by Sharon Lee
Val Con had breakfasted early, with Miri, and seen her into the car, Nelirikk acting as driver, security and general aide, a duty he ceded to no one, save occasionally to Miri’s lifemate, and that grudgingly.
After the car had cleared the drive, he retired to his office, it being his day among Korval’s paperwork and correspondence, while Miri sat first board at the Road Boss’s newly constructed office at the port. He had worked with commendable diligence for several hours, when a particularly annoying letter from Clan Vishna’s First Speaker opened him to the realization that a cup of tea would be very pleasant.
The breakfast room was occupied when he entered; two ladies sat at a small table by the window, speaking together in High Liaden. The elder of the two ladies was a native speaker, and sat in a position of tutor over the younger lady, who had made strides in her command of the language since her arrival, some local weeks ago.
High Liaden was scarcely the easiest of languages to master, and, despite her strides, the younger lady found errors a-plenty on which to lay her tongue. However, the elder lady’s patience remained unruffled. She mildly corrected those infelicities of mode produced by her companion—and, generally, Val Con thought, one ear on the conversation as he poured a cup of tea, the errors were of mode, rather than word choice. Not particularly surprising; Terran learners as a race tended to find High Liaden mode markers baffling, if not outright lunatic.
Teacup in hand, he plucked an apple from the bowl, and turned toward the door.
“Good morning, sir,” the younger lady said, as he passed the little table, “I hope you have arisen into a joyous day.”
Unlike some of her other utterances, the mode of the formal morning greeting to those not of one’s clan was pitch-perfect. Val Con paused and inclined slightly from the waist in the small bow permitted between kin.
“Certainly, I hope for joyous things upon the day,” he returned, speaking slowly and clearly in the Low Tongue. “However, we are kin; you need not stand so high as sir with me.”
The lady—Kamele Waitley, in fact; his sister Theo’s mother—frowned, her fair brows pulling together, an extravagant expression no native-born Liaden would ever allow upon her face.
“Are we,” she asked, her mode wavering considerably, “kin?” A smile, every bit as immoderate as the frown, appeared. “Or should I say, how are we kin?”
“In the most straightforward manner possible!” he told her. “You are Theo’s mother. Theo and I share a father. While it’s true that Theo did not come to Korval at birth; yet she did not go to another clan. Liaden custom therefore allows us to be siblings. You and I trace our kinship through Theo.”
His reasoning was a little rocky, given that, according to Liaden custom, a person of no clan was considered dead; and he saw the elder lady—Kareen yos’Phelium, his father’s sister, and therefore Theo’s biologic aunt—frown, a far more subtle expression on her face. For a moment, he thought she would protest, scholar of the Liaden Code of Proper Behavior that she was. But she let the matter slip past, merely inclining her head politely, and murmuring, “Nephew. I see that you are quite in spirits this morning.”
He smiled at her, broad enough that Kamele Waitley would see and know him for a jokester.
“I am in the best of good spirits, Aunt; I thank you.”
“I wonder,” Kamele Waitley said, speaking more quickly than the conversation warranted, “I wonder if you have heard from Theo.”
“Nothing yet,” he answered gently.
Theo’s situation at last report had been . . . risky. They—he and his brother Shan, to whom Theo and her ship were formally under contract—had separately called her home. Regrettably, along with Korval’s talent for piloting, Theo’s patrimony had included a full measure of stubbornness. It was yet to be seen if she recognized any authority save her own, when her ship was in danger.
“We hope to hear from her soon,” he told Kamele, which was still possible, if increasingly less probable. “Or, she may, you know, just ship in, and the first we know of it will be a call from the port, asking that a car be sent.”
In reality, Korval would know the moment Bechimo—Theo’s ship—entered Surebleak orbit, but there was no reason to trouble Kamele with that information.
“Indeed, my impression was that Theo is as impetuous a pilot as Korval has ever produced,” Aunt Kareen put in. “It will be just as Val Con says—we will know that she has arrived when she does, and not one moment sooner.”
Kamele smiled, wistfully, or so it seemed to Val Con, and murmured, “Impetuous.”
“I fear so,” he said, and bowed slightly, teacup in one hand, apple in the other. “If you will excuse me, I have an enormously irritating letter awaiting my attention.”
“Please,” Kamele said, with an earnestness utterly at odds with the mode, “do not let us keep you from your work.”
Generous permission in hand, he left them.
Vishna’s letter had not become less irritating during his break; not even the apple could sweeten it sufficiently to make it palatable.
In a word, Vishna wanted assurances.
Assurances that the trouble pursuing Korval would not touch Vishna. Assurances that continued alliance with Korval would not damage its other alliances upon Liad itself.
Vishna wished to be held without liability, should the alliance falter, and Korval to accept all risk in any venture they might undertake together.
“After all,” Val Con muttered, “Korval brings nothing but risk to any venture.”
Teacup in hand, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, mentally reviewing the alliance with Vishna.
It was reasonably long-standing, having first been negotiated by his grandmother, Chi yos’Phelium, though it was certainly not among the longest, or the strongest, of Korval’s alliances among the clans.
Indeed, his grandmother had negotiated this particular alliance—now, he recalled the entry in the Diaries!—in order to deny it to Clan . . . Ochrad, had it been? He would need to check the entry. It had been a chess move, the alliance with Vishna, and ought to have been reviewed some time since. Only, it had caused neither party any real effort to maintain it; Vishna saw a slight profit from the arrangement, and if Korval did not see a profit, certainly, it had seen no loss.
“Well,” Val Con murmured. “That casts a far different shadow, does it not?”
He leaned to the keyboard and typed a request that Ms. dea’Gauss, Korval’s qe’andra, review the arrangement with Vishna and their latest correspondence, and advise him as to the desirability of a continued association.
That done, he called up the Diaries, keyed in Vishna’s name—
The comm chimed: not the House tone, but that assigned to Scout Administrative Commander ven’Rathan, she who held Korval’s captives—Korval’s prisoners—in what were thought to be escape-proof rooms, with Healers on-watch at every hour.
Commander ven’Rathan called but rarely, though she filed a terse written report every local week, the text of which scarcely varied, which was also the case with Korval’s prisoners.
Something must have . . . changed.
Stomach tight, he opened the line.
“Good morning, Commander.”
“Good morning, Commander,” she answered, giving him the courtesy of his own Scout rank, and continued with scarcely a pause. “I have been asked to extend . . . an invitation to you.”
Val Con frowned. An invitation? Could it be that the Department sought to negotiate for the freedom of its agents? There was a thought that exhilarated—but, no. Every one of the Department’s operatives, from courier to Agent of Change, held it as a certainty, that the Department would not seek in any way to rescue them, should they fall into the grasp of the Department’s enemies. It was, in the worldview produced by training, a matter of pride, that one was expendable, while the Department’s great work continued.
“You intrigue me,” he told Commander ven’Rathan.
“And now I will pro
ceed to baffle you: Melsilee bar’Abit extends her compliments to former Agent of Change Val Con yos’Phelium, and wishes to ally herself with his purpose.”
Melsilee bar’Abit was a Senior Field Agent: wily, resourceful, and utterly dedicated to the Department’s work.
“It’s a ruse, of course,” Val Con said.
“So I thought, as well. Therefore, I brought forward not one, but two of our Healers, and had them scrutinize her. Both report that she is sincere in wishing to align herself with your purpose. Both report that her state of mind is serene and clear. One asked if she was sane, but neither Healer would commit to so much.”
No, neither would. Training . . . left scars. Those who had broken training, of which there were, by his precise count, two, were forever changed. Those who had broken training and who had in some measure been Healed—of which there were again, those exact two—did not reclaim their former selves so much as they created a new self, somewhat reminiscent of the old.
And that line of thought . . . gave pause. Two had broken the Department’s training—himself, and Rys Lin pen’Chala, who had also been a Senior Field Agent. Why, then, could there not be another? What prevented Melsilee bar’Abit from becoming the third to contest training, and prevail?
It was excitement now that burned in him, so brightly that he closed his eyes and mentally reviewed the calming and focusing exercise known as the Scout’s Rainbow.
“Commander yos’Phelium?”
The Rainbow spun in a wheel of color behind his closed eyes. He breathed in, deliberately, and let the breath go in a sigh.
“Yes, forgive me. Please extend my compliments to Melsilee bar’Abit. Tell her that I will come to her there.”
“She is serene and calm,” the Healer murmured. “It may be that she is meditating. I find nothing of subterfuge, or violence. She is . . . at peace.”
Val Con looked to Commander ven’Rathan. “I will go in alone, and speak with Agent bar’Abit. Healer, please monitor her. Commander . . .”
“The room will be filled with gas at the first hint of a misstep,” she said flatly. “It is, being a gas, not able to distinguish between friend and foe, so allow me to regret now the headache that will greet you upon awakening. This is to be a first conversation only, with, as you have said, the Healer monitoring, and the session recorded. If it is proven that she is sincere in her desire to change alliance, we will craft a staged removal from the cell to . . . secured quarters.”
Val Con bowed. “I concur.”
“Will you allow me to set up a video meeting instead of this face-to-face confrontation?”
They had discussed that approach when he had first arrived, and he had insisted on the personal meeting. Still, if their roles were reversed, he supposed he would argue for a conservative course, as well. It was what was rational, and would give the Healer nearly the same opportunity to deep read the agent. However . . .
“Trust must begin somewhere. She has extended a hand. If I do not meet it with goodwill, we may well lose something precious.”
Scout Commander ven’Rathan sighed, but she stepped back, signaling the guard to open the door.
Melsilee bar’Abit sat cross-legged on her cot in the small room. She opened her eyes when the door snapped shut, and regarded him without expression.
He bowed, briefly, as one of superior rank to one of lesser.
“I am Val Con yos’Phelium Clan Korval,” he said. “You had sent me a message.”
She was a compact woman, her light brown hair wisping around her head in soft curls. Her eyes were blue-grey, large, and set slightly too close together.
“Why, yes, I did send you a message,” she said, her voice as wispy as her hair. “I asked you to come and talk with me.”
“So you did,” he said, gently.
He had spoken with Melsilee bar’Abit when she had first come into Korval’s care. She had been acerbic and savage, nearly a complete turnabout from this uncertain demeanor. Which could, so he thought, be an effect of having broken training. She had accomplished what he and Rys had, but alone, with neither lifemate nor brothers at hand to catch all of the pieces when everything she had known, and been, broke apart.
She unwound from the cot, and stood in her stocking feet, prisoners being disallowed boots. Carefully, she bowed, as one acknowledging a debt.
“Thank you, for coming to me,” she said. “I regret that I must ask—do you recall my message?”
He felt a frisson of disquiet, and made careful answer.
“Your message was that you wished to ally yourself with my purpose.”
“Ah,” she said softly, very nearly a sigh.
She bowed once more, deeply, hands expressing gratitude, admiration, and sincerity even as she lunged into a throat punch.
He dropped, leapt up, saw her spin, and blocked the second blow, recognizing the beginning of the sequence, as he spun away from the third, and launched an attack of his own, meaning to disable her even as she leapt to meet him, fully committed to the kill, and there was no choice—there was no time!
His body knew the answer, and provided it, firm and hard. The sound of her spine breaking was loud—and final.
He dropped to his knees beside her, his fingers going to the pulse point on her throat—but no; he was far too competent to have botched a kill so straightforward as the Fist of Malann.
The door opened while he was still kneeling, weeping over her body.
CHAPTER TWO
Audrey’s House of Joy
Blair Road
Surebleak
“This hallway!” the gentleman declared. “This hallway cries out for Queterian carpet!”
It was a handsome hallway, at the moment made more handsome by the rich, rare sunlight flowing in from the mid-hall window. The highly-polished plastic floor positively glowed under the suasions of the sun; the pale pink walls were as rosy as love’s first blush.
The gentleman’s companion, some Standard years past her first, and even her fifth, love, laughed fondly down at him, and shook her bright head.
“You think I didn’t look at them catalogs you brought me?”
“Of course, you looked at them. Given your final order, I would go so far as to say that you had studied them thoroughly.”
The gentleman smiled. The sunlight was less kind to him than to the floor and walls; it struck true silver from his hair and wantonly traced the fine lines about his eyes and mouth. The lady dyed her hair, so the sun got nothing but false gold there, and had its revenge among the lines of her face.
It was an interesting face, round-cheeked and pale; the shrewd eyes a pure blue, the chin truculent, and the mouth a little hard. The gentleman’s eyes were kinder, and grey; his chin decided; his mouth firm and sweet. Together, they made a pleasant picture, there in the sunlight: she the taller; he the slighter, obviously very much at their ease with each other.
“I studied them all right, back and forward, and back again. So, I’ll take leave to tell you that I know how much Queterian carpet costs.”
“But do you know,” the gentleman mused, his eyes dreaming on the wide, gleaming hall, “how much it costs, wholesale?”
“Strange to say it, I do. And it’s still outta range. Even if I hadn’t just bought a whole house full of new carpet and furniture—which I have done, and you well know!”
“The upgrades to the house are good for business,” the gentleman pointed out.
“Agreed! Queterian carpet, though—that’s what we here on Surebleak call ice on top the snow. It’s nice to dream on, but—”
“But you are in the business of dreams!” the gentleman said, tucking the lady’s arm through his. They proceeded amiably down the hall toward the stairs.
She laughed. “Luken, I thought you knew what my business is!”
“I do,” he said promptly. “You are in the business of comfort, and joy, and dreams. Ephemeral goods, and all the more precious for being so. Such things must be offered and received in an environment
of beauty and grace. Thus, the new furniture, the new paint, the new rugs. Your house may now stand with any other house of delight on any port I have visited. Indeed, you already enjoy custom from Surebleak Port—from persons of wide experience.”
“That’s so; we had to upgrade for those folks, but here’s the thing we can’t lose sight of: the local folks—those fancy dreams and comforts you’ll have me selling—the local folk need those things, maybe more’n the port custom. I gotta be careful not to price myself outta their paychecks.”
“You must, of course, continue to care for your core clients, but there may be . . .”
They had reached the head of the stairs, and he paused, bringing her to rest beside him. He gestured, as if strewing flower petals across the treads, inviting her to enjoy the modest and graceful descent to the floor below.
“This, too,” he murmured, “in Queterian.”
She sighed, for a moment seeing it in her mind’s eye, the distinctive pattern of browns, oranges, and reds swirling down her staircase, like a dance of autumn . . .
With a half-gasp, she shook her head, stepping away from the pretty illusion.
“We’re a couple of dreamers, right here,” she said. “What we need is breakfast to hold us down to ground.”
“Doubtless, you are correct,” Luken said, beginning his descent, his free hand lightly gripping the rail. “You are a wise woman, Audrey.”
She laughed, and hugged the gentleman’s arm.
“Now, there’s a thing that’s rarely said! I’ll tell you what, Mr. bel’Tarda; I think you’re a flirt.”
“Nonsense, I’m an honest businessman,” he said, and smiled when she laughed again.
As the house told time, it was early; Audrey and Luken had the breakfast room to themselves. They chose from the breads and fruit, cereals and juices on the sideboard, and settled companionably into what had become their preferred table in the back corner.
Audrey sighed as she settled into her chair, and sent a considering glance around the pleasant room.
