve and another on his chin. An embroidered badge on his left shoulder bore the legend "Arbuthnot."

"I've only been here a minute," she told him. "Surely he won't skin you for that?"

The boy gave it consideration, tipping his head birdlike to one side. "Well, he still might. He
told
me to be here, didn't he? And it's rude, you gettin' off the shuttle and there being nobody to meet you." He sighed. "I really
am
sorry. I
meant
to be here."

"I accept your apology," Priscilla said formally. "Are you my escort to the captain, by any chance?"

"Oh, crelm," the boy said again, and laughed. "I'm making a rare mingle of it! An' he told me to make sure I welcomed you onboard, too!" He looked at her out of hopeful brown eyes. "Did I do that?"

"Admirably," she assured him, fighting down a rare spurt of her own laughter.

"Good," he said, relieved. He turned, waving at her to accompany him. "My name's Gordy Arbuthnot. I'm cabin boy."

"Pleased to meet you," Priscilla said gravely, trying not to stare around the wide, well-lit hallway.
This
was the ship that visited Jankalim every three years on a regular basis? The little she had seen so far would contain most of
Daxflan.
She opened her mouth to ask Gordy how many holds
Dutiful Passage
could carry, then thought better of it and asked another question instead. "What
was
that room back there? I thought I'd made a wrong turn getting off the shuttle."

"Reception room," he explained offhandedly. "For when we have visitors. Most of us just use the cargo docks when we come back on-ship."

"But I'm a guest?" She frowned. "Do you get a
lot
of visitors?"

Gordy shrugged. "Cap'n has parties sometimes. And sometimes people take passage with us—'cause we go where the liners don't, or 'cause we go there faster."

"Oh."

They entered a lift, and her guide punched a quick series of buttons. Shortly the door opened to a narrower hall, wide enough for four Liadens to walk abreast, Priscilla estimated. She smelled cinnamon, resin, and leather; she took a deep breath and held it a moment before sighing.

Gordy grinned. "Best place in the whole ship for smells. That's Number Six Hold." He pointed. "There's Cap'n's office."

Priscilla caught her breath sharply and bit her lip against a flare of pain in her head.

There's nothing to worry about, she told herself firmly. The captain wants an interview. The worst that can happen is that he has no job to offer. Time enough, when that happens, to think of another way to Arsdred.

Gordy laid his hand against the palmplate in the captain's bright red door. There was a chime, followed by a subdued "Come."

The door slid open.

Priscilla crossed the threshold on the boy's heels, then stopped and frankly stared.

Once again she was overwhelmed by spaciousness. Shelf after shelf of booktapes, bound books, and musictapes lined one wall. On another hung a tapestry worked in dark crimson, dull gold, jade, and azure, a twining geometric design at once restful and surprising. Below that was a unit bar; to one side of it was another shelf of tapes interspersed with bric-a-brac. Straight ahead, in the center of the room, two chairs faced a wooden desk supporting a computer screen and two untidy piles of hard copy. To the left of the desk was a closed door bearing a diagonal red stripe. A deep, hedonistic chair was placed at an angle to the corner, several books and a sketch pad were piled helter-skelter on the carpet nearby, while more books littered the nearer low table. The second of the set supported a chessboard. Seated on the edge of the sofa and bent over the board was a white-haired man in a dark blue shirt.

The captain was
old.
Priscilla found it somewhat easier to breathe.

Gordy Arbuthnot stepped to the table and cleared his throat. "Cap'n?" he said in Terran. "Here's Ms. Mendoza, come to see you."

"So soon? Pilot Dyson has outdone herself." The man sighed and shook his head at the chessmen. "I don't think this stupid position
has
a solution."

He rose and came forward a few graceful paces before inclining his head. "I'm Shan yos'Galan, Ms. Mendoza."

He was tall—a giant among Liadens. Silver eyes thickly fringed with black lashes looked directly into hers. Nor was he old—the frostcolored hair had misled her. His face was that of a man near her own age.

But, Goddess,
what
a face! Big-nosed, jut-cheeked, wide-mouthed, with a broad forehead, triangular chin, and thin white brows set at a slant over the large eyes. Anything farther from the usual delicacy of Liaden features would be hard to find this side of the Yxtrang.

Recovering herself with a start, Priscilla bowed stiffly in the Terran mode. "Captain yos'Galan," she said with precision, "I'm glad to see you."

"Well, you'll be among the first," he commented, and his accent was of Terra's educated class, not of Liad at all. "Though my family professes something of the sort. Of course, they've had time to get used to me. Gordy, Ms. Mendoza wants something to drink. Also, my glass is missing—and wherever it is, it's probably empty. What do I pay you for?"

The boy grinned and moved toward the bar. Pausing, he looked back at Priscilla. "The red wine's best," he said seriously, "but I think the white's probably pretty good. And there's brandy—I'm not sure about that . . . ."

"What do you know about it at all?" the man demanded. "Nipping my spirits while I'm not watching, Gordy? And who said the red's best? Your own trained palate?"

"You
drink the red, Cap'n."

"Unprincipled brat. You don't offer brandy to a person who's come for a job interview. Strive for some polish."

"Yessir," Gordy said, not noticeably abashed by this rebuke. "Ms. Mendoza? There's red wine, white, canary, green, blue—I mean,
misravot
—and tea and coffee . . . ."

Another alarming bubble of laughter was rising. Hysteria, thought Priscilla, and suppressed it firmly.

"White wine, please," she told the boy, and he nodded, turning to the bar.

"Come sit down," the captain invited, waving a big brown hand toward the chairs and the desk. Light glittered off the stone in his single ring—the large carved amethyst of a Master Trader.

Obediently, she followed him to the desk and sank gratefully into one of the chairs. Master Trader? This ugly, too-tall Liaden was a Master Trader? And captain, too? With an absent smile Priscilla took her drink from the cabin boy.

On
Daxflan,
Sav Rid Olanek—a mere Trader—and Captain yo'Vaade split administration of ship and crew between them. That had been the one thing about
Daxflan
that had followed the routine she knew from other ships. Captain was a full-time job, after all; Trader, somewhat more than that. Yet here was a man supposedly doing
both.
And more. There were perhaps a double-dexon—twice a dozen dozen—of Master Traders in all the galaxy.

"Gordy." His clear, rather beautiful voice held a mild note of exasperation. Priscilla brought her attention back to the present.

"Cap'n?" The boy froze in the act of handing the man his glass.

Shan yos'Galan sighed and laid a blunt forefinger on the grease-smeared sleeve. Gordy flushed and bit his lip.

"There's a matching one on your chin. Are we out of water? Or soap? Is there some atavistic or religious significance attached to going about with grease on your face? Maybe you put it there purposefully, after long thought, feeling that a little facial decoration would call Ms. Mendoza's attention to you more favorably? You hoped she would be so overcome by the artistry of the smear that she would fail to chide you for being late to meet her?"

"How did—" Gordy interrupted himself and raised his eyes to the man's face. "I'm not Liaden, Cap'n."

"I have independently noted the fact. No doubt you feel it has some bearing on the matter at hand." He took his glass and leaned back in the chair.

"Yessir."

"I'm intrigued. An explanation, please?"

"Yessir." Gordy took a breath and squared his round shoulders. "Liadens consider the face the—the
seat of character.
Because of that, Liadens don't use cosmetics on their faces, like Terrans might, to—to dress up or to make themselves more attractive." He paused. The captain raised his glass and waved at him to continue.

Gordy nodded. "Also, the face has an—
erotic
—significance to Liadens. There are certain social situations where it's okay to touch between Liadens where Terran code of behavior would forbid. But only extreme intimates—like family members—touch hand to face or face to face." He took another breath. "So it follows that Liadens would be
particularly
careful about keeping their faces clean. Terrans, whose cultures don't include a strong facial taboo, are less strict."

There was a small pause while Shan yos'Galan raised the glass to his lips. "'Taboo' is rather strong," he commented. "I think perhaps 'tradition' does nicely. Liadens love tradition, while you're dealing in generalizations, Gordy." He raised his glass again, and this time, Priscilla saw, he drank.

"As far as it goes, your grasp of the information seems sound," he continued thoughtfully. "However, I'm not sure your inferences are correct. That tends to happen when you extrapolate from general, rather than specific. In any case, I have found—again, through independent observation, not to say experience—that it
feels nicer
to be clean than it feels to be dirty. Also, I have found that I prefer looking at clean faces as opposed to dirty faces. This is, I believe, a personal preference. I may be wrong. Since I am captain of this ship, though, I think I have the rank to indulge in a few harmless eccentricities. So, for the fourth time: Gordon, I would very much prefer that you endeavor to keep your person as smear-free as possible." He raised the glass again. "The next time, I'll have to dock you. What do you think might be a reasonable sum?"