The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “Elthoria,” he said, soft and polite as he knew how. “Sir.”

  “Elthoria?” The woman exchanged a long glance with her mate, who moved his shoulders, pensive-like.

  “Could be it’s bound for Solcintra Zoo,” he said.

  “Could be it’s gotten hold of a card it shouldn’t have,” the woman returned, sharply. She held out her hand. “Come, Terran. Let us see your ship card.”

  And that, Jethri thought, was that. He was threatened, cornered and outnumbered, but he was damned if he was going to meekly hand his card over to this pair of port hustlers.

  “No, ma’am,” he said, and jumped forward.

  The grav was light—he jumped a fair distance, knocking the woman aside as gentle as he could, out of reach before the man thought to try and grab him.

  Having once jumped, Jethri stayed in motion, moving quick through the crowded room. He met a few startled glances, but took care not to jostle anybody, and very soon gained the door. It was, he thought, time to get back to his ship.

  THEY KNEW THE station better than him—of course they did. They turned him back, hall by hall, crowding him toward the Concourse, cutting him off from the docks and his ship.

  In desperation, he went down three floors, hit the hall beyond the lift doors running and had broken for the outer ring before he heard them behind him, calling “Terran, Terran! You cannot elude us, Terran!”

  That might be so, Jethri thought, laboring hard now, light grav or not. He had a plan in his mind, though, and if this was the hall as he remembered it from the guide book’s map of danger zones. . .

  He flashed past a blue sign, the Liaden letters going by too fast for his eye to catch, but he recognized the symbol from the map, and began to think that this might work.

  The hall took a hard left, like he remembered it from the map, and there was the emergency tunnel at end of it, gaping black and cold.

  “Terran!” The woman’s voice was suddenly shrill. “Wait! We will not hurt you!”

  Right, Jethri thought, the tunnel one long stride away. He hit it running, felt the twist inside his ear that meant he had gone from one gravitational state to another—

  He jumped.

  Somewhere behind him, a woman screamed. Jethri fell, slow-motion, saw a safety pole, slapped it and changed trajectory, shooting under the lip of the floor above, anchoring himself with a foot hooked ‘neath a beam.

  The woman was talking in Liaden now, still shrill and way too loud. The man answered sharply, and then shouted out, in pidgin, “Terran! Where are you?”

  Like he was going to answer. Jethri concentrated on breathing slow and quiet.

  They didn’t wait all that long; he heard the sound of their footsteps, walking fast, then the sound of the lift doors working.

  After that, he didn’t hear anything else.

  He made himself sit there for a full twenty-eighth by the Liaden timepiece on his wrist, then eased out of hiding. A quick kick against the side of the chute sent him angling upward. He caught the edge of the floor as he shot past and did a back flip into the tunnel. He snatched a ring, righted himself, and skated for the hall.

  A Liaden man in a black leather jacket was leaning against the wall opposite the tunnel.

  Jethri froze.

  The Liaden nodded easily, almost Terran-like.

  “Well done,” he said, and it was ground-based Terran he was talking, but Terran all the same. “I commend you upon a well-thought-out and competently executed maneuver.”

  “Thanks.” Jethri said, thinking he could scramble, go over the edge again, make for the next level up, or down . . .

  The Liaden held up a hand, palm out. “Acquit me of any intent to harm you. Indeed, it is concern for your welfare which finds me here, in a cold hallway at the far edge of nowhere, when I am promised to dinner with friends.”

  Jethri sighed. “You see I’m fine. Go to dinner.”

  The Liaden outright laughed, and straightened away from the wall.

  “Oh, excellent! To the point, I agree.” He waved down the hall vaguely, as if he could see through walls, and so could Jethri. “Come, be a little gracious. I hear you are from Elthoria, over on Dock Six, is that so?”

  Jethri nodded, warily. “Yes.”

  “Delightful. As it happens, I treasure an acquaintance with Norn ven’Deelin which has too long languished unrenewed. Allow me to escort you to your ship.”

  Jethri stood, feeling the glare building and not even trying to stop it. The man in the jacket tsk’d.

  “Come now. Even a lad of your obvious resource will find it difficult to outrun a Scout on this station. At least allow me to know that Elthoria is on Dock Six. Also—forgive me for introducing a painful subject—I must point out that your late companions will no doubt have called in an anonymous accident report. If you wish to avoid awkward questions from the Watch, you would be well-advised to put yourself in my hands.”

  Maybe it was the Terran. Maybe it was the laugh, or the man’s easy and factual way. Whatever, Jethri allowed that he trusted this one as much as he hadn’t trusted the pair who had been chasing him. Further down the hall, a lift chimed—and that decided it.

  “OK,” he agreed, and the man smiled.

  “Not a moment too soon,” he said, and stepped around the edge of the wall he’d been leaning against.

  “This way, young sir. Quickly.”

  HIS GUIDE SET A brisk pace through the service corridors, his footsteps no more than whispers.

  Jethri, walking considerably more noisily behind him, had time to appreciate that he was at this man’s mercy; and the likelihood that his murdered body could lie in one of the numerous, dark repair bays they passed for days before anyone thought to look. . .

  “Do not sell your master trader short, young sir,” the man ahead of him said. “I can understand that you might be having second thoughts about myself—a stranger and a Scout, together! Who knows what such a fellow might do? But never doubt Norn ven’Deelin.”

  Apparently, it wasn’t just his face that was found too readable, Jethri thought sourly, but his footsteps, too. Still, he forced himself to chew over what the man had said, and produced a question.

  “What’s a Scout?”

  Two steps ahead, the Liaden turned to face him, continuing to walk backward, which he seemed to find just as simple as going face-first, and put his hand, palm flat, against his chest.

  “I am a Scout, child. In particular: Scout Captain Jan Rek ter’Astin, presently assigned to the outpost contained in this space station.”

  Jethri considered him. “You’re a soldier, then?”

  Scout Captain ter’Astin laughed again, and turned face forward without breaking stride.

  “No, innocent, I am not a soldier. The Scouts are . . . are—an exploratory corps. And to hear some, we are more trouble than we are worth, constant meddlers that we are—Ah, here is our lift! After you, young sir.”

  It looked an ordinary enough lift, Jethri thought, as the door slid away. And what choice did he have, anyway? He was certainly lost, and had no guide but this man who laughed like a Terran and walked as loose and light as a spacer.

  He stepped into the lift, the Scout came after, punched a quick series of buttons, and relaxed bonelessly against the wall.

  “I don’t wish to be forward,” he said, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “But I wonder if you have a name.”

  “Jethri Gobelyn.”

  “Ah, is it so? Are you kin to Arin Gobelyn?”

  Jethri turned and stared, shock no doubt plain on his face, for the Scout brought his right hand out of his pocket and raised it in his small gesture of peace.

  “Forgive me if I have offended. I am not expert in the matter of Terran naming customs, I fear.”

  Jethri shook his head. “I’m Arin Gobelyn’s son,” he said, trying to shake away the shock, as he stared into the Scout’s easy, unreadable face. “My mother never told me he had any Liaden . . . connections.”
<
br />   “Nor should she have done so. My acquaintance with Arin Gobelyn was unfortunately curtailed by his death.”

  Jethri blinked. “You were at the explosion?”

  “Alas, no. Or at least, not immediately. I was one of the Port rescue team sent to clean up after the explosion. We arrived to find that an impromptu rescue effort was already underway. The Terran ship crews, they reacted well and with purpose. Your father—he was as a giant. He went back into that building twice, and brought out injured persons. Was it three or five that he carried or guided out? The years blur the memory, I fear. The third time, however. . .” He moved his shoulders. “The third time, he handed his rescue off to the medics, and paused, perhaps to recruit his strength. Behind him, the building collapsed as the inner roof beams gave way sequentially—throwing out debris and smoke with enormous energy.

  “When the dust cleared, I was down, your father was down—everyone in a two-square radius was down. After I had recovered my wits, I crawled over to your father. The wreckage was afire, of course, and I believe I had some foolish notion of trying to drag him further from the flames. As it happens, there was no need. A blade of wood as long as I am had pierced him. We had nothing to repair such a wound, and in any case it was too late. I doubt he knew that he had been killed.” Another ripple of black-clad shoulders.

  “So, I only knew him as a man of courage and good heart, who spent his life so that others might live.” The Scout inclined his head, suddenly and entirely Liaden.

  “You are fortunate in your kin, Jethri Gobelyn.”

  Jethri swallowed around the hard spot in his throat. He’d only known that his father had died when the warehouse had collapsed. The rest of this. . .

  “Thank you,” he said, huskily. “I hadn’t known the—the story of my father’s death.”

  “Ah. Then I am pleased to be of service.”

  The lift chimed, and the Scout straightened, hands coming out of his pockets. He waved Jethri forward.

  “Come, this will be our stop.”

  “Our stop” looked like nothing more than a plain metal square with a door at one end. Jethri stepped out of the lift, and to one side.

  The Scout strolled past, very much at his leisure, put his palm against the door and walked through.

  Jethri followed—and found himself on Dock Six, practically at the foot of Elthoria’s ramp. Despite it all, he grinned, then remembered and bowed to the Scout.

  “Thank you. I think I can make it from here.”

  “Doubtless you can,” the Scout said agreeably. “But recall my ambition to renew my acquaintance with Norn ven’Deelin.” He moved forward with his loose, easy stride that was much quicker than it looked. Jethri stretched his legs and caught up with him just as he turned toward the ramp . . . startling the young replacement doc-checker into a flabbergasted, “Wait, you!”

  The Scout barely turned his head. “Official Scout business,” he said briskly and went up the ramp at a spanking pace, Jethri panting at his heels.

  At the top, a shadow shifted. Jethri looked up and saw Pen Rel coming quickly down toward them—and just as suddenly braking, eyebrows raised high.

  “Scout. To what do we owe the honor?”

  “Merely a desire to share a glass and a few moments with the master trader,” the Scout said, slowing slightly, but still moving steadily up the ramp. “Surely an old friend may ask so much?”

  Jethri sent a glance up into Pen Rel’s face, which showed watchful, and somewhat, maybe, even—annoyed.

  “The master trader has just returned from the trade meeting—” he began.

  “Then she will need a glass and a few moments of inconsequential chat even more,” the Scout interrupted. “Besides, I wish to speak with her about her apprentice.”

  Pen Rel’s glance found Jethri’s face. “Her tardy apprentice.”

  “Just so,” said the Scout. “You anticipate my topic.”

  He reached Pen Rel and paused at what Jethri knew to be comfortable talking distance for Liadens. It was a space that felt a little too wide to him, but, then, he’d come up on a ship half the size and less of Elthoria.

  “Come, arms master, be gracious.”

  “Gracious,” Pen Rel repeated, but he turned and led the way into the ship.

  * * *

  IF MASTER VEN’DEELIN felt any dismay in welcoming Scout Captain Jan Rek ter’Astin onto her ship, she kept it to herself. She saw him comfortably seated, and poured three glasses of wine with her own hands—one for the guest, one for herself, and one for Jethri.

  She sat in the chair opposite the Scout; perforce, Jethri sank into the remaining, least comfortable, chair, which sat to the master trader’s right.

  The Scout sipped his wine. Master ven’Deelin did the same, Jethri following suit. The red was sharp on the tongue, then melted into sweetness.

  “I commend you,” the Scout said to the master trader, and in Terran, which Jethri thought had to be an insult, “on your choice of apprentice.”

  Master ven’Deelin inclined her head. “Happy I am that you find him worthy,” she replied, in her accented Terran.

  The Scout smiled. “Of course you are,” he murmured. “I wonder, though, do you value the child?” He raised his hand. “Understand me, I find him a likely fellow, and quick of thought and action. But those are attributes which Scouts are taught to admire. Perhaps for a trader—?”

  “I value Jethri high,” Master ven’Deelin said composedly.

  “Ah. Then I wonder why you put him in harm’s way?”

  Master ven’Deelin’s face didn’t change, but Jethri was abruptly in receipt of the clear notion that she was paying attention on all channels.

  “Explain,” she said, briefly.

  “Certainly,” the Scout returned, and without even taking a hard breath launched the story of Jethri’s foray into the Trade Bar, and all the events which followed from it. Master ven’Deelin sat silent until the end, then looked to Jethri.

  “Jethri Gobelyn.”

  He sat up straighter, prepared to take his licks, for the whole mess had been his own fault, start to finish, and—

  “Your lessons expand. Next on-shift, you will embrace menfri’at. Pen Rel will instruct you as to time.”

  What in cold space was menfri’at, Jethri wondered, even as he inclined his head. “Yes, Master Trader.”

  “Self-defense,” the Scout said, as if Jethri has asked his question out loud, “including how to make calm judgments in . . . difficult situations.” Jethri looked at him, and the Scout smiled. “For truly, child, if you had not run—or run only so far as one of the tables—there would have been no need to leap off into a gravity-free zone, which is sometimes not quite so gravity free as one might wish.”

  Jethri looked at him, mouth dry. “The book said—”

  “No doubt. However, the facts are that the station does sometimes provide gravity to those portions marked ‘free fall’.”

  Jethri felt sick, the wine sitting uneasily on his stomach.

  “Also,” the Scout continued, “a book is—of necessity—somewhat behind the times in other matters; and I doubt that yours attempted more than a modest discussion of station culture. Certainly, a book could tell you little of which ships might be in from the outer dependencies, with crews likely to be looking for hijinks.”

  And that, Jethri admitted, stomach still unsettled, was true. Just like he’d know better than to head down Gamblers Row on any Terran port he could name after a rock-buster crew came in, he ought to know—

  But the ship names meant nothing to him, here, and though some—perhaps twenty percent—had showed Combine trade codes along with Liaden, he didn’t yet have those Liaden codes memorized. Jethri swallowed. He shouldn’t have been let loose on station without a partner, he thought. That was fact. He was a danger to himself and his ship until he learned not to be stupid.

  The Scout was talking with Master ven’Deelin. “I see, too, that Ixin, or at least Elthoria, may need to be brought to
fuller awareness of the, let us call them . . . climate changes . . . recently wrought here. Indeed, these changes are closely related to my own sudden stationing.”

  Norn ven’Deelin’s face changed subtly, and the Scout made a small, nearly familiar motion with his hand. Jethri leaned forward, the roiling in his gut forgotten—hand-talk! It wouldn’t be the same as he knew, o’course, but maybe he could catch—

  “So,” the master trader murmured, “it is not a mere accident of happiness that you are on-station just as my apprentice becomes beset by—persons of loutishness?”

  “It is not,” the Scout replied. “The politics of this sector have altered of late. The flow of commerce, and even the flow of science and information has been shifting. You may wish—forgive me for meddling where I have no right!—but perhaps you may wish to issue ship’s armbands to those who walk abroad unaccompanied.”

  The Scout’s fingers moved, casually, augmenting his spoken words. Jethri tried to block his voice out and concentrate on the patterns that were almost the patterns he knew. He thought for a second that he’d caught the gist of it—and the Scout turned up the speed.

  Defeated for the moment, Jethri sat back, and tried another sip of his wine.

  “For I am certain,” the Scout was saying out loud, “that there were enough of those present with Ixin’s interest at heart that they would not have permitted a bullying. As it is, you may wish to ask your most excellent arms master to—”

  Master ven’Deelin’s hand flashed a quick series of signs as she murmured, “Ah. I have been so much enjoying your visit that I of my duty am neglectful. This is what you wish to say?”

  The Scout laughed. The master trader—perhaps she smiled, a little, before turning her attention to Jethri and using her chin to point at the door.

  “Of your goodness, young Jethri. Scout ter’Astin and I have another topic of discourse between us, which absolutely I refuse to undertake in Terran.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stood and bowed, made clumsy by reason of the still-full wine glass. “Good shift, ma’am. Scout—I thank you.”