I Dare

by Sharon Lee

  As oath-holder, Daav occupied the position of greater peril, leaning against an artfully place boulder directly before the stone bench occupied by his oathsworn. He crossed his arms over his chest, which put his right hand on the butt of the pistol riding hidden in his vest.

  Gods, he thought, I don't want to waste a scout.

  "Nor ought we to endanger the House." Aelliana's tone was more than a little acerbic, which was, Daav owned, no less than he deserved, who had placed Erob's House in peril by insisting upon this mad course.

  If the captain comes quickly . . . he thought. Yes, and if Hazenthull could but hold scout-sense against the rising tide of rage—that the solution which was to have bought her senior's life had failed, leaving her and her dependent trapped and in the power of the enemy . . .

  "She depended upon her senior to find the way clear, once he was healed," Aelliana said. "She did not plan fully."

  How could she? He replied, reading the change in Hazenthull's muscles, malleable under the growing warmth of her rage. His survival was the essence of her plan.

  On the stone bench, Hazenthull shifted, her muscles bunching as if for the charge. Daav's hand closed around the hidden pistol.

  "Explorer." Unexpectedly, Diglon Rifle leaned forward. "Explorer, the captain comes."

  She turned on him, face set in a snarl, and started badly when the house door snapped open, admitting the person—and the voice—of Nelirikk Explorer.

  "Prepare for inspection!" He commanded, in the Yxtrang common tongue.

  Diglon Rifle rose at once, marched over to the pool of light spilling from the open door and dropped into parade rest.

  Hazenthull Explorer sat, as a woman turned to stone, staring, her face beneath the tattoo work beginning to crumble.

  "Explorers kept discipline, when I was in the corps," Nelirikk said, acidic in the extreme; and then snarled, "Prepare for inspection!"

  The command voice sent a little thrill even along Daav's scout-trained nerves. Diminished as she was, Hazenthull was in no condition to resist.

  Sullen, but obedient, she stood, walked out into the light and assumed parade rest slightly in advance of Diglon Rifle, as befit her higher rank. Nelirikk placed himself to the right and slightly forward of both, eyes front.

  Daav sighed and stood away from the boulder, hands at his side, pistol nestled yet in its secret pocket, and wondered how soon the captain might arrive.

  Wonder was speedily answered.

  "Troop! Attention!" Nelirikk bellowed, and all three straightened as the empty doorway framed a slender woman in working leathers, her white shirt laced with silver cord, her red hair neatly braided and wrapped three times around her head, like the crown of a barbarian princess. At her back, not immediately noticeable, walked a man, dressed as she was, in working leathers, his shirt black, his hair dark.

  Daav took a careful, quiet breath. The scout, is it? he thought. Aelliana, behold our son.

  His vision slipped, the images going ghostly, as it did when she was actively using his eyes, rather than merely depending upon the data he gathered for both of them.

  "A scout sublime," she murmured. "No more substantive than a thought, and the edges of him so sharp he fairly glows. Though I think that he would not be quite so invisible if his lady did not deliberately draw the eye to herself." She paused. "A formidable pair of children, to be sure, van'chela—and aptly joined, leaf and root." His eyesight blurred; became his own once more. "We may be proud."

  Or terrified, Daav amended, and heard her laugh before she vanished from his awareness.

  Straight up to the waiting troops walked the red-haired lady, and stood before them, hands behind her back, chin up. She took her time considering them; the man at her side glanced casually 'round the garden, unerringly picking out the positions of the three scouts.

  Apparently satisfied with what she saw, the lady deigned to speak. "I am Captain Miri Robertson, field name Redhead." Her voice was firm, her Yxtrang slow, but robust, her accent, Daav noted wryly, neither native nor quite as ghastly as his own. "I am in command here. Lieutenant, present the recruits."

  "Captain." Nelirikk saluted, showily, and barked out. "Candidate Hazenthull Explorer, stand forward for inspection!"

  For a marvel, she did so, and saluted, somewhat faintly, her stance eloquent of disbelief as she gazed down upon a captain two-thirds her height and less than half her mass.

  "Captain," she said, warily.

  "Explorer." The captain's tone was cool

  "Candidate Diglon Rifle!" Nelirikk ordered. "Stand forward for inspection!"

  He did, saluting with energy. "Captain!"

  "Rifle." Slightly warmer, there, accompanied by an infinitesimal nod of the head. "Why do you want to enlist under me?"

  "Captain." He saluted, looking bewildered, as well he might, thought Daav. Why was not the concern of mere Rifles.

  "Captain, soldiers need command. We are . . . abandoned in place, without orders, except to resist the enemy until we die." He paused, brow furrowed, tattoos rumpling. "Captain, I would rather live than die."

  Captain Miri Robertson, field name Redhead, smiled. "So would I." The smile faded.

  "Hazenthull Explorer."

  "Captain."

  "Why do you want to enlist under me?"

  There was a pause, possibly longer than was quite considerate of the captain's honor.

  "Captain. Soldiers need command."

  The captain shook her head, Terran-style. "But explorers—like scouts—chafe under too much command. As I well know." She paused, then snapped in full command mode.

  "Explain!"

  Hazenthull jerked, and saluted, hastily. "Captain. It was known that the Hero of the Battle for the Airfield had recruited an explorer. It was thought that such a captain might attach more explorers to her unit. The Fourteenth Conquest Corps has deserted us. Without command we are dead and without honor. Under a Hero captain we may serve with honor and die with glory. For the good of the Troop."

  There was a small silence before the captain nodded. "Better." She glanced at the silent scout, perhaps gaining some information from his face that was invisible to Daav. She brought her gaze back to the two Yxtrang.

  "Before I ask for your oaths," she said slowly, "I will tell you that the troop you came to join, the Lytaxin Irregulars, was a field troop, its ranks filled by survivors from the first wave of the invasion and a few old soldiers who had been separated from their home troops. Having done duty, the Irregulars have—honorably and without prejudice—been disbanded. The survivors have returned to rebuild their homes. The old soldiers, many of them, have been reattached to their home troops, which came in as part of the counterattack. Those who have not are temporarily attached to mercenary units here. They will take transport when the mercenary forces lift and will rendezvous with their home troop out of headquarters. Understand this. I hold rank as a captain of mercenary soldiers, commissioned by Commander Carmody himself, but at this time, I have no command."

  She paused. Neither recruit made a sound.

  "In addition to my rank as captain," she continued, "I owe allegiance to a kin-group—Clan Korval. This kin-group has acquired a worthy and cunning enemy. In order to fight this enemy, we will need soldiers. The sub-group Line yos'Phelium stands ready to receive your oaths, if you wish to give them, but you must understand that this service will be different. You will be required to learn languages other than the tongue of the Troop; cultural study will be required. I expect this of explorer and Rifle, alike. Worse, you will serve not one captain, but the leaders of the sub-kin-group, who are two and equal." She put her hand, palm flat, against her chest; then likewise touched the man beside her.

  "This is Val Con yos'Phelium Clan Korval. He is, among many other things, a Liaden scout and my lifemate." She tipped her head, and asked a question in Liaden. "Do you understand 'lifemate', Hazenthull Explorer?"

  "If the captain pleases. As we are taught, it is an arrangement of sexual convenience, with
implications of exclusivity."

  "Oh, my," Aelliana murmured.

  She's young, Daav countered. And I will own, my lady, were we both embodied . . .

  "True."

  The captain's eyebrows had lifted. She glanced at the man beside her.

  "Hear that?" she said in Terran. "Convenient."

  He moved his shoulders. "The interpretation of custom is uniquely subject to error, as even the most careful scholar will confess."

  Hazenthull stirred. "If the captain pleases," she managed in her ragged Terran. "Does this mean that 'lifemate' is not a sexual architecture?"

  "In general, it is," the captain said slowly. "In specific, it's a lot more. Nelirikk'll fill you in, and you can mince it up into Rifle-size pieces. If you wanna go through with it, that is. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to have nothing to do with swearing to Line yos'Phelium. Nelirikk can fill you in on that, too."

  Hazenthull's eyes moved, questioning.

  "The scout who stands beside the captain is of Jela's own blood," Nelirikk said in the tongue of the Troop. Daav saw Diglon start and lean forward, face intent.

  "The Line the captain asks you to give oath to is the Line to which I have myself given oath. When the captain and the scout go against the enemy of their blood, I will be at their backs. If there is a place or a service of greater glory in all the galaxy, I have not heard of it."

  There was silence. Hazenthull looked to Diglon Rifle, not as if she were seeing him, Daav thought, but as if she were weighing the burden on her soul. She sighed, and saluted.

  "Captain. We came to offer ourselves and our weapons to Captain Miri Robertson. That has not changed. If a captain so wise in war will accept our oaths and weapons, we will serve her until our last bullet is spent."

  The captain nodded, glanced aside—and Daav found himself pinned in a feral gray glance.

  "If Scout yos'Phelium will relinquish the short-oaths he holds in my name, this man and I will take your oaths to Line yos'Phelium."

  YOS'GALAN had been roused from his bed, Emrith Tiazan surmised, not without a certain satisfaction. Not that he was rumpled, mis-buttoned, clumsy, or in any way unseemly; but the silver eyes were heavy, and the charade of the voluble fool was missing entirely. Indeed, one might almost say the bow he accorded her was . . . terse.

  "Erob."

  "yos'Galan." She inclined her head, merely, not bothering to rise from her seat on the edge of the stone bridge; and pointed at the giants slumbering in her quiet place.

  "Those are yours, I believe?"

  He sighed. "In fact, they are not, though they stand kin to my brother and his lifemate."

  She sighed in her turn. "How else? Well, no matter. Korval's kin-lines are not mine to tend. Thank the gods. Remove them. Immediately."

  The thin white eyebrows lifted. "I failed to notice the location of the pneumatic hoist when I came in. Perhaps you would be good enough—?"

  "Or perhaps I would not. Wake them, yos'Galan, and remove them. Understand me, I would not require it of you, were your cha'leket or his lifemate able. However, my information is that both are convalescent, so the duty falls to near-kin."

  "They are," he said slowly, "guests of your House."

  She stared at him. "I beg your pardon? Who admitted them?"

  "Surely that information is in the door-log."

  Well, and so it would be—later just as much as now. And she was far too wily an old woman to be found in doubt of an assertion made by one of Korval. She sighed again and looked at the large, unmoving bulks of them, sprawled all over her comfort place.

  "And I suppose this is just like home?" She raised a hand. "No, leave it. Only tell me how long they will sleep."

  "Forgive me, but I am ignorant of their customs and their habits. It may that my brother's lifemate will know the length of their sleep cycle, though I hesitate to disturb her own rest."

  "Yes. Well." Creakily, she began to rise from her seat on the edge of the bridge, and was agreeably surprised to find a large brown hand extended to her service. She slid her hand into his and allowed him to help her rise, then walked with him, companionably side-by-side back across the bridge and toward the door.

  "This is a pleasant garden," yos'Galan said, smiling at a colorful bank of gladoli.

  Well, and it was that, Emrith allowed, when it wasn't being invaded by giant turtles. She inclined her head.

  "I thank you," she said calmly. "It is one of the joys of—"

  The remote in her pocket gave tongue. She snatched it out, thumbed 'receive' and snarled, "Who dares?"

  There was a moment of terrified silence, or so she devoutly hoped, before An Der spoke, respectfully.

  "Your pardon, my delm. I relay a message from the door. Lady Nova yos'Galan has arrived claiming guest-right and requesting the comfort of her close-kin."

  "Has she," said Erob, and directed a glare at the lady's brother. "Pray conduct Lady Nova to the guesting suite in the garden wing. Her brother will be with her shortly. Should she have any other requirements, the House exists to serve her." She closed the connection.

  yos'Galan spread his big hands. "Surely you can't blame me?"

  "Oh, can I not?" Emrith Tiazan snapped. "She is your sister!"

  "But more than that," he said soothingly, "she is Korval-pernard'i, in which face she strongly represents a force of nature. A brother—a mere thodelm!—hardly commands her arrivals and departures."

  She drew a deep breath, but he was bowing, gracefully, and with more than a touch of irony.

  "However, since the House has promised my sister the comfort of her close-kin, I should betake myself to the guesting suite in the garden wing with no further delay. Good evening, ma'am." And so he left her, seething.

  "LIEUTENANT, PLEASE take the troops to the staff cafeteria inside and wait for me there," Captain Robertson ordered. She turned her head, looking out across the dark garden.

  "Shadia Ne'Zame."

  The darkness shifted, and coalesced into a woman in scout leathers, bowing the bow between equals. "Captain Redhead?"

  "Do me the favor of lending your countenance to the troop," the captain said, and her Liaden bore the very accent of Solcintra. She switched to Terran. "Stay out of trouble, got it?"

  Shadia grinned. "Got it." She waved a hand at Nelirikk. "After you, Lieutenant."

  "Troop, about! Single file! Follow me!" Nelirikk marched into the House of Erob, followed by an explorer, a Rifle, and, lastly, skipping, a scout, who lightly touched the control as she passed over the threshold. The door slid shut behind her.

  Daav shifted, and found himself caught in the regard of two pair of eyes—one gray, one green.

  "Clonak," the scout said, without turning his head. "Grant us half-an-hour."

  There was no reply, merely a subtle disturbance in the air, then the slight sound of the gate at the end of the garden, opening—and closing.

  Daav waited.

  Surprisingly, it was Miri Robertson who spoke.

  "Any ideas what we ought do with you?"

  The tone was more than a little ironic; the dialect street-rat Terran. Daav shrugged, deliberately Terran.

  "I don't know that you need to do anything with me," he said, in his most finicking, professorial accents.

  She snorted. "Got the proper respect for command," she told the green-eyed man at her left shoulder.

  "Ah," he said, eyes and face bland. She shook her head and looked back to Daav, an expression of mingled exasperation and amusement informing her mobile features.

  "Wanna tell me under what authority you took those oaths?"

  "Blood kin," he said, more sharply than he had intended. "I couldn't very well take oaths for the House, you know—especially as I rather think my name has been written out of the roster of lives and into the lists of Korval's dead."

  "No," the scout said in his soft, murmuring voice, "it has not."

  Daav met the green gaze and waited.

  The scout's left eyebrow slipped upwa
rd a fraction. "Surely, you don't think your brother gave over hope of your eventual return—or that your son did?"

  "My brother," Daav said slowly, "perhaps not. What my son might do is—alas—beyond my ability to predict. He was so young when we parted, you see."

  "Precisely," the boy murmured. "It will perhaps amuse you to know that your son did not strike your name from the book of the living, nor did he ever give over hope of your eventual return. He had several pointed questions to ask you, as I am certain you will understand."

  "My understanding is perfectly engaged," Daav assured him, "since it was the very need to ask pointed questions which drew me out of my Balance and sent me back toward Liad."

  Something flickered in the green eyes. The boy inclined his head. "I regret to inform you that Er Thom your brother has died during your absence. He survived his lifemate by only a Standard."

  It still sent an electric chill along his veins, the knowledge that Er Thom was gone; that he would never again see his brother's face, or hear the rare, sweet music of his laughter. Daav took a hard breath, inclined his head in turn, and dropped into High Liaden for the perfectly correct response.

  "I thank you. Clonak had previously informed me of these things, but I had not yet had it from kin."

  He straightened to find the captain looking over her shoulder at the scout.

  "Well?"

  "Well," he returned.

  "Right." She looked at Daav, gray eyes serious now. "You want back in or is this just a visit?"

  He had discussed this very choice with Aelliana, several times. She was of a mind to become re-clanned, pointing out that he could not reasonably expect to resurrect Professor Kiladi on Delgado and would thus need to establish another character elsewhere, over another period of years, before he might take up his Balance once more.

  "And truly, van'chela," she had said, "I believe this phase of Balance complete. Now it is time to gather allies and to pool what is known."

  Sound advice it was, and well-argued, yet there was a certain disinclination to return to the confines of Liad after having for so many years enjoyed the easy customs of the Terran worlds.