by Sharon Lee
Slowly, Jela turned toward the tailor. She bit her lip, and drifted back half-a-dozen steps to put her palm flat on the console table. “Put them here,” she said, voice quavering.
He stomped forward, the tailor flinching with each heavy step, and dropped the clothing on the spot she had indicated, not without a pang. The tabard was of no consequence, being only wandercloth, but the unitard . . . the unitard was light-duty armor. So light-duty that any true soldier would call it none at all, but sufficient to turn the point of a weak knife-stroke—or lessen the power of a serious thrust. He didn’t like the notion of having nothing between Can—Scholar tay’Nordif and a truth-blade but a layer of smart-wove fabric. Impossible to know what the scholar herself thought of it, of course, though he took hope from that pause before she agreed to the ceding of her garments.
“Is there anything else required of me here?” she asked the tailor.
“No, Scholar,” the woman said unsteadily.
“That is well, then. Jela! Follow me.” Scholar tay’Nordif swept off the dias, robes billowing, walking light, but nothing so light nor so free as Pilot Cantra had done. Obeying orders, he followed her, three steps behind, no more, no less, eyes down; giving his ears, his nose, and his peripheral vision as much of a workout as he dared.
“Liad’s sole surviving student, is it?” The Bursar’s gray eyebrows lifted sardonically, her eyes sharp and blue and giving as ice.
The scholar bowed briskly.
“Maelyn tay’Nordif,” she said in her high, sharp voice. “I am come to inquire into the status of my account.”
The Bursar pursed her lips. “The status of your account? You have no account, Scholar. You are a drain on the resources of this community until such time as your work attracts a patron willing to pay your expenses, or the artificers find that your work has practical application and market it. In the first case, any funds granted by your patron will of course go first against your accrued expenses. In the latter case, you will receive ten percent of any income generated by the sale or lease of the application incorporating your work, which funds will first be placed against your accrued expenses. At the moment . . .” She lifted her wand in one hand and fingered the chords absently.
“Yes,” she said, flicking a casual glance at the screen. “At the moment, your debt to the Tower stands at eighteen qwint.” She smiled. “That sum includes the lease on your quarters and on your office for the remainder of the month; one meal per day for yourself for the remainder of the month; your robe, equipment and storage space; and your share of Tower maintenance.”
Scholar tay’Nordif stood silent, her head tipped to one side, her hands tucked meditatively into the sleeves of her robe.
“Is there any other way in which I may be pleased to serve you, Scholar?” the Bursar inquired, her smile now a full-assault grin.
“I would be grateful,” the scholar said crisply, “if you would be so kind as to instruct me how I might deposit a flan into my account.”
The Bursar’s grin dimmed somewhat. “A flan,” she repeated.
“It happens to be what I have with me at the moment,” Scholar tay’Nordif said. “If it is too small a sum, I will of course be pleased to add another, but in that wise the conclusion of this matter will wait upon the morrow.”
The Bursar cleared her throat. “I am able to accept a flan on account, Scholar. You do realize that your current expenses will be deducted—”
“Immediately,” the scholar interrupted. “Yes, I quite understand that, thank you. Would it be possible for you to tell me if the six qwint remaining will procure a pass-tile?”
“Pass-tiles are six carolis the pair,” the Bursar answered. Jela, standing three steps behind the scholar and one step to her right, thought he heard a bit of irritation there.
“In that wise, I will have two, if you please,” Scholar tay’Nordif said composedly.
The Bursar spun her chair, snatched a green folder from one of the many cubbies behind her and spun back, her arm whipping, the packet spinning flat and potentially deadly toward—
Jela gritted his teeth, locking muscles that wanted to leap, crushing instincts that demanded he take the strike and protect his pilot—
. . . don’t, he heard the familiar husky voice whisper from memory . . . don’t for a heartbeat acknowledge that ghost.
Right, he told himself, for the first time taking comfort from his kobold’s habitual stolid, stupid stance. She’s not your pilot. Your pilot’s—
He balked at “dead,” no matter that she would have said it herself.
Unchecked, the projectile continued along its path. Far too late, and clumsily, the scholar snatched a warding hand out of her sleeve. The packet bounced off of her wrist, hit the wall high and clattered to the floor.
“Jela!” Scholar tay’Nordif snapped. “Pick that—” she pointed— “up and bring it to me.”
He moved, stumping deliberately over to the fallen packet, aware of the Bursar’s speculative gaze. Bending, he retrieved the folder, then stumped back to place it in his mistress’ outstretched, impatient palm.
“Very good,” she said peremptorily. She slipped the packet into her sash; extended her hand again.
“Jela,” she said clearly, “give me my purse.”
He counted three of his long, at-rest heartbeats, for the speculation in the Bursar’s eyes, then groped in the pockets of his vest, eventually producing a battered corduroy pouch, which he held out uncertainly.
The scholar sighed, snatched it from his fingers, pulled the string and stepped up to the Bursar’s desk.
“One flan, as agreed,” she said. “Is it the custom to give a receipt for funds received?”
The Bursar’s mouth was in a straight line now, facial muscles tight.
“You may access your account at any time from any work terminal linked to Osabei Administration, Scholar.”
“I am grateful,” Scholar tay’Nordif said, bowing just low enough, as Jela read it, to avoid being overtly rude.
The Bursar snorted and spun to face her screen, wand already in hand.
“Good-day, Scholar. May your work be fruitful and all your proofs accurate.”
* * *
THE ID PLATE SHONE briefly orange beneath Scholar tay’Nordif’s palm, a chime sounded and motes of light danced beneath the door’s dull surface, joining together until they cohered into glowing script:
Maelyn tay’Nordif
The scholar made a satisfied sound—something between a chuckle and a sigh—and lifted her hand away from the reader. Immediately, the door opened, lights coming up in the room beyond.
Where the living quarters were sparse and tidy, the office was cluttered and chaotic. It was, Jela thought fair mindedly, something of an accomplishment to have fit so comprehensive a confusion into so small a space.
Shelves lined three walls, but the scrolls and data-arrays they must once have held were absent, leaving only dust and a scattered handful of unassociated logic tiles.
By contrast, the scarred and chipped ceramic table in the center of the room was over-full with bits of piping, hoses, several canisters marked with the symbol for poison, a portable fission chamber, a large wooden box, its lid missing, the interior containing a stained rumple of cloth—and an orange cat, fast asleep.
“Well,” Scholar tay’Nordif said, apparently to herself, “I have worked in less favored places.” With difficulty, she squeezed past the table and bent over the work desk which had been jammed into the farthest and least-lit corner, as if whoever had occupied the office previously had only wished to be rid of it. The real work, it seemed to Jela, had been done at the table, though what—
Light flickered in the dark corner, which was the work screen coming up. The scholar clattered about a bit in the dimness, located the input wand and straightened, fingers sliding up and down the length, weaving chords at a rapid pace. Jela perforce reprised his impersonation of a rock, his eyes on the jumble of junk on the table, trying to make sens
e of the disparate bits; to imagine what sort of device might have been built from them—
“Jela,” the scholar said in the dreamy, unsnappish way that meant most of her thought processes were engaged with something far more important than him. “Move away from the door.”
As kobold-directions went, it was pretty loose, which might mean she really was thinking about something else. Still, he trusted her to give him some clear signal if he was in her line of fire, so he took his time about moving—slow, stolid and heavy—to his right, which cleared access to the door and also put him in a good place to observe both it and the scholar. For six of his heartbeats, nothing at all happened. The scholar continued to work the wand, her attention fixed on the screen. The cat in the box stretched and sighed without waking.
A CHIME SOUNDED, followed by a rather breathless, “Grudent tel’Ashon reporting, Scholar tay’Nordif.”
The scholar did not look up from her screen. “Enter,” she said absently, and the door opened to admit a flustered young woman wearing a unitard and a utility belt hung about with tools and tiles, scrolls and ‘scribers—but lacking a truth-blade or any other weapon that Jela could see.
“Scholar tay’Nordif, allow me to say that I am honored—” she began.
The scholar did not so much as glance up from her screen. “Explain,” she interrupted, “the condition in which I find my office.”
Grudent tel’Ashon swallowed. “Yes, Scholar. This office had previously been tenanted by Scholar ser’Dinther, who failed to adequately prove his work—”
“Does this have a bearing on the condition of my office, Grudent?” The scholar interrupted, sharply. She turned from the screen, the wand held quiescent between her palms.
The other bowed, hastily. “Scholar, I merely sought to explain—the apparatus, and the, the—”
“The lack of standard resource works?” Scholar tay’Nordif snapped. “The absence of logic tiles, grids, and storage medium? The fact that the single chair is broken, and this terminal sub-standard?”
Silence.
“I am waiting, Grudent, for an explanation of these lacks and impediments to my work. Am I to understand the deplorable state of this office as a challenge? Perhaps there is another scholar on this hall who believes my work unworthy?” She tipped her head, meditatively. “Perhaps you—”
Grudent tel’Ashon raised her hands in what Jela registered as honest horror.
“Scholar, no! Please! There was no intention on my part . . . The grudent staff has been over—That is, I did not expect a new scholar to arrive so quickly, nor that the Second Chair would place you here, when there are other offices which have been . . . Had I known he wanted you near to himself and to the Prime . . .” She stuttered, gasped, and took refuge in a bow so deep she was bent quite in half, a posture she held until Scholar tay’Nordif instructed her, impatiently, to stand up straight.
This, the grudent did, with noticeable trepidation; squared her shoulders, and folded her hands into a tense knot before her belt buckle.
“That is better. I will expect you to comport yourself as befits a scholar during the time you serve as my grudent,” Scholar tay’Nordif said, sharp and no-nonsense. “Scholars do not rely upon excuses, rather they rest squarely on good work and ample proof. Now.” She swept the wand out, indicating the room at large. “I will have this office made seemly. I will have two chairs in addition to my work chair, none of which will be broken. I will have the standard references. I will have both logic and data tiles and several of the larger grids, in addition to the usual kit. I will have that—” the wand pointed at the cluttered table— “gone.” She lowered the wand. “Am I clear, Grudent?”
“Scholar, you are,” the other said, her voice hoarse. “However, I must make you aware of certain budget constraints. Those whose work brings largesse or, or patrons to the Tower, those scholars receive—”
The wand came up so quickly the grudent flinched.
“My work,” Maelyn tay’Nordif said, each word as hard and as cold as a stone, “is paramount, Grudent. I do not allow the dabblings of any other scholar in this department to have precedence. You have heard what I require in order to pursue my work, and you will procure it, by what method I neither know nor care. Steal it, if you must. But you will provide everything I require. Have you understood me, Grudent?”
“Yes, Scholar,” the grudent whispered.
“Good. Begin by removing that table.”
“Yes, Scholar,” the grudent whispered again, then, slightly stronger. “I will return in a moment with a cart.”
“That is well. I will instruct the door to admit you.”
The grudent left; the scholar turned back to her screen, fingers busy on the chording wand. Jela stood and waited.
In the box, the orange cat, which had slept soundly throughout all the preceding ruckus, abruptly sprang up, ears swiveling. Its wide amber gaze fell on Jela; it sat down and began to groom its shoulder.
Time, not very much of it, passed.
The door chimed and opened simultaneously, admitting the grudent with the promised cart. She paused on the threshold, frowning at the problem, and took note, apparently for the first time, of himself. Her eyes—brown and slightly protuberant—widened, but unlike the cat, she failed to transfer her consternation to a more useful activity.
“Don’t,” Scholar tay’Nordif said, her eyes on the screen, “mind Jela, Grudent. If you require assistance with heavy lifting, enlist its aid. Jela! Assist the grudent at her request.”
The grudent swallowed; her lips parted but no sound emerged. Finally, she just turned her back on him and began to gather up the various odds and ends on the table and move them, all a-jumble, into the cart. She did show what Jela considered to be proper prudence in the matter of the poison canisters, and also took the necessary time to be sure that there was nothing in the fission chamber and that the power-source was disconnected. That done, she turned her attention to the box, and the cat inside the box, which had suspended its bath and was watching her with interest.
The grudent extended a hand which was trembling too much to be authoritative. The cat swung a paw, negligently, and the grudent jumped back, putting her bloodied finger to her mouth.
The cat yawned.
The grudent set her lips, groped ‘round her belt and came forward with a pair of stained work gloves. She pulled one over the wounded hand—
“Leave it,” Scholar tay’Nordif said from the back corner. The grudent blinked.
“Scholar?”
“The cat,” the scholar snapped, clearly in no mood to tolerate stupidity. “Leave it.”
The grudent lifted her eyes to Jela’s face. Finding nothing there, she looked back to the cat.
“The box, too, Scholar?”
“If you must. Jela! Pick up the box. Pick up the cat—gently. Bring the box and the cat—gently—here to me now.”
He moved, deliberately; the grudent dropped back, thoughtfully pulling the cart out of his path. The cat in the box watched his approach with interest, ears cocked forward. As near as Jela could tell from its body language, it was at rest, unaggressive—exactly as it had appeared in the heartbeat before it mauled the grudent.
The grudent, however, had approached the cat directly. Fortunately for him, he was a kobold, and just about smart enough to follow his orders by the one-two.
He took hold of the box with one hand, catching the cat neatly with the other as it hopped out, and tucking it—gently—between his arm and his side. It stiffened, but if it used its claws, they were neither long enough nor fierce enough to pierce the leather shirt. Jela kept moving, banged the table out of his way with a casual kick, and approached the terminal.
The scholar put the chording wand down on the rickety desk, extended a hand, caught the cat by the loose skin at the back of its neck and transferred it to her opposite arm, keeping a firm grip on the scruff. She jerked her chin at the empty shelf over the terminal.
“Put the box up the
re, Jela. Gently.”
It was an easy one-handed toss, and not too much clatter when it landed. The scholar sighed.
“Grudent tel’Ashon,” she snapped, turning to address that worthy, who was busily shoving the last of the bits and bobs from the table onto her cart. At the scholar’s hail, she looked up, eyes wide and throat working.
“Scholar?”
“This previous scholar—ser’Dinther? What was the nature of his work? Briefly.”
The grudent bit her lip. “As far as a mere grudent may understand a scholar’s work, I believe he sought—that is, he had proven the existence of adjacent lines of causality.”
“Had he? A pity his proof did not stand rigorous testing.” The scholar nodded at the feline on her arm. “What role had the cat in these proofs?”
“I . . . It was the scholar’s intention to provide a practical demonstration. His work led him to believe that a base creature in peril of its life might, certain conditions being met, shift to an, to a situation in which the peril was non-existent.” She moved her hand in a shapeless gesture that was perhaps meant to encompass the table and the clutter it had supported. “He had at first worked with the mun—with the Tower servitors. However, experimentation revealed that their nature, though base, was yet too elevated for the state shift to be a matter of instinct. Thus, the cats.”
“I see. And the experiment?”
“A cat would be placed into the box, which would then be sealed, excepting the delivery tube for the poison gas. The trigger was a single radioactive nucleus which, in the causality we and the cat co-inhabit, has a fifty percent chance of decaying within a specified time. If it decays, the gas is released.”
“Killing the cat,” the scholar said drily. “A singularly one-sided experiment.”
“According to Scholar ser’Dinther’s proof,” the grudent said, leaning forward, real interest showing in her face. “The cat does not die, but escapes to an adjacent line of causality. When we who are continuing along this line of causality open the box to learn what has transpired, we see a dead cat, because it is what experience has trained us to see.” She gasped, as if suddenly recalling herself, and settled back, her hands twisting together.
