A Liaden Universe® Constellation, Volume 4

by Sharon Lee

  Chirs reached for the coffee mug and found enough to chug before it slurped empty. The room certainly felt as empty as the cup, now that the norbear was gone.

  “So, Pilot, I personally ran your route in sim, and talked to Captain Govans. Here’s your new docs, and a five year all ports certification, with a ten year rider—so if you come through again we’ll recert up to that limit as long as your medical’s good.”

  He received his credentials gingerly, as if there might have been an error.

  “Me aborting to the dock, that didn’t get me in trouble?”

  She shook her head, Terran-style.

  “Not here, it didn’t. You ran most of the route and played the anomaly perfectly. No issue there at all.”

  His relief echoed through the room. Not only did he sigh, he felt as if the relief was palpable, affecting the pilot as much as him. He watched her face, feeling there was something more she was going to say about how glad she was.

  Instead she turned toward the still-open door and snapped her fingers.

  “Hevelin, if you’re going to listen at doors I’m going to put you in the garden alone for a week!”

  The doorway seemed abruptly full of blustering norbear, but the thing was only pocket high. How could it—he—

  Sterna laughed. The norbear sidled a half step into the room, shrinking his bluster, and radiating self-satisfaction.

  “How is he doing—whatever it is he’s doing? I feel like—”

  She smiled down at him.

  “He’s an empath—all norbears are empaths. He can feel your emotions, and manipulate them, a little. He also collects—connections between people.”

  He found himself smiling up at her.

  “The catalog of faces.”

  “Right.”

  Chirs looked to the norbear.

  “He can manipulate emotions, you said. Does he always get his way?”

  “No, he doesn’t. But that’s the problem. Some planets have banned them outright, some even send out hunters. Afraid they’ll take over. A little too much getting their way and they’re seen as dangerous.”

  She paused. He—wanted to stay in the chair and talk with her more, but—well, she had work to do, with all those pilots on-station, and the meeting. And he—needed to get back to his ship.

  He put his hands on the arms of the chair, sent a last glance at the screens—and froze.

  Beeslady had moved. She was clearly between the pod mounts now, engaging the pressure panels on Fringe Ranger’s hull. Exactly the idea that had gotten him into this long day that ended with empaths, good company, and a fresh ticket . . .

  “What’s going on?” he asked Sterna.

  “Beeslady is moving those loads that were stuck—turns out there’s no one on station certified to work on those lifts. Captain Jad was raising a stink, I’m afraid, and says he can’t wait three weeks to get out of here.”

  “Three weeks?” he did quick math, though, and saw the chance of Jad paying for a technician at express rates was slim to none.

  “Actually, I think that’s twenty-four days, going by Eylot’s week. We’re going to have an inquest, you see, and it’ll take at least that long for everything to be put together. So Jad’s worked out a deal to get his cargo off.”

  A chill went down his back about the same time the norbear pulled on Chirs ’knee and managed to climb onto his lap.

  “I really ought to be out there. I’m cargo master! I’ll . . .”

  Hevelin was a nearly immovable weight on his lap now. Sterna sighed.

  “I’m afraid not, Pilot. That inquest, that’s about smuggling, you see. You’re the principal witness. You’ll have to stay.”

  • • • • • •

  The inquest had been a joke, with no one being held entirely responsible: clearly that much effort would have taken more than one person, clearly the purser had not rigged all of those whipline ejectors nor connected those multi-kilos of super grade vya, nor fronted an operation of a scale that must have had multiple ships waiting, hidden in the confusion of ships at dock for the members’ meeting.

  A fine was imposed, and paid off. In due time, Flingwagon departed the station; the probable couriers for the vya no doubt slipping away, still covered by the crowd.

  The hospitality of the pilots had not been a joke. They’d let him bunk in an unused pilot’s ready room, feeding him, and treating him as well as they did the first class and master pilots, for all of his lowly third class status. Several of the advanced pilots expressed appreciation for his run, the sim being available on station, and almost everyone sympathized with the slow grind of officialdom.

  He’d managed, after several days, to relax. Yes, in effect he had quit Fringe Ranger when he’d walked out, if that’s how the captain wanted it. Yes, he’d been paid full rate for the voyage, anyway; more than one new friend pointed out—the ship hadn’t been safe. He was better off of it.

  He had in his pocket a pilots’ guild chit good for one trip somewhere, practically anywhere, he wanted to go.

  Probably that chit would stay in his pocket; it had no end date, after all.

  Today, though, he would be gathering his effects and heading down to Eylot for the in-person interview of a job application he’d made. Anlingdin Academy was expanding, and they’d wanted an experienced cargo master to teach a few courses. Apparently the fact that he spoke formal and colloquial planetary Terran was good, even if he wasn’t exactly from this region.

  He heard a low voice, not amplified by Hevelin’s assistance. Hevelin had finally agreed to stay in the garden of a night.

  “Therny, are you awake?”

  He was still deciding the answer to that when Pilot Sterna asked again, this time with a nip of his ear included. Well, she was off today, too, for a year-long run. She was provisional First Class, after all, flying for the leather jacket and all the glory of a Jump pilot.

  And he? He was going to teach, after all.

  He turned over, slowly, and she sighed.

  “The pilot wakes,” she acknowledged. “Let us perform a preflight check. No cutting corners.”

  Block Party

  Block Party came about because Baen editor Tony Daniel asked the authors for a winter holiday story for Baen.com and we discovered that there weren’t too many year-end-equivalent holidays shared between Terrans and Liadens. On the other hand, one place where Terrans and Liadens are seen in a collision of culture is Surebleak, and there we found a story of a shared holiday.

  ****

  The lights were on at the Wayhouse, which was still enough of a novelty that Algaina paused after she’d unlocked the shop door to look at it. Wasn’t many got up as early in the day as she did, an’ the Wayhouse . . . well, it was a wayhouse, wasn’t it? Always had been, back to when the Gilmour Agency ran Surebleak. Wasn’t meant but to give a newbie on the street someplace in outta the snow to sleep while they got themselves sorted an’ settled.

  This new batch of folks’d been in maybe four, five days, an’ every morning, when Gaina opened the shop, there was the light. Made her feel a kinda warm pleasureableness, that she wasn’t awake alone in the dark.

  Well.

  She shook herself and turned back to the shop, her thoughts still half on the Wayhouse. According to the neighbors, there were at least four kids living there, but not one of ’em come in to her shop for sweets. Might be they was shy. She wondered if she oughta take a plate o’cookies up, whatever was left over, when the shop closed. Introduce herself. Find out who was awake so early, every day, and what they did in the dark hours.

  • • • • • •

  Algaina was in the back, getting the batch of sparemint cookies outta the oven, when she heard the bell on the front door ring out, which would be Luzeal, comin’ in for her hot ’toot and warm roll before headin’ down to Boss Conrad’s territory an’ the archive project. Luzee was always her first customer, ever since the first day she opened up.

  “Be right out!” she called. “Got
somethin’ I want you to taste.”

  Wasn’t no answer from the front room, which was typical; Luzee needed a cup o’toot to make her civilized.

  Algaina closed the oven door, and stepped back into the shop, sliding the tray onto the counter, and looking ’round.

  It wasn’t Luzee who was her first customer this morning; it was Roe Yingling, who wasn’t zackly a stranger—she let him run a ticket, after all—but nowhere near a reg’lar.

  Algaina wasn’t that fond of Roe, but he was a neighbor, and aside from having loud opinions at inconvenient times, he didn’t stint the street.

  “Mornin’,” she said, giving him a nod. He’d already drawn himself a cup and was sipping it gingerly, wanting the warmth against the cold, but not wanting to burn his tongue. “You’re up early.”

  He nodded around a sip from the cup.

  “Word on the street’s they’re hiring over Boss Kalhoon’s territory, long-term labor. Gonna go over an’ see what I can get.”

  “Hadn’t heard that,” Algaina said; “good luck with it.”

  “Need it all, an’ then some,” Roe said, leaning over the pot and topping off his cup. “Body’s gotta be quick if they wanna grab a job before a newbie gets it.”

  That was Roe’s biggest and most frequent complaint, right there, Algaina knew. Not that there’d been that much work, the way things’d been fixed before Boss Conrad showed up to sort Surebleak out, which it—and they—surely had needed. Breaking up the old ways hadn’t made work so much as it made time and room for ’bleakers to be able to roll up their sleeves and get on with what needed doin’.

  The newbies, they’d followed the Boss to Surebleak, and they were a point of contention. So far’s Algaina knew or saw, they was just as willing to work as any ’bleaker, an’ somewhat more’n others. They come in with off-world skills, certain enough, but they wasn’t ’bleakers. They didn’t know what work needed done before that other piece o’work could get done, or necessarily how the weather played in—stuff that ’bleakers knew by instinct. Mostly, the work was team-based, ’bleaker and newbie, and plenty too much for everybody.

  Still, there was a certain class of streeter, of which Roe Yingling was one, who wanted to have it that the newbies was taking work away from them, an’ there wasn’t nothing could convince ’em otherwise.

  All of which was worth hopin’ that Roe got work today.

  “You better get movin’,” Algaina said. “Early worker ’presses the boss.”

  Roe nodded at her.

  “Zackly what I’m thinkin’. Need a couple rolls to have in m’pocket for lunch,” he said. “What was that you wanted me to taste?”

  Well, she hadn’t wanted Roe tastin’ her sparemint, she’d wanted Luzee. Still, she’d said the words and he’d heard ’em—an’ it couldn’t hurt to have another opinion.

  “Here go,” she said, holding out the tray. “Take one o’them and let me know what you think. Something new I’m thinking about adding in.”

  He took a cookie—not quite the biggest—and bit into it, eyes, narrowed.

  While he was chewing, she got his two rolls, and wrapped ’em up in paper against the probable condition of the inside of his coat pocket. He took another bite, and was ruminatin’ over it, when the bell rang, and a kid scooted in, let the door bang closed behind her—and stopped, big-eyed, and shivering, taking stock.

  Algaina considered her: Too young to be out by herself before the sun was up. She was wearing a good warm sweater, pants and boots, but no coat or hat. Her hair was reddish brown and hung in long tangles down below her shoulders.

  “Sleet,” muttered Roe, not nearly quiet enough for a kid’s ears to miss; “it’s one a them.”

  Algaina frowned at him, but he was staring at the kid, cold as she was, an’ tryin’ to decide if she liked where she found herself.

  Of a sudden, a big grin lit up her thin face. She rushed up to the counter, dodging under Roe’s elbow, and addressed herself at length to Algaina in a high, sweet voice.

  Algaina frowned and held up a hand.

  “Slow down, now, missy. My ears ain’t as young as your tongue.”

  The girl frowned, reddish brows drawing together ’til there was a crease ’tween ’em, her head tipped to one side. Finally, she raised her right hand palm out, like Algaina had raised hers, and said, “Slow down.”

  “That’s right,” Algaina told her with a nod. “Now whyn’t you tell me what you just said—slow enough so I can hear it.”

  “Goomorn,” the girl said obediently; “beyou manake—baneken—cookies!”

  The last word came out as a triumphant shout, like it was the only one she was sure of, thought Algaina. On the other hand, if you only had one word, it was pretty smart to be sure it paid out profits right away.

  “That’s right,” she said. “I bake cookies. You want one?”

  “You gonna feed it?” Roe asked, still not botherin’ to keep his voice down.

  Algaina glared at him.

  “Feedin’ you, ain’t I?”

  He opened his mouth, and she shook her finger at him.

  “You finish that cookie, Roe Yingling, and get yourself goin’ or you’ll miss all the good jobs!”

  He blinked—and shoved the rest of his cookie into his mouth.

  Algaina turned back to the kid. Out from the Wayhouse, sure enough. Looked like somebody at home’d moved their eyes for a half-second, and she decided to go splorin’. Algaina’s kid had done the same when he’d been what she guessed was this one’s age. Scared her to death, so it had, until she found him wandering the street, or a neighbor brought him back.

  Best thing to do, really, was to keep her ’til whoever was prolly already looking for her came by.

  So.

  Algaina bent forward some and caught her eye.

  “You want a cookie?” she asked again.

  The girl blinked.

  “Cookie,” she asserted.

  “Comin’ right up,” Algaina said, and chose a nice big sparemint from the tray. She held it down across the counter. “You try that and tell me how you like it.”

  The girl took the cookie from her hand with a solemn little bow, and bit into it, her eyes squinched in concentration.

  “Gaina,” Roe began, low-voiced.

  “Later,” Algaina told him.

  Roe took a hard breath, an amount of stubborn coming into his face, and who knows what he might’ve said next, except the bell rang again, and in come a boy wearing an oversized flannel shirt over a high-neck sweater, good tough pants, and worn-in boots, carrying a bright red coat over one arm. He caught the door, and eased it closed, the while his eyes were on the kid.

  “Elaytha.”

  She spun on a heel, and threw up her arms, nibbled cookie still in one hand.

  “Donnnee!” she cried, rushing toward him.

  He didn’t bend down to take her hug, nor even smiled, just stood there with his arms folded, and a frown on his face.

  She stopped, arms falling to her sides, cookie still gripped tight.

  “Elaytha,” he said again, and held out the coat. “It is cold. You wear this when you go out. Also, you frightened your sister.”

  His voice was level; his accent marked, but understandable.

  The response to this was a burst of words as musical as they were unintelligible—which was cut off by a sharp movement of the boy—no, Algaina thought; not a boy. A man grown, only a little short and scrawny, like they was.

  “In Terran, Elaytha,” he said, still in that stern, solemn voice. “We speak Terran here.”

  “Pah,” the girl said, comprehensively. She advanced upon her—brother, at a guess, Algaina thought—cookie extended.

  “You try that,” she said, her inflection and accent Algaina’s own; “and tell me how you like it.”

  “Yes, very well.” He took the cookie, and thrust the coat forward. “You will put this coat on,” he said sternly. “Now, Elaytha.”

  She sighed from the sole
s of her boots, but she took the coat and shoved first one arm, then the other into the sleeves.

  “Seal it,” her brother—Donnie—said in that same tone.

  Another sigh, but she bent her head, and began to work on the fastenings.

  He watched her for a moment to be sure she was in earnest, then raised his head to meet Algaina’s eyes. His were dark brown, like his hair.

  “We watch her,” he said, in his careful Terran; “but she is very quick.”

  She grinned at him.

  “I remember what it was like, raising my boy,” she said. “Yours looks like another handful.”

  He tipped his head, eyes narrowing, then nodded slightly.

  “A handful. Indeed. I am happy that she came no further, and hope you will forgive this disturbance of your peace.”

  “No disturbing done. Bakery’s open for bidness. I’m glad she come inside. It’s cold this morning, even for born streeters like us.” She nodded at Roe, who hissed lightly, and turned away to pick up the wrapped rolls.

  “Thanks, Gaina,” he said. “On my ticket, right?”

  “Right,” she told him, and watched him push past the girl and the man without a nod or a glance, goin’ out the door into the lightening day.

  “You have a taste of that cookie and lemme know what you think,” Algaina said brightly, to take attention away from Roe bein’ so rude. “New recipe; just trying it out the first time.”

  Donnie gave her a particular look, and a nod.

  “I am honored,” he said, and took a bite, chewing as solemnly as the child.

  “Donnnee,” Elaytha said.

  He held up a hand, and closed his eyes.

  After a moment, he opened his eyes.

  “The texture,” he said slowly. “It wants some—” He frowned, looked down at the kid, and held out what was left of the cookie. She took it and had it gone in two bites.

  “It wants—” he said again, and stopped with a sigh.

  “Your forgiveness; I have not the word. I will demonstrate. Elaytha, make your bow to the baker.”

  She turned and did so, smiling sunnily, the red coat meant for a taller, wider child. Like her brother’s shirt had been made for somebody Terran sized.