The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “No, child,” the Scout said, sipping his wine. “It is I who thank you, for enlivening what has otherwise been a perfectly tedious duty cycle.” He moved a hand, echoing Master ven’Deelin. “Go, have your meal, rest. Learn well and bring honor to your ship.”

  “Yessir,” Jethri gasped, and made his escape.

  DAY 67

  Standard Year 1118

  Elthoria

  Protocol Lessons

  “YES!” RAY JON TEL’ONDOR cried, bouncing ‘round Jethri like a powerball on overload.

  “Precisely would a shambling, overgrown barbarian from the cold edge of space bow in acknowledgment of a debt truly owed!” Bouncing, he came briefly to rest a few inches from Jethri’s face.

  Frozen in the bow, Jethri could see the little man’s boots as he jigged from foot to foot, in time to a manic rhythm only he could hear. Jethri forced himself to breathe quietly, to ignore both the crick in his back and the itch of his scalp, where the hair was growing out untidily.

  “Well played, young Jethri! A skillful portrayal, indeed! Allow me to predict for you a brilliant career in the theater!” The boot heels clicked together, and Master tel’Ondor was momentarily, and entirely, still.

  “Now,” he said, in the mode of teacher to student, “do it correctly.”

  Having no ambition to hear Master tel’Ondor on the foolishness of allowing one’s emotions rule—a subject upon which he was eloquent—Jethri neither sighed, nor cussed, nor wrinkled his nose. Instead, he straightened, slowly and with, he hoped, grace, and stood for a moment, arms down at his sides, composing himself.

  It was not, as he had hoped, the new boots which had been waiting for him in his quarters—five pairs to choose from!—that were the problem with his bows this shift, nor was it that the silky blue shirt bound him, or that the equally new and surprising trader’s jacket limited his range of motion. Though he was very much aware all of his new finery, he was in no way hampered. The problem had been and was, as he understood Master tel’Ondor on the matter, that Jethri Gobelyn had ore for brains.

  Don’t doubt that his lessons with Master tel’Ondor had taught him a lot. For instance, learning how to speak Liaden wasn’t anywhere like learning how to speak a new dialect of Ground Terran, or dock-pidgin or Trade. Spoken Liaden was divided into two kinds—High and Low—and then divided again, into modes, all of which meant something near and dear and different to Liaden hearts. Improper use of mode was asking for a share in a fistfight, if nothing worse. That was if Master tel’Ondor let him live, which by this time in the proceedings, Jethri wasn’t so sure he would.

  Truth told, and thanking the tapes, not to mention Vil Tor and Gaenor, he did have a yeoman’s grip on the more work-a-day modes in the High Tongue—enough, Master tel’Ondor allowed, that educated people would understand him to be literate, though tragically afflicted with an impediment to the tongue.

  No, it was the bows that were making him into a danger to himself and his teacher. Dozens of bows, of varying depths, each delivered at its own particular speed, with its own particular gesture of hand—or lack—held for its own particular count. . .

  “Forgive me, young Jethri,” Master tel’Ondor said, delicately. “Have I time to drink a cup of tea before your next performance?”

  His one triumph was his ability to remain trader-faced, no matter the provocation. Carefully, he inclined his head, bending his neck so far, but no further, straightening without haste and only then making his reply.

  “Your pardon, Master. I was absorbed by thought.”

  “At this moment, thought is extraneous,” Master tel’Ondor told him. “The honorable to whom you find yourself in debt stands before you. Show proper respect, else they become bored—or discover that they are in receipt of an insult. Perhaps you do intend an insult; if so, you must chart your own course. The ven’Deelin did not bid me instruct you in matters of the duel.”

  “Yes, Master.” Jethri took a deep breath, began the count in his head, moved the right arm—so—on the same beat extending the left leg—so—and bent from the waist, forehead on an interception course with the left knee.

  At the count of fourteen, he stopped moving, holding the pose for six beats, then reversed the count, coming slowly to his full height, right hand and left leg withdrawing to their more usual positions—and he was at rest.

  “So.” Before him, Master tel’Ondor stood solemn and still, his head canted to one side. “An improvement.” He held up a hand, as if to forestall the grin Jethri kept prisoned behind straight lips. “Understand me—an improvement only. Those who had not had the felicity of observing your former attempts might yet consider that they had been made the object of mockery.”

  Jethri allowed himself an extremely soft and heartfelt sigh. It wasn’t that he doubted the tutor’s evaluation of his performance—he felt like he was hinged with rusty metal when he bowed. According to Gaenor, they were due to raise Tilene within the ship-week, where, according to nobody less than Norn ven’Deelin, he would be expected to assist at the trade booth.

  “Forgive me, Master, for my ineptitude,” he said now to Master tel’Ondor. “I wish to succeed in my studies.”

  “So you do,” the master replied. “And so I do—and so, too, does the ven’Deelin. It is, however, possible to wish so ardently for success that the wish cripples the performance. It is my belief, Jethri Gobelyn, that your very desire to do well limits you to mediocrity.” He began to move around Jethri, not his usual manic bounce, but a sedate stroll, as if he were a trader and Jethri a particularly interesting odd lot.

  For his part, Jethri stood with patience, his stomach recovered from yesterday’s adventures and the off-hour meal he’d wolfed in the cafeteria under the view of an entire shift he was barely known to.

  Master tel’Ondor had completed his tour.

  “You are large,” he murmured, hands folded before him, “but not so large as to hamper ease of movement. Indeed, you possess a certain unaffected grace which is pleasing in a young person. Understand me, I do not counsel you to be easy, but I do ask that you allow your natural attributes to aid you. Respect, duty, honor—all arise effortlessly from one’s melant’i. You know yourself to be a man who does not give inadvertent insult—ideally, your bow—and all your dealings—will convey this. I would say to you that the strength of your melant’i is more important in any bow than whether you have counted precisely to fourteen, or only to thirteen.”

  He tipped his head. “Do you understand me, Jethri Gobelyn?”

  He considered it. Melant’i he had down for a philosophy of hierarchy—a sort of constant tally of where you stood in the chain of command in every and any given situation. It was close enough to a plain spacer’s “ship state” to be workable, and that was how he worked it. Given the current situation, where he was a student, trying hard to do—to do honor to his teacher . . .

  Think, he snarled at himself.

  OK, so. He was junior in rank to his teacher, and respectful of his learning, while being more than a little shy of his tongue. At the same time, though, a student ought to be respectful of himself, and of his ability to learn. He wasn’t an idiot, though that was hard to bear in mind. Hadn’t Master ven’Deelin herself signed him on as ‘prentice trader, knowing—which she had to—the work it would mean, and trusting him to be the equal of it?

  So thinking, he nodded, felt the nod become a bow—a light bow, all but buoyant; with the easy move of the left hand that signaled understanding.

  Still buoyant, he straightened, and surprised a look of sheer astonishment in his tutor’s face.

  “Yes, precisely so,” Master tel’Ondor said, softly, and himself bowed, acknowledging a student’s triumph.

  Jethri bit his lip to keep the grin inside and forced his face into the increasingly familiar bland look of a trader on active business.

  “Jethri Gobelyn, I propose that we break for tea. When we meet here again, I believe we should concern ourselves with those modes and bows most li
kely to be met on the trade floor at Tilene.”

  It was too much; the grin peeped out; he covered with another soft, buoyant bow, slightly deeper and augmented by the hand-sign for gratitude. “Yes, Master. Thank you.”

  “Bah. Return here in one twenty-eight, and we shall see what you may do then.” The master turned his back as he was wont to do in dismissal.

  Grinning, Jethri all but skipped out of the classroom. Still buoyant, he made the turn into the main hallway—and walked into a mob scene.

  He might have thought himself on some port street, just previous to a rumble, but there were faces in the crowd he recognized, and it was Elthoria’s increasingly familiar walls giving back echoes of excited voices and, yes—laughter.

  At the forefront, then, there was Pen Rel, and Gaenor, and Vil Tor—all talking at once and all sporting a state of small or extra-large dishevelment. There was a bruise high up on Gaenor’s fragile, pointy face, and her lips looked swollen, like maybe she’d caught a smack. More than one of the crew members at her back were bloody, but of good cheer, and when Gaenor spotted Jethri she cried out, “Company halt!”

  It took a bit, but they mostly settled down and got quiet. When there was more or less silence, Gaenor bowed—Jethri read it as the special bow made between comrades—and spoke through an unabashed grin.

  “The First Mate reports to Jethri Gobelyn, crewman formerly at risk, that the Trade Bar of Kailipso will be pleased to cordially entertain him whenever he is in port. I also report that a house speciality has been named in your honor—which is to say, it is called Trader’s Leap, and is mixed of ‘retto and kynak and klah. On behalf of the ship, I have tasted of this confection and have found it to be . . .an amazement. There are other matters, too, of which you should be advised, so, please, come with us, and we will tell you of our visitation and correction.”

  Visitation and correction? Jethri stared at the bunch of them—even Vil Tor rumpled and his shirt torn and dirty.

  “You didn’t bust up the bar?”

  Gaenor laughed, and Pen Rel, too. Then Gaenor stepped forward to catch his hand in hers, and pull him with her down the hall.

  “Come, honored crewmate, we will tell you what truly transpired before it all becomes rumor and myth. In trade, you will then tell us of your training and skill, for already there are a dozen on station who have attempted to duplicate your leap and have earned for their efforts broken arms and legs.”

  She tugged his hand, and he let her pull him along, as the mob moved as one creature down the hall toward the cafeteria.

  “But,” Jethri said, finding Vil Tor at his side, “I thought Balance required craft and cunning and care—”

  The librarian laughed, and caught his free hand. “Ah, my friend, we need to teach you more of melant’i! What you describe would be seemly, were we dealing with persons of worth. However, when one deals with louts—”

  At that there was great laughter, and the mob swept on.

  DAY 80

  Standard Year 1118

  Kinaveral

  IT WAS MIDDAY ON the port by the time Khat cleared the paperwork and took receipt of her pay. By her own reckoning, it was nearer to sleep-shift, which activity she intended to indulge in, soon as she raised the lodgings.

  Her step did break as she passed by the Ship’n Shore, but the prospect of ten hours or more of sleep was more compelling than a brew and a bite, so she moved on, and caught a tram at the meeting of the cross streets.

  She was in a light doze when her stop was called; got her feet under her and bumbled down the steps to the street, where she stood for far too long, eyes narrowed against the glare, trying to sort out where, exactly, she was, with specific relation to her cubby and her cot. Eventually, she located the right building, mooched on in at quarter-speed, swiped her key through the scanner and took the lift to the eighth floor.

  The Gobelyn Family Unit was, thanking all the ghosts of space, quiet and dim. Khat charted a none-too-steady course across the main room to her cubby, stripping off her clothes as she went. She stuffed the wad of them into the chute, pushed aside the drape and fell into her cot, pulling the blanket up and over her head.

  It occurred to her that she ought to hit the shower; her being at least as ripe as her clothes, but she was asleep almost as soon as she’d thought it.

  “ALL CREW ON DECK!”

  There are those things that command a body’s attention, no matter how deep asleep it is. Khat jerked awake with a curse, flung the blanket aside and jumped for the common room, stark naked and reeking as she was.

  Seeli stood in the center of the room, hands on hips and looking none too pleased. Apparently, Khat was the sole crew the all-hands had roused.

  “Are you the only one here?” Seeli snapped, which wasn’t her usual way. Seeli snapping was Seeli upset, so Khat made allowance and answered civil.

  “I’m guessing. Place was empty when I come in—” she looked across the room at the clock. “Two hours ago.”

  Her cousin vented an exasperated sigh.

  “It’s our shift, then,” she muttered, and then appeared to see Khat’s condition for the first time. “Just down from the free-wing job?”

  “Two hours ago,” Khat said. “They had me running solo. Sleep is high on the list of needfuls, followed by a shower and food.”

  Seeli nodded. “I’m sorry. If there was anybody else to hand—but it’s you an’ me, an’ it’s gotta be now.” She pointed to the ‘fresher. “Rinse an’ get decent. I’ll fix you a cup o’mite and some coffee. You can drink it on the way.”

  Khat stared. “What’s gone wrong?”

  Seeli was already moving toward the galley, and answered over her shoulder. “Iza got in a cuffing match with the yard boss, and the port cops have her under key.”

  “Shit,” Khat said, and sprinted for the ‘fresher.

  Seeli’d gone down to the yard, to talk with the boss and smooth over what she could, which left Khat to bail Iza out.

  It was a cross-port ride on the tram, by which time the ‘mite and the caffeine were working, and she walked into the cop shop more or less awake, if none too easy in the stomach.

  “Business?” The bored woman behind the info counter asked.

  “Come to pay a fine and provide escort,” Khat said, respectfully. She wasn’t over-fond of port police—what spacer was?—but saw no reason to pay an extra duty for her attitude. The ghosts of space bear witness, Iza had likely scored enough of that for the crew at large, if they’d interrupted her in a cuffing match.

  “Name?” the cop asked.

  “Iza Gobelyn. Brought in this afternoon from the yards.”

  The cop looked down at her screen, grunted, and jerked her head to the right.

  “Down the end of the hall. If you step lively, you can get her out before the next hour’s holding fee kicks in.”

  “Thank you,” Khat said, and made haste down the hall, there to stand before another counter just like the one at the front door, and repeat her information to an equally bored man.

  “Kin?” he asked, peering at her over the edge of his screen.

  “Yessir. Cousin. Khatelane Gobelyn.”

  “Hmph.” He poked at some keys, frowned down at the screen, poked again. Khat made herself stand quiet and not shout at him to hurry it along, and all the while the big clock behind the counter showed the time speeding toward the hour-change.

  “Gobelyn,” the cop muttered, head bobbing as he bent over the screen. “Here we are: public display of hostility, striking a citizen, striking a port employee, striking a law enforcement officer, swearing at a law enforcement officer, Level Two arrest, plus transportation, booking, three hours’ lodging, usage fees, tax and duty, leaving us with a total due of eight hundred ninety-seven bits.” He looked up. “We also accept trade goods, or refined gold. There is a surcharge for using either of those options.”

  Sure there was. Khat blinked. Eight hundred—

  “Duty?” she asked.

  Th
e cop nodded, bored. “You’re offworld. All transactions between planetaries and extra-planetaries are subject to duty.”

  “Oh.” She slipped a hand into her private pocket, brought out her personal card, and swiped it through the scanner on the front of the counter. There was a moment of silence, then the cop’s screen beeped and initiated a noisy printout.

  “Your receipt will be done in a moment,” he said. “After you have it, please go down the hall to the first room on your left. Your cousin will be brought to you there.”

  “Thanks,” Khat muttered. She took the printout when it was done with a curt nod went to wait for Iza to be brought up.

  “LEVEL TWO ARREST” involved sedation—the construction of the drug, duration of affect, known adverse reactions, and chemical antidotes were all listed at the bottom of the two-page receipt. Khat scowled. The drug lasted plus-or-minus four hours. Iza had been arrested three-point-five hours ago. There wasn’t enough credit left on her card to rent a car to take them cross port, and the prospect of woman-handling a half-unconscious Iza onto the tram was . . .daunting, not to dance too lightly on it.

  She’d barely started to worry when the door to the waiting room opened, admitting a port cop in full uniform, a thin woman in bloodstained overalls and spectacularly bruised face walking, docile, at her side.

  “Khatelane Gobelyn?” The cop asked.

  “That’s me.” Khat stepped forward, staring into Iza’s face. Iza stared back, blue eyes tranquil and empty.

  “She’s good for about another forty minutes,” the cop said. “If I was you, I’d have her locked down in thirty. No sense running too close to the edge.”

  “Right,” Khat said, and then gave the cop a nod, trying for cordial. “Thank you.”

  “Huh.” The cop shook her head. “You keep her outta trouble, space-based. You copy that? She put Chad Perkin in the hospital when he tried to get the restraints on her—broken kneecap, broken nose, cracked ribs. You hurt a cop on this port once, and you’re a good citizen ever after, because there ain’t no maybes the second time.”