Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  "The thing is, I went in thinking that the Uncle might enjoy having himself a soldier, and that selling you might net a goodly profit."

  Something moved down far in those Deeps-dark eyes, but his face didn't change out of the expression of calm listening.

  "Say something!" Cantra snapped.

  He raised his hands slightly, let them drop onto his lap.

  "I'll say that I don't blame you for wanting me off your ship," he said. "And I'll point out that, intentions aside, you didn't sell me to the Uncle." He moved his shoulders against the back of the chair.

  "No bad feelings here, Pilot."

  Which was generous, she allowed, and precisely Jela-like. She wondered if it came of being a soldier, his giving the greater weight to the action done, and the lesser to the reasons behind it.

  For herself, she was unsettled by her intentions and her actions, both. She knew—none better—that Jela wasn't anything like a partner, nor did she owe him anything as a co-pilot, being as he had forced his way into the chair and the ship.

  Yet, when decision came to action—

  Mush for brains, she growled at herself.

  "Meant to ask you," Jela said. "Why did your directors decide to retire your Series? If it can be told."

  She blinked, it being on the edge of her tongue to tell him it couldn't be told. But, dammit—she owed him...

  "Pliny," she said, and cleared her throat, "...he'd've been a half-brother. So—Pliny come home from an assignment, reports to Instructor Malis for debriefing—and slapped her."

  She paused, feeling Garen's hand hard 'round her aim, yanking her into a run—

  "So," Jela said softly. "He slapped a superior. In the military, that might be good for getting him shot, but not his whole unit."

  She looked up and met his eyes.

  "He'd been delayed," she said, just telling it, "and by the time he come in, he really needed that debriefing. Add that Instructor Malis... liked to hear us beg for the drug. The sum of it all being that he killed her—and the directors aren't about to tolerate a line that bites the hand that's fed it, housed it, clothed it, and taught it." She paused, considered, then shrugged. Wouldn't do him no harm to have the whole tale of it.

  "The Uncle come into it because some level of Batchers're are kept in line by binding—happy-chems, mostly—to certain receptors. Close enough to how the directors keep aelantaza in line, except the directors didn't figure to waste any happy-chems. Uncle's lab techs ginunicked an unbind process, which Garen knew, and figured it was worth the trip to find out would it work."

  "I see." Silence, while Jela glanced over his shoulder at his damn' tree, sitting still and green in its pot.

  "So the line was ended because it showed independence and self-reliance," he said. "And you're the sole survivor."

  "By luck..." she muttered. And by Garen.

  He smiled at her—a wholly real smile.

  "That's all any of us can claim," he said, and stood, gathering his empties into a broad hand, and reaching for hers.

  "What I propose," he said, looking down at her, his face serious. "If you agree, Pilot. Is that we do make for Gimlins. I've got a good chance at a contact there, which will get me off your ship and out of your life."

  For one of the few times in her free life, her mind went blank, and she stared at him, speechless.

  "And I'll apologize," Jela continued, "for putting you in harm's way. I am a soldier; the risks I find acceptable aren't what a civilian ought ever to face."

  Almost, she laughed, wondering what he thought her life had been—but he was gone by then, the door sliding closed behind him while she sat in the pilot's chair and for the first time since Garen died blinked away tears.

  Twenty-Nine

  Spiral Dance

  Shift Change

  Jela had gotten his log-book out, meaning to bring the entries current. An hour later, there he sat, the book open on his knee, pen ready—and he'd done no more than note down the date.

  It happened that the date was of some interest to him, it being something over forty-four Common Years since the quartermaster had assigned M Strain Jela to Granthor's Guard creche, despite the fact that the proto-soldier was smaller than spec. That he'd been the single survivor of an enemy action focused on the lab which had killed every other fetus in the nursery wing—that had weighed with the quartermaster, who'd noted in the file that a soldier could never have too much luck.

  He'd been lucky, too—or as lucky as a soldier could be. Despite a certain reckless disregard for his own personal welfare, and what some might call an argumentative and willful nature, he'd outlived creche-mates and comrades; commanders and whole planets.

  And now he was old.

  Worse, he was old while the enemy continued to advance and wrongheaded decisions came down from the top; his mission was in shambles and—

  The last—that rankled. No, it hurt.

  That this would be his last mission, he had accepted, the facts being what they were. That he would fail—somehow it had never occurred to him that he would fail, though he'd certainly failed enough times in his life for the concept to be anything but new. This mission, though, assigned by this particular commander...

  He'd been so sure of success.

  And there was worse.

  He'd promised—personally promised—the tree that he would see it safe, which he should never have done, a soldier's life and honor being Command's to spend.

  It weighed on him, that promise, for he had made it with true intent, between soldiers, and the tree was as much his comrade-in-arms as any other he'd fought beside, down the years.

  He told himself that the tree knew the realities of a soldier's promise; that the tree, comrade and hero, didn't fault him for putting duty before promises.

  The fact was that he faulted himself, for what increasingly seemed a life misspent and useless. Yes, he had followed orders. More or less. Which was all that was required of a soldier, after all.

  And duty required him, right now, to plan for the best outcome of the mission, since success was not within his grasp.

  Sighing, he shifted against the wall, sealed the pen, closed the book and put both on the hammock by his knee. He closed his eyes.

  Gimlins, now.

  Gimlins was a risk. It might even be an unacceptably high risk. He wouldn't know that until he did or didn't have someone on the comm who did or didn't have the right sequence of passcodes.

  There'd been a corps loyal to the consolidated commanders on Gimlins. Some time back, that would have been, and he was the first to realize the info was old. His big hope, in a narrowing field, was that the corps was still there. His smaller, more realistic hope, was that the corps had moved on to fulfill its duty, leaving behind a contact for those who might have lost their way.

  If there was neither corps nor contact at Gimlins, then he'd—

  He wasn't precisely sure what he'd do then, in the cause of the consolidated commanders.

  Which unsettling thought spawned another. He'd promised Cantra he'd clear off her ship, and that was a promise he did intend to keep. Duty might have required him to find quiet transport out of the range of fire, but duty hadn't required that he continue to impose his will—his will—upon her once he'd gotten clear.

  He could have picked up a ship at any of the ports they'd passed through on their way to settle Dulsey with the Uncle. The truth was, he hadn't chosen to. Like he'd chosen to sign on as Dulsey's escort to safety, forcing Cantra onto a course she'd never have charted for herself, and for which audacity she'd determined to sell him to a ruthless man who she might have had reason to believe could keep him occupied long enough for her to lift, regaining her life and her liberty.

  He understood her motive, and didn't blame her for the intention. A fully capable woman, Cantra yos'Phelium, and as good as her word—when she gave it. He'd enjoyed being her partner in trade. And he'd learned something about piloting from her, which he wouldn't have thought was possible.
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  He smiled a little, remembering her yawn for the X Strain's display of prowess—and the smile faded with the more recent memory—looking down to the dock where she was surrounded, smoke billowing from her 'skins and the scream.

  He'd never thought to hear Cantra yos'Phelium scream—and hoped never to hear it again. The sound of her laughter—that was a memory for a soldier to take away with him, and treasure.

  Memories... Well, a soldier had his memories—which shouldn't, in the normal way of things, interfere with his duty or his planning.

  Sighing, he shifted again against the wall, settling his shoulders more comfortably, and engaged one of the focusing exercises.

  The sound of the air being cut by wings disturbed his concentration; sunlight flickered in strange patterns across the barely visualized task screen, which melted, morphing into a wide band of blue, arcing from never to forever over the mighty crowns of trees.

  Again came the sound of wings and there, high against the canopy sky, two forms, necks entwined, danced wing-to-wing.

  "Not likely," Jela muttered and started the exercise from the beginning, banishing the dancing lovers from his mind's eye.

  The exercise proceeded, task screen came up—and was again subverted by the tree's will.

  This time he saw the now-familiar green land, gently ridged by the great roots of trees. Against one giant trunk a nest sat a little askew, with bits and pieces of it strewn about, as if it had fallen from a higher branch, unmoored perhaps by the wind.

  In the nest was a dragonling, its tiny wings still wet, and it was crying, as any baby will, for food, and for comfort.

  As he watched, a seed-pod fell into the nest, and the baby set to with a will; another pod was given and devoured; and a third, as well, after which the baby curled 'round in its battered nest, eyes slitting drowsily...

  Leaves sifted gently downward, filling the nest softly. The dragonling sighed and tucked its head under its wing, slipping off into sleep.

  A flash of the task-screen, then, and a shift of scene to doleful, dusty wasteland, the sun pitiless overhead, and below, nested in the sand, a creature soft and dun colored, its snout short; its eyes reflective...

  In the hammock, leaning against the wall of his quarters, Jela snorted a laugh.

  "And a pretty sight I was," he said aloud.

  The tree continued as if he had not interrupted, displaying now an unfamiliar green land touched by soft shadows—and there, curled against a trunk he somehow knew for the tree's own, despite its greater girth, a small and soft dun-colored creature was peacefully asleep.

  In the now of Cantra's ship, Jela frowned.

  "Is that real?" he asked the tree, but his only answer was a flicker of shadows and the sound of the wind.

  * * *

  She checked their location, and gave Jela full points for finding his way out of the Deeps and into the relative safety of the Shallows.

  For old time's sake, she called up reports from weapons and from the ship-brain, opened the comm logs, read the Uncle's note, laughed, and scanned the long list of sends which had raised no answers.

  She went down the list again, frowning after call-codes familiar from her previous audits of Jela's comm activity, through a complicated skein of unfamiliar—and increasingly untraditional codes.

  The man's worried, she thought, and caught herself on the edge of starting a third time from the top.

  Mush for brains, she growled, and banished the log with a flick of a finger.

  She should, she thought, get dressed, pull up the charts and do some calculations, checking Jela's filed route to Gimlins.

  The sooner you raise it, she told herself, when she just sat there—The sooner you raise this Gimlins, the sooner you've got your ship back.

  True enough and a condition she'd yearned for since shortly after shaking the mud of Faldaiza off of Dancer's skin.

  Despite which, she stayed in the pilot's seat, pulling her feet up onto the chair and wrapping her aims around her knees, the silk robe sliding coolly against her skin.

  The Little Empty was in the forward screen, the few points of light showing hard against the endless night. She leaned back into the chair...

  Don't stare at the Deeps, baby, Garen muttered from memory. The empty'll fill up your head and make you's crazy as your mam, here.

  No use explaining that Cantra knew her pedigree down to multiple-great-grandmothers and that Garen yos'Phelium was nowhere in the donor list. Garen believed Cantra to be her daughter—the same daughter who had been annihilated, along with the rest of Garen's family, acquaintances, and planet, by a world-eater, some many years before the directors of the Tanjalyre Institute commissioned Cantra's birth.

  Garen'd told her the story—how her ship had come home from a run, excepting there wasn't any home there. Told how they'd checked the coords, gone out and tried to come back in. How they'd done it a dozen times, from a dozen different transition points until finally the captain put them in at Borger, cut the crew loose and sold the ship.

  She told that story, did Garen, and as far as Cantra'd ever determined, she'd seen no inconsistency in admitting her daughter dead and destroyed while at the same time believing Cantra to be that same daughter. Not the least of Garen's crazies, and the one that Cantra ought by rights to have no argument with, it having saved her life.

  The question now being, Cantra thought, tucked into the pilot's chair of a ship she could never fully trust, staring out over the Deeps—saved it for what?

  Life wants to live, baby. That's just natural.

  True as far as it went. But life-life wanted to accomplish, too; to make connections; to trust; to be at ease and off-guard for some small moments of time...

  That's a powerful gift you've been given, baby. A weapon and a boon. You can have anything you want, just for a smile and a pretty-please.

  A curse, more like, and a danger to her and to those who fell under her sway. The best course—the safest—was to keep herself to herself, and to stand as cantankerous and off-putting as possible when human interaction came necessary.

  The meager stars danced in the screens. She closed her eyes, which didn't shut the empty out.

  Five years since Garen'd died. Five years of running solo, keeping low, with nobody except herself to talk to.

  And for what?

  "Habit," she whispered, and in the Deeps behind her eyelids she saw Dulsey, her stolid face animating as she talked about the Uncle and his free and equal society of Batchers. Jela, the joyful gleam of anticipated mayhem in his eye as he squared off in front of an opponent twice his mass.

  ...and other images—Jela half-way up the ramp and more; Jela parting the killing mob around her; Jela's face, worried and relieved and cautious all at once, the first thing in her eyes when the 'kit opened up.

  Jela, who had a mission and a reason to live his life as he did, and who had promised to take himself and his tree off at Gimlins, which was, damnitall, what she wanted.

  Wasn't it?

  Should've sold the man to the Uncle, and had done she told herself—and laughed. Selling Jela would have solved more than one problem, the way she figured it now.

  So you owe him, she said to herself, but it was more than that. She'd gotten used to him; gotten used to his back up and his good sense. Worse, she'd gotten used to having him on her ship, in her daily routine. Gotten used to regular sleep shifts, and not running half-ragged. Hadn't touched a stick of Tempo in—

  Well, she was going to miss him, that was all.

  Nothing else but what you traded for.

  Right.

  Deliberately, she put her feet down on the cold decking, and pushed out of the chair. Behind her, the door cycled.

  She turned and considered him, the tight ship togs showing the shoulders to good advantage.

  He paused just inside the door, his face open and a little unsure, hands quiet at his sides.

  "Occurs to me," he said, quiet-like and as serious as she'd ever heard him. "Th
at I put you off more than one course at Faldaiza. I'm no redhead, but I can try to make it up to you." He gave her a smile that was nigh heart-stopping in its genuine wryness. "If you're interested."

  Well. Yes, as a matter of fact, she was interested.

  So she smiled and walked toward him, knowing she was going to regret this, too, at Gimlins.

  He tipped his head, the black eyes watching her with a certain warm appreciation. She felt her smile get wider and let it happen while she held out a hand.

  He met it, his fingers warm, his palm calloused, his grip absurdly light for a man who could crush another man's fist.

  "My cabin's bigger," she said softly, and they left the tower together.

  Thirty

  Spiral Dance

  Gimlins Approach

  Gimlins hung in the second screen, where it had been for some time while Jela played with various comm-codes, his face slowly settling into an expression of grim patience, tension coming off of him in waves.

  Cantra busied herself with the piloting side of things, pulling in such feeds as were available; checking her headings for the sixth time; and riding the scans harder than need be.

  The tension from the co-pilot's side continued to build, to the point where the pilot started to itch. Sighing, she released the straps and stood.

  "I'm fixing tea," she told the side of Jela's face. "Want?"

  Not even a blink to show he'd heard her. His fingers moved on the comm-pad, paused-moved again.

  Give it up, she thought at him. Anybody who's hiding this hard can't be anything but trouble.

  "One more string," Jela said, his voice as distant as his profile. "Tea would be fine, thank you."

  "Right."

  She took herself off to the galley, put the tea on to brew and leaned against the cabinets, arms crossed over her chest, feeling something like grim herself.

  "Cantra yos'Phelium," she said aloud, "you're a fool."

  Worse than a fool, if she was going to start talking out straight to herself while there was still another pair of ears on-board to hear it.