by Sharon Lee
Well, that hadn’t been difficult, had it? Rys thought, and smiled.
“I will do as the luthia has said,” he promised. “However, if I am to find my brother Vinchi with this message, I will need to leave you now . . .”
Because Vinchi watched the entrances until the hour after the common meal, whereupon he betook himself to their sister Bazit’s tent, and he would not be pleased to be interrupted there.
“That is well,” Silain said, smiling at him. “I’m pleased to have shared a meal with you. Here, now.” She reached into her sleeve and brought out a set of tiles in their silver frame.
Rys took it in his natural hand, and stowed it carefully in a pocket of his vest.
“May I refresh your tea before I go, Grandmother?” he asked.
“That would be a gentle kindness,” she said, handing him the battered metal mug.
He rose, poured the tea and brought it to her, pausing to consider the plates, in need of washing, and Jin’s box . . .
“Kezzi will tend to it,” Silain told him. “Go, now. Find Vinchi.”
“I will,” he said, and bent to kiss her cheek.
The back seat of the so-called “landau” was warm and spacious; the seat cushions took Kamele’s shape immediately. Compared to the taxicab she had ridden in from the port to Korval’s house—well, there was no comparison, really. The taxi had been a utility vehicle, serviceable, practical, and well matched to its tasks.
The landau was . . . perhaps practical, if it was necessary that its occupants arrive at their destination in a state of unruffled euphoria. Indeed, if there was fault to be found, it was that the temperature in the passenger compartment was just slightly too warm.
The large armsman, Diglon, was at the controls in the front of the vehicle. In order to accommodate his length, the driver’s seat and the window between the passengers’ compartment and the driver had been moved back, so Kareen had told her.
“Are you comfortable, Scholar? I fear we are somewhat cramped with the new arrangement.”
Kamele laughed.
“I think that the two of us could work together comfortably in here all day long,” she said. “I’m not at all cramped; in fact, I’m feeling quite decadent.”
“You are kind to say so,” Kareen answered, settling back into her chair with a sigh. “It is so very pleasant to be properly warm.”
“Is Liad a . . . warm world?” Kamele asked.
“It is a temperate world, with what our good weatherman, Mr. Brunner, styles a moderate climate. Mr. Brunner, you understand, does not approve of moderate climates; they offer no scope. One gathers that Surebleak holds greater challenges to one of his calling. Those of us who do not aspire to Mr. Brunner’s proficiency found the climate . . . unremarkable. Indeed, I rather miss the tedium of the moderate, when all I might need to consider, upon walking out, was whether or not it was raining.”
The car began to move down the drive; Kamele looked out at the browning lawn, and heard Kareen sigh again.
“We will have Surebleak grasses in place by the next growing season, the gardener tells me. She thinks it a good thing, as I shall, if the lawns will be green again.”
This was more complaint than she was used to hearing from Kareen.
“Is it permitted to say that I enter into your sadness, for the loss of your home?” she asked, carefully.
Kareen turned her head away from the window and met Kamele’s eyes. She was silent for so long that Kamele began to worry that she had overstepped badly. Kareen was normally the most patient of teachers; really very like Jen Sar in her approach.
“It is permitted that one offer condolences upon the loss of kin,” she said slowly. “Other, more minor, losses, such as those taken at dice, or cards, or from the ’change—those are not mentioned, being too trivial. Unless, of course, one deliberately wishes to push a point.”
“I—”
“Peace, I do not think that you wish to play melant’i games with me,” Kareen said, and smiled her cool, slight smile. “And I must confess to you that it is not done, that one will publicly lament such a loss as we have taken—of our home, and our climate, and our culture. Such things are spoken of with kin, or with close friends.”
There was a small pause, while Kamele tried to think of something inoffensive and soothing to say.
“Then, I’m sorry for your losses,” she said slowly, “but pleased that you’re able to share them with me. On Delgado, we said that a burden was lighter, for being shared.”
Kareen’s eyebrows had risen, and Kamele paused. Had it been Jen Sar, those eyebrows would have given notice that she had surprised, and perhaps not entirely pleased, him.
It may have been the case with Kareen, as well, for she did something else that Jen Sar sometimes did, when he considered a conversation had meandered too far in a direction he did not wish to pursue: she inclined her head and murmured a polite nothing.
“My thanks, Scholar. We say a similar thing: Many hands make the work light.”
The car entered the Port Road, and continued onward, apparently hitting none of the potholes or frost heaves the taxi had discovered on the way out to the house. It was like sitting in one of the parlors, back at the house, quiet and conducive to napping.
To fall asleep would certainly be an insult to her host, and Kamele cast about for a topic that might give Kareen’s spirits a lift.
“I am interested in your field,” she said. “I think you said it was social protocols?”
Kareen tipped her head.
“In a manner of speaking. My work lately has been to codify social and ethical behaviors, rectify them with those protocols put down in the Liaden Code of Proper Conduct, update the Code as necessary and see to its reprinting and distribution.
“However, since the relocation, my work has been redefined. The delm requires me to observe the society in which we now find ourselves, and compile a plan for the clan’s new direction, now that the Code no longer . . . constrains us, as the delm would have it. I prefer informs us.”
Kamele frowned.
“But surely, ethics and moral behavior are constants!”
Kareen smiled, fully, warmly.
“I would venture to say, Scholar, that you are not a Scout.”
“No, of course not. But—”
“But, the Scouts hold—and they are in some measure correct—that all custom is valid; and all law is just—inside the society which formed them. It is therefore my task to discover the ethos and the rule of Surebleak—the core of its custom—and codify it, not only so Korval will find its place more easily, but so that Surebleak will know itself again.
“We have, in Surebleak, as the history is related by certain of the native Bosses, a traumatized society even before my son descended upon it to impose his will and his necessity. While I understand what he has done, why he has done it; and while it is not my place to argue against necessity; it is my duty to deduce Surebleak’s society before it is fractured yet again, and its core is hidden forever under the rubble of multiple disasters.
“This is why I must be located in the city.”
“I understand your mission with regard to Surebleak,” Kamele said slowly. “In fact, I understand it very well. I am, as you know, a scholar. I am very familiar with primary sources and interview techniques. If I can be of assistance to you on that front, I willingly offer my services.” She hesitated, recalling her earlier resolve. “At least until I must leave.”
“You are kind,” Kareen said, “and I willingly accept your offer of help.”
Kamele smiled.
“Thank you; I do like to be busy. But there’s something I still don’t understand.”
“You wonder, perhaps, why Korval, which, as a Liaden clan, brings the Code with it, would wish to reshape itself to Surebleak’s mores?”
“Yes.”
Kareen shifted slightly in her seat, and folded her hands on her knee.
“Society,” she said slowly, “is like a tightly
packed cube of blocks. Each block is held in place by the pressure of the blocks surrounding it. Remove a block from the gridwork and you accomplish two things:
“First, you destabilize the entire structure. That is perhaps recoverable, depending upon the size or the number of blocks that have been removed, and the pressure of the remaining blocks. Had Korval alone been removed from the gridwork of Liaden society, there would have been very little change. While the grid might have flexed, another House might, or might not have, expanded to fulfill Korval’s function in addition to its own; or perhaps matters would have moved along perfectly well with a little space between one set of blocks. A society as old and as rigid as Liaden society might never notice the removal of one block.”
“But other clans left Liad, too,” Kamele said, “and came here to Surebleak.”
“Indeed they did. I would venture to say that Liaden society is going to experience—is already experiencing—a change greater than any which has taken place since the Migration itself.
“However, the future shape of Liaden society is outside the scope of my duties. My attention is directed toward the second effect—the forces which act upon the block that has been removed from the gridwork. Without cultural support, the block may crumble; it might ossify; it might, to state an extreme case, explode. For its own health, it must find another grid to support it and which might benefit from its presence.”
Kamele frowned.
“Won’t Clan Korval and the other Liaden clans simply form an . . . emigre society?”
“It is possible that they will do so, and such a subculture might well serve a useful purpose, as additional support for the larger culture. But there we find cause for more concern. The Surebleak societal grid is scant; there are too few blocks in it; and far too much room between them, so that many of the existing blocks have fallen over. If we are to raise the fallen, and strengthen the whole, it will perhaps be best to marry the society we brought with us to the society that—barring the catastrophe which left it as Pat Rin found it—ought to have been Surebleak’s.”
“Producing a new gridwork . . . a cube built on the strengths of both former grids?”
“It is an attractive proposition, is it not? However, we cannot know that we ought even make the attempt until we can discover what Surebleak was meant to be.”
She sighed, turned her head to glance out the window, then back again to meet Kamele’s eyes decisively.
“There is another risk, not inconsiderable, for what functions on a large scale also functions at the clan level. Since Korval was formed, it was yos’Galan’s sense of propriety and ethics that guided the clan. For the first time in the clan’s existence, we are in a situation that favors yos’Phelium’s strengths over yos’Galan’s. The delm foresees that the clan itself will change, and while they acknowledge that change is inevitable, and even, perhaps, to be desired, they wish to guide it as much as they are able, to minimize damage, and to be certain that the clan’s obligations are met, whatever new form the clan may assume.”
Kamele closed her eyes, thinking, feeling the shape of the problem, and how she’d lay out the project grid, if it was hers to undertake, and how many grad students, underfaculty, and emeriti she would need to complete it in a timely fashion.
She opened her eyes to find Kareen watching her with patient curiosity.
“That’s quite a project,” Kamele said.
Kareen laughed, which Kamele had never heard her do. It was a full, pleasant sound.
“It is, indeed,” Kareen said at last, “quite a project. But, there, we are alike! I, too, am most content when I am busy.”
INTERLUDE ONE
On Luminier Plain
“Do you remember, van’chela, the boy on Avontai to whom we brought the dulciharp?”
Her voice was sharper than a mere reminiscence would call for. Perhaps he had drifted off. He feared that he had done so. Well. At least he had waked for her. He did not think he had many more such wakings left.
But the question . . . from very early in their time together, their first courier run, in fact. He smelled clove and spiced brandy; saw a surprised, round face; light oiling ivory keys, and turning harp strings to silver; he heard three sweet notes, and a woman’s anguished question.
“Indeed,” he murmured, in this fleeting present he shared yet with his lifemate. “I remember.”
“Of course you do.”
He felt something . . . her hand smoothing his hair. It was, he thought, a measure of how far he had journeyed, that he might feel the hand of the dead caress him. Perhaps, when he was done with his own dying—no, surely, when he had passed beyond waking, then he would rise up, his strength renewed, to take her hand. He would look down into her face and they would share a smile before they ventured on, together.
That was, he thought, beginning to drift again, a pleasant fantasy, and if it never came to pass, how would he know?
“And do you remember, van’chela,” Aelliana insisted, still in that sharp, bright voice, “that, when we left, after making our delivery, you led us to a different door to exit, rather than return to the entrance? I asked you why, and you did not know, only that it seemed best.”
Had he done so? He did not recall it.
“It sounds very like me,” he murmured, and raised a hand—tried to raise a hand—to catch hers.
Her fingers were warm, by which he knew that he was cold.
Very cold.
He drew a breath—he thought he did. He was sleepy; these questions exhausted him, though the sound of her voice was a joy and a comfort.
“Daav!” That was sharp, indeed, and he felt her fingers tighten on his. “Listen to me!”
“As long as I am able . . .” he breathed.
“I am cruel,” he heard her say, and felt her lips brush his.
“Daav?”
“Yes.”
“I have found us a different door, van’chela. You must trust me.”
Trust her? He trusted her before he trusted himself.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Yes. You must walk—only a very little way.”
Walk.
He remembered walking. He had come to himself, walking, slowly, uphill. There had been some sparse vegetation, and overhead a sky as pitted and grey as hull plate.
Further walking had discovered only minor improvements in the landscape, while he tired far out of proportion to his labors until, at last, he had achieved the summit and a pasture, as grey and terrible as every other thing in this place, and, only a few steps before him, a door.
He had been puzzled, a little, to find a door by itself at the top of this arid hilltop. An old door, surely, of rich, dark wood, with the Tree-and-Dragon upon it. He had smiled, then, recognizing the front door of Jelaza Kazone, and set toward it with renewed energy.
Six steps out, perhaps six steps from the door itself, he—struck a wall.
Struck it, and fell, into a swoon.
When he again came to himself, and opened his eyes, it was to unrelenting greyness, and his lifemate at his side. He had been glad of that, but so . . . very . . . tired. Korval’s door was gone, hidden from him by a thick mist, as dry and dusty as the . . . material . . . he lay upon.
“Daav?”
“Aelliana, I think that . . . walking is beyond me.”
“A very little way,” she repeated. “I will help you.”
He wasted no more of his meager strength in protest, but instead, when her arms came around him, used it to rise, clumsily. He was shivering and ill by the time he gained his unsteady feet, but he did rise, because she wished it of him. He had never been able to, nor wished to deny her, anything she might ask.
When he had rested, only a labored breath or two, she urged him to take a step . . . a second . . . a third—and he managed it. In this, he was assisted, not only by Aelliana’s embrace, but the strong breeze that had sprung up all a-sudden at their backs, pushing them gently; then not so gently. Shoving them, in fact, to
ward two glowing tunnels around which the dry mist swirled.
“What is that?” Panic brought clarity, and a tithe of strength.
Aelliana’s arms were not around him anymore—there was no need; the wind kept him upright. She squeezed his hand.
“The different door,” she answered.
“There are two doors.”
“There are two pilots,” she said, her voice calm. “Daav. Trust me.”
He trusted her implicitly—his pilot, his lifemate, his love. But those glowing portals he trusted not at all. He tried to pivot, to let the wind rush past him, but he was too weak for such tactics. Aelliana’s grip on his hand kept him from falling to his knees, even as he realized that there was no denying the wind now; he—they—would enter the portals.
“You will not lose me!” Aelliana told him, her voice as strong and relentless as the wind. “Daav, I swear it!”
No, of course he would not lose her; how could he? They were one, or not completely so, though she was always with him . . .
There was an edge of blackness to his thoughts, and he recalled, laboriously, that he was dying.
Before them, the portals flared; the wind blasted. His soul shivered at its moorings. He staggered. Perhaps he fell.
Above him, before him, a portal sprang open. Beyond was a tunnel, suffused with raging white light. And, almost, he laughed.
So, he thought, it is into a sun, after all . . .
The wind gusted; he flew forward . . .
And Aelliana let go of his hand.
INTERLUDE TWO
Tactical Space
Strategic action had failed to produce results. The problem was therefore transferred to Tactical.
The problem . . . was not simple. It was, in fact, Jeeves thought with uncharacteristic impatience, precisely the sort of complex and dangerous situation that could only be produced by a lack of proper consultation with the probability engine and Strategy Module.
Not that he expected Captain Waitley—or any organic person—to have access to such things. Indeed, Captain Waitley was new to her station, and new to her ship. Her situation had been desperate: crew were in peril, and all of her necessity had been to liberate them with their lives intact, preserve the integrity of a space station, and neutralize an implacable enemy.
