by Sharon Lee
Val Con grinned and pushed the hair out of his eyes. "At least we have an hour or two to prepare—and to rest."
"Yeah, well, I don't know about you, but I'm strung so high, I wouldn't sleep if you whacked me over the head with a brick."
"Performance exhilaration," he murmured. "It means you sang with all your joy."
"I guess." She stopped, staring at the entrance to the hall, while the wind thrummed against the canvas stretched high above them. "Tell you what, boss. I'm going for a walk first; try to get this exhilaration thing buttoned up. Tell Hakan I'll be back in ten minutes, okay?"
"Okay," he said, squeezing her hand gently. He turned to go in and, vaguely uneasy, turned back in time to see her disappear into the tall crowd, heading toward the perimeter.
The Terran female had stopped, attention apparently engaged by the low-tech transmitting station and the landtrain that housed it. Tyl Von sig'Alda paused some distance back, closer than he liked to a smoky brazier, watching and considering.
The Loop counseled a direct approach and indicated a possibility as high as .99 that the Terran was currently drug-free. Certainly the performance he had just seen it deliver, though rude and barbaric, was inconsistent with an individual operating with Clouded faculties. sig'Alda stepped forward.
As he came to her side, she turned, eyes going wide. He bowed, not low, but enough to flatter and confuse.
"Good day," he said, speaking most gently in Terran. "You are Miri Robertson, are you not?"
Eyes and face had gone wary; stance suggested puzzlement and indecision. sig'Alda smiled, delighted to find her so very easy to read.
"Yeah," she said, her voice firm and fine. "Who're you?"
"A friend of your employer's," he said smoothly. "It has been noted that you have guarded with excellence, in circumstances both trying and unusual. Now that your duty is completed, and your employer going home, he sends me with this gift, indicative of his esteem." Sliding the little packet with its blue dot out, he saw the Terran's eyes widen, heard her breath catch, and saw the pale skin pale further as he pressed the thing into her hand.
"Cloud?" The fine voice rasped a little on the word, and sig'Alda inclined his head gravely.
"We have made a careful study of your preferences," he said, seeing how her fingers closed tight around the plastic envelope. "And when it came time for the gift to be chosen, I offered my knowledge of your tastes, so that the gift would be certain to please. I hope that you will allow yourself to be pleased and to look upon the gift with favor."
"Sure." The voice had flattened, and she stared at him out of sparkling gray eyes, eager, no doubt, to sample what she held so fiercely. "Thanks a lot."
"It is my pleasure to serve," he told her, and bowed once again. He left her still staring with those brilliant eyes, the little packet completely hidden in the clench of her hand.
VANDAR:
Winterfair
The rehearsal hall was hot, and Val Con was sitting as far away from the corner fireplace as he could, restringing the mandolette and listening to Hakan chatter.
"We could," the younger man was saying, "just replay the set they disqualified—well, not the fourth song, but the first three. Except I hate to do that and take away the impact of that RosaRing ballad of Miri's." He shook his head in wonderment. "And she said she couldn't sing in front of a crowd! There wasn't a dry eye in the house, man—I'll bet you my share of the cash prize!"
"If we win the cash prize," Val Con murmured. "Perhaps we should do a new set, starting with the song that disqualified us."
"Something to that," Hakan said reflectively. Then he stood with a huge smile, opening his arms and hugging Kem, right there in front of everyone. Kem hugged back, steadfastly keeping her eyes away from the shocked faces, and Val Con shook his head to himself, remarking what a bad influence he and Miri had been on Hakan and his lady.
He picked up the last string, tied it, and threaded it, carefully turning the knob and—
The string snapped in his icy, clumsy hands, sweat beaded his forehead and panic blossomed in his belly. Heart stuttering, he dropped the mandolette, tears starting to fill his eyes.
"Cory?"
Val Con looked up with a barely stifled gasp as Hakan bent to his shoulder. "Are you all right, Cory?"
He took a deep breath, reviewed the Rainbow, and managed a shaky smile at his friends. "Nerves. I think, Hakan. I'll go outside and—get some air."
Hakan frowned uncertainly. "I'll come with you, if you want. You don't look so good, man."
"Miri—Miri will be coming soon." He came almost clumsily to his feet, snatched up his jacket, and went raggedly down the crowded room. Hakan looked at Kem, then bent to pick up the mandolette.
He leaned against the rough wooden wall and filled his lungs with knife-cold air. The violence of the panic had ebbed, leaving a clammy residue of despair in its wake. Val Con focused his attention inward, seeking the source of his feelings—and found it nearly at once.
It was emanating from the song that was Miri.
The terror this time was his own. Coldly he stepped away from it and turned his attention to determining her direction. The song tugged him north, and he went at a rapid walk, barely aware of the people he pushed past and sidestepped.
He turned the corner into a cross-street at a pace approaching a run, passing the infrequent fairgoers and the row of empty craft booths without seeing any of it, all attention fixed inward, where despair had solidified into something drear and nameless, and her song fragmented toward discord.
The man came out of nowhere, wrenching his attention outward with a touch on his sleeve and a murmured bit of the High Tongue.
"Good evening, galandaria. Where to, in such a haste?"
Val Con checked and danced back. The other checked, as well, and Val Con found himself looking at a slight man in a pilot's leather jacket, black-haired and black-eyed, face beardless and golden and curiously lacking in mobility.
"The commander sends greetings, Agent yos'Phelium." His voice was cultured and smooth, devoid of warmth.
Val Con raised a brow. "It must naturally gratify one to hear it," he murmured, "though I protest my unworthiness of such regard." He shifted slightly, testing the other man's reactions.
The man shifted in response, checking the foreshadowed charge, radiating self-confidence and control. "You mistake the matter," he said, "if you believe the commander allows even the least of us to fall from sight, uncounted and unsearched-for." He offered an arm imperiously. "Let us depart, Agent. The commander requires your report."
"My report . . ." Val Con frowned, counting the steps bearing down upon them, then spun and dodged away, putting a group of six fairgoers between them. Whirling back toward the top of the street, he found the nameless agent before him, poised for the throw. Val Con slammed to a halt, an empty craft booth to his left, the agent ready to leap in any direction he picked to run.
"So," the other said, pointing to the empty booth. "We will continue our discussion in there."
"No." Miri, where was Miri? He touched that portion of his being that reflected her—and pulled away, half-shuddering with her dread.
The inflexible face before him was shadowed by some unreadable emotion. "Will you die for so inconsequential a thing?"
Slowly, watching the man tightly, Val Con stepped back, muscles loose and half foolish, as in the L'apeleka stance named Awaiting. Cautiously, making no move that might be read as a threat, he opened the door, stepped into the booth, and retreated, though not nearly as far as the farther wall.
The agent came after him, sure-footed and assured as a tiger, and shut the door behind him.
"I will repeat my message," he said. "Agent Val Con yos'Phelium is ordered to Headquarters by the commander's own word, that he may be debriefed, recalibrated, and if necessary, retrained."
Val Con bowed, briefly and with irony. "As much as it grieves me to say so, I find that the commander's words leave me strangely unmoved. Pray c
arry my kindest regards with you when you go."
"So," the agent said again. His eyes closed, and the next breath he took was noticeably deeper than the one before; but Val Con was already moving to take advantage of that unexpected lapse. The agent opened his eyes, ducked, parried with a fist that came nowhere near connecting, whirled out of immediate danger, and cried out, fully in the mode of Command, "Val Con yos'Phelium clare try qwit—"
A string of no-words, meaningless in the necessity of battle: Val Con stumbled, twisted, and came barely erect, body half-sketching a L'apeleka phrase.
"Who secures Liad?" the agent demanded, and Val Con heard his own voice answer.
"The people of Liad."
"Who secures the people of Liad?" the agent persisted. The answer was not the one he would make: It came unbidden and uncontrolled. Even as he heard the words, he tried to shake them away, to form them into something else.
"The Department of the Interior secures the people of Liad," his voice said, while he hated the lie and his body continued, slowly, to move, developing more fully the phrase it had fallen into.
"Who secures the Department of the Interior?"
It was as if there were fog suddenly in the booth, or a shimmering veil between him and the agent. Through it, Val Con read the other's rising confidence and ground his teeth to keep his traitor voice silent.
"Who secures," the agent repeated, "the Department of the Interior?"
It was useless to fight. He grappled with his thoughts, trying to remember just what it was he must not allow, and heard himself murmur, through a mile of fog, "The commander secures the Department of the Interior."
His body continued of its own momentum; he paid it as little heed as the lessening distance between himself and the man who asked these tiresome, tiring questions.
"Who secures the commander?" his interrogator demanded.
"The agents," Val Con's voice told him. "The agents secure the commander."
The man before him smiled. "With what do the agents secure the commander?"
"With actions, and with blood."
"When the commander calls you to duty," the man demanded, the High Tongue knelling like a death-bell, "what do you say?"
Val Con's body twisted silently in the dance; he came to a point of fulcrum and smiled peacefully upon his questioner. "Carpe diem."
The words were like bright sun, burning away the fog. In the instant of answering, he recognized the L'apeleka dance named "Accepting the Lance;" recalled that the one giving ground before him was an enemy; recalled that there had been another answer to the last question, an answer that had made no sense. Miri had given him the proper answer—the true answer—and he had danced it into place in Hakan's barn . . .
"Val Con yos'Phelium," the agent cried. "try clare qwit—"
The cycle went faster that time: Again he was shackled; compelled to reply, mind slowly clouding while his body relentlessly repeated the pattern of "Accepting the Lance."
When the commander calls you to duty," the agent snarled, "what do you say?"
"Carpe diem!" Val Con cried; and the dance described acceptance while the agent's hand flicked toward his pocket and Val Con loosened the throwing blade.
The knife struck the enemy high in the chest, close to the throat, and bounced away with a hollow thunk as the man brought his gun around.
Val Con dove and rolled in the narrow confines of the booth; he jackknifed and kicked the other's legs out from under him. The man used his fall to advantage, coming up on his knees, gun steady. As Val Con braced himself to leap, the Loop calculated the angle that would permit the greatest chance of nonfatal injury.
"Val Con?" The voice was in his very ear, instantly recognized, dearly loved, and absolutely impossible. Before him, the agent held his fire.
"Surrender and accompany me of your own will," he said. In his ear Shan's voice was worried, insistent: "Val Con!"
He lunged.
The agent fell badly, gun spinning out of his hand, head striking solidly into the thick wooden wall. The man was moving again, instantly, throwing himself over the weapon—but Val Con was already out the door and running.
Beyond the depot, half a mile closer to Gylles, Miri shuddered, stopped, and stiffened, head up, questing inside herself: Val Con's pattern was—wrong.
Even as she watched, the colors dimmed, and several major interlockings shuddered as if under insupportable strain. Directional sense wavered, failed for an instant—then the whole structure was back as it should be: bright and strong and sane.
She relaxed, then stiffened as the cycle began once more; watching the colors dim, she spun back, terror for him overcoming dread for herself and loathing of the plastic envelope in her pocket.
"Dammit, Val Con!"
He slammed around the side of a food hall, glued his back to the wooden support, and whispered, "Shan?"
"Where the devil are you?" demanded the voice in his ear—in his head—bringing with it a static crackle of concern/annoyance/determination/love.
"The Winterfair," he whispered, craning to catch sight of the enemy among the thronging midway. "Where are you?"
"The Passage. Give your coords, approximate local fix—"
"No!" Val Con cried. He shrank back, biting his lip. "Shan, you must not come here! There's appalling danger—"
"Plan B!" Shan's thought-voice overrode him. "Speak to me of danger, do!" Frustration, full anger, and not a little fear were added to the static pummeling him, and Val Con pushed hard against the wall, closing his eyes in an agony of emotion.
"Don't . . ." he whispered, though the snow wind tore the word from his lips. "Brother—beloved—I cannot go mad just today."
Abruptly the punishment ceased and was replaced before his knees began to buckle with a steadfast bone-warming glow. Val Con drew a hard breath against his brother's love and began to murmur again to the wind. "There is a man with a gun who will have me dead, and my lifemate is not with me. I've no time to argue points of melant'i with you! Stay clear—stay safe . . ."
"We need you." There was a wealth of emotion attending that, mercifully damped to shadow.
"The gunman has a ship," Val Con murmured. "Must have a ship! If the luck is willing, it is ours."
Warmth faded to coldness; the inner ear perceived an echoing vastness . . .
"Shan!"
Warmth solidified. "Here. Running close to the time—uses too much energy. Assume the ship—what then?"
"I'll take Miri to her people. Meet us—" In the midway crowd he glimpsed a familiar leather jacket on a man much shorter than average. The man checked, turned his head to the left, then to the right, and came confidently toward the corner of the food hall.
"Go!" Val Con cried to his brother, and—pushed—with his mind. Vastness roared, emptily; then Val Con was slipping silently down the wall, toward the dim back of the building.
Shan rolled and snapped to his feet, hand outstretched toward that last horrific vision: a man stalking purposefully toward him/Val Con, the outline of the gun clearly visible beneath his coat.
"He was right there, Priscilla! I saw him! Gods—" He spun back toward the bed, confounded by his familiar room aboard the Passage—and then hurled himself forward, horror filling him completely.
Priscilla was not breathing.
What by all the gods could have made the man bolt like that?
Miri leaned against a rack of skis, breathing hard and trying to track him. His pattern was steady at the moment and seemed rooted in one spot, a real relief after the crazy zigzagging and dodging he had been doing for the past ten minutes. She squared her shoulders and set out again, keeping her pace down to jog now that she was back among other pedestrians. All the hell clear across the fair. If that just wasn't like his wrong-headedness! Why hadn't he run toward her, if he was running from trouble? No sense to have—
She swallowed hard, remembering the envelope of Cloud in her pocket; remembering the Liaden who had given it to her. Gut feeling sa
id that Val Con was running from the Liaden—except that didn't make sense at all. Nothing about the whole setup made sense, but it suddenly looked like a good idea to get to Val Con and face whatever was after him, back to back. After that—she squashed the thought. Ain't any "after that," Robertson, she told herself harshly. Get used to it.
Grief threatened to strangle her; instead, she put her attention back onto his pattern—and slammed to a halt, a cry caught in the knot of grief in her throat.
Someone pushed into her, cursing; she moved until she came up against a wall and put her hands against it, fingers digging into the wood, eyes staring straight ahead, seeing only within.
His pattern flickered, danced, expanded, distorted, all seen through a shroud of swirling flame and color. The flames drew in upon themselves briefly, then expanded and remained constant for a moment. The pattern seemed as if it were going to fade altogether—did fade . . .There was a touch, like a cold kiss upon her cheek . . .
And Val Con was gone.
"No . . ." It was a whimper, short nails scoring hardened wood. "No!" she cried again in a burst of anguish as she slammed her head against the wall and thrust her whole self into the void where his pattern had been a heartbeat before; she went through that space and out, so it seemed, to a place of flailing wind and burning ice-falls and a woman's voice crying out despairingly, as Miri reeled and went to her knees on the frozen ground.
Swallowing against nausea, steeled for silence and emptiness, she probed the place. And swallowed suddenly against joy.
He was back: whole, scintillant, sane. Alive.
"Alive," Miri whispered, she climbed to her feet, rubbing her forehead where she had hit it against the wall.
Shakily she got her bearings and, walking steadily, she set out to find him.
DUTIFUL PASSAGE
"Priscilla!"
Empty. A void where her mindsong should be—and the failing glow of the autonomic system.
Healer training took over, forcing the horror he felt out of consciousness, forcing his attention to the details that made up life. No breath; no heartbeat; autonomics fading to nothing even as he scanned . . .He needed a medic! But there was no time to call: Priscilla's body would be dead before Vilt could hope to get there from sickbay.
