Trader's Leap (Liaden Universe Book 23)

by Sharon Lee

  Maradel sat up sharply.

  “You mean that the ambient ought to have—preserved them?”

  “They were talents, every one,” Tekelia answered. “Why would it not?”

  “For one thing, their purpose was to enslave us!” Kencia cried.

  Tekelia considered him thoughtfully.

  “Now, that is so, but was that their own intent, or that of their master? Would it have mattered?” Tekelia paused, then spoke again into the disquieted silence. “Could the ambient have . . . acted?”

  “To preserve us, you mean?” Yferen asked. “I don’t know as I like that idea, Cousin.”

  “Nor I,” said Maradel. She turned to Banedra. “Have we a precedent?”

  The Rememberer held up a hand as she closed her eyes. The rest of them waited in respectful silence until she opened her eyes again, and turned both palms up, empty.

  “No precedent. The ambient has never been observed to behave in any way that would suggest intent. It no more has the ability to withhold itself from select individuals than the atmosphere has.”

  “And yet—what caused this massive systemic shock which killed only Reavers?” Tekelia asked. “We need to identify the cause, Cousins, whether we are to host gods or puppetmaster.”

  “I see it!” Emit cried, her eyes fixed on something over Maradel’s head.

  She started to her feet, dancing, entranced, her gaze fixed on the lines of probability. Catching her thought, Tekelia leapt up to dance with her, open to the ambient, between it and the Seer’s ecstasy.

  “I see it!” Emit cried again. “A silver blade descending. Black ribbons part. They recoil, returning to those who are bound. Struck, they are stunned. They fall. And so quickly are they gone from us. Gone!” she shouted, her voice ringing against the roof beams. “Dead, and lost!”

  She stumbled, dancing no more, going to her knees with a cry that became a wail of grief. Yferen went to her and brought her to her chair. He knelt and held her hands as she grieved a loss that was not theirs.

  Tekelia went to the buffet, filled a cup with fruit juice, and returned. Yferen took the cup carefully, and lifted it to Emit’s lips.

  “Drink, Cousin,” he murmured.

  “Stunned,” Maradel said. She was standing, turning slowly around so that she faced each of those gathered, one by one. “They had no time to reach out, or to open themselves, and be saved.”

  She took a hard breath and met Tekelia’s eyes.

  “This answers all,” she said. “Why it was only Reavers who fell. Why they all died at once. The very shock to their nervous systems.”

  “The puppetmaster is dead, then?” said Kencia, halfway between a question and a statement.

  Tekelia turned to face him.

  “You don’t sound certain, Cousin.”

  “Well, I’m not,” Kencia returned, frowning at Emit, who was still sipping her juice. “The lines were cut, so we’re told. What we’re not told is that the master shared the fate of their playthings.”

  “But even if not,” said Maradel, “they will have no reason to come here, demanding explanations and reparations.”

  “True enough,” said Kencia, flapping his arms in one of his characteristic gestures. “All that’s needed is for them to send more.”

  “If they have more,” Maradel snapped. “How many puppets do you imagine one master might hold?”

  “We don’t know that there is only one master,” Kencia retorted.

  Emit had finished her juice. Yferen rose and crossed the room to fetch her another, and something to eat.

  “That’s true,” Tekelia said, and sighed. “Nor do we know if the puppetmaster has a master.”

  “But we have been told,” said Banedra, “to expect gods.”

  Dutiful Passage

  Millsap Orbit

  * * *

  I

  Shan poured a glass of the red and carried it to the desk.

  The disappointment at Millsap—no. He had no regrets to waste on the affair at Millsap. If Padi remained unSorted, she had not been harmed—and in fact had shown a gratifying amount of restraint in her rebuttal of Healer Osit’s temerity, merely holding him against the wall, when Shan had received the distinct impression that it was entirely within her scope to have thrown him through it.

  Really, it made a father’s heart glow.

  Their arrival back on the Passage having coincided with her usual hours with Cargo Master ira’Barti, Padi had taken herself off to that pleasurable duty. Lina had gone to her station in the ship’s library, and Shan had returned to his office, his mind occupied by two necessities.

  He had finally put his finger on the very person with whom he might profitably share his concerns regarding the Terran route that nurtured Millsap.

  Janifer Carresens-Denobli.

  Of course.

  Before he did so, however, he needed to complete one more, minor bit of research.

  Leaning to the screen, he tapped in a series of three commands, calling up a star map of Millsap space, including the Terran Loop. Working carefully with the screen, he traced the route back from Millsap, to its point of origin—

  “Hah!”

  He grinned at the star map, increased the gain, made one more adjustment.

  A dense field of purple triangles bloomed in the area of space he was studying, each triangle marking a note regarding navigational hazards and special conditions of local space.

  Nodding, he moved his field of interest a trifle past Twidee, the planet where the Conway Primary Loop originated, increasing the optics only slightly . . .

  An infobox bloomed, brilliantly orange.

  Dust alert.

  “Excellent,” Shan crooned, and tapped the box.

  NOTE: Check your programming! Rapid changes in density within Jump arrival and departure zones in Finashif Sector are expected to diminish as the proper motion of the greater Rostov’s Dust Cloud and proper and radial motion of cha’Goolin’s Star contribute to a return of system dynamics toward stable approach parameters. Jump approaches based on historic local and regional dust occlusion densities may result in substantial Jump offset. Use of Dust Avoidance tables or data older than two Standard Years for approaching this region is not recommended. Check your programming! Figures attached are based on successful Jump reports within the last 1/10 Standard Year or less.

  Shan leaned back and picked up his glass, enjoying the momentary glow of having guessed correctly.

  With the Dust taking a different direction, it would be reasonable for the traders of Twidee to send ships out to explore this newly accessible space in terms of trade. Indeed, it would be foolish not to do so. Naturally enough, they would have to draw on the inventory of ships in hand, which meant one—or even two—fewer available to the Conway Loop. The goods delivered to Millsap would therefore be less—very slightly so, in the scheme of things, but more than enough to catch a master trader’s eye—and present him with an opportunity.

  Leaning back in the chair, he considered the possibilities before him.

  Trader Carresens-Denobli had not answered his last letter. Here was an opportunity to continue their contact without seeming to be too eager in their discussion of the possible Ashlan-Surebleak-Nomi-Oxin-Rood Loop proposed by the trader. The seeming alteration of a long-established Terran Loop must concern a man who was at once a trader-at-large for the Carresens Syndicate, and a senior trade commissioner. Shan would, perhaps, be doing the trader a good turn, if he had not already understood the alteration in the motion of the Dust in Finashif Sector.

  If Trader Carresens-Denobli was aware of the new situation, a letter from Shan would demonstrate that he was a worthy trade partner, observant and willing to share information.

  Yes . . .

  He reached for the screen, paused with his fingers over the keys, and then began, gently, to type.

  To Janifer Carresens-Denobli, I offer greeting and information of possible use, for the good of trade . . .

  II

/>   “Allow me to compliment you on your display of good sense and fine control at Millsap,” Lina said, speaking Liaden in the mode of instructor-to-student.

  Padi, seated on the other side of the small worktable, did not bite her lip, but it was a near thing. Lina was—not angry. Not exactly angry. But she was . . . distressed. And she had been so since they had left the Healer Hall on Millsapport.

  Indeed, she had been quite subdued during the entire return to the Passage. Padi had received the distinct impression that Lina was not only out of sorts with her, but that she was . . . displeased . . . with Father.

  When they had boarded the shuttle, Lina and Father had gone to the backest seats possible. That much Padi had noticed before she had begun wheedling shuttle Pilot Kris Embrathiri to let her sit second, or at least observer, for the lift to the ship.

  It had taken very little wheedling before Kris allowed her to observe, and Padi had not seen Father, or Lina, again until they had exited the shuttle, each with their own necessities in mind. Padi, having realized that she could be on time for Master ira’Barti, had made her bow to the master trader and dashed off for her scheduled session with the cargo master.

  Master ira’Barti had put her to work running remote pod stabilization queries, and realignments, as necessary. She had embraced the dull task so willingly that, for the last hour of her work session, she had been assigned to inventory the tool kits attached to each hold.

  All too soon, however, her session in Cargo was over, and she dutifully moved on to the next item . . .

  . . . dramliz lessons with Lina.

  And Lina was out of sorts. Worse, Padi wasn’t quite able to tell if the compliment on her good sense and fine control might not be irony. The High Tongue was uniquely suited to both irony and ambiguity. Being able to parse such nuances was an important survival skill, in trade as much as in society—and to ask after the speaker’s meaning was to display a weakness.

  However . . .

  Padi took a careful breath.

  Lina, she reminded herself, was her teacher; she was Lina’s student. Their relative melant’i allowed—insisted upon!—the asking and answering of questions. It was not weakness for a student to ask of her teacher; it was a mark of respect.

  “Forgive me,” Padi said, in the mode of student-to-instructor, “but I wonder what I may have done to displease you.”

  There was a pause before Lina inclined her head gently.

  “You have done nothing to displease me,” she said. “I had hoped for sweeping solutions or, at the least, unique insight from the Healers of Millsap, and I am dismayed to find my expectations dashed. As your tutor, I wish to teach you well; I wish to see you embrace your gift, to grow with it into the fullness of yourself.” She smiled slightly. “In a word, I am not confident in myself. I have tutored many—Healers and dramliz—with success. However, it is very true that no one is the best tutor for all students. And it comes to me, forcefully, that I may not be the tutor you need.”

  Padi took a careful breath. “In truth, I have not been the most willing scholar.”

  “In truth,” Lina agreed with a return of her usual humor. “However, you have not been rebellious. We have been working together, and if our pace has not been brisk, it has been tending in the correct direction . . . ”

  “But there’s something about me, or my talent,” Padi said, “that disturbs you. Instructor, if I may be frank . . . ”

  “By all means, let us both be frank,” Lina said dryly. “What occurs to you?”

  “It occurs to me that you are a Healer,” Padi said slowly. “If you feel there is something amiss, then—perhaps it would be best to . . . ” She paused, recalling the phrase that Lina used so often—“listen to your talent.”

  Lina laughed.

  “Yes, I know this dagger—it is precisely my own!”

  That was from a melant’i play, Padi knew, though she didn’t quite place which—and in any case, Lina was sweeping on.

  “You make a compelling case. However, we are pinned by necessity. You must become proficient in the basic forms, for your own safety even more than for the comfort of your elders-in-craft who so concerned the Healers at Millsap. We do not give weapons into untrained hands, nor do we allow Emergent Healers and just-fledged wizards to ply their gifts, untrained. There are traps for us as there are for anyone else, and you must at least learn how to protect yourself.”

  There was nothing to argue with in that, nor did Padi argue. Instead, she put forth the thought that had caught her, fresh as she was from testing tolerances, measuring stresses, and realigning pod loads.

  “How am I unlike?” she asked.

  Lina frowned.

  “Unlike—whom?”

  “No—in what way do I differ from your other students—in general formation, I mean. Are there . . . benchmarks? Skills that are generally mastered in the first three days, six days, twelve?”

  “I see.”

  Lina’s frown deepened somewhat as she took counsel with herself.

  “Most,” she said slowly, “grasp the basic forms very quickly—within hours of being shown, as if they instinctively knew that there was system and pattern, and needed only to be shown a shape . . . ”

  She looked at Padi thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps it had been like that for you, when you were made known to your first piloting equation.”

  Padi remembered that moment; she had adored the star map rugs that were part of the décor of a nursery for pilots. She remembered the moment she realized that the equation set she had just solved was the key to the map; that if she only applied herself and learned all the variables . . .

  “Yes,” she told Lina. “I do know what you mean.”

  “Excellent. And—we have come ’round again to my opening gambit. I am quite sincerely impressed by your accomplishment at Millsap, which spoke of a cool control of your gift. I wonder if you will repeat what you did there, for me, here, now.”

  Padi blinked.

  “You want me to hold you against the wall? I—with all respect—”

  Lina held up her hand.

  “Forgive me. What I would like is an opportunity to observe your technique. I think that a demonstration, where Healer Osit is replaced by something inanimate, might inform both of us.”

  “I see,” Padi said, not quite truthfully. “What should we—”

  Lina reached into her pocket and, with a flourish, placed a red stylus on the table between them.

  “Here we have an exceptionally impertinent writing instrument. It has scolded you and bullied you and may be preparing to entrap you. How do you answer, Emergent yos’Galan?”

  Padi’s lips twitched. It was too ridiculous, the bright pretty thing reposing innocently in the center of the table, the antithesis of Healer Osit with his disdain and his self-importance, and the stink of metal as hull plate expanded, curving left, curving right—and she would be trapped!

  Padi—pushed.

  The red stylus shot upward.

  “Oh, no!” she cried, leaping to her feet, to do what, she scarcely knew—and it fell, after all, to ship’s gravity for solving.

  There was a hollow thud—and in the center of the table was Lina’s stylus, pretty no more, but rather . . . singed . . . and—was . . . it?

  Padi leaned forward and winced.

  Yes. It was definitely smoking.

  “Well,” Lina said carefully. “I see there is some emotion tied to the memory of Healer Osit’s attempted tutoring.” She looked up. “It appears that the ceiling escaped damage,” she said.

  “But your stylus!” Padi said, sitting down weakly. Gods, gods, if the stylus had been Healer Osit in truth . . .

  “I might have killed him,” she whispered.

  “Perhaps. It is to remove this sort of uncertainty that we train. In the case, however, I believe what we have seen is a proportional error, in which you brought the precise amount of force necessary to push and hold a grown Healer to the wall, against my unfor
tunate stylus. One must be certain the equation is properly scaled to the task. This concept is familiar to you, I think.”

  “Yes,” Padi said slowly. “Relativity is key.”

  “Exactly.”

  Lina paused, her face set in that expression which meant that her instructor was weighing options and best possible methods.

  Padi waited, trying not to look at the sad, singed thing in the center of the table.

  “I regret,” Lina said.

  Padi blinked. “Regret?”

  “Indeed. I regret that all I know is a path which I am increasingly persuaded is not suited for your feet. There is a thing that is said among Terrans—Bad training is worse than none, which in many cases is true, but not in this. I have consulted my feelings”—she offered Padi a brief smile—“and I remain convinced that the solution formed by the ship’s three Healers is sound. It can do you no harm to have a grounding in the forms. They are universal. For instance, Priscilla’s training differed—vastly—from my own. Yet, we may communicate as Healers and easily collaborate on such work as may require both of us.”

  She moved her shoulders, her smile fading.

  “Therefore, we must return to the topic of precision, you and I. We are agreed that you must achieve proportion—there should be just enough energy spent to accomplish the task in hand, no more. This ensures that you do not set the table afire whilst attempting to light the candles.”

  “Or burn a stylus by using too much force.”

  “Yes. Also, you know, there is another facet to this exercise, tiresome as I know you find it. The more you work with your talent, the more you will come to terms with the fact of it. You have here an opportunity to build a relationship with your gifts.”

  “But my gifts are me,” Padi protested. “They manifested in a particular way because of who I am.”

  “Your gifts are one aspect of who you are, and like the other aspects of your personality, they must be schooled and integrated into the whole. For instance, I warrant that you have had training in controlling your temper. You will, in fact, have had several tutors, beginning in the nursery. By now, you are quite accomplished in its regulation. Sometimes, you are angry, but you choose not to demonstrate the fact. Sometimes, you are very angry, and you allow the merest wisp of displeasure to be seen.”